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Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

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Re: Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

#41

Post by hattmall »

nenenejej wrote: post #38
phendrenad2 wrote: post #28

Overstating the success rate of your business model, moving funds between subsidiaries when the investor agreements said they wouldn't be, and embezzling funds. Did I get the claims here right?

I wonder if it is all legal had he been forthcoming. I heard the "borrow money to pay dividends" thing was a well worn playbook. Not necessarily a ponzi. ut usally borrowed money serviced by earnings. Is it illegal because it wasn't stated? How to they prize apart ponzi from just aggressive debt.

It's only a Ponzi if you are not actually engaged in any real business activity. Financing payments to early investors with later investors money isn't a great indicator of the quality of the business but it's acceptable if you aren't misrepresenting things to get the new investors and there is legitimate business activity.

Re: Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

#42

Post by rurp »

iammrpayments wrote: post #12
trollbridge wrote: post #4

Circa 2010, I met Tai and he wanted some work done for his portfolio of dating websites he had back then. (He had a whole bunch of them targeted to various ethnic groups, religious subgroups and so on.) It became apparent that (a) he had a huge pile of messy PHP, WordPress-based sites, and then (b) expressed contempt for paying $35 an hour for programmers since his opinion was you could get programmers in the third w…

Lately he has been promoting “AI automation agency” course. He says anyone can label themselves “AI automation expert” and charge thousands of dollars for it, then just use vibe coding tools to do the job or outsource it. He also says he built an entire app using replit.

I am so shocked someone like this would jump on the AI hype train!

Re: Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

#43

Post by dgfitz »

rl1987 wrote: post #34
deadbabe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million dollars isn’t cool anymore, it’s like $500k a few years ago. It starts to be cool when you have like $10 million dollars. We need a term for people who have 8 figures now that 7 is so common.

Decamillionaire?

Da-millionaire

Re: Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

#44

Post by onionisafruit »

RainyDayTmrw wrote: post #30

As this is a tech forum, I expect that the name that stands out is Radio Shack, and I do agree that that story is tragic. For me, as a long time New Yorker, the other name that stands out is Modell's. They were, for quite a long time, a fixture in New York City and beyond. Even for us not sports inclined, we still knew Modell's as a reliable retailer of sneakers throughout the years. Arguably, their Covid era bankrup…

I thought you were going to say Pier 1 instead. Because I was scammed into buying wicker furniture circa 1994, I’m not surprised pier 1 is continuing buying a legacy of scams.

Re: Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

#45

Post by kindakeepinup »

smogcutter wrote: post #32
RainyDayTmrw wrote: post #30

As this is a tech forum, I expect that the name that stands out is Radio Shack, and I do agree that that story is tragic. For me, as a long time New Yorker, the other name that stands out is Modell's. They were, for quite a long time, a fixture in New York City and beyond. Even for us not sports inclined, we still knew Modell's as a reliable retailer of sneakers throughout the years. Arguably, their Covid era bankrup…

Gotta go to Mo’s!

I sang that.

Re: Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

#47

Post by dragonwriter »

nextworddev wrote: post #18
iammrpayments wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately he has been promoting “AI automation agency” course. He says anyone can label themselves “AI automation expert” and charge thousands of dollars for it, then just use vibe coding tools to do the job or outsource it. He also says he built an entire app using replit.

Unironically the gap between his AI automation agency and VC backed "Enterprise Automation" startups is smaller than you think..

It is kind of fundamental to the nature of bubbles that near their peak they tend to feature more traditional investors backing ventures that in any other context everyone with any common sense would stay away from because the ratio of scam red flags to rational bases for believing it was a good investment are too high.

Re: Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

#48

Post by Aurornis »

kiba wrote: post #27
lupusreal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not as much as you probably think. Most "millionaires" today are just boomers from working class backgrounds who bought a modest property back in the 70s and now 50 years later all their illiquid assets, primarily their property, can be added up to one or two million.

Those assets are typically not counted when counting millionaires, IIRC. Basically, your net worth is total asset minus your primary residence.

> Basically, your net worth is total asset minus your primary residence.

Net worth includes equity in your primary residence. That is the value of the property minus outstanding mortgage amount.

There are some investment scenarios where net worth is calculated minus primary residence, but those are specialty cases that are explicitly called out.

Re: Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

#49

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

nenenejej wrote: post #38
phendrenad2 wrote: post #28

Overstating the success rate of your business model, moving funds between subsidiaries when the investor agreements said they wouldn't be, and embezzling funds. Did I get the claims here right?

I wonder if it is all legal had he been forthcoming. I heard the "borrow money to pay dividends" thing was a well worn playbook. Not necessarily a ponzi. ut usally borrowed money serviced by earnings. Is it illegal because it wasn't stated? How to they prize apart ponzi from just aggressive debt.

"Ponzi scheme" isn't a legal term, the specific SEC claims are all about fraud. But the point of calling it that is to emphasize that there was very little underlying business value to be honest about. I don't think there's any point in picking apart the story for the few parts that might have been legal if they were properly disclosed - if the SEC's allegations are correct, many of those parts would have only existed in the first place as tools to help disguise the fraud.

Re: Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme

#50

Post by usui »

electroglyph wrote: post #39
thr0w wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never met him personally, but one of his companies tried to recruit me for a database migration project. Part of the interview process included responding to the question "I enjoy having sex with people I hardly know" on a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

[flagged]

[flagged]
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