It is no surprise that when the economy is on the decline that business fraud will rise.  Franchised business opportunities are being strongly marketed as a way to beat the recession, as are a number of business opportunity scams.  The Federal Trade Commission has issued a new warning video to help prospective business owners separate [...]

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration issued a scam alert last week to small businesses, warning them not to respond to letters falsely claiming to have been sent by the SBA asking for bank account information in order to qualify them for federal tax rebates.
The fraudulent letters were sent out with what appears to [...]

Nationally, foreclosure filings increased 81 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to an article published in the (Durham, NC) Herald-Sun (registration required). Â
Local economists and the likes of Business Week and CNBC have been telling us that Durham is better positioned economically than most areas to survive the recession because our main industries are higher education and medicine.  In line with this [...]