Usually, the edits are quite small. But then someone replaced the article with this edit with following text containing a number of obviously false allegations:
Ripoff Report is a privately owned and operated for-profit website founded by consumer advocate Ed Magedson. Who is a fraud star and he is also a Child molester. He used to live in Tampa, Florida, people say he is hiding now in Arizona but actually he lives out side of the USA. FBI is looking for him as well. He claims that he is the consumer advocate. In reality he is actually a communist and he does now not want to Free market to spread out. He is a real scammer and extortionist! People be care full!! The Ripoff Report has been online since December 1998 and is operated by Xcentric Ventures, LLC is a fradulent company which is based in Tempe, Arizona.[1] Ed Magedson is the site's current Editor-in-Chief.
If we want to grow Free Economy and grow America we must stop this fraudulent monster. He caused a serious damage too many good people. All he cares about his own money! He must be brought to justice!
At the same token Google, Yahoo and Bing are supporting him! He must be black listed in all search engines!
Almost all the old text from the article was deleted, and the highlighted section above added. What the heck is a "Fraud star" anyway? So who wrote this illiterate drivel? Well, Wikipedia helpfully records the editor's IP address of 74.92.194.46, which is..
| Network | |
|---|---|
| NetRange | 74.92.194.40 - 74.92.194.47 |
| CIDR | 74.92.194.40/29 |
| Name | NATIONS-WARRANTY-GROUP |
| Handle | NET-74-92-194-40-1 |
| Parent | CBC-ATLANTA-6 (NET-74-92-192-0-1) |
| Net Type | Reassigned |
| Origin AS | |
| Customer | Nations Warranty Group (C01796119) |
| Registration Date | 2007-11-20 |
| Last Updated | 2007-11-20 |
| Comments | |
| Customer | |
|---|---|
| Name | Nations Warranty Group |
| Handle | C01796119 |
| Street | 2820 Lassiter RdC , |
| City | marietta |
| State/Province | GA |
| Postal Code | 30062 |
| Country | US |
| Registration Date | 2007-11-20 |
| Last Updated | 2011-03-19 |
| Comments | |
Googling for "nations warranty" marietta is pretty revealing and it leads us to this SEC complaint from 2008 which says:
The Commission alleges that since approximately January 2008, Mikula, a recidivist securities law violator, and Craddock, acting individually or through Nations Warranty or JW&P Consulting, have used misrepresentations and omissions of material fact to offer and sell approximately $2.8 million of securities issued by Nations Warranty in unregistered transactions to approximately 120 investors.
The Complaint alleges that Mikula, operating through his wholly-owned entity JW&P Consulting, and Craddock used material misrepresentations and omissions of material facts to offer and sell short-term promissory notes issued by Nations Warranty. The notes were sold with terms of either 100 or 220 days, and promised rates of return of 4% or 5% per month, respectively. Among the misrepresentations and omissions, the defendants described Nations Warranty to investors as a profitable company when, in fact, Nations Warranty has incurred a net loss of at least $1.2 million during 2008. Defendants also claimed the Nations Warranty notes were "guaranteed" when, in fact, they were not.
Furthermore, Defendants represented that JW&P Consulting had evaluated the risks of investing in Nations Warranty notes and had found the risks acceptable. However, Defendants failed to disclose that JW&P Consulting was nothing more than Mikula himself and that Mikula had been enjoined in a Commission action in July 2007 for operating a Ponzi scheme.
As a result of this fraud, the company was liquidated. Presumably whoever posted the Wikipedia edits confuses free market economics with fraud.
Here's the odd thing.. the SEC actions took place in 2008, so why start griping four years later? There's only a single entry that I can find on Ripoff Report here, and that dates from other three years ago. Not really very current, is it? Or perhaps Nations Warranty have popped up again under a new name?
