#2.) i told my bro he could steal my account for the week so he could play

[todayisafridaynight]

its cute kondo and hijikata both have fireball attacks but i wanna know why the fuck tokugawa has a whole fucking flamethrower

[paceypeternathanslawyer]

I think the show inflated Dawson and Joey’s connection via the dialogue. If they wanted to show us what a deep connection DJ had they should have done more than show Dawson ranting to Joey about his life and having Joey respond to it. I believe they’re childhood friends. I don’t believe they’re soulmates or even that they have the “I-don’t-know-where-you-end-and-I-begin.” Their friendship would have been more believable if Dawson hadn’t been so narcissistic and self absorbed. We should have seen a more balanced/equal relationship between him and the other characters.

I don’t think Dawson is any worse than the other characters, especially during the college years. The main problem with Dawson is that the show continuously tells us what a great guy he is. And by doing so, it doesn’t always hold him accountable to his mistakes to the degree that necessary. When Dawson does apologize he often sounds dismissive and condensing (ei: “I could tell you all roads lead back to me but those are just words…go… you’re free.”) Also, Most of Dawson’s interactions with his friends revolved around his feelings and his interests.

Like in a commentary, Kerr Smith, discusses how hard it was to film the scene where everyone gathered to cheer Dawson up in the end of True Love, especially since the scene before that one featured a very emotional moment between Jack and his dad. It was as if Dawson’s heartbreak was more important than Jack’s. Dawson literally used homophobia directed at Jack to win Joey back and also almost crashed Jack’s boat, he didn’t deserve to have Jack be his friend.

When it comes to Pacey, the narrative acknowledges that he’s a screw up and holds him accountable for his mistakes. When Pacey screws up he usually also apologizes right away and it doesn’t sound half-assed like “I’m sorry IF you got offended.” Also I like that Pacey doesn’t only apologize, he rectifies the situation via his actions (ex: when he came back to dance with Joey at the prom in S6 after humiliating her at prom or when he raised money for Dawson’s film after losing all of his money).

Personally, I don’t think Dawson is any more  misogynistic than any of the other guys. The most misogynistic scene was where Jack told his frat bro that Audrey was “easy”. He was forgiven pretty easily by Audrey and Joey for saying that. Pacey also had a tendency to over-sexualize certain women.

Dawson is horrible in later seasons as well. For one he cheats on his girlfriend and then has the nerve to get angry at Joey for being understandably mad about the situation. He calls her a scared child after just sleeping with her btw which is super gross. Instead of taking responsibility for his screwup he blames her and makes himself to be a victim of Joey.

Dawson still has zero empathy in later seasons. Number 1, he goes to Pacey and asks him to invest ALL his money. As someone who works in the financial world and I believe everyone should know this. It doesn't matter how carefully you invest... you should never invest every cent you have. That is extremely stupid!!! And then he went to his friend wanting him to be the one to invest it and Pacey is smartly reluctant to do so because that is such a bad idea to have your friend do something like that. But he pushed Pacey into it in the first place. It sucks that in the end he lost his money but Pacey also lost his own money... did Dawson give a shit about Pacey? No. He could have comiserated with him since they were both in the same boat but no Dawson thinks of no one but himself. Their whole fight in that episode just infuriates me because it's a lot Dawson dredging up the past and rewriting history to once again making Pacey out to be the villain of his life's movie that he has made in his own head.

"You wanna know why we're not friends, pace? It's not because of what happened with Joey, even though that turned my world upside down. It's because from that day forward, I realized that you hadn't been my friend for... maybe quite some time, 'cause the second you made us competitors" This line makes me livid. Dawson is the one who accused Pacey of stealing the PSATs when he truly didn't, called him weak and self motivated. He threw a basketball at Pacey's face and broke his nose. He forgot his birthday. Told him he should go back to being a screwup who makes him feel better about his life. Dawson was a horrible friend and all those things happened before the situation with Joey and Dawson has to the nerve to act like Pacey was the one who didn't want to be his friend. Also the line about making them competitors? Dawson made them competitors. He did not have to care that Pacey and Joey dated he did not need to throw away their friendship. He chose that. He ruined their friendship. Dawson literally made them competitors when he signed up for the boat race that Pacey had signed up to take part in weeks before all the drama went down. Dawson is literally rewriting history there to make himself the victim.

"I remember when my best friend had a choice and chose to turn his back on me. If you'd ever stopped settin' us up against each other, you woulda realized that you and I are not that far apart." Pacey turned his back on him? I seem to recall Pacey doing everything in his power to fix their friendship in S4 including apologizing to Dawson even though I don't believe he needed to. Also Pacey went to Dawson to apologize about losing all his money and Dawson dredged up the past and tried to demonize him for things that he had already apologized for years prior. Looks to me like your the one settin you two up against each other, Dawson!

"You don't wanna know me, pace. You wrote me off a long time ago." Again I feel like a broken record but in season 5 and 6 Pacey was extremely nice to Dawson way nicer than I would have been. Dawson wrote Pacey off the moment he found out he was dating Joey.

Secondly he never apologized to Pacey for nearly killing him and saying horrible vile things about him at the end of Season 3 so one can assume that he believed until the end of time that he wasn't in the wrong. Plus i'm of the opinion that he shouldn't be forgiven until he has apologized.

He is way more sexist than Pacey and Jack... there might be some peripheral characters that have him beat but i'm not too sure.

In season 5, he meets that film critic and says some sexist bullshit to her specifically this is their exchange...

Amy: Hardball. Keanu Reeves coaches this inner-city little league team and, in the process, changes their lives for the better. I lost it. I mean, I cried like a baby. I saw it in the theater 5 times.

Dawson: That explains that, then.

Amy: What?

Dawson: Why your boyfriend dumped you. You're a sentimental drama queen with really crappy taste in movies.

1. Fuck you Dawson. Your opinion in movies is not that great. Wasn't he the one who in S3 went on and on to Pacey about how he didn't like film noir... yeah I don't trust his opinion in movies in the least.

2. Drama queen?! Also telling a random woman you don't even know that he understands why her boyfriend dumped her?! Again fuck you Dawson.

[silenthillmutual]

what Classic Film(TM) you should watch based on who your fave Danganronpa 1/2 character is

disclaimer - obviously as a film dude i’m gonna say you should watch all of these. but maybe watch the one correlating to your fave first!

Makoto: 12 Angry Men (1957, dir. Sidney Lumet) - strong themes of justice, it’s about a jury trying to determine a man’s guilt. it’s basically what Makoto does for the entire game. you’ll also like it if you’re a fan of Phoenix Wright.

Sayaka: A Star is Born (1954, dir. George Cukor) - it’s all about a girl’s rise to fame and how her relationships change with that. there’s three versions of this film, most recently with Lady Gaga. 

Mukuro: Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - themes of murder and hiding your identity, losing yourself to a cause.

Leon: Animal House (1978, dir. John Landis) - a comedy about a fraternity. it’s THE college frat movie and i think Leon would enjoy it a lot.

Chihiro: WarGames (1983, dir. John Badham) - two teenagers might have accidentally started a world war during the cold war by trying to play computer games...fitting for the series, no?

Mondo: On the Waterfront (1954, dir. Elia Kazan) - struggling to do the right thing and being sort of frustrated about your circumstances as they pertain to class and missed opportunities. being dragged into bad situations by family. also Marlon Brando is a bicon and very hot in this movie.

Taka: Rebel Without a Cause (1955, dir. Nicholas Ray) - a lot of turbulent shit happens to three teenagers over the course of 24 hours. one of - if not the first canonically gay teenager on film. i think we all know by now that James Dean was mlm, but so were the director and Sal Mineo. big bi polyam vibes; if you like chishimondo as a ship you’ll probably like this film too.

Hifumi: Akira (1988, dir. Katsuhiro Otomo) - had a hard time figuring out what to put for Hifumi, but overall i think if nothing else he’d appreciate how impressive the animation was (and honestly, still is) along with the fact that the mangaka was also the director. so although there’s a lot cut out (the manga had not finished before the film came out), it’s still roughly the same plot as the manga.

Celes: Dracula (1931, dir. Tod Browning) - probably the most iconic iteration of Bram Stoker’s novel, this is the one staring Bela Lugosi. not terribly true to the novel from what i remember, but it’s peak aesthetic and exactly the kind of thing she’d enjoy.

Sakura: Rashomon (1950, dir. Akira Kurosawa) - finally getting onto films i haven’t actually seen but that are on my list. sakura’s another person i had a hard time deciding on a film for, but the “several characters telling different accounts of the same plot” reminded me a bit of her case in the game. 

Hina: West Side Story (1961, dir. Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins) - admittedly i had a different film in mind for her to start with, but Maria’s final monologue fits with Hina’s motivations during Sakura’s case.

Toko: Gone With the Wind (1939, dir. Victor Fleming) - another one i haven’t actually watched yet, but it’s based on a famous novel, described as “epic historical romance.” i think that vibes with Toko pretty well.

Byakuya: Citizen Kane (1941, dir. Orson Welles) - if you’re really interested in film, you’re gonna be made to watch this sooner or later. famous for being the “best film ever made”, it’s more or less about newspaper moguls like William Randolph Hearst - who is also the main reason why this film is famous at all. it’s not exactly a flattering depiction of those kinds of people and boy, did that ever piss Hearst off. if he hadn’t made such a big deal trying to keep Citizen Kane from seeing the light of day, something much better might have made it to the top spot. 

Hiro: The Music Man (1962, dir. Morton DaCosta) - based on the Broadway musical of the same name, a “travelling salesman” (read: con artist) starts to work his latest con on a gullible small town, but actually starts liking the people in it.

Kyoko: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - not to be confused with the other Hitchcock film from the 30s also titled The Man Who Knew Too Much. this is the one with James Stewart and Doris Day. it’s a highly suspenseful film that gave us the song “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”.

Junko: Gaslight (1944, dir. George Cukor) - ever heard the term “gaslighting”? this is where it comes from! based on a play in which a woman’s husband psychologically tortures her into believing she is going insane.

Monokuma: Duck Soup (1933, dir. Leo McCarey) - all Marx Brothers films are as utterly silly (and sometimes as incomprehensible) as one of Monokuma’s MonoTheatres. i watched about half of Duck Soup and had to stop because it was finals week and i was supposed to be doing something other than losing my shit.

Hajime: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, dir. Frank Capra) - you probably already know this film. if you’re Christian you know it as That Film Your Parents Watch Every Year On Dec 24th Around Midnight. if you have seasonal depression, don’t watch it then; warning for suicidal ideation. it’s supposed to be uplifting. your mileage may vary on that one. 

Impostor: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, dir. Robert Mulligan) - i don’t have a good reason to pair these two up other than gut feeling. as far as film adaptations of books go, it’s pretty damn good, and Atticus Finch is the original DILF. themes of childhood innocence and racism. 

Teruteru: Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961, dir. Blake Edwards) - apparently much different from the novella on which it is based, but i think Teruteru would really dig the aesthetic and romantic vibes of the film. Holly Golightly is probably the original Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Mahiru: Rear Window (1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - like It’s a Wonderful Life, chances are good you know this film - or at least, you’ve seen its plot recycled a hell of a lot. a professional photographer recovering from a broken leg thinks he witnesses a murder take place and is determined to get to the truth.

Peko: Seven Samurai (1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa) - another one on my to-watch list, but it’s oft referenced and remade in film. a village hires seven ronin to protect them from bandits who will return to steal their crops. 

Hiyoko: East of Eden (1955, dir. Elia Kazan) - i’ll be honest here, i didn’t really know what to put for Hiyoko because i’m not sure i understand much about her, but i seem to remember her family playing a pretty big role in her being Like That and for “shitty family” the first two things to come to mind were this and Giant. and unless you like 3-hour long movies about the state of Texas, i’m not about to recommend you watch Giant.

Ibuki: A Night at the Opera (1935, dir. Sam Wood) - another Marx Bros film in which they help a girl both to be with her lover and to achieve her dreams of stardom as an opera singer. the kind of silly, manic thing i think Ibuki would like.

Mikan: The Shining (1980, dir. Stanley Kubrick) - i hate hate hate putting this on here, but since this is for film and not books i couldn’t exactly state to read the book. the book is about the cycle of abuse. the movie is more about... a trapped man going crazy in a spooky hotel. 

Nekomaru: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963, dir. Stanley Kramer) - comedy about five groups of people racing to get to a large sum of money buried by a recently escaped convict they stopped to help out after his car crash. it’s a comedy, and just kinda seemed like Nekomaru’s thing.

Gundham: The Seventh Seal (1957, dir. Ingmar Bergman) - i watched this in like 10th grade and all i really remember is a man playing chess with Death and if that doesn’t say Gundham Tanaka to you, i don’t know what does.

Nagito: North by Northwest (1959, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - i don’t really have a reason for this one either but it’s a spy film and i think komaeda could get behind that kind of intrigue. 

Chiaki: Metropolis (1927, dir. Fritz Lang) - not to be confused with the anime, this is a 1927 German expressionist film that seems to be about socialism and unionization. it’s also famous for its (purposeful) use of the Male Gaze and being one of the first sci-fi films ever made. be warned: it is a silent film.

Sonia: Strangers on a Train (1951, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - another one of those films you’ll get told to watch if you’re interested in the queer history of film, i was gonna put something else but honestly the character of Barbara kinda reminded me of Sonia. a famous tennis player meets a man on a train who attempts to plan a double-murder with him.

Akane: My Fair Lady (1964, dir. George Cukor) - i was trying so hard not to double up on the post about musicals, but Akane really does have Eliza Doolittle vibes. they’re both feral and nothing would be able to really domesticate them. for whatever it’s worth, this film and the musical on which it is based is itself based on the play Pygmalion, in which your typical rich cishet white dude bets he can turn any street urchin into a real lady because he’s just that good. you might know the plot better as Pretty Woman.

Kazuichi: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, dir. Elia Kazan) - i don’t really have a good excuse for this one, either; i haven’t even watched it yet (although i have read the play on which it is based). all i’m gonna say is i want Souda to have his gay awakening via Marlon Brando, as we all do.

Fuyuhiko: Casablanca (1942, dir. Michael Curtiz) - despite his love and adoration for Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart decides fighting Nazis is more important. i think Fuyuhiko would like the aesthetic, and the film. don’t let him know but i think he’d probably cry watching it.

Usami: To Sir, With Love (1967, dir. James Clavell) - issues of race and class intersecting in a film about a teacher working with inner city students. i was going to put Singin’ in the Rain here, because it’s what Usami would want people to watch...but i think this better fits the effect she wants to have as a being. 

[agileo-101]

A nightmare has ended today. I would like to share that with you guys to celebrate! This will be a long post so honker down guys.

At the beginning of November, my account was hacked. My PayPal and my Google pay account were abridged.

On my PayPal, $1,236.50 was spent on 2 different power tools (what the hell am i gonna do with power tools??? this stuff is for house owners and i live in a freaking apartment!)

On my Google pay, a total of $ 3,057.12 was spent on freaking pixel 4

Now, I am going to assume this was done by two different hackers because their address is different, plus one guy's at Virginia.

I blurred out my name and my mom's name but those two are definitely not my address.

I even have one of the guy's name (or a fake name idk)

This was my major wtf moment. I was barely getting by paying my tuition and this happened. What little remaining money I had saved for Christmas gift was ripped away from me. The biggest irony of it all was that both of my Google pay account and PayPal had less than 100 dollars in it. Why the heck did those 2 companies allowed huge amount of money pulled out like that???? It was beyond me!!!

So the PayPal thing happened First.

At first everything was super frustrating every company was pushing off responsibility at each other. Acemetool claimed i need to talk to PayPal, PayPal claimed I need to talk to the merchant and this went on for a while.

I had to contact my bank first to cancel my card for security reasons and they issued me a new one (the front desk lady and consultant lady were so helpful and friendly.... Bless your hearts!!!). Then I had to call acemetool website to inform that the tools were a fraudulent order. They had to contact FedEx in order to intercept the packages. Thankfully I had contacted them early and the packages were returning to the warehouse. The staffs at the call center was amazing and they helped every step of the way.

Now this took me at least more than 2 weeks to resolve. I thought, yay! Surely I can get something for my parents and sister for this Christmas!

By end of November.... My Google pay was hacked....

Now, the Google pay was tricky one. The hacker went as far as to put the shipping notice email into the trash to prevent me from noticing that an order was placed. Now, I learned that contacting Google was as hard as finding regular shonen anime that featured man's nipple.

I had submitted a dispute regarding the ridiculous fraudulent order. Within two days my dispute was rejected. Because apparently, the hacker used my mother's name and the guy happened to live in same district as me (it took a lot out of me not to hunt down the bastard) so, they thought that my RELATIVE has placed an order and closed the case. I was devastated.i spent a week or so dejected and rolling my head to figure out this issue (this is why when my commissioned plushie, Little Ghiaccio Nya came in, that was a big cheer for me). 

anyway, How do I prove myself when I could barely find contact?!

So this is my tip to you guys if you EVER get hacked and need to contact Google. Your laptop does not hold the answer. Your phone does. Google had it set up that if you don't have Google pay app on your phone, it is virtually impossible to contact anyone. When you download the app, it gives you two options. Call or chat. I would recommend chat over the call because for call you will have to wait FOR HOURS! But in chat all you have to wait is couple of seconds. The investigating team/security team had temporarily frozen my account for safety reasons. I easily provided that I did not order the items. With my id, my mother's id and our home address on our drivers' licenses, the invoice from the bank vs the address that was on the shipping address (and the guy’s name when he signed for the package release). plus, on my Google store history, my purchase never exceeded $20 so the sudden crazy amount of spending was tad alarming. The agent from Google play support was very helpful, she answered all my questions and got back to me as soon as she could (which again, was so kind of her. She went on extra miles to assist me)

And today I was informed that the agent who was helping me

THANK GOD!!!!!

It is finally over! And this took about a little over two weeks to solve with google.

So yeah, I had been living under stress for good two months. It was such a wild rollercoaster ride. I was depressed because while I worked my butt off everyday to provide for family (I am also full time student, so I am sacrificing my social life, sleep and time to do my homework. I wake up 5 I the morning go to class, get to work at 4:30, clock out at 9:30, do homework until 2 in the morning. And repeat) and some jackass who doesn't want to do earnest earnings decided to steal what little I had. I experienced cruelty, greed and major frustration.

But at same time, I saw kindness from staff members at the bank, acemetool, and Google

Can't say same for you PayPal, got abridged first place, put me on hold for 40 min, barely answered my questions and the best thing you told me to do was "change my password" You did not offer me explanation as in why the hell you allowed more then $ 1,000 dollars to be pulled out of my account when I barely had $100 in there! grow some balls, have respect and Tighten your security for f**k sake

Then my friends from University who prayed for me, professors who encouraged me and. @dratinimartini @processormalfunction @x-01-king @lyxine you guys were my moral and emotional support. You guys are gem!

I sigh with relief and happy that it was over with. i am little paranoid every time i check my account, i tripped my security and changed all my passwords to all of the currently existing accounts. that is to be expected.

i’m still mad that those hackers are out there, invading ppl’s privacy and stealing their hard earn monies.i hope that whoever hacked my account, karma has something stored for them >:(

for now, i sleep with my legs stretched out. for christmas, i had commission money that came to my way (thanks for the $50 K-Bro!) and i will use that to buy something for my family :D so happy merry Christmas eve everyone.

stay safe

[luki-fanfic]

A Kingdom For a Book: Part 2

I’m having way too much fun with this idea...

With one failed attempt under their belt, they end up having lunch in Chinatown before heading back to the hotel to regroup and debrief.  Tsuna and Gokudera end up sitting on one bed, Gokudera nose deep in a laptop, while Yamamoto leans back on another, and Ryohei slumps the wrong way round in a chair.

“I see why the Ninth didn’t want us to come here,” Yamamoto says.  “Do you think the owner knew who we were?”

Tsuna shook his head.  “No, I think he would have treated us that way even if we weren’t Vongola.  There was something about that shop...it just felt wrong.”

Ryohei frowns. “That’s strange to the extreme.  This could be challenging.”

Gokudera is nodding, digging up the research he’d been tinkering with even before they arrived.

“Okay, so that building?  It’s been there since the 1700’s,” he explains. “That’s when Soho was built up for the aristocracy, and the book shop’s been around since then.  Which is pretty damn impressive considering the wealthy all more of less fled mid 1800’s when there was a cholera outbreak and the neighbourhood took a serious dive.  I don’t think there’s a lot of business in London that have been in the same building that long, and if they did, they’re a lot more successful.  At this point, A.Z.Fell & Co should be a historic monument or tourist attraction just due to it’s existence, but it’s only reputation-”

At this he tosses his hands up in the air in disbelief.

“-Is a handful of websites for rare book dealers bemoaning it’s existence!  There’s a 3000 word essay on here that’s just analysing the opening times! I’ve never seen a white noise spot as bad as this outside of the mafia!  It shouldn’t even be possible without mist flames!”

“Are we sure they’re not?” Yamamoto asks, head tilting.  

Tsuna shakes his head.  

“No,” he insists.  “I don’t know what it was about that building, but flames weren’t involved.  Besides, it’s too obvious in its refusal to sell.”

Everyone gives a slow nod at that, and Tsuna bites his lip.

“What we need it witness accounts,” he says.  “We need to know what doesn’t work.”

This quickly results in Gokudera frantically tapping on his laptop again and setting up a video call with Dino in Italy.  When he learns where they are, his face flinches – as if he’s just watched a man belly flop from a high dive.

“Reborn sent you where?” he asks.  “The Ninth can’t possibly have approved that.”

“He wasn’t happy about it,” Tsuna admits.  “But...it’s Reborn.  You don’t really tell him no.”

Dino grimaces.  “I feel for you little bro.  I wish I could help, but I’ve never tried my luck against the devil of Soho.

“The devil of Soho?” the four repeat, and Dino chuckles.

“Oh, it’s kind of an in-joke among people who’ve tried,” he explains.  “The shop is on a crossroad, and someone one suggested you’d probably have to sell your soul in exchange for a book from A.Z. Fell, and it kind of caught on.  Plus, according to Christianity, devils or demons are supposed to be fallen angels, and they guy is called ‘Fell,’ so...”

Tsuna guesses it’s probably funnier for the Italians, because Gokudera’s openly cackling.  Although that said, Ryohei is also grinning, so maybe he’s a fan of the crossroads story.  The boxer does often enjoy American music…

“You might as well give selling your soul a shot though,” Dino continues.  “Because I don’t have the slightest clue what else would work.”

Yamamoto frowns, leaning back in a stretch that almost looks painful.

“If we can’t buy a book, can we just buy out the shop?” he asks Dino, and Gokudera brightens.

“The Baseball Idiot has a point.  I mean, this is Soho, and that shop can’t be making enough to stay in business.  Can’t we just buy the building, or bribe the owner?”

“You really think nobody ever thought of that?” Dino asks, eyebrows raising.  “The Fell family are loaded; they own that building, and they’ve never accepted a single offer.”

“Then we’ll make it a really good one.  Reborn said our credit limit was unlimited for this-”

“Ten years ago Mr. Fell was offered five times what the building was worth and he didn’t even think it over” Dino interrupts.  “And if you think you can scare him out, think again.  People have tried everything from hiking his electric bills to bribing the council to shut him down for health reasons.  I hear the building was even set on fire once.  Nothing sticks, and it always comes back round to whoever tried their luck. An awful lot of enforcers change careers after a run in with A.Z. Fell.”

Dino sounds a little bitter by the end, and Tsuna frowns.

“That sounds a little personal,” he says.  “Did Reborn try and make you go?”

His self proclaimed older brother suddenly finds it very hard to meet his eyes.

“No, but let’s just say I have it on good authority that one of the reasons my family ended up in such dire financial straights is because my grandfather tried to ah...convince Mr. Fell to move into a building owned by my family so he could have regular access to his collection,” Dino says.  “A week later, there’s a freak accident with our accountant’s computer systems that sees 60% of our assets frozen while a record of all our recent financial dealings was sent first class to the local police department.  By the time we cleared it up the money was gone.”

Gokudera does a full body flinch.

“How-”

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to know” Dino tells him.  “Some of those financials weren’t even supposed to have a paper trail.  When my negotiation trial came up, I told Reborn I wasn’t setting foot in that shop.  That I’d try and negotiate peace in Korea before I went to Soho.”

Yamamoto whistles, and Tsuna’s optimism sinks even more.

“Where’d you end up?” Tsuna asks.

“Guinea-Bissau,” Dino says.  “Came out of it with only two bullets wounds too.”

“...Thats...good?” Tsuna offers, frantically trying to remember exactly where on a map that was, and Dino shrugs.

“Better than Xanxus any way” he offers.  “He was lucky to get out intact.”

Yamamoto immediately lights up.  “Oh yeah.  The Ninth said he’d tried.”

“Lets call the Varia, to the extreme!” Ryohei agrees.

“Not sure how useful he’ll be,” Dino warns as they say goodbye.  “His tactics weren’t really compatible with you.”

That’s hardly news to Tsuna, but a list of what definitely wont work is better than no list at all at this point.  Yamamoto is already punching in Squalo’s number.

---

Two minutes later, Tsuna is wondering how far he can be from a video screen without appearing offensive, because Xanxus is glaring like he wants to reach through the computer and strangle Tsuna for the crime of bothering him.  

Which, to be fair is Xanxus’s general mode of being, but Tsuna hasn’t survived this long by getting complacent.  Given his life, it’s not impossible Xanxus has figured out how to do it. ��

At least the Varia commander is taking his question seriously – the glare had almost vanished when Yamamoto had explained just where they were.

“Whatever you do, don’t steal one” Xanxus warns when Yamamoto finishes up, and Tsuna finds himself leaning forward.

“You stole one?” he says.  “I thought the requirement was legal purchase.”

“I was getting desperate!” Xanxus snarls, almost defensively.  “Fell-Trash is impossible to reason with.  Not that it did me any good.  Cost me three months, my body weight in pride and a Lightning Guardian.”

At that Tsuna pauses, and glances to the corner of the screen where he can see Xanxus’s guardians, Levi included, not-so-subtly listening in. Xanxus rolls his eyes.

“Parasol-Trash is number 2” he tells him.  “Huge improvement over Belias, I assure you.  Idiot walked out with some old folio under his jacket, figuring we could negotiate after it was in our hands.  To this day, I have no clue what happened to him, but that folio was on display in the window next morning and Fell’s creepy ass boyfriend was wearing Belias’s shades when we walked in.”

“Boyfriend?” Yamamoto asks, and Xanxus chuckles.

“Oh trust me Trash, you’ll know him when you see him.”

In the background Lussuria is fanning himself with a hand, while Squalo is glowering and inching closer to the screen.  Tsuna ignores both of them.

“You didn’t try to find out what happened?” he questions, and Xanxus glares.

“Of course I fucking did!” he snaps.  “Even had the lightning member’s we brought along tried to put on the squeeze, but both of them are mental steel traps.  If anything, threats just amuse them.  Two of Belias’s closest tried physical violence – the boyfriend has this classic car, beautiful piece of machinery; I’ll give him that – smashed out every window and made it clear we were coming back to finish the job.  Car like that can’t be easy or cheap to fix.”

“It didn’t work?” Gokudera asks, and Xanxus shakes his head.

The trash left the hotel to get drinks, next thing I know the shark trash is getting a call from the hospital about them.”

The Varia boss jerks his head back, and Squalo freezes for a second, before slinking up to his boss, not even pretending to be subtle in his approach anymore.

“Were they still alive?” Tsuna asks, not sure if he wants to know.  Xanxus merely glares at Squalo, who reacts as though it pains him to answer.

“Voi, they lived,” he says.  “Looked like they’d been run over by that stupid car a couple hundred times, but they lived.  Not that it mattered to us, both of them up and joined a monastery in New Zealand the second they were released!”

Yamamoto frowns. “New Zealand?  When you abandon your old life to join a monastery, don’t you usually got to somewhere like Tibet or something?”

“Voi, according to them, they picked New Zealand because there aren’t any snakes there,” Squalo snarled.  “Don’t ask me why, never had a problem with them before.”

“Yeah, and that car come morning?” Xanxus adds.  “Perfect. Condition.  After that, I cut my losses while I still had something to lose.”

“It was their own fault for making compensation jokes about the darling’s car!” Lussuria defends from the back, and Xanxus throws a wine glass in his direction.

The Varia side of the call inevitably descends into a brawl, and little advice is coming.  All Tsuna’s managed to gather is, stay legal, screaming is pointless, and don’t threaten his associates or their possessions.

Tsuna silently vows that Gokudera must never enter that building unaccompanied.

Also, before the screen cut off completely, Lussuria popped onto the screen with one final titbit.

“Oh, one more thing.  Don’t flirt with the boyfriend,” he says with Bel half in a headlock and the screen on it’s side.  “Crowley-darling seems to think it’s funny, but it ticks Mr. Fell off no end.  Not sure how he did it, but I got food poisoning whenever I ate out the rest of the time we were there.  Ciao!”

The screen immediately goes black, and as a group, Tsuna, Gokudera and Ryohei all glance in Yamamoto’s direction.  The teen immediately starts pouting.

“Why are you all looking at me?” he whines.  

“Because out of everyone in this room who would think it would be funny, you’re the only one who’d actually try his luck, Baseball Idiot,” Gokudera snaps, and Yamamoto’s lip quirks, point taken.  After so much time hanging around Squalo and Reborn, Yamamoto’s baseline for appropriate behaviour and etiquette will never recover – not that there was ever much to save, if Tsuna’s being entirely honest.  

In the end, after looking at a spreadsheet of the opening hours Gokudera has on hand, they decide to hold off this evening, and try again in the 40 minute window that there should be just before lunch.

Who knows, maybe Mr. Fell will be more agreeable after he’s eaten?

---

One more part, and think it’ll be ready to migrate to AO3...

[bigballofstress]

Tony-Stark’s-Son (Peter Parker x Reader)

Description: For years you have been locked in a sniping war over eBay with the same account. Today, you finally meet the face behind the computer.

Author’s Note: This is actually based off something I saw where Peter Parker is apparently a huge fan of Captain America’s in the comics. I think the concept is hilarious, and I just had to write something for it, so here you all go!

You smiled and straightened the Captain America pop figures on your dresser. You’d been collecting memorabilia for years — even before you’d actually met the man and become one of the avengers (the amount that you fangirled even scared you just a little bit). Your collection now, though, really was something to be marveled at. You even had an original Captain America poster from World War II with a big “canceled until further notice” sticker on it hanging above your bed.

You walked back to your computer, biting your lip nervously. You currently had the highest bid on a vintage Captain America action figure. There were only 20 seconds left in the auction, and you were praying no one would come in at the last second to steal it from you — and by no one, you meant a certain ‘tony-stark’s-son’. The amount of merch he’d sniped from you over the years was just unspeakable. You shuddered even thinking about it.

Quickly, you pushed the unwelcome thought from your mind, choosing instead to watch in anticipation as the final few seconds ticked away.

5 — This was the moment of truth

4 — The moment you’ve been waiting for over the past week

3 — Oh my God, you were going to get it.

2 — You were totally gonna get it!

1 — No one could snipe this late, not even you — and you considered yourself an expert in the craft.

0. Congratulations, @tony-stark’s-son!

You stared at the screen in utter disbelief. It shouldn’t have been possible. You should have won. There’s no way he could have possibly sniped it so late! And yet, the words read plain and clear. You lost.

“MOTHERFU-“

-Time Skip-

About a month later, you had calmed down a bit. Of course, it still stung like a bitch every time your eyes landed on the little spot on your shelf that you had cleared for the new piece of merchandise, but at least the edge had been taken away. Slightly.

But you couldn’t worry about that now. You were supposed to meet Tony’s new recruit today. You didn’t really want to. After all, the little twerp had stolen your place in the Civil War. Apparently you “weren’t ready yet,” and yet this new kid, who was the same age as you, was. You sighed and quickly readjusted the straps on the loose-fitting Captain America shirt — another score off of eBay and one that you had the great pleasure of taking right out from under tony-stark’s-son’s nose — which insisted on falling off your non-existent shoulders every other minute.

Your phone buzzed. ‘Come to the living room. I want you to meet someone.’ You scoffed and shook your head a bit. He said that as though you didn’t already know who it was. You picked up the device with a sigh — leaving your level was always such a chore — and entered the awaiting elevator.

“Hello, Ms. (L/N),” the automated voice greeted.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., what did we talk about?” You lifted a brow with a smirk.

“My apologies, my best bro.”

“That’s more like it!” You grinned. “Take me to the living room please. Tony wants me to meet his latest pet project.”

“Sure thing, my best bro,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. responded before the elevator started moving up.

You stepped out of the elevator to stand before Tony and his new pet spider. Wow, he was actually pretty cute. At least, he would be if he quit staring at you with his mouth hanging wide open.

“Since you guys are about the same age, I thought you could show Pete here around the facility.” Tony patted the still unmoving boy on the shoulder. “Pete, this is-“

“It’s you!” He screamed, pointing at you. You frowned and recoiled a bit.

“Do I know you?” You wrinkled your nose.

“You’re cap’s-beautiful-booty261! You’ve been sniping merchandise from me for years!” He was almost shaking.

You gasped in shock and jumped away from him. “YOU’RE TONY-STARK’S-SON?!”

“What?! Hell no!” Tony yelped, both hands up.

You rolled your eyes. “You don’t know what we’re talking about, Tony. Just go to your lab or something.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Tony huffed, even though he was already walking to the elevator.

A moment of awkward silence passed between the two of you until, finally, you couldn’t bear it anymore. “How did you do it?”

Tony-stark’s — you mean, Peter — tilted his head a bit and frowned. “How did I do what?”

“A month ago, you sniped a vintage 1946 Captain America action figure from me with less than one second remaining on the clock. It shouldn’t have been possible. How did you do it?!” You pushed.

Tony-stark’s — damnit, you meant Peter — blushed and reached up to scratch the back of his neck. “Oh, that... well, I kinda set up this thing with my computer — a, uh... a program — that sends in my bid for an item with 0.562 seconds left, which is the exact amount of time it takes for eBay to process a request...” he trailed off, glancing over at you warily.

“That’s... that’s genius!” You finally said, staring up at him in awe. “How long did it take for you to set that up?”

“A-a few weeks, but it’s still got some bugs,” Peter stuttered a bit, still pretty shocked that you weren’t super angry at him. “I had to turn it off because it kept sending in bids, no matter what the price was. One time, it bid on a $500 dollar pocket watch. My aunt almost strangled me.”

You let out a chuckle. “I remember that item! I almost clicked bid on accident and saw my life flash before me eyes — particularly when Tony would have ended it.” Peter grinned, seeming to loosen up a bit. Suddenly, you were struck with what must have been one of the greatest ideas you’d ever had, and you grinned. “Hey, I could probably take a look at that program for you. After being forced to live with Tony, I learned a thing or two about computers.”

Peter returned your grin fully. “That’d be awesome. I could take you right now if you want.”

“Let’s go!” You agreed immediately, quickly making your way out of the building and bribing Happy to drive you to Peter’s apartment. The two of you spent the next hours working with the coding, eating some Chinese food that May bought after she almost set off the smoke alarm, and telling stories until about 11:30 at night, when Tony finally got annoyed enough to pick you up himself.

All in all, it ended up being a really good day.

You were standing at the door, saying your goodbyes with a silently fuming Tony standing behind you. You’d already hugged May goodnight and turned to Peter. You opened your mouth to speak, but before you could say anything, he held up a finger.

“I have something for you,” he said before running out of the room.

“What was that about?” Tony chuckled from behind you.

You shrugged. “No clue. Aren’t you the one who knew him longer?”

“Hey, you’re the teenager here!” Tony held his hands up. “I thought you all had a secret language or something that everyone under 23 knows.”

You rolled your eyes. “Yeah, that’s called memes.”

Before you could continue the conversation, Peter came running back into the room, both hands behind his back. You lifted a brow in suspicion of whatever it was he was hiding. “I thought, uh... I thought maybe you’d like to... I mean, you ought to have... well, that is, if you want to... I mean... just... here.” He shoved something into your hands. Before you could so much as look at it, though, he was practically pushing you out the door, saying, “Ok, thank you, great to have you, we’ll see you soon, ok bye!” And shut the door, leaving you to stare at the wood where Peter had just stood.

“That was certainly strange,” Tony said. You only hummed in reply. “What’d he give you, anyways?”

You finally tore your gaze away from the door to look at the object in your hands. You gasped, hardly believing your eyes. Slowly, with trembling hands, you held it up to show Tony.

“Really? Some lame toy of Cap?” he scoffed. “Don’t worry, kid, I’ll get you a super awesome Iron Man toy when we get home. Now c’mon, Happy’s waiting.”

You followed him down the hallway, walking in a daze. You couldn’t believe he just gave it to you. More importantly, you had no idea why he gave it to you. One thing you did know, though, was that you would finally be able to fill that empty spot on your shelf.

You both stepped into the elevator. “Hey, you never really told me what you thought of Peter,” Tony said, pressing the button for the bottom floor.

You glanced down the hallway to Peter’s apartment, pressing the action figure to your chest, and smiled. “He seems nice.”

...

“By the way, you’re super grounded for staying out so late and not calling.”

“What the hell, Tony?!”

[mercuriallycooperative]

Holy toast it has been literally over two years and I was so certain I’d posted these! But they’ve just been sitting in the back of my draftbox for some reason, presumably because I didn’t get them done in order. Now, I am like two years behind on Steven Universe episodes, but before I get all caught up and decide whether or not reactions and rewatches are something I want to post, here before you is a blast from the past! By which I mean, my thoughts while rewatching/reacting to a Stevenbomb from two years ago. The below text remains completely unaltered from how it has been sitting, complete, in my draftbox for two years.

Day Three of the Stevennuke!

This one has some fun stuff in it, doesn’t it though?

Week 1/Episode 3 of Summer of Steven (Wednesday, July 20)

Too Short to Ride

1) Okay it had to be pointed out to me, but Peridot’s consistent “Wow, thanks” as a reaction to being given gifts, after Steven told her that’s how human-gift-giving-rituals work, is so precious.

2) Okay, so who else is majorly sympathetic to Peridot here? Most of us internet-folk, suddenly losing all the technology and access to media (including any familiar written works) to which we’ve become accustomed, we’d be in pretty dubious shape.

3) Peridot with a Twitter, a Tumblr, a Youtube account. Oh dear. (Anyone else notice some of the other icons on that tablet of hers? Peridot with Tinder, that’s a recipe for I don’t even know what. Although, the interesting point was made that, although it’s possible those were apps preloaded onto the tablet, it could mean that Greg was looking into, what, dating services?)

4) “I really like this. But it’s a shame it doesn’t come attached to your body...” Peridot, makeshift-smartwatch user.

5) And, what the hell anime/cartoons has Peridot been watching, to do that, that, transformation-sequence-sound-effect thing when displaying her velcro tablet-holder?

6) Peridot having to take the time to parse the phrase “hang out” is interesting- like, it raises the whole ‘what language do gems even speak on Homeworld and is there translation weirdness or what’ question.

7) Okay, the arrangement of that Funland sign weirds me out. Like, it’s a big arch, but it seems like it was drawn flush with the wall/booths behind it? And Steven, Peridot, and Amethyst didn’t have to go under it to enter at all? I may have just missed prior examples of how it was drawn, but it’s just kinda weird.

8) Okay, but actually, with that height-restriction sign, Peridot isn’t actually that short. Like, it looked very much like Mr. Smiley sort of, patted her head a little too hard when compressing her hair, because it looked like she was not standing at her full height. I dunno, how that scene was drawn also kinda just bugs me.

9) What got Steven’s last lifetime ban revoked?

10) Mr. Smiley needs some hired help. Preferably sooner than later, because having someone that sleep deprived watching over most of the dangerous rides at Funland is pretty not good.

11) “I’m not falling for that one again.” Do you mean people have tried to use the excuse of Onion setting the roller coaster on fire before?

12) Still paying off the last lawsuit might actually be the reason for the understaffing, actually.

13) “I also do not steal Steven’s clothes when he’s not looking.” Uh-huh. Sure you don’t.

14) “Um, excuse me, but you’re wrong.” Peridot didn’t need much in the way of social graces in any sense that resembles Earth-Western-Human back with Homeworld, did she.

15) I really like how Amethyst hears Peridot’s bitter talk about shapeshifting and it being an insult to your intended form, and then just is like, bro. Tell me the truth, now, something is up with you. Because yeah, actually, the deflecting thing is something they do have in common.

16) Why did Steven try to shapeshift a cat finger if he knew it would freak him out?

17) Manual activation of shapeshifting powers. That’s one of those ideas that could seem good at first glance, but is, in fact, less good. Peridot’s intermittent deadpan “Ow”s support this.

18) I can see where Peridot’s talk about being an Era II Peridot, and therefore somehow less-than could get to Amethyst, given the whole “overcooked runt” thing.

19) And like, she made a good point, at least about the ‘We don’t care about you because of who you could be, we care about you as you are’ thing.

20) That all being said, there were a few problematic points about what she said- not least of which, a few that were a little hypocritical. Remember all the way back in mid-season-1, where Amethyst was all, I-only-feel-how-I-want-to-feel? The extension of that was that other people couldn’t dictate how she felt- even if she was modulating her feelings with potentially unhealthy behaviour. But here we have Amethyst (giving advice she would have given herself, true), trying to tell Peridot how to feel, about herself and the things she’s lost or the things she’s not. Trying to say that how Peridot is feeling right now is incorrect. It’s done with the best of intentions, but it is still rather not okay.

21) Correspondingly, as well as it did end up turning out, what with Peridot finding out about her metalbending powers, it was super not okay for Amethyst to be trying to take that tablet away from Peridot. Like, on several levels. Like, on a surface level, there’s the fact that the tablet was a gift. And gifts mean things to folks, and even if maybe the gift itself isn’t being super good for a person, the emotion maybe attached to it is important.

Secondly, the tablet is Peridot’s. If you respect a person at all, you need to respect their stuff, their right to have stuff. Peridot’s not a prisoner, and she’s not a child even if she can act like one. Heck, with Steven as a point of comparison, we wouldn’t even expect anyone to be policing his possessions at all. (And on that, note, even a child should have the right to their own stuff, a right to some personal boundaries). Peridot came into alliance with the Crystal Gems with nothing of her own. Her tech was demolished or dropped into the ocean, and that’s really all she demonstrably held as her own. Her tape recorder is gone now after the attempt to patch up with Lapis. But we saw the extent of what she considered hers and of value when she was trying to find a gift for Lapis. She has Camp Pining Heart DVD’s and whatever she’s made recently of the barn. That tablet is like, one familiar thing, and one of a very few things she even owns. It’s not okay to try and take that away.

Thirdly, it’s also not up to Amethyst to determine what Peridot does and does not need to cope with the new turns her life has taken. It’s not up to anybody but Peridot- it’s not up to anyone but themself to know what they do and do not need for their mental wellbeing. Maybe they ought to have help now and again, maybe advice, maybe some Serious Discussions. But trying to run someone’s life for them under the assumption that that’s what’s best is not a thing that ought to be a thing.

And last (although this one is perhaps slightly less of a concern, and also I feel like I’ve forgotten a point), Amethyst is stronger than Peridot, almost certainly. We’ve seen Peridot is less strong than Steven, and I feel like we’ve seen in the past Amethyst is as strong as or stronger than Steven. More than this, as someone who’s been a Crystal Gem for so much longer than Peridot, it’s entirely possible that in Peridot’s mind, Amethyst is still in some level of a position of power over her. Like, obviously at this point Peridot is well trusted, after that business with the Cluster and Yellow Diamond. But It’s quite likely that in Peridot’s mind there’s the lingering fear of ‘If I make Garnet or Amethyst or Pearl angry at me they might throw me out I may lose their trust I may lose their friendship’. Whether it’s warranted or not, it’s not an unlikely train of thought, and while honestly I wouldn’t expect it necessarily to occur to Amethyst, the physical strength thing, I wouldn’t expect her to not notice. Peridot couldn’t have won that tug-of-war for the tablet, not if Amethyst was really as intent on taking it as it seemed- Peridot either doesn’t have or doesn’t know how to access (as the episode tells us) any or all of traditional gem powers, such as shapeshifting, that might have equalized her lack of physical strength. Amethyst was, in essence, acting on someone who couldn’t fight back. That whole scene, honestly, has some undertones of bullying in it.

Like again, it ended well enough. Peridot has metal powers. She won herself that alien toy. (But notice also, that Amethyst stopped trying to toss the tablet when Peridot demonstrated those new powers. If she really thought the tablet was that bad for her, then why did she stop? Or was that one moment of Peridot being happy with herself enough to convince Amethyst that it was all cool now? One way or another, I’m really not happen about Amethyst’s reasons regarding this. Even with the best intentions. And honestly, I get the impression that some of that was Amethyst losing her temper, more than anything else.) But still, there were some things. And I hope they’re at least a little addressed at some point- at the very least, as an extension of the question of Peridot’s limb enhancers and how Amethyst ‘lost’ them.

22) The shorty-squad thing at the end was pretty cool, though.

[deniscollins]

Hackers Tell the Story of the Twitter Attack From the Inside

What would you do if another computer hacker told you he had access to download information from 8 celebrity Twitter accounts -- Joseph R. Biden Jr., Barack Obama, Kanye West, Bill Gates and Elon Musk: (1) participate in creating a ransom scam, (2) inform federal authorities, (3) nothing? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

A Twitter hacking scheme that targeted political, corporate and cultural elites this week began with a teasing message between two hackers late Tuesday on the online messaging platform Discord.

“yoo bro,” wrote a user named “Kirk,” according to a screenshot of the conversation shared with The New York Times. “i work at twitter / don’t show this to anyone / seriously.”

He then demonstrated that he could take control of valuable Twitter accounts — the sort of thing that would require insider access to the company’s computer network.

The hacker who received the message, using the screen name “lol,” decided over the next 24 hours that Kirk did not actually work for Twitter because he was too willing to damage the company. But Kirk did have access to Twitter’s most sensitive tools, which allowed him to take control of almost any Twitter account, including those of former President Barack Obama, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Elon Musk and many other celebrities.

Despite global attention on the intrusion, which has shaken confidence in Twitter and the security provided by other technology companies, the basic details of who were responsible, and how they did it, have been a mystery. Officials are still in the early stages of their investigation.

But four people who participated in the scheme spoke with The Times and shared numerous logs and screen shots of the conversations they had on Tuesday and Wednesday, demonstrating their involvement both before and after the hack became public.

The interviews indicate that the attack was not the work of a single country like Russia or a sophisticated group of hackers. Instead, it was done by a group of young people — one of whom says he lives at home with his mother — who got to know one another because of their obsession with owning early or unusual screen names, particularly one letter or number, like @y or @6.

The Times verified that the four people were connected to the hack by matching their social media and cryptocurrency accounts to accounts that were involved with the events on Wednesday. They also presented corroborating evidence of their involvement, like the logs from their conversations on Discord, a messaging platform popular with gamers and hackers, and Twitter.

Playing a central role in the attack was Kirk, who was taking money in and out of the same Bitcoin address as the day went on, according to an analysis of the Bitcoin transactions by The Times, with assistance from the research firm Chainalysis.

But the identity of Kirk, his motivation and whether he shared his access to Twitter with anyone else remain a mystery even to the people who worked with him. It is still unclear how much Kirk used his access to the accounts of people like Mr. Biden and Mr. Musk to gain more privileged information, like their private conversations on Twitter.

The hacker “lol” and another one he worked with, who went by the screen name “ever so anxious,” told The Times that they wanted to talk about their work with Kirk in order to prove that they had only facilitated the purchases and takeovers of lesser-known Twitter addresses early in the day. They said they had not continued to work with Kirk once he began more high-profile attacks around 3:30 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.

“I just wanted to tell you my story because i think you might be able to clear some thing up about me and ever so anxious,” “lol” said in a chat on Discord, where he shared all the logs of his conversation with Kirk and proved his ownership of the cryptocurrency accounts he used to transact with Kirk.

“lol” did not confirm his real-world identity, but said he lived on the West Coast and was in his 20s. “ever so anxious” said he was 19 and lived in the south of England with his mother.

Investigators looking into the attacks said several of the details given by the hackers lined up with what they have learned so far, including Kirk’s involvement both in the big hacks later in the day and the lower-profile attacks early on Wednesday.

The Times was initially put in touch with the hackers by a security researcher in California, Haseeb Awan, who was communicating with them because, he said, a number of them had previously targeted him and a Bitcoin-related company he once owned. They also unsuccessfully targeted his current company, Efani, a secure phone provider.

The user known as Kirk did not have much of a reputation in hacker circles before Wednesday. His profile on Discord had been created only on July 7.

But “lol” and “ever so anxious” were well known on the website OGusers.com, where hackers have met for years to buy and sell valuable social media screen names, security experts said.

For online gamers, Twitter users and hackers, so-called O.G. user names — usually a short word or even a number — are hotly desired. These eye-catching handles are often snapped up by early adopters of a new online platform, the “original gangsters” of a fresh app.

Users who arrive on the platform later often crave the credibility of an O.G. user name, and will pay thousands of dollars to hackers who steal them from their original owners.

Kirk connected with “lol” late Tuesday and then “ever so anxious” on Discord early on Wednesday, and asked if they wanted to be his middlemen, selling Twitter accounts to the online underworld where they were known. They would take a cut from each transaction.

In one of the first transactions, “lol” brokered a deal for someone who was willing to pay $1,500, in Bitcoin, for the Twitter user name @y. The money went to the same Bitcoin wallet that Kirk used later in the day when he got payments from hacking the Twitter accounts of celebrities, the public ledger of Bitcoin transactions shows.

The group posted an ad on OGusers.com, offering Twitter handles in exchange for Bitcoin. “ever so anxious” took the screen name @anxious, which he had long coveted. (His personalized details still sit atop the suspended account.)

“i just kinda found it cool having a username that other people would want,” “ever so anxious” said in a chat with The Times.

As the morning went on, customers poured in and the prices that Kirk demanded went up. He also demonstrated how much access he had to Twitter’s systems. He was able to quickly change the most fundamental security settings on any user name and sent out pictures of Twitter’s internal dashboards as proof that he had taken control of the requested accounts.

The group handed over @dark, @w, @l, @50 and @vague, among many others.

One of their customers was another well-known figure among hackers dealing in user names — a young man known as “PlugWalkJoe.” On Thursday, PlugWalkJoe was the subject of an article by the security journalist Brian Krebs, who identified the hacker as a key player in the Twitter intrusion.

Discord logs show that while PlugWalkJoe acquired the Twitter account @6 through “ever so anxious,” and briefly personalized it, he was not otherwise involved in the conversation. PlugWalkJoe, who said his real name is Joseph O’Connor, added in an interview with The Times that he had been getting a massage near his current home in Spain as the events occurred.

“I don’t care,” said Mr. O’Connor, who said he was 21 and British. “They can come arrest me. I would laugh at them. I haven’t done anything.”

Mr. O'Connor said other hackers had informed him that Kirk got access to the Twitter credentials when he found a way into Twitter’s internal Slack messaging channel and saw them posted there, along with a service that gave him access to the company’s servers. People investigating the case said that was consistent with what they had learned so far. A Twitter spokesman declined to comment, citing the active investigation.

All of the transactions involving “lol” and “ever so anxious” took place before the world knew what was going on. But shortly before 3:30 p.m., tweets from the biggest cryptocurrency companies, like Coinbase, started asking for Bitcoin donations to the site cryptoforhealth.com.

“we just hit cb,” an abbreviation for Coinbase, Kirk wrote to “lol” on Discord a minute after taking over the company’s Twitter account.

The public ledger of Bitcoin transactions shows that the Bitcoin wallet that paid to set up cryptoforhealth.com was the wallet that Kirk had been using all morning, according to three investigators, who said they could not speak on the record because of the open investigation.

In several messages on Wednesday morning, “ever so anxious” talked about his need to get some sleep, given that it was later in the day in England. Shortly before the big hacks began, he sent a phone message to his girlfriend saying, “nap time nap time,” and he disappeared from the Discord logs.

Kirk quickly escalated his efforts, posting a message from accounts belonging to celebrities like Kanye West and tech titans like Jeff Bezos: Send Bitcoin to a specific account and your money would be sent back, doubled.

Shortly after 6 p.m., Twitter seemed to catch up with the attacker, and the messages stopped. But the company had to turn off access for broad swaths of users, and days later, the company was still piecing together what had happened.

Twitter said in a blog post that the attackers had targeted 130 accounts, gaining access and tweeting from 45 of that set. They were able to download data from eight of the accounts, the company added.

“We’re acutely aware of our responsibilities to the people who use our service and to society more generally,” the blog post read. “We’re embarrassed, we’re disappointed, and more than anything, we’re sorry.”

When “ever so anxious” woke up just after 2:30 a.m. in Britain, he looked online, saw what had happened and sent a disappointed message to his fellow middleman, “lol.”

“i’m not sad more just annoyed. i mean he only made 20 btc,” he said, referring to Kirk’s Bitcoin profits from the scam, which translated to about $180,000.

Kirk, whoever he was, had stopped responding to his middlemen and had disappeared.

[bewarereport-blog]

Alex Becker – Lazy Scumbag who steals money

You’ve probably heard of Alex Becker, or watched one of his YouTube ads or seen someone talking about this guy. He is a digital entrepreneur (sort of) and a scam artist who creates useless products and manipulates others to buy them. He uses flashy products and spends heavily on paid ads to attract potential customers. He has released a ton of information products, which contain zero or little value, and he has made a fortune through these rubbish products. His company is stealing money from unsuspecting people who are looking for real information from a genuine expert. My experience with Alex and his products has been pathetic. And when I did a little digging online, I found out that I’m not the only person who feels this way. There are hundreds of dissatisfied customers who have voiced their opinions against Alex and his scams. Such people are the main reason why people are afraid of doing business online. He is a cheat and a thief. He sells useless products, does fake promises, and delivers poor results. He has created not one but many rubbish products, which provide the user with no value whatsoever. His software (Market Hero) is too complex for the average user and has a lot of technical issues. His customer service is the worst and you will have to wait for days to get a response. I wanted to make others aware of Alex’s scams and fishy deeds. If I had known at that time, the things I know about him now, I wouldn’t have wasted my precious earnings on the rubbish products of this guy. I hope my experience will open your eyes and help you see the true face of Alex Becker. If you’ve been a follower of Alex for some time, you will find this article quite disheartening but sadly, it’s the reality.  

Alex’s Life Story (According to Himself)

  Alex Becker has a huge following online throughout the globe. So doubting the credibility of such a popular guy is quite difficult. However, before I begin sharing my experience (and others’), it’s essential that you get to know Alex first. It will help you see how well he has managed to create his fraudulent business. It will also help you realize how good he is in lying to everyone. He pries on people’s emotions and if you would apply some logic, you will see that Alex starts his lies right from his own bio. His life story is quite short for a guy this successful. It simply mentions that he is a tech and nutrition entrepreneur. There is no background information given in his bio. It also shares that he has built multiple businesses which have capital of 6 and 7 figures. It mentions that Alex has helped my businesses in growing, through his bestselling books and training programs. For a guy like, Becker, this life bio isn’t sufficient. It is only there to tell a new visitor about him. If you want to find out more, you will either have to buy one of his books or take part in any one of his courses. You can also join his emailing list. This scam artist has created a funnel to lure people. He knows that getting into the wallets of people isn’t easy. So he first tries to build trust with you. He does so by telling you about his past successes and his current level of wealth. This way he gets your attention and convinces you to purchase any one of his products. He has created something for everyone. If you’re a businessman, he has a software product for you. If you’re a consumer, he has a dietary supplement as well. The bad news is, all of them are of extremely poor quality. You wouldn’t find anything of value and anything worth spending your cash on when you will get these products. But you would have already invested your money. He tricks people into buying his products through fake promises and lies. And then, he steals their money. His scams have no end.  

Just give me my REFUND bro!

  I had bought a subscription of Alex’s email marketing software called Market Hero. There is a ton of content online from Alex, where he talks about SEO and marketing. So I thought he has created a genuine product which delivers amazing results. I didn’t have trouble finding it and when I did, I found the landing page to be quite compelling. I thought Market Hero was the perfect solution for my email marketing problems. Email marketing is quite effective for online businesses and in the long run, it yields great results. I was looking to enhance my business’s reach and improve its lead generation. So I got a free trial of this software. When I was using it, it worked fine and there weren’t any major issues whatsoever. I was happy and after giving it a try, I thought I should get a paid package. It would have been better for me because, with its help, I can grow my mailing list fast and get rid of any kind of hassles in the process. I made the purchase and everything was great. I bought the $1000 plan for the year. That was a huge mistake. Trust me USE MAILCHIMP. Don’t think of using Market Hero. When I bought the paid version, I was glad about its performance. But they released an update after a month’s use and things took a bad turn. My autoresponder stopped working. And my software started losing data. My saved emails weren’t saved properly. The autoresponder is a Facebook Messenger feature you get when you buy Market Hero. This feature lets you set up automatic responses to customer queries and messages on Facebook Messenger. When it stopped working, my customers stopped getting any responses to their messages. The saved emails I lost, they were a part of my online course which I was giving to the new subscribers of my website’s newsletter. My whole schedule got disturbed. It’s almost as if the update was made to destroy the software. It became a nightmare. I contacted customer support. I thought they will help me in getting rid of these problems. I was wrong. I had made the mistake of believing in Alex and his products. His customer support didn’t respond. When I contacted them through the chat, I just had a conversation with a bot and when the time came to connect with a person, it disconnected because no one was available. When I contacted them through email, I finally got a response. They told me they will look into the matter. I told them about the magnitude of losses I was facing because of their update. Again, I got a similar reply. I waited for another week. But there was no positive development. So I contacted them again. After 2 days, I got a reply from them saying that ‘they will look into the matter’. I was enraged. I told them that I don’t want to use their software anymore and I demanded a refund. But they never responded to that email. Due to the poor customer support of Alex’s Market Hero, I lost a large chunk of my time and a good deal of money. I could have invested that money in some other sections of my business. Apart from the loss of money and effort, it cost me, customers. Due to this fiasco, I wasn’t able to execute my email marketing strategy properly for a while. My customers weren’t getting any responses on Facebook Messenger. I lost a lot of leads during that time. You might ask, “Why did you even buy the software?” Because his website promises customer support which replies quickly within a few minutes. According to his website, you can easily get in touch with customer support. Alex’s company clearly stole $1,000 from me. It might seem like a small amount to some people but for me and my business, it was a lot. I have realized how pathetic his products are and why I shouldn’t buy any of his products in the future. One might say that the failure of his customer support doesn’t make him the bad guy. But you should note that it’s his company and it states clearly that you get prompt customer support and staff when you purchase their product. My experience didn’t end there. I thought I should check some of his other products to see how authentic he really is. So, I got a trial membership of his Source University. Now, this is another major startup from Alex and it is about learning advanced SEO concepts. When I got access to this course, I was glad. It has a lot of content for the customer. But I already had faced a poor experience with the customer support of an Alex company. So I first checked the quality f the same. It was great. But there was a huge issue with the Source University. It encourages the use of the black hat and grey hat SEO techniques. Apart from that, it was quite impressive. Let me add that promoting marketing methods which will eventually put the person in trouble isn’t a great thing to do. In fact, it can cost you a lot if you get caught using any of these tactics. There’s a reason why they are called black hat and grey hat marketing tactics. When found, Google will penalize your site and all of your effort and investment would go in vain. Still, it wasn’t my main cause of worry. Having used one of Alex’s products, I was certain that he sells rubbish. He is scamming people through his constant lies and marketing techniques. He does fake promises. His site promised me great customer support but I got trash. This one incident with his Source University made me realize what kind of pathetic human being he really is. HE STOLE $400 FROM ME!! His company deducted $400 from my credit card balance right after the free trial ended without notifying me. They did not ask for my permission. They simply took the money from my account. Their monthly price was $45 but they gave me a discount and gave me a years’ membership. It was my mistake. I should have known that if one of Alex’s companies can cause me losses then another one can do the same. I was ashamed of myself. I contacted the customer support of this company to get me a refund. I told them that I did not want to avail the services and that the money was deducted from my account without asking me. They told me that they don’t give refunds and that I have already agreed to their Terms of Service. That’s when I realized that Alex has created filthy channels for drawing more money towards him. People will blame themselves for overlooking these details and they would end up losing money to him. The winner, in the end, is always Alex. He gets the money for a service or product which doesn’t do much for the user. His large number of products and services help him in maximizing the number of his victims. There must be countless people who might have lost money to him but still use his other services. I have realized that Alex Becker is a huge scammer. He is not only lying on his product websites but he is using all kinds of vicious methods to steal money from people. I have faced a lot of financial losses because of this guy. While the first one was a huge expense for my business the second one struck me personally. I am certain that all of Alex’s products are unworthy of anyone’s time because they are useless and will lead to your financial loss.  

Taking Spamming to the next level

  There are many people who hate Alex because of his scams and malicious marketing tactics. Some hate him only because of the way markets himself. Take a look at his Facebook page for example:  

    It highlights him as the ‘Best Looking Marketer’. What is he trying to prove here? On his website, you will see him standing with a Lamborghini. Again, he is showing off and he is doing that just so will get distracted from his reality. He uses black hat SEO tactics for marketing his own brands and as I’ve discussed earlier, he teaches these black hat SEO tactics to others through his courses as well. There are many victims of Alex’s poor products and wrongful methods of stealing money. Before he had a trial available for his email marketing tool (Market Hero), he used to have a 30-day refund policy for the new users. He has stolen money from many people through that 30-day refund policy. When his scam got exposed and many people started calling him out for this fake policy, he changed the policy and now he offers a free trial of the software to reach new users. In my personal experience, his software is still useless and unworthy of your time and money. It cost me a fortune in money, effort and resources. After its recent update, I lost a ton of customers and leads because it stopped working properly with my website. My marketing strategies and plans all went to waste. This crappy software ruined my email marketing endeavour and I never got any compensation for the damages this software cost me.    

    There are multiple complaints registered against Alex Becker’s companies on the Better Business Bureau as well. His team got these complaints removed because they were harming his flawless reputation. And one more thing, his company ‘Market Hero’ is not accredited to BBB. This should be enough evidence for you to stay away from this company and this guy’s products.  

  If you want to find some more opinions about his past customers, I suggest heading to Trustpilot. You will find some useful and insightful reviews there discussing the various ways he cheats people and betrays their trust. And it is so when he has paid many reviewers to give him a positive rating. The web has plenty of websites where you will find a detailed positive review of his products. The reviewer discusses the minus points but tends to overlook their importance. I should have read plenty of reviews of Alex’s products before making any decision. His marketing tactics involve showing off various rich toys and ensuring that the person remains distracted.  

  The Trustpilot reviews of Market Hero share the different kinds of pains people face because of the poor technology used in it. One customer wanted a refund because he was no longer able to use the product. However, as in my case, the company refused to give him a refund because his trial has ended. One reviewer says that their terms of service are unethical. They deliberately took money from his account even when he did not want to use the software. This complainer also mentioned that he was going to report Market Hero and its staff to the State of Texas Attorney General. You can see that I’m not the only person who has lost money due to the vague terms of service and deceiving customer support of Alex’s companies. Another customer faced a similar problem. He set up his Shopify store with the help of the course. But the course is so poorly designed, that it did not help him much in the set up of the store and its optimization. It took him 30 days of the trial to set up his store properly. As his free trial was about to end, he ended his subscription. Now, the company says that it will give you your credit card balance back if you cancel the subscription in time. He waited to receive the amount when he didn’t, he contacted the customer support. The customer support said that he hadn’t asked for the credit when he cancelled the subscription so they didn’t release it. So he requested for the same. As a reply to his request, they sent him a 10-page form, in which he had to add the screenshots of his progress. But because he had cancelled his subscription, he wasn’t able to access the software and so, he couldn’t get the screenshots. Clearly, Alex’s companies cheat people by lying to them first. He has created vicious scamming methods to cheat all kinds of people in multiple ways. He is a complete fraud and if you would ask me, I would say you should stay away from him and his companies. He uses social media to lure more victims. People on those platforms are unaware of these complaints and so they trust this guy easily.  

  He has over 300k subscribers on YouTube and a similar number of followers on Instagram. This number is depressing because it shows that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are getting scammed or will get scammed by this fraudster.  

    He runs expensive ads, shows off expensive cars and markets himself as an expert. This lures many people who haven’t seen his past customer’s complaints. It’s sad but it’s working.  

Conclusion

  Alex Becker is a huge scammer and he has created multiple businesses to cheat people. My company lost a hefty amount of profits as well as plenty of leads because of the faults present in his software, Market Hero. And when I tried his SEO teaching academy, Source University, I got scammed once again. His company stole $400 from me and did not give me a refund when I asked for it. Alex is running a large scale fraud and that’s why it is vital to expose him. He has cheated numerous people and he doesn’t feel any remorse for his actions. It shows how wicked, heartless and evil Alex Becker is in reality. I hope my article helped you in seeing the true face of this criminal and it will help you in making an informed decision regarding his companies and products. The real problem is, has social media made such scam artist more powerful? Shouldn’t they be stopped before they harm hundreds or in this case, thousands of people?    

Sources:

  https://www.journalreview.org/alex-becker/#Hero_Consulting_Accelerator_Review https://markethero.io/ https://www.trustpilot.com/review/markethero.io https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/anyone-find-alex-becker-annoying.928304/   Read the full article

[verifiedcomplaints-blog]

Alex Becker – Lazy Scumbag who steals money

You’ve probably heard of Alex Becker, or watched one of his YouTube ads or seen someone talking about this guy. He is a digital entrepreneur (sort of) and a scam artist who creates useless products and manipulates others to buy them. He uses flashy products and spends heavily on paid ads to attract potential customers. He has released a ton of information products, which contain zero or little value, and he has made a fortune through these rubbish products. His company is stealing money from unsuspecting people who are looking for real information from a genuine expert. My experience with Alex and his products has been pathetic. And when I did a little digging online, I found out that I’m not the only person who feels this way. There are hundreds of dissatisfied customers who have voiced their opinions against Alex and his scams. Such people are the main reason why people are afraid of doing business online. He is a cheat and a thief. He sells useless products, does fake promises, and delivers poor results. He has created not one but many rubbish products, which provide the user with no value whatsoever. His software (Market Hero) is too complex for the average user and has a lot of technical issues. His customer service is the worst and you will have to wait for days to get a response. I wanted to make others aware of Alex’s scams and fishy deeds. If I had known at that time, the things I know about him now, I wouldn’t have wasted my precious earnings on the rubbish products of this guy. I hope my experience will open your eyes and help you see the true face of Alex Becker. If you’ve been a follower of Alex for some time, you will find this article quite disheartening but sadly, it’s the reality.  

Alex’s Life Story (According to Himself)

  Alex Becker has a huge following online throughout the globe. So doubting the credibility of such a popular guy is quite difficult. However, before I begin sharing my experience (and others’), it’s essential that you get to know Alex first. It will help you see how well he has managed to create his fraudulent business. It will also help you realize how good he is in lying to everyone. He pries on people’s emotions and if you would apply some logic, you will see that Alex starts his lies right from his own bio. His life story is quite short for a guy this successful. It simply mentions that he is a tech and nutrition entrepreneur. There is no background information given in his bio. It also shares that he has built multiple businesses which have capital of 6 and 7 figures. It mentions that Alex has helped my businesses in growing, through his bestselling books and training programs. For a guy like, Becker, this life bio isn’t sufficient. It is only there to tell a new visitor about him. If you want to find out more, you will either have to buy one of his books or take part in any one of his courses. You can also join his emailing list. This scam artist has created a funnel to lure people. He knows that getting into the wallets of people isn’t easy. So he first tries to build trust with you. He does so by telling you about his past successes and his current level of wealth. This way he gets your attention and convinces you to purchase any one of his products. He has created something for everyone. If you’re a businessman, he has a software product for you. If you’re a consumer, he has a dietary supplement as well. The bad news is, all of them are of extremely poor quality. You wouldn’t find anything of value and anything worth spending your cash on when you will get these products. But you would have already invested your money. He tricks people into buying his products through fake promises and lies. And then, he steals their money. His scams have no end.  

Just give me my REFUND bro!

  I had bought a subscription of Alex’s email marketing software called Market Hero. There is a ton of content online from Alex, where he talks about SEO and marketing. So I thought he has created a genuine product which delivers amazing results. I didn’t have trouble finding it and when I did, I found the landing page to be quite compelling. I thought Market Hero was the perfect solution for my email marketing problems. Email marketing is quite effective for online businesses and in the long run, it yields great results. I was looking to enhance my business’s reach and improve its lead generation. So I got a free trial of this software. When I was using it, it worked fine and there weren’t any major issues whatsoever. I was happy and after giving it a try, I thought I should get a paid package. It would have been better for me because, with its help, I can grow my mailing list fast and get rid of any kind of hassles in the process. I made the purchase and everything was great. I bought the $1000 plan for the year. That was a huge mistake. Trust me USE MAILCHIMP. Don’t think of using Market Hero. When I bought the paid version, I was glad about its performance. But they released an update after a month’s use and things took a bad turn. My autoresponder stopped working. And my software started losing data. My saved emails weren’t saved properly. The autoresponder is a Facebook Messenger feature you get when you buy Market Hero. This feature lets you set up automatic responses to customer queries and messages on Facebook Messenger. When it stopped working, my customers stopped getting any responses to their messages. The saved emails I lost, they were a part of my online course which I was giving to the new subscribers of my website’s newsletter. My whole schedule got disturbed. It’s almost as if the update was made to destroy the software. It became a nightmare. I contacted customer support. I thought they will help me in getting rid of these problems. I was wrong. I had made the mistake of believing in Alex and his products. His customer support didn’t respond. When I contacted them through the chat, I just had a conversation with a bot and when the time came to connect with a person, it disconnected because no one was available. When I contacted them through email, I finally got a response. They told me they will look into the matter. I told them about the magnitude of losses I was facing because of their update. Again, I got a similar reply. I waited for another week. But there was no positive development. So I contacted them again. After 2 days, I got a reply from them saying that ‘they will look into the matter’. I was enraged. I told them that I don’t want to use their software anymore and I demanded a refund. But they never responded to that email. Due to the poor customer support of Alex’s Market Hero, I lost a large chunk of my time and a good deal of money. I could have invested that money in some other sections of my business. Apart from the loss of money and effort, it cost me, customers. Due to this fiasco, I wasn’t able to execute my email marketing strategy properly for a while. My customers weren’t getting any responses on Facebook Messenger. I lost a lot of leads during that time. You might ask, “Why did you even buy the software?” Because his website promises customer support which replies quickly within a few minutes. According to his website, you can easily get in touch with customer support. Alex’s company clearly stole $1,000 from me. It might seem like a small amount to some people but for me and my business, it was a lot. I have realized how pathetic his products are and why I shouldn’t buy any of his products in the future. One might say that the failure of his customer support doesn’t make him the bad guy. But you should note that it’s his company and it states clearly that you get prompt customer support and staff when you purchase their product. My experience didn’t end there. I thought I should check some of his other products to see how authentic he really is. So, I got a trial membership of his Source University. Now, this is another major startup from Alex and it is about learning advanced SEO concepts. When I got access to this course, I was glad. It has a lot of content for the customer. But I already had faced a poor experience with the customer support of an Alex company. So I first checked the quality f the same. It was great. But there was a huge issue with the Source University. It encourages the use of the black hat and grey hat SEO techniques. Apart from that, it was quite impressive. Let me add that promoting marketing methods which will eventually put the person in trouble isn’t a great thing to do. In fact, it can cost you a lot if you get caught using any of these tactics. There’s a reason why they are called black hat and grey hat marketing tactics. When found, Google will penalize your site and all of your effort and investment would go in vain. Still, it wasn’t my main cause of worry. Having used one of Alex’s products, I was certain that he sells rubbish. He is scamming people through his constant lies and marketing techniques. He does fake promises. His site promised me great customer support but I got trash. This one incident with his Source University made me realize what kind of pathetic human being he really is. HE STOLE $400 FROM ME!! His company deducted $400 from my credit card balance right after the free trial ended without notifying me. They did not ask for my permission. They simply took the money from my account. Their monthly price was $45 but they gave me a discount and gave me a years’ membership. It was my mistake. I should have known that if one of Alex’s companies can cause me losses then another one can do the same. I was ashamed of myself. I contacted the customer support of this company to get me a refund. I told them that I did not want to avail the services and that the money was deducted from my account without asking me. They told me that they don’t give refunds and that I have already agreed to their Terms of Service. That’s when I realized that Alex has created filthy channels for drawing more money towards him. People will blame themselves for overlooking these details and they would end up losing money to him. The winner, in the end, is always Alex. He gets the money for a service or product which doesn’t do much for the user. His large number of products and services help him in maximizing the number of his victims. There must be countless people who might have lost money to him but still use his other services. I have realized that Alex Becker is a huge scammer. He is not only lying on his product websites but he is using all kinds of vicious methods to steal money from people. I have faced a lot of financial losses because of this guy. While the first one was a huge expense for my business the second one struck me personally. I am certain that all of Alex’s products are unworthy of anyone’s time because they are useless and will lead to your financial loss.  

Taking Spamming to the next level

  There are many people who hate Alex because of his scams and malicious marketing tactics. Some hate him only because of the way markets himself. Take a look at his Facebook page for example:  

    It highlights him as the ‘Best Looking Marketer’. What is he trying to prove here? On his website, you will see him standing with a Lamborghini. Again, he is showing off and he is doing that just so will get distracted from his reality. He uses black hat SEO tactics for marketing his own brands and as I’ve discussed earlier, he teaches these black hat SEO tactics to others through his courses as well. There are many victims of Alex’s poor products and wrongful methods of stealing money. Before he had a trial available for his email marketing tool (Market Hero), he used to have a 30-day refund policy for the new users. He has stolen money from many people through that 30-day refund policy. When his scam got exposed and many people started calling him out for this fake policy, he changed the policy and now he offers a free trial of the software to reach new users. In my personal experience, his software is still useless and unworthy of your time and money. It cost me a fortune in money, effort and resources. After its recent update, I lost a ton of customers and leads because it stopped working properly with my website. My marketing strategies and plans all went to waste. This crappy software ruined my email marketing endeavour and I never got any compensation for the damages this software cost me.    

    There are multiple complaints registered against Alex Becker’s companies on the Better Business Bureau as well. His team got these complaints removed because they were harming his flawless reputation. And one more thing, his company ‘Market Hero’ is not accredited to BBB. This should be enough evidence for you to stay away from this company and this guy’s products.  

  If you want to find some more opinions about his past customers, I suggest heading to Trustpilot. You will find some useful and insightful reviews there discussing the various ways he cheats people and betrays their trust. And it is so when he has paid many reviewers to give him a positive rating. The web has plenty of websites where you will find a detailed positive review of his products. The reviewer discusses the minus points but tends to overlook their importance. I should have read plenty of reviews of Alex’s products before making any decision. His marketing tactics involve showing off various rich toys and ensuring that the person remains distracted.  

  The Trustpilot reviews of Market Hero share the different kinds of pains people face because of the poor technology used in it. One customer wanted a refund because he was no longer able to use the product. However, as in my case, the company refused to give him a refund because his trial has ended. One reviewer says that their terms of service are unethical. They deliberately took money from his account even when he did not want to use the software. This complainer also mentioned that he was going to report Market Hero and its staff to the State of Texas Attorney General. You can see that I’m not the only person who has lost money due to the vague terms of service and deceiving customer support of Alex’s companies. Another customer faced a similar problem. He set up his Shopify store with the help of the course. But the course is so poorly designed, that it did not help him much in the set up of the store and its optimization. It took him 30 days of the trial to set up his store properly. As his free trial was about to end, he ended his subscription. Now, the company says that it will give you your credit card balance back if you cancel the subscription in time. He waited to receive the amount when he didn’t, he contacted the customer support. The customer support said that he hadn’t asked for the credit when he cancelled the subscription so they didn’t release it. So he requested for the same. As a reply to his request, they sent him a 10-page form, in which he had to add the screenshots of his progress. But because he had cancelled his subscription, he wasn’t able to access the software and so, he couldn’t get the screenshots. Clearly, Alex’s companies cheat people by lying to them first. He has created vicious scamming methods to cheat all kinds of people in multiple ways. He is a complete fraud and if you would ask me, I would say you should stay away from him and his companies. He uses social media to lure more victims. People on those platforms are unaware of these complaints and so they trust this guy easily.  

  He has over 300k subscribers on YouTube and a similar number of followers on Instagram. This number is depressing because it shows that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are getting scammed or will get scammed by this fraudster.  

    He runs expensive ads, shows off expensive cars and markets himself as an expert. This lures many people who haven’t seen his past customer’s complaints. It’s sad but it’s working.  

Conclusion

  Alex Becker is a huge scammer and he has created multiple businesses to cheat people. My company lost a hefty amount of profits as well as plenty of leads because of the faults present in his software, Market Hero. And when I tried his SEO teaching academy, Source University, I got scammed once again. His company stole $400 from me and did not give me a refund when I asked for it. Alex is running a large scale fraud and that’s why it is vital to expose him. He has cheated numerous people and he doesn’t feel any remorse for his actions. It shows how wicked, heartless and evil Alex Becker is in reality. I hope my article helped you in seeing the true face of this criminal and it will help you in making an informed decision regarding his companies and products. The real problem is, has social media made such scam artist more powerful? Shouldn’t they be stopped before they harm hundreds or in this case, thousands of people?    

Sources:

  https://www.journalreview.org/alex-becker/#Hero_Consulting_Accelerator_Review https://markethero.io/ https://www.trustpilot.com/review/markethero.io https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/anyone-find-alex-becker-annoying.928304/   Read the full article

[unhappyclient-blog]

Alex Becker – Lazy Scumbag who steals money

You’ve probably heard of Alex Becker, or watched one of his YouTube ads or seen someone talking about this guy. He is a digital entrepreneur (sort of) and a scam artist who creates useless products and manipulates others to buy them. He uses flashy products and spends heavily on paid ads to attract potential customers. He has released a ton of information products, which contain zero or little value, and he has made a fortune through these rubbish products. His company is stealing money from unsuspecting people who are looking for real information from a genuine expert. My experience with Alex and his products has been pathetic. And when I did a little digging online, I found out that I’m not the only person who feels this way. There are hundreds of dissatisfied customers who have voiced their opinions against Alex and his scams. Such people are the main reason why people are afraid of doing business online. He is a cheat and a thief. He sells useless products, does fake promises, and delivers poor results. He has created not one but many rubbish products, which provide the user with no value whatsoever. His software (Market Hero) is too complex for the average user and has a lot of technical issues. His customer service is the worst and you will have to wait for days to get a response. I wanted to make others aware of Alex’s scams and fishy deeds. If I had known at that time, the things I know about him now, I wouldn’t have wasted my precious earnings on the rubbish products of this guy. I hope my experience will open your eyes and help you see the true face of Alex Becker. If you’ve been a follower of Alex for some time, you will find this article quite disheartening but sadly, it’s the reality.  

Alex’s Life Story (According to Himself)

  Alex Becker has a huge following online throughout the globe. So doubting the credibility of such a popular guy is quite difficult. However, before I begin sharing my experience (and others’), it’s essential that you get to know Alex first. It will help you see how well he has managed to create his fraudulent business. It will also help you realize how good he is in lying to everyone. He pries on people’s emotions and if you would apply some logic, you will see that Alex starts his lies right from his own bio. His life story is quite short for a guy this successful. It simply mentions that he is a tech and nutrition entrepreneur. There is no background information given in his bio. It also shares that he has built multiple businesses which have capital of 6 and 7 figures. It mentions that Alex has helped my businesses in growing, through his bestselling books and training programs. For a guy like, Becker, this life bio isn’t sufficient. It is only there to tell a new visitor about him. If you want to find out more, you will either have to buy one of his books or take part in any one of his courses. You can also join his emailing list. This scam artist has created a funnel to lure people. He knows that getting into the wallets of people isn’t easy. So he first tries to build trust with you. He does so by telling you about his past successes and his current level of wealth. This way he gets your attention and convinces you to purchase any one of his products. He has created something for everyone. If you’re a businessman, he has a software product for you. If you’re a consumer, he has a dietary supplement as well. The bad news is, all of them are of extremely poor quality. You wouldn’t find anything of value and anything worth spending your cash on when you will get these products. But you would have already invested your money. He tricks people into buying his products through fake promises and lies. And then, he steals their money. His scams have no end.  

Just give me my REFUND bro!

  I had bought a subscription of Alex’s email marketing software called Market Hero. There is a ton of content online from Alex, where he talks about SEO and marketing. So I thought he has created a genuine product which delivers amazing results. I didn’t have trouble finding it and when I did, I found the landing page to be quite compelling. I thought Market Hero was the perfect solution for my email marketing problems. Email marketing is quite effective for online businesses and in the long run, it yields great results. I was looking to enhance my business’s reach and improve its lead generation. So I got a free trial of this software. When I was using it, it worked fine and there weren’t any major issues whatsoever. I was happy and after giving it a try, I thought I should get a paid package. It would have been better for me because, with its help, I can grow my mailing list fast and get rid of any kind of hassles in the process. I made the purchase and everything was great. I bought the $1000 plan for the year. That was a huge mistake. Trust me USE MAILCHIMP. Don’t think of using Market Hero. When I bought the paid version, I was glad about its performance. But they released an update after a month’s use and things took a bad turn. My autoresponder stopped working. And my software started losing data. My saved emails weren’t saved properly. The autoresponder is a Facebook Messenger feature you get when you buy Market Hero. This feature lets you set up automatic responses to customer queries and messages on Facebook Messenger. When it stopped working, my customers stopped getting any responses to their messages. The saved emails I lost, they were a part of my online course which I was giving to the new subscribers of my website’s newsletter. My whole schedule got disturbed. It’s almost as if the update was made to destroy the software. It became a nightmare. I contacted customer support. I thought they will help me in getting rid of these problems. I was wrong. I had made the mistake of believing in Alex and his products. His customer support didn’t respond. When I contacted them through the chat, I just had a conversation with a bot and when the time came to connect with a person, it disconnected because no one was available. When I contacted them through email, I finally got a response. They told me they will look into the matter. I told them about the magnitude of losses I was facing because of their update. Again, I got a similar reply. I waited for another week. But there was no positive development. So I contacted them again. After 2 days, I got a reply from them saying that ‘they will look into the matter’. I was enraged. I told them that I don’t want to use their software anymore and I demanded a refund. But they never responded to that email. Due to the poor customer support of Alex’s Market Hero, I lost a large chunk of my time and a good deal of money. I could have invested that money in some other sections of my business. Apart from the loss of money and effort, it cost me, customers. Due to this fiasco, I wasn’t able to execute my email marketing strategy properly for a while. My customers weren’t getting any responses on Facebook Messenger. I lost a lot of leads during that time. You might ask, “Why did you even buy the software?” Because his website promises customer support which replies quickly within a few minutes. According to his website, you can easily get in touch with customer support. Alex’s company clearly stole $1,000 from me. It might seem like a small amount to some people but for me and my business, it was a lot. I have realized how pathetic his products are and why I shouldn’t buy any of his products in the future. One might say that the failure of his customer support doesn’t make him the bad guy. But you should note that it’s his company and it states clearly that you get prompt customer support and staff when you purchase their product. My experience didn’t end there. I thought I should check some of his other products to see how authentic he really is. So, I got a trial membership of his Source University. Now, this is another major startup from Alex and it is about learning advanced SEO concepts. When I got access to this course, I was glad. It has a lot of content for the customer. But I already had faced a poor experience with the customer support of an Alex company. So I first checked the quality f the same. It was great. But there was a huge issue with the Source University. It encourages the use of the black hat and grey hat SEO techniques. Apart from that, it was quite impressive. Let me add that promoting marketing methods which will eventually put the person in trouble isn’t a great thing to do. In fact, it can cost you a lot if you get caught using any of these tactics. There’s a reason why they are called black hat and grey hat marketing tactics. When found, Google will penalize your site and all of your effort and investment would go in vain. Still, it wasn’t my main cause of worry. Having used one of Alex’s products, I was certain that he sells rubbish. He is scamming people through his constant lies and marketing techniques. He does fake promises. His site promised me great customer support but I got trash. This one incident with his Source University made me realize what kind of pathetic human being he really is. HE STOLE $400 FROM ME!! His company deducted $400 from my credit card balance right after the free trial ended without notifying me. They did not ask for my permission. They simply took the money from my account. Their monthly price was $45 but they gave me a discount and gave me a years’ membership. It was my mistake. I should have known that if one of Alex’s companies can cause me losses then another one can do the same. I was ashamed of myself. I contacted the customer support of this company to get me a refund. I told them that I did not want to avail the services and that the money was deducted from my account without asking me. They told me that they don’t give refunds and that I have already agreed to their Terms of Service. That’s when I realized that Alex has created filthy channels for drawing more money towards him. People will blame themselves for overlooking these details and they would end up losing money to him. The winner, in the end, is always Alex. He gets the money for a service or product which doesn’t do much for the user. His large number of products and services help him in maximizing the number of his victims. There must be countless people who might have lost money to him but still use his other services. I have realized that Alex Becker is a huge scammer. He is not only lying on his product websites but he is using all kinds of vicious methods to steal money from people. I have faced a lot of financial losses because of this guy. While the first one was a huge expense for my business the second one struck me personally. I am certain that all of Alex’s products are unworthy of anyone’s time because they are useless and will lead to your financial loss.  

Taking Spamming to the next level

  There are many people who hate Alex because of his scams and malicious marketing tactics. Some hate him only because of the way markets himself. Take a look at his Facebook page for example:  

    It highlights him as the ‘Best Looking Marketer’. What is he trying to prove here? On his website, you will see him standing with a Lamborghini. Again, he is showing off and he is doing that just so will get distracted from his reality. He uses black hat SEO tactics for marketing his own brands and as I’ve discussed earlier, he teaches these black hat SEO tactics to others through his courses as well. There are many victims of Alex’s poor products and wrongful methods of stealing money. Before he had a trial available for his email marketing tool (Market Hero), he used to have a 30-day refund policy for the new users. He has stolen money from many people through that 30-day refund policy. When his scam got exposed and many people started calling him out for this fake policy, he changed the policy and now he offers a free trial of the software to reach new users. In my personal experience, his software is still useless and unworthy of your time and money. It cost me a fortune in money, effort and resources. After its recent update, I lost a ton of customers and leads because it stopped working properly with my website. My marketing strategies and plans all went to waste. This crappy software ruined my email marketing endeavour and I never got any compensation for the damages this software cost me.    

    There are multiple complaints registered against Alex Becker’s companies on the Better Business Bureau as well. His team got these complaints removed because they were harming his flawless reputation. And one more thing, his company ‘Market Hero’ is not accredited to BBB. This should be enough evidence for you to stay away from this company and this guy’s products.  

  If you want to find some more opinions about his past customers, I suggest heading to Trustpilot. You will find some useful and insightful reviews there discussing the various ways he cheats people and betrays their trust. And it is so when he has paid many reviewers to give him a positive rating. The web has plenty of websites where you will find a detailed positive review of his products. The reviewer discusses the minus points but tends to overlook their importance. I should have read plenty of reviews of Alex’s products before making any decision. His marketing tactics involve showing off various rich toys and ensuring that the person remains distracted.  

  The Trustpilot reviews of Market Hero share the different kinds of pains people face because of the poor technology used in it. One customer wanted a refund because he was no longer able to use the product. However, as in my case, the company refused to give him a refund because his trial has ended. One reviewer says that their terms of service are unethical. They deliberately took money from his account even when he did not want to use the software. This complainer also mentioned that he was going to report Market Hero and its staff to the State of Texas Attorney General. You can see that I’m not the only person who has lost money due to the vague terms of service and deceiving customer support of Alex’s companies. Another customer faced a similar problem. He set up his Shopify store with the help of the course. But the course is so poorly designed, that it did not help him much in the set up of the store and its optimization. It took him 30 days of the trial to set up his store properly. As his free trial was about to end, he ended his subscription. Now, the company says that it will give you your credit card balance back if you cancel the subscription in time. He waited to receive the amount when he didn’t, he contacted the customer support. The customer support said that he hadn’t asked for the credit when he cancelled the subscription so they didn’t release it. So he requested for the same. As a reply to his request, they sent him a 10-page form, in which he had to add the screenshots of his progress. But because he had cancelled his subscription, he wasn’t able to access the software and so, he couldn’t get the screenshots. Clearly, Alex’s companies cheat people by lying to them first. He has created vicious scamming methods to cheat all kinds of people in multiple ways. He is a complete fraud and if you would ask me, I would say you should stay away from him and his companies. He uses social media to lure more victims. People on those platforms are unaware of these complaints and so they trust this guy easily.  

  He has over 300k subscribers on YouTube and a similar number of followers on Instagram. This number is depressing because it shows that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are getting scammed or will get scammed by this fraudster.  

    He runs expensive ads, shows off expensive cars and markets himself as an expert. This lures many people who haven’t seen his past customer’s complaints. It’s sad but it’s working.  

Conclusion

  Alex Becker is a huge scammer and he has created multiple businesses to cheat people. My company lost a hefty amount of profits as well as plenty of leads because of the faults present in his software, Market Hero. And when I tried his SEO teaching academy, Source University, I got scammed once again. His company stole $400 from me and did not give me a refund when I asked for it. Alex is running a large scale fraud and that’s why it is vital to expose him. He has cheated numerous people and he doesn’t feel any remorse for his actions. It shows how wicked, heartless and evil Alex Becker is in reality. I hope my article helped you in seeing the true face of this criminal and it will help you in making an informed decision regarding his companies and products. The real problem is, has social media made such scam artist more powerful? Shouldn’t they be stopped before they harm hundreds or in this case, thousands of people?    

Sources:

  https://www.journalreview.org/alex-becker/#Hero_Consulting_Accelerator_Review https://markethero.io/ https://www.trustpilot.com/review/markethero.io https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/anyone-find-alex-becker-annoying.928304/   Read the full article

[topscammers-blog]

Alex Becker – Lazy Scumbag who steals money

You’ve probably heard of Alex Becker, or watched one of his YouTube ads or seen someone talking about this guy. He is a digital entrepreneur (sort of) and a scam artist who creates useless products and manipulates others to buy them. He uses flashy products and spends heavily on paid ads to attract potential customers. He has released a ton of information products, which contain zero or little value, and he has made a fortune through these rubbish products. His company is stealing money from unsuspecting people who are looking for real information from a genuine expert. My experience with Alex and his products has been pathetic. And when I did a little digging online, I found out that I’m not the only person who feels this way. There are hundreds of dissatisfied customers who have voiced their opinions against Alex and his scams. Such people are the main reason why people are afraid of doing business online. He is a cheat and a thief. He sells useless products, does fake promises, and delivers poor results. He has created not one but many rubbish products, which provide the user with no value whatsoever. His software (Market Hero) is too complex for the average user and has a lot of technical issues. His customer service is the worst and you will have to wait for days to get a response. I wanted to make others aware of Alex’s scams and fishy deeds. If I had known at that time, the things I know about him now, I wouldn’t have wasted my precious earnings on the rubbish products of this guy. I hope my experience will open your eyes and help you see the true face of Alex Becker. If you’ve been a follower of Alex for some time, you will find this article quite disheartening but sadly, it’s the reality.  

Alex’s Life Story (According to Himself)

  Alex Becker has a huge following online throughout the globe. So doubting the credibility of such a popular guy is quite difficult. However, before I begin sharing my experience (and others’), it’s essential that you get to know Alex first. It will help you see how well he has managed to create his fraudulent business. It will also help you realize how good he is in lying to everyone. He pries on people’s emotions and if you would apply some logic, you will see that Alex starts his lies right from his own bio. His life story is quite short for a guy this successful. It simply mentions that he is a tech and nutrition entrepreneur. There is no background information given in his bio. It also shares that he has built multiple businesses which have capital of 6 and 7 figures. It mentions that Alex has helped my businesses in growing, through his bestselling books and training programs. For a guy like, Becker, this life bio isn’t sufficient. It is only there to tell a new visitor about him. If you want to find out more, you will either have to buy one of his books or take part in any one of his courses. You can also join his emailing list. This scam artist has created a funnel to lure people. He knows that getting into the wallets of people isn’t easy. So he first tries to build trust with you. He does so by telling you about his past successes and his current level of wealth. This way he gets your attention and convinces you to purchase any one of his products. He has created something for everyone. If you’re a businessman, he has a software product for you. If you’re a consumer, he has a dietary supplement as well. The bad news is, all of them are of extremely poor quality. You wouldn’t find anything of value and anything worth spending your cash on when you will get these products. But you would have already invested your money. He tricks people into buying his products through fake promises and lies. And then, he steals their money. His scams have no end.  

Just give me my REFUND bro!

  I had bought a subscription of Alex’s email marketing software called Market Hero. There is a ton of content online from Alex, where he talks about SEO and marketing. So I thought he has created a genuine product which delivers amazing results. I didn’t have trouble finding it and when I did, I found the landing page to be quite compelling. I thought Market Hero was the perfect solution for my email marketing problems. Email marketing is quite effective for online businesses and in the long run, it yields great results. I was looking to enhance my business’s reach and improve its lead generation. So I got a free trial of this software. When I was using it, it worked fine and there weren’t any major issues whatsoever. I was happy and after giving it a try, I thought I should get a paid package. It would have been better for me because, with its help, I can grow my mailing list fast and get rid of any kind of hassles in the process. I made the purchase and everything was great. I bought the $1000 plan for the year. That was a huge mistake. Trust me USE MAILCHIMP. Don’t think of using Market Hero. When I bought the paid version, I was glad about its performance. But they released an update after a month’s use and things took a bad turn. My autoresponder stopped working. And my software started losing data. My saved emails weren’t saved properly. The autoresponder is a Facebook Messenger feature you get when you buy Market Hero. This feature lets you set up automatic responses to customer queries and messages on Facebook Messenger. When it stopped working, my customers stopped getting any responses to their messages. The saved emails I lost, they were a part of my online course which I was giving to the new subscribers of my website’s newsletter. My whole schedule got disturbed. It’s almost as if the update was made to destroy the software. It became a nightmare. I contacted customer support. I thought they will help me in getting rid of these problems. I was wrong. I had made the mistake of believing in Alex and his products. His customer support didn’t respond. When I contacted them through the chat, I just had a conversation with a bot and when the time came to connect with a person, it disconnected because no one was available. When I contacted them through email, I finally got a response. They told me they will look into the matter. I told them about the magnitude of losses I was facing because of their update. Again, I got a similar reply. I waited for another week. But there was no positive development. So I contacted them again. After 2 days, I got a reply from them saying that ‘they will look into the matter’. I was enraged. I told them that I don’t want to use their software anymore and I demanded a refund. But they never responded to that email. Due to the poor customer support of Alex’s Market Hero, I lost a large chunk of my time and a good deal of money. I could have invested that money in some other sections of my business. Apart from the loss of money and effort, it cost me, customers. Due to this fiasco, I wasn’t able to execute my email marketing strategy properly for a while. My customers weren’t getting any responses on Facebook Messenger. I lost a lot of leads during that time. You might ask, “Why did you even buy the software?” Because his website promises customer support which replies quickly within a few minutes. According to his website, you can easily get in touch with customer support. Alex’s company clearly stole $1,000 from me. It might seem like a small amount to some people but for me and my business, it was a lot. I have realized how pathetic his products are and why I shouldn’t buy any of his products in the future. One might say that the failure of his customer support doesn’t make him the bad guy. But you should note that it’s his company and it states clearly that you get prompt customer support and staff when you purchase their product. My experience didn’t end there. I thought I should check some of his other products to see how authentic he really is. So, I got a trial membership of his Source University. Now, this is another major startup from Alex and it is about learning advanced SEO concepts. When I got access to this course, I was glad. It has a lot of content for the customer. But I already had faced a poor experience with the customer support of an Alex company. So I first checked the quality f the same. It was great. But there was a huge issue with the Source University. It encourages the use of the black hat and grey hat SEO techniques. Apart from that, it was quite impressive. Let me add that promoting marketing methods which will eventually put the person in trouble isn’t a great thing to do. In fact, it can cost you a lot if you get caught using any of these tactics. There’s a reason why they are called black hat and grey hat marketing tactics. When found, Google will penalize your site and all of your effort and investment would go in vain. Still, it wasn’t my main cause of worry. Having used one of Alex’s products, I was certain that he sells rubbish. He is scamming people through his constant lies and marketing techniques. He does fake promises. His site promised me great customer support but I got trash. This one incident with his Source University made me realize what kind of pathetic human being he really is. HE STOLE $400 FROM ME!! His company deducted $400 from my credit card balance right after the free trial ended without notifying me. They did not ask for my permission. They simply took the money from my account. Their monthly price was $45 but they gave me a discount and gave me a years’ membership. It was my mistake. I should have known that if one of Alex’s companies can cause me losses then another one can do the same. I was ashamed of myself. I contacted the customer support of this company to get me a refund. I told them that I did not want to avail the services and that the money was deducted from my account without asking me. They told me that they don’t give refunds and that I have already agreed to their Terms of Service. That’s when I realized that Alex has created filthy channels for drawing more money towards him. People will blame themselves for overlooking these details and they would end up losing money to him. The winner, in the end, is always Alex. He gets the money for a service or product which doesn’t do much for the user. His large number of products and services help him in maximizing the number of his victims. There must be countless people who might have lost money to him but still use his other services. I have realized that Alex Becker is a huge scammer. He is not only lying on his product websites but he is using all kinds of vicious methods to steal money from people. I have faced a lot of financial losses because of this guy. While the first one was a huge expense for my business the second one struck me personally. I am certain that all of Alex’s products are unworthy of anyone’s time because they are useless and will lead to your financial loss.  

Taking Spamming to the next level

  There are many people who hate Alex because of his scams and malicious marketing tactics. Some hate him only because of the way markets himself. Take a look at his Facebook page for example:  

    It highlights him as the ‘Best Looking Marketer’. What is he trying to prove here? On his website, you will see him standing with a Lamborghini. Again, he is showing off and he is doing that just so will get distracted from his reality. He uses black hat SEO tactics for marketing his own brands and as I’ve discussed earlier, he teaches these black hat SEO tactics to others through his courses as well. There are many victims of Alex’s poor products and wrongful methods of stealing money. Before he had a trial available for his email marketing tool (Market Hero), he used to have a 30-day refund policy for the new users. He has stolen money from many people through that 30-day refund policy. When his scam got exposed and many people started calling him out for this fake policy, he changed the policy and now he offers a free trial of the software to reach new users. In my personal experience, his software is still useless and unworthy of your time and money. It cost me a fortune in money, effort and resources. After its recent update, I lost a ton of customers and leads because it stopped working properly with my website. My marketing strategies and plans all went to waste. This crappy software ruined my email marketing endeavour and I never got any compensation for the damages this software cost me.    

    There are multiple complaints registered against Alex Becker’s companies on the Better Business Bureau as well. His team got these complaints removed because they were harming his flawless reputation. And one more thing, his company ‘Market Hero’ is not accredited to BBB. This should be enough evidence for you to stay away from this company and this guy’s products.  

  If you want to find some more opinions about his past customers, I suggest heading to Trustpilot. You will find some useful and insightful reviews there discussing the various ways he cheats people and betrays their trust. And it is so when he has paid many reviewers to give him a positive rating. The web has plenty of websites where you will find a detailed positive review of his products. The reviewer discusses the minus points but tends to overlook their importance. I should have read plenty of reviews of Alex’s products before making any decision. His marketing tactics involve showing off various rich toys and ensuring that the person remains distracted.  

  The Trustpilot reviews of Market Hero share the different kinds of pains people face because of the poor technology used in it. One customer wanted a refund because he was no longer able to use the product. However, as in my case, the company refused to give him a refund because his trial has ended. One reviewer says that their terms of service are unethical. They deliberately took money from his account even when he did not want to use the software. This complainer also mentioned that he was going to report Market Hero and its staff to the State of Texas Attorney General. You can see that I’m not the only person who has lost money due to the vague terms of service and deceiving customer support of Alex’s companies. Another customer faced a similar problem. He set up his Shopify store with the help of the course. But the course is so poorly designed, that it did not help him much in the set up of the store and its optimization. It took him 30 days of the trial to set up his store properly. As his free trial was about to end, he ended his subscription. Now, the company says that it will give you your credit card balance back if you cancel the subscription in time. He waited to receive the amount when he didn’t, he contacted the customer support. The customer support said that he hadn’t asked for the credit when he cancelled the subscription so they didn’t release it. So he requested for the same. As a reply to his request, they sent him a 10-page form, in which he had to add the screenshots of his progress. But because he had cancelled his subscription, he wasn’t able to access the software and so, he couldn’t get the screenshots. Clearly, Alex’s companies cheat people by lying to them first. He has created vicious scamming methods to cheat all kinds of people in multiple ways. He is a complete fraud and if you would ask me, I would say you should stay away from him and his companies. He uses social media to lure more victims. People on those platforms are unaware of these complaints and so they trust this guy easily.  

  He has over 300k subscribers on YouTube and a similar number of followers on Instagram. This number is depressing because it shows that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are getting scammed or will get scammed by this fraudster.  

    He runs expensive ads, shows off expensive cars and markets himself as an expert. This lures many people who haven’t seen his past customer’s complaints. It’s sad but it’s working.  

Conclusion

  Alex Becker is a huge scammer and he has created multiple businesses to cheat people. My company lost a hefty amount of profits as well as plenty of leads because of the faults present in his software, Market Hero. And when I tried his SEO teaching academy, Source University, I got scammed once again. His company stole $400 from me and did not give me a refund when I asked for it. Alex is running a large scale fraud and that’s why it is vital to expose him. He has cheated numerous people and he doesn’t feel any remorse for his actions. It shows how wicked, heartless and evil Alex Becker is in reality. I hope my article helped you in seeing the true face of this criminal and it will help you in making an informed decision regarding his companies and products. The real problem is, has social media made such scam artist more powerful? Shouldn’t they be stopped before they harm hundreds or in this case, thousands of people?    

Sources:

  https://www.journalreview.org/alex-becker/#Hero_Consulting_Accelerator_Review https://markethero.io/ https://www.trustpilot.com/review/markethero.io https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/anyone-find-alex-becker-annoying.928304/   Read the full article

[liarscheatersrus]

Alex Becker – Lazy Scumbag who steals money

You’ve probably heard of Alex Becker, or watched one of his YouTube ads or seen someone talking about this guy. He is a digital entrepreneur (sort of) and a scam artist who creates useless products and manipulates others to buy them. He uses flashy products and spends heavily on paid ads to attract potential customers. He has released a ton of information products, which contain zero or little value, and he has made a fortune through these rubbish products. His company is stealing money from unsuspecting people who are looking for real information from a genuine expert. My experience with Alex and his products has been pathetic. And when I did a little digging online, I found out that I’m not the only person who feels this way. There are hundreds of dissatisfied customers who have voiced their opinions against Alex and his scams. Such people are the main reason why people are afraid of doing business online. He is a cheat and a thief. He sells useless products, does fake promises, and delivers poor results. He has created not one but many rubbish products, which provide the user with no value whatsoever. His software (Market Hero) is too complex for the average user and has a lot of technical issues. His customer service is the worst and you will have to wait for days to get a response. I wanted to make others aware of Alex’s scams and fishy deeds. If I had known at that time, the things I know about him now, I wouldn’t have wasted my precious earnings on the rubbish products of this guy. I hope my experience will open your eyes and help you see the true face of Alex Becker. If you’ve been a follower of Alex for some time, you will find this article quite disheartening but sadly, it’s the reality.  

Alex’s Life Story (According to Himself)

  Alex Becker has a huge following online throughout the globe. So doubting the credibility of such a popular guy is quite difficult. However, before I begin sharing my experience (and others’), it’s essential that you get to know Alex first. It will help you see how well he has managed to create his fraudulent business. It will also help you realize how good he is in lying to everyone. He pries on people’s emotions and if you would apply some logic, you will see that Alex starts his lies right from his own bio. His life story is quite short for a guy this successful. It simply mentions that he is a tech and nutrition entrepreneur. There is no background information given in his bio. It also shares that he has built multiple businesses which have capital of 6 and 7 figures. It mentions that Alex has helped my businesses in growing, through his bestselling books and training programs. For a guy like, Becker, this life bio isn’t sufficient. It is only there to tell a new visitor about him. If you want to find out more, you will either have to buy one of his books or take part in any one of his courses. You can also join his emailing list. This scam artist has created a funnel to lure people. He knows that getting into the wallets of people isn’t easy. So he first tries to build trust with you. He does so by telling you about his past successes and his current level of wealth. This way he gets your attention and convinces you to purchase any one of his products. He has created something for everyone. If you’re a businessman, he has a software product for you. If you’re a consumer, he has a dietary supplement as well. The bad news is, all of them are of extremely poor quality. You wouldn’t find anything of value and anything worth spending your cash on when you will get these products. But you would have already invested your money. He tricks people into buying his products through fake promises and lies. And then, he steals their money. His scams have no end.  

Just give me my REFUND bro!

  I had bought a subscription of Alex’s email marketing software called Market Hero. There is a ton of content online from Alex, where he talks about SEO and marketing. So I thought he has created a genuine product which delivers amazing results. I didn’t have trouble finding it and when I did, I found the landing page to be quite compelling. I thought Market Hero was the perfect solution for my email marketing problems. Email marketing is quite effective for online businesses and in the long run, it yields great results. I was looking to enhance my business’s reach and improve its lead generation. So I got a free trial of this software. When I was using it, it worked fine and there weren’t any major issues whatsoever. I was happy and after giving it a try, I thought I should get a paid package. It would have been better for me because, with its help, I can grow my mailing list fast and get rid of any kind of hassles in the process. I made the purchase and everything was great. I bought the $1000 plan for the year. That was a huge mistake. Trust me USE MAILCHIMP. Don’t think of using Market Hero. When I bought the paid version, I was glad about its performance. But they released an update after a month’s use and things took a bad turn. My autoresponder stopped working. And my software started losing data. My saved emails weren’t saved properly. The autoresponder is a Facebook Messenger feature you get when you buy Market Hero. This feature lets you set up automatic responses to customer queries and messages on Facebook Messenger. When it stopped working, my customers stopped getting any responses to their messages. The saved emails I lost, they were a part of my online course which I was giving to the new subscribers of my website’s newsletter. My whole schedule got disturbed. It’s almost as if the update was made to destroy the software. It became a nightmare. I contacted customer support. I thought they will help me in getting rid of these problems. I was wrong. I had made the mistake of believing in Alex and his products. His customer support didn’t respond. When I contacted them through the chat, I just had a conversation with a bot and when the time came to connect with a person, it disconnected because no one was available. When I contacted them through email, I finally got a response. They told me they will look into the matter. I told them about the magnitude of losses I was facing because of their update. Again, I got a similar reply. I waited for another week. But there was no positive development. So I contacted them again. After 2 days, I got a reply from them saying that ‘they will look into the matter’. I was enraged. I told them that I don’t want to use their software anymore and I demanded a refund. But they never responded to that email. Due to the poor customer support of Alex’s Market Hero, I lost a large chunk of my time and a good deal of money. I could have invested that money in some other sections of my business. Apart from the loss of money and effort, it cost me, customers. Due to this fiasco, I wasn’t able to execute my email marketing strategy properly for a while. My customers weren’t getting any responses on Facebook Messenger. I lost a lot of leads during that time. You might ask, “Why did you even buy the software?” Because his website promises customer support which replies quickly within a few minutes. According to his website, you can easily get in touch with customer support. Alex’s company clearly stole $1,000 from me. It might seem like a small amount to some people but for me and my business, it was a lot. I have realized how pathetic his products are and why I shouldn’t buy any of his products in the future. One might say that the failure of his customer support doesn’t make him the bad guy. But you should note that it’s his company and it states clearly that you get prompt customer support and staff when you purchase their product. My experience didn’t end there. I thought I should check some of his other products to see how authentic he really is. So, I got a trial membership of his Source University. Now, this is another major startup from Alex and it is about learning advanced SEO concepts. When I got access to this course, I was glad. It has a lot of content for the customer. But I already had faced a poor experience with the customer support of an Alex company. So I first checked the quality f the same. It was great. But there was a huge issue with the Source University. It encourages the use of the black hat and grey hat SEO techniques. Apart from that, it was quite impressive. Let me add that promoting marketing methods which will eventually put the person in trouble isn’t a great thing to do. In fact, it can cost you a lot if you get caught using any of these tactics. There’s a reason why they are called black hat and grey hat marketing tactics. When found, Google will penalize your site and all of your effort and investment would go in vain. Still, it wasn’t my main cause of worry. Having used one of Alex’s products, I was certain that he sells rubbish. He is scamming people through his constant lies and marketing techniques. He does fake promises. His site promised me great customer support but I got trash. This one incident with his Source University made me realize what kind of pathetic human being he really is. HE STOLE $400 FROM ME!! His company deducted $400 from my credit card balance right after the free trial ended without notifying me. They did not ask for my permission. They simply took the money from my account. Their monthly price was $45 but they gave me a discount and gave me a years’ membership. It was my mistake. I should have known that if one of Alex’s companies can cause me losses then another one can do the same. I was ashamed of myself. I contacted the customer support of this company to get me a refund. I told them that I did not want to avail the services and that the money was deducted from my account without asking me. They told me that they don’t give refunds and that I have already agreed to their Terms of Service. That’s when I realized that Alex has created filthy channels for drawing more money towards him. People will blame themselves for overlooking these details and they would end up losing money to him. The winner, in the end, is always Alex. He gets the money for a service or product which doesn’t do much for the user. His large number of products and services help him in maximizing the number of his victims. There must be countless people who might have lost money to him but still use his other services. I have realized that Alex Becker is a huge scammer. He is not only lying on his product websites but he is using all kinds of vicious methods to steal money from people. I have faced a lot of financial losses because of this guy. While the first one was a huge expense for my business the second one struck me personally. I am certain that all of Alex’s products are unworthy of anyone’s time because they are useless and will lead to your financial loss.  

Taking Spamming to the next level

  There are many people who hate Alex because of his scams and malicious marketing tactics. Some hate him only because of the way markets himself. Take a look at his Facebook page for example:  

    It highlights him as the ‘Best Looking Marketer’. What is he trying to prove here? On his website, you will see him standing with a Lamborghini. Again, he is showing off and he is doing that just so will get distracted from his reality. He uses black hat SEO tactics for marketing his own brands and as I’ve discussed earlier, he teaches these black hat SEO tactics to others through his courses as well. There are many victims of Alex’s poor products and wrongful methods of stealing money. Before he had a trial available for his email marketing tool (Market Hero), he used to have a 30-day refund policy for the new users. He has stolen money from many people through that 30-day refund policy. When his scam got exposed and many people started calling him out for this fake policy, he changed the policy and now he offers a free trial of the software to reach new users. In my personal experience, his software is still useless and unworthy of your time and money. It cost me a fortune in money, effort and resources. After its recent update, I lost a ton of customers and leads because it stopped working properly with my website. My marketing strategies and plans all went to waste. This crappy software ruined my email marketing endeavour and I never got any compensation for the damages this software cost me.    

    There are multiple complaints registered against Alex Becker’s companies on the Better Business Bureau as well. His team got these complaints removed because they were harming his flawless reputation. And one more thing, his company ‘Market Hero’ is not accredited to BBB. This should be enough evidence for you to stay away from this company and this guy’s products.  

  If you want to find some more opinions about his past customers, I suggest heading to Trustpilot. You will find some useful and insightful reviews there discussing the various ways he cheats people and betrays their trust. And it is so when he has paid many reviewers to give him a positive rating. The web has plenty of websites where you will find a detailed positive review of his products. The reviewer discusses the minus points but tends to overlook their importance. I should have read plenty of reviews of Alex’s products before making any decision. His marketing tactics involve showing off various rich toys and ensuring that the person remains distracted.  

  The Trustpilot reviews of Market Hero share the different kinds of pains people face because of the poor technology used in it. One customer wanted a refund because he was no longer able to use the product. However, as in my case, the company refused to give him a refund because his trial has ended. One reviewer says that their terms of service are unethical. They deliberately took money from his account even when he did not want to use the software. This complainer also mentioned that he was going to report Market Hero and its staff to the State of Texas Attorney General. You can see that I’m not the only person who has lost money due to the vague terms of service and deceiving customer support of Alex’s companies. Another customer faced a similar problem. He set up his Shopify store with the help of the course. But the course is so poorly designed, that it did not help him much in the set up of the store and its optimization. It took him 30 days of the trial to set up his store properly. As his free trial was about to end, he ended his subscription. Now, the company says that it will give you your credit card balance back if you cancel the subscription in time. He waited to receive the amount when he didn’t, he contacted the customer support. The customer support said that he hadn’t asked for the credit when he cancelled the subscription so they didn’t release it. So he requested for the same. As a reply to his request, they sent him a 10-page form, in which he had to add the screenshots of his progress. But because he had cancelled his subscription, he wasn’t able to access the software and so, he couldn’t get the screenshots. Clearly, Alex’s companies cheat people by lying to them first. He has created vicious scamming methods to cheat all kinds of people in multiple ways. He is a complete fraud and if you would ask me, I would say you should stay away from him and his companies. He uses social media to lure more victims. People on those platforms are unaware of these complaints and so they trust this guy easily.  

  He has over 300k subscribers on YouTube and a similar number of followers on Instagram. This number is depressing because it shows that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are getting scammed or will get scammed by this fraudster.  

    He runs expensive ads, shows off expensive cars and markets himself as an expert. This lures many people who haven’t seen his past customer’s complaints. It’s sad but it’s working.  

Conclusion

  Alex Becker is a huge scammer and he has created multiple businesses to cheat people. My company lost a hefty amount of profits as well as plenty of leads because of the faults present in his software, Market Hero. And when I tried his SEO teaching academy, Source University, I got scammed once again. His company stole $400 from me and did not give me a refund when I asked for it. Alex is running a large scale fraud and that’s why it is vital to expose him. He has cheated numerous people and he doesn’t feel any remorse for his actions. It shows how wicked, heartless and evil Alex Becker is in reality. I hope my article helped you in seeing the true face of this criminal and it will help you in making an informed decision regarding his companies and products. The real problem is, has social media made such scam artist more powerful? Shouldn’t they be stopped before they harm hundreds or in this case, thousands of people?    

Sources:

  https://www.journalreview.org/alex-becker/#Hero_Consulting_Accelerator_Review https://markethero.io/ https://www.trustpilot.com/review/markethero.io https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/anyone-find-alex-becker-annoying.928304/   Read the full article

[peanutdream]

Hey.............. Do all those ask things please I am Curious enjoy

1.      Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora? 

Spotify. I don’t think I can even use Pandora since I’m from theNetherlands?? Last time I checked I couldn’t.

2.      is your room messy or clean?

A combination ofboth.

3.      what color are your eyes?

I think it’sgreenish??

4.      do you like your name? why?

 I used to really dislike it, but that was mainly because there was a Dutch song about my name (this one) that some boys from my class sang EVERY fucking school day, and sometimes even multiple times a day. It really ruined my name for me. Recently, though, my mom told me that?? The song came out somewhere around the time before my grandpa died when he was still hospitalized?? and?? he heard the song and liked it??? So i don’t really hate the song anymore, and I’ve kinda grown to like my name again. A lot of people still refer to me as ‘Rose’, though, since that’s just a lot shorter.

5.      what is your relationship status? 

Single and ready to eat an entire baguette.

6.      describe your personality in 3 words or less

funny jumpluff eat

7.      what color hair do you have?

Dark blone

8.      what kind of car do you drive? color?

I haven’t really driven in my mom’s car yet but it’s silver colored.

9.      where do you shop?

stores, usually. I mostly buy stuff at the mall that’s in my town, but sometimes I feel Fancy and I take the bus to a nearby city.

10.  how would you describe your style?

“i wish I was as cute as some of my clothes”

11.  favorite social media account

??????????????? of the ones I own?? someone else’s??? U gotta be more specific.

12.  what size bed do you have? 

a normal one. for a single person. because i’m single.

13.  any siblings?

Nope!

14.  if you can live anywhere in the world wherewould it be? why?

Mmm, somewhere near a forest is Great.

15.  favorite snapchat filter? 

I Don’t Use SnapChat Enough For This But I Remember One With A Princess In A Car And I Think That One Is Pretty Rad

16.  favorite makeup brand(s)

I never......... buy make-up............. I wish i did, though. Sometimes I want to buy some, but then it’s like?? it’s expensive, and I don’t really know what I would need to buy anyway.

17.  how many times a week do you shower?

Depends on how many times I need to go out. I do shower atleast once every two days, though.

18.  favorite tv show?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Do series count? or just?? random shows?? Or can I just put in a random show that I’ve recently watched?? because then I’m just going to say Grace & Frankie because that one is Very Good.

19.  shoe size?

smol. 38 I think.

20.  how tall are you?

also very smol. 1.57 meters.

21.  sandals or sneakers? 

Sneakers when I have to walk A Lot, sandals when I’m at the beach or just?? at home I guess.

22.  do you go to the gym? 

lol no.

23.  describe your dream date

That’s a tough one. I’d have to say April 25th, because it’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket!

idk dude I think just?? hanging out with the person I really like would be very chill already?? Maybe some looking at the stars and?? laying outside in a grassfield?? that sounds pretty chill I think.

24.  how much money do you have in your wallet atthe moment?

About 7 euros I think

25.  what color socks are you wearing? 

Black + pink.

26.  how many pillows do you sleep with?

One normal head pillow + 2 neck pillow things.

27.  do you have a job? what do you do? 

haha no.

28.  how many friends do you have? 

6 close friends and?? a Whole Bunch of people that I consider friends but that I don’t talk as much with.

29.  whats the worst thing you have ever done? 

I’m not sure honestly, although I probably have done or said some bad things?? 

30.  whats your favorite candle scent? 

Roses and other flowers.

31.  3 favorite boy names

shrek, donkey, farquaad.

32.  3 favorite girl names

fiona, dragon, uhhhh fiona’s mom.

33.  favorite actor? 

Ryan Reynolds or Tom Hanks.

34.  favorite actress? 

Merryl Streep or Viola Davis

35.  who is your celebrity crush?

shit I don’t know dude. 

36.  favorite movie? 

shit there are so many movies that I love??? The Swan Princess, Matilda, Forrest Gump, A Lot Of Disney Movies, La Vita e Bella, Miss Congeniality and?? a lot more I think??

37.  do you read a lot? whats your favoritebook? 

Dead Withc Walking by Kim Harrison, although I really love the HP books too. I love reading and wish I did it more tbh.

38.  money or brains? 

money seems to be working pretty well for trump but honestly i think i prefer brains.

39.  do you have a nickname? what is it? 

Rose. There was this one week where my nickname was Cheese though.

40.  how many times have you been to the hospital?

I went to the hospital pretty often as a child because I was?? Not Very Tall?? and the docters were Concerned or something. they basically took some blood and checked how much I had grown since the last time I visited. 

When that was done I didn’t visit the hospital until I got hit by a car on my way to school and broke my clavicle. It hurt. A Lot.

The last time I went was like, 2 years ago?? To get my thyroid tested?? I was basically Really Fucking Anxious back then and constantly felt like?? Like shit I guess?? And as if I was going to die?? Sort of?? but not really?? Let’s just keep it at “I was really anxious about having a fast heartbeat” to keep it simple. I’m over it now, though. God, even just walking made me anxious back then. 

41.  top 10 favorite songs

NICE that’s more than ONE song. They’re not going to be in any particular order though. And also probably more than 10.

Day6: I Wait - Congratulations - I’m Serious.

Fall Out Boy: Sugar, We’re Going Down - Miss Missing You - Young Volcanoes - Rat a Tat

BTS: RUN - INTRO: What Am I To You - Crowtit - Ma City

Shortstraw: Thailand

Walk the Moon: Tightrope - Anna Sun - Shut Up and Dance 

Man Man: Loot My Body

Raleigh Ritchie: The Greatest - You’re A Man Now Boy

42.  do you take any medications daily? 

hell yeah. The Good Shit That Helps Me Against Hayfever.

43.  what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc)

Dry hands, oily face

44.  what is your biggest fear? 

Losing my friends.

45.  how many kids do you want? 

Not sure. No kids?? One kid??? I think it eventually also depends on my partner I guess??

46.  whats your go to hair style?

“Listen I combed my hair but the moment I stepped outside the wind acted like an asshole.”

47.  what type of house do you live in? (big, small,etc) 

medium house.

48.  who is your role model? 

ONE, as in, the one who came up with One Punch Man. 

49.  what was the last compliment you received?

“I like your sweater.” 

50.  what was the last text you sent?

“I’m home around 2:30, want to drink some coffee together?” = me @ my mom.

51.  how old were you when you found out santawasn’t real?

I never believed in Santa. as in, the american one. I think I was like, 10 or something when my mom told me Sinterklaas doesn’t exist??

52.  what is your dream car? 

one i can drive in without crying.

53.  opinion on smoking?

please don’t blow your smoke in my face. I personally dislike it but?? it’s your choice if you want to smoke.

54.  do you go to college? 

hell yeah.

55.  what is your dream job? 

Something I genuinely enjoy, that happens to pay decently.

56.  would you rather live in rural areas or thesuburbs? 

Suburbs I think??

57.  do you take shampoo and conditioner bottlesfrom hotels? 

I don;t visit hotels often enough to steal enything from them.

58.  do you have freckles? 

Don’t think so.

59.  do you smile for pictures?

I do. That is, when I’m not avoiding the person who is taking the pictures. 

60.  how many pictures do you have on yourphone? 

117

61.  have you ever peed in the woods? 

Yes. It is necessary if you want to play in the woods without peeing your pants, really.

62.  do you still watch cartoons? 

hell yeah!!

63.  do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s orMcDonalds?

I didn’t visit a Wendy’s during their one year stay in the Netherlands, so I can’t really compare them. 

64.  Favorite dipping sauce? 

Sour Cream.

65.  what do you wear to bed? 

Pyjama’s. As long as it’s something that I can wear pj pants with, it’s fine for me. I really hate not wearing pants during summer. the sticky sweat feeling between my legs is the worst.

66.  have you ever won a spelling bee?

We don’t really have those in the Netherlands lol.

67.  what are your hobbies?

Reading, writing, gaming? ? I think?? can talking with friends count as a hobby?

68.  can you draw? 

Depends on what it is that I need to draw.

69.  do you play an instrument?

I can play the (acoustic) guitar and the glockenspiel!! Also a little bit of recorder!! 

70.  what was the last concert you saw? 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I think it was a Fall Out Boy concert?? From their American Beauty/America Psycho tour??

71.  tea or coffee?

Coffee. Tea is alright but it’s?? ?? ? yeah.

72.  Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?

it’s been, what, a month since a Dunkin Donuts first opened in the Netherlands??? Somewhere in Amsterdam even I think?? So uhhh. no. I don’t really have any reference material.

73.  do you want to get married?

I think so.

74.  what is your crush’s first and last initial?

l i sten  n o.

75.  are you going to change your last name when youget married? 

Maybe?? If it’s not something like Naaktgeboren?? because there was an episode on Zoop where someone’s name was Ben Naaktgeboren which may sound ok if you’re not Dutch but it’s not a name I’d like to have.

76.  what color looks best on you? 

Green/red??

77.  do you miss anyone right now? 

I sometimes wish I lived closer to my online friends so I could hang out with them more but?? I can still talk to them whenever. I do sometimes miss my grandparents though.

78.  do you sleep with your door open or closed?

It’s usually not entirely closed.

79.  do you believe in ghosts?

Not really.

80.  what is your biggest pet peeve? 

when an inanimate object still falls over even though i’ve called it “dude!” and “bro!” many, many times.

81.  last person you called`

My phone says it’s my mom.

82.  favorite ice cream flavor? Lemon

83.  regular oreos or golden oreos? 

what the hell are golden oreos????? Why would you eat gold????

84.  chocolate or rainbow sprinkles? 

Chocolate

85.  what shirt are you wearing? 

One with Dory on it with the text “I have 99 problems but can’t remember ONE

86.  what is your phone background?

(This picture)

87.  are you outgoing or shy?

I used to be Super Shy, but now it’s getting a little bit less I think?? I’m pretty outgoing when I’m with friends, though.

88.  do you like it when people play with your hair?

hell yeah.

89.  do you like your neighbors? 

I don’t really know them but I think they’re alright??? 

90.  do you wash your face? at night? in themorning?

Before + after sleeping.

91.  have you ever been high? 

nah

92.  have you ever been drunk? 

nope

93.  last thing you ate? 

un petitfour

94.  favorite lyrics right now

Basically just?? the lyrics of If I Could Tell Her from Dear Evan Hansen. god I love that song.

95.  summer or winter? 

summer.

96.  day or night? 

both?? 

97.  dark, milk, or white chocolate? 

All of them. 

98.  favorite month? 

June bc it’s my birthday month B)

99.  what is your zodiac sign

Cancer

100.   who was the last person you cried in frontof? 

My mom, probably?? 

Thanks for letting me answer all these questions!! 

[topicprinter]

For those of you unfamiliar with the backstory, in 2014 I started a trucking company by selling 10% of an idea to a friend for $10,000.Year 1 Update Post Year 2 Update PostOriginally, I was not going to provide an update post. However, many members of the /r/entrepreneur subreddit and of the /r/truckers subreddit have messages requesting updates to my story or to simply check-in; so many, in fact, that I thought it would be selfish to not continue to document my trip into insanity. Before beginning, however, I want to point out that this post simply cannot be as detailed as the previous two. I will do my best to include pertinent details, but so much has changed that I do not have a detailed timeline and cannot remember all the little details that I think many members appreciated in the previous posts. I apologize for that up-front.As a quick summary of where we ended our Year 2 Update: * Fall of 2015 we partnered with a full time mechanic shop and saw great results * I was debating keeping my full-time job (Mergers & Acquisitions), but hesitant to do so because I needed the reliable income * I hired a family friend to fill in for me so that I could keep my job * I hired my mother to handle mail, checks, and various paperwork * I purchased trucks, bringing our fleet to 8-9 trucks * I projected 2016 Revenue goal of $1,250,000 to $1,500,000 * I projected 2016 EBIT of $21,0002016 2016 Tax Return2016 was an interesting ride. Unfortunately, I do not have a log of events, so bear with me as I stumble through the major moves that were made.To start, I grew the owned truck fleet to 9 trucks. I had no intention of doing that and, to be honest, the reason we did is very foolish. I purchase all equipment from Ritchie Bros. auctioneers. Up until 2016, my silent partner had seen absolutely nothing regarding his investment. He had not seen the trucks, he did not know our mechanic, he had never met an employee, never seen our route, and certainly had never gone to an auction. I was determined to grab his interest, so I had him visit our location, see the units he's invested in, and meet our employees. The meeting went perfectly and he was instantly hooked, with the overarching thought being "holy shit, I cannot believe you turned my $10k into this". With another auction coming up, he was eager to go with me and purchase a much needed trailer. We had 7-8 trucks at the time, but we were consistently a trailer short, so that was the only goal of the auction. Buy a trailer.Unfortunately, we would not end up buying a trailer at that auction. When scouting the auction I noticed two very, very clean Peterbilt trucks sitting on the dead item row. For those unfamiliar, the auction will drive your equipment across a stage for it to be bidded on. To see two matching units look that clean on the dead row was odd... so I took the opportunity to show my partner how to inspect the trucks, confident that I would find something that I could show him and expertly chime-in with "look right here, this is why we can't buy this unit". Except... there was nothing wrong with them. They started right up. Paint was good. Interior was good. Everything was well kept. They had new tires... it was clear someone took care of these trucks. The auction wasn't until the following day, so I figured I'd get my partner excited and go through the steps pretending like we would buy them, but then ultimately pass when they inevitably got too expensive for us.I left that auction with two 2006 Peterbilt 379's for $20,000 apiece, an insane steal on the most popular trucks in my section of the trucking industry.At this stage of the year we now have 9-10 trucks but only 7 trailers. One of my customers books 1-3 trucks a day and provides us with a trailer, so as long as they booked at least 2, then every asset was able to run. That almost immediately didn't happen and I was starting to have irritated drivers who had to sit at home simply because I didn't supply them with the correct equipment. The problem was short lived, as I quickly purchased another trailer to remedy the issue, bringing us to 9-10 owned trucks, 8-9 trailers, and 2-3 lease trucks.. a good balance.That is the make-up of our fleet during these next segments of the story. Because I cannot remember the exact timeline, I am going to post each key story individually instead of chronologically.Working Two Jobs Is Easy..For those of you who have followed my previous update, you know that I worked in investment banking (specifically M&A) while growing/managing the trucks. In January of 2016 I confided in my immediate friends and family that I was confident in 2016 I would be terminated from my IB job. I can 100% confidently say that I was extremely good in the job that I held, but there were some red flags popping up that were alarming to me.The first red flag is that Worldwide M&A activity (fell) 23 percent. Our firm just came off a record year and immediately tried to ride the boom that M&A felt towards the end of 2015. Overall, I would bet our employee count increased by 30% or more, mostly in non-revenue generating support staff. Times were good and the profits were fat, why not go on a hiring binge and try to aggressively fix the firms existing issues? My first update post can tell you exactly why this was a bad idea. Just like the company I was working for, in 2014 I wanted to ride the wave of success and greatly overextended myself, leading to a cash shortage that would haunt me for the entirety of 2015. Knowing how poorly it worked out for me... what would the same process look like from within a large company? My guess was not too great, so I needed to get my ducks in a row. The warning signals very quickly started going up. All employees had their goals increased to irrational levels, bonus pay was cut, harsher managers were put in place, and "counseling" sessions were becoming a thing.By the time I had my first counseling session with my 3 immediate bosses I had already decided that I wanted to ride the job out as long as they wanted to keep paying me. The conversation was basically "we love having you here, you're great with clients and produce good work, but you aren't meeting our new quotas so this is your first warning". My response was direct and simple: "you guys have been good to me. Let's not drag this out for 3 months. If you want me here I will gladly continue working. If you do not, then let's just part ways now and save ourselves the trouble". All 3 were overwhelmingly against that, so I stayed. I met my goal the first month, but not the second. The second meeting was very to the point: "meet your quota or you'll be let go".Obviously, at this stage I'm starting to get a little anxious. While trucking made some money, I would need to take a 50% pay cut in order to do it full time. There were two opportunities to fix my situation. The first, was that I was a lead candidate for a promotion to VP due to relationships I had built with the hiring team, despite my current performance. However, moving across country would mean that I would have to give up the business... something I wouldn't do. The second, is that I just do my freakin' job so they don't have to fire me. I opted for the second choice and I busted my ass. I nearly doubled the quota. Unfortunately, the client has to sign off on the document before it's counted. Literally, all I needed was a signature saying "good to go". * Client 1, changed his financials in the final stage, completely negating all previous work I had done. * Client 2, Vacation out of the country during my quota week, unreachable. * Client 3, Vacation out of the country during my quota week, unreachable. * Client 4, had a stroke or heart attack, putting him in the hospital and unreachable. * Client 5, Submitted. * Client 6, Submitted.With a goal of 3 and only 2 submitted, I failed to reach my goal. That Thursday they called me into the office and let me go. My big boss, who I still appreciate, said "You will not like this decision today, but I think you will thank me for it later". Beyond those words, I simply gathered my stuff and gtfo. I had built relationships with the people I wanted to be around outside of the office and no one else deserved a goodbye, so I dipped.I then went back to my expensive IB apartment in my expensive IB funded truck and tried not to have a mental breakdown over the fact that my life was about to significantly change, for better or for worse. In the end, I opted to relocate to run the business full time. I left the expensive city behind, took my paycut, and got to work trying to support myself.Hiring Family FriendsLet's cut back to earlier in the year, when I hired a family friend to book freight. This family friend proved himself to me by landing what is currently my #2 customers account for me. Having done it once, it stands to reason that he could do it again. I brought him on with a small base salary and a commission.Things started strong. He would report back meetings he was having (at this time I was still in another city) and things sounded great. Slowly but surely, the complaints starting coming in from drivers. The freight being booked was terrible, often times leaving us in a more expensive bind to get out of than if we had simply not taken the load. Nothing was coordinated well. He had a totally different managing style than I did, so employees started refusing to talk to him because of the way they were being treated. Eventually, I took back management and told him that his new role is only to find new accounts. That's it. He didn't do it. I gave him 3 months to get freight to book one truck daily... nothing; another 3 months, nothing; then another month with a firm deadline and similar counseling to that which I had received... and his wife (my moms best friend) becomes extremely sick. Obviously, I can't release this guy. At this stage I had moved back to manage the business. In no way did I need him. I was dispatching and managing on my own. His only job was to find freight, which he wasn't doing, but now for sure he wouldn't be able to do as he takes a medical leave.I could not afford to pay him. I lost my job and was paying him to do nothing. I needed that salary to keep wheels turning, keep a roof over my head, and I could not afford to keep him on any longer. So, I approached him with a deal: 2% royalties on the freight previously earned in perpetuity with a generous severance and an immediate cessation of his employment. I then offered to buy his 2% royalty from him. It blew up in my face, as was expected, and I was a huge asshole to anyone that heard only his side of the story. But, ultimately, the move worked out and provided me an important lesson: Do not make the success of your business dependent on people you care about. Sure, hire your nephew at $10/hr on some piddly work, but don't hire Uncle Bob because when he doesn't show up you're going to be the only one who loses.Summary of 2016Even with those set-backs, 2016 went well and set us up for success. Yes, I was fired from my first big boy job... but now I was working full-time with the business and seeing tremendous results from the extra hands-on time. Throughout 2016 we focused on efficiency, up-time, and simply tightening everything up. I worked closely with the mechanic hired in 2015 to improve his processes. Moved him into a shop of his own. I went through a preliminary DOT audit and passed with flying colors. I improved our organization, hiring process, training, restructured our fleet to improve fuel mileage, increased work volume at both customer locations, and laid the foundation for a strong 2017.2017: Improve Efficiency, Clean-Up, and Double DownI remember more of 2017. We started the year out extremely lean, but the rest of the business was a mess. I was using Wells Fargo, which was absolutely horrendous. I had no access to capital outside of family in friends. I was having to borrow tens of thousands of dollars from those close to me just to keep our working capital up. I had inconsistent equipment that was hard to work on. Things were starting to deteriorate with the mechanic.. he wasn't keeping up with repairs, repairs were sloppily done, and there was rumor that he was saying unfavorable things about me and my company. Finally, and most importantly, I had decided that I wanted to become a freight broker, not just a carrier.Wells Fargo SucksThere cannot be a more appropriate title. Wells Fargo was awful. I was not effected by the creation of new accounts and whatnot, but I was effected by their stingy and unsupportive lending practices as well as excessive fees. Everything had a fee. Depositing a check? Fee. Need to send money online? Fee. Want to have a checking account? Fees. Oops, too many transactions. Fee. We sent you a new credit card without telling you and auto-removed you from auto-payments? Should've been paying attention. Fees.Goal #1 of 2017 was to ditch the Hell-hole that was Wells Fargo and pursue a local bank. I had always heard the entrepreneurs I worked with in IB say "oh, my banker knows me. I just buy things and then we work it out later" or something to that effect. I wanted that. I wanted a banker that knew me by name. That knew the highschool I went to. Whose kids were in the community. Who would call just to see if there's anything he could do to help me. So, I got to searching.Here are the documents that I used to pitch my business to the banks: * 2014, 2015, and 2016 Interim Financial Statements * Professional Presentation of Banking Requirements * Professional Company ProfileIn my opinion, if an entrepreneur walks into a bank without the information I listed above, in a format similar to the format that I provided, then they are wasting their time. Business bankers sit in an office and listen to junk business ideas all day. They've already met with Random Joe's 6 times that week and heard everything from a fruit canning empire to a teenager's lawn business. What makes you any different? I had a 100% success rate on getting in meetings with legitimate bankers with these documents. Then, when in the meeting, every single one of them commended me on the package and said something along the lines of "you have obviously thought this through and know your business, tell me how I can best help you". It was at that time that I referenced the Banking Requirements document and simply had a conversation about my goals, asked them to be straightforward in their concerns, then addressed their concerns.In total, I met with 4 local bankers at 4 banks. One banker promised me the world and strung me along for 2 months until I gave him an ultimatum and he decided the deal wasn't worth his time; one banker never returned my calls after the meeting (admittedly, it was my worst meeting); and two bankers gave me offers, in some form, of everything that I was requiring. Do yourself a favor and when you go to a banker, show them that you are taking the meeting and your business seriously. Come prepared with everything they will ask for and come dressed well. It's much easier to believe someone will succeed when you see that they are putting in effort.** Two Bank Offers**At this point in time I had two competing offers. The main criteria for selecting a bank was obtaining an open Line of Credit secured by receivables. At this point in time I was completely self financed. I had well over $50,000 in receivables at any given time, tying up $50,000 of my cash and completely stifling any extra growth. In addition, I wanted to add a brokerage. In simple terms, the brokerage would just act as a middle man. I pay trucks before the customer pays, they pay me a commission for finding work and early payment. But... I knew that I couldn't do that if I didn't have cash to finance myself, let alone bring in other equipment and finance them as well. A Line of Credit is a bank saying "here is $100,000. We know that your receivables are $X.XX. If you have $100,000 in receivables, we will loan you $80,000". I'll explain this a little more later on, but in that situation I would have $80,000 in extra cash. My customer pays every 2 weeks. That means I can safely book $40,000 in freight a week at a 10% commission.. earning $4,000 in profit per week.Back to the banks. One offer was from my main customers bank, which makes sense. From their perspective, if the main customer fails then I fail, but if they succeed then I succeed. If the bank is already willing to lend millions to my main customer, then adding a $100,000 line of credit on the same risk profile is simply doubling down on a risk that they have already taken. They offered me a $50,000 line of credit. My second offer was from a my favorite bank of all that I met with. The banker was genuinely interested in the business, he was asking pertinent questions to try to understand and, most importantly, you can tell that he believed not only in the current business, but in the brokerage AND in me. In every meeting he emphasized "I want to be the bank that you call because you had a random business idea and you want to make it real. When you buy a house, I want my number to be the one you dial. I want first dibs on everything you do and I want to be your banker for a long time". Sold. His offer came in at exactly what I asked for and more. He provided me the full $100,000 line of credit and asked to refinance all my equipment.It was the easiest yes I've had since being in business. Throughout acquiring equipment I had puzzle-pieced together loans in order to put more tires under a load. I had one loan at a 17% interest rate. I had two loans that required an interest+principal payoff no matter when I paid it off (I owed every dollar of interest to be due). I didn't care. I wanted out from under the 10+ lenders I had and I wanted to show this banker that I was serious, so I gave him everything. Within two months he had 95% of my debt and 100% of the business was going through him. It has been an amazing relationship so far. They are the complete opposite of Wells Fargo. At Wells Fargo if I applied for a credit card increase, for example, you can apply in person or online, but it all goes to the same credit analyst who says "account not old enough, reject". If I wanted equipment, it was an instant reject because they don't finance the equipment I need. In fact, the bank had the balls to tell me "If you give us $5,000 to hold we will give you a $5,000 line of credit at x% interest". Re-read that line, I know I had to. They wanted me to give them $5,000 for the right to borrow $5,000 from them. They were going to charge me interest on my own money and disguised it as "having an open credit account increases your chances of being approved in the future". Pardon my language, but FUCK THAT. To date, that is the shittiest deal I have ever heard. I had to explain to the Wells Fargo banker why that deal was terrible, which is ridiculous. In contrast, I called my banker on a Monday and asked for an increase from $100,000 to $200,000 on my line of credit. We had a meeting Wednesday. The following Friday I had been approved for a $225,000 line of credit ($25,000 more than I asked for) simply because the banker thought I was underestimating what I needed.Find a Local Bank. It's worth it.What is a Brokerage and why do you keep talking about it?In laymen terms, a freight broker is someone who finds work for another truck. I do not own the asset. I make no claims to it. The truck can work wherever it wants. I simply find work and then "sell" it to the open market at a discount. I am a middle man. I build relationships with a company and, as a result, they call me with work. I then build relationships with carriers who call me looking for work. I put the two together and that is the end of my role as a broker. In addition to being a broker, I self-factor for the carrier that haul for me. Many carriers can not float 3 weeks+ worth of bills. So, they use factoring companies that essentially buy their invoices at a discounted rate. Pretend you're owed $10,000 in 3 weeks. They'll give you $9,500 today, but they will keep the $10,000 when it comes in.This business model is what I originally started the company for. In my first post, in the first reference to the idea, I said 'originally, my plan was to operate as a broker for trucks that haul aggregate'. It took a while, and I took a roundabout way to get there, but after 3 years of trucking I finally became a broker as I orignally intended.We started the brokerage early in the year and immediately had local interest. My company has a strong reputation for the two most important criteria to local truckers: 1) I always pay and 2) I have more work than everyone else. It did not take long for people to hear that I was bringing in outside haulers. By March of 2017 I had 21 outside trucks registered, along with my 9, bringing me to an available fleet of 30. That said, I did not have a line of credit yet, so I only booked 12-14 total trucks. As of today, we have a total of 90 outside haulers registered and our best day had 37 trucks hauling for us; on average, we have 25 trucks running under our name.The business model is simple: customer gives me freight, I give it to trucks. But, the execution can be tricky and it requires intense budget management. Revisiting the Line of Credit example, I started with $100,000. Now.. I know that my receivables have to be 20% higher than the amount I'm borrowing. In other words, I have to self-finance the 20% on top of the $100k. If I wanted to max out the line of credit, then I would need to have $25,000 in cash (100,000/0.8 = 125,000 - 100,000 = $25,000). Done deal, I had that covered.My customer pays every 2 weeks. I can officially book $125,000 every two weeks and never run out of money. Here's the timeline for that: * Week 1: Bill Customer $62,500 * Week 2: Bill Customer $62,500 * Week 3: Bill Customer $62,500, Receive $62,500 from CustomerBased on the above, I would keep my balance at $0.00 and be able to profit $6,250 per week... until I completely screw up my reputation to pay my drivers because a customer pays late. While it is true that 90% of the time I am paid within two weeks, making the above example ok 90% of the time, whenever the customer doesn't process checks because employees were sick, or because they are waiting to get paid, or whatever other reason then I will have to call truckers and explain to them why their house payment isn't going through. Protip: no one gives a shit as to why they aren't getting paid. All they see is that they aren't getting paid. It's because of that, that I decided my minimum threshhold would be to pretend that the customer pays every 3 weeks. Instead of $62,500 every week, my maximum booked must be under $42,000 ($125,000/3). In my opinion, the long-term success of the business heavily depended on word of mouth reputation and I had to be 100% certain I would not screw that up.I begin booking freight and while I'm making good money, making more would be better. There are four immediate solutions to working capital issue: * Ask for a bigger line of credit * Borrow from friends/family * Reinvest Profits * Create a new commission structureI decided rather quickly that option one was not a real option. The bank had gone above and beyond everything I could have hoped for, returning to them to immediately ask for more would look selfish and immature. I needed to let the business prove itself to the bank on it's own. Option 2 is the very reason I went to get a line of credit in the first place and was not something that I wanted to pursue. If I was going to fail, I absolutely did not want to drag those closest to me down with me.Option 3 and Option 4Option 3 was the easiest solution to implement. I was earning $3-5,000 in profit per week. This is equivilant to financing 1 truck for 1 week. Given my 3 week financing rule previously discussed, I knew that every 3 weeks I could add a truck. While not bad, that was painfully slow and I was letting work go every day that I would otherwise be able to book.In comes option 4. There are two parts to what I do: Find work and Finance Work. While looking at my ever growing carrier list I started to notice that not all carriers were small... some were actually quite large. Large companies don't need to get paid immediately and can quite often wait on payment. If I could convince some carriers to get paid after I get paid then my growth curve was infinite. I could book them with no financing. I could pay them only after the money has hit my account, so I was out zero dollars, and I could still charge a commission for finding work. I offered these customers a 2% discount and immediately had around 10 trucks sign up for the discount. If I was booking 15 trucks before, now I could safely book 25 trucks because I knew that I didn't have to finance the extra 10. Suddenly, my little hole in the wall carrier was becoming a major carrier in the local market.This continued for a good while and the profits kept rolling in. As I am sure many of you can guess, more was never enough. Finally, a business of mine was making some serious cash. Life changing cash. It was significantly less work, had a higher profit margin than me owning the trucks, and I had to deal with none of the problems that the carrier side of the business had to deal with. "My engine blew up, it needs an overhaul" is a $10,000 phone call to take as a carrier and a "I'm sorry to hear that" as a broker.More than that, I was finally making the change to the industry I was seeking to make. I hate the way I was treated by brokers as a carrier. I promised my drivers I would be the exact opposite of what they are used to and to-date that is what I have delivered. I am 100% honest with the trucks. I pay on-time, every-time. If there's ever an error, I try to go above and beyond to fix it. I treat them with respect. More than that, I offer them free consulting. I teach them how to bid runs. I tell them all my 'secrets'. I run ads to find them drivers when they aren't able to do so on their own. I do my best to make them succeed instead of trying to milk them for every dollar. I do things transparently and as a member of their team. I try to remember that they hired me, not the other way around.As of this post, my brokerage has moved $1,509,446.19 worth of freight and has retained $111,917.56 in profit. In our best week ever, the brokerage moved $85,536.79 worth of freight... earning approximately $8,000... and I was on a beach in Costa Rica at the time.Brokerage seems to be doing well, what about the carrier?The carrier I am a little less excited about. It is doing as well as it ever has and, to date, we have done $1,103,694.61 in revenue. We will likely finish the year at $1.3 million, maybe a little less.This year has been rocky for the trucks, no doubt attributed to the fact that I have significantly less motivation to own a truck when I make more letting someone else own the truck and just managing it. But, there have also been a number of issues along the way that have depressed my interest in owning trucks.First and foremost, this year we have had several accidents. My stomach has never dropped quicker than answering a 7 am phone call and a driving groaning on the phone "I just hit a car, it's bad. I'm at this location". My truck, and 84,000 pound machine, slammed into the back of an idle car with an 80+ year old man in it. I was convinced that the driver of the car would not make it and was panicking as I drove to the scene of the accident. I could almost see the last three years turning into nothing. I pulled up to the scene and it was not great, but it certainly was not as bad as the driver made it seem. He was driving down a road at around 50 miles per hour. The driver in front of him was over a hill, sitting, waiting to turn without a blinker engaged. You can see my trucks skid marks for well over 400 yards. The driver smashed the back half of the car and the driver of the car was refusing to get into the ambulance. I did not speak to the man, as instructed by insurance, but I cannot tell you the relief that I felt when I saw that he was walking and going to be fine. In the end, the man walked away from the accident and refused to file a lawsuit against me. My insurance replaced his car and the incident was settled. You guys want to talk about a good man? This man is 80 years old. He was in an accident with a fully loaded semi. In today's litigious society, he quite literally could have ruined my life by burying my business in front of a Jury. He would have won, too. As someone who has been through (and rejected) the shady industry that is personal injury lawyers, I know that he could have had a large 6 figure settlement. But, he didn't. He wasn't hurt, though he was sore, so he didn't do what 9/10 of us would be tempted to do.That was a wake up call. I had 9 of these on the road at that time. Every day, at any given time, there was 750,000 pounds on the road just waiting for a a car to run a stop sign, or anything else.So, once drivers started dropping out I stopped rehiring. I starting selling off trucks. I currently have 6 units. The goal is to keep every driver that helped build the business for as long as he wants a job. I am adamant about not letting anyone go just to sell their truck. In the next year, half of those drivers are looking to buy their own truck. I will help them through every stage of the process (which I've done for two previous drivers) and when they get their truck I'm sure I will be near the top of the list for brokers they want to haul for. Once they've transitioned out, I will sell the equipment.Another strong motivator was losing my dedicated mechanic. About 6 months ago my mechanic came to me, burned out, stressed out, and wanting to change careers. He told me that he wanted to stop fixing trucks and take a shot at building a trucking operation just like I did. It was clear from the previous few months that this wasn't a conversation where I could convince him to stay, so I opted to support his decision. I helped him get his carrier set up, let him use my trailers, provided quality runs, things like that. However, on the inside I was panicking. I had 9 trucks without a mechanic and knew no other mechanics. Dealership bills were 2x the price of what I was used to paying. If I didn't find a solution, the trucking division would be bankrupt within 6 months.But, I must have one Hell of a guardian angel, because a driver who I had confided in called the very next day with good news. "I'm inside the parts store just bs'ing and I have someone who asked to talk to you". From that phone call I gave the guy some test work. He exceeding expectations. I gave him more work. He crushed it. Finally, I called him and offered him all the work if he'd reduce his rates. All of a sudden, the impending tragedy turned into a saving grace as I found a mechanic who, while more expensive per hour, performed higher quality work, had no problem being on call, who was hungry to earn money, and had a strong reputation at all parts vendors. Jackpot.What's Next?The brokerage is absolutely what my focus in on. We are super lean at this time, which allows me to keep most of our profits, but stifles future growth. We need to diversify our customer base. We need to add to our fleet of brokered trucks. We need better dispatching and control systems. We need better invoicing and AR processes. Individually, I believe I can do all of these things. Unfortunately, I cannot do them all at the same time. Currently, I am debating whether or not I want to risk expanding by hiring support staff (including risking another sales person) or if I simply want to ride things out with my current customer for a few years, put back cash, and take a calmer approach to investing by starting other passive businesses or investing into real estate. I am currently undecided.ConclusionLong-term business is not as exciting as the original posts I made, but hopefully there is still some useful tips that entrepreneurs can pull from. This post is kind of a downer, talking about getting fired, firing people close to me, traffic accidents, bad decisions, etc. I briefly considered putting a more positive spin on it, but I think it's important to show that not all parts of the entrepreneurs journey are pretty. In fact, they are absolutely gut wrenching at times. Hopefully this post doesn't come off as a sob story, but rather shows the realistic side to "earning $8,000 while sitting on a beach on Costa Rica". Fuck yea it's awesome, but painting only that rosy picture is dishonest and irresponsible.Last year I closed my post by saying "just do it". Just start a business and see what happens. For those of you that followed my advice, I hope that you've found nothing but success. For those of you still struggling, know even the asshole bragging in a facebook video about his "beach office" has shitty days. Entrepreneurs exist to fix other peoples problems, so it stands to reason that you'll have problems of your own. I can't tell you that pushing forward is 100% right every time, but I can tell you that no one gets to sit their ass in the sand without at least trying.

[vixen-vangogh]

polyvore was being a pain in the ass no matter how many words i tried to censor so here’s the life update i meant to put in that set

- have been living in a somewhat stable housing environment for almost a year and four-ish months now which is WILD and a huge record break for me.

- kind of have a partner? we're def QPPs and have been nomadic vagabond companions since like 2015 and have been sleeping in the same bed, cuddling, making life plans together hardcore since then. when i try to explain our relationship to others i explain that we are like Bert and Ernie from sesame street. it's not romantic but it's definitely a very serious thing and there is nothing i could forsee that would face our future that would not be faced together as companions. i was kind of chatting with a buddy the other day who was asking abt stuff and i was mentioning how an aphobe asked, 'how is this different from a best friendship, why do you need to call it a queerplatonic relationship?' and my instinct was to be all, 'well idk i mean i think most best friends don't stick their tongues in each others mouths' but like that said, some best friends do that and its totally legit but the main difference is we call it this because it is more accurate to the intricacies of our relationship.

a best friendship implies different things and a QPR is what we have been calling ourselves for some time.

- have come across the term alterous attraction many many moons ago and have concluded that more or less, this has been the basis for all the experiences of 'attraction' i have thought i felt in other categories. turns out i just love being pro/miscuous and cuddly and affectionate with people and it doesn't necessarily have to have any of the other attractions present. it's just an expression of my alterous attraction. and idk it just seems to make way more sense. someone said it was a commonplace for pre-questioning lesbians to make up to themselves crushes on boys with calculations involved about why this person is attractive.

i think maybe i do experience other forms of attraction but they're seldom enough that it's more anecdotal. and i'm going to call them crushes anyway bc it doesn't matter what i say or do - people are going to be confused by me and who i am and i shouldn't have to sacrifice the nuances involved in who i am and how i live my life to try and get smaller minds to understand it.

and nobody has to understand either. i don't even understand. that's heckin ok bro

- i've been on them 'ro/ids (testosterone) on and off for three months in spring/summer 2016 (androderm) and then the injections for some amount of time this year and there's been a lot of body changes. but mainly i'm looking at nu/des of other people on hormones and realizing like... what if I'm actually inters/ex? it makes no sense for my di/ck to be bigger than people a year on hormones in half the time, does it? like what's up there? and my body is signif hairier in a way that is noticeable to me and my QPP.

last week when I got the inje/ctio/n the nurse (who is a really nice lady? like smiley very friendly maternal type) asked me "how did you know?" without other context or anything.

I didn't really know how to begin because honestly no one had ever asked me that before and it's the one question I needed somebody else to answer back when I was like, 15/recently 16 and needed help finding myself. I wished future me could visit past me and tell me like, "hey jsyk this is what you concluded, here's the answers, and here's all the stuff I've realized about our past experiences that were actually Signs that you're #genderqueer"

and I think, another thing, I wish I could have told the past me, that the laws were going to rapidly change in my lifetime, and also to avoid any cis person who suggests therapy "for hormone starts" because that's what led me to like, 2 years of rather unhelpful talk therapy that turned into lowkey conversion therapy.

No one should ever make you write a sob story about your past before they allow you the autonomy to make decisions about your body.

I gave a little backstory of timeline and told her how my mom kept saying things like, "why are you so offended at the idea of being a woman?" etc and how we don't speak anymore, how I came out in 2011 and every day for the longest time I had to explain to other trans people who the heck I was. how my nonbinaryness was seen more as a delusion despite the fact that I found the wikipedia pages and message boards and I knew there were other people like me out there. I didn't know of another #nonbinary person until 2013 and even then I only met them in passing at a panel they hosted. (we ended up roommates for a bit around 2016 but that's another story)

I stopped having to give #genderqueer 101s to the LGBT+ community around 2014.

And I feel like after that Laverne Cox paved a lot of way for us, and Facebook started putting other genders on there (which I'd signed petitions for years before and considered to be a hoop dream)

and there's been corrective r/a/pe I've gone through and so many tears I've cried and sui/cide attempted and hospital visits

and things are definitely still horrific and I can never afford groceries. I don't eat enough to sustain myself and live on welfare and am too medicated and disabled to work and have tachycardia and PTSD and other complications of my own forced resilience

but I'm on testosterone or whatever and I look at the changes that have gone on and I know that I was a part of that

but I'm never going to get credit for it and it pains me how much I'm suffering because I started advocating earlier than the majority of trans people out today.

if I had come out to my mom years later, would we be speaking?

it doesn't ultimately matter, because if we kept speaking I still would have ended up d/ead. coming out and having her react like that, topped with her steal/ing from me when I was homeless, years of sui/cide baiting, physical + emotional + etc a/buse my whole life, it's miraculous I ever made it out alive

it's so painful but I just have never had the privilege of choice.

- I've been thinking to go back to school maybe and that I need to actually go at it full force with passion because I think I have gotten way too down on myself for the results that have come from my own halfa/ssery of it all. And my own procrastination etc.

I wish I had access to medical care as a child or counselling or something more than I ever did have because maybe I would have excelled in school instead of suffered to try and keep my head above water. I mean, I graduated honours (equivalent).

there's too much about my life to be angsty about.

- also idk if i mentioned this but i got ar/rested for protecting indigenous folks at a thing and it was in the news and im not going to talk much more on it bc of privacy but i'm happy to dig up the video of the pol/ice dragging me away and the crowd shouting (and gendering me right ;u;) "LET THEM GO, LET THEM GO" and i was a pathetic mess thru the whole thing and just had the wrong emotions the whole time and like 3+ reporters tried to get a hold of me for interview but I forwarded them to the indigenous leaders of the ceremony instead

we prayed inside the arre/st tent and put down tobacc/o and held ceremony and the c/ops were horrible and took so much personal offence to everything we were and every reality that happened that they wanted to deny. they banned us from the public land we were arrested on and it was horrible.

it was in the news and justin tr*deau showed up for a photo op and the organizers weren't allowed in their own tipi. he wasn't invited.

those with the land claim to the area made an official statement welcoming us and condemning the go/vernme/nt for arrestin/g us.

nothing was ever done about that bit other than them releasing us and i went to the hospital the next day to get my wrist checked because i couldn't really use it and the handcuf/f bruises and the bruise on my knee was massive. it's been two months and it's only now faded.

twitter blocked the image of us in the a/rrest tent holding hands in prayer with the hand/cuffs on our wrists. they said it contained "sensitive content"

tumblr did the same, calling it "NSFW" (weird bc literally photographs of my actual na/ked body with links to where u can buy videos of me jerkin is not labelled NS/FW automatically lol?????)

i asked tumblr to review that and they still labelled it as such.

it's just so blatantly a genuine broach of free speech and freedom of religion. it was a crimi/nalized religious ceremony and i got between the co/ps and a woman praying.

- i saw Against Me! in march and the mosh pit was extreme and I fell down at some point and like seven people pulled me up and that and the getting arre/sted thing has really hecked up my knees ! i feel like they're mostly healed since but i've not even been kneeling on my mattress for even a second to make sure of this. otherwise it's just been sudden pain for months but as i said, i think they're a lot better now.

- i came forward abt a pr/edatory ex and a few others of their victims came to me to say that they had gone through the same and that they were even more pre/datory than had been with me. i lost quite a lot of friends in the matter bc what i accused them of was extremely serious and came across as vicious on my part.

i'm going to take it as alright though, because i know that i've put what i said out there, and if they have read it at all, they can at least have these ideas in their mind going forward and take precautions. this ex was confronted publically and directly on social media about it and there were several witnesses and screenshots i had to things they did and said. i'm hoping that serves as some kind of warning for them, about their actions that they have confessed to with several people, and how these things will come back for them. that they cannot evade accountability, that i am a force of nature and if you wrong me or do a wrong in my witness with no remorse on your part or apology, i'm not going to let you live it down.

i care and i am tired of hearing horrible stories about them from others. others who came to me saying that i had been painted as an abus/er. because i know ! people see me standing up for myself as threatening all the time. they worry they aren't allowed to make mistakes around me.

no matter how many times i say it or prove it, there's always those people who are too cowardly to admit when they do make mistakes and who go to great lengths to protect their pride and entitlement.

i know we are all growing. i seek environments of mutual support and growth. i am now in a phase of life where i am not giving the time to people who have no interest in these environments. anyone can be my friend, if they are ready for it. but i don't owe it to anybody and anything wrong i have done i am at a point where i feel like i am in touch with my own humility.

and if someone tries to milk it because they think my vulnerability isn't also strength and something that comes with at least some ferocity... well, that's not my problem.

- my rabbit Snicklefritz is doing fine. he's shedding like the dickens this season and mischievous as usual but hopefully one day I can afford to make him an enclosure again and I can let him out only when I can keep track of him.

he's ruined a lot of sketchbooks and a lapdesk my QPP got me for the winter holidays that we are both heartbroken about.

- I am trying to become less attached to material belongings and it has helped me a lot when it comes to coping with all the sentimental items left with my mother or in the various times I've been homeless or left exes etc over the years.

My memories are in my heart and not something that needs to be placed externally, in an item.

Have also trying to go zero waste (like, becoming someone who produces no garbage, just recycling and compost) and it's really been noticeable all these small differences. I buy way more bananas, lettuce, etc. And I've been making bread and spaghetti and whatnot and having windowsill gardens.

- I'm not cured of anything or whatever and I'm angsty 24/7 and broke as heckaroo but there's enough of The Little Things In Life (gardening, youtube videos, kisses, etc) to help me get by in the meantime.

- three days ago a friend (who I consider(ed) chosen family) I had purposefully cut out of my life a year ago showed up on my doorstep to tell me I was right about everything and to apologize for all the wrongs. That they reread conversations we had around then and that they have grown and grown into a better place. They were 18 then and 19 now. We were from the same hometown and they're still there but moving to my city in December. I missed them so much and they stayed with me a few days. I feel a bigger sense of home in this city knowing they're going to live here soon too.

- I've been Really Intensely looking thru my DNA and geneology stuff since last winter. For some reason Indian (like, South Asia) shows up in my DNA and some southern Europe/Northern Africa/Middle East kind of region. My father was adopted via a stepdad and I figure this comes from his bio dad. Or maybe it doesn't, I don't really know. My maternal haplotype is supposed to be one that's generally found in African populations which throws that whole theory. My mom and me also had to use hair picks (afro picks) when I was growing up because our hair was so naturally thick and the waves really tangled up. Every time we went to get my hair cut in that white rural town the hairdressers would comment how they'd never seen such thick hair before etc. I'm still struggling greatly to find answers because everybody's last name is phoenetically weird except for my dad's mom's line which has an extremely Cornwall last name and anyone with that name is definitely part of that family.

Doing research to find what I was told growing up (that I was Kanien'keha:ka via my maternal grandmother's grandmother) has been very difficult because I'm not sure which grandmother of hers it was, and one of them seemed to remarry several times and I cannot be sure of any of the surnames being a maiden name. It's also really hard to know what the spelling was supposed to be because it was written phoenetically. But I think that one's likely English anyway. The other one I haven't reached yet but my grandmother's father's father seemed to be from a Metis community outside a reserve where I remember being told we had ancestors. It seems we're descendants of some really famous anglo Metis folk. I've not figured out the specific links to lock the names all into place properly in my family tree but it's the surname and the small community that are an exact match and on the message boards.

It's a lot to think about. I've been struggling with my racial identity for a long time and regardless of nuances and ethnic identity I feel like I'm just doing this research to seem special or more interesting or to branch out my activism. DNA is not ever going to tell me who my ancestors were, just the locations a small handful of random specific ancestors lived. Family trees are going to help, but they're not going to help me too much as someone who doesn't actually have blood family I'm in contact with really.

I might see if I can get in touch with an older cousin I have on Pinterest because she seemed to be the only one (besides my younger cousin) who really ever sent me vaguely kind gestures after I came out. She was the only one who seemed to be supportive when I did my grandma's eulogy. (Aside from my sibling who went up with me. But I don't speak to my sibling for other reasons.)

I have a paternal cousin as well but we're more half-cousins as my dad's mom had a few different men in her life and I don't actually know if he does have full bio-siblings. I don't really know if it's worth it to reach out to her because with all the technicalities and separations and adoptions and half-relatives I don't know whether I can ask her to ask around, or if I can just ask her, or what.

Anyway whatever it's just easiest to explain my ethnicity as being Metis because talking with others and stuff it seems like maybe this is the best way to label myself, to explain my complicated history and acknowledge that my blood ties are not what makes me me, but rather my ethnic ties. I have traditions and beliefs and ancestors I'm reconnecting with and trying to find.

Not all my ancestors were great people. But it is interesting as heck to learn about them. (Especially seeing pictures and some of the weirder resemblances from like, 5th great grandparents.)

Also one of my greats of grandparents crossed the US-Canada border several times in his life and near the end of them the border agent wrote "seems odd" on the thing and I haven't found any explanation for why he was crossing the border either lol which is pretty dang interesting imo.

- anyway idk I think I'm good ?? have been getting a lot of new interests and hobbies lately which feels good, feels right

i'm getting muscles because of them hormones and probably eating healthier or whatever and drinking more water and just livin life as best i can

could use some more dollars however but what can u do when welfare doesn't go up to match minimum costs of living haha :)