The following article on http://ripoffreport.com and http://badbusiness bureau is composed entirely from postings on the Internet.
Taken from VoyForums
Date Posted: 12:54:07 02/08/05 Tue
Author: scamcat
Subject: ripoffreport and easybackgroundcheck web extortion
In reply to: j.d 's message, "Re: RIPOFFREPORT . get your posting removed." on 10:55:32 01/25/05 Tue
Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR/EASYBACKGROUNDCHECK?s Web Extortion Racket
The Group of Criminals has created what appear to be two beneficial sites for consumers.
The first Site is Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR, which is a site that encourages unhappy customers and employees to post their complaints on the
website.
Once the Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR has duped the victims into posting a negative report, then the operation begins.
The first thing they do is try to sell the customer a pamphlet on how to attack companies.
The second thing that Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR does is send emails to the posters asking for donations to help fight legal battles with these companies. They use a combination of guilt and veiled threats. We are being attacked by these companies because we just want to help you the consumer. Please help us; we can barely keep our doors open and our servers running. ?Our legal costs will bankrupt us?, they claim. Then the veiled threat; implying that the evil corporations do not want to sue just Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR, but also the poster of negative information. ?We will do everything we can to protect you, we just need money for lawyers?, they claim.
After trying to collect money from the consumer then Ripoff charges a business $25 to respond to a complaint after the fourth response. To keep the responses going Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR emails every complaining consumer every time a complaint is responded to. This gets the consumers to keep complaining and forces the company to keep responding. If the consumer does not file additional complaints, Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR simply makes some up. Initially it stopped there and was just a run of the mill penny anti scam run by convicted felon Ed Magedson (He bills himself as ?Editor? on the site). He probably wouldn?t have attracted too much attention and could have continued this scam forever, but then they decided to go for the big dollars:
EASYBACKGROUNDCHECK ? Criminal Ed Magedson then joined forces with a group of criminals that formed the EASYBACKGROUNDCHECK
The name of the game is now blackmail. The system was designed to extort money from large companies (no longer satisfied with penny anti consumer donations), EASYBACKGROUNDCHECK and Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR now targeted the deep pockets.
Once a consumer or disgruntled employee posted something negative about a company. Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR would then make sure that information was picked up by the search engines whenever anyone did a search for the company. Thus, anytime the company was searched on Google or Yahoo the negative information would be seen.
When companies showed that information was false or libelous, Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR then hid behind free speech. It is simply people expressing their opinion; we have no control they would argue.
Then Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR would make the companies and individuals pay large sums of money to have the information removed or modified.
Companies, not wanting to get into protracted litigation and wanting to just clean up information found paying Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR cheaper than getting into a long drawn out legal battle. The settlements were typically in the $25,000 range.
Still not satisfied, Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR and EASYBACKGROUNDCHECK have begun additional techniques to put more pressure on companies.
Creating Postings ? In some instances the Ripoffreport, badbusinessburuea, ROR and EASYBACKGROUNDCHECK would simply make up negative information about a company and post it.
Fabricating Documents ? EASYBACKGROUNDCHECK began the practice of making official looking documents. They made the page look like a BBB page, a lawsuit, or even a newspaper article. These pages would then be displayed on the site or through links.
All of these tactics were for one thing ? to extort money from companies. They gambled that companies would prefer to pay hush money than gamble with losing customers or get into protracted litigation. There was also another problem with getting into protracted litigation. The EASYBACKGROUNDCHECK creators hid behind the anonymity of the Internet.
List of companies already paying extortion money ?
Consumer Health Network
National Health Network
World Benefits
National Grants
Incredible Discoveries
MVI ? Mini Vacations
Harvard Professional Group
Alyon
Group of Criminals behind ripoffreport (badbusinessbureau) and EZBC (easybackgroundcheck) ?
Ed Magedson
Les Henderson
Edward Bloedow
Frank Torelli
William Rosenberger
Madelene Rosenberger
Roberto Villasenor Jr.
Stephen Howe
Michael Potter
Klaas DeVries Jr.
Ted Peterson
Stick Bogart
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Replies:
• Les Henderson tried to molest my under age daughter -- Cindy, 03:59:33 03/10/05 Thu
• Re: ripoffreport and easybackgroundcheck web extortion -- lorraine, 17:18:38 06/25/05 Sat
o Re: ripoffreport and easybackgroundcheck web extortion -- FBI, 10:31:08 08/04/05 Thu
Re: ripoffreport and easybackgroundcheck web extortion -- kevin, 12:28:33 08/17/05 Wed
• Les Henderson fraud and scam exposed -- nadine, 12:30:56 09/02/05 Fri
Another site
EZ RIP OFF LAWSUIT states that;
THE FTC IS NOW AWARE OF A PATTERN OF COMPLAINTS AGAINST MAGEDSON AND THE RIPOFFREPORT SITE!
If you have been slandered and defamed on magedson's sites, extorted by magedson or have been the victim of an attempt to exortion by him, PLEASE FILE A COMPLAINT on: www.ftc.gov. They are opening an investigation but we need more accounts of his extortion illegal practices! The more complaints the quicker they'll take out his web sites and arrrest him! FILE A COMPLAINT NOW!
This same site reports that; Ed Magedson of RipOffReport.com is a WANTED criminal that extorts individuals that have posted on RipOffReport.com and legitimate companies for money and he may be operating one of the biggest criminal enterprises ever created on the Internet and it is being perpetrated by a group of criminals with a track record of fraudulent activity. Additionally there is a reward offered for the locaton of Ed Magedson. For details
Click Here We do not recommend these types of money making activites but report them as one method that one man is reportedly using the Internet to make money. We are also taking a look at http://my3cents.com and will let you know what we find out. If you have information or comments regarding either of these sites please email us at
Email Eric and we will post your information.
