

"My Story" (of why the FTC came after him for $300k) - tptacek
http://www.prosmallbusiness.org/?page_id=20

======
tptacek
A sockpuppet for this guy submitted this story, about a small business being
taken for a ride by the FTC, and the VP/Engineering of that company being
deliberately targeted despite having no role in advertising/marketing the
product.

Only it turns out, that's not even close to the whole story. See the comments:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1761038>

This story collected something like 80+ votes and a profoundly negative stream
of comments before its sockpuppet promoter deleted it. I think it's worth
looking at.

~~~
sprout
It also looked suspiciously like he had some sockpuppet upvoters that the spam
control missed. When I was there it was at 29 votes after 46 minutes.

But I don't know, maybe HN really is that gullible when it comes to
governmental malfeasance.

~~~
pg
No more of the upvotes were from newly created accounts than you'd expect for
a story high on the front page. I think users are just suspicious of
governments.

~~~
lotharbot
Any chance you could restore the link in the original thread? Sockpuppet
McFakeAccount deleted it to stop the negative feedback from being connected to
his original story. This thread is an attempt to reconnect it, but it's
messier than restoring the original.

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radioactive21
I've read into this story before and this guy is a scumbag. The really sad
part in all of this is that he's pulling another scam by trying to make it
seem like he's the victim and the FTC is destroying small businesses.

~~~
grandalf
I haven't yet quite concluded that he's a scumbag, but it did raise my
suspicions that he never mentioned what his business was or what the exact
nature of the complaint was.

~~~
tptacek
Check out this comment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1761410>

Now observe that the FTC's complaint references email from Jason arguing with
the rest of his team that they should continue doing this, because the account
represents "all the margin" for his company.

~~~
radioactive21
Yup, I didnt mean to come off sounding like someone who just throws a label at
a person. But no this guy deserves the title scumbag whore. I follow his blog
and even tried to email him to ask if these allegations were true, and he
never responded. If you google it on the web there are people that have come
forward proving they were scam by him.

------
irons
Thanks for reposting this, but he claims it was $300K in legal fees, and an
$850K settlement. Sounds like he got off light.

~~~
tptacek
The original title of the post, as submitted, was something to the effect of
"Why I settled with the FTC for 300k". Personally, though? I don't believe
anything the author says.

------
chopsueyar
Two questions:

1) Was this 'affiliate marketing' related?

2) Was the offer in question a 'rebill'?

