Product Description

A straightforward guide explaining the nature of financial fraud

Fraud continues to be one of the fastest growing and most costly crimes in the United States and around the world. The more an organization can learn about fraud in general and the potential fraud risks that threaten the financial stability of the organization's cash flow, the better that organization will be equipped to design and implement measures to prevent schemes from occurring in the first place.

Fraud 101, Third Edition serves as an enlightening tool for you, whether you are a business owner or manager, an accountant, auditor or college student who needs to learn about the nature of fraud. In this invaluable guide, you will discover and better understand the inner workings of numerous financial schemes and internal controls to increase your awareness and possibly prevent fraud from destroying your organization's financial stability.

It offers guidance, understanding, and new, real-world case studies on the major types of fraud, including

• An understanding of why fraud is committed
• An overview of financial fraud schemes
• White-collar crime
• Uncovering employee embezzlements
• Establishing internal fraud controls
• The nature of collecting evidence

With case studies included throughout the book to gain insight to the real world of fraud, Fraud 101, Third Edition describes the features of fraud and then provides proven methods of prevention, as well as solutions to expose different types of fraud. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent book
As a certified public accountant and certified fraud examiner with over 16 years of experience I am always looking for reference materials on fraud.This is a very hot topic and the author does a great job using real life examples.Forensic accounting is also a very popular topic with college graduates.Every CPA, CFO, controller or business owner should read a book on Fraud.Well written and easy to read.HIGHLY RECOMMEND!A+++++++++++++++++++++ ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

THE DEFINITIVE DESCRIPTION OF A COMPULSIVE GAMBLER.
AS A COMPULSIVE GAMBLER MYSELF, THIS BOOK HELPED ME UNDERSTAND JUST WHAT I WAS. IT DESCRIBES EXACTLY WHAT GOES ON IN THE MIND OF A COMPULSIVE GAMBLER. MR MOLONEY WAS IN THE PERFECT POSITION AND HIS COMPULSION LED HIM TOINCREDIBLE LENGTHS OF CREATIVITY IN FEEDING HIS ADDICTION. ... Read more

Product Description

How could a two-bit investor, too paralyzed with fear to trade stocks, bilk insurance companies out of $200 million?

How could a gawky misfit with an obsessive terror of germs induce a harem of attractive young women to feud over him?

How could a recluse from Toledo, Ohio, penetrate the circles of political and financial power in Washington, D.C., and New York City without leaving his house?

How could a Jewish guy with a passion for S&M sex persuade the Vatican to go into business with him?

And how could he do all this without anybody noticing?

Now the whole amazing story of how Martin Frankel pulled off one of the greatest financial scams of the century is revealed by The Wall Street Journal's Ellen Joan Pollock, who was a lead writer on the reporting team that broke story after story as Frankel eluded the FBI's four-month international manhunt.

The Pretender chronicles how a bumbling thirty year old used his financial skills to build an intricate Ponzi scheme based on lies and his amazing gift for luring businessmen -- including Democratic powerbroker Robert Strauss -- into his web. Frankel's stolen millions allowed him to transform himself easily from mama's boy to corporate mogul. His creation of a phony Catholic charity drew the interest of priests with close Vatican ties as well as a new group of mysterious business partners. But his attempts to go "global" proved more challenging and aroused the suspicions of state regulators. Frantic that his empire was about to unravel, Frankel vanished from his multimillion-dollar Greenwich, Connecticut, mansion, leaving behind a mysterious fire, a dozen or so heartbroken women, and some very confused law-enforcement officials. His bizarre scamper through Europe as a fugitive would ultimately climax in a German hotel room.

Frankel's world was peopled with desperate businessmen, well-heeled con artists, women looking for love, vindictive husbands, diamond merchants, private eyes -- the whole colorful cast of characters that propelled this fast-moving drama.

The Pretender is filled with countless revelations from business associates and former lovers -- many of whom were interviewed for the first time for this book. What finally makes The Pretender so compelling is that it is a snapshot of a peculiar moment in business history. Just as figures like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken epitomized the deal-crazed eighties, Martin Frankel is the quintessential criminal of the millionaire-a-minute nineties.Amazon.com Review
Ellen Joan Pollock's The Pretender is a biography of Martin Frankel, an unsavory financial savant whose vast illicit empire reached into very high places on two continents before collapsing with thundering suddenness. By the time of his arrest in 1999, Frankel had bilked various insurance companies out of $200 million via an elaborate (and oddly haphazard) Ponzi scheme. Pollock chronicles not only Frankel's phantom stock trades, fictional portfolios, asset skimming, and money laundering, but his mind-boggling personal extravagances--both financial and sexual. (His Greenwich, Connecticut, headquarters served both as business office and home to a shifting harem devoted to Frankel's sadomasochistic interests.) Pollock is a scrupulous writer, but for those unversed in financial subtleties, her novelistic treatment too rarely steps back to present overviews of the tangled crimes and their implications. Absent as well, finally, is any compelling psychological portrait of the bizarre and saurian Frankel. --H. O'Billovitch ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Not bad
Pollock obviously used my earlier version of the Frankel story as template for this book. I broke the Frankel story while working as the police reporter for the small daily newspaper in Greenwich, Conn. On a daily basis, and as the Frankel story unfolded, I saw my reports regurgitated by Pollack's big bad Wall Street Journal, the Times and papers across the country. Though my writing admittedly is not very polished, and I am more of a Columbo-type, just-the-facts kind of reporter, I like to think my version is compelling because it's genuine. It's the work of a small-time police reporter who stumbled onto something huge. My book was published within a year of my breaking the story, so Pollock had much more time to follow the trails I blazed for her.

Very Entertaining Business-oriented True Crime Drama
This is one of those crazy true-life stories that are stranger than fiction.Mystery and business readers will enjoy this tale of a smart con man who builds an empire based on greed and lies, and how it unravels.

Fascinating Character
The reason I bought this book is because I met one of the principal Mississippi characters during my travels. He briefly alluded to the story and I wanted to find out more about it. The book served this purpose very well. It was a fascinating read.
The Pretender: How Martin Frankel Fooled the Financial World and Led the Feds on One of the Most Publicized Manhunts in History

Entertaining Read!
Well-researched, entertaining, well-written and an interesting story. However, I agree with Daniel Morrison's review in that the actual crime and effects on average people were not explained. You had to guess of that yourself, but it was generally obvious. It was one of the better books I've read and it was definitly worth the time and money.
Cheers Ellen Pollock!

Impeccably researched
It is obvious that Pollock dedicated about two years of her life or more to research the details, and it shows.I was constantly amazed at the details that were uncovered and the collections of conversations. ... Read more

Product Description

When the head of Columbia Pictures, David Begelman, got caught forging Cliff Robertson's name on a $10,000 check, it seemed, at first, like a simple case of embezzlement. It wasn't. The incident was the tip of the iceberg, the first hint of a scandal that shook Hollywood and rattled Wall Street. Soon powerful studio executives were engulfed in controversy; careers derailed; reputations died; and a ruthless, take-no-prisoners corporate power struggle for the world-famous Hollywood dream factory began.

First published in 1982, this now classic story of greed and lies in Tinseltown appears here with a stunning final chapter on Begelman's post-Columbia career as he continued to dazzle and defraud...until his last hours in a Hollywood hotel room, where his story dramatically and poignantly would end.

Customer Reviews (9)

Where Hollywood and Wall Street Intersect
Over twenty years after its original publication, this book is still a compelling page turner that I could not put down.Actor Cliff Robertson unwittingly uncovers an embezzler, which ultimately fuels massive incompetence and repeated mistakes that almost destroy Columbia Pictures.While we are now lamenting the greed, corruption, and incompetence that lead to our current financial crisis, it's interesting to note that Wall Street has always suffered from foolishness.A very well written book.

the best book ever!
this is the best book i've ever read.amazing primer on the movie business.BUY IT!

Cliff Robertson is only a minor character
I just finished this book, and Cliff Robertson is actually a very minor character. In fact, the subject of him being "blackballed" is barely mentioned. (It receives one paragraph in the Epilogue.) Robertson was the first person to suspect something was amiss at Columbia, but the book is actually about the power struggle between the President of Columbia, Alan Hirschfield, and the controlling interests of the shareholders, led primarily by Herbert Allen Jr. This is a long book, but it was so riveting that I found it difficult to put down. It is really well written, even if it does not paint any of the characters in a terribly sympathetic light. I can't help but think that if Hirschfield had shown more backbone in the beginning and stuck by his decision to fire the check-forger Begelman instead of caving in to Allen's demands, none of this epic battle would have happened.

A good, solid treatment of a fascinating subject
This is not really a tale of embezzlement and disgrace - it is the store of power struggles between the Board of Directors for Columbia Studios, who were clearly had personal loyalty in their underlings as their top priority, and the CEO, Alan Hirschfield, trying to do what he needed to do to save the studio.

I don't have access to people at this level, so I appreciate the peeping-Tom aspect of viewing the thought processes and actions of people who normally hide behind lawyers, secretaries, and call-screeners.

The author obviously interviewed many many people to put this book together, and I appreciate how he reported on the media coverage, as well.I never really thought of how people manipulate the news as part of the story, but course it is.

The book is like a newspaper story in that it is filled with information, but the narrative reads like a novel - very easy to read. The author does a good job of developing story-lines, so we have a sense of completeness, and a sense of an overview, while also sprinkling the famous names and the glamour that makes Hollywood so compelling to people.

I've never understood why Hollywood turns out bad movies month after month, year after year, when it is so easy to tell from the beginning that a movie is going to be awful.Why make awful movies?

This book doesn't directly address that issue, but it shows how irresponsible and irrational the leading powers that control Hollywood on both coasts are, and how corrupt the whole system is.It's obvious that normal things like making a good product become irrelevent to their attention span.

I guess it's not really corruption, if everyone knows it's happening, and it's just a way of getting things done.

My only complaint is that I wish I had more of a reality on the Board Directors.Their actions seem so irrational, but I'm sure it's because they were not forthcoming in their interviews, and did not take the opportunity to express their points of view.People at that level are notorious for avoiding the press, so it is not surprising.

The Ultimate Study in Greed and Hubris
I bought this book when it first came out and have reread it every year or so. Tends to be a bit long and sometimes slow, but it's great.Buy a used copy, or check at the library.

Being from the Washington D.C. area I kept constantly asking why someone didn't leak this to the press and blow the whole compiristy.

The only comparable book is "The Great Salad Oil Swindle" ... Read more