Allegedly! Admittedly, we’re a little behind on this one but you know how it is. Anyway, your Ponzi scheme du jour comes by way of the great Northwest, where Frederick Darren Berg, who seems to have some sort of charter bus fetish, is being prosecuted for orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in Washington.
When he was at the University of Oregon in the 80s, Berg allegedly helped himself to his fraternity’s cash to fund a “charter bus venture” and then pleaded guilty to a check-kiting scheme with another bus company a few years later. After those nickel and dime failures, Fred was done messing and decided to really do this:
The 48-year-old founder and chief executive officer of Meridian Group is accused of defrauding hundreds of more than $100 million invested in his Seattle company’s mortgage funds between 2003 and 2010.
Prosecutors allege Berg spent tens of millions on a ritzy lifestyle, including a posh Mercer Island mansion, two yachts and two jets.
But investigators say Berg diverted a bigger chunk, estimated at $45 million, to create a luxury bus line that served tour groups and sports teams, including the Seahawks and the Oregon Ducks.
And we all know what happened to mortgage funds, don’t we? Okay, then. So your next question probably is, “how did the auditors miss this one?” Well!
Berg used some simple stratagems to mislead auditors at Moss Adams, a large Seattle-based firm, which produced audits for a trio of Meridian funds for three years.
The standard procedure is to send out confirmation letters to a random sample of mortgage borrowers and compare what they say they’ve paid with what the lender’s records say.
But Moss Adams didn’t notice most of the confirmations it sent out were going to post-office boxes and coming back with the same handwriting, said [bankruptcy trustee Mark] Calvert.
Berg had rented more than 20 P.O. boxes and had the mail forwarded to another address in Seattle. He was replying to the auditors’ queries himself, according to the indictment.
[Cringe] Oops. To be fair, auditors can’t be expected to be hand-writing experts…can they? Mr. Calvert seems to think so and told the Seattle Times that he plans on suing Moss Adams and Deloitte for their roles. Oh, right! How do they fit in? To wit:
Berg also hired Deloitte Financial Advisory Services to do a “valuation report” on funds V through VII, meant just for Meridian management. Meridian, however, used it to reassure investors, touting Deloitte’s conclusion “the sample mortgage pool appears to be of higher quality and better performance” than comparable loan portfolios.
But Calvert said Deloitte’s supposedly random sampling “was not completed as outlined” in its agreement with Meridian. He declined to be more specific.
Moss Adams and Deloitte would not comment on their work for Meridian.
Financial empire, luxurious lifestyle were built on a mirage [ST]
Good
Such a worst company like Deloitte. Never seen this kind of companies. Compare to Deloitte Accenture is for better removing employees giving 3 months of notice and 7 months pay. But in Deloitte constantly laying off the employees without prior intimation..
Better not choose Deloitte for your Career, small companies are for better than this big bull..please don’t spoil your careers by choosing this.
Must be tough. Maybe spare a thought for the contractors who are working for them. Who have to give back time for toilet breaks whilst working from home. Working for what may seem like a reasonable daily rate, but being treated like the shi$ on the bottom of a shoe. Constantly monitored on screen to make sure you are doing what you are supposed to. Poor Deloitte eh? Breaching human rights, invading personal privacy, mistreating staff and then telling you not to mention them!
These large payments are at the expense of clients.
One of the worst organization never ever join this organisation this organisation will ruin your career. Startups are better than this.
Deloitte partners voluntarily took a pay cut so that the company didn’t have to lay anyone off in this pandemic. The other comments on this thread are laughable, do they really think that is what goes on at Deloitte?
Most of these negative comments look like a Bot wrote them.
I have worked in this company for almost 2 years. The Deloitte@Canada is the worst company in my last 7 years. They have ruined my work experience and my knowledge. Director of DMC don’t know how to work, how to manage and how to select employees for the project.
Personally, I’ve worked (by proxy) for worse organisations, however it is abundantly clear that it is a numbers game with Deloitte as they try to please the end client at the expense of quality customer service.
Whether this is down to Deloitte’s management being fixated on numbers or the client’s perhaps less than realistic targets is far less obvious & trickier to comment on.
Ultimately, it is the end consumer who suffers even if most the boxes are being ticked.