Month: June 2008

Patrick Byrne & Co. Up to Dirty Message Board Tricks Again

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I occasionally take a peek at stock message boards like the Investor Village Overstock.com board when I need a bit of entertainment. It’s especially interesting when the poster “Hannibal” makes statements about the financials and operations of Overstock.com and makes no disclosure that he is, in fact, Patrick Byrne the CEO of Overstock (NASDAQ:OSTK).

Patrick and his little friends have a history of using dirty tricks to try to gather information on the people who dare to say anything negative about Overstock. Paid cyberstalker Judd Bagley is known for secretly embedding code into messages he posts on message boards, with the intent of harvesting information about the IP addresses of those who read and respond to his messages.

Read morePatrick Byrne & Co. Up to Dirty Message Board Tricks Again

McGee “Potential”…. For What?

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Racist Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane weighed in today on the conviction of former Milwaukee alderman Michael McGee (who sometimes used the name Michael Jackson when skirting laws).

His reaction is not much of a surprise. McGee was set up. A witness “got” McGee to say things that convicted him. (If that’s what you call McGee bragging about his crimes.) The government was much too harsh on McGee. There’s a grand conspiracy. But on a positive note, he didn’t shake down blacks… just Arabs and Indians. (Kane’s words, not mine.)

But the funniest part of his column was this:

Read moreMcGee “Potential”…. For What?

UPS Rats Out FedEx

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Interesting story from Bloomberg:

A secret report from a lobbyist who represents United Parcel Service Inc. prompted an Ohio state investigation into employment practices of FedEx Corp., leading to a finding that FedEx owed back taxes and interest.

Kenneth Kies, a Washington tax lawyer and lobbyist whose firm has been paid $540,000 by UPS since 2002, sent Ohio officials a 562-page report in December 2006 alleging that FedEx misclassified truck drivers as contractors. A copy of the report, including a cover letter in which Kies asked for confidentiality, was released to Bloomberg News by Ohio officials.

Read moreUPS Rats Out FedEx

Fantastic Article About MLMs and Moms

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The publication Brain, Child has a wonderful story written by Stacey Schultz, about the devastating effects multi-level marketing companies can have on women. She’s included specific comments about Herbalife, Arbonne, and Mary Kay, but also has a lot of general information on MLMs. Excerpts of the story that pertain to Mary Kay and my site, … Read more Fantastic Article About MLMs and Moms

A Little Thing Called “Intent”

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Last week the federal trial of former Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee (also known as Michael Jackson, depending upon which agency is looking for him) began. He’s up on felony charges of extortion, bribery, and failing to file financial transaction forms that could get him 30 years in prison, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of question about whether or not he had a habit of shaking down business owners in his district.

For 10 months, Adel Kheirieh (known as Jack Adel) helped law enforcement record conversations in which McGee is doing the dirt. The defense’s only real chance is to tarnish the credibility of Adel, but even if they can do that, the tapes seem to be undeniable proof that McGee was forcing business owners to pay bribes and give him free merchandise totaling tens of thousands of dollars.

The things McGee extorted out of business owners in his district included money, prepaid cell phones, food, and beverages.

Read moreA Little Thing Called “Intent”

Seller Beware: Inside the Insidious, Too-Good-To-Be-True, “Mom Friendly” World of Those Work-From-Home Business Offers

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Brain, Child

By Stacey Schultz

You might hear the story of how Nicole Lopez lost $10,000 and think, “How could she be so stupid?” But when you talk to her on the phone, you don’t get that feeling at all. Her voice is calm and kind. She knows she screwed up. It makes you feel really sad.

Lopez, twenty-nine, lives in Springville, Utah, with her husband and two children. She’s got a college education and a full-time job as a manager at a flexible-packaging manufacturing company. In 2004, when she was a sales assistant for her company, she started to really hate the grind. She missed her kids, who were home with her mother-in-law all day, and she almost never saw her husband, who was still in school and working nights. So she did that thing we’ve all done when we don’t know where else to turn for help: She went online.

She found a site that asked all the right questions and offered all the right answers. Tired of working that dead end job, need extra income or want the financial freedom to stay home with your kids or take a vacation? reads one site that Lopez pointed out is similar to the one she saw four years ago. There are a million work at home opportunities … and you need no prior experience to be successful.

Read moreSeller Beware: Inside the Insidious, Too-Good-To-Be-True, “Mom Friendly” World of Those Work-From-Home Business Offers

Pressing Questions for MLM Supporter Len Clements

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Len Clements MLM SupporterToday I got an email from Len Clements, the multi-level marketing evangelist and career college graduate who has been a vocal supporter of Usana Health Sciences (NASDAQ:USNA).

Len Clements published five disjointed “rebuttals” to the various reports, videos, and press releases put out by Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery Institute about Usana. These rebuttals appeared to be a great source of pride to Len Clements, but were almost completely ignored by the media. Even better, the Len Clements writings were totally ignored by Usana, the entity he was so fervently defending.

Read morePressing Questions for MLM Supporter Len Clements