The Zzzz Best Case: Ask Some Red Flags
By fabricating over 20,000 documents Barry Minkow, Mark Morze, and a few other insiders were able to fool investors, auditors, banks, and whoever else that was interested in the success of a small carpet cleaning company that made it big. Like all frauds they eventually get blown wide open. In this case it was a young female journalist writing a filler piece on Barry Minkow’s success. When tying the story up she decided to make a call to the city just to verify their contractor’s license number, which never existed. The ZZZZ Best case is relevant for getting into the field of auditing and forensic accounting work because, it is important to conduct due diligence and keep professional skepticism no matter how inept a client may come off. Ask
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Barry Minkow the boy wonder who had purchased a red Ferrari, an expensive new home, and appeared on hit shows like Oprah. His personality fit the stereotype of a fraudster, his hard working attitude, the anything to succeed, his way or the highway mentality, and the list of traits goes on. The largest area of revenue for ZZZZ Best was with insurance restoration contracts, the contracts made up to 90% of the company’s profits. The amounts in the contracts were unrealistically large. The number of multimillion dollar restoration contracts ZZZZ Best was reporting outnumbered the total possible amount nationwide. The contracts themselves that were fictitious failed to identify common items, such as job location. Many of the contracts were only a page in length. Most multimillion dollar contracts over multiple pages in length and would include specifics on what was to be done. The Internal Controls of ZZZZ Best were almost nonexistent. Since, Frauds like ZZZZ Best internal controls have become a very important factor of an audit. Internal controls need to be evaluated by auditors and suggestions are made in areas lacking adequate controls. If the auditors or anyone reviewing ZZZZ Best would have followed through with some of the red flags identified the fraud would have been uncovered much
Barry Minkow the boy wonder who had purchased a red Ferrari, an expensive new home, and appeared on hit shows like Oprah. His personality fit the stereotype of a fraudster, his hard working attitude, the anything to succeed, his way or the highway mentality, and the list of traits goes on. The largest area of revenue for ZZZZ Best was with insurance restoration contracts, the contracts made up to 90% of the company’s profits. The amounts in the contracts were unrealistically large. The number of multimillion dollar restoration contracts ZZZZ Best was reporting outnumbered the total possible amount nationwide. The contracts themselves that were fictitious failed to identify common items, such as job location. Many of the contracts were only a page in length. Most multimillion dollar contracts over multiple pages in length and would include specifics on what was to be done. The Internal Controls of ZZZZ Best were almost nonexistent. Since, Frauds like ZZZZ Best internal controls have become a very important factor of an audit. Internal controls need to be evaluated by auditors and suggestions are made in areas lacking adequate controls. If the auditors or anyone reviewing ZZZZ Best would have followed through with some of the red flags identified the fraud would have been uncovered much