Several Utah companies are banking on the assumption that where there's money being taken, there's money to be made.
For investors about to hand over their fortune to someone whose background is unfamiliar, there's Fraud Preventors.And for car insurance companies or large firms who insure their own vehicle fleets, the Independent Witness might help avoid those expensive, overblown claims of injury in low-speed collisions.
Both services are new, and their creators promise they could help stop fraud. It's a unique twist on the business adage about finding a niche and filling it.
"Fraud no longer has to be an operating expense," said Scott McClellan, CEO of Independent Witness Inc., which markets a kind of "black box" to car insurance companies. "They are passing those losses along to the American insurance-paying public, but we're trying to convince them it's a manageable loss."
The Independent Witness box measures the impact of a collision, allowing experts who download data from the box to estimate the probability of certain types of injuries. That can go a long way toward resolving claims before they get to court, McClellan said.
Meanwhile, Fraud Preventors offers background checks on those who solicit investments. The Orem company also conducts seminars that teach how to avoid becoming a victim of white-collar crime.
"The key is to obtain and analyze information and then make an informed decision rather than just trusting someone," said James Larson, a Brigham Young University student who started the company and created an informative Web site (http://www.fraudpreventors.com).
As its customer base, Fraud Preventors is targeting would-be investors who don't necessarily use a professional brokerage house or mutual fund manager. Larson said mortgage and insurance companies also might benefit from services that could identify potential white-collar criminals.
At Independent Witness, located in West Valley City, the hope is that taxicab and trucking companies -- as well as other car insurers -- will see the benefit of having objectively recorded data about a collision. That would eliminate many of the hassles involved in estimating the force involved in a crash, McClellan said.
The company, which plans to begin installing its product in cars later this year, is trying to sidestep privacy concerns that have plagued "black boxes" installed by car manufacturers. But Independent Witness says its boxes don't raise the same concerns because they don't aim to record data that would establish liability in a crash.
Independent Witness also plans to develop a database of collision severity information that could be used to guide the decisions of victims, attorneys and judges in cases where soft-tissue injury is claimed. The company's Web site is (http://www.iwiwitness.com).