Ethos Blog

I have a friend named Kris. Kris spent most of his professional life as a DJ—the radio kind, not the ecstasy-riddled rave kind. Years ago, Kris was offered two passes to an exclusive Prince concert. Kris accepted and invited a blind date with a penchant for partying...

My wife Jen is a math teacher. She is also an avid runner. On weekdays during the school year, she wakes up at 4:15 a.m. (As do I, thanks to our freakishly loud alarm clock. Then it takes me an hour to go back to sleep—on a good day. But that’s another story.) So my...

I’m a journalist at heart. Always have been. As a kid in New Jersey, I started my own sports publication. The content featured baseball standings and stories based on Mets games I’d seen on TV. I subsequently worked for our town’s twice-weekly newspaper, earned a...

As a service provider, we are often asked to define brand protection and the most important aspects of a good brand protection program. A quick online search yielded the following well-meaning, textbook definition from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary: Brand...

Fact or Fiction: Only lousy investigators get burned (caught) by claimants. Answer: False. The quarterback sneak is clearly football’s most basic play. Snap the ball. Plow forward. End of story. Right? Wrong. In reality, the sneak features a multi-layered plan of...

I was recently sitting in the O’Hare airport in Chicago when a pre-recorded message came over the speaker system. What sounded like a kind woman stated, “Please remember to cover your mouth when coughing and when sneezing.” I immediately laughed and thought to myself,...

So the Little League World Series is in full swing. And once again, I’m hooked. As someone who’s spent half his professional life as a sportswriter, I thoroughly enjoy this event. Truly, it brings back great memories. During my days with a scorebook and reporter’s...

When every physical and mental resource is focused, one’s power to solve a problem multiplies tremendously.”  - Norman Vincent Peale    In order to significantly impact fraud, it is essential to formulate a solid, comprehensive approach. After all, you don’t...

"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution." – J.K. Rowling Thanks to the Internet, there are thousands of informational resources available that if you are so inclined allow you to handle some of your own...

In order to submit a fraud referral it’s important to have good understanding of what fraud truly is. In some cases you may have a claimant abusing the system, but this does not necessarily mean they are committing fraud.  Fraud is commonly understood as dishonesty...

When people ask what I do for a living, I explain that I work in risk mitigation. More often than not, I'm met with a quizzical look followed by the question, "So you're an attorney?" To avoid an extended narrative detailing the industry ins and outs, I generally...

One of my favorite movies growing up was “Serpico.” Starring Al Pacino, it’s a true life story about a New York police officer, Frank Serpico, who went undercover to expose corruption in the police force. Serpico was an honest cop trying to do the right thing, but he...

I was speaking with one of our clients recently. He mentioned that he received an email from an investigative company that was offering surveillance services for free if they failed to obtain results.

In the advertisement, results equated to obtaining videotape documentation of the claimant.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek, said client asked me if Ethos could make him the same proposal. He laughed, of course, fully aware of the slippery slope involved here.