A long firm (also known as a consumer credit fraud) is a trading company set up for fraudulent purposes; the basic operation is to run the company as an apparently legitimate business by buying goods and paying suppliers promptly to secure a good credit record;. Once they are sufficiently well-established, the perpetrators then purchase the next round of goods on credit and decamp with both the goods and profits from previous sales. The goods can then be sold elsewhere. The procedure needs a certain amount of money to set up, often the proceeds from another crime or a previous long firm.
Long firm frauds have become significantly less common in recent years since it is no longer possible to operate for any length of time without leaving a significant paper trail.
Famous quotes containing the words long and/or firm:
“Every man who has at last succeeded, after long effort, in calling up the divinity which lies hidden in a woman’s heart, is startled to find that he must obey the God he summoned.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Although a firm swat could bring a recalcitrant child swiftly into line, the changes were usually external, lasting only as long as the swatter remained in view....Permanent transformation had to be internal....The habits of self discipline, as laborious and frustrating as they were to achieve, offered the only real possibility of keeping children safe from their own excesses as well as the omnipresent dangers of society.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)