In this case, the consumers are ecomm Sellers who were scammed. The grifting “gurus” are Trevor Duffy Young and Wessam Baiz, and the main companies were Lunar Capital Ventures, Ecom Genie, Profitable Automation, and Valiant Consultants (full list below).
Those who set out to steal from, scam, entrap, damage, or otherwise harm deserve no pity when they find themselves facing the consequences of their actions.
While I’m all for pursuing legal action against scammers and especially in the automation space - there is some onus on the buyer as well. This isn’t a cure for cancer where a person in their desperation will pay anything for snake oil; arguably a defensive action - pursuing get rich quick schemes are a proactive action that seeks to bypass truth in every aspect, form and condition of an endless process to achieve an outcome that can never be guaranteed. If, today, I sold tickets to heaven - am I the only one to blame?
In my experience, grifters rarely have any assets as they are usually wasting it though various other nefarious vices that align with the moral compass that got them sued in the first place.
Well-stated, and an entirely rational take on the phenomenon, as supported by the available recorded history of mankind stretching back to clay tablets & the like.
Sadly, far too-many of us, nowadaze, have forgotten the neccessity for looking at all things rationally; sadder still, far too-many of us were never so much as taught the need to use our heads for more than mere hat-racks in the first damn place.
Well, that depends. Legally? Yes. Morally? Yes. Common sense-ly? No. But taking advantage of people with little or no common sense is a) immoral and b) illegal.
These people want to steal from others. They set out to perpetrate fraud when they make promises they know are false, and the fact that they were able to find people who fell for it does nothing to mitigate or reduce their fault.
It’s a bit more convoluted than that. The people doing the scamming only need to slightly edit their copy and disclaimers. They do it so clumsily and it eventually catches up with them.
Having said that, I really believe if you’re spending more than allowance on something for what are essentially lottery ticket stats - then go buy a lottery ticket. And yes there is a difference in scale, but it’s essentially the same thing.
We don’t blame lottery ticket buyers and people who gamble and lose their shirts, we simply say, they have problems.
All too often, the regulatory goalposts are moved, after the fact.
The truth is some people are just suckers and no matter what disclaimers are made, they will ignore them and take risks that intelligent people would not take.
Online marketplaces attack the ignorant and desperate and no amount of warning or limitation on claims is adequate when this combination is present.
Yes and it will continue to be as it is. Part of the issue for me is that the makings of such things are too much for laws to inhibit perpetually - at some point education of an individual has to be at the fore.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it that way at all.
Lotteries are very clear about the terms, and they hold up to them. If someone gets the requisite numbers, they really do get paid out the value they are promised. Sure, almost everyone loses, but everyone knows that going in, and the winners really do win.
That is simply not the case here. The intent is deceitful from the start, and the odds aren’t against the victim as much as the huckster is targeting them for nonviolent mugging.
All investment is a gamble, and people should not gamble with money they can’t afford to lose, be it a business opportunity or a lottery ticket or a trip to the blackjack table. However, this is not an investment opportunity or a gamble. This is fraud.
It’s the difference between losing $100 on slots and losing $100 on a slots machine that is rigged to never pay anyone. In the first case, you shrug and say “I hope you didn’t need that money for anything important.” In the second case, the police raid the casino and people go to prison.
In many cases, we can look at the victims and comfortably say “well, they should have known better” and we are right. But that does nothing, nothing to lessen or mitigate the responsibility of those who set out with intent to inflict harm on others.
Except the disclaimers that are poorly written often will tell you the results are atypical and that there is potential to lose money. It isn’t fraud if one guy actually did it and succeeded. And often, in the sea of hucksters, there is one guy who has had moderate success and packaged it as an offer.
Also these hucksters come on a spectrum and where they get in trouble is when they take large investment sums for automation schemes promising outlandish returns.
And then greed sets in so they do more of it without advance legal representation. If they did it properly, then, at least, the legality of it all, would prevent them from going to extremes. And it can be done.
There is no one size fits all law that could legitimately apply to this area. Udemy, Individual Courses, Crypto Schemes, Automation, etc all operate in the same sphere.
It sounds like you are arguing that the only thing these people did wrong was not cover their butts with better liability shields in their contracts. I cannot accept this interpretation.
These scams are scams not because they failed to provide results, but because they never intended to provide those results. The fact that the scammer gets 100 clients and doesn’t steal from 2 of them does not change that the other 98 were victims of fraud, not the losers in a bad investment. An accountant that embezzles from some clients and not others is still a thief and an embezzler.
My understanding is that is not how many of them are set up. But, again, there is a spectrum of operators in this space, no two operations are run alike. Meaning: a genuine entrepreneur, an information vendor, a snake oil salesman (this is where intent matters), and a pure huckster which is different than a person who sells snake oil etc - all operate in the same space. And usually, technologies/spaces that are new/at the frontier are often the wild wild west, which attracts all sorts of folk including those listed here. I’ve seen genuine course sellers see something work and who productized it while the entire market shifted (FBA course sellers as an example). Now, is their ignorance at the same level of intent as an FBA automation business seller? No. If you’re being specific to the FTC case(s); I agree with you.
Because in the absence of clarity in the above - it makes all the difference which is why I brought up legality in the first place - people who want to tread in this space should have good lawyers who will often (not always) check their clients.
Think the 10x hucksters of this world who are being litigated by other 10xers of the world - It’s wild!
Also keep in mind, there are famous MLM personalities who have shifted their entire business to content generation - their origin story is in hucksterism, but what they’re doing now is (at least superficially) legitimate.
