DENVER, COLO- Alternatively, Santa Fe alt-art venue Meow Wolf is URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CAT'S CLOTHING. Here's the scam: Laud an arts collective of "creative types". Let them pitch an arts space project to city planners for which you'll supply the ownership investment. Let their non-profit creative-class cred prompt city leaders to provide otherwise unavailable land and the tax incentives and exclusions which come to cultural projects. Let them lead community fundraising to support art etc etc. You buy the land, you own the building, and you give them a 20-year lease. Their rent is subsidized by more community and city support. Cha-ching. In the end, you've got another property, where you mightn't been able lacking eminent domain. And you've roped in long-term tenants whose rent checks are backed by taxpayers. When your cronies lobby the city against that public support and their project is a bust, or when the lease expires, your sky is the limit! How can you lose? Normally you pull this scam on locals, but art communities have their own MBA grads now. So how to subvert urban artists? Bring your own hicks. In Denver, developers are using a New Mexico based band of bohemians called Meow Wolf as their shill intermediaries. Meow Wolf is a sort of Cirque du Soleil meets Halloween haunt house, in Santa Fe, who secured their own "permanent" leased space only last year with the backing of Game-of-Thrones creator George RR Martin. It's the reverse of course, because Meow Wolf attracted the public subsidies for the pulp author turned property developer, who keeps the building. Now someone has decided Meow Wolf can franchise their black-light immersive fun-houses everywhere that low-brow passes for art. For 2018, Meow Wolf has rolled Denver for a new construction downtown. Except no, they and their public support get only a LEASE. Flush with praise for their success, the Meow Wolves admit they're working on simultaneous metropolises across the west, even as they appear so fresh off the boat they hardly know what they're doing! They don't, but their landlords do. Those crazy creatives!
Tag: scams
Capital strikes again and again…
This is completely off the wall (street) but I had to laugh at it anyway. There's one of those K-Tel type commercials, if you don't remember K-Tel then go ask your mommy, kiddo. Now it's "As Seen On TV" or, as I like to call it, a warehouse in New Jersey where they keep the money they freeze on your debit card, something like a hundred dollars if you order twenty dollars worth of crap (plus shipping+handling but that's another story) and collect interest on your money for a month until they decide to finally process your order and take the hold off your account. All very legal and ethical if you have the morals of George Bush on crack. This newest product is something called Slim Away Belt or something really lame like that. It's... a corset. An invention that was first marketed during the Dark Ages when torture was considered fun of some kind. So they take a thousand year old device to keep women from enjoying life, changed the laces out for zippers et voila ici, it's still a corset. It would come in handy as a back brace in case you ever do real work. But when they talk about getting in shape without any effort you realize... never mind. It does show a guy using it during exercise in order to sweat off water weight which somehow gives him sculpted muscles. Sorry, it just brings out my Inner Snotnose when I see what looks like an elaborate joke but costs money if you actually buy into it. Aside from the moral tie in to the rest of Capital, which is an equal scam mechanism, like auctions which cost money even if you don't buy anything
Fox puts $ where mouth is, admits phone whore best career chance
In one of their many late night commercials which seem to have a lot to do with sex products. It's a recruiting ad for women to do "phone valet" work in the "telecommunications industry". Other ads, not as spicy, but just as hideously depressing "Yo Name TOBY, boy!" that show your destination to be eternal slave-level jobs... go to Tech School and be an entry-level nurses aid, orderly, grease monkey or similar Peasant Work. All that "American Dream" crap they sell about deregulated Capitalist economics affording everybody a chance to become CEO of a multi-trillion dollar corporation... purest bullshit. When it comes to what they REALLY believe your "career" opportunities to be, it involves coveralls or scrubs or a chambermaid uniform... or perhaps a whore. Glorify it how they will, they speak great words of "Land of Opportunity" if we only allow the Corporates to have their way... and then tell us how they really regard us in the commercials. Republican Hypocrisy in action.
QuiBids internet racketeers threaten Not My Tribe with scam legal letter
Game On QuiBids. We received a letter today from an Oklahoma law firm, on behalf of "QuiBids LLC," apparently the preeminent of "penny auction site" confidence scams, who took exception to our earlier look-see into their rip-off operation. Frankly, I assumed our cries of foul were latecomers, while someone more responsible was ringing the OK attorney general. As QuiBids has the temerity to threaten "whatever action is necessary," I'll make the call personally. As it is I already feel duped for reprinting the letter below, because it reads like typical QuiBids fake advertorials. Name-dropping Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, yada yada. And of course: "Sadly, the same cannot be said about some of QuiBids' competitors," the we're-not-like-the-other-con-artists routine. The phoniest passage pretends that QuiBids "was forced to file suit against another online penny auction site for its unlawful activities." HAHAHA. Unlawful activities are prosecuted by the state, you flunkies. As you'll learn presently. Actually I am 100% certain that charges are already filed, and this aggressive PR is a smokescreen. I'll post all ensuing developments. By the way, consumers can contact BBBs to register complaints, but a business membership does not imply endorsement. Same with the Chamber of Commerce. And WHO considers the chamber any kind of arbiter of ethical business practice? That mindset comes from someone who didn't stray beyond the business school building. Hohoho. Who does QuiBids take us for? Their marks? To be clear, QuiBids and the "penny auction" ilk are neither auctions, nor gambling sites. Whether or not they deploy shill bidders or mischievous software, the QuiBids money-for-nothing scheme is fraud. A penny auction website pretends to offer "dibs" to the last customer who puts money in the pot, and proceeds to collect "bid" payments for a virtually unlimited time span, until the last desperate player decides he's lost enough. Whether or not the victim is entitled to purchase the item at full retail price, as a consolation, does not mitigate the fact that they were duped. Look no further than QuiBids' own protestations. QuiBids differentiates itself from "the other penny auction sites" which it asserts without a hint of irony, are inherently guilty. Oh do go on, QuiBids, expound for us on the illegality of your competitors... Add to the fraudulent transaction, the deceptive methods used to promote QuiBids. And now, contriving a legal threat to fain legitimacy. McAfee &Taft appears to be a significant law firm, why does this letter read like a QuiBids promotional blurb? We need to forward this to the partners McAfee and Taft themselves, to show them the sophomore crap being circulated under their letterhead. At the risk of simply spreading the Quibids PR drivel, here it is. McAFEE & TAFT A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION 10TH FLOOR - TWO LEADERSHIP SQUARE 21 NORTH ROBINSON - OKLAHOMA CITY, OK 73102-7103 (405) 235-9621 - FAX (405) 235-0439 www.mcafeetaft.com Ryan L. Lobato Attorney at Law September 3, 2010 VIA EMAIL AND CERTIFIED MAIL RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED Eric Verlo editorial @ notmytribe.com Not My Tribe 29 E. Bijou, Room 222 Colorado Springs, CO 80903 Re: Trademark Infringement Mr. Verlo: We represent QuiBids, L.L.C. ("QuiBids") in intellectual
Scam auction site Swipebids poses French celebrity Melissa Theuriau as generic newsperson all over the web
Penny auction scammers know their audience. Stupid Americans aren't going to recognize one phony news reporter over another, even if it's French anchorwoman Melissa Theuriau. Imagine if Lisa Hartman's misnamed image popped up in embedded advertorials. Not only are fake "penny auction" news pages posing the A-list celebrity as a generic TV spokesperson, but ads have been placed across the internet, on authentic media like MSNBC. Certainly the banner ad managers of MSM websites know that Theuriau is not shilling for penny auction scammers.
Filipina teenage actress allegedly has Botox for role
That's... taking things a bit far. OK, it's taking things WAY too far. Teen actress Charice has "anti-aging" treatments including Botox, WHY? The encouraging of young girls as young as toddlers to wear makeup, when makeup is designed specifically to make you look YOUNGER, that's a marketing scam worthy of note, and people have noticed it. So the notion of injecting Poison into your skin to look like a Teenaged girl, understandable in somebody who's much older than teenaged, seems kind of redundant in a child. Imaginary Conversation in The Sandbox "yes, dahling, this makeup takes years off my appearance, now instead of looking 18 months I look like a newborn, only, you know, not as tiny. However, the diet regimen my beauty counselor has me on will take care of that part as well" "Oh, yes, I can see the results... that one over there, though, she's 4 and looks 5... perhaps she could use the benefit of your counselor?" Our society is SO screwed. The whole scenario is like something I saw on Alfred Hitchcock long ago, where a lady is having a home beauty treatment (although from the plot "lady" wouldn't be the proper word, "bitch" seems more appropriate) and the beautician, who has been abused by her for years, assures her that the treatment will keep her looking young forever. Tetra-ethyl lead, the ingredient in Gasoline that nobody uses anymore, toxic, people who can remember back that far or watch a lot of older TV shows remember "Regular or Ethyl?" then it became Regular (with the lead) or Unleaded. Yeah, people used to pump your gasoline for you at service stations. Also a preservative once used in mortuaries. Beautician wasn't lying about that part, by the time she got around to telling the Extra-Abusive client she was already paralyzed from the lead.
Another currency scam, like the Bass Brothers pulled in the 70s
There's an infomercial on TV right now, for the "presidential dollar coin" collector series. Seems, according to the Sellers, who have apparently bought up a huge amount of these coins... Are warning us that there's a conspiracy run by unscrupulous coin dealers to buy up huge amounts of these coins in order to manipulate the currencies market by saying that current buying trends on these coins indicate they would be a Hugely Profitable Investment... But they fail to mention, only if enough people fall for their scam. The Bass brothers did that in 1977-78 with the silver market, buying up just enough of the available silver, starting a rumor that some powerful Multi-billionaire investors were buying silver, thus driving up the price of silver... then dumping it en masse on the market. They scored billions of bucks, paid a few million in fines and served not a single minute in jail or in handcuffs for this massive ripoff. Much like the Real Estate investment scams that are being ramped up once more, "buy foreclosed homes at pennies on the dollar with (yeah, we've heard this before) GOVERNMENT guarantees on the mortgages, then "flip" them for HUGE profits! Attend our seminar to find out how... only a thousand dollars per day for a week-long seminar. But Hurry! This is a Limited Time Offer (umm... I'm familiar with elementary physics, there's nothing infinite, not even time...) and you must hurry before The enraged people realize that they've been had and run us out of town on a rail err... umm... The market tanks again due to these blatant manipulations err ummm... before they close the loophole or some other unseen force like the laws of physics, simple economics and maybe good common sense occur on a massive scale and we just simply won't be able to offer it anymore, yeah, that's the ticket...
Scriptmatix “penny auctions” such as Quibids are less scams than pure fraud
Shell games tempt only the gullible, don't they? So long as YOU don't fall for them, what's a little income redistribution among wretches? That's an attitude shared only by the uninitiated. So-called internet "penny auctions" exploit human vulnerability like trust and avarice, leaving victims to blame their own stupidity or greed. You may shrug off getting burned as a lesson learned, but all confidence tricks count on that. Websites like Quibids and Scriptmatix's PennyAuction are neither novel discount methods, adventure shopping, gambling scenarios or lotteries. They are con games that lead you to believe you are getting something for your money, until you don't. Just because YOU can figure it out -from an objective distance- doesn't mean Quibids is not patently dishonest. US laws governing fraud are enforced by local statutes, but common law is enough to define this internet scam as representation of falsehood with the intent to profit. Whether or not the auctions use shill bidders, or fail to honor unprofitable outcomes, as have been accused by disgruntled victims, the websites are misrepresentations. The former are obvious illegal practices. The latter is fraud. Or are we so cynical that we accept this kind of scam as merely "predatory capitalism?" Wikipedia defines fraud in layman's terms: 1. a representation of an existing fact; 2. its materiality; 3. its falsity; 4. the speaker's knowledge of its falsity; 5. the speaker's intent that it shall be acted upon by the plaintiff; 6. plaintiff's ignorance of its falsity; 7. plaintiff's reliance on the truth of the representation; 8. plaintiff's right to rely upon it; and 9. consequent damages suffered by plaintiff. In particular this scam begin with what's known as the advance-fee fraud except this buy-in is ongoing and lasts until a mark is tapped-out. Quibids and ilk call themselves "penny auctions" as if there is such a thing. Onlooker suspicions are assuaged by the inherent implication that if a business scam has a name, it must not be a crime. Are penny auctions a veritable thing, besides the self-defined new crook on the block? Well, yes, but. The "penny auctions" of yesteryear had nothing to do with these pay-to-play auction schemes where bidders buy vouchers for the privilege to ante into a bidding pool. Penny auction refers to the Depression era strategy of sabotaging farm liquidation auctions by forcing the auctioneer to accept bids in increments of one penny. Aided by cooperative neighbors, bankruptcy victims were able to grind their creditor's actions to a halt, for a time, because collusion was itself unlawful. Obviously this is a far cry from the neo penny auctions which require customers to buy "bids" with which to place dibs on a desired item, increasing its auction price by a penny each time and prolonging the bidding for another fixed period. On Quibids, price and time increments can vary between auction items to confuse watchers trying to do the math. As an average, a bidder might pay 60 cents each time he wants to put his name on the desired item, raise its price a penny, and extend the auction expiration by another ten
Obama talks of lowering the deficit even as he does the opposite
Obama sure knows how to talk out of both sides of his mouth at once! And that's exactly what makes him and the Democratic Party so dangerous to the American people. With the Republican Party of Open Violence everybody knows what's coming down, but with the Democrats it's quite different. Here's the latest Obama-con as the mass media hits us with... Obama Seeks to Halve Deficit to Half Trillion Per Year by 2013 all timed to hit us with headlines across the nation in the corporate dailies' Sunday issues today. So how is Obama, with as corporate loaded a Cabinet as ever was, going to reverse course from his new give outs to the corporate big guys, and now tax them as he says he will? How is he going to cut the military spending even as he sends 17,000 or so new troops into Afghanistan? How is he going to tax corproations more even as he gives out more tax refunds to everybody right away? Barack Obama surely is the guy who can talk out both sides of his mouth at one and the same time, isn't he? It's amazing! Slick Willie and his triangulation abacus had nothing ever at all that the duo team of Barack and Hillary we now are stuck with for 4 years can't match and even double in shenanigans. We should all be very concerned with this double talk. Barack is setting the deck for a ruling class attack on what the rich call 'entitlements', but what we know as social programs... programs like Social Security... for just one example. Yes, General Barack is not going to cut the real billion ton gorilla entitlement program that is known as the US military, but is going to go after social programs, even as he double talks to us about expanding them! We are being scammed. The Democratic Party with Barack Obama at the helm might just be running the biggest ponzi scheme of them all on the American public? How does it all work? Well just study the cartoon picture that leads this commentary off. Say one thing and do another.