I lived in Japan in 1985, when Japan's biggest financial scandal occured: a company that sold shares of gold bars as an investment, Toyota Shoji, had been uncovered as a bankrupt fraud, bilking thousands and thousands (mostly elderly) out of their life savings. (There is no social security in Japan.)
Then, the president was slashed to death in front of live TV by 2 enraged men who told the camera they were there to kill him... It was an absolutely shocking affair that rocked the nation for a long time.
People can be innocent victims of fraud. The investors did not get their money back from the company, and the government was not held liable for damages either.
I bring this up because I often think of Toyota Shoji when I think of the Watchtower. They were very good at smoothly deflecting questions and at assuring investors that they were bonefied. They managed to keep putting off people until they were discovered to be going bankrupt (investors could not cash in on their certificates). If they had been uncovered for fraud much earlier the story would have been different: people could have quit investing and tried to reclaim while assets were available.
As it is, since there is no government committee to protect against religious fraud, it is up to each of us to be sure that we are not a victim.
Here is a link that tells that story fairly well.
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200209/26/20020926p2a00m0dm026000c.html
(Here's an excerpt from the above:
...Toyota Shoji was established in Osaka in 1981.
The scam organized by the company was simple but effective. The victims purchased gold from Toyota Shoji, but the company did not hand over the precious metal saying it would keep the gold for further investments.
In five years until its demise, the firm collected a staggering 200 billion yen from about 290,000 mostly elderly people through fictitious gold sales schemes.
The case earned further notoriety through the shocking murder of Toyota Shoji Chairman Kazuo Nagano.
It looked like Nagano's arrest was imminent after the company went bankrupt and a media contingent was gathering outside Nagano's apartment to capture the moment. However, two mobsters suddenly appeared, declaring to the camera their intentions to kill the chairman, and proceeded to slay Nagano with a bayonet under the gaze of a live TV camera.
Five Toyota Shoji executives were eventually handed prison terms between 10 and 13 years for fraud.
Meanwhile, Nakabo's team of receivers was able to reclaim only 10.5 percent of the 200 billion yen.
....
Also, the following about Toyota Shoji is from this website, under a section called "Swindles Increasing".
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/yosha/crime/crimetrends1987.html
Kazuo Nagano, board chairman of the Toyota Shoji group, which caused the biggest scandal in history involving 3,885 victims [note: this number is not correct, I think it is a typo] and 12.8 billion yen in damages, was stabbed to death in June 1985, one month before bankruptcy brought the company's activities to a halt. Toyota Shoji's scheme was to sell its customers gold bars through a so-called "Gold Family Contract" which gave the company the right to hold the gold for one to five years in return for a bond and yearly dividends of 10 percent to 15 percent in certificates. The company collected money this way while knowing that it would not be able to deliver the gold or pay the dividends when the bonds matured. When the Gold Family Bonds began to draw criticism, the company planned a shift to a membership scheme in which it would sell memberships in practically unusable golf courses and yacht clubs. [A shift?? Hmmmm.]
Of the 202.5 billion yen that Toyota Shoji collected from some 27,000 clients, 56 billion yen were squandered on personnel expenses, 48 billion yen on office costs, and 43 billion yen on related companies, leaving only a small amount for actual investment. The group included the Belgium Diamond Company, which was exposed as a pyramid scheme.
Toyota Shoji paid exorbitant salaries to its staff and spent huge sums of money to maintain its offices though it knew that such practices were unprofitable and ruinous. It seems that from the very beginning the company was set up to collect and divide money rather than make it. According to a list of the 2,000 top commission earners, which the company kept to spur its sales representatives, the very top earner received an average 12.76 million yen in commissions each month during the five months from December 1984. Some 389 representatives received monthly commissions of 1 million yen or more, in addition to monthly salaries of 400,000 yen or more. And nearly 400 employees were paid monthly salaries of 1.4 million yen or more, making Toyota Shoji an ultra-high-salary company...
Even most companies that are indicted for fraud, like Toyota Shoji, are staffed with what were once just ordinary sales people. When they do something risky, they are working for the company and so they feel little sense of personal responsibility. Besides, disobeying a company order, in Japan's corporate society, is an act less pardonable than even a crime. Hence the possibility that some pretext may turn an ordinary company, or its employees, to fraud...
You know it if someone is making you angry;
you know it if someone is tempting you;
but you do not easily know it if someone is deceiving you... that is why everything that is important must be checked out and judged honestly.
Food for thought for you, and a reminder that we are to be WISE, TEST ALL THINGS, and USE HONEST JUDGMENT (SCALES).
bebu