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Welcome to our second issue of The John Cooke Financial Fraud Report. As of our press date, subscriptions have been received and entered from 32 states, Washington DC and Canada. Our subscriber list includes bank officers, district attorneys, federal officials, private investigators, industry support personnel, mortgage lenders, credit unions and more. Our goal, by the time issue number three goes to press, is to have subscribers in all 50 states.
History has a way of repeating itself – even in the publishing field. In May of 1994, just after we came out with the premiere issue of The John Cooke Insurance Fraud Report, industry was abuzz with queries as to exactly who this John Cooke fellow was. Investigators went so far as to watch our office building, question our neighbors and even to go knocking on our landlord’s door. In short, too many hours were spent digging into the persona and history of one of the good guys; hours that would have been better spent investigating the bad guys.
John Cooke, you see, is not a real person. He is a spirit – one that resembles a part of each of us. He is fed-up-to-here with paying 17 percent interest on Visa and MasterCard accounts so that the pockets of fraudsters can be full. His teeth hurt when he is hit with ATM charges – money that helps cover the problem of fraud experienced by the banks. He cringes at mortgage interest rates, knowing full well that the cost of fraud is a built-in expense. John thinks it’s a travesty that up to 30 percent of his insurance premiums end up with the bad guys.
There’s a rather amazing statement, one that John Cooke would certainly speak aloud if he were a real person:
The entire budget deficit of the United States, every bit of it, could be entirely wiped out in less than a year if every dollar that currently goes to fraud – all kinds of fraud – were redirected to that purpose.
Think about it. Insurance fraud, telemarketing fraud, auto repair fraud, cellular phone fraud, credit card fraud, mortgage fraud, product misrepresentation, bankruptcy fraud, health care fraud – the list is nearly endless. Every commodity that changes hands – even a cup of coffee at McDonald’s – has an element of cost included to cover fraud. And how many times does a single dollar change hands in just one day? Consider that it’s not just 5 to 10 percent of the dollar spent on that cup of coffee. It’s also 5 to 10 percent of the dollar McDonald’s passes on to a vendor; and 5 to 10 percent of the dollar that the vendor passes on to the transport company, etc. etc. ad nauseum!
The budget deficit? A piece of cake. And even though just a minuscule portion of that amount rightfully belongs in John’s pocket, he’s doing everything he can to see that it stays where it belongs.
Truly, John Cooke lives in each of us.
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