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Feds Bust a Dark-Web Counterfeit Coupon Kingpin
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: The dark web has become the go-to corner of the Internet to buy drugs, stolen financial data, guns...and counterfeit coupons for Clif bars and condoms? The FBI indicted Beauregard Wattigney yesterday for wire fraud and trademark counterfeiting on digital black market sites Silk Road and Silk Road 2. Wattigney allegedly spoofed coupons for dozens of products and sold collections of them online in exchange for Bitcoin. The FBI accused him of doing $1 million worth of collective damage to the companies he made coupons for, but a fraud consultancy believes the total financial cost of his actions was much higher. Wattigney also offered expensive lessons that taught people how to make their own coupons. "In his tutorials, [he] explained the simple breakdown of barcode creation using the increasingly universal GS1 standard: GS1 codes begin with a 'company prefix' that can be copied from any of the company's products. The next six digits are the 'offer code,' which can be any random number for a counterfeit coupon, followed by the savings amount listed in cents and the required number of item purchases necessary to receive the discount."
A technician for ITT Technical Institute, that explains a lot, that whole private college is rotten.
Stephen Mulkins: 2 weeks ago
I'm embarrassed to even say I went to this school. I've been laughed out of an interview before because they told me I didn't get a real education. I have since removed ITT Tech from my resume altogether to avoid further humiliation. It's better to have no college experience than to be educated by ITT Tech apparently. I'm just depressed that I have tens of thousands of dollars to pay back for a worthless degree now. If I could go back in time I would do anything I could to stop myself from going here. What a major failure this whole experience this has been.
Dana Mehaffey:2 weeks ago
I unfortunately went to this school. I thought I was going to make a bright future to myself but thanks to ITT my future has been nothing but dark. Career services tried to get me a job making $11 an hour. What a joke. I think they use Craigslist and Monster to find jobs for their students. It's a shame really. If they just spent as much money on classroom supplies and quality teachers as they do on advertising, this might actually be a decent school. Instead they saddle you with unmanageable debt before your career even starts.
Sa33y McS43 3 weeks ago
ITT Technical Institute tricked me into signing up for high interest private student loans that were never explained to me. Private student loans were never once mentioned to either me or my mother and father. They rushed us through the entire sign up process and I was just an excited 18 year old fresh out of high school thinking I was doing the right thing. I don't think I passed the entrance exam but the ITT Tech salesman told me that I did anyway. I wanted so badly to believe him and so I did. All I ever wanted to do was go to college and get a decent education and a great paying job. I had no idea that it was all smoke and mirrors. I attended between 2004 and 2006 and here is my experience of that time there. What they offered me was absolutely in no way what was described or advertised. My grades and GPA were artificially inflated by administration in order to keep the schools average GPA up, they were actually caught doing this. The classrooms were completely outdated, the ...
Bickford Bukis 2 weeks ago
Predatory lenders. There is a website called my itt experience dot com that has hundreds and thousands of ITT Tech horror stories. There are also plenty of stories from former employees that expose this school for the scam that it is. Check out their stock by doing a Google search for $ESI and you will see that their
stock is completely tanking due to fraud charges.
Steven Smith 2 weeks ago
I am disgusted that I have been swindled by such smooth talkers. They have completely changed my life for the worse. I am in debt close to $50,000 and I have been paying my loans off for about 10 years now. They didn't help me find a job to make anywhere close to enough money to pay back my loans in a reasonable amount of time. The whole program was a complete joke and I wasted my time and my life because of 2 years at this school. Please do not go here if you value your future and education, you will get neither from them. They will lie to you and stab you right in the back. All they want is your money and they don't want to give you a decent education for it.
Jimmy Smith 2 weeks ago
Terrible, terrible fraud of a company. Can't wait to see them go under like Corinthian and Everest Colleges did. Shame on you ITT Tech for putting hundreds of thousands if not millions of young kids into tens of thousands of dollars in debt. You really helped these young people at the start of their careers.
Becky Hill 2 weeks ago
This scam of a school is on it's way to chapter 11 bankruptcy. I've been paying my loans for 15 years and the principal balance has gone down only a few thousand dollars. It's absolutely insane the interest rates they tricked me into signing up for. I thought I