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BlueHippo Scam Collected $15M, Only Shipped One PC

Posted by Soulskill on from the was-it-alienware dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Turns out that those BlueHippo commercials advertising financing for computers and other electronics for anybody, regardless of credit, were way more sleazy than you thought. The FTC is bringing this fraud down, but not too soon. 'According to the FTC, the company's brazen business model continued without interruption after the 2008 settlement. "In fact, in the year following entry of this Court's Stipulated Final Judgment and Order for a Permanent Injunction, BlueHippo financed — at most — a single computer to the over 35,000 consumers who placed orders for computers that could be financed during the period,' the FTC told a court (PDF) yesterday. In the meantime, the company took in a cool $15 million in payments from consumers, who don't appear to have received anything in return.'"

5 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Shocking! by eihab · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember watching their commercials and going to their website to check it out. The fine print clearly stated that you will not receive their computer printer/combo/etc. until after you mail off the last payment!

    I thought to myself, who in their right mind would even consider giving this company a dime, but apparently there were 35,000 such individuals.

    The lesson here folks: if it's too good to be true then it probably is.

    --
    If you can't mod them join them.
    1. Re:Shocking! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That's what user mode in Opera is for. It makes any hidden text or fine print clearly visible in a normal font. I am sure there is a Firefox addon or setting that does something similar, but it is very hard if not impossible to make fine print stay hard to read with any decent web browser.

    2. Re:Shocking! by slarrg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No it's not, you do it like this.

  2. Re:I'm fairly surprised, actually... by barzok · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, Madoff never expected to make it as long as he did. He was surprised it took them so long to catch him.

  3. Re:Immoral people by Machtyn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become." -Walter Williams, “Laws Are a Poor Substitute for Common Decency, Moral Values,” Deseret News, Apr. 29, 2009, A15

    Your statement reminded me of this quote.