Talk:Ripoff Report/Archives/2011

Tone and style
I removed the quotation marks around "attempted extortion", as they were clearly inserted as an editorial device intended to cast doubts on the veracity of the claim, ala Military "Intelligence." Some of you really need to read Wikipedia's style guides. There is absolutely no doubt that the lawsuit against Ripoff Report accused them of attempted extortion. It was the exact wording of the suit. Thus, placing a factual statement regarding a legal proceeding into Quotation Marks turns the entry into an opinion piece instead of a statement of fack. Wikipedia, unlike Ripoff Report, absolutely IS concerned with impartiality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.103.191.81 (talk) 21:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Criticism links
It cannot be denied there is some controversy surrounding Ripoff Report. However, they should be described following Wikipedia rules. This obviously has not been the case so far. No time for it myself, alas. 82.73.161.13 14:09, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed two external links. Not only for being superfluous, but the one leading to the advocacy program page contains a very aggressive popup. I understand mr Magedson needs the money to keep up his (imo great) site. I guess Errorsafe pays well, but this product is no good (containing spyware) and their marketing sucks big time. Please, be advised to get rid of that. 82.73.161.13 11:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I have removed the forum links, but have integrated the link and point into the Criticism section; which is entirely in keeping with Wikipedia rules. If you disagree, be specific and I can look into it. - RoyBoy 800 04:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Alleging someone is an extortionist a.o. without undisputable legal proof is libel. The given references are sites run by Magedsons opponents, highly biased and exclusively put up to attack him. Not what one can consider to be reliable impartial sources. I see you do a lot of work, very fast. Please be advised to take a little more time to look into this a bit deeper. Thank you. 82.73.147.201 04:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

And yet posting anonymous attacks on random businesses without verification, as Ripoff Report does, is perfectly fine? That aside, you clearly have no idea how Wikipedia works. There was, in fact, a lawsuit against Ripoff Report that did, in fact, accuse them of attempted extortion. That is the only issue at hand here. This article doesn't try to determine the merits of the lawsuit, it merely reports that it did, in fact, occur. You clearly have a pro-Ripoff Report axe to grind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.103.191.81 (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Fast fingers, but if anything looks amiss – like this – that is indeed what I do. I support your content edits, but negative links and criticism are required to be referenced on Wikipedia (linked to). - RoyBoy 800 15:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I feel your last editing is another step to further improvement in the right direction. Have a nice weekend! 82.73.147.201 18:55, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * You too. - RoyBoy 800 04:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I edited Criticism and lawsuits. Decided to remove all specified allegations, in order to keep this article factual and undisrupted by a war of allegations. There is plenty to find in provided links and the Internet. For more clarity we could use a simple complete list of cases against ROR. No extended case histories. Mentioning only end-verdicts and currently undecided cases, with references to documents or sites about it. 82.73.147.201 20:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Lawyer
As to his representing lawyer, the criticism websites list lawyers that have withdrawn from the case. So does that leave his business partner? If so, does she legally represent him? If she doesn't then wouldn't he need to be served personally? - RoyBoy 800 04:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I made a mistake: unless the court orders that his attorney accept service, serving his attorney is not service to Magedson. 82.73.147.201 20:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Tagged for deletion
Unless MAJOR editing takes place, then the article is worthy of deletion. it is biased and advertising. contact me to dispute this. Jmac 19:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC). hey hey

You are correct. And I thought Wikipedia is supposed to be encyclopedic. The section claiming Madgeson may be guilty of extortion is downright hearsay. Unless Madgeson has been found to be guilty of extortion, this should not even be mentioned. This article is downright crap... 98.201.123.22 (talk) 19:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree this ripoff report section is so self serving and must have been created by ED or directed by Ed to create it. DELETE IT. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.223.227.45 (talk) 07:11, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Your nomination for deletion Rip-off Report page
-jmac-, while agreeing there needs work to be done on this page, I strongly disagree with deleting it. Both supposed advantages and critisism of ROR are present. Over all neutrality in tone of voice is moving in the right direction. Who is biased here? I can't help noticing, you did not even remove the blatant vandalism. SooperJoo 20:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * jmac, thanks for your answer on my talk page. Feel free to help me out working on the Background section. I am not a native writer, costs me lots of effort to formulate correctly. SooperJoo 20:40, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Beware
From some of the things I have heard about this Ed person, he will shut down all of Wikipedia for daring to level relevant criticism.207.103.48.164 15:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome Metatran
Metatran, thank you for contributing. Please review NPOV for Wikipedia Neutral Point Of View rules and perhaps give it another try. SooperJoo 19:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

bad-business-rip-off
bad-business-rip-off.com down as of 10 Dec 2006, but bad-business-rip-off.netis still up, but having some loading difficulties. For the record, the latest contribution to that site. Previous versions in archive.org Newest Update: November 27th 2006

''Ed Magedson is fighting for his life in Illinois Federal Court for the right to continue publishing the following despicable lies and personal attacks, despite already having been held in contempt of court for doing so. Consider carefully the base nature of these criticisms Magedson struggles to keep on his website.''

''Cries of pedophilia, child pornography and drug dealing to children are typically unfair criticisms of a business, but this is a shared experience for all those targeted by Magedson for his Corporate Remediation Plan (aka Extortion Racket). After unsuspecting businesses initially object to what is typically much more benign criticism, then Magedson starts to create his own comments intended to embarrass and harass the company and its owners into submission. One can see many examples of this by reading this website carefully. The pattern is the same: Once Magedson knows he has a business' attention, if the mark won't pay his extortion demand, Rip-Off Report pulls out the stops and goes for the maximum damage with scandalous allegations of child pornography, pedophilia and drug dealing. We question the public interest in reading lies like these, and we know from personal, first hand experience that Magedson and the Rip-Off Report only fight for the right to keep such filth online in order to further their ongoing extortion racket:''

Original Court Document, Pages 1-2. PDF —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SooperJoo (talk • contribs) 19:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC).
 * oei! --SooperJoo 19:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Moved to talk
I am not sure what this user is attempting to say:


 * Apparently some companies hired the services of fictious organisation 'Defamation Action League' (criminal spammers William L. (Bill) Stanley and Robert Russo). The criminals - allegedly operating from Austria - are very open about their defamation of ROR, the owner and his hosting companies by all kinds of Internet means.

Travb (talk) 20:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Denial of Service Attack?
The web site is loading slowly as of March 7, 2007. Most pages don't load on the first try. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.20.226.218 (talk) 17:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

Fair use rationale for Image:Ripoffreport.com screenshot.png
Image:Ripoffreport.com screenshot.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 23:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Two video links are broken removed ad
There are two video links which are broken. I left them on the page though.

I wikified the site links, made the statments morre neutral. etc.

I moved the following to the talk page:


 * One added feature offered by the Rip-off Report is the "Corporate Advocacy and Remediation Program". As a companion service to the main web page, this add-on provides assistance to businesses who have unfavorable Rip-off Reports. Magedson offers his services to help companies handle online complaints – specifically those posted on the Rip-off Report – in which the complaints are investigated. As a companion service to the main web page, this add-on provides assistance to businesses who have unfavorable Rip-off Reports.   First, Magedson emails the Report filers and informs them that the business wants to make amends (usually including a 100% refund -- which is required to join the program).  Second, the results of this offer of remediation are then posted along with the Report on the site.  The original report is not rescinded but is updated to reflect whether the offer of remediation was accepted or not.  Magedson points out that the Report filers identities are not disclosed in the process unless the filer wishes to communicate with the company directly about a remediation. The "advocacy and remediation" element of this resource involves a consulting fee. This appears to be one aspect of the revenue stream at the Rip-off Report. Magedson bills his program as something that benefits both consumers and businesses, and he promises to reduce the number of complaints received by companies who retain his services.

This sounds like an ad, and the only reference is ripoffreport.com itself. Instead, I moved the corporate (extortion) program to the criticism section, and quoted a third party--the Phoenix New Times.

I decided not to include this paragraph on the main page, from the Phoenix New Times article, probably too remote:


 * In 2001 pizza deliveryman John Unger sued Pizza Hut several allegations. Magedson helped Unger with media coverage and introduced Unger to his own lawyer, Maria Crimi Speth. According to the court file in Pinal County, Magedson's called a Pizza Hut executive threatening him with media coverage and a large class-action lawsuit if the executive didn't give Unger $200,000. Ugner had agreed to pay Magedson a portion of the settlement.

The case eventually settled.

Travb (talk) 05:25, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Added the mug shot, this is a fact User: jglogau Jordan G (talk) 19:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Article is about the web site, not Magedson. Might be appropriate for a bio, but it's not appropriate here. Shritwod (talk) 22:26, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

You must not have any exposure to corporate structure, anyone can form a corporation for a small fee, RipOffReports IS Magedson. Corporations were invented in the 1800's to help investors limit they liabilities, a good idea that promoted major investments, like building most of the rail systems around the world. Magedson hides his acts behind ROR. When does wiki "objectivity" become criminal neglect? Jordan G 67.85.93.164 (talk) 14:53, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism
There has been a lot of vandalism by people who presumably are upset about being listed on RipOffReport. It's easy to understand why people get angry, but the article needs to retain a Neutral Point of View and have appropriate citations. There is quite a lot of criticism in the article already. Shritwod (talk) 09:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Suggest Removal
This does sound like more of an advertisement than it does about a "real" company. While the tone does try to come about as neutral, the links and the text do not. I would suggest removal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.62.46.2 (talk) 18:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Federal Communications Decency Act
This article is in need of editing. There is non-factual information being presented as fact, including statements about the Federal Communications Act - opinion being stated as fact. If others wish to work on editing this type of content, please feel free to post here, otherwise I will probably come back in the future to work on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.27.1.172 (talk) 21:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has been used as a valid defense in law several times, to the extent that most cases accept CDA 230 where it is applicable. There are some exceptions it seems, some of which involve RipOffReport itself. The style of the article isn't quite right, but I think that the assertions made about CDA 230 immunity are basically valid. Shritwod (talk) 22:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

DoS Attack
A further denial of service attack on ripoffreport.com seems to be going on now. There was one in 2007. Fraudsters don't like the site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.171.194 (talk) 14:34, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The DoS attack is still going on now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.171.194 (talk) 12:06, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * A lawyer, acting for Ripoff Report, says that there have been numerous attempts at hacking and denials of service. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.13.134 (talk) 15:45, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Despite the DoS attack, a Google search still shows complaints against companies on Ripoff Report. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.184.201.103 (talk) 09:36, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The ripoffreport site is now working. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.10.75 (talk) 08:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The fraudsters behind the DoS attack cannot be easily identified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.132.123 (talk) 04:07, 28 April 2010

GW Equity v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC
Regarding this information on the article page:
 * Most recently, in GW Equity v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, a Texas district court dismissed all claims including one that the Advocacy Program was extortionate.

The case stated:
 * In addition, Defendants have created the “Rip-off Report Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation & Consumer Satisfaction Program,” pursuant to which, for a fee, the defendants will investigate “rip-off reports” targeting member companies and will post more prominent rebuttals to those reports. (Id.) GW has not cited any case law in which this conduct was considered a bar to a defendant’s assertion of CDA immunity. Unless Congress amends the (Communications Decency Act) CDA, it is not a bar to immunity for an Internet provider to refuse to remove defamatory material created by a third party, or to otherwise use it to their advantage, even though the Internet provider’s conduct may be considered reprehensible and offensive. Through the [Communications Decency Act], “Congress granted most Internet services immunity from liability for publishing false or defamatory material so long as the information was provided by another party.” Carafano, 339 F.3d at 1122. Here, the material was unequivocally provided by another party. GW’s contention that Defendants’ conduct after the postings should bar them from receiving [Communications Decency Act] immunity is without merit.


 * ..."This Court recommends that the District Court grant Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment because Plaintiff’s claims are barred, as a matter of law, by the [Communications Decency Act]."

I searched for the word "extort" and the word is no where to be found in the court case. I will revise this sentence to reflect the actual case. 98.231.142.70 (talk) 16:03, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

removed blog entry to talk
I removed this entry to the talk page:


 * At least one commentator has suggested this conduct amounts to extortion and may be actionable under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or "RICO":

Because a lot of us have much to gain from a strong CDA, I hope that plaintiffs will continue to press the RICO/Extortion combo. This will direct the conversation away from the CDA and focus it on the extortion elements of the case. This is appropriate because this is what makes RipOff Report’s alleged conduct so reprehensible. If RipOff report were just providing a neutral and organic platform to publish good and bad comments about businesses, no one would be complaining.

This is a blog posting by an a seemingly unknown attorney. 98.231.142.70 (talk) 16:24, 8 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I also removed this source: http://www.complaints.com/2008/november/13/Ripoffreport.com__Rip_Off_Report__Xcentric_Ventur_192701.htm and added a fact tag. 98.231.142.70 (talk) 16:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This statement was removed:
 * Other sites have argued that “Review websites [such as Ripoff Report] should be held accountable for claims posted on their sites by instilling a system to identify the validity of claims and reports.”
 * Which is attributed to some no-name websites. 98.231.142.70 (talk) 16:50, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I could not find this article:
 * Serino, Danielle Consumer Alert: Ripoff Report
 * 98.231.142.70 (talk) 16:57, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

reorganization and clean up
I reorganized this article. Resulting in this result.

I added names to all of the links, dates to many of the links, etc. Making all the links standard. I moved some of the less important detailed aspects of the SEO lawsuit to the references. I also reorganized the order of the criticism section. I removed a few links, which I listed above, and removed one dead links. many of these links had been tagged by another user. 98.231.142.70 (talk) 17:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Further DoS attack
A further denial of service attack on the Ripoff Report site seems to be going on now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.30.71.244 (talk) 15:23, 19 May 2010 (UTC) The apparent DoS attack on Ripoff Report seems to be continuing. Fraudsters hate the site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.30.71.244 (talk) 16:19, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * A cottage industry has arisen, trying to remove or push down a report in a Google search. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.30.71.244 (talk) 16:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The attack seems to have been eliminated now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.30.71.244 (talk) 13:45, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yet another attack seems to have started. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 (talk) 09:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A Google search on the name of a company will show up the reports on it on Ripoff Report.
 * This works, even if the original site can not be reached. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.252.249 (talk) 11:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I am now getting through to the Ripoff site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.252.249 (talk) 10:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

If you can't deal directly with Ripoff Report, you can use the cached version in a Google search. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.139.101.21 (talk) 18:21, 26 July 2010 (UTC) It may be the text-only version that is best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.30.71.244 (talk) 14:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC) The site www.canyoutrustthem.com might be another site you can use, if defrauded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.60.250 (talk) 15:23, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The site www.complaintsboard.com is very good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.70.240 (talk) 09:07, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The site canyoutrustthem.com is not any use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.225.133 (talk) 11:20, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

The canyoutrustthem.com staff remove complaints at the suggestion of irate fraudsters, without a reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.183.71.115 (talk) 09:04, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The Google cache or the archive site can be used to find complaints that have been removed from other complaint sites. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.194.200 (talk) 15:25, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Odd Sentences
I was looking at this article when I noticed these lines right at the end. They seemed to have been randomly tacked on: "Rip of report method has given a huge chance for its owner to earn . protected by CDA but ethically illegal platform where competitors keep posting bad responses and the innocent companies keep working on reverse seo or paying to rebuttal or membership of rip off report. THis site is taking a huge advantage." Should we consider deleting this? Jordan.labelle (talk) 20:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

NPOV Warning Posted
Our article, at this writing, evidences highly critical bias against the subject, the RipOff Report consumer complaint website. But I should make clear that this NPOV concern arises primarily from the quantitative and qualitative incompleteness of our article; in a word: the lack of encyclopedic coverage of the subject. This produces an apparent severe bias, because the only section of the entire article that is complete is the section captioned "Criticism and Controversy" -- criticism, of course, of the protagonist, the RipOff Report, by the antagonists: mainly corporate interests who have in some cases lodged lawsuits against the RipOff report.

Approximately 90% of the content of our article expands upon "Criticism and Controversy", thus establishing prima facie antagonistic bias. "Criticism" is but one small facet of a far larger body of knowledge and legitimate inquiry, the entirety of which should be evenly summarized in an encyclopedia article. The importance of the RipOff Report, if it warrants inclusion in the Wikipedia encyclopedia at all, is in good part related to the some 600,000 posts (mainly by aggrieved consumers) made on the RipOff Report site. This statistic, duly cited in our article, makes the RipOff Report among the most heavily annotated of all forum-style websites. By that fact alone, Ripoff Report is of significance in a variety domains of knowledge, not just the concerns of the mainly corporate interests whose alleged misdeeds are documented on the pages of that site  The purported encyclopedic subject of our Wikipedia article fairly begs for exploration of the following additional facets, among others:


 * History of the Consumer Movement and the Impact of the Internet: Confusion and Consolidation
 * History and Inspiration for the RipOff Report; Background of the Founder
 * Corporate Interests and Efforts to Dismantle Consumer Watchdogs (from Consumers' Union -- in re the Corvair car, etc, to the antagonists of the RipoffReport)
 * Bibiliometry and Usage Trends for the RipOff Report
 * Impact of Consumer Communities on Product Quality, Generally (+ in American Auto Industry) and re: RipoffReport
 * Other Consumer Communities and Their Organs, Online and Offline
 * Hybridized E-Commerce and Review Sites: Ebay, Amazon, and the Future of RipoffReport

The broad coverage promised by the all-encompassing title of our Wikepedia article, the total lack of coverage of the foregoing subject matters, yet with a lopsided, lawyerly, and exhaustive recounting in "Criticism and Controversy" -- these together mandate the NPOV flag. But that's not all. I would suggest that other, more severe remedies are needed, at least temporarily. These would include narrowing the title of our article to the more appropriate "Criticism of the RipOff Report Website", or deletion of the entire article pending the necessary additional research and writing befitting an encyclopedia article accessible to billions of people. Contrablue (talk) 16:42, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Location
http://www.scribd.com/doc/26222684/Global-Royalties-v-Xcentric-Ventures-544-F-Supp-2d-929 http://www.bad-business-rip-off.com/images/azcourtpetition.jpg http://www.sawbuck.com/property/Phoenix_Metro/Apache_Junction/85220_Apache_Junction/3905096-2033-W-McDowell-Boulevard and http://maps.google.com/maps/place?q=2033+W.+McDowell+Blvd.,+Apache+Junction,+AZ+85219&cid=10355222873996250602 seem to imply that Xcentric Ventures sold its location at 2033 W McDowell Boulevard, Apache Junction, AZ 85220-9157 for $175,000 on 15 June 2010. —  Jeff G. ツ  03:03, 30 July 2011 (UTC)