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Computer Parts Site Newegg Is Being Sued For Allegedly Engaging In Massive Fraud (gizmodo.com)
schwit1 shares a report from Gizmodo: A suit filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by four South Korean banks alleges "massive fraud" with an outstanding debt of at least $230 million, and California-based electronic parts seller Newegg has been named as a defendant, along with wholesaler ASI Corporation and its officers. These new documents allege that Moneual, Newegg, and ASI were engaging in "an intricate scheme of circular transactions." The banks submitted a list of over 70 pages of supposedly fraudulent orders as evidence that Newegg and ASI created the paperwork that Moneual used to secure loans. The suit further claims that Newegg and ASI "received kickbacks from Moneual in varying amounts in exchange for agreeing to collude with Moneual to defraud the Banks." One method of inflating purchase orders for Moneual -- a brand barely remembered in North America as a a low-tier entrant into the robotic vacuums market -- allegedly involved creating paperwork that showed components being sold for over 370 times their value.
"The Seoul Central District Court convicted Park Hong-seok, head of Moneual Inc., a manufacturer of computers and small home appliances, of getting a total of 3.4 trillion won (US$3 billion) from 10 local banks between October 2007 and September 2014 based on forged documents that falsely showed the company's computer export contracts."
Were they forged, as alleged back in 2015, or were they real and NewEgg was part of the scheme? What was in it for NewEgg? It isn't like they did a lot of business selling Moneual's products.
Seems like the lawyers are looking for deep pockets.
Bummer. I actually liked NewEgg.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
so we were for a long time one of their largest customers. They used to be great. Then they, like amazon.com did when they abandoned books and became stupid, decided they wanted to become a platform to support third-party frauds that weren't them. When newegg only sold computer parts, they were the best in the business. Now, they're just like any other site that allows fraudulent third-parties to sell via their platform. I don't want to see ads for, for example, air conditioners and bidet toilet seats.
(Ducks and runs away, dodging more eggs)
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Newegg's interface is still a lot better for actually finding computer parts. All of their filters are much more targeted.
That said - I'll admit that due to Prime I often go to Newegg.com, create a shopping list of what I want . . . then go over to Amazon and search the specific product names to duplicate the cart and buy from there instead.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
PC Part Picker... and you can tell it to check Amazon and NewEgg outomatically and pick whichever gives you the best price, taking Prime and Tax into account. Even with Prime, I actually find NewEgg to usually be cheaper for high value PC guts. For fiddly bits like cables and fans Amazon usually wins.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
If you click through on any of these profile names, you'll see hundreds of reviews written on cheap, Asian-sourced gadgets. Never any expensive, name-brand products. And the reviewers are so prolific, they write the reviews almost every day and usually upwards of five reviews per day. It's common to see one of these fake reviewers purchase two or three knock-off fitness trackers over the course of two months, yet none of their reviews compare the multiple trackers they seemingly have recently purchased.
I can imagine that when they boost a product up to "#1 seller" status, they can get loans against projected sales volume just like these scammers did via their Newegg fraud.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!