A bit more of a thorough write up than Iāve seen from most larger news sources, from The Seattle Times
āOn some occasions, I paid bribes, directly and indirectly, to Amazon employees,ā Rosenberg said.
Way to minimize your guilt, Ed. Weāre sure you did wrong on only āsomeā occasions. 
It seems like the article could have touched on some of the bigger issues, like how messed up the reinstatement process is.
Edās actions should have shown a spotlight on how Amazon fails to do a proper assessment with human oversight of whether a suspended seller was suspended in error, or rightfully so. There shouldnāt be a scenario where a bribed employee could flip a switch and turn a sellerās account access on or off.
If Amazonās processes were better, there would have been less opportunity for people like Ed to exploit them. That should really be a big part of this story, IMO.
Amazon says:
āWe have robust systems in place to detect suspicious behavior that we regularly improve upon, and teams who investigate, stop prohibited activity, and proactively report this information to law enforcement and the relevant authorities,ā she said.
Somebody should call ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā (cow manure).
He is good at that.
I should use one of those AI image generators to make a picture of Ed running from the police then put it on reddit or something.
Well said!
No updates on sentencing available at this time, that Iāve found.
And here we go:
Back in January, I dug my passport out of the drawer and took the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn to attend the ASGTG convention, as I had just started selling my stuff on Amazon, and was clueless. (Yes, a Manhattan resident needs a passport to travel to Brooklyn, as it is a strange foreign place)
The group was almost entirely middle-age Orthodox Jewish men. I have red hair and freckles, so I am often mistaken for an Ashkenazi by the young men who hand out Orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidism group pamphlets. (Basically, they want to get non-religious jews back in church.) Anyway, I did not stick out all that much, despite my lack of all-black clothing with a fedora out of a film noir moive.
So, speakers focused on what can only be described as strategies to commit violations of the intent of the Amazon rules. A LOT of drop-shipping. A LOT of manipulation of brand registry in (futile) attempts to make a generic Chinese product into a āunique offeringā. A lot of stuff that was over my head, but it seemed to have to do with tips on how to create convincing-looking paperwork to support a false claim that one had purchased from the manufacturer when one had actually purchased from a liquidator or overstock warehouse. And these guys were clearly making good money doing this. Lots of show-off watches (my poor old circa-1970 Omega Speedmaster was no match for the many high-end jemstone adorned Rolexes and Cartiers - or were they all fakes from Chinatown? I wouldnāt know).
But after a full day of this, I realized that I was out of my depth, and attending a seminar on how to bend all the rules, not how to follow them.
I also found that most of these Amazon guys had personal hygiene challenges - were they so busy that showering was not possible? The building HVAC was not keeping up. Very strange.
But the entire ASGTG club seems to focus around āOoops, I got caught breaking rules, and I have been suspended, so how do I get back in Amazonās good graces?ā It was also said that a significant fraction of Amazon sellers are based in Brooklyn - who would have guessed?
As far as Ed himself, he seemed obsessed (back in January) with proclaiming his innocence, and calling attention to āFake Edā, a person said to impersonate him, charge people money for reinstatements, and take the money without doing the job. The line from Hamlet āThe lady doth protest too much, methinksā came to mind - he was WAAAAY to familiar with the exploits of the claimed āimpersonatorā. I think that perhaps HE HIMSELF is the āimpersonatorā, and this was his excuse for non-performance in specific cases, so as to avoid admitting that he could not get everyone reinstated. (I have no proof, I cannot document anything, this is a personal opinion and hunch, but Iāve been around, and I know a grifter when I see one.)
@packetfire thanks for that inside look at ASGTG! Very enlightening.
Itās exactly this attitude of ārules donāt matter if I donāt like themā for me. So many of his defenders were quick to dismiss his ACTUAL GUILT as ānot real guiltā because he only broke stupid laws, and just a little bit. 
So a how-to forgery and fraud convention? Yikes.
Yes, but this is a common view these days āThe rules only matter for other peopleā this is why there was a sudden increase in the number of āservice dogsā who could not even sit or lay quietly at their masterās feet during airline flights. It is an attitude of expectation, entitlement, and grievance all at the same time.
And yeah forgery is ābusiness as usualā to these guys - they bought the goods, so they feel entitled to do with them as they wish, with a lot of posturing and posing about the āfirst sale doctrineā, which would be fine if they honestly explained that these were not really ānewā per Amazonās definitions, but were overstocks and close-outs, maybe with some returns and defectives in the mix.
Hate to generalize but this is the current mantra for most. They will complain about others getting away with things if they get caught.
Of the globe.
Fixed it!
Yes, in general, every day, the rules apply to no one! I see it all the time driving.
This is so true. The only thing keeping me out of the grave, is when the light turns green, I look left and right and left again before entering the intersection. This has just come up in the last few years.
And when I do this, since I do not enter the intersection immediately, the lay on the horn.
Itās the service Taipanās or Monkey Tree Frogās as service animals on planes that I worry about.
I need this service frog because I suffer from pteromerhanophobia and econophobia
It really helps me relaxā¦
I never leave home without my hive of emotional support bees!
And now for our exciting conclusionā¦
Not a surprise, but I bet heās mighty happy.
$100,000 fine.. What did he make from his scheme again?
ādefendantsā elaborate efforts to dodge detection by authorities, including allegedly stuffing a llama-shaped ottoman with cash believed to be bribesā
Man, when did we stop using bags with dollar signs on them?
