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The Almighty Buck

Promises of 'Passive Income' On Amazon Led To Death Threats For Negative Online Review, FTC Says (cnbc.com) 78

Posted by BeauHD from the money-making-schemes dept.
"The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on 'automation' companies that launch and manage online businesses on behalf of customers in exchange for an upfront investment," reports CNBC's Annie Palmer. "The latest case targets Ascend Ecom, which ran an e-commerce money-making scheme, primarily on Amazon." The FTC accuses the e-commerce company of defrauding consumers of at least $25 million through false claims, deceptive marketing practices, and attempts to suppress negative reviews. From the report: Jamaal Sanford received a disturbing email in May of last year. The message, whose sender claimed to be part of a "Russian shadow team," contained Sanford's home address, social security number and his daughter's college. It came with a very specific threat. The sender said Sanford, who lives in Springfield, Missouri, would only only be safe if he removed a negative online review. "Do not play tough guy," the email said. "You have nothing to gain by keeping the reviews and EVERYTHING to lose by not cooperating."

Months earlier, Sanford had left a scathing review for an e-commerce "automation" company called Ascend Ecom on the rating site Trustpilot. Ascend's purported business was the launching and managing of Amazon storefronts on behalf of clients, who would pay money for the service and the promise of earning thousands of dollars in "passive income." Sanford had invested $35,000 in such a scheme. He never recouped the money and is now in debt, according to a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit unsealed on Friday. His experience is a key piece of the FTC's suit, which accuses Ascend of breaking federal laws by making false claims related to earnings and business performance, and threatening or penalizing customers for posting honest reviews, among other violations. The FTC is seeking monetary relief for Ascend customers and to prevent Ascend from doing business permanently.
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Promises of 'Passive Income' On Amazon Led To Death Threats For Negative Online Review, FTC Says More

Promises of 'Passive Income' On Amazon Led To Death Threats For Negative Online Review, FTC Says

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    • Re:So will Amazon be found to be an accessory? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Friday September 27, 2024 @05:34AM (#64821161) Homepage

      Do you even know what the criteria to be considered an accessory to a crime are? The criteria are not "Rosco P. Coltrane doesn't like them".

      The fraud victims bought into get-rich-quick schemes that violated Amazon's policies, and Amazon often closed their seller accounts for doing so. Unless a prosecutor can show that Amazon both had knowledge of this fraud and took some action to assist the fraud, Amazon cannot be held responsible as an accessory to the fraud.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

        but is Amazon really doing enough to vet these companies? Amazon is profiting from this so there is some liability somewhere. Of course, IANAL

        • Re:So will Amazon be found to be an accessory? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Friday September 27, 2024 @07:22AM (#64821263) Homepage

          IANAL either, but a helpful first lesson for you: profit != liability.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

            IANAL either, but a helpful first lesson for you: profit != liability.

            It doesn't really matter if transnational corporations obey the laws or not since they're so far above 'our laws and can so easily just rewrite them whenever necessary, now does it?

            • Re:So will Amazon be found to be an accessory? (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Friday September 27, 2024 @08:16AM (#64821365) Homepage

              If you want to argue that Amazon is breaking some specific law or laws then do so, but your feelz plus their profits do not constitute such an argument.

              In this particular case, no one has (yet) argued that Amazon was an actual accessory to the fraud in this case. In particular, no one has offered evidence that Amazon had the requisite knowledge of this fraud. It's also not clear that Amazon acted, or refrained from acting, in a way that knowingly furthered the fraud.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          but is Amazon really doing enough to vet these companies? Amazon is profiting from this so there is some liability somewhere. Of course, IANAL

          I agree that Amazon and others aren't doing enough... but that's not really a decision for the courts, rather that is the domain of law and policy makers and shouldn't be made retroactive.

          If they're not doing enough to prevent fraud, then we need to lay out guidelines to inform companies of the minimum expectations they are legally required to meet, just as we do with banks... well I mean as most civilised countries do with banks.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

            We don't need more regulation, we need effective regulation.

            Money is power, power corrupts.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by HBI ( 10338492 )

              Mussolini supposedly made the trains run on time.

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by hey! ( 33014 )

                At the very least he made reports of the trains not running on time disappear.

              • Mussolini said fascism was better called corporatism.

                What do you think he would say about Amazon?

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by HBI ( 10338492 )

                  That was my point, perhaps I was too subtle. Who wants a more authoritarian government in the name of efficiency?

                  • I'm trying this thing now where I don't go balls out until I find out what someone actually meant, I find it leads to more interesting conversations.

                    Unfortunately, a lot of people want a more authoritarian government. They don't think, so they don't think that it will be a problem for them.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by HBI ( 10338492 )

                      Agreed. And the stuff about not going off half cocked is just a maturity and recovery thing, at least for me. It's just an internet post. If people don't agree with me, whatever. There is no 'winning' in this context.

        • Amazon is profiting from this so there is some liability somewhere. Of course, IANAL

          Indeed you are not a lawyer. The act of getting a profit doesn't make you magically liable for a 3rd party's actions.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hawk ( 1151 )

          >but is Amazon really doing enough to vet these companies?

          *which* company?

          The threatened person, or the company it knowingly hired to help him actively thwart amazon's policies?

          Amazon seeks and bans the first, and has limited direct ability to stop the second, short of figuring out and banning servers by ip.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

            Amazon needs to vet companies it does business with and for, of course

            Big Business uses their size to get away with stuff other companies cannot

            market domination and market manipulation are illegal and unethical

            money is power, power corrupts, we all see this

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hawk ( 1151 )

              but Amazon *isn't* knowingly doing business with this company: the scammer's very *purpose* and business model is hiding and lying to amazon about its existence. This is what it charges the its customer/victim.

              When amazon finds these scammers, it doesn't simply "vet" them, but blocks them and ban their victim/customer.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

                perhaps if Amazon did its due diligence then this wouldn't be happening as often

                notice how people rush to excuse the unethical and irresponsible actions of th eupper class but yet want poor people to spend their lives in jail for any transgressions

                pseudo-conservative classism in action

                just saying

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by hawk ( 1151 )

                  and how do you suppose they do any kind of diligence on a company actively hiding from them.

                  It issues a merchant account to the scammer's victim in a routine opening.

                  It has information on that person, who I suspect in the overwhelming majority of account openings looks in every way like a typical consumer trying to make extra money selling things, which is also what all the legal and illegal snooping in the world would find, for the simple reason that that's what the person is.

                  How are they supposed to find

      • If Amazon knowingly profits by being a platform for fraud that's called racketeering and it's illegal.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )

      Not for this but the amount of fake, dangerous and illegal goods sold through Amazon plus an assortment of other scams means they are complicit. They might feign ignorance, and claim to have procedures to report scams or claim refunds procedures buried in their UI somewhere. But the reality is they're happy to turn a blind eye and even happier to skim a % off sales, or the money in frozen accounts when the scammers are finally reported.

  • Red flag (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jools33 ( 252092 ) on Friday September 27, 2024 @05:44AM (#64821167)

    I have noticed fairly often that in the stats - I can see that there have been a lot of 1 star and 2 star reviews, but mysteriously I cannot navigate to a single one of them; that for me is always a red flag to avoid the product.

    • In other news did you know you can get banned from leaving reviews on Amazon? Also that there are bot nets that'll report you for leaving bad reviews?

      Amazon reviews are worse than useless.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Are you sure? I have never heard of that and I have left plenty of 1-star reviews. Always well justified and reasoned, of course. But I am in Europe where customers actually have rights...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Exactly. I always read a few low-star reviews. On good product I find "customer is a moron" (happens quite often), on bad ones I find legitimate complaints with explanations. So far I have not had any low-star reviews I could not access (but I am in Europe), but that would be an immediate "scam, stay away".

  • While talking about this story, in the trending pages on the side you find this other article: "36-year-old mom making $10,000 a month or more in passive income: My best side hustle advice"

    • While talking about this story, in the trending pages on the side you find this other article: "36-year-old mom making $10,000 a month or more in passive income: My best side hustle advice"

      Passive all right, she just lay there and didn't even pretend to be taking part. At one point she started scrolling through Facebook posts.

  • How about FBI too? (Score:5, Informative)

    by misnohmer ( 1636461 ) on Friday September 27, 2024 @06:46AM (#64821227)
    I get FTC going after fraudulent business, but shouldn't FBI be going after the death threats?

    • Re:How about FBI too? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Friday September 27, 2024 @07:07AM (#64821239) Homepage
      Mod parent up. This is something I've never understood about the online space. Some woman posts her story of abuse online and she gets death threats. A trans person tells their story and gets death threats from some fringe religious people. Heck, a mom of a trans person shares her story and she gets death threats from some fringe people in the trans community. Death threats are blatantly illegal and the police need to stop looking the other way. It's a tactic that shuts down reasonable online discussion and makes the whole place unbearably toxic.
      • True, but how many police do you think are out there. There are probably thousands of such cases every day. Most law enforcement are working on crimes that have caused actual physical or financial harm, not just threats. In the case above it was undoubtedly the financial element that got the FTC involved rather than the threats themselves.
        • This. There are only so many cops, and they only have 8-12 hours per day to do things.

          Meanwhile, several state spy agencies have embraced chaos as an art form coughRUSSIAcough, in addition to whatever 8chan edgelord groups consider themselves Xtreme (the capital X is important) and think swatting is fun. And it’s not that hard to write a bot that will occasionally email/dialup “insert group here” and make “insert fraudulent threat here”. Add an infinite loop, click run, wal

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by RobinH ( 124750 )
          Go after the social media companies that don't police it. We absolutely shouldn't be censoring political opinions online (which there's evidence that social media companies are actually doing) yet they should definitely stop death threats, and that seems like something AI could reliably detect, so they could automate the flagging.

          • Completely disagree the internet should censor social media companies entirely at the IP layer.
            Anyone who cries about needing their public square won't be worth listening to anyhow.

        • These death threats were used to coerce people to remove negative reviews which had resulted in financial harm to people across different states. These are not just some random "I disagree with you" or "I hate you" type of death threats. These are clearly manipulations for financial gain, and there should be a much easier trail to follow.
      • I think the problem is finding the actual human who made the threat, coupled with them perhaps being in another jurisdiction/Country, so, then the FBI would need to locate the physical person, negotiate with the country in question, and perhaps making death threats in that country are not illegal?

        I am 100% with you on Death Threats being illegal here in the USA but it seems no one takes them seriously until there is a dead body, or the person receiving those threats is a politician. It has been a pet pee

      • They don't have resources to track this stuff down and for some reason nobody talks about the fact that there are paid groups who do this kind of work and are pretty good at covering their tracks and are often in different countries.

        So when they do bust someone it's some easily manipulated 15 year old goober they recruited on discord and not the guy who pulls a ticket out of a queue to somewhere telling them their target of the day.

      • Which police. Your home town police? They're not going to figure out who is making a threat, or have jurisdiction over them if that get a hint about it. The most they will do is have a car drive by your place now and them to make sure there are no thugs actively beating you at the time.

        Now in this particular story, and similar ones, it is amazingly obvious that a death threat for a review is related to the business being reviewed. But then who has jurisdiction. Ideally, Amazon would be a good citizen a

    • The FBI can't possibly go after every internet death threat. The bar seems pretty high to get the FBI involved: Apparently the threshold is 60 threats against a Congressman and their staff: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07... [cnn.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Murder is a not a federal crime. Usually it's a state crime. The FBI might be willing to help, but I don't think it could reasonably be the lead agency.
      Many of the civil rights laws came about because murder was not a federal crime, and some states were selectively ignoring it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawk ( 1151 )

        Usually.

        But there are federal triggers, such as interstate threats, using interstate wire or mail, and so forth.

        And even if it lacks jurisdiction to charge for the homicide itself, it would be able to investigate the interstate issues, which solves the big issue of *finding* the person.

      • IANAL, but making death threats to defraud people across different states could probably be classified as interstate commerce fraud, which does fall under the FBI jurisdiction.

  • Remember? (Score:3)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Friday September 27, 2024 @08:29AM (#64821399)
    When making death threats was a crime onto itself? Now it is a normal part of life, and a tool for at least one quasi-political group.

    • I'd say the opposite. Death threats were a normal part of the online experience outside of yahoo forums or whatever place lames hung out.
      Except they were never taken seriously and not usually a good move.

      Then they got turned into some sort of political weapon where they have actual farms of people making death threats, stalking, and trying to dupe others into going after their targets. The change came rather suddenly, I'm sure the powers that be know well what's happening, it gets reported on in the press

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HBI ( 10338492 )

        I believe that blocking the internet off from foreign countries is going to be the ultimate resolution. I don't see another solution that will work.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          Well, it's the solution that several countries seem to like. But I'm not sue it will work without local enforcement. And I'm not sure it SHOULD work. It's got too many bad aspects.
          FWIW, people in groups who get worked up, always seem to want to shout some variation of "Kill the umpire!".

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by HBI ( 10338492 )

            This free and open internet stuff became a pathway for terrorism and international criminal activity. We can't have nice things.

            • This free and open internet stuff became a pathway for terrorism and international criminal activity. We can't have nice things.

              That was obvious to many of us a long time ago. Without actual names and sources and without emails having no cost for the sender, it's pie in the sky everyone is a good person and welcome to 2024, when all your base are belong to us, and everyone's personal information has been pwned, and we have a new form of Security through obscurity, where sure, the bad guys have everyone's credit card number, but since they have billions of them, what are the odds of your cards being used? This has been painfully obv

  • No ? another typical american comapny ripping off the customer by failing to deliver.
  • Another example of why it is a bad idea to outsource anything you or your staff can do themselves. My wife's boss wanted to outsource the company financial management, and when she asked "Why?" he had no better reason than than "Because everyone is doing it!". To me, "what everyone else is doing" is always a red flag in itself, showing that there is some very strong salesmanship going on somewhere, which in turn is motivivated by someone wanting to make some serious money at your expense.

    Same boss, same
  • From the get-go, there is a problem.
  • Things would have gone under the radar for much longer if they didn't make the threat. In my book, if you even talk about a man's family, you're fucked! If someone talks about my family, I'll go to the end of this World to fight with them. That's a promise.
  • How has no one mentioned this...
    Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

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