Uncovering Financial Deception: Lisa Carroll on Forensic Bookkeeping and Fraud Prevention

Bret
Good morning and welcome everyone. My name is Bret Schanzenbach. I'm the president and CEO of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce, and I'm your host today, and I'm very pleased to have with me Lisa Carroll. Lisa is the president, is that right? President of Number Crunching, Inc.. Good morning, Lisa. Good morning. Thanks for coming down and joining us today.

Lisa
Thank you for having me. This is fun.

Bret
Yes, this is fun. And you have such an interesting line of work that you do. So, we're going to get into that. But before we jump too far into it, I was doing some background research, and, I couldn't quite tell. Are you a local? Like, did you grow up here in Southern California or.

Lisa
I grew up in Chicago. Okay. Can I just really hate digging my car out of a five foot snowdrift? Well, no judgment there. And I don't like 30 below. Whether so, when I was old enough, I moved here. That makes perfect sense. Makes sense? Now, I did see, that you have extensive, background and experience in this bookkeeping space, which we're going to tease out since have way more than just bookkeeping.

Bret
But, tell us a little bit about your professional, you know, growth and where you started before you got to number crunching.

Lisa,
I started at the very bottom. Yeah, of the accounting department. I was in payables or was in receivables. I was the lowest woman on the totem pole. And what I found over time was that I was really good at digging through the documents and figuring out what somebody did and unraveling it. I had real knack for it. I love puzzles, these were just puzzles. And so over time, I became the go to person when somebody had made a mess out of their books. It was probably 7 or 8 years ago. I was on a case. I was actually testifying on a family court matter where, in this case, the ex-husband had been, mucking around with the books to hide things from his ex-wife. And I'm testifying on it, and the opposing counsel did not want me up there because I was hitting a nerve every time I'd found all the stuff. And he said, your Honor, you know, she's not a certified fraud examiner. She doesn't know what she's doing. I want her out of here. And the judge goes, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, she's my guest. I want her here. You sit down. And I was on this witness stand thinking, what the heck is the certified fraud examiner thing? I want to know, I'm going to go get this thing. And I went and got it was my mission to go get this thing. And so I became a certified fraud examiner. And since I have no fear of testifying on cases, opposing counsel can not rattle me because I grew up with attorneys, surrounded by them. Oh, interesting. So, yeah, I was it was call it raised by a pack of attorneys. My dad was, criminal. And, he mostly did criminal defense, but is still an attorney. I mean, Thanksgiving was more like a deposition than, you know, eating turkey. And then, random uncle and my brother, argued mostly in federal court. But same thing. I mean, everything you had to, you know, be careful how you worded it, because if not, he would say, oh, you use this adjective instead of this other one. And so therefore you didn't mean this. And you're like, oh God, can you stop already? But I'm very good with testifying, and I'm really good at digging in and finding what people have done when they're trying to commit fraud, whether it's against their business partner or against their ex-spouse.

Bret
Well, and having that comfort that you just, mentioned in court, like you said, is rare, right? So you're not the type of person that's going to get rattled who's going to get all nervous? And, melt when they challenge you? So that that is a rare like I would say, aptitude. Yeah. And gift. So how funny that it came. You know, it's interesting as our own Kathleen here on staff, she comes from a family of attorneys. You guys have probably had this conversation and, you know, judges and attorneys throughout her families. So how funny that that being part of your upbringing, you know, comes to play. So you were you were sharing about like 7 or 8 years ago, somebody said you weren't this certified person. So at that time, were you, working like in a corporate setting, as in the bookkeeping world?

Lisa,
And, by that time I had my own business. I was running it for 20, almost 24 years. Okay. And in a bookkeeping work, doing well, keeping basic accounting type stuff, liaison with the tax preparers, making sure that everything was done properly for all of my clients. Yeah. So I don't have to worry about an audit. Or if they do get audited, we have everything squared away. You know, there's no gaps. Everything's documented. We want it nice and clean. Yes. And so having seen the damage that that these, fly by night bookkeepers, I know social media, my social media is flooded right now. With these, you can become a bookkeeper. And for weeks, $100 million is a great. And it's so easy. It's like, no, it's not sure. And if it is easy, you're doing something wrong. Well so I, see these all the time and I get hired on these cases to, and even just regular bookkeeping stuff to clean up what this other person was doing. Yeah. One case, the guy, it cost him I think ten, 15 grand in penalties and interest because the other bookkeeper didn't know what they were doing and they were learning on the job, or they had taken one of these goofy courses. Yeah. And so I'm the one who gets brought in to clean up after them. And so they really irk me.

Bret
Well, no, I can imagine. So one of the things that fascinates me, though, about your story, your story arc. So to speak, is, what was the first time you got called in to kind of be one of these expert witnesses, so to speak, the very first time?

Lisa
The first time it was before I became certified. Yeah. The attorney I know had brought me, and he said, you know, I've got this case. We need you to come and look at this, because I know you're really good at digging through these things. Can you take a look at it? Sure. And when I started going through and I was like, oh, he did this. He did that. Here's another thing. Here's this other wow, this guy, this this guy just raided her business. And she had trusted him because they were married. She, she was not an accountant. It's not her numbers are not her thing. And we just kept finding more and more and more and more and more and more and more. And I think at the end of the day, we ended up getting a $2 million judgment against him. For stealing from our business.

Bret
Yeah, That's wild. So, of course, you still have the bookkeeping side of the business, but this, this whole sense of, uncovering. This is language. I got from your website uncovering financial deception, has become, a key element of why people seek you out. Because you have a skill there with, is it fair to use the term like, like, a forensic, bookkeeping type of thing or. Yeah. Because that's. Yeah. And you do have the certification now?

Lisa
I have had the certification now since 2018. 2019, right around there. Yeah. Everything before Covid kind of blends together. You know, we had it before Covid. Yeah. But also a certified B bk before Covid for HSBC. But yeah. No I, I'd love doing this kind of work. And it's really blossomed back in May I was I'm a member of the San Diego Family Law Bar Association and affiliate member and got to do a presentation in front of 300 attorneys. So along with a family court attorney and a retired family court judge doing a presentation on data distortion, because it lands so often in these cases. Giving them ideas of where to look and what we're looking for.

Bret
And you mentioned, you know, you the, the case that we've talked about a little bit here today was it was a divorce, but it was related to business, because she had a business. And so, from what I could tell from your website, those could be those were mingled in this case, but those could be separate. You sometimes you're just in a divorce proceeding. Sometimes you're in a business environment, sometimes it's a merger. Talk about the different nuances or how you.

Lisa,
Sure, do what you do. So, so in a family court setting, if the parties had a business together and one of them or both of them sometimes are alleging fraud, we go in and say, okay, what what was happening with the books? Similarly with business partners who are not married, I guess kind of married. Yeah. I'm sure I kind of feel like you're married. Similarly, we go in and take a look at the books and say, okay, what was going on, what was happening? And I have another case right now where it's similar, not married party, just business partners. And one is accusing the other one a fraud. So we go in, we start digging through the books and seeing. What were you doing? Sure. Were these valid business expenses or were you a plumber? And you were buying Victoria's Secret for your girlfriend and you're hiding it in here and you're claiming, oh, the business doesn't have any money? Well, doesn't make money because you're shopping. Yeah. Victoria's Secret, you know, and you were pilfering the money. Yes. So, yeah. Very interesting. And one of the things that caught my eye and I.

Bret
And now that we're having this conversation, I can hear it in everything you're saying, but, on your website, you specifically talk about how your analysis that you provide, provide for a company who or people who engage you will be court ready analysis, talk about that.

Lisa
So in order to make sure that we have everything ready for the court, we have to make sure the judge ultimately is the one who understands it. And although judges take, continuing education courses on maybe accounting and accounting practices, they did not become judges to become accountants. Yes. And so sometimes we have to be, not so esoteric and not so over the top with our explanations. We have to make sure it's very concise, but also providing enough detail. So I make sure that my reports and go to the court can be understood by the judge. We're not going. Oh here's this very technical accounting thing. But to your honor I'm sure you understand this. So I don't need to go into detail. I make sure that they understand it and here's the documentation that supports everything that I'm saying. It isn't some vague accusation, does happen sometimes in family court where people attorneys will make a vague accusation. They're just hoping something sticks to the wall. If we're if I'm on the side where we're making an accusation about something we have the documentation for, we have something to back it up. But I also sometimes I'm the neutral on the case. Two, I may not be hired by one party or the other. I might be assigned by the court or chosen as the neutral party. I'm not on anybody's side. I am there to do the books, provide the facts. And here it is. Which is pretty much what I do when I am hired by them. I'm not making up data. Very, very against that. But making sure that we understand here's exactly what happened. And, you know, sometimes it's a matter of I have to talk to attorney and say, well, sure, ex-spouse number one did this, but your client kind of maybe did that too. So, you know, we need to talk about this. Trying to be that, third party, that voice of reason. Voice of reason. Almost like in an arbitration sense. Like where you're getting both parties to see where they have gaps or errors in their practice or judgment or whatever.

Bret
I have to ask this what's and of course, we obviously are not naming names, but what's the most interesting, outrageous thing you caught somebody doing?

Lisa
It was actually last night. Oh my goodness, I, I there's a case I'm working on, and there was an aspect of it that was bothering me, and I even while I was at the gym last night, it was just bugging me. It was in the back of my mind. And so when I got home, I started looking at it from a different angle, and I found $500,000 that the spouse had embezzled in a three month period. Where it seems to be that instead of taking the deposits that were meant for the business, it looks like on her bank statements she deposited into her own personal account. But it but she did it in different increments. And she it was very sneaky how she did. It wasn't flat amounts. It wasn't like 50,000. It was, you know, like, you know, 194 and $80.20 something odd. Right. But things that matched other deposits that they had in the business. Oh, man. And I yeah, I had the wild hair and I just started looking at it and I went 0000, oh. So here I am at 9:00 last night, emailing the attorney and saying, here's this document, here's that document, here's the here's a screenshot, here's everything.

Bret
Yikes. Yeah. So you get, like you're it sounds like primarily, at least initially, you were brought in by, attorneys that you knew. But, I mean, any individual business or somebody who might be going through the unfortunate, like, a divorce situation, they can reach out to you directly and, you know, talk to you about what their situation is.

Lisa
Absolutely. Even business owners. Yeah. Where maybe they think their current bookkeeping or manager or somebody is embezzling or stealing or something's not quite right. We can come in and take a look at it so it doesn't even have to be a legal case. Sure, it can be. You know, I really should have more money than I think, you know, than I do. I don't know what's happening. Did somebody walk off with the cash? Did somebody, misappropriate? Did they? They use the business card for business for non-business purposes. What's going on? So it's not always that. And sometimes it can end up in criminal court too.

Bret
Sure. Wow. Very, very niche, you know, service that you provide. But, boy, when somebody needs it, we're here. Yeah. So glad. Now, I know you have a passion for, seniors. And for making sure they don't fall victim to scams. Talk about that a little bit.

Lisa
So, bc prior to Covid, the net reported losses by seniors across the U.S was $500,000. Last year, it was $4.9 billion, with a B, and the FBI thinks maybe only a quarter of people are actually reporting it. So the numbers is closer to $20 billion. And, this is this type of scam fraud. Defrauding seniors is not going to go away easily. Yeah, they're scammers are making too much money. Well, in that population's growing right. Population is growing and they have the boomers had a lot of discretionary money that a lot of money. They sometimes are maybe even worse off if they have diminished mental capacity. Do have ADHD and was undiagnosed. I'm pretty sure some of my family members had it, but everybody thought, you know, grandma crazy or. Oh, she's kind of a spaz. She might have ADHD, you know? And so it's very reactionary. But they use fear, they use urgency, they use, they plan their loneliness. And unfortunately, seniors can fall for this, and they have the money. I mean, when they bought a house ages ago, they paid it off. They own it. We buy houses now. If we can buy one here. Yeah. We're in debt for life. And so we don't have that disposable income. We don't have that kind of money. So seniors are the big target. I do presentations either on my own, with the FBI's elder Justice task force. Nice. Here in Carlsbad or with the Carlsbad police detective, Detective Savoy, who is in charge of, investigating. Yeah, yeah. Capturing these people who are committing crimes against.

Bret
So for the presentation side, I mean, I can imagine, like a senior center, but is it also like, maybe in a, a 55 plus community center or something, or a senior living? Senior living places?

Lisa
Yeah. Okay. I would love to be able to integrate into, you know, the 55 and up communities. However, it's a matter of do they have the space for me to come to do a presentation? So it's been mostly, senior living community. Sure. The disappointing part is I've had a few places that say, oh, no, no, our seniors are fine. We don't need that kind of thing. Oh you do. I mean, I you do. Yeah. Everybody everybody has a button that can be pushed to be defrauded. Yeah. Everybody does. And so, we all have a trigger. Yeah. Somewhere we don't even think about. We think, oh, no, nobody would ever defraud me. And then they defrauded somebody. So I go to, senior living community senior centers. I will be at the Older and Bolder Expo. Is catching bad guys. We want him. Yeah. That's good. Right?

Bret
Right, right. So no. But that's excellent though to have that at our at our event coming up. That's great. It's it's wonderful.

Lisa
And so the great thing too is in my presentations I present a lot of the artificial intelligence, that's being used against, seniors. So that's, that's the part like, I know now the AI is getting so advanced, like, it can it can imitate voices of people. I'm guessing here, but voices of, like, loved ones. And to make it really more authentic, a is great. And and all they need is a ten second clip. I've tested it on myself. It's a ten second clip of my actual voice so I can get it from voice mail. I can get it from social media. I can get it from, you know, just being out about I can get it from somewhere. Yeah. And things are getting hacked all the time. I mean, we, you know, we call a new a place, and it says this call may be recorded for quality customer service and customer service never improves. How often have we called in. And then we find out later on that the medical facility got hacked. Right? And they go away, they steal your personal information. Did they steal your voice? We don't know. I mean, they never say. Yeah. And so we don't know. And so now they've got our information. They've got your social, they've got all your insurance information, but then they've got other information like who are your emergency contacts. Yeah. Well if they go down that rabbit hole and they find out, hey, you've got grandchildren, suddenly you have a voice clone and you get the phone call of, hi, grandma. You know, it's me. I'm. I'm in jail. There was an accident. I need bail money. Yeah, and they have a scripted scenario that they've already talked about it. And the second grandma says, whoa, hold up, I got questions. The scammer, another scammer gets on the phone again. This is the attorney. This is the lawyer. You must do what I said and they scare them. And it's fear, it's urgency. And then they just make it so much worse and they get the money. I mean, the worst when I heard about was they convinced this very intelligent couple to put their retirement savings into a brown paper bag put it on the doorstep. And someone will come pick it up. But they were so convincing and so terrifying that they did it. And and my advice to anybody who gets this phone call is stop. Yeah, hang up the phone call. Call your loved one directly because now they can spoof your phone so it looks like it's your grandchild calling it sounds like them. But it isn't them. I mean, this one happened to my brother's father in law, who they were convincing, and he would have fallen for it. Except he didn't follow the directions of don't tell anybody. He never followed directions, which was fantastic in this case. In this case, it worked well. Called my brother, who's a lawyer because he'll know what to do. And my brother said, you know, your grandson standing right next to me, right? He's not in jail. He's good. I mean, it might have felt like he's in jail because my brother was going in a lecture, but that kind of feels like jail. But that happened. And then my mother got the call. But my mother, so vicious, she actually thought it was my nephew. And, she ripped into the fraudster, telling him how his life choices are awful. He's terrible person. He should stay in jail for the rest of his life. He got out and then. Yeah, and got an earful. And the fraudster actually got frustrated with my mother and hung up on her. And I'm like, I feel your pain. I'm sorry. I oh my goodness, that is. Tell me what. Like I kind of feel a little bit bad for the guy, but but just a tiny bit. Just a teeny tiny bit. Because you really shouldn't be doing this. That's right. But it's convincing. And my friend was like, no, I thought it was, you know, I thought it was, you know, your nephew would be the that's that's how you would respond. That's great. Isn't that? Yeah. Call it didn't involve, writing a check to bail him out is a life lesson. She was going to make sure he knew it exactly right. That's so interesting. Yeah, yeah, I get such good feedback. And I run into so many seniors who have already been defrauded. Yeah. And my my advice to anybody who has been defrauded is, even if it's been a year and a half, file a police report. Yep. And also file with the FBI. If they go to I see 3.gov it, which is internet crime complaint center.gov. I see through this. So the the letter I, the letter C letter C the letter and the number three. Oh the letter I, the letter C the number 3ic3.gov.gov. They can fill out the information and it will go directly to the FBI. And then the under justice task force will be able to handle it from there. Okay. And the thing is that we might be holding onto a piece of the puzzle that can crack it wide open. Just one little tidbit, one piece in the puzzle. And I know, like what you're saying, like, I think this is a waste of my time, though. Never going to catch this guy or gal or whatever. You know, I'm never going to get this money back, so why even bother? But but you might get the money back. You might add to the FBI. I've seen their personnel file. They have pictures of people who got some of their money back, if not all of it back. And there was a, article in NBC news in May, and it was, detective from Carlsbad and the elder justice task force that captured a guy who stole $145,000 from a senior here in Carlsbad. And they got him, got him red handed. Nice. So love that. Got it. You got to help because, the example I use is if, if my house gets robbed and I say nothing because they think, oh, well, we I left my door locked, I won't tell anybody. Yeah, but then you live next door to me, and and you get robbed. And there are other neighborhoods robbed, and none of us talk and we don't say anything. We're just allowing it to happen. And we could have prevented it. Yeah, they could have set up a sting to capture them. They could have tracked it. And so if we say nothing, we're actually helping the criminal. We're not. Yeah. It's a good way to put it.

Bret
That's true. Interesting. Well that's wonderful. So I'm assuming if, somebody's hearing this and it's like, man, I have this XYZ audience that I'm associated with that would love a presentation. They could reach out to you.

Lisa
Absolutely. Absolutely. Cool. They can go to my website. They can give me a call there on my website. There's a form for the presentation that I'll get.

Bret
Okay. Yeah. Because I saw a specific spot on your website that people could inquire about this, which we should tease out right now. I believe it is the word number crunching Inc. I inc.com correct number crunching inc.com. And of course also if it's a business or somebody who is in like a divorce situation who is looking for the kind of expertise you have, your website would be a great place to start the website.

Lisa
It's a great place. Or they can call my phone number, which is (760) 310-4547. They can give me a call that way as well. Okay. Or have their attorneys if if they have an attorney we can work with the attorneys too.

Bret
Very nice. Well, I appreciate what you do. You know, because I know from both sides, like this elder fraud side, but also from the business side. As I, as I said, a little bit earlier, might not be something somebody needs every day, but when they do need it, they need a trusted resource that, you know, is super skilled. And, I mean, I listen to you talk about going down those rabbit trails of finding that stuff. And it sounds awful to me like I couldn't I couldn't do that on a day to day, on the daily, maybe on a, you know, one time. And of course, occasionally I have to just too, because it's like, wait, what happened with this? You know, in my own, in our own business here at the chamber. But I couldn't do it like the way you do and like, you're, like, super charged by it. So we appreciate you are here doing that.

Lisa
This is it's. I have fun going down those rabbit trails and finding what they've done. I love it, it's to me, it's all a big puzzle. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come and share who you are, what you do, and, being a part of our community. Thank you. This was a great time, and I hope that the audience really gets the information that they need and understands that they can do something about fraud that they are seeing.

Bret
Awesome. Thank you. Lisa.

Lisa
Thank you.