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Malicious Online Retailer Ordered Held Without Bail
Zaphod_85 writes "You may remember the New York Times story from a couple of weeks ago regarding Vitaly Borker, an online retailer intentionally harassing customers in order to gain linking points in Google's PageRank algorithm. Now, not only has Google altered their algorithm in order to prevent this tactic from being effective (Though according to Katherine Noyes at PCWorld, this tactic may never actually have been benefiting the website in the first place), Now Mr. Borker has the Feds to deal with. He is being charged with cyberstalking, wire fraud, mail fraud, and making interstate threats, and faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Given his disturbing behavior that brought about the charges, a federal judge has ordered he be held without bail while he awaits trial."
How long until he gets his new business rolling?
This would be why trolling doesn't tend to work as well in real life, when there are real-life consequences, as it does on the internet when there's little chance (absent clever data-wrangling techniques and a little stalking) of your words coming back to bite you.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
OP was suggesting that objecting libertarians be formed into a line.
Really? The NYT article described it as "too graphic and violent to print in a newspaper", which hardly sounds like "carefully worded". Besides, "taking a picture of someone's home and sending them a message saying 'I'M WATCHING YOU'" is not only a verbal threat, but one involving an action. Frankly, I'm surprised it took two years to arrest this guy - if he tried it on me, I would have filed a police report within minutes.
And that still does nothing for the identity theft charges or the fraud. Hell, maybe we can get him on ACTA or something for selling counterfeits.
He's not going to jail for 50 years. Journalists love to quote maximum jail sentences even though it's rare the maximum sentence is ever dealt.
... and hey, it's nothing more than an online article, I say good riddance. Threatening folk repeatedly with bodily harm, impersonating them to credit card companies, etc. should be a fast-pass lane to being disbarred from operating a business and going to jail without passing go and without collecting $200.
What troubled me about Mr. Borkers story more than anything is how easily he circumvented the various red-flag tripwires that credit card companies allegedly employ. And the allegation that he successfully impersonated a customer withdrawing a claim against him shows not only chutzpah but a big security hole over at the credit card company.
Bottom line is that the internet has allowed all sorts of scams to go nationwide and unless one can interest the Feds (via publicity in this case), one is SOL. Thus, he may serve as a business blueprint for a lot more scammers going forward.
"Fraud" has fuck all to do with free speech. You won't find any "libertarian" defense of stalking one's customers and threatening people with bodily harm.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
With 10 libertarians you would have 10 lines each 1 libertarian deep
Agreed. Though this particular asshole deserves the full stretch.
Pun intended.
I'm thinking the guy is probably a lunatic, and it seems to me that the real fault lies with a whole lot of other entities from the credit card company to the cops who dropped the ball on this one. Clearly they were not taking this seriously, even after this lunatic had made explicit graphic sexual threats against the woman and had committed a clear act of fraud and identity theft by posing as her to get the reversal of charges reversed. A whole lot of people should be hanging their heads in shame for letting this poor woman suffer so much because of a whacko. They're the ones that deserve the jail sentence just as much as him.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I don't mean to play anonymous Internet tough guy here, but I'm really surprised that someone who tells customers with a legitimate complain "I know where you live" still has full use of both knee caps. I would have thought by now he would have pissed off the wrong person who happens to be within driving distance. Then again, when it comes to the stacks of money he's making, maybe he's full of shit and doesn't have that many customers to piss off.
I don't think I'd call this guy just trolling.
On the internet even from the start trolling meant just something crafted to create as many responses as possible, rather than rape threats. As the dictum went, "Confucius say: successful troll is master baiter" ;) Really, it didn't even have to be offensive or explicit or illegal. It could be something as indirect as asking which Linux distro has IE.
And in the meantime it's largely become a synonym with "someone saying something I disagree with." Someone calling one's pet conspiracy theory a conspiracy theory? Someone else posting a bit of textbook science that contradicts one's ID beliefs? Someone else disagreeing that <insert game flop> is TEH GRATEST GAME EVAR? Someone else disagreed in another thread entirely? Well, they must be trolls and only saying that to get attention ;) But seriously, I've even seen textbook physics quotes modded as troll or overrated. It's just become the blanket excuse to not use one's brains and hang on to some pet dogma or half-truth: anyone disagreeing must be just trolling for attention.
What this guy did is a bit beyond mere trolling. And I suspect that even the trolling excuse was just an excuse. Threatening to rape someone asking for a refund and mailing them photos of their home with texts like "I'M WATCHING YOU" and whatnot, is the kind of asshattery even most Internet trolls would distance themselves from very quickly. That's already way beyond just seeking attention.
If anything, this just gives the lie to the old marketing canard that all exposure is good, and there is no such thing as bad publicity. I've seen it repeated in so many places, that it's not even funny. It turns out that, yes, there is bad publicity. Not only it can cross into being flat out illegal, but there's a very good case to be made that all that Google rank via people talking about how badly he treats customers, actually didn't benefit him. Getting mind-share as a dangerously deranged asshat to avoid can be just that: it just moves one from an unknown company to being the well known asshat company to avoid.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Every electronics/camera store in Brooklyn has been doing this for decades. They are all scammers and conartists.
Shanties and warehouses, or fake addresses, but websites with greymarket and fake products.
Examples of the stores im talking about:
http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/
The FTC has done nothing about it.
People place products thinking they can get it cheaper, and then when they talk to the store the sales people scream and cuss at them if they don't buy addons they "must" buy (like power cords and batteries).
For every 1 reputable company based in NYC and NJ there are hundreds which are ran y petty criminals.
he also threatened to rape a female complaining customer which is why he was being charged according to another site.
If Vitaly Borker was calling Ms. Rodriguez repeatedly, especially after 10pm, he was violating New York State laws against telephone harassment.
I had somebody calling me repeatedly late at night. I traced his phone number, complained to the local police station, and two detectives came to his house (several times until he answered the door) and arrested him. He finally left New York City, and stopped bothering me, so I didn't prosecute.
You can get more information about handling these calls at The Verizon Unlawful Call Center http://www22.verizon.com/residentialhelp/phone/general+support/support+tools/general/95622.htm
Examples of unlawful calls:
* Threat to Life (yours or someone else's)
* Bomb Threats
* Bodily Harm
* Excessive Obscene or Harassing Calls (The definition of excessive varies by state but generally means more than two to five calls.)
* Kidnapping
Verizon regularly works with Law Enforcement agencies to resolve unlawful call complaints. The Law Enforcement agency investigates all calls involving bodily harm, bomb threats and kidnapping.
Unwanted Calls are usually not against the law and typically include:
* Fax calls
* Hang-up calls
* Computer calls
* Solicitation calls
* Telemarketing calls
* Debt collection calls
* Obscene or Harassing Calls*
*If calls of this nature are deemed excessive, and you are willing to prosecute, we will handle as an unlawful call.