Promises of 'Passive Income' On Amazon Led To Death Threats For Negative Online Review, FTC Says (cnbc.com) 44
"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.
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.
So will Amazon be found to be an accessory? (Score:2)
Yeah, I didn't think so...
Re:So will Amazon be found to be an accessory? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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but is Amazon really doing enough to vet these companies? Amazon is profiting from this so there is some liability somewhere. Of course, IANAL
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IANAL either, but a helpful first lesson for you: profit != liability.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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We don't need more regulation, we need effective regulation.
Money is power, power corrupts.
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Mussolini supposedly made the trains run on time.
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At the very least he made reports of the trains not running on time disappear.
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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.
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I'm rather certain that's it's not conspiracy.
For example Amazon would need to be extremely stupid to talk to these people about how to commit fraud using Amazon. Even if they intended to do it, what they should do is put up a page on "things to avoid so you won't be committing fraud", and have someone send them a link to that. No getting together and agreeing.
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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.
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Red flag (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Buddy of mine got banned for leaving a bad review (Score:2)
Amazon reviews are worse than useless.
Laughing at the CNBC article's irony... (Score:2)
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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)
Re:How about FBI too? (Score:5, Interesting)
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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
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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.
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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
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How about we NOT share every fucking detail of our lives online?
Yeah but then how are we going to build a personal brand and get money and attention?
Can you just imagine all the silicon valley visionaries and innovators who depend on "dumb fucks". What of the sweet baby rays? What about the days smoking meats? Who will pay for Peter Theil's handsome asexual blood boys?
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--If you need to talk...get a real friend in meatspace or shy of that, find a shrink to talk to....--
And there is the core of it. Online presence has taken the place of real human contact. We are experiencing the downside of this 'convenience'.
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I am SO thankful I grew up before the internet and social media....
I have TONs of actual friends I talk to regularly and see in meatspace whenever possible...many weekly at least.
My only problem is that some are actually SO long term, I've lost one to death....
But so thankful...I mean, these are people I trust with keys to my house.
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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.
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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.
Remember? (Score:2)
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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
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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.
and did they harm the family? (Score:2)
Outsourcing (Score:2)
Same boss, same
No Zero-Star Reviews Allowed? (Score:2)
Dont talk about a man's family (Score:2)