Quite The Telecom Equipment Scam
from the all-worked-out dept
Broadband Reports point us to a Forbes story concerning the huge telecom equipment scam operation called Norvergence. The company was apparently selling $2,000 router/firewall boxes (that were available for $300 on eBay) by calling it “The Matrix: a merged access transport intelligent exchange.” They then targeted small, non-tech-savvy businesses with fast talking salespeople promising “unlimited broadband, landline and cell phone service with no per-minute charges.” Even better, they weren’t actually selling them, but “leasing” them at $300/month for a minimum five year lease. Then, to make matters even more ridiculous Norvergence sold those leases to leasing and banking companies. Norvergence got all the cash ($143 million in 2003) and ran, while everyone else got screwed. Meanwhile, the founders of Norvergence have already bankrupted another telecom startup, leaving creditors in the hole by nearly $70 million, and are already hard at work on yet another telecom startup. Why not? It seems to pay so well. Is there any possible reason these guys haven’t been arrested yet?
Comments on “Quite The Telecom Equipment Scam”
The Matrix
They aren’t in jail for the same reason the Enron and MCI corporate gangsters aren’t doing stir in a federal pen, as a yard monster’s girlfriend: The Golden Rule of Capitalism. It’s not complicated how it works: He Who Has The Gold Makes The Rules. The two bastards responsible for “Matrix” should be forced (tortured – I don’t mince words)to reveal all their secret accounts.
In the unlikely event they’re convicted and given prison sentences, they’ll likely be allowed to plea it down to nothing. Even if convicted they will not be forced to give stolen money back as a condition for reduced prison time. In the unlikely event that they have to do stir, it will probably be a special minimum-security “white” collar crime facility. They won’t have assholes stretched to the size of softballs.
For scum like this, who won’t be prosecuted by any agency responsible for law enforcement, there is only one punishment. Scum like this deserves immediate termination: “two in the head and one in the heart, knocks them down and keeps them dead”. They won’t stop until they know the terminal solution will be applied, so I say – Kill them all and let God sort out the rest.
Just wondering ...
… what you (and by extension, Forbes) is alleging these people did that is illegal? So far as I know, selling someone something that can be bought cheaper elsewhere using “high-pressure” sales tactics, while certainly scummy, isn’t illegal.
And it certainly isn’t a “scam” (in the sense of someone selling “viagra” pills that are really just sugar pills). Going bankrupt isn’t illegal, or a sign that what you’re doing is a “scam.”
Re: Just wondering ...
Selling people a box that promises “unlimited broadband, landline and cell phone service with no per-minute charges,” and then forcing people into long term leases, only to discover the box does NONE of what it was promised… That doesn’t sound like fraud to you?