Articles by Steven Gilchrist

Later this year, from November 13 - November 19, 2022, International Fraud Awareness Week will be held. Globally, International Fraud Awareness Week is observed during the third week of November. This awareness week is a part of a global effort to reduce the amount fraud by advocating for anti-fraud awareness and education. According to Occupational Fraud 2022: A Report to the Nations, companies lose an estimated 5% of their annual revenue as a result of fraud. Fraud is an intentional act of deceiving someone to obtain an unlawful or unfair gain. Fraudulent activity can manifest in various forms including: consumer fraud, corporate fraud, healthcare fraud, identity theft, romance scams, tax fraud, and voter fraud. As technology has become more complicated and prevalent, fraud has become more difficult to detect and to track. Fraud schemes occur in every aspect of human life and schemes are becoming increasingly sophisticated. For more information about International Fraud Awareness Wee...

  In a report that was released in January 2019, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund found that food recalls had increased 10% in the United States between 2013 – 2018.   During this five-year period, meat and poultry recalls increased 67%. Processed food and produce recalls increased by 2%. Researchers were not able to identify the reasons for the increase in the food recalls. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approximately 48 million people become ill, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne contaminates each year in the United States.    In 2018, there were 703 food recalls in the U.S. During the five-year period of 2013 – 2018, the highest number of annual food recalls occurred in 2016, when 905 food recalls were documented. During this five-year period poultry had the most recalls (168), followed by beef (137), and pork (128). As a result of the food recall study, PIRG is recommending ...

In November 2017, the Kidde company recalled more than 40 million fire extinguishers that were sold between 1973 to 2017.   The recall included 134 different models of Kidde brand fire extinguishers.   According to Consumerreports.org, 1 death, 16 injuries, 91 reports of property damage, and 391 reports of Kidde fire extinguishers either not working at all or not working properly have been reported. In March 2018, Kidde announced another product recall.   In this instance, smoke detector Models PI2010 and PI9010 have been recalled due to a manufacturing defect which inhibits the detectors to smell smoke.   According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, approximately 452,000 defective smoke detector units were sold in the United States.   Additionally, approximately 40,000 defective units were sold in Canada.   The defective units were sold between September 2016 to January 2018. For more information about the Kidde smoke detec...