To be a brilliant artist, you don’t necessarily need to use paints, clay or any other traditional artistic tools. You apparently don’t need to have morals or a conscience either.
Ed Magedson is a name well known throughout the internet as a scam artist and the man behind Ripoff Report. The website claims to serve as a consumer advocacy forum: “By Consumers, For Consumers”. But if you believe the many, many reports from other sources, the website is merely a blackmail scam to con businesses into paying Ed Magedson.
The site claims to offer the consumer a chance for retribution or justice for being ripped off by a business, but there is some evidence that many of the posts are written by Magedson or employees. Ripoff Report says it has won numerous legal battles over the legitimacy of the reports, and it has appeared to find a large degree of protection from the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996. Magedson himself has been in court and if you’d like an idea of how slippery a character he is, you can read the court transcript here.
I’m not saying that a site that legitimately warns consumers of potential scams aren’t good for business. The internet has provided a means for consumers to voice their concerns and complaints when they’ve been slighted. But what about businesses who are targeted for no apparent reason?
If Ripoff Report is to be believed, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google harassed a couple of 16-year-old girls in a Santa Monica coffee shop and attempted to get them to go to a hotel room (link). I don’t know Page or Brin personally, but I don’t really need to. The two founders of the largest and most successful search engine in the world weren’t drunk in a Santa Monica coffee shop picking up 16-year-old girls. The claim is ridiculous. **It appears that the name has been changed from the original post to now read Soney Bonoi.
Unfortunately outrageous claims are all the norm on Ripoff Report, and your average business can be targeted with little to no substantiation. The worst part about Magedson’s site is that Google has continued to rank the reports exceptionally well. Search for a given business, and if there is a report written on it, chances are the link will appear on the first page.
Yahoo and Microsoft’s Live search engine have begun handling the reports differently. MSN won’t list Rip-Off Report at all in its listings, and the visibility on Yahoo is a mere five percent. Compare that to 91 percent visibility on Google and you can see why Rip-Off Report gets the traffic that it does.
According to results culled from Compete.com on April 14, 2009, Rip-Off Report receives nearly 3 million unique visitors a month! To put it in comparison, Fox.com gets 3.36 million unique visits a month. That means nearly as many people are viewing the company-bashing reports on Magedson’s site as they are catching up on the latest episodes of House, Family Guy and American Idol.
This kind of traffic is what continues to give Rip-Off Report “relevance”. How much relevance can be gleaned from learning about a supposed case of adultery in Minneapolis is to be determined (link). The company openly states they will not investigate the validity of the claims – unless you want to join their “corporate advocacy program” and pay a hefty fee.
I suppose you can call this something other than extortion, but I’m afraid my antonym finder is broken at the moment. Until the laws are changed or Magedson slips up, the only thing to do if you find your business on the site is to create your own quality content and hope Google sees the error of their ways. At least you won’t find much about R.O.R. on Yahoo or MSN.
**All of the links to mentioned Ripoff Reports are nofollows.
By: Zack S.
Tags: Ed Magedson, Rip-Off Report, Ripoff Report, ROR
[...] you need proof of this, read my blog post about recent PPC scams at both Google and Yahoo. You really can’t be too careful these [...]
[...] you need proof of this, read my blog post about recent PPC scams at both Google and Yahoo. You really can’t be too careful these [...]
Kris, you’re welcome to copy it as long as your link back to the original here. Thanks for reading.
Cash4Gold is the latest high profile victim to fold into Ed Magedson’s scheme. He never seems to quit.
A new Federal Statute enacted in 2006 possibly makes the content of RipOff Report and its transmissions criminal, and have apparently never been brought as charges to date. Section 113 was signed into law by President George W. Bush on January 5, 2006. It amends 47 U.S.C. 223, the telecommunications harassment statute that is rooted in the Communications Act of 1934. The telecommunications statute prohibits anyone from using a telephone or a telecommunications device “without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person.” Ed Magedson is very proud of talking about how most of the annoying, abusive, defamatory, threatening, or harassing postings on his site are anonymous. In application this has meant that you cannot anonymously annoy another person through the phone lines. Penalties include two years in prison and onerous fines. Section 113 amends the statute to include “any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet.” Section 113, entitled, “PREVENTING CYBERSTALKING,” states that the prohibited criminal acts apply to whoever (1) in interstate or foreign communications (A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly (i) makes, creates, or solicits, and (ii) initiates the transmission of, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or child pornography, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person.
I have been bashed and slandered with rediculous and false accusations on Rip off. It specifically mentions my full name, has nothing to do with any consumer and only from terminated employees.
Since this is personal and not as company, I am going to write to Ed and the Arizona AG to get it off..
What can I do?
If there are any attorneys, journalists or law enforcement that want to know the truth about the man and the business, contact the private investigator that tracked his physical location twice and has all the goods on him.
View the video…link to it if you wish.
http://www.paladinpi.com/content.php?id=21
the rip off report owner is under investigation the guy is hurting millions of consumers with his lies and slanders may repitable co. in order to have something to put on his sit. I am a credit counslor and tones of our clients are scared to get much needed help due to the lies on his site. this should be illegle and he should be made to pay the millions of consumers back that have not gotten help due to his faulse and misleading advise!
Here is the ripoffreport.com phone number : 888-275-2211
To the above poster “real ripoffreport”
listen a%^ hole your proactive approach to
put your ugly nose on any post against your sewage website is becoming old.
you can’t convince people who already know what you are.
its just a matter of time until your mafia like operation is shut down either by bankrupting you with a collection of lawsuits or by much needed change to basic telecommunication laws which you are obviously abusing.
I am willing to bet my life that “Ed Madgedson”
will end up a broke criminal rusting away in jail,
he is already a criminal its just a matter of time until the wheels of justice catch up with him.
which is the best case scenario for him,
the worst one is that one business owner that you put out of business who is currently grinding his teeth until he decides to locate and deal with magedson personally.
This guys sounds like he is angry becuase he cant get better placement that Magedson. I beleive RIPOFFREPORT has hundreds of thousands of backlinks in the past 10 or 11 years for starters. Secondly, comments or complaints come from the consumer. Thirdly…extortion scheme? Is the Better Business Bureau a FRANCHISE NOW…talk about BS…lol Magedson provides a forum for people to make their claims. Of course not all are true and people use it to go after competitors or disgruntled employess post lies etc. But as far as the REAL BUSINESSES who care about there reputation, his program for businesses is NOT EXTORTION…and no one has there arm twisted into it. I do personally know of a business that was losing over 50k a month due to negative press and the fee that RIP OFF REPORT charged to monitor negative postings etc and allow the business to respond BEFORE it was posted was WELL WORTH THE INVESTMENT. It isnt the only forum out there of its kind…its the most well known and has the most history. Why do people talk about extortion instead of the MANY people it has helped in addtion to the law agencies amd postmaster general and FBI and local police etc that work with it? Maybe you need to look at what yrou real issue is with Rip Off Report. there is NO SEO compnay that can get the rankings that RIP OFF REPORT can get. Maybe they should do their own SEO deal and bury all you guys. hat would shut a lot of people up the way I see it.