Guy Who Bragged About How Bad Reviews Helped His Online Store's Ecommerce Ranking Arrested
from the so-much-for-that-plan dept
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.
Filed Under: ecommerce, reputation, threats
Comments on “Guy Who Bragged About How Bad Reviews Helped His Online Store's Ecommerce Ranking Arrested”
Finally.
WIN!
I guess now we know what’s in a name.
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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Yeah, I wondered about that… I’ve seen other similar situations where people get ranking from means other than they think.
Borker
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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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.
Win: Sweet, swift justice.
Fail: Linking to the walled garden of the New York Times.
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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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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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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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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Read the damn article.
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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.