Naveen Jain's Latest Quest For A Trillion Dollar Company May Be In Trouble
from the how-about-that? dept
Naveen Jain is nothing if not confident in himself. Back in 2000, as founder and CEO of InfoSpace, he famously declared both that InfoSpace was bigger than the internet, and that it would be the world's first trillion dollar company. More specifically, he said: "There are two kinds of people in this world... those who don't believe in God, and those who believe in God and InfoSpace. That's OK -- the nonbelievers will be converted when we become a trillion-dollar company." Now, it's one thing to be confident, but it's another thing to be cooking the books to try to get there. After InfoSpace imploded and Jain was sent packing, an investigative report uncovered all sorts of evidence about how much of InfoSpace's revenue was a huge scam, involving outright lies and "lazy susan" deals, where InfoSpace would "invest" in a company, who would turn around and pretend to buy InfoSpace services as a way to boost revenue.Jain moved on and started a new company called Intelius, which claims to help you get background information on people -- though it's not hard to find many, many, many people who claim that the information is next to useless. Still, it's managed to bring in a ton of revenue, and with that has been planning to go public. However, Mike Arrington did a fantastic bit of sleuthing to discover that much of that revenue seems to come from a very questionable method.
Basically, Intelius gets you to cough up some money for the "information" it has on someone. Afterwards, it asks you to take a short survey, promising to give you $10 for your time. The survey is quick, but down below, in tiny gray-colored hard-to-read print, it notes that in submitting the "survey," you're actually agreeing to sign up for a $20/month "service" that, according to Arrington, doesn't appear to do anything other than charge you $20/month. As for that $10? Well, it's never mentioned again (nor is the $20/month you'll be paying... other than on your credit card bill). The "service" is a separate company (though Intelius gives them your credit card info), but clearly pays Intelius a fee for each signup. Arrington does a few back of the envelope calculations and figures that nearly all of Intelius' "growth" comes from these scammed deals, which, some claim are also difficult to cancel.
The whole thing stinks, and you would think that, given the situation with InfoSpace, the backers of Intelius' IPO would have done a bit more due diligence before agreeing to take the company public.
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Filed Under: ipos, naveen jain, sneaky fees
Companies: infospace, intelius
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Snooper's Scammed?
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Criminal Executive Officer?
Why is it that our country invests hundreds of billions supposedly in the act of bringing criminals to justice yet high profile white collar criminals grace the covers of our magazines and newspapers and feature prominently in newscasts and other television shows, yet they are never indited or even charged seemingly regardless of how many people they hurt, how much money they steal or how many securities laws they break?
If our moral compass as a society is so completely deranged that we not only fail to prosecute people like Jain we actually reward them for their actions by making them wealthy, than I suppose it is no surprise that we have a corporateocracy in place of a democracy and that it is to the corporatogagues* and their preistecutives* that we pledge our fiscealty*.
At the end of the day through our bastardized election process and the failure of will that allows it to be usurped to the point of uselessness, we support their hegemonic agenda which will ultimately result in the enslavement of our future generations.
More here: OWStarr.com
Oliver Starr
*yes, I realize these are words you haven't seen before. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be added to our lexicon as they accurately describe our current reality in ways that haven't been necessary before.
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And Martha Stewart's in prison?
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He bought off the SEC
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w
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w
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Who are the idiots underwriting this IPO scam
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Really?
Vilify the guy all you want, but let's at least be realistic here.
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Check out Washington State Law...
More info here: http://www.rcrnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080117/FREE/126346253/0/sub
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Not My Cell Phone
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IS this scam still going on?
When is anyone going to stop crooks like this? What type of scumbags wold work for a company like this?
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Intelius still ripping people off?
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Step 2: Inject 5 million in Venture Capital
Step 3: Let your Sociopath run wild makeing outrageous statements to analyists that work for companies being paid through consulting fees.
Step 4: The cheerleaders that mascarade as the financial press with jump on the story.
Step 5: Cook the books.
(a) You can move your accounts recievable around to create growth curves that don't exist. (15% growth this quarter!)
(b) Convert investment money into revenue: Simply buy services from other companies and then have them use the money to buy services from you. (25% growth this quarter!)
(c) Get creative with billing small customers
Step 6: IPO the Company!!!!
Talk about growth not profitabliity. (Revenue has gone up 25% last quarter). Talk about investment not profitablity. (Olympic Venture Partners invested injected 20 million in Venture Capital).
Step 7: Stock goes up!!!!
Step 8: Sell! Sell! Sell while claiming it has nothing to do with problems with the company.
Venture Capital sells. Exectives sell. Small investors are holding on for the next up cycle.
Step 9: Retire
Step 9: Bankrupt Company!
At this point you have enough money that those investor lawsuits can't touch you. You can also claim that things were fine while you were running the company.
"Market conditions changed"
"The problems were hidden by the CFO and underlings"
"Things were fine while I was running the company."
Step 10: SEC Comes to your Rescue.
Christopher Cox does not believe in fraud. If you made money then you made it because you deserve it and these small investors are obvious liberals who hate the free market.
Step 11: You win. Repeat!!!!
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export country
Exporting is if any good or sevice is brought out of one country and into another. producers. It is a good that is sent to another country for sale.[1] Export of commercial quantities of goods normally requires involvement of the customs authorities in both the country of export and the country of import. The advent of small trades over the internet such as through Amazon and e-Bay have largely bypassed the involvement of Customs in many countries due to the low individual values of these trades. Nonetheless, these small exports are still subject to legal restrictions applied by the country of export.
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manoj87
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lawyer directory-lawyer directory
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intelius is a scam
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-SC
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