Evil Doer

A.S.P.D.A.M. (Answering Stuff People Didn’t Ask Me)

Fidel Martinez on dailydot.com:

eBay’s top two affiliate marketers have been arrested after allegedly defrauding the online auction site of millions of dollars…

Pace Lattin on performinsider.com:

They had both been arrested by the FBI and indicted on multiple charges of wire-fraud and criminal forteiture, and faced perhaps life in prison

False. I’ve never been arrested in my life (by any law enforcement branch), never been handcuffed, never been read my Miranda rights (or anything else that goes along with being “arrested”).

Also, there never was any “criminal forfeiture” (correct spelling) before or after sentencing (nothing was “seized”), and pretty sure no one ever faced “life in prison” over any of this.

A.S.P.D.A.M. (Answering Stuff People Didn’t Ask Me)

Weber on namepros.com:

So, were all visitors of digitalpoint getting ebay cookies?

Nope, none were.

A.S.P.D.A.M. (Answering Stuff People Didn’t Ask Me)

garyv on warriorforum.com:

No I’ve been a member of his forum for over a decade, and I can remember a lot of people over there cookie stuffing. I can specifically remember having an account banned over there for even bringing it up. They were stuffing clickbank cookies over there for a while as well.

If anyone was cookie stuffing back then, it was via images posted in posts and nothing that had anything to do with us (other than a user made a post on our site). In fact, it was one of the reasons we built the Image Proxy system we use (so users can’t).

False. To my knowledge, no one has ever been banned for talking about *anything* (unless it was a mistake or a rogue moderator).

Also absolutely false. There never was any sort of ClickBank cookies being stuffed on digitalpoint.com (or any site I have anything to do with). As far as I’m concerned, I’ve always thought ClickBank is spammy garbage. I’ve never bought anything from ClickBank, never sold anything on ClickBank and never had a ClickBank account.

A.S.P.D.A.M. (Answering Stuff People Didn’t Ask Me)

Alex on theadminzone.com:

I’ll hold my personal comments about what he did to myself.

While not an actual question, I’m definitely curious about who you are (or actually more what I did you you)?

A.S.P.D.A.M. (Answering Stuff People Didn’t Ask Me)

Will_Watts on theadminzone.com:

Considering he’s lied already, and failed to mention his so-called “grey area” (read: illegal) techniques, I’m not sure why you’re quoting him.

It’s entirely up to you whether you’re willing to accept that he’s done something legally and morally wrong.

Do you think it’s okay for someone who’s committed fraud to go free just because they’ve paid it back?

I don’t think anyone of authority has even *claimed* I lied about anything. I’ve actually been nothing but honest and forthcoming about the entire thing (which is more than I can say about others involved in the case on the other side of the fence).

For example, the eBay employee who knew more about the situation than anyone else most definitely “forgot” to mention all sorts of relevant information when she was interviewed by the original prosecutor on the case.

The prosecutor thought it was important enough that when it all came to light after he interviewed me, they made her fly from the UK to California *again* to “reinterview” her on short notice.

At my sentencing hearing, the judge reiterated the fact that the government was satisfied that the information I provided was “complete and truthful”.

As far as what “I did”… I’m guilty of one count of wire fraud. One user was forced to click one ad, and that user was outside of California (therefore using a wire that crossed state lines… the Internet), with the total monetary gain of that action being $0. I didn’t pay back the $28M that eBay paid me (nor did the US government seize any assets) for being an affiliate if that’s what you are thinking/hoping because that money wasn’t “ill-begotten”. Me being paid $28M as an affiliate and me pleading guilty to a single count of wire fraud (which involved 1 person and 1 ad) are only related because people make (incorrect) assumptions about things.

There has been a massive amount of stuff said about my case swirling around the Interwebz… A large part of it is randomly made up stuff and some of it gets back to me because my friends ask me about it… so this will be the first post in the A.S.P.D.A.M. (Answering Stuff People Didn’t Ask Me) series of posts… 🙂

Mike Edge on xenforo.com:

according to the article, shawn already plead guilty and is out on 700k bail and sentencing hearing is set for mid Aug.

I just read that article and it doesn’t say anything about a 700k bail. Either way… if it *does* say that somewhere, it’s false.

The day I was arraigned (7/22/2010), I was released on a $100k bond secured by my own recognizance. This means I didn’t pay anything, and if I missed a court date, they could come try to collect $100k from me.