Guy Who Bragged About How Bad Reviews Helped His Online Store's Ecommerce Ranking Arrested

from the so-much-for-that-plan dept

Tue, Dec 7th 2010 3:00pm — Mike Masnick

Remember the recent story of the ecommerce store operator who claimed he was thriving by being obnoxious, because all of the bad reviews were increasing his Google rank? It's been interesting to watch what's happened since that NY Times article was published. Within days, Google announced that it had tweaked its algorithms to deal with that and similar situations, noting that being bad to customers is unlikely to be a good long term business strategy. It also might lead to jail. The NY Times is now also reporting (as sent in by Robert Ring) that the guy profiled in that original story, Vitaly Borker, who seemed so proud of his angry tirades against customers, has now been arrested for mail fraud, wire fraud, making interstate threats and cyberstalking. So much for that strategy.

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Filed Under: ecommerce, reputation, threats

14 Comments

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Brad S (profile), 7 Dec 2010 @ 3:11pm

Finally.
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cgt (profile), 7 Dec 2010 @ 3:18pm

WIN!
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Dec 2010 @ 3:29pm

I guess now we know what's in a name.
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David, 7 Dec 2010 @ 3:31pm

And the kicker is that his customer abuse wasn't what helped his ranking, it was because Blomberg and a couple of other high profile publishers linked to his site in a post about a lawsuit against him.
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- interval (profile), 7 Dec 2010 @ 3:59pm
  
  Re:
  Yeah, I wondered about that... I've seen other similar situations where people get ranking from means other than they think.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Dec 2010 @ 3:41pm

Borker

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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- AC, 7 Dec 2010 @ 4:05pm
  
  Re:
  You for got to add "BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Too bad the NYT couldn't get interviews with the CEOs of those like Monsanto, Haliburton, insert big pharma, DirectTV, etc, etc, etc. I wonder what the minimum required income is for getting out of punishment for this kind of racketeering/fraud/intimidation.
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James, 7 Dec 2010 @ 3:59pm

Win: Sweet, swift justice.
Fail: Linking to the walled garden of the New York Times.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Dec 2010 @ 4:36pm

Um.. Is this making being an asshole against the law? I see As long as hes not doing anything wrong and only being an ass I say let him eat cake.
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- pix, 7 Dec 2010 @ 5:10pm
  
  Re:
  Did you miss the part about threats and cyberstalking? I doubt he would actually harm someone, but some of the emails and phone messages he left with dissatisfied customers were disturbing. Read the full article from the NYT. It's pretty shocking.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Dec 2010 @ 6:36pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I agree with this, and I am glad he's been arrested, but I'm still puzzled by the fraud charges. The 'customer care' he's admitted to definitely puts him down for harassment, as well as whatever else death threats, etc. make him liable for; I just can't see how that counts as fraud.
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    - DSchmeling (profile), 7 Dec 2010 @ 7:16pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      I'm fairly certain that calling in and posing as someone else to get credit card disputes dropped qualifies as fraud, and pending a legitimate recollection, he sent counterfeit products and listed them as real products on a number of occasions.
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- Anonymous Coward, 7 Dec 2010 @ 5:16pm
  
  Re:
  Read the damn article.
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- DSchmeling (profile), 7 Dec 2010 @ 7:14pm
  
  Re:
  See the bits about mail fraud, wire fraud, making interstate threats and cyberstalking? Yeah, he's not being arrested because for being an asshole, he's being arrested for being an intimidating, threatening, and fraud committing asshole.
  
  Turns out that harassment, threatening violence, and fraudulent business practices will get you arrested. Usually.
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