Comments on: Grant Thornton to SEC: Overstock.com is lying

By: Overstock.com and Patrick Byrne caught in another lie : Sequence Inc. Fraud Files Blog

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:04:33 +0000

[...] and that they were changing their stance, which is why Overstock had to fire them. Which led to Grant Thornton writing a letter to the SEC indicating that Overstock.com was lying, and making it clear that previously they didn’t have all the details on this situation (and [...]

By: Under Siege, Patrick Byrne Celebrates Black Friday at Little Big Horn | TheTradingReport

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:28:02 +0000

[...] salvos are coming at this poor, sick dude from all over, from forensic accountant Tracy Coenen to other respected accounting blogs (see this and this–”Overstock’s Nut-Bag [...]

By: Tracy Coenen

Tracy Coenen — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:39:54 +0000

We aim to please!

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:39:20 +0000

I have this blog on an RSS feed coming up in my Google reader. It seems like all I have seen lately is Overstock; obviously I was mistaken. Thanks for the clarification.

By: Tracy Coenen

Tracy Coenen — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:34:03 +0000

What amuses is me is that the accounting for a retail business isn’t even that complicated! There are zillions of retail outlets completing their accounting easily on a daily basis.

There is nothing complex about the accounting “issues” at Overstock.com, yet they still can’t produce an accurate financial statement to save their lives.

Are there still actually people who are long OSTK? I mean sane, rational ones? How on earth can they evaluate their investment decision? Certainly not on the basis of any of the financial information produced by Overstock!

By: Alanis

Alanis — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:30:25 +0000

Isn’t it ironic that the quarterly slop in their accounting system is an order of magnitude worse on a relative basis than the slop in the market settlement system (FTDs) that Byrne crusades against. That slop is deeply criminal. His slop isn’t for some reason.

Which leads me to a question. Couldn’t they just create a category called “accounting slop” and just be done with trying to make 2+2=4? Math is hard, you know. I suppose they could call the category FTDs. Failure to Debit.

By: Tracy Coenen

Tracy Coenen — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:50:16 +0000

And just for fun, I took a look at the last 30 articles posted here. 4 are about Overstock. 2 are about United First Financial. 24 are about other topics. 80% not on topics you’re complaining about. Again, it looks like there’s plenty of variety! Happy reading!

By: Tracy Coenen

Tracy Coenen — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:48:26 +0000

Scctt – Seems you may need to take a better look around. I see 10 articles on the front page. 3 are about Overstock, since they’ve got some really serious and newsworthy things going on. None are about the “mortgage paydown MLM.” 7 are on other topics. I think having 70% of the last ten articles not about what you’re complaining about is plenty of variety. Thanks for reading!

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:44:48 +0000

Jeez, enough with the Overstock stuff already. Isn’t there any other company out there doing some nefarious things that could be reported? I find it interesting to read about scam companies but it seems all I read about here is Overstock and that mortgage paydown MLM. Variety keeps things interesting.

By: Tracy Coenen

Tracy Coenen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:16:40 +0000

Well, there are two possible correct choices:

1. They can go back and restate prior quarters
2. They can book it in the quarter in which it’s discovered, possibly also booking an offsetting reserve if there is some uncertainty about it

There’s obviously a real problem if a company is expected to go back and restate financial statements every time an error is discovered by them or someone doing business with them. Doing so just wouldn’t make any sense. However, the company at least has to consider whether that might be the route to go.

In this situation, I simply don’t know which would have been correct, mainly because Overstock has been lying and concealing information. (And partly because I don’t have all the nuances of the many zillions of accounting rules memorized, and I haven’t had the desire to research it yet.)

What is NOT an option is booking something on the basis of when the cash was received.