Litigation

My recent articles at AOL?s WalletPop

Posted on November 23, 2008
Here are a few of the more interesting articles I’ve written at AOL’s personal finance site WalletPop recently. An uglier side to the AIG story - Employees being harassed and intimidated by consumers. Hey Big Three : No bailout for you! - Why the automakers shouldn’t get bailout funds...

Milwaukee Public Schools wasteful spending exposed

Posted on November 22, 2008
It has long been a mystery how a school system as bad as Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) can spend over $14,000 per year per child.On a daily basis, the school district is spending $3,287,671.23 a day, 365 days a year. At that rate of spending, you’d think they would have something to show for it...

The Overstock.com train wreck continues

Posted on November 20, 2008
For almost two years, Sam Antar (convicted felon and former CFO of Crazy Eddie) has been writing about Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) and his questions about their financial reporting and disclosures. I became interested in the company’s financial statements and SEC filings a few months later and began blogging about Overstock and nutty CEO Patrick Byrne as [...

United First Financial broker numbers

Posted on November 18, 2008
Today I received some interesting information on United First Financial, the company selling the $3,500 Money Merge Account. Here is a listing of all UFF agents (warning: large file download), showing that there are 59,703 agents on the rolls. The fee to sign up as an agent is $175...

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Interested in having The Buyer Group do PR for you?

Posted on November 17, 2008
What kind of public relations firm do you want working for your company? Do you want one that represents you well? Do you want one that is professional in everything they do? If so, you might want to avoid The Buyer Group. The Buyer Group is a PR firm that is working on behalf of Shop To [...

Richard Davis and Trademark Properties win Flip This House lawsuit against A&E

Posted on November 14, 2008
The 2006 lawsuit against A&E by Richard Davis and Trademark Properties of the “Flip This House” reality show has concluded with a jury verdict. After five hours of deliberation, the jury awarded Davis $4 million. David alleged that he and A&E had a verbal agreement to split all revenue from Flip This House 50/50...

Shop to Earn: Please get my web address right

Posted on November 14, 2008
In a lame, half-hearted attempt to counteract the truths posted here about Shop To Earn and Shop To Earth, the company has started an “official” blog. The blog tells readers next to nothing, but is a place for STE brokers to high-five each other about the company...

No Surprise: The ?bailout bill? is falling apart

Posted on November 14, 2008
Whether from dishonesty, incompetence, or a bit of both, the big $700 billion “bailout bill” that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson begged lawmakers to approve is falling apart. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Michelle Malkin writes: And now? The pulled-out-of-the-posterior ?$700 billion? price tag has ballooned into the trillions...

More gifts from the government for the financially irresponsible

Posted on November 13, 2008
From Loren Steffy at the Houston Chronicle: The plan calls for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now under government control, to modify loans for its customers, which include more than 30 million mortgage holders. Beginning Dec. 15, the government would reduce interest rates for homeowners who are at least three months behind on their mortgage payments and owe [...

There?s a deficit in a budget we haven?t even created yet!

Posted on November 12, 2008
I have plenty of gripes about politicians. Probably my biggest issue is their widespread inability to live within their means… that is, create a budget that works based upon the tax dollars coming in. Less money coming in means that less money should be spent...

Credit card company bailout next?

Posted on November 10, 2008
Earlier today I wrote an article on WalletPop.com about the ever-growing bailouts being handed out by the federal government. Specifically, I’m a little ticked off by the AIG bailout, which was at $85 million about a month ago, and now sits at $150 billion...

ShopToEarn broker earnings watch

Posted on November 10, 2008
ShopToEarn reports that it has 45,000 “members.” I am interpreting that to include website owners, business builders, and brokers. Of those members, 10,000 of them, or 22% will be paid a commission on November 21st for October activity. That means 78% of people have earned no commission (despite claims that everyone can make money in [...

ShopToEarn: Don?t talk about actual money!

Posted on November 10, 2008
ShopToEarn and ShopToEarth recently communicated the following to its members: Talk about how many times you?ve SCORED! and not about how much you?ve earned! Based on advice from Counsel, it is very important that we focus on how many times we?ve SCORED! as opposed to the money that thousands are earning...

Carnival of Fraud - November 10, 2008

Posted on November 10, 2008
Welcome to the November 10, 2008 edition of carnival of fraud. Moneywalks presents Credit Report and How It All Works posted at moneywalks. Kirby presents Are you stupid for paying your mortgage? | Kirby on Finance posted at Kirby on Finance. Leon Gettler presents Financial ethics and the meltdown posted at Sox First, saying, ?What does the implosion [...

Shop To Earn - How to Build Most Effectively

Posted on November 08, 2008
The information reproduced here is from the back office available to ShopToEarn brokers. It is being posted here for educational and critique purposes, as permitted under fair use principles. How To Build Most Effectively when you click on Graphic Entry There are 2 ways to enroll new Website Owners, Business Builders, and Brokers (Website Owner + [...

We fight.

Posted on November 05, 2008
What do we (conservatives and Republicans) do now that the election is over? We fight. From Michelle Malkin: There is no time to lick wounds, point fingers, and wallow in post-election mud. I?m getting a lot of moan-y, sad-face ?What do we do now, Michelle?? e-mails...

Election fraud and the future of America

Posted on November 05, 2008
One of my big fears about yesterday’s election was that fraud would play a big part in the results. I know that fraud was at work, but I don’t know how much of an impact it had. It is incomprehensible to me that so many things in this world require picture identification - - getting [...

ShopToEarn Business Builder Commission Rules as of 7/26/08

Posted on November 03, 2008
The information reproduced here is from a ShopToEarn communication to brokers. It is being posted here for educational and critique purposes, as permitted under fair use principles. There are two qualifications that a Business Builder must maintain to receive SCORE! Commissions: A...

Gross incompetence at Overstock.com

Posted on November 03, 2008
Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) and its “colorful” CEO Patrick Byrne have a history of something…. At worst, it’s a history of misleading investors with false information, incomplete and inaccurate disclosures, and phony accounting measures...

Why audits are near worthless (yes, internal audit too)

Posted on November 02, 2008
Francine McKenna at re: The Auditors has an interesting post and set of comments about internal audit functions at public companies and the importance of internal auditors. External auditors look at a company’s financial statements and a small amount of underlying transactions in order to issue a report that the financial statements are properly presented...

Bailout head Neel Kashkari wants transparency (except when he doesn?t)

Posted on October 31, 2008
It’s been widely reported that Neel Kashkari, Goldman Sachs alum and head of the $700 billion bailout, has said he wants transparency in administering the whole process. He is quoted as saying: “Consistent with Congress’ intent, we are committed to transparency and oversight in all aspects of the program and have already taken several important steps [...

MonaVie: Scared of Amway

Posted on October 31, 2008
The MonaVie Distributor Application is very interesting. It has an entire section devoted to Amway. Check it out: CERTIFICATION In connection with my application and agreement to become a distributor for MonaVie LLC (?MonaVie?), I hereby certify that: 1...

Auditor liability in market meltdown?

Posted on October 30, 2008
It should come as no shock to anyone that lots of fingers are being pointed related to Wall Street’s meltdown, and specifically related to the banking industry. And auditors are likely to find themselves the targets of lawsuits. Auditor malpractice is often hard to prove, but in this case, I think there will be several [...

Massive MonaVie distributors losses demonstrated with the company?s own numbers

Posted on October 29, 2008
Multi-level marketing expert Robert Fitzpatrick discusses the phenomenon of high-level MLM distributors going from company to company. He also explains some distributor numbers released by MonaVie, which show that 91% of distributors receive no commissions from the company, and that the bottom 99% of distributors receive an average of $3...

Joe the Plumber: It?s really about the dream

Posted on October 28, 2008
The American Dream of Joe the Plumber Whether you consider him a plumber, a contractor, a political plant or just a guy who’s behind on his taxes, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — a.k.a. “Joe the Plumber” — has a point, says WalletPop contributor Tracy Coenen...

Only at Overstock.com

Posted on October 28, 2008
Executives at Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) announced last week that they’d be restating financial statements for 2003 through 2008. (And a few of those years were already restated once, so this makes it the third set of financial statements that will be issued for those years...

ShopToEarn: How Much, How Fast

Posted on October 27, 2008
Shop To Earn representatives frequently promote the idea of earning $4,100 in commissions your first 30 days after signing up? How can you do it? The details are below, and it’s not as easy as it seems. It starts with “just recruiting” some people...

Overstock.com executives subject to clawback provision in Sarbanes-Oxley?

Posted on October 26, 2008
This past week, our good friends at Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) - - CEO Patrick Byrne, President Johnathan Johnson, and SVP of Finance David Chidester - - made an announcement about how they have screwed up the company’s financial statements again...

Overstock.com: What?s $10 million more in losses?

Posted on October 24, 2008
You can be sure of two things when looking at Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) financial statements: They’re wrong There are massive losses (which will be even bigger when #1 comes to light) Since 2000, Overstock.com has never had a profitable year...

Milwauke Public Schools: Obscene property tax increase

Posted on October 23, 2008
Tonight the Milwaukee Public Schools board is going to vote in favor of increasing city property taxes 14.6% for the school portion. That is the largest portion of the property tax bill, so overall taxpayers will see a sharp increase in their bills. Student enrollment has been steadily declining, while spending has been increasing...

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