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About an Internet scam attempted by Benjamin Suare


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Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 15:16:48 -0800
From: "Brock N. Meeks" <[email protected]>
Message-Id: <[email protected]>

CyberWire Dispatch//Copyright © 1994//

Jacking in from the P.T. Barnum Port:

Washington, DC -- Thwart the proliferation of electronic junk mail and
make yourself some cash as the same time. Ask Me How!

Interested? There's more. You get a free Internet account, accessible
through a toll free number. All you have to do is let poor capitalist
slubs pour junk mail into your free account and you get an average of 6.5
cents for every message that you receive. You don't even have to read the
stuff.

Remember, there's "absolutely no charge, periodic charge, hourly charge or
phone charge." And for all your effort, you'll likely get an annual check
of $500 "and likely more," according to a company called Electric Postal
Service (EPS).

Such are the claims made by the mysterious EPS during a February Internet
E-mail blitzkrieg. All EPS said it required was that you "send E-mail to
our internet address at [email protected]." And be sure to include you
name and address, EPS said. Or there was an 800 number to call.

The EPS offer intrigued thousands of Internet users, who rushed to forward
their electronic application and sat back to waiting to collect their piece
of the Internet pie.

Fat Chance. The EPS information never arrived.

A month-long Dispatch investigation has revealed that EPS is nothing more
than a shell company for a direct mailing scam run out of Canton, Ohio.

Bait and Switch
===============

After weeks of waiting, no information, electronic or otherwise, has ever
appeared from EPS. Instead, those requesting information were sent a
curious mailing from an outfit called "Suarez Corporation Industries"
headed by one Benjamin Suarez.

The Suarez information arrived in an envelope annotated "Important: The
information you requested." Inside an "approved letter of requisition"
tells how you can receive a new book called "Seven Steps to Freedom II --
How to Escape the American Rat Race." The book supposedly tells you how to
birth a corporate creature called a "Net Profit Generation System" (NPGS).

Such a deal! An NPGS can produce $30,000 to "over one million dollars a
year" in income, Suarez says. The catch? The book and associated software
only costs you $159. But that's a steal, Suarez says, because if you buy
the book and software separately, they cost you almost $200. But hurry,
the offer expires within ten days, because Suarez doesn't want "an order to
be wasted on the curiosity seeker."

Small problem: The supposed authorization letter contains no date, no
authorization code, no bar code. Nothing to determine when it was received
or when the supposed 10 day expiration clocks starts to tick.

Oh... and the "Seven Steps" book ("not sold in stores") doesn't show up in
the Dialog "Books in Print" database.

Suarez claims in his letter to be one of the richest people in the nation,
"one of the truly rich" unlike those that are "only paper rich" because
they count stock.

Published reports put Suarez Corp. Industries (SCI) worth at only $100
million, with some 630 envelope stuffing employees. What Suarez is,
however, is a slick direct mail baron. The letterhead from SCI lists a
host of "divisions" all of which operate out of SCI's headquarters in North
Canton. One of those divisions is "CompuClub Software and Computer
Services."

Dispatch called SCI's main number to ask if EPS was, in reality, one of the
infamous Suarez, Net Profit Generation System companies. After a few
rounds of questioning, a Suarez operator admitted that EPS was, indeed, an
NPGS, "a subsidiary of CompuClub." She wouldn't answer any further
questions about EPS. Calls to CompuClub weren't returned.

What's the real story on Benjamin Suarez? Let's flip this latest Internet
scam on its back and gut that soft white underbelly. (Gloves, please...)

The Rap Sheet Two-Step
======================

Suarez, it appears, is attempting to pull off some kind of Internet P.T.
Barnum routine. He's infamous for his questionable direct marketing scams.
And he has a mean streak. His record speaks for itself.

In February, Suarez agreed to quit all operations in the state of
Washington, agreeing to pay more than $70,000 in refunds to some 4,500
consumers there who bought jewelry, cutlery and other products from his
companies since 1992.

The Washington State attorney general's office brought suit against Suarez,
alleging his company violated the state's prizes and promotions laws by
selling fake diamonds under the company name Lindenwold Fine Jewelers (also
a Suarez "division"). One tactic that apparently pissed off the attorney
general was an offer that gave a "free gift" of a cubic zirconia to
customers along with an offer for a "discount" on the cost of getting it
mounted. That arrangement violates Washington law: If a recipient must
spend money to use an award, you can't use the term "free prize."

Blaaaahhh!!!! Thank you for playing, Mr. Suarez.

The suit so enraged Suarez that he began running negative campaign ads
slamming the attorney general who was, at the time, running for the
governor's office. Suarez even offered to pay the attorney general's
opponents up to $50,000 to front his own hit-squad negative campaign ads.
They declined.

In a second case in Washington, Suarez offered the same rhinestones,
claiming they were worth more than $100. Natch, said former Attorney
General Ken Eikenberry, the real value of those stones were about $2.65 a
pop. Eikenberry called the promotion, a "blatant deception." In that
suit, Suarez settled out of court by paying $15,000.

According to court records and published reports, other charges brought
against Suarez by the state of Washington in 1992 include: (1) Making
false promises of saving. (2) Making deceptive price representations. (3)
Conducting charitable solicitations without registering with the secretary
of state. (4) Failing to state the odds of winning a sweepstakes. (5)
Distributing a simulated check that doesn't have the phrase: "This is not
a check" plastered on its front.

For all those charges, Suarez is no prohibited from doing business in the
State. Seems he's moved his operation to the Internet.

The attorney general's office says Suarez is also involved in lawsuits in
Indiana and Ohio, but could give no details.

Suarez, in previously published interviews with the Seattle
Post-Intelligencier, defended his company, saying he offers a money-back
guarantee and has a return rate of less than 2 percent.

Life On the Laugh Track
=======================

For Suarez, adversity and conflict are his Rice Krispies and whole milk. A
newspaper database search finds:

* The Idaho attorney general making Suarez
change its jewelry-marketing pitch.

* FDA challenged a Suarez company claim of certain
"health benefits" he advertised that arose from a
2,000-year-old secret recipe for Himalayan bread.
Suarez successfully defended his right to
advertise the alleged health benefits.

* The U.S. Post Office files suit against Suarez in
1986, stemming from certain marketing tactics for
his book on how to recover money from the government.

All in the Family
=================

For the Suarez boys, blood is thicker than lawsuits. In 1990, a company
called Consumer Direct, run by Richard and Luann Suarez, was hammered by
the Federal Trade Commission for making false claims about a product called
the "Gut Buster," an exercising device. The company was also sued by
government agencies over marketing tactics for a line of diet plans and
pills.

Seems only five minutes a day with the ol' Gut Buster had you buffed and
ready for Muscle Beach. But the FTC didn't buy off on the hypefest.
Instead, the FTC insisted that there was no "competent and reliable
evidence" to prove such claims.

You'd think with all these hard knocks, these guys would learn. What's the
motivation? Do the math. Some 2.4 million Gut Busters were sold,
according to FTC files, for total revenues of $55 million. (Minus a couple
of slap-on-the-wrist fines. Question: Who's going to box their ears for
scamming the Net??)

Suarez headquarters were swamped with hundreds of reports of injuries to
Gut Buster users when the springs on the damn thing broke. "Approximately
1,000 customers complained when the Gut Buster spring broke
and snapped back to hit them as they exercised," the FTC testimony reads.

Search and Verify
=================

All this will come as no surprise to Benjamin "Gary Hart" Suarez. In his
rogue mailing, it clearly states: "These facts are all verifiable by you,
if you wish to investigate."

Thanks for the tip, Ben. It's been real.

Meeks out...

[Submitted by: Peter Vitartas ([email protected])
Thu, 7 Apr 1994 15:23:30 +1000]

 
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