The basics for bank guarantess, standby letters of credit, and medium term notes

There are countless financial instruments, such as bank guarantees, medium term notes, standby letters of credits, certificate of deposits, and business documents which are legitimate and have value. However, the con man, huckster, fraudster and scammer will use everyone and everything to part you from your money.   We believe it to be important to inform everyone we can to be able to weed out anything fraudulent and many legitimate systems are abused or simply overused. 

Here are a few recommendations we use to stay away from frauds, scams, abusers and thieves, one important aspect of any transaction, as this post will say in the last sentence is "take your time" which is paramount to success.  Nobody in the world is in a hurry to do a multi-thousand dollar deal, let alone in the millions.

• Take your time. The fraudster needs you to make a decision on the spot. If you are being rushed aggressively, slow down even more, or just stop right there.
• Check out every claim made in calls, written documentation and every website connected to the company.
• Do a web search on each person and each company's name. A lot of people think Google is the place to go. Google is great, but remember, there are a huge number of search engines, and even ones that will gather results from multiple search engines at the same time. This is known as a "meta-search."
• Call your state's securities regulatory office and check if the party has violated securities laws.
• If someone claims to be an expert in something that sounds too good to be true, and especially if your attorney, accountant or financial planner never heard of the program before, cross check with people you know to be true experts in the area, although the best course of action is to simply say 'no,' and move on.
• One of the best sources is to verify the location.
• The most successful frauds are schemes where many people are involved, and perhaps only one person knows all of the details, and multiple locations are involved. Keep looking until you find all the parts.
• Hire competent, respected and professional attorneys, accountants, and auditors.
• Does the company have a phone number that works? Call it. Also, call the phone company's information line and check if the phone number is for the same company.
• Call and reference the name against those whom you know in this business.
• Never send money to a P.O. Box, unless you already know the firm.
• Don’t buy anything from a new supplier or vendor until you have verified that the company exists.
• Remember that nothing is going to happen fast.  If it does that is a sign that it may be a fraud.