Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cbsnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 123 posts

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

#81

Post by pessimizer »

anovikov wrote: post #78
primitivesuave wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is a "scam dating site"? A site where AI-driven profiles you contact with, phish or socially-engineer your money out of you? That probably couldn't happen in 2015 let alone 2010, AI tech wasn't yet there. If you mean just a "dating site where all female profiles are fake, generated by site itself", then well, it's just called a "dating site". Whole dating sites industry - with hundreds if not thousands of compan…

> A site where AI-driven profiles you contact with, phish or socially-engineer your money out of you? That probably couldn't happen in 2015 let alone 2010, AI tech wasn't yet there.

Why do you think you need AI for this? You don't even need Indians for this, Americans will do it. I remember someone showing me a site a couple years ago that recruited for the job, and there was a Reddit where they talked about working it and how the rates paid were changing.

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

#82

Post by anovikov »

pessimizer wrote: post #81
anovikov wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a "scam dating site"? A site where AI-driven profiles you contact with, phish or socially-engineer your money out of you? That probably couldn't happen in 2015 let alone 2010, AI tech wasn't yet there. If you mean just a "dating site where all female profiles are fake, generated by site itself", then well, it's just called a "dating site". Whole dating sites industry - with hundreds if not thousands of compan…

> A site where AI-driven profiles you contact with, phish or socially-engineer your money out of you? That probably couldn't happen in 2015 let alone 2010, AI tech wasn't yet there. Why do you think you need AI for this? You don't even need Indians for this, Americans will do it. I remember someone showing me a site a couple years ago that recruited for the job, and there was a Reddit where they talked about working…

In a manual mode these days it certainly can't work. People are no longer that gullible. But to think, in 2010 it likely could! So that could be a thing.

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

#83

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

jimnotgym wrote: post #77

Prediction: If they are found guilty, their company will get fined, they will still be rich. This will keep happening unless you a) take back their personal wealth and return it to investors and b) put them in jail & c) black list them from holding office at a corporation in the future.

I dont know.

Pre-Trump that is NOT what used to happen in these cases. Defrauding your investors used to actually land rich people in jail.

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by whywhywhywhy »

josephjrobison wrote: post #66
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.

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.

A view counts as a view before the full video though, so running it as an ad still makes it look like you have an audience.

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

#86

Post by UltraSane »

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.

I find it fascinating that some people work so hard at running scam companies like this guy.

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

#87

Post by cindyllm »

UltraSane wrote: post #86
primitivesuave wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find it fascinating that some people work so hard at running scam companies like this guy.

[dead]

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

#88

Post by 55555 »

anovikov wrote: post #82
pessimizer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A site where AI-driven profiles you contact with, phish or socially-engineer your money out of you? That probably couldn't happen in 2015 let alone 2010, AI tech wasn't yet there. Why do you think you need AI for this? You don't even need Indians for this, Americans will do it. I remember someone showing me a site a couple years ago that recruited for the job, and there was a Reddit where they talked about working…

In a manual mode these days it certainly can't work. People are no longer that gullible. But to think, in 2010 it likely could! So that could be a thing.

It still works in manual mode and it is still mostly done manually, despite AI. This is the "chat" model powering 6 billion dollars of annual OnlyFans revenue and billions of dollars to dating sites advertising "girls in your area" on porn sites. Armies of mostly Filipino chatters pretend to be women and do what is essentially a soft romance scam.

Governments have essentially never looked into it, despite it having gone on uninhibited for 20+ years and at the scale of billions annually for at least 16+ years.

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

#89

Post by BobbyTables2 »

mattashii wrote: post #74
isoprophlex wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bla…

If stocks are on fire then you should probably value them for their ash contents.

It’s all about that “ash flow”.

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

#90

Post by an0malous »

UltraSane wrote: post #86
primitivesuave wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find it fascinating that some people work so hard at running scam companies like this guy.

Wait until you hear about tech startups

Creating fake profiles for a dating site is basically what the Reddit founders did to create Reddit. It’s no more ethically compromised than what many YC companies do.

The ones that get labeled as scams are just the ones that executed poorly

Post reply on HN