Corporate & Securities Law

Fair Finance: Latest Update On Tim Durham?s Ohio Business

By Steven Caruso

Fair Finance has yet to reopen its doors for business. The only signs of life at the company?s Akron headquarters: Several more signs behind the building have been recently marked with the words, UnFair Finance.

Last week, a news release issued by lawyers for Fair Finance said the company hoped to restart its accounts receivables billing and collection business on Dec. 14 but did not know when it would reopen. The company also gave no indication of when or if it would be able to resume selling and redeeming investment certificates for investors.

Federal investigators have suspected that Fair Finance, bought by Indianapolis businessman Timothy S. Durham in 2002, was being operated as a Ponzi scheme. According to court documents, Ohio investors might have as much as $200 million in outstanding investment certificates with Fair Finance.

Meanwhile, the Akron Beacon Journal is reporting that at least one Fair Finance investor has been asked by federal officials to complete a questionnaire as part of an ongoing investigation into the company. According to the paper, the investor?s money with Fair Finance was part of an inheritance. When she went to retrieve a check from the company in late November for her relative?s $17,000, she was greeted by closed offices.

The investor said the money was supposed to go toward helping her bury a relative. Because she couldn?t get her money from Fair Finance, she had to come up with a down payment for her relative?s funeral and still owes $4,000.

On Nov. 24, the FBI raided the Akron, Ohio, headquarters of Fair Finance and another business owned by Tim Durham, Obsidian Enterprises in downtown Indianapolis.

Full post as published by Representing Investors on December 20, 2009 (boomark / email).