Compliance Needs are Alive and Well: FTC's Recent Enforcement Activity
Excessive Compensation: What to do when the co-owners of your business pay themselves excessively
Deposit Account Litigation: Highlights From 2024 and What to Expect in 2025 — The Consumer Finance Podcast
Recognizing and Avoiding Trademark Scams and Hoaxes
Elder Abuse-Financial Exploitation and Fraud
Legally Qualified: Protecting Against Elder Investment Fraud and Exploitation
Digging Deeper, Episode 1: The Con Queen of Hollywood
What is Consumer Fraud and What Deceptions are Employed?
A trademark scam is making the rounds targeting business owners through emails from varying businesses marketing trademark legal services. These emails falsely claim that another party is planning to register the recipient’s...more
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal highlights a case that is sadly all too familiar – a family member is in distress, and you must wire them money to help save them. Of course, as the article reveals, the family...more
2025 is here, and so is FINRA’s 2025 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report (Report). On January 28, 2025, FINRA published the Report, which provides firms with insight into FINRA’s findings from recent observations and...more
Business owners should be aware of a new email scam circulating impersonating an intellectual property (IP) representative, containing false information, and offering trademark assistance. This nefarious email scam is sent by...more
Scams related to U.S. trademark filings are becoming more common and sophisticated, making these scams increasingly difficult for trademark owners to identify....more
AI is technology that enables computers to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving skills, whereas deepfake is synthetic media that has been digitally manipulated to replace and mimic one person’s likeness. AI has...more
On November 19, the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security convened a hearing on “Protecting Consumers from Artificial Intelligence Enabled Fraud and Scams.” The...more
Unfortunately, when natural disasters hit innocent victims and good-natured people want to help those in need, scammers swoop in to manipulate the bleak situation to commit fraud or price gouging. Following Hurricanes...more
In a guest article, Venable's Rebecca Liebowitz, Andrew D. Price, and Samantha J. Moskowitz examine the rise in increasingly sophisticated trademark fraud and what practitioners can do to minimize the risks for clients....more
Hosted by the Canadian Institute, the 23rd Annual Canadian Forum on Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crime returns for another exciting year. The event features carefully curated programming providing practical guidance...more
Threat actors never miss an opportunity to use recent events to infect computer systems or quickly and easily gather personal information. The Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”) is just such an opportunity and businesses and...more
Over the years many clients have forwarded to us scam trademark mailings. These mailings come from various official-sounding sources, all of which seek money to allegedly take action regarding the client’s trademarks....more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) keeps track of scams that are reported to it and summarizes those scams in a report outlining the most successful scams of the prior year....more
One recent victim of scams preying on U.S. trademark filers and registrants answered a call that appeared to be from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It wasn’t. The target of the scam was forced to...more
Every month, Erise’s trademark attorneys review the latest developments at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in the courts, and across the corporate world to bring you the stories that you should know about: Travis...more
Especially during the holi-daze, it can be easy to let our safeguards down and fall prey to scammers looking to make a quick buck. Trademark applicants and registrants interacting with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...more
A record number of applicants are seeking to protect their trademarks by filing applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The problem? The rise in trademark applications has left open the doors...more
On March 10, 2023, the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took control of the assets of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). In light of SVB’s closure, many venture firms and emerging companies are establishing new accounts with...more
No sooner had we gone to press on our January article on the latest and greatest in trademark scams than the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a new alert raising awareness of yet another type of scam....more
On June 28, 2022, the FBI issued a Public Service Announcement (PSA) warning that fraudsters are using deepfakes to impersonate job applicants during online interviews and employing stolen Personally Identifiable Information...more
Unscrupulous criminals use crises to their advantage. Scammers are using the conflict in Ukraine to bilk money from people trying to help those impacted from the attacks....more
Scammers are taking advantage of the active real estate market. Recently, I was contacted by a client who received a call from a lawyer in another state to verify a signature on a deed for the client’s lot being sold;...more
When it comes to scams and frauds, it's not just individuals at risk, but also companies. In Episode 2 of Digging Deeper, Chris Morgan Jones interviews Jordan Arnold about corporate scams, and they even discuss cracking the...more
The USPTO has been working to combat misleading and fraudulent solicitations sent to federal trademark applicants/registrants and is calling on the public to report and identify these bad actors....more
You receive an email saying that due to COVID-19, a number of regularly scheduled meetings are moving to new dates and times. While hovering over the conveniently provided email link to your calendar, you notice the email...more