While I have been to New York City many times on business, I have never really been for a fun visit, to take in the whole New York City/Manhattan experience. I had such a wonderful time. I even got to meet Ivana Trump at the airport.

In January of this year I spent a few days in this wonderful city mostly touring the attraction sites. Rather than taking taxi cabs everywhere I bought day passes on the tour buses and used that for my mode of transportation to get around the city.

I was completely fascinated (or should I say disturbed) that the bus tour guides, when talking about Canal Street, went out of their way to tell everyone that Canal Street was a great place to buy counterfeit watches, purses and videos.

I couldn?t believe how out in the open the comment was, virtually every time I rode the bus. In fact, all the tour guides made mention of a large basement-type warehouse that was the biggest on the street, filled with fake products.

My visit to Canal street was everything I expected it to be, but worse. Tiny shops with backrooms full of fake Gucci, Coach and Fendi purses. If you wanted a fake watch all you had to do was ask. Either the watch vendor had them hidden or he could merely ask someone to bring them over in a canvas bag. Everything fake was for the asking and buying.

While I can spot a fake Rolex and Gucci watch, the Breitling Bentley watches were good copies and were selling like hot cakes. Women were lining up to get in the back rooms to look at purses, so clearly business was good for every vendor.
There had to be at least 100 people walking around with canvas bags selling watches, sun glasses and DVDs.

At the time I visited, the movie American Gangster was still in the theatres. You could have bought an illegal copy of the DVD for $5.00 out of a canvas bag.

In only two other countries have I ever seen street vendor counterfeiting and piracy this bad; Japan and Thailand.

When I got back to Toronto I was talking about the experience for weeks to people in my business. It was like New York had given up and Canal Street Counterfeiting was the new tourist attraction.

I?ve worked for many manufactures and distributors (and their legal counsel) who have fallen victim to counterfeiting, piracy, and copyright violations. Companies who have had to close factories and offices, and lay off staff. Even legitimate retailers in the same industry are affected - unable to compete with these fakes.

While consumers look for fake bargains many legitimate companies suffer.

The money from this crime stays undergound, just like drug money. It remains tax free to these vendors and will very often remain in the crime element.

Very often the products themselves are made in hidden sweat shops in Asia.
The PI industry has been fundamental in fighting counterfeiting and piracy and will continue to be. Every company that has fallen victim has either directly or indirectly retained a PI firm to assist in the problem. PIs usually act for the manufacture or their legal counsel. They identify who the vendor is by working under the pretext of being a customer. They buy products and then ultimately swear an affidavit to get the civil sheriff out to seize the goods.

In the early to mid ?90s the streets of Toronto had the same problem. Vendors were everywhere on the streets selling counterfeit products. But back then it was very much a civil problem. The police only got involved to keep the peace during the civil seizures of products. They rarely laid criminal charges on the vendors.

It was primarily up to the manufactures themselves to hire lawyers and private investigators to seek out the street vendors and find the bulk of the counterfeit product. Once the vendor had been identified the necessary paperwork had to be filed so the civil court Sheriff could go out and do a seizure, and serve a law suit on the vendor.

Even more frustrating for the manufacturer was the fact that the Sheriff was only allowed to seize goods on behalf of the manufacturer named in the order.

This meant that if the Sheriff was acting for only one watch manufacturer (for example) he could only seize that one brand name.

All other fake brand names would remain unseized. It was ridiculous.

Manufacturers had to team up with the same law firm so the civil Sheriff could raid the vendor and take just about everything in one raid.

While the manufacturers continue to try and sue these vendors, the civil judgments are worthless. How do you collect from a vendor working for cash? There is simply no financial recovery.

The city of Toronto has pretty much cleaned up the problem from vendors selling counterfeit products in the open.

But many products can still be found in Toronto?s China Town. All you have to do is ask.

It would seem that today, public law enforcement has become more involved in charging and prosecuting manufacturers and sellers of counterfeit products. It is certainly not to the satisfaction of most victims and their associations who continue to fight the problem.

As long as there is no law in place that prevents the consumer from buying the fake products the problem will never be resolved.
About a month after my trip I read that the New York Mayor?s office had raided dozens of storefronts on Canal Street. They seized counterfeit goods with an estimated street value of more than $1 million.

Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, obtained a temporary restraining order to shut down the storefronts. Forty-two undercover purchases were made in various storefronts.

The investigation uncovered counterfeits of such brands as Coach, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Prada, Rolex, Fendi, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Dora the Explorer and Oakley.

While I applaud the raid, I wonder - how long will it be until they all come back? Will there ever be a law that will stop people from buying the fake stuff in the first place? Will we ever see a tourist held up at customs because he or she was found to possess a fake watch, purse, or a pair of sunglasses ?

It?s doubtful !

Child support orders are rapidly becoming worthless (no different than judgments). It?s not a collection problem, it is an ability to have some power to get access to information like bank accounts, employment, the vehicles owned so you can collect on your order.

For example, how in the world is anyone expected to find the bank account of their ex-spouse and determine if there is any money in the account?

Due to the fact that there is so much attention in the media about the Family Responsibility Office (FRO), right now, about collecting child support,

I am going to help people understand the real reason why their child support will never be paid or collected.

There is no point in blaming the FRO ? they run into the same problems as any starving recipient trying to collect support. They send letters, they make phone calls and they manage a payment systems for those payers (lets call them debtors) who actually pay.

The failure to collect these order is not about collection at all. It?s about trying to find the assets, the employment, the bank account, the property or the vehicle of the debtor so you can collect.

Your on your own and it?s and ?investigative task? not a ?collection task?. This is the main reason why assigning support orders to collection agencies will never work. Collection agencies make phone calls, write letters, and report the debt into the debtor?s personal credit bureau file.

They have no access to bank account information nor do they have any power to obtain the actual information you need to collect on your order.

This is an investigate mission on all fronts and someone has to play detective and it won?t be any government agency doing if for you.


Find a bank account.

Find property (land or a house).

Find employment.

Suspend the debtor?s driver?s licence.


You are expected on your own to find a bank account with money in it. You need to identify the bank (i.e. the institution) and the actual bank branch where you believe the debtor might have a bank account.

You do not have to have an actual account number.

How on earth is someone expected to lawfully find a bank account on a person but most importantly if there is actual money in the account?

The banks certainly won?t give out this information, as they will protect their customers, and even more so now, with the new privacy legislation and fraud and identity theft on the rise.

There is no system, nor any powers of a support order, which will allow recipients of support orders to properly and lawfully get bank account information in order to proceed with a garnishment.

What about if the debtor works at a job for cash? or perhaps the account is joint? or is in some other name? or even a company name as with a self employed person?


It is possible in most states and provinces to take a debtor?s name and run the name through a computerized database to see if they own land or a house.

But very few child support debtors put property in their name. Some may be found to own property jointly however depending on where you live you may be able to register an execution on the property. This would merely allow you collect monies only when the debtor sells the property.

You would collect what is left over after all the mortgages and expenses have been paid on the sale.




While you may find employment on the debtor through word of mouth, friends, relatives etc? Trying to garnish employment wages can be very difficult if not impossible if your debtor falls under one of the categories:

(Working For Cash)

(Working Under Contract)

(Self Employed)

(Low Waged Employee)


(Working For Cash)
One of the biggest reasons your child support will never be paid is the underground economy which is nothing more then a term for people who go to work everyday and are paid in cash.

Millions of people go to work every day and work for cash. They are paid in cash and never deposit their cash wages into any bank account or report their income to the IRS or Revenue Canada.

If they are paid by check from a cash employeer they simply cash their check at a local cash stop store and pocket their wages in cash. People who live like this do not fear collection agencies nor are they concerned about their credit rating. They don?t need credit cards or credit as they pay cash for their expenses.


Finding out if a person is working for cash can be impossible on your own. There is no other way to show a person is working for cash then to have them followed. How do you show cash from hand to hand?

The normal course of investigation would be to have the debtor followed into work. Obtaining video or pictures of a debtor spending every business day at the same job site for eight hours yet never reporting a nickel of income.

But many who are starving for child support can not afford to hire private investigators at $50.00 to $75.00 per hour plus kilometers and expenses. Doing surveillance on your own could be illegal and dangerous from a driving stand point.

When you have a debtor working for cash not paying child support or filing tax returns who then is responsible for this mess?? Is it the Family Responsibility Office or the IRS and Revenue Canada who is responsible for cleaning up the underground economy?

It is logical to expect the FRO, the IRS or Revenue Canada to follow a cash paid dead-beat dad into work at 6:00 amto a construction job-site? With all the controversy surrounding privacy concerns can we expect that anyone can solve this problem?

(Working Under Contract)
One of the biggest scams going to avoid child support (and judgments) is employers who hire a person (a debtor) under contract and call it ?contract?. This is most commonly used by employeers to avoid paying payroll taxes.

When we use the word ?contract? we are not talking about about a contract position or an agreement. We are talking about a situation where an employer pays an employee (the debtor) by check and makes it look on the books like the employee/debtor is a business who invoiced the company. The debtor merely gives an invoice to the employer every second friday for his wages. No tax is deducted and no income is ever reported.

Many employers create actual written agreements where the employee has to promise in writing to file taxes at the end of the year.

But what many don?t realise is that this contractual relationship can be very very illegal. If in the tax year the debtor has worked for only one employer that whole year and he has not invoiced any other company, the IRS and Revenue Canada could consider the relationship illegal.

Both the employee and the employer could face fines, penalties, and be compelled to pay all appropriate payroll taxes and deductions.

Many starving recipients of child support often wonder how the debtor they are chasing is able to go to work everyday for the same employeer yet not one nickel from the garnishment served on the company has ever been paid.


But what about the other side of the coin? Much of the reason why child support is not being paid is that many payers of child support cannot easily and cheaply apply to the court to have their support orders reduced if there is a change in their employment of financial situation.

The result is that these payers fall drastically into arrears, being unable to afford to get their orders to reflect their true income.

The ultimate result is that the payer will become so far in arrears their only alternative is the underground economy (working for cash under the table) to avoid a large garnishment of wages that may, in fact, be unfairly registered against them.

Lets do the math!! The average retainer to a lawyer to have a support order reduced (or the legal term ?varied?) can be anywhere from $2000.00 to $6000.00. Days will be spent preparing court papers and attending at court hearings.

For example: a seasonal worker in like a landscaper, may earn very high wages in the warm, summer months, but in the winter the wages drop or he/she may earn nothing at all. The seasonal worker may be paying $700 per month in support, based on a job he/she had two years ago at the time of the divorce.
Now, years later, the income has dropped.

At $2000.00 to $6000.00 in legal fees to get an order varied who can afford to keep up every single time there is a change in employment circumstances.

Some courts will allow you to file the paper work and attend on your own (without a lawyer) yet some judges will insist you be represented by a lawyer. It?s a crap shoot if you think you can do it on your own and find a judge who will listen to you.

The Law Society of Upper Canada has just recently licensed Paralegals in Ontario. In the past a payor of child support could perhaps hire a Paralegal to cheaply assist in completing the forms to have a support order reduced. It is now illegal for Paralegals to advertise this service and to do may aspects of family law or divorce law. This now makes it more expensive to get your support order reduced.

Learn the word ?no standing? real quick. There will be nothing more humiliating if you file your papers and attend at court when you are drastically in arrears depite the reasons you may have. Chances are you won?t have any standing at all before the judge despite the legitimate reasons you may have for being unable to pay and being so far into arrears.

As long as their is no system in place to reduce a child support order inexpensively and less time consuming the family court system will continue to manufacture no payers into the underground economy.

You can roll your eyes all you want but no-one in their right mind will spend the time and money to have their order changed every time there is a change in financial circumstances.

As would be payers fall into the underground economy, they will not only continue to not only avoid paying child support, but also personal income taxes.

To recap:

1. Until the court is willing to give more judicial powers to support orders and judgments information be impossible to find to allow people to collect on their Orders and Judgments Things like the order having authority or power to force a payer?s employer to give circumstances regarding employment.



A bank being served with a support order to be compelled to report on all bank accounts registered in the payer?s name.

The department of transportation upon being served with a support order being compelled to provide a vehicle and address information so a vehicle could be seized or a license suspended. Assets have to be identified before there can be collection and/or enforcement.

2. Until a simple paper system is in place to allow parties to go to court (with or without a lawyer) to get their orders changed, simply and cheaply, there is a change in their financial circumstances, payers will continue to outsmart the system, go underground and not pay support or income taxes.


It is possible to represent oneself in small claims court and landlord tenant Court but not in the family court. These hearings could be conducted with a simple set of forms and be heard by a referee, arbitrator or registrar, instead of busy judges with overloaded family court dockets. The system right now is too complicated, time consuming and expensive.

3. The only way to catch a person working for cash is to follow them in to work ? plain and simple. No search method on earth will reveal how a person is truly spending their working day if he or she is not reporting his income.

Government Insurance companies like the Workmens Compensation Board (now the WSIB) spend millions of dollars to hire independent private investigation firms to use private investigators to follow (via surveillance) on would-be cheaters of the insurance system to see if they are continuing to work or faking their injuries during the business day. It?s the only way to fight this kind of fraud.

Revenue Canada (or the IRS in the United States) should be teaming with the FRO to help fund Private Investigation agencies to conduct surveillance and inquiries on cheaters not only of child support but working underground for cash.

A person working for cash trying avoid child support is not only cheating the family court system but is in fact committing tax evasion. This makes the problem a joint responsibility of Revenue Canada and the IRS who continue to unsuccessfully battle the underground economy. The underground economy is partly manufactured by the failing family court and FRO system.

Privatization of the FRO, or forwarding child support orders to collection agencies, will accomplish nothing in the way of actual collection. Collection agencies make phone calls, send letters, and report to credit bureaus. It will be a waste of your tax money on a system that is already failing both sides of the coin.

You can?t collect on what you don?t find. Finding assets is an investigative mission. Dead-beat parents need to be followed into work ? plain and simple ? there is no other way.

Giving The Fingerprint: Home Law Raises Concern

Sellers Will Be Required To Provide Thumbprint Before Deal Is Approved Reporting

13 March 2008

Mike Puccinelli CHICAGO (CBS) ―

Real estate certainly has its risks and fraud is a growing problem, but now there's a new law that's supposed to protect buyers. As CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports the new law will also place an unusual burden on the seller.

Fingerprinting is something we often associate with crime. So the fact that Cook County home sellers--and homeowners across the state--will soon have to provide a thumb print left some people shocked.

"I wouldn't like that at all. I don't think that's necessary," said Chicagoan Donald Hayes.

"I don't know what I think about that. Not very good, I think, said Jenny Armstrong of Lake Villa.

The new law, which is set to go into effect June 1, 2009, will force anyone selling property in Cook County to provide a thumbprint from their right hand.

"No more so than any law abiding citizen walking down the sidewalk should be fingerprinted; just for selling my house, that's ridiculous," said Gerald Cain of Land Acquisitions, Inc.

Cain has been in the real estate consulting business for decades. He says the law is intrusive and threatens to create fraud when it's designed to prevent it.

Cain has been notarizing documents for more than a quarter century, but he says unless the fingerprint rule is revoked, he plans to get out of the business.

"I would probably just quit; liability for me is too much," Cain said.

Joseph Rogul of the Professional National Title Network isn't worried about the law and rather welcomes it.

"We're in favor of it. Fraud has been a big problem for title companies like us. We don't think it will add too much of a burden on us," said Rogul.

Rogul says consumers will likely have to pay a little more, but he believes the benefits will outweigh the costs, because widespread fraud in the industry means widespread costs, which are typically passed on to the consumer.

The law specifies that consumers can be charged up to $25 to cover fingerprint processing costs.

Unless it's reintroduced, the thumbprint rule is set to expire in 2013. Cain is calling on lawmakers to repeal the provision.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/Mike.Puccinelli.fingerprint.2.957819.html

The Problem


More and more each day competitors, ex-associates, new start-up ventures, and unscrupulous individuals are using electronic eavesdropping as a way to gather information that could seriously damage your business.

"Bugs" telephone taps and video transmitters (above) are readily available that can compromise your business secrets for as little as $30.00.

The manufacture, sale, installation, and monitoring of these devices is a multi-billion dollar industry in North America.

Unless you are a law enforcement agency with an Order or Warrant for a wire tap, it is a criminal offence to record the conversations of two or more persons without their consent.



? Confidential information seems to be getting out to competitors.

? Competitors seem to be just one step ahead all of the time.

? Your office was broken into yet very little or nothing was taken.

? Sockets or switches show signs of being moved slightly, ie: the wallpaper may be disturbed.

? Vehicles parked near to your premises, that appear to be empty.

? Your telephone rings but no one speaks or you just hear a short tone.

? Unusual sounds (crackling, clicks, volume changes) on your telephone handset.

? Indications that your handset may have been exchanged, ie: numbers in memory may be lost.

? Repairers or utility companies turn up to carry out work when they have not been called.

? Furniture or items appear to have been disturbed.

? Interference on your radio or television.

? Unexplained brick or plaster dust on floor.


The most commonly and widely used of all the devices is the RF (Radio Frequency) transmitter bug. These devices are inexpensive easy to use and require no specialized receiving equipment a simple AM or FM radio can be used to monitor the bug. Due to their low cost, there is very little incentive to recover these devices once planted.



The Spectrum Analysis is used to detect RF devices is capable of monitoring frequencies up to 36 Gigaherts. This will also include very low frequency (VLF) devices which transmit on frequencies down to 15 Kilohertz.


The next method is often known as the "wire tap" or a "hard wire bug". The wiretap will use any existing wiring in the home or office ie: the electrical plugs (see photo above), alarm systems or even the telephone wiring.

This is similar a typical baby monitor situation where you plug the transmitter into one room and the receiver in the other.


Many think that telephones are only a security risk when being used but a simple modification to the handset can leave the microphone connected, even when the phone is not in use.

Wired and wireless transmitters must be physically connected to the line before they will do any good. Once a wireless tap is connected to the line, it can transmit all conversations over a limited reception range. Wired taps, on the other hand, need no power source, but a wire must run from the line to the listener or to a transmitter.

An 'Infinity Transmitter' or 'Harmonica Bug' must be installed inside the phone. When someone calls the tapped phone it rings, blows a whistle over the line, and the transmitter picks up the phone via a relay. The mike on the phone is activated so that the caller can hear all of the conversations in the room.




The telephone line analyzing equipment is used during the sweep (photo above) is capable of determining illegal taps, defective phones, room listening devices, splices, VLF devices, infinity triggered devices, and selectively targeted phones in situations where a tap has been placed in a wire closet or a telephone room.

A signal is generated from your phone right to the Bell Canada Phone Centre (or the main phone centre of your particular State or Province). The purpose is to evaluate the current in the line and to discover if any device has been placed on the line that might be causing a drop in the current.

Here are some interesting videos of an actual Counter Electronic Sweep being conducted by a Private Investigation agency in Ontario Canada.

Keeping up with customer debts, as well as maintaining an accurate record of payments received, are fundamental business elements.

Often there are logical reasons for accounts not being paid and which are falling past the 90 days due date.

Our company would be pleased to assess your accounts receivable problems, with what we call our Proactive-Reactive Program. Below are just a few examples of what you can expect in our assessment.

The Proactive Approach

Assessing the problem on a proactive level involves allowing us to make recommendations and set up systems and policies to stop collection problems from occurring in the first place. This is our fundamental goal in any assessment.

It is essential, for example, to set up proper customer information and to have on file application forms with the data necessary to help you find your customers easily, if they renege on payments, go out of business or simply disappear.

Often extending too much to your customer in the way of product or service can result in a customer being unable to pay an account that was out of their league in the first place.

But how can you be sure of how much of your product or service you should extend?

When do you extend to the limit and when do you start asking for deposits or retainers?

We will work with you on setting up a safe credit application program to make sure you are not extending too much of your product and service, to prevent the risk of not getting paid in full. In some cases this may involve working with the major credit bureaus.

How many times has a company gone out of business leaving you with nothing but an outstanding account and a disconnected telephone number?

You try to collect, but if the company is out of business, how do you get your money? You try suing in court but because the company is an incorporated entity you are not allowed to sue or collect from the business owner personally.

You spend thousands in legal fees only to obtain a worthless uncollectable judgment and an expensive legal bill.

What you may not know is that as a business owner you have the right to incorporate ?personal guarantee? policies into your customer accounts on incorporated companies.

This simply means that if the company goes out of business, the business owner can be held personally responsible for his account with you. This policy has to be set up properly when you open a customer account. It must also be set up sensitively, in order to gain a customer?s confidence, rather than hesitancy, in his transactions with you.

The Reactive Approach


Assessing the problem on a reactive level involves exactly that ? reacting to the existing problem at hand.

We are not a collection agency and we do not collect. But we will set a system in place to help you collect. First, however, we will enable you to have the right frame of mind about collections.
Here are some suggestions:

• Third party collection agencies make telephone calls and send letters. That is all they are licensed to do. They may report the debt into the customer?s credit bureau file. But even if they do actually collect for you, they are going to take 1/3 to 50% of every dollar they manage to collect. If you are lucky, they might manage to negotiate post-dated cheques over time. In many cases, you will send off your accounts and you will hear nothing back from them. Collection agencies generally have only about 20% success.
  
  If your company is a member of the credit bureau, you may be able to report your outstanding account into a customer?s credit file to leave a ?black mark? in their credit history, making it harder for them to get credit while your bad debt sits in their credit file.
• If you want a skip trace to find the customer, or you want that customer to be sued in court, that collection agency, lawyer or skip tracer will be asking you for a deposit and perhaps a big one.

Keep in mind that millions of people are awarded judgments from the court that they can?t collect, simply because the customer has no assets. They spend and spend, trying to collect, but with no success.

A secretary or admin person could perform a lot of these collection tasks with right knowledge and/or the right software. Many companies hire in-house collection clerks on a part-time or contract basis. Many companies handle all their collection problems in-house.

Even Small Claims court documents can be downloaded from the Internet. You don?t necessarily need any legal knowledge to go after your account in Small Claims court, if the debt is a simple, cut-and-dried issue. Small Claims court recognises that people who come into their court may not have any legal knowledge, and the court can be somewhat accommodating.

Many companies handle simple Small Claims court matters themselves. They merely send a secretary or an employee from their accounting department to prove that the debt is outstanding.

Our objective is to evaluate your collection problems and determine what aspects could be handled most cost-effectively in-house, under a program we would design for you. We would also recommend which concerns should be looked after by third-party agencies, based on your budget and our assessment of how collectable we consider the debt to be.

www.corporatefactors.net