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MetaFilter Founder Says Vacation Firm Forged Court Docs To Scotch Review
IonOtter (629215) writes Matt Haughey, founder of MetaFilter, has challenged a Cease & Desist letter from Sundance Vacations, a seller of time-shares with a reputation for aggressive sales tactics and suppression of criticism. Only this time, it seems that the plaintiff may have forged court documents ordering Mr. Haughey, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines to remove any and all mentions of the links and posts in question. Legal blog Popehat has picked this up as well, prompting Ken White to wryly note, "...Sundance Vacations is about to learn about the Streisand Effect." The story is gaining traction, and being picked up by Boing-Boing, as well as hitting the first page of search results on Google.
The real problem is that, for some reason, a court DID order that entity A
"who was no longer allowed to speak negatively about the company online".
How exactly we've created a judicial system with arbitrary power like that is the problem.
Now the uberpower judicial system will (rightfully) attack Sundance Vacations, and we can all rejoice. Rejoice in the power we've given dudes in robes to declare "i am the law!".
SV is not going to care about the Streisand Effect if they are in prison for the next 40 years, which is something that happens when you forge court documents.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Imagine a world where it was legal to run up to people on the street, punch them in the face and take their money, and it was illegal to fight back.
Most "normal" people wouldn't do that because they know inflicting pain on random people for personal gain is wrong. But a subset of society would become muggers because it would be an easy way to make money.
Now punching wouldn't work on everyone because some people are big, some people are tough, some people are immune to pain, and some wannabe punchers aren't very good at punching. But it would work often enough that a group of amoral people would make a living by causing strangers harm.
Back in the real world "high pressure sales tactics" are completely legal. But instead of inflicting physical pain, they inflict psychological and emotional pain in order to achieve the desired results. Just because some people are immune to these techniques doesn't mean we should allow the most vulnerable among us to fall victim to them. And we shouldn't allow those who willingly employ these tactics to walk around freely, flaunting the fruits of their misdeeds.
Sadly US courts have deemed "puffery" to be legal when there is no fundamental difference between most advertising, high pressure sales tactics, and outright fraud.
Deleted in 2008:
Current article is a POV rant that lacks notability and the article has historically swung from a POV rant to a POV brochure, mainly edited by single purpose accounts. Despite repeated requests, sourcing is from poor or primary sources. The lack of good, reliable secondary sources means there is no way to produce an article with appropriate balance and suggests the company is not notable enough for an article in the first place. Recommend deletion.SiobhanHansa 14:41, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Not re-created since???
A few years back, my better half and I got snookered into one of these meetings with a time share outfit - Do not remember who. They managed to disguise themselves as a "Vacation club" with "special deals".
When we got there ,it was apparent in a New York city minute that it was a time share. But we decided it might be fun to sit in on. Big Mistake.
So we listened to the spiel from the salesman about the place, looked at the sample apartment setup, and then asked about the price.
He must have figured he had us on the hook at that point. But my wife and I then whipped out the calculators. Given that the time-share was essentially a mortgage grade loan, It was pretty easy to see that it would cost us about 7Kilobucks a year for one week we couldn't control, just for the roof over our heads. Not travel, not food, notthing but a condo type apartment. And that their mortgage setup would take us into our 80's. And that we'd end up billed for repairs as in a condo association.
After we pointed that out, things got weird pretty quickly. Dude would not stop, despite us telling him we just weren't interested. We even told him that we didn't care about the "free weekends" at their other resorts, and didn't even want them, because we would probably have to listen to another sales pitch.
Dude even blocked the doorway after we got up and tried to leave. I eventually threatened to call the police, and he finally gave up.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
They don't come from a lawyers office just because there's a lawyer's signature on them. The entire fucking document is forged, how hard is that to see? The legal firm had as much to do with them as the court did. It's entirely a fabrication, using some real names.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Now you're talking about a felony with jail time.
Since when do people serve court orders by email...?
In the same world where an Nigerian official needs your help to spirit US $10M out of the country...
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Sundance Vacations is a company/corporation, as such it cannot do things. It is individuals who do things on behalf of company. This is important. The court is going to be very pissed off with forged court orders being used. They should prosecute the individuals who did this forgery and fine them personally and massively or even better put then in jail.
If Sundance Vacations is made to pay a fine, then this will be seen as part of the cost of doing business. The criminals who did this will not really suffer much and just be more careful the next time that they want to threaten someone. If the individuals have to pay the penalty then hopefully this will stop this ever hppening again - not only at Sundance Vacations but at other corporations that might think of doing this.
There is not enough personal liability within corporations for criminal actions with the result that crooks try all sorts of things knowing that at the very worst they could lose their job and have to find another. If individuals have to pay the penalty (money and/or jail) this sort of thing would be less likely and we would all be better off.
All of the 'freebies' they offer never make up for the basic fact that sellers are desperate. The complex stuff they offer is only there to hide the fact that the primary market is a rip off in comparison.
Of course, you do need to accept the fact that you get less 'choice' on the secondary market. Still, it always makes more sense, if you can afford the time and effort to look and find a reputable website
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I want to see them subjected to the Hood effect, named for the Attorney General of Mississippi.
As a coincidence, the headline of the current most recent "Latest News" item on the Attorney General's website is "Pontotoc Woman Going to Prison for Forgery."
You should pick up a dictionary some time. They're full of interesting words.
Merriam Webster
transitive verb
2: to put an end to scotched rumors of a military takeover>
First Known Use of SCOTCH
15th century
Oxford
verb
1 [with object] Decisively put an end to: a spokesman has scotched the rumours
Origin
early 17th century (as a noun): of unknown origin; perhaps related to skate1. The sense 'render temporarily harmless' is based on an emendation of Shakespeare's Macbeth iii. ii. 13 as ‘We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it’, originally understood as a use of scotch2; the sense 'put an end to' (early 19th century) results from the influence on this of the notion of wedging or blocking something so as to render it inoperative.
This whole thing was just a big prank, and there was no crime involved.
Sincerely,
Sundance Vacations
Where should all slashdot posts be sent so that you can check them for words you happen not to know so they can be replaced with words you do happen to know?
Archaic slang. Scotch, circular-file, 86, nix (as opposed to nichts) . . . pick one you like. I've got more.
It's also the most poorly coded piece of crap I've ever had to use, and fails at consistency between courts. Someone here should get a contract to fix it so I don't have to look at that steaming pile of shit any more.
But it'll cost in nine digits and never go live.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Is it me, or does "Sundance Vacations" and "Eric Morgan" on the second document (a consent order it seems) look like its signed by the same person?
Same person? Worse, those were both signed by the same font , nobody's signature is involved. The Eric Morgan "signature" uses a slightly larger point size. The lowercase a and n characters are a clear giveaway, I did a comparison of parts of the "Sundance Vacations" text which was all in one point size. The characters are a dead even match.
I wonder if the attempt to "sign" the document using a font was just dumb forgery, or a clever attempt to avoid culpability. After all, there's no actual handwriting on either of these supposed signatures, so QD can't compare the text to anyone's handwriting to prove who did this.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
I suspect it will be enough for them to rebrand themselves. They probably run several brands already. The sad part is the way they are allowed to operate that way at all.
The headline is ambiguous. You can 'defend' it with snark and a dictionary citation, but that doesn't change the ambiguity.
"Vacation Firm Forged Court Docs To a Scotch Review" is just as likely an initial interpretation as "Vacation Firm Forged Court Docs To Scotch a Review"
"To take down" is a much more accurate and less ambiguous verb to have used in this headline.
As they say:
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
The problem is the way "Scotch" used in the headline, it can be either a verb or an adjective. This is compounded by "Court" also working as either a verb or an adjective. I was scratching my head for a minute trying to figure out why it was worth forging documents intended to court a review of an alcoholic drink.
I'm not even sure why anyone thinks the resale market is any better either. Yeah you avoid paying a full lump sum but you're still whacked with fees and hidden charges and have to deal with shysters. What's the point?
I never MetaFilter I didn't like.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Since when do people serve court orders by email...?
In England, since 2006. Are the US courts really so far behind the times that they still don't consider email a valid method of service?
woh! I see I got modded down into oblivion. I had never heard "scotch" being used as " Decisively put an end to". It seemed rather derisive. I'm still a little curious about the origins of the word. Looking up the Etymology of the word, it seems it might be from an old old word, and is not derogatory towards the Scots as I thought that it might be.
I'm not sure why curiosity or a sense of Not Assholism deserved to be modded down, but OK... Sorry Internet. Sheesh.
Yes, because EVERYONE on slashdot reads the articles and fully understands all the issues before posting.... sheesh. It was just a question. Questions are good. They help us learn. Snark? Not so much...