Down The Rabbit Hole With Kleargear.com

A bizarre story hit the news this week, just in time for the holiday shopping season. A couple has been fined $3,500 and had their credit destroyed for leaving a bad review about the website Kleargear.com, a marketplace claiming to sell funky gadgets.

KlearGear.com didn't deliver Palmer's online order of a desk ornament that was less than $20, so it cancelled the transaction in Dec. 2008. Jen Palmer, now 40, wrote a negative review on private business review site RipoffReport.com, saying KlearGear.com had "horrible customer service practices."

"Once we put the review up we pretty much forgot about it." Then last summer, her husband, John, a senior network engineer, received an email from KlearGear.com demanding $3,500 pursuant to a non-disparagement clause that it claimed was in its "Terms of Use" on its website. "We were blown away," Jen Palmer said...

Allegedly, the company contacted credit bureaus about the $3,500 debt, and that helped destroy the Palmers lives.

 The Palmers said the mark on their credit history affects their ability to obtain loans, most recently for a financing plan for a new furnace. As a result, last month the couple and their 3-year-old son were without heat for three weeks until they saved the $1,900 to buy a furnace.

"Utah in October gets very cold pretty quickly," Jen Palmer said.

The whole story makes little sense. If Kleargear is trying to prevent negative reviews from damaging their reputation... hounding a family into the poor house is not exactly helping matters. The negative PR from this debacle greatly outweighs one negative online review.

But oh man, if you think that's where the story ends, you've got another thing coming...

Internet sleuths quickly got to work unraveling the mystery behind the site's shady owners. And I mean shady. You'd think that a business claiming to make tens of millions of dollars a year wouldn't hide their CEO, their physical location, and their employees... but you'd be wrong.

Lee Gersten, the president of Kleargear? There's no trace that he actually exists. The address of the company is a mail forwarding service. Even the "parent company" is nothing more than an address offering "virtual office space" in France, to companies located elsewhere. Ken White and his friends at Popehat dug deeper:

Here are the problems with KlearGear's display of the TRUSTe certified privacy seal:
1. A source within TRUSTe informs me that genuine seals are clickable links leading to a certification page; this is just an image on KlearGear's page.
2. KlearGear is not in TRUSTe's searchable database of certified sites.
3. My source within TRUSTe confirms that KlearGear.com has never been TRUSTe certified.

Actually, they determined that most, if not all of the dozens of certification and verification badges displayed on the site are fake:

As of November 28, 2012, the BBB discovered that some pages of the company's website display the BBB Accredited Business Logo and state "BBB Rating A+", when neither is true.

The BBB contacted the company at the Michigan mail drop address instructing the company to immediately remove the incorrect BBB logo and reference from their site.

This matter is currently pending.

In fact, some of the seals are completely bogus:

An image search [for] the 5 Star eTAILER Ratings shows that the only place using that seal is KLEARGEAR.

Even the letter to the Palmers demanding payment for the fine is bogus!

One of the collection agents of the purported Kleargear "legal department" signs himself Stephen Gutman, of Fishman group attorneys... He is listed with the Michigan bar here:
http://www.michbar.org/memberdirectory/detail.cfm?PID=14480

He's the only Stephen L. Gutman licensed to practice law in Michigan. The contact information on the letter is that of the "The Fishman Group" however, though it does not match his bar info.

And, there's the fact that he's probably retired and in no way involved:

 The Stephen L. Gutman practicing in Michigan was licensed in 1967, and is likely to be [a] 70 yo gentleman.

You can try contacting the PR department at Kleargear, but don't expect to reach  Margaux Banet, the listed PR agent. She simply does not exist. None of the other names associated with the site appear to be real either, although the head of the parent company is also the name listed on a website for a collections agency... an agency that doesn't seem to actually exist.

Has anyone EVER received a product from Kleargear? From what I can tell, the only evidence the company exists at all is their website and dozens of press releases sent out under that name. News and blog sites have featured products from the company... but it seems like all their copy, photos, even quotes from the people involved, all come from these press releases.

Here's the $3,500 question: What is going on? If this is, and always has been, a fake eCommerce site, with the sole purpose of grifting customers out of money, then it makes sense they would send an email to the Palmers demanding more money. But contacting the credit bureaus? That seems to go beyond the normal scam.

Is it possible that this is the scammer's M.O? They use a fake lawyer from a fake collections agency to contact the credit bureaus, and suddenly, the fake debt becomes real. The credit bureaus are enlisted in putting pressure on the scam victim, and the scammer increases his odds of getting paid.

According to Experian, part of the approval process to be able to report debts to the agency includes a "physical inspection where a 3rd party must come to your location and perform an inspection for security purposes." So before Experian could take the Palmers' debt seriously, they'd have to have a report from a 3rd party affirming Kleargear.com actually existed. In addition, there are a lot of registration requirements which would seem to deter any scammer who didn't want to leave a paper trail. But what if the scammer behind Kleargear found some loophole? A way to trick the system into accepting false collections claims?

Anyone know if this would be a possibility? Are the credit bureaus that easy to hoodwink?

This is going to somehow lead back to Nigeria. I just know it.

An Anarchist, Imaginary Form Of Money Is A Bad Investment? You Don't Say!

The Bitcoin Crash

It didn't take long for New York magazine's Kevin Roose to change his tune on Bitcoin, the "internet currency," which made headlines this week because... well, because people were writing headlines about it. The value of a Bitcoin rose more than $200 in just a few days, which as we all know, means it will keep going up, forever, cause like, duh man.

Except, you know, then it took a swan dive the next day. Its value is going up and down like a roller coaster, and the systems in place to buy and sell the currency make it difficult to capitalize on the swings. Basically, its a penny stock that's even less regulated and less liquid.

As Roose wrote in his original piece (emphasis, mine), "Several friends warned me about buying a Bitcoin now, since prices are at an all-time high, and most smart people are predicting that the bubble will pop eventually. But many people expect the price of Bitcoins to go higher than $140. Henry Blodget half-jokingly suggested that Bitcoins could reach $400, and there's no logical reason why they can't keep rising beyond that. The more publicity Bitcoins get, the more demand there is. And since supply is limited by design, and no central authority can step in and "print" more Bitcoins, it's theoretically possible that the price could keep rising for a while before a bubble burst happens."

It's also theoretically possible that Kate Upton will sleep with me, and my wife will be cool with it.

My Bitcoins are Up Here....

How long will it take Slate's Farhad Manjoo to backtrack? After all, he also went into Bitcoin with blind enthusiasm:

"Let me begin this column with a lengthy disclosure. One morning last week, I stopped at my bank, filled out a withdrawal slip for $1,027.51, and walked away with an envelope full of cash. The odd amount was deliberate; I had been instructed by LocalTill to be exact in everything I did. What’s LocalTill? Don’t bother Googling it—its shady-looking website offers only murky details, explaining that the firm is a way for “merchants to accept secure transactions when selling goods online."

Sounds super!

"Bitcoin, of course. Bitcoin is a “digital currency” invented in 2009 by a cryptographic expert who went by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, but whose true identity remains unknown."

Well he sounds like someone I'll trust my money with!!!

"Meanwhile the price just kept going up: Early last week the value of bitcoins soared past $100 each. This week, it went past $200. If you want a bitcoin today, it will cost you about $235, and if you wait till tomorrow, it will be more."

Because the value of imaginary currency just goes up, up, UP!!!

"The world’s supply of bitcoins is essentially fixed, but because people in the media keep talking about it, demand keeps rising. This leads to higher prices—and as prices go up, people who currently hold bitcoins develop greater and greater expectations for the currency. This causes bitcoin holders to hoard their stash, which further reduces supply, which in turn boosts the price and sparks yet more media attention—and the cycle continues until the bubble pops. Thus, by writing about bitcoin, I’m serving, in some small way, to raise its price. And as of last week, that benefits me directly."

Some of the worst economic analysis I've ever read. Buy Bitcoins, then get your friends to buy Bitcoins, and then they get their friends to buy Bitcoins. Every friend you get, the more money you earn! THIS IS A PYRAMID SCHEME, PEOPLE! PYRAMID SCHEMES COLLAPSE TERRIBLY!!!!!

"When the bubble will burst, at what price and for what reason, is completely unpredictable. And until then, while prices are going up, you could make a lot of real money from this digital funny money. My own guess is that the bubble’s popping isn’t imminent, and I think that when prices do fall, they’ll land somewhere higher than the $138 I paid for my bitcoins."

This is based on nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's irresponsible financial reporting. Farhad might as well just take the money from your pocket and throw it into a paper shredder. U.S. currency is no longer backed by gold, but it is backed by the power of the U.S. Government. It has something real to peg it to-- the American economy. Bitcoin's central authority is a guy using a fake name that nobody has ever met. Bitcoin could easily be worth ZERO.

As of this writing, one of the biggest Bitcoin websites, where Manjoo bought his Bitcoins, is down due to technical difficulties. According to a MtGox spokesperson, "Upgrading computer systems means ordering more servers (2 weeks timeframe), setting up (1 day), load testing (2 weeks) and deployment (1 day). It's a process that can take up to one month in total."

Just like the stock exchange!!!!

MtGox is claiming a Denial of Service attack by hackers, but in reality, it's probably closer to a "gold rush" that's overwhelmed their substandard servers. All the media has caused people to flock to these sites, which were unprepared for such a large influx of customers.

A Bitcoin's value now, by the way, is $75 and dropping fast.

Manjoo and Roose should by publicly flogged for touting this speculative nonsense.

Almost Got Me...

I received an email today:

Hello Your package has been returned to the USPS office. Reason: "Incorrect delivery address" Please print out the invoice copy attached and collect the package at our office. Thank you.
USPS Global Services.

Sounds good, I'll just download this file and...

Wait.

What package? I didn't send anything. And... a .zip file? Curious. And... the email says USPS, but it's marked with a "via srs.kundenserver.de."

All this stuff tips off a savvy e-mail user. Something's not right. So I did what I usually do in these situations...

To Google!

And I find this: Ups Virus Warning

So be careful this holiday season. Good rule of thumb... never download a .zip file. Ever.

What Happens When You Fall For The Free Starbucks/iPad/Anything Facebook Scam

Never a good sign when you log into Facebook and your newsfeed looks like this:

While it would be wonderful to believe that somehow, EVERY SINGLE PERSON YOU KNOW, is in on a GREAT, UNBELIEVABLE FREE DEAL, when you see this sort of thing happening, red flags should immediately go up.

First, you should be struck at how many of your friends, including people you barely know, are touting the deal. This may include people who normally don't post things at all. People who haven't posted a status update in years. Why now?

Second, look at that deal. $50! That's like 10 coffees! Unbelievable! Yes, unbelievable.

Third, look at the web address. Something odd. While they all sound, vaguely coffee-related... they're all different. And don't have that comforting ".com" address.

This is because it's a scam. Here's what happens when you click it.

First, it insists that you share the deal with all of your friends in order to "activate" the freebee. This is why you see so many people sharing the link. This step comes before people may realize things are amiss. Sheeple! Bah bah!

Then, it leads to a site that asks you to take a survey. This site surreptitiously loads tracking software onto your computer (most browsers will not warn you about this). It does this EVEN IF YOU DON'T FILL OUT THE SURVEY. From this moment on, any move you make online will be tracked by whomever created the survey page. And guess what, it wasn't Starbucks.

The survey will ask for personal information. This information is used to figure out how old you are, where you live, what your email address is, what your passwords are, what credit cards and banks you use... etc. With this full portrait, some guy in Nigeria, or elsewhere, can easily impersonate you online. They may use your information to hack into your email and accounts, steal money from you and the people you know.

If you clicked on the link:
 
1. Immediately clear your cookies and internet cache.

2. Run a (reliable) anti virus program to make sure your computer hasn't been infected with malware (bad software).

3. Then change your Facebook password, email password, and any other passwords you believe may have been compromised (any site you visited after clicking the link).

4. Finally, warn others that the link is indeed a scam. Report it to Facebook.

In the end, a scam is very easy to spot. If Starbucks, or any other business, was to offer a deal, they'd offer it on their official Facebook page or website. If the deal is coming from somewhere else, it's not legit.

Second, look at what they're giving away: $50 Fifty Dollars!?!?! A free iPad???! These are incredibly generous giveaways, far beyond what one would expect from an American business (have you even been following Occupy Wall Street?) Even Groupon only takes off 50%, and that's often fraudulent.

Starbucks, Apple, and other companies would never give away so much of their product for free. Scammers rely on American greed to spread their scams far and wide. If they simply offered a 10% off coupon, their scam would seem more realistic, but it wouldn't be enough to motivate a lot of people to fill out the whole survey and go through the entire process.

If you see a deal that's too good to be true, it is. That's a rule of thumb you should always follow.

If you really want to be a wishful thinker, at least do yourself the favor of Googling the deal, and visiting the corporate website first. You can check out mainstream media too-- if a deal this big really was being offered, it would certainly be covered.

Think before you link. You'll be thankful you did.

It's Time To Overthrow Our Ticketmaster

Tunisia, Egypt, Libya... the masses have finally risen up to overthrow their corrupt and heartless dictators. But there remains one brutal tyrant who continues to oppress millions of people, shattering their hopes and dreams, coddling the rich and powerful at the expense of the working class.

I'm talking, of course, about Ticketmaster.

I've written before about my frustrating experiences with Ticketmaster. If it was up to me, I'd never use the service ever again. But Ticketmaster holds, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly over the online retail of concert and event tickets. If you want to see the Yankees, Ticketmaster is the only place online where you can buy tickets at face value.

Ahem, I mean, try to buy tickets at face value. Because you won't be able to. Because Ticketmaster isn't designed to sell tickets. It's designed to force the majority of people to look elsewhere for tickets-- resellers TicketsNow (owned by Ticketmaster) and StubHub.

If that wasn't the case, why make it so difficult to see what tickets are available? Stubhub uses an easy system in which every ticket that's available is listed-- one can click on the section you want and presto-- a list of the tickets for sale in that section are presented.

Ticketmaster, however, uses a blind system. There's no way of telling how many tickets are left, or in what sections. You can be "waiting in line" for a few minutes, only to be told in the end that there are no seats available. And when that message "No Seats Available" pops up, you're not offered with great alternatives. You're given a choice of splitting your order (looking for one seat in one section, one in another section) or going back and restarting the (long) process over again.

How many times do I have to type in a complicated, non-English CAPTCHA before Ticketmaster accepts I'm a human being?

What benefit does hiding the available tickets provide? Nothing for fans. But for ticket resellers and powerful ticket brokers, the system is a boon. Let's say Ticketmaster wants to make a bigger profit. Will they make it by selling tickets at face value? Or will they make it by holding a bunch of tickets, then dumping them on their reselling site, TicketsNow, where they can charge scalper prices? If the system weren't blind, it would be obvious that Ticketmaster was withholding certain seats for resale or for powerful ticket brokers. The closed system helps Ticketmaster avoid scrutiny.

The ticket buying experience on Ticketmaster isn't anything like buying tickets at a normal ticket booth. If you wait in line at a ticket booth, when you reach the front, you're leaving with a ticket. This is not the case when you wait on the Ticketmaster website. You can spend all day on the site (which I can attest to) and even though nothing is listed as sold out, you still can't get anything.

The only way to easily get tickets is to put "Best Available" as your choice. You'll undoubtedly be offered the best seats in the house-- for tons of money. As such, the system rewards the rich, while those trying to be economical are madly scrambling to find the few available seats scattered in other sections.

I had this experience today, at 10:01 AM. Yankees tickets went on sale at 10:00. But everything except the worst of games (Toronto, 1:00, weekday) were already gone (though you wouldn't know it unless you tried, repeatedly).

Then I looked at the tickets available on StubHub and TicketsNow. Every section was available... for marked-up prices. Funny... I actually wanted to go to a game, not resell my tickets for profit. But I couldn't do it on Ticketmaster. I wonder how all these resellers got theirs? Did they snap up tickets seconds before me? Or did somebody give them a little help? I wonder???

As long as Ticketmaster keeps us blind, we'll never know.

So I Almost Got Taken By A Nigerian eBay Scam



I recently tried to sell a iPhone 4 on eBay. It was an extra I bought at the Apple Store after quite the experience waiting in line. I figured that if the iPhone 4 was sold out somewhere, or if someone in a country where it wasn't on sale yet wanted it, somebody would buy it from me.

I listed it on eBay at the optimistic starting bid of $999.99. With a Buy It Now option of $1200.

Obviously, this wasn't going to sell. I didn't know this, however. I haven't sold anything on eBay before, so I had no idea how much people expect to bid on these things. But after a week, I still hadn't had any nibbles. My auction ended yesterday, and I figured I'd return the iPhone 4 to the store.

Then I got an email: Your eBay item sold!

I was excited. Even more so when I saw the person had paid the Buy It Now price: $1200!!! I started having visions of taking the girlfriend on a surprise vacation, or at least buying cable for my new apartment.

Then I got a little suspicious. The buyer sent me a message saying he could only pay via PayPal. Fine, I thought, so why didn't he just click the Pay Now button on eBay, which gives the PayPal option? His English was poor, as well: "Bought the phone and paypal is the only way i will make payment. is ok for you???" He didn't have any eBay history on his member profile, and his address, in Canada, was missing his street number.

And $1200? When no one bid at $999.99? Too good to be true. I even called my friend's parents, who often sold things on eBay, confused over the gentleman's odd request to only pay via PayPal. They warned me not to ship anything until PayPal confirmed the money was in my account.

So I sent an invoice via eBay and tacked on a note telling him he could click the PayPal option. Once he paid via Paypal, who cared how shady it was? I would have the money in my account.

Then I got this email this morning:



Awesome, I've been paid with PayPal! So now I can go to the post office and send... hey, wait a minute!

Nigeria???

Now, call me a small-minded bigot if you like, but the country of Nigeria isn't associated in my mind with safety and honest-dealing. Type in "What is Nigeria known for?" into Google and the first result that pops up is "SCAM."

With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I typed in "Nigerian ebay scam" into Google. This is what I found:

"The dead giveaway here was the very obvious fake name of the bidder and the suspicious way the email is drafted. The language structure and grammar is very bad and poor. However at that time I didn't notice this as I was really excited about the sale.

The Nigerians are really experienced in this. The subsequent email was created to actually look like it came from Paypal! I was really surprised after I found out that it was all a scam when my dropshipper notified me. On close inspection I realised the sender email was not from Paypal (service@paypal.com) but fundrelease@financier.com (which can be faked quite easily) after clicking 'show details' in Gmail.

So if you are an Ebay seller, especially if you're still learning the ins and outs of Ebay, beware of this tactic! Check carefully the real sender of the email of the bidder."

Sure enough, when I clicked "show details" on Gmail, the email I received from PayPal was not from a PayPal email address. It was from "paypalpaymentalert@mail2pal.com."

The truth is, "Dire Ken" almost got me. If the address had been Canada, and not Nigeria, I may have been none the wiser. He was also a little too generous, offering up $100 dollars for shipping even though I had offered shipping for free. And his messages to me were unnecessary. If I had simply received the spoof PayPal email, and not his slightly-off notes requesting "PayPal only" and the odd insistence that "it's been deducted from my account including extra for postage," I may not have double-checked.

I can't find any way to report this kind of illegal activity on eBay. They warn against allowing payments outside of the eBay system, but there's no easily findable way to report this particular type of scam to eBay.

Let this be a warning to you eBay newbies out there. Always check that the PayPal email you receive is actually from PayPal.com. And if a guy from Nigeria buys your item, be very, very suspicious.

Ratner's Ripped Me Off!



And it used to be my mom's favorite restaurant in the city. Tsk. Tsk.

I opened a box of potato pancakes--eight potato pancakes-- only to find it had 7 inside.



Ratner's closed years ago, but their frozen products continue to grace America's grocery shelves. Come on menches, get your act together. You have a quality name to represent.

I''ll be expecting my missing pancake in the mail.

Giant Ripoff


Giants' Ownership Has Some Explainin' To Do

By Guest Blogger Barry Klein

[The NYGiants announced that their new stadium will be partially funded by selling "Personal Seat Licenses"-- which can cost fans up to $20,000 to merely guarentee they'll have the chance to buy tickets to see the games, which would cost additional sums of money. Longtime Giants season ticket holder, and blog reader, Barry Klein shares his thoughts...]

Wow!!! The new Giants/Jets stadium sounds like it will be awesome. According to the owners there will be modern food service, restaurants, tailgate zones and (hold your hats) cutting edge scoreboards. Apparently, all this is being done to give the fans the “amenities they deserve.” Thanks a lot Mara and Tisch families, but if you didn’t have the money to pay for the stadium, you shouldn’t force the Giants fans to do it without consulting them beforehand.

The truth of the matter is that the old Giants stadium was fine. Not many fans had any complaints about the stadium. Traffic and parking could have been eased by adding a train, but not much to complain about inside the stadium. Because of the owners’ greed, fans now have to pay for the opportunity to keep seats they already have on top of the thousands a year they have to pay to actually attend the games. What a scam!

You hear owners around the NFL complaining about not being able to make money because of high player salaries…blah, blah, blah. Cry me a river. The owners bought the teams initially because they had more money than they knew what to do with and they wanted to have fun by actually owning and directing a franchise.

Bob Tisch paid $75 million for a 50% share in the Giants. According to a 2005 Forbes article, the franchise is now worth $800 million. If you are now worried about your investment, sell the team. Just please stop talking to the fans like we are idiots. We know this new stadium is not for us. It’s to pad your already enormous bank accounts (or if not your bank accounts, just your egos).

Are you serious? You are giving us the option to finance the seat licenses over time. Great idea!!! In such a great economic time when likely most of your fan base is having trouble paying off debts (mortgages, credit card bills, student loans, etc.), thanks for giving us the opportunity to take on more debt.

Don’t act of though you feel bad. If you truly felt bad, we’d either be keeping the old stadium or you’d be paying for this new stadium without your old, trusty ATMs…I mean the NY Giants and Jets fans. We can’t even boycott or we won’t get tickets to the team we love.

In closing, I’d like to thank the owners of the Giants for showing us the real Mara and Tisch families. We had thought the Maras, a family that has owned the team since its inception, cared about the people who helped make the team and the sport popular…the average middle-class fan. As for the Tisches, we see the charity you provide to the less affluent in the city of NY and elsewhere. However, with regard to how you treat the fans in New York, you disappoint us all.