overstock.com

Overstock.com’s “Unusual” Financial Statements and Disclosures

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Supporters of Patrick Byrne and Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) can’t seem to get over the fact that the company has never turned a profit and that it is being investigated by the SEC (despite false assertions in the most recent conference call that the SEC has resolved “all the issues” and has sprinkled holy water on the company) and that there are numerous “unusual” disclosures and elements in the financial statements.

I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane regarding all these unusual, irregular, questionable, problematic, abnormal, odd items and see if a pattern emerges.

While under the watchful eye of the Sith Lord, I have generated quite a few blog posts regarding Patrick Bryne and Overstock.com. Isn’t it amazing how one, solitary public company can have situation after situation that indicates something is wrong with the financial data and disclosures? Continue reading

Materiality at Overstock.com Inc.

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Sam Antar made this nice find in regard to materiality, one of many issues at Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK). You see… materiality is an issue because, in addition to “unusual” material items at Overstock, we’ve seen several immaterial “unusual” items as well.

Users of financial statements have a tendency to overlook “immaterial” items, because by definition, they are quite small and likely don’t make much of a difference when you look at the financial statements as a whole

But don’t be fooled. Items deemed small and “immaterial” can in fact be very important to the financial statements. So says the SEC in Staff Accounting Bulleting 99: Continue reading

Overstock.com: Year-End Revenues Fall Far Short of Byrne’s Hype

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If Patrick Byrne is good at anything, it’s hyping Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) when the company is not deserving of the hype. To hear him tell it in real time, everything is rosy and the company is doing stellar and investors will surely be impressed. (It’s only a couple of years later that he admits to “screwing up” the company.)

The fourth quarter earnings release showed quarterly revenue up 2% to $300 million, and annual revenue down 2% to $768.8 million. Neither of these are particularly impressive.

And they are even less impressive when you look at them in conjunction with an interview Patrick Bryne gave CNBC on December 7, 2007. According to the company’s press release about the interview: Continue reading

Overstock “Executive” Playing on the Internet Again

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I put the word executive in quotes because I don’t think anyone in their right mind really considers Judd Bagley an executive at Overstock.com (NASDQ: OSTK). He is the smearmeister for Patrick Byrne. They like to call him an investigative reporter, but his investigation skills lack one critical element: accuracy.

This weekend, Judd, “Director of Communications” at Overstock.com was patting himself on the back for what he thought was a good bit of investigative work. Turns out he took a few facts, threw in several falsehoods, and drew erroneous conclusions that he’s now proclaiming as truth around the world wide web. Continue reading

More on the Overstock.com Accounting Shenanigans

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Patrick Byrne Overstock Accounting IrregularitiesThis year, Patrick Byrne and company have taken a liking to discussing the Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) financials using non-GAAP measures. This means that they present certain financial figures that are not computed in accordance with GAAP (accounting rules).

Who cares? As long as they disclose that they’re non-GAAP measures, it doesn’t matter, right? Wrong. You see, companies use non-GAAP measures for one of two things: Continue reading

Patrick Byrne and his three stooges

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Last week, Overstock.com CEO Patrick Bryne celebrated an apparent victory in court. Overstock is suing Gradient Analytics and Rocker Partners over some negative reports that were issued about Overstock. Of course, the negative reports weren’t negative because Overstock is a crappy company. No, the negative reports were negative simply because there is a Sith Lord conspiracy against Overstock.

So Byrne was busy doing his happy dance over this court ruling that allowed Overstock’s lawsuit to proceed. We’ll see how happy that ends up for Overstock, though, as there will certainly be some interesting things revealed when discovery begins and depositions are taken. Continue reading

Judd Bagley antics: Part 3

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Judd Bagley, cyberstalker at Overstock.comScipioAfricanus then brings us to the story of SlimVirgin. SlimVirgin is an administrator for Wikipedia. Judd Bagley has been known to sock puppet on Wikipedia with many screen names, and the administrators have disallowed these things. (They even went so far as to ban Wikipedia editing from all IP addresses owned by Overstock.com.)

Naturally, Bagley isn’t too happy that SlimVirgin is involved in the quest to stop him from his Black Ops which include vandalism to Wikipedia articles.

So Bagley decides to send SlimVirgin some emails laced with spyware. What’s the point? Scipio explains: Continue reading

Overstock.com and its phony earnings figures

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Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com O.coToday on the White Collar Fraud Blog, Sam Antar has the first part of a three part series on the inventory numbers at Overstock.com. It’s curious how Overstock’s inventory numbers always seem to create more questions than they answer.

Sam has some insight into this. As the former CFO of Crazy Eddie, a company that eventually folded after a massive fraud was uncovered, he says that one of the keys to perpetrating the fraud for as long as they did was deflecting attention away from suspicious items. Always put the focus back on the positive; keep everyone looking away from the negative.

In that vein, Overstock’s CEO Patrick Byrne (who is the target of a federal investigation) seems adept at doing exactly that. Unless, of course, a fraud investigator or investigative reporter is looking at his numbers. Continue reading

Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com CEO has surprised me

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After all the corporate crimes I’ve seen in the last 13-or-so years, it takes a lot to surprise me. Really, it does.

But Patrick Byrne, the nutty CEO of Overstock.com has suprised me. Now, I’d like to think that my threshhold for surprise is pretty high with him. I mean, this is the guy who talks about Sith Lord conspiracies on official, recorded conference calls with Wall Street. So you pretty much have to expect stupid things out of him. Continue reading

Judd Bagley is threatening people who speak out against the management and deception at Overstock.com?

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Judd Bagley

Judd Bagley

As this site and the blogs of Gary Weiss, Sam Antar, Jeff Matthews, Scipio Africanus (pen name) have often discussed, there is an ongoing campaign to expose the mangement of Overstock.com. People want Patrick Byrne and company to come clean with the investing community. The company’s financial statements raise many questions, and the behavior of the company’s executives leaves much to be desired.

In the latest chapter, Judd Bagley, Overstock.com’s Director of Communications, is threatening Scipio Africanus. Scipio has been very active in trying to hold Overstock management accountable.

Judd thinks he’s figured out the identity of Scipio, and is threatening him: Continue reading