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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

#61

Post by j_bum »

defen wrote: post #60
modeless wrote: post #5

People may remember Tai Lopez from his "Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini here" YouTube ad, subject of several parodies such as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GIwTG8V-Ko I think he was one of the first to realize that you could take regular YouTube videos that are several minutes long and turn them into skippable pre-roll ads, and some people would watch the whole thing. I know nothing else about…

> I think he was one of the first to realize that you could take regular YouTube videos that are several minutes long and turn them into skippable pre-roll ads, and some people would watch the whole thing. I'm struggling to understand what this means. He put lots of ads on his videos? Or something else.

He would pay to have his videos as ads on other people’s videos.

E.g., I’d go to watch a video of SmarterEveryDay, and Tai Lopez would show up as an ad, telling me all about his Lamborghinis and bookshelves of books he’d never read. And people would just watch the full ad, even after they could’ve skipped (5s).

That was an interesting era of YouTube, for sure.

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

#62

Post by mk89 »

j_bum wrote: post #61
defen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think he was one of the first to realize that you could take regular YouTube videos that are several minutes long and turn them into skippable pre-roll ads, and some people would watch the whole thing. I'm struggling to understand what this means. He put lots of ads on his videos? Or something else.

He would pay to have his videos as ads on other people’s videos. E.g., I’d go to watch a video of SmarterEveryDay, and Tai Lopez would show up as an ad, telling me all about his Lamborghinis and bookshelves of books he’d never read. And people would just watch the full ad, even after they could’ve skipped (5s). That was an interesting era of YouTube, for sure.

Is that against TOS? Was it scam?

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

#63

Post by showmexyz »

mk89 wrote: post #62
j_bum wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He would pay to have his videos as ads on other people’s videos. E.g., I’d go to watch a video of SmarterEveryDay, and Tai Lopez would show up as an ad, telling me all about his Lamborghinis and bookshelves of books he’d never read. And people would just watch the full ad, even after they could’ve skipped (5s). That was an interesting era of YouTube, for sure.

Is that against TOS? Was it scam?

He defrauded investers out of $120M.

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

#64

Post by randycupertino »

29athrowaway wrote: post #23
modeless wrote: post #5

People may remember Tai Lopez from his "Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini here" YouTube ad, subject of several parodies such as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GIwTG8V-Ko I think he was one of the first to realize that you could take regular YouTube videos that are several minutes long and turn them into skippable pre-roll ads, and some people would watch the whole thing. I know nothing else about…

Not because you are next to a Lamborghini it means it's yours. And many houses featured in videos are content houses... (lavish rentals for influencers to have a luxury background for their videos) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_house https://blog.giggster.com/how-to-rent-a-tiktok-collab-house-...

Reminds me of Todrick Hall who gave a "tour of the $7 million house he just bought, OMG can't believe I'm a home owner in Beverly Hills!" on his youtube channel then got evicted for unpaid rent and sued for $100k of back-owed rent money. https://people.com/home/todrick-hall-ordered-to-pay-100k-in-...

He later had a $126k lawsuit for unpaid furniture: https://radaronline.com/p/todrick-hall-sued-126000-unpaid-fu...

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

#65

Post by modeless »

mk89 wrote: post #62
j_bum wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He would pay to have his videos as ads on other people’s videos. E.g., I’d go to watch a video of SmarterEveryDay, and Tai Lopez would show up as an ad, telling me all about his Lamborghinis and bookshelves of books he’d never read. And people would just watch the full ad, even after they could’ve skipped (5s). That was an interesting era of YouTube, for sure.

Is that against TOS? Was it scam?

It's not against YouTube's ToS to run pre-roll ads of any length, of course. But I think he was just selling get-rich-quick schemes or something. At the time YouTube ads were more rare and generally short, like 15 second TV commercials, so it was weird to see long-form content as ads. He absolutely saturated the site with this ad for a while to the point that it became a meme. I'm guessing a significant percentage of YouTube's user base at the time was served that ad at least once.

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

#66

Post by josephjrobison »

j_bum wrote: post #61
defen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think he was one of the first to realize that you could take regular YouTube videos that are several minutes long and turn them into skippable pre-roll ads, and some people would watch the whole thing. I'm struggling to understand what this means. He put lots of ads on his videos? Or something else.

He would pay to have his videos as ads on other people’s videos. E.g., I’d go to watch a video of SmarterEveryDay, and Tai Lopez would show up as an ad, telling me all about his Lamborghinis and bookshelves of books he’d never read. And people would just watch the full ad, even after they could’ve skipped (5s). That was an interesting era of YouTube, for sure.

This is an example of the fact that while only 1% would watch the whole thing, they just raised their hands as the marks, to be worked on through the whole funnel.

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

#68

Post by some_guy_nobel »

""" REV Chief Operating Officer Maya Burkenroad is also accused of aiding Lopez and Mehr's alleged crimes. On REV's website, Burkenroad, who is Lopez's cousin, was described as having "over 10 years of experience managing multi-million-dollar companies," according to the complaint.

But the SEC claims Lopez and Mehr misrepresented her experience. Before joining REV, she had worked as a substitute preschool teacher, a promoter at a radio station, and as an assistant to Lopez at a prior endeavor, the complaint alleges. """

Nice family. Hopefully they get lots of jail time.

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

#69

Post by isoprophlex »

primitivesuave wrote: post #57
modeless wrote: post #5

People may remember Tai Lopez from his "Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini here" YouTube ad, subject of several parodies such as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GIwTG8V-Ko I think he was one of the first to realize that you could take regular YouTube videos that are several minutes long and turn them into skippable pre-roll ads, and some people would watch the whole thing. I know nothing else about…

He also ran a series of now-defunct scam dating sites with fake profiles around 2010-2015, and has been quite consistent at only operating scam businesses in the past 15 years. I know nothing about the people who hand over money to this guy, and I hope to keep it that way.

   > For example, to entice individuals to invest in their acquisitions, they said their portfolio companies were "on fire" and that "cash flow is strong."
Clearly if someone tells you their stonks are "on fire" that's all the due diligence you need to do as a buyer. Some people just really deeply believe that there exist risk-free get-rich-quick schemes.

I find it difficult not to do at least a little bit of victim blaming here...

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

#70

Post by smcl »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #14
bitwize wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A study found that most American millionaires lived in modest homes and drove used American cars. They made their wealth by being concerned about relatively small amounts of money because it adds up. When we think "millionaire" we think of the dream that is sold to us by Hollywood—mansions, fancy cars, endless parties. But entertainers are paid in the millions and then encouraged to live like billionaires, so that th…

I think the point is someone who has 500k after a lifetime of putting money in a 401k along with 600k in home equity is not the same as someone who lives in a mansion and has a few exotic cars. Tai posed as the latter, so suddenly caring about $35 an hour is very suspicious.

Precisely. It’s quite funny how any time this comes up - a person of dubious wealth who claims to be rich being a penny-pincher - people are quick to chime in with something implying they got rich by doing that. It’s like the inverse of the whole “maybe if you didn’t eat avocado toast you’d afford that $500k house…” thing
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