the things that stood out for me about this conviction is that this guy got 25 years, a 93 million dollar fine and forfeited $459 million in assets. that’s more than big time players who steal billions of dollars get in fines and time.
not only that, but 10 of the employees of the company face jail time, as well.
it seems that part of what brought his company so many complaints is that his product used recurring billing, and one had to opt out to stop receiving it. they also made it very difficult to collect on their money back guarantee, and a lot of people went to the bbb with complaints.
still, seems like overkill to me. this guy didn’t bilk people out of their savings - he lied, he was unwilling to keep his company’s promises, but i think that half a billion and 25 years is overdoing it.
that does sound extreme! 25 years is far too long for anything thats related to business. Its a bit like in the UK where you get a feeling that you can get away with murder but anything related to money and they come down real hard on you.
the things that stood out for me about this conviction is that this guy got 25 years, a 93 million dollar fine and forfeited $459 million in assets. that’s more than big time players who steal billions of dollars get in fines and time.
not only that, but 10 of the employees of the company face jail time, as well.
it seems that part of what brought his company so many complaints is that his product used recurring billing, and one had to opt out to stop receiving it. they also made it very difficult to collect on their money back guarantee, and a lot of people went to the bbb with complaints.
still, seems like overkill to me. this guy didn’t bilk people out of their savings - he lied, he was unwilling to keep his company’s promises, but i think that half a billion and 25 years is overdoing it.[/quote]
I think the white collar criminals who get away with worse and spend little or no time in jail are not getting what they deserved. Perhaps they had better lawyers or covered their ass a bit more then he did?
That was a great article. They really used to Patriot Act to screw him good. figures
This is very different than Enron or Worldcom. The buyers of Enzyte pills didn’t lose their entire fortune or their pensions/retirement savings. At most, every buyer should have received a refund and the owner should have recieved a minimal sentence… if any.
Now we can say goodbye to recurring memberships. This is very sad news.
Honestly, I’m really glad the guy got 25 years. He had absolutely no conscience, he knew without a doubt that his product was completely fraudulent, he invented fake doctors, fake studies, fake satisfaction surveys.
He completely defrauded the public, and then, when they tried to get a refund because the product didn’t work, he required them to get a notarized statement from a physician saying they had a small penis (knowing full well that no men would be willing to do that.)
Yes, the Enron and Worldcom people were shady and fraudulent and caused a loss many times greater, but even they didn’t perpetrate so direct a fraud. I think they intended to just “cook the books” to make things look better so their company could grow bigger faster. The Enzyte guy built his entire company from the start knowing the product is worthless and knowing that people would be embarrassed to ask for a refund.
The guy is a piece of shit and I’m really glad the judge did throw the book at him.
[QUOTE=gaybucks_chip;21506]Honestly, I’m really glad the guy got 25 years. He had absolutely no conscience, he knew without a doubt that his product was completely fraudulent, he invented fake doctors, fake studies, fake satisfaction surveys.
He completely defrauded the public, and then, when they tried to get a refund because the product didn’t work, he required them to get a notarized statement from a physician saying they had a small penis (knowing full well that no men would be willing to do that.)
Yes, the Enron and Worldcom people were shady and fraudulent and caused a loss many times greater, but even they didn’t perpetrate so direct a fraud. I think they intended to just “cook the books” to make things look better so their company could grow bigger faster. The Enzyte guy built his entire company from the start knowing the product is worthless and knowing that people would be embarrassed to ask for a refund.
The guy is a piece of shit and I’m really glad the judge did throw the book at him.[/QUOTE]
Anyone stupid enough to buy Enzyte deserved to be defrauded.
But seriously folks, there is no crime if there is no victim. I’m not quite as forgiving of the scumbags at Worldcom and Enron as Chip… those guys caused thousands of people extreme economic hardship. The Enzyte crew merely defauded a few dollars from gullible idots. And that does not deserve the same kind of punishment in my opinion.
And really… money laundering?! C’mon! Thank god the US Patriot Act is protecting us from snake-oil salesmen… nevermind the terrorists.
I knew all this was going down and still saw one of those Enzyte commercials about a week ago…I always imagined him boning that orbit chewing gum chick really hard while their teeth sparkled at each other.
I have to agree that the sentence is pretty extreme for sure. 25 years!! Holy shit! LOL!!! And half a billion dollars. Well…the money thing I may have to agree with. He DID steal it after all. But it’s the 25 years that gets to me. I have to agree with Xstr8guy on this. It’s not like he robbed a bunch of old ladies out of their pensions. Some pathetic dudes who thought this crap actually works voluntarily handed over their money. I agree, they deserved to get ripped off.
This is NOT to say that what “Smiling Bob” did was not wrong. Of course it was. But the Canadian government is screwing me in a much worse way. I bet I’ll pay WAY more to them in a lifetime than any one person gave to him.
I won’t go into how much I think my government should get in jail time for ripping me off. lol
So when this guy pays out this half a billion dollars, who exactly is getting the money? This seems similar to the Airborne incident in the last year, but in their case they had no prison time, they were just required to refund all of their customers for the products that they had purchased.
