There’s a thrill in tracking down a unique treasure or acquiring artwork that will become a family heirloom, but contemporary buyers should beware. These days, art scams and jewelry scams are rife. If you think it couldn’t happen to you and don’t take the time to learn the facts, there’s a good chance your collecting efforts might go awry.
Do you think you could spot a fake or sniff a scam artist coming? Top art aficionados thought they had struck gold when Glafira Rosales began selling previously unknown works by painters such as Rothko, Pollock, and de Kooning to New York collectors. Later, it came out that every single one of the multi-million dollar paintings was a fake created by her accomplice, Chinese forger Pei-Shen Qian.
If Rosales and Qian were audacious enough to fool the New York art scene elite, you can bet that there are plenty of bad actors out there ready to roll out art scams and jewelry scams on a smaller scale with a big smile on their faces. Of course, this is no reason to avoid investing in spectacular art and exciting jewelry finds. Read on to discover what to look out for in order to protect yourself.
The Power of the Provenance
The provenance of a precious item describes its chain of custody—from the artist or jewelers studio to the seller presenting the piece today. This crucial paper trail doesn’t only exist for high-profile artworks in the world’s most famous museums, but also valuable treasures making their way through the hands of private collectors.
Within the worlds of art scams and jewelry scams, the term “newly discovered” denotes the forgers playground. Whenever a prized piece of reportedly noble origin appears without any provenance, it’s crucial to approach it with caution, no matter how romantic a tale is told. At the very least, a reputable appraiser, independent of the seller, should be brought in to size up your prize.
Of course, a phony provenance can also provide opportunity for sellers to overinflate value. When an item is described as having belonged to celebrity, royalty, or other persons of great importance, it can make an otherwise un-noteworthy item appear far more desirable than it should. Provenance should always be scrutinized to avoid disappointment.
Online Art and Jewelry Scams
The rise of online art and jewelry sales provides the perfect opportunity for scam artists to peddle their wares without direct physical scrutiny. Buyers can receive fake imitation goods, or nothing at all as the perpetrators digitally disappear without a trace. In order to avoid this perilous pitfall, steer clear of buying art and jewelry that is priced below retail value—if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Watch out for blurry images that may mask low quality items or poorly imitated brush strokes. Confirm quality guarantees, seller location, and returns policy—and in the name of avoiding jewelry scams, confirm that the total carat weight, gemstone quality, and setting style all match up. Finally, make provenance checks, just as you would when buying in person.
Sellers Avoiding Scrutiny Or a Paper Trail Are a Red Flag
Those selling authentic goods should have no concerns over making your transaction official. If a local seller seeks payment by money order or in cash, it’s time to raise the alarm—particularly ahead of a meeting in person, as this interaction may never happen if they intend to make off with your cash without providing what was promised.
Not only antique and vintage items, but new precious jewelry creations should have accessible proof of provenance for you to scrutinize. Contemporary tech is increasingly allowing buyers to protect themselves, as gemstones and precious metals are documented via blockchain so their history cannot be altered. The temptation to take the plunge on a desirable item can be great when it seems as if you’ve found something extraordinary, but it is better to save money and heart break, approaching every purchase with a focused and suspicious eye. Do you suspect you are a victim of an art scam or jewelry scam? If so, Lauth Investigations International can help. With extensive experience within the realms of art and jewelry theft and tracking the perpetrators of fraud and forgery, we have just the skillset required to find those responsible and ensure justice on your behalf. To learn more, reach out to our team today for a no-commitment consultation.
Strong practices for internal investigations offer vital security both for and within any organization. Employees can feel confident that they will be fully supported if they need a corporate investigator in their corner, and the company itself can deftly tread paths that might otherwise be legally perilous.
That all sounds great—certainly—but where should a business turn to when aiming to establish those best practices in the first place? Today, we’re going to dive into the vital considerations when building a workplace investigations strategy that will serve you well today and in the years to come. Read on, and wrap your mind around all the major need-to-knows.
The Vital Nature of Neutrality
Whether seeking simply to consult on internal investigations or aiming to place a delicate matter in the hands of a seasoned corporate investigator, the importance of neutrality can’t be overstated. If choosing who will lead an internal investigation or contacting someone from central HR within your company for advice, it is critical to assess whether their contribution can be truly viewed as impartial.
If there are personal connections to those being investigated, witnesses, or victims in the case of workplace harassment or discrimination, this may become a lead weight around the neck of the investigation if it ever leads to litigation. Neutral oversight is essential of the investigation is to be considered airtight, so if in doubt, reach out to an external corporate investigations specialist for necessary support as a legal safeguard.
Seeking Out the Right Skillset
A misstep in internal investigations can leave a company open to accusations of retaliation and the potential of an unfair dismissal lawsuit. This means that advice taken when planning your investigatory tactics should come from those truly in the know, and crucially, be rooted in more than mere opinion. An appropriate consulting advisor or corporate investigator will be able to fully grasp workplace policies and frame them within the context of applicable laws and legal obligations. Don’t forget that they may also require the skills to audit financials conduct computer forensics.
The Availability to Take Action
Launching internal investigations without someone at the helm who can handle the complexity and sensitivity of the complaint at hand is a dangerous move, but so too is waiting for a senior HR professional to have time in their schedule to take on the task. Delays in launching internal investigations can lead to leaks to the press and even occupational health and safety complaints. When a matter is serious in nature, bringing in a corporate investigator who can take action immediately is the only logical choice.
Prioritizing Appropriate Seniority
When a workplace complaint is made against a senior individual within the team, the prospect of impartial internal investigations becomes slim at best. It is a a simple reality that it’s highly unlikely someone unconnected to that individual, with no vested interest in the outcome, and within a position that is superior to those under investigation can be called upon. In contrast, an external corporate investigator will be unaffected by the high rank of the parties under investigation and will be able to lend neutral authority to the conclusions drawn.
Do you need expert guidance for workplace investigations or a corporate investigator ready to jump on the task at hand? Call upon the dedicated corporate team at Lauth Investigations International. We will safeguard your organization’s integrity while getting to the truth of the matter. Reach out to our team today and learn more about how we can assist.
When it comes to protecting your business from the myriad of frauds that occur in U.S. workplaces every single day, being informed is the first step. Our private investigators are here to help you recognize these top five types of fraud in business so they can be stopped as soon as possible.
Payroll Fraud
Payroll fraud is one of the top five types of fraud that are seen the most often in businesses of all sizes but particularly small businesses. It also takes many different forms, such as employees lying about productivity, payment advances, or manipulation of timeclock records. As such, those records should be carefully monitored and all potential employees should be thoroughly screened before onboarding.
Asset Misappropriation
Luckily, asset misappropriation is one of the top five types of fraud that is the easiest to spot. Missing assets are going to be noticed. Most managers and supervisors keep tabs on asset misappropriation by rotating out staff who are in charge of supervising inventory or cash kept on hand. It’s also crucial that any accounting positions are not singular, and finances are managed by more than one person.
Invoice Fraud Schemes
This type of fraud is a bit more complicated, and usually involves an employee who works in accounting. It’s achieved by generating fake or inflated invoices for purposes of stealing money from the company. These invoices may detail products that were never sold, vendors who do not exist, or B2B transactions that never took place. To avoid this, all invoices must be cross-referenced with inventory or performed work that is documented.
Financial Statement Fraud
This type of fraud is sometimes called “cooking the books,” in which financial records are altered or destroyed for financial gain or to fool investors into pouring more money into the company or to boost stock bonuses. Regardless of the aim, this kind of fraud can be devastating for a company, which is another reason accounting responsibilities must be delegated to numeral members of staff in order to prevent the funneling structure that allows this fraud to happen.
Tax Fraud
This is the type of fraud most known to the general public. Anyone can commit tax fraud by failing to pay their taxes, but it can also happen when companies misrepresent their earnings to the IRS in order to fall into a smaller tax bracket, or take advantage of exemptions. In order to avoid this, it’s imperative that all earnings must be reported on time.
Having a great human resources team in place can make any executive feel as if they can take on the world. It makes sense that investing in dedicated employees who ensure that the caliber of your recruitment and training initiatives remain gold standard is a solid choice. But when the time comes to conduct a pivotal HR investigation, it’s crucial to ask the question: is your human resources team as impartial as you need them to be to protect your best interests?
Conducting corporate investigations often represents a minefield for leadership. Whether the issue on the table is workplace harassment, FMLA fraud, employee theft, or any number of other unwelcome occurrences, the steps you take next hold the power to elevate or undo your company’s standing.
Indeed, one misstep can set a course for litigation in relation to unfair dismissal or retaliation. If the current unfolding crisis is destined to lead you and your interests into the courtroom, even the faintest whiff of a lack of objectivity may well be your undoing. So lets look at the questions that you must ask yourself before leaving delicate matters in the sole hands of your HR team.
How Objective Are Your HR Staff Really?
When various departments share a single workplace, or even encounter each other on training and team-building days, bonds can be formed that might later cloud judgment and manifest as bias. What might that bias look like? Let’s explore some examples:
Confirmation Bias When your HR team has pre-formed beliefs about those they need to investigate—as is often the case when relationships have been formed—they may be prone to ignore crucial information that does not fit with what they believe to be true, and more likely to cherry-pick information that supports that bias.
Bandwagon Bias Sometimes also referred to as in-group bias, this tendency results in co-workers adopting an “us versus the world” mentality that result in favorable perception of those within the group and adoption of dominant shared beliefs or statements whether correct or not.
Halo Effect Bias The halo effect is often seen following a bad hire, making it a risk-factor within any HR department. In these instances, positive traits become the defining factor of an individual and overshadow clear evidence of wrongdoing on their part.
Anchoring Bias This common form of cognitive bias sees untrained HR investigators become anchored to a conclusion that evidence gathered early in the investigation seemed to justify, and the inability to pivot towards a more accurate conclusion as more facts are presented.
Status Quo Bias When an HR department looses its capacity to function dynamically with stale systems becoming habitually ingrained, status quo bias can manifest as resistance to the change that a critical HR investigation may warrant. The results of this unintentional negligence can be catastrophic as a dangerous course is continually justified.
Only One Chance to Get This Right
An HR investigation is a serious undertaking, and while training a team to handle such matters can be strategically advantageous, so too can be bringing in a skilled external corporate investigator to ensure that objectivity always remains intact. Corporate investigations experts from Lauth Investigations International can provide powerful impartial support to any weighty HR investigation, intricately analyzing facts to ensure accurate, evidenced, and legally sound conclusions are drawn.
Simultaneously, a professional corporate investigator can lift the burden of an HR investigation from shoulders that are already carrying a full workload. Our seasoned investigators are adept at mounting an efficient search for the truth, drawing upon skills that include specialist interviewing techniques, digital forensics, access to verified databases used by law enforcement, and much more. We can diligently and discreetly unveil the facts while ensuring minimal disruption to operations that may already be exhibiting signs of strain—all while delivering an impartial results that protects your organization on the road ahead. Would you like to know more about how a corporate investigator from Lauth Investigations International can support your next HR investigation? Contact our team today and mitigate the risks of bias to your business.
Conceptually, the anonymity of whistleblowers is a good thing. Brave souls who risk it all to speak truth to power and ensure that justice is done—a noble mantle indeed. However, at times the picture can become a little more murky and the lines of morality more ambiguous. What if the claims made by a whistleblower are factually false, or perhaps even the individual in question has made erroneous claims out of a malicious desire to hurt the company in question?
Any CEO or business owner would certainly want to know if something nefarious was happening within their team on their watch. However, in particular instances, they may wish to identify a whistleblower in an effort to enact swift damage control. The actions taken by any business or organization in this position must be legally sound and strategically deft if an escalation of the situation is to be avoided. In times such as these, a private investigator specializing in corporate investigations can be the ultimate ally in finding a whistleblower and setting the record straight.
The Complexities of Whistleblower Retaliation
While there are a diversity of legal protections in place for whistleblowers in the United States, they can vary greatly depending on the industry and unlawful activity in question, as well as from state to state. For any company intent on finding a whistleblower and taking action, it is important to seek accurate guidance on a course that will not result in litigation down the road.
On the other side of the same coin, perceived whistleblowers who aim to cause intentional harm to the organization they blow the whistle on can not only turn to various federal agencies to secure confidentiality protection, but they can even hope to gain a financial reward for their disclosure from an authority like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In such an environment, companies need to have their wits about them and mitigation plans in place.
Navigating What Comes Next After Finding a Whistleblower
A survey of whistleblowers conducted by the Bradley University Center for Cybersecurity revealed that nearly two thirds experienced some form of retaliation from their employers, such as termination, negative performance evaluation, industry blacklisting, and forced retirement. While legitimate whistleblowers facing such actions may be able to counter retaliation with legal action, this is not guaranteed. Notably, when businesses are able to demonstrate that the employee’s accusations were knowingly false or their behavior overstepped the defensible bounds of conduct, those protections may quickly be lost.
For a company in crisis, turning to a private investigator who specializes in navigating the corporate world is an excellent tactic. The private investigator will be able not only to investigate the identity of the whistleblower in question but gather evidence as to whether their accusations are founded or falsified. Taking this proactive step can help a business lessen the brunt of the impact that a whistleblower incident can make to their reputation. Whether the outcome of finding a whistleblower with the help of a private investigator is being ahead of the criminal behavior that the accusation relates to or demonstrating that the whistleblower’s actions are inauthentic, it means taking a stronger position than would be realized by taking no action at all. If your organization is standing on the edge of such a precipice and wondering which move to make next, contact Lauth Investigations today for expert, impartial advice on navigation and resolution of an active whistleblower complaint.
