I posted my review of this garbage on Amazon and encourages others to as well.

The post from the Banker is laughable. Thanks for the irrelevant shell game play-by-play. These people NOT only cheated their players, but they looted the company FTP style and left players holding the bag.

The AP crew are horrible human beings and anyone glorifying what they did deserves about 100 or so 1 star reviews on Amazon as a good start.

.....yeah, because your book, before a film is made, has more views/shares than 60 mins.

thanks a bunch....****in douche

in fairness, a lot of this is true. it takes a good writer (which mezrich definitely isn't) to take what is truthfully a topic only a small niche would give a **** about and make it a bestseller. i'm sure michael lewis (moneyball/blind side author) could do this. a talentless hack like mezrich can only write about the exaggerated sensational side of the story (read accidental billionaires after watching social network. lol awful) to get reads

To comment on several posts within one response:

Good point (Donkey) on the CR counsel contradicting my final point; flaw in my explanation. We only used outside counsel, regardless of jurisdiction, to gather information. All analysis was done in house, which corresponds to my final point in the post. My reason for explaining how we obtained the reports is to try and empower readers to gather their own information. I understand not everyone is motivated to do so, or has the time, money, resources, etc to do so, but the documents do exist should they want to obtain them.

Haley44: I presented the main link to all documents in the docket to ensure people had access to the entire case. If you feel one document within the file is better than another then great, but my point was to get as much evidence out as possible. I hope someone reads through them all and posts cliffs for readers to see.

I very much agree with your assessment of Avoine claiming to be the owner, as the court documents clearly support that being the argument of Avoine. In fact, I think the court documents support much of what you are saying, with one giant exception: The documents represent the following relationship: Avoine = Madeira Fjord, Madeira Fjord = Avoine. Your argument is they are unrelated?

Let’s review what the evidence shows:

You questioned why I linked to docket entry #149. I will quote from the top of it:

“Identifying Corporate Parent Madeira Fjord for Avoine-Servico de Consultadoria e Marketing LDA.”

Docket #149 is yet another example of Madeira Fjord being the owner of Avoine. This is not debatable according to any of the evidence. Yet somehow you claim there are other owners to Avoine? Let’s look at more evidence.

The Madeira, Portugal public registry shows shareholders of local companies. The shareholders and directors of Avoine have always been publicly available, and have always been 99% Madeira Fjord and 1% a British individual. In short, Avoine is and has always been a wholly owned subsidiary of Madeira Fjord. So, when they (Avoine or their counsel) represent and try to argue that they (Avoine) are the owner of the IP, or whatever it is they were unsuccessful at arguing, that is the same thing as Madeira Fjord claiming ownership. Today, Madeira Fjord is in liquidation, and all benefit will go to the Norwegian Government due to the tax ruling. Considering the Norwegian Government is funding the bankruptcy proceeding, perhaps it is not a surprising fact that they are going after assets - this is a side issue though. I do not think it matters for the sake of this discussion whether they wanted to claim Avoine owned it or Madeira Fjord owned it, as they are one-in-the-same. The only difference is for ‘on paper purposes’, most likely tax in nature especially after the Norwegian tax ruling.

More evidence: When Thomas Brandi took over Madeira Fjord as liquidator he simultaneously took over Avoine. This is because Avoine was a wholly owned subsidiary of Madeira Fjord.

Court documents: In the court documents you reference to support your argument, it is clearly represented (on multiple occasions) Madeira Fjord owns Avoine. So, when they claim Avoine is the rightful owner of the seized goods, that is the same thing as Madeira Fjord claiming ownership.

I believe the public documents show Madeira Fjord attempted to shove down into Avoine the ownership of the ‘license agreements’ or ‘notes’ or whatever they publicly claimed their revenue stream was in order to try and avoid the negative tax ruling, which I believe was the largest in Norwegian history. Since Avoine was a wholly owned subsidiary, this is nothing more than a tax game. Any benefits Avoine derives are clearly for the benefit of Madeira Fjord, so it is just a paper game. The recission you reference was their mechanism of doing so. It was merely a corporate game of trying to change ownership from Norway to Madeira, Portugal in an effort to dodge a tax bill. The beneficial owners never changed.

Madeira Fjord shareholder meeting records/minutes have been made publicly available from time to time. In one of their later pre-bankruptcy general shareholder meetings they voted to roll the company down into Avoine, the wholly owned subsidiary. To be clear, all shareholders would become direct shareholders in Avoine, the subsidiary company, holding equal percentage. Madeira Fjord would then be wound up. How can a company vote to do this if they do not own and control the subsidiary? I assume you have that information, but have been choosing to ignore it? Why?

The only point which you either misunderstood from my original post or attempted to pivot on was who owned Avoine. The court documents that you reference above, as well as all available records, clearly indicates Madeira Fjord owned Avoine. Your articles continuously state otherwise, and you appear to be mistaken on that point.

You write: “Madeira Fjord was allowed to be the "owner" but it had no real power.” The evidence shows clearly that Madeira Fjord, as the owner of Avoine, controlled it. This is proven if one chooses to read Madeira, Portugal code, but also in a more straight-forward case of Thomas Brandi automatically taking control of Avoine when he took control of Madeira Fjord. What additional evidence of power is there?

Your opinions about the ridiculousness of the Avoine claim are supported by the facts, and I agree with you. I find their case pathetic, and the nature of the true purpose of the Avoine/Madeira (yes, they are the same thing) structure was clearly to shelter the nature of the revenue. This has been represented publicly on many occasions due to the passage of the UIGEA. This was the SGS (BVI) post black Friday strategy, right or wrong. It seems ripe for critique.

Good point on the Costa Rican issue. I am familiar with those articles and news segments. My point remains the same: they all reference the same source. I am simply pointing out a fact that the underlying source documents are all publicly available. Instead of one journalist reprinting what another journalist writes, and assuming they are good at their job, it seems to make more sense to me to go directly to the source and find out the real facts. I do not see how that is a point of contention? I am saying go get more info, not less. The only problem anyone could have with that is being scared of what they might find.

I believe my explanation of my association to the companies warrants understanding of me not stating my name. I could lose my job! It should be irrelevant as I am only posting links or explanations of where evidence can be found. As a result, I have no bearing on this other than being a conduit for the readers to gather information, should they want it.

Why do you assume I should be referred to as “Sir”? You, of all people, should know better than that.

the business model is the first thing to look at. online gaming is not an immediate cash present business to the operator. As such, all companies in the industry are receivable and reserve heavy. US operators post UIGEA more so than non-US operators due to a lack of access to tier one processors. Therefore it would make sense to focus on processor receivable and reserve accounts. I have seen screenshots of AP/UB deposit KPI's listed publicly. Reserve requirements can call for 10% of all deposits to be held for a 6 month period. Settlement timelines for the balance (minus fees and chargebacks) can be weeks. Review publicly available deposit records of AP/UB and imagine what their receivable/reserve balances were. I have no idea what happened to those, but they represent a logical place to look given the business model. Whilst i would like to comment on their financials, i obviously am unable to.

the banker:

isn't the most likely explanation (and what almost assuredly happened) is the owners of AP (you know, the ones that cheated for untold millions) stole/withdrew/took-as-distribution every dollar they could (just like FTP) and when the music stopped, the players were left holding the bag???

I seriously doubt whoever hired your company was really going to own or control AP if they ever "bought" it - probably just another way for the people in control to scam someone else.

Whoever was in charge of the processing is who really owned the company. Ramble on all you want about bull**** corporate entities, but the people telling the processors which bank account to deposit money into were the real owners.

On paper, how much were they raking a day?

Use of the male pronoun is the English language default when the actual gender is undeclared. This is proper English for referring to an anonymous poster.

Re: Costa Rica and all those reports: It was evidence acknowledged publicly (the money on the plane) by major government officials. It was information that was released years after the accident in a case that absolutely no news outlet in Costa Rica was following at that time. What motive is there for CR law enforcement to plant a false story? It's another nonsensical premise. On the other hand, the AP boys, who were in a years-long, ongoing scheme to pilfer millions out of the operation, had motives by the millions to deny the existence of the cash.

One last edit: Why did that recission clause even exist? What is the purpose of Avoine, if not for the dual purposes of providing a secret shelter for the frat boys and securing a way to jettison the other owners?

It seems clear that Toms and Hamilton were both pilfering on their own so not to pay proper royalties to those that had legal shares. So not only are the players upset but I expect there are a few shareholders besides Annie that are upset that their payouts were being stolen. I wonder if Ben talked to any during his research.

Cheers on the gender comment. Just trying to keep a small percentage of this light.

The Avoine/Madeira Fjord structure is actually quite simple, and none of this information is a secret. As is publicly known, most of the Madeira Fjord shareholders were based out of the US. They needed to find a tax efficient structure. A two entity structure is quite common, and far from throwing up red flags. In this case, the Madeira, Portugal (Avoine) company would ‘conduct’ all business, have all commercial contracts, etc. In this case the notes. Madeira, Portugal is a low tax jurisdiction perfectly suited for this sort of activity. So, step one of finding a low/zero tax jurisdiction to conduct business is done. From here they needed to find an efficient way to distribute profits to the 250 shareholders. Madeira, Portugal does not have a qualifying tax treaty with the US, so distributing from here makes no sense as shareholders would have to take it is regular income and pay the highest rate of tax. In comes Norway. Norway has a tax treaty with Madeira, Portugal so that all profits of a wholly owned Madeira, Portugal subsidiary that flow up to the Norwegian parent are tax-free. From there, and the key element to this structure, is Norway and the US have a very particular tax treaty that allows for dividend profits being paid out of a Norwegian company to US shareholders to count as qualified dividends and be taxed at the lowest rate allowed under US tax law for dividends, which I believe was/is 15% (US persons welcomed to correct tax rates). So, this structure was designed to allow for distributions to flow to the US shareholders in the form of qualified dividends and be taxed at 15% as opposed to being treated as regular income from nearly all other foreign jurisdictions. This is proven in numerous Madeira Fjord documents, including all distribution forms whereby the company represents it is withholding 15% per the US/Norway tax treaty. I would urge you to try and get your hands on one of those.

Within the Madeira Fjord (Norwegian) records, and available to many, are tax opinions from a big 5 accounting firm outlining this structure and the purpose of it. It seems to me someone is trying to lead you astray for personal motivations. I hate to say it, but I think you are being used to fight another’s battle. If you review any and all of the Madeira Fjord minutes, records, etc., these facts can be confirmed. Your assertions that Avoine is the secret playground of a the frats just isn't correct. You are being lead astray and have been chasing something easily disproved.

If this doesn’t jive, let’s look at a very simple part of the equation: How would the Norwegian liquidator being assigned to the Madeira Fjord bankruptcy have been able to take over Avoine if they Madeira didn’t own/control it? The answer is obviously simple: they wouldn’t have. They are part of the same structure.

On a more technical item, the rescission clause was without a doubt purposely built into the Madeira/Avoine contract in order to ‘asset strip’ Madeira Fjord should it be necessary. Norway is the furthest thing from a low-tax operating jurisdiction. Just because it is a good place (perhaps) to flow profits in preparation for shareholder distributions to the US, it is not a good place to house assets and generate income. Therefore having a mechanism to dump the assets back to the low tax subsidiary was seen as a rip-cord should there be any need to do so. From a beneficial owner perspective it didn’t matter, as Avoine was a wholly owned subsidiary completely controlled by Madeira Fjord. Perhaps a point that is being missed was around privacy. The southern district successfully called Avoine/Madeira Fjord out on this issue: From 2006 to 2011 Avoine/Madeira Fjord tried to conceal any association to the gaming assets/income in order to protect it from possible legal issues. Then, when black Friday occurred, they tried to step in and say “hold on, we own these assets!” The Southern district, as you properly pointed out, used Avoine’s own story against them and quickly had the case dismissed. Pin pointing the driving force behind the Avoine claim at the Southern District has been overlooked, either on purpose or accident. The Norwegian Government, via the bankruptcy court, is legally in control of Madeira Fjord and Avoine. Thomas Brandi is running both companies. He is the one that brought the claim in the Southern District, and due to the tax judgment against Madeira Fjord any sums received would have gone to the Norwegian government. So, it was really the Norwegian government making an end run for the assets. Fortunately they lost, and the process to remunerate players can at least begin.

One more note: Mr. Brandi is most likely compensated via fixed hourly rates as well as some percentage of the liquidation file. It is in his personal best interest to try and claim as many assets as possible in an effort to milk the file for as much as possible. It seems to be a moot point now as Avoine/Madeira Fjord lost.


As to the Costa Rican issues, my original point still stands. You are using other journalists work. Real reports, real police statements, etc do exist and are not being used today. If you or someone else were to actually investigate the issue first hand i believe you would get a different version of events then as reported by a Costa Rican newspaper. All i am saying is there is a lot of information out there should someone really want to look into the matter. It seems for now people want a certain version of story to be the case, so they are using whatever evidence supports that. you can't argue with the concept of gathering as much information as possible. From there, draw whatever conclusion you want.

Easy enough to find out the truth either way: All you need to do is show up here with an audited spreadsheet showing how that 20% was distributed within Avoine. Don't claim Avoine was "owned" 99% by Madeira Fjord when that slice of AP's gross revenues never went to anyone at Madeira Fjord. It's all about the money, honey.

Edit: You claim there are "other reports" re Costa Rica. Okay, prove yourself and send them to me, since you seem to be one of these sources. My e-mail is haleyhintze (at-sign) yahoo.com. I'd have you just DM them but you don't have enough of a posting history to allow DMs here. You can even send them via a made-up e-mail address somewhere if you're worried about your anonymity.

Writing something as ridiculous as the assertion that 99% of AP’s GROSS revenues should have gone to Madeira Fjord – a completely different company from AP, associated only via a license/note agreement, and confirmed by the southern district of New York court system – is absurd. Are you suggesting that AP should have paid 99% of GROSS revenues to Madeira Fjord, leaving them with 1% of GROSS revenues to run the company? I believe the Peter Principle has been reached, and anyone reading this that understands business or simple arithmetic is likely having a little chuckle at you even arguing such a thing.
I have, via the evidence presented as well as describing the existence of other evidence, presented the most accurate and tangible representation of Avoine’s structure. The significance of it is that it was discussed in the book and you thought it important enough to dedicate a multiple episodes of your work to. The information I present are not my theories, rather evidence; it is what the facts show us. The burden is actually on you to disprove it, or show any consistent evidence of your theory being supportable.
You are clearly so entrenched in your own theories that you are incapable of even considering that another version of the story may be true, regardless of how blatantly obvious and apparent contradicting evidence may be. This is about doing research, finding facts, and basing theories on those facts. Oftentimes things are perfect, and interpretation needs to occur, that’s fair. I guess the evidence in this case just doesn’t support your book, blogs, and revenue stream. For someone claiming Mezrich did such a literary hatchet job, you are on track to one-up even his work in terms of accuracy, or lack thereof. All of those with intimate knowledge of what happened, and that is a very long list, likely watch your work and laugh. You continue to get further and further away from the issue. For that, you are doing the poker community a disservice, despite how enjoyable the 5-minute escapes from reality your theories offer. It is fair to have the novice readers looking for updates and launching opinions. That is what much of this is about. You, however, claim to be the authority on the subject. That is partially deserved. Unfortunately the cause seems to have gotten the best of you, and you have allowed your theories to drive you instead of following the facts. Anyone that tells you what you want to hear you love, and anyone that comes with contradictory information –such as the entire legal docket, shareholder registry, Avoine financials (oh, yes, even following the money supports it)- you attack. I will try and end this on a positive note: You are passionate about the cause, and the community deserves answers. Don’t stop your effort, just do what you know is right. Follow facts, modify theories based on facts, and get to the bottom of the issue. Once you become so married to a story that you refuse to change it no matter what, you lose objectivity and all previous work is in vain.
I worked for a bank that handled the engagement. Obviously, all of the ‘data’ is either owned by the bank or the client. My role is not to steal documents and post them. I was part of a team that spent months investigating and analyzing these companies, a project worth tens of thousands of pounds. My purpose here is to share part of the tools we used and present actionable leads whereby the community can gather real evidence, not more stories. If I am able to legally procure anything I will pass it to you privately, not on the web. Hopefully it will be analysed objectively.
Questions: do you know how much was paid to the debt holders over timeframe 2007-2011 (Excapsa and Avoine/Madeira Fjord)? Do you have Avoine bank statements, or are you taking a flyer on all of your assumptions? Do you know what percentage of funds received by Avoine went to parent company Madeira Fjord? Do you know how much was distributed by Madeira Fjord to shareholders, both common and preferred? I think it is fair to educate your readers on the data you use to render your theories, and to say that following the money will lead you to answers. Based on your current heading, it seems you don't actually have this info.

that escalated quickly

Where did I say this??

What evidence was that, exactly? Two links to Trachtenburg Rodes filings that were dismissed by the court at being laughably false and manipulative, one of which (#149) dates from late 2011/first days of 2012 when, IIRC, the Norwegian tax interest wasn't even part of the US case?

Right. Sure. Answer these two questions, and maybe I'll suspect you of being something more than a lame straw man:

1) Exactly what service did Avoine provide that should have allowed them any piece of the AP pie whatsoever?

2) Exactly what happened to the frat boys' ownership interests? I have an AP registry (pre-UIGEA) and a Madeira Fjord registry (post-UIGEA), and the primary difference between the two is that on the Madeira Fjord one, certified as full and complete, the frat boys are nowhere to be seen. I'm not going to put words in your mouth here in the way you tried above, but what is your answer to that -- that the boys gave back all their shares out of the goodness of their hearts, and received nothing in return? They were still running the company.

Meanwhile, my inbox is full of viagra and Nigerian 411 spam, but none of the links or documentation you claim to have.

Yeah, I've got e-mails from several of the Madeira shareholders detailing exactly what they received, which was between 14 and 18 cents on the dollar over the lifetime of their investments, most of which go back well before the UIGEA. Think of the money that went through AP and try claiming that that is anything other than obscene.

Meanwhile, besides your pointing at a couple of questionable docket entries, there's a word for the rest of that longwindedness: hearsay. So far. Prove us wrong.

I've heard many of the investors in AP felt like they were robbed and never paid what they should of been. I think someone mentioned Mark Seif wasn't too happy either.

Whatever this idiot "the banker" is going on and on about is irrelevant. These people cheated, then looted the company until there was nothing.

WTF the banker is going on and on about is pretty dumb and immaterial. Scott Tom's dad even calls himself The Chairman. The Chairman of what exactly? Allegedly he even told people at different WSOP events he owned the company and now his son is under indictment and a fugitive. Pretty obvious who really owned the company... What some dumb piece of paper said means nothing, especially some dumb piece of paper in Norway. Give me a break.

First things first: the entire point of this is to try and get information out in a better attempt to get players paid back.

Sorry, no shareholder at SGS received between 14 and 18 cents on the dollar. Need to work on some facts. Here we go: common shareholders received 18 cents per share in the form of total returns, dividends and return of capital. That info in itself is worthless. You need to know what their basis was in order to make any determinations on the merits of its ‘obscenity.’ If you detail the price basis of each financing round, total amount of money invested, and total amount returned, including preferred shareholders, then perhaps something can be drawn from it. Otherwise you don’t have much info from those few emails.

So, do you still deny the liquidator of Madeira Fjord (Norway) – Thomas Brandi - is solely in charge of Avoine (Madeira, Portugal)? If you acknowledge this, how did that happen if Madeira Fjord doesn’t own and control Avoine? I will give you a hint: this info is publicly available in the Madeira, Portugal public registry, so no need to use the southern district court docket if you don’t want. Perhaps you should go check this out before publishing more bad data. Once we get this point squared away – although it really isn’t open for debate - we can proceed with getting folks some info that may help them get paid back, which is what everyone wants.

I will answer one of your questions: 1) Exactly what service did Avoine provide that should have allowed them any piece of the AP pie whatsoever?

Simple. The original AP shareholder group through Madeira Fjord owned Avoine. They sold, licensed, rented, leased and whatever else you want to call it, all of the AP IP to Tokwiro and then Blanca games. In return they had two (2) $125 million dollar notes, as frequently referenced. The dollar amounts can be questioned, but the concept of getting paid in return for software, names, etc isn’t unusual. They were paid for this purpose. Another hint: check out the Norwegian tax judgment in more detail. The basis of the judgment stemmed from Madeira Fjord’s (Norway) relationship and dealings with its subsidiary, Avoine. Norway didn’t seem to accept the low tax status of the subsidiary and levied the tax on the face value of the notes, regardless of whether or not they had been paid. Check it out, good info there.

You're right. The discussion going on in this thread right now is an example of how hard it is to not only do all the necessary research, but then put it together into a narrative that is clear, coherent, entertaining, and driving towards the truth. As you suggest, you need to be a very talented writer to pull it off. Which is why Mezrich doesn't even try to do it and then says crap like "I have always been perfectly clear about what I write, and how I write it. Narrative nonfiction- true stories written in a thrilleresque style; some of you will enjoy it, some will not."

Nacion article. Here's another.

AFAICT, nearly all the "news" related to the aircraft moneybag sources to the one rumor post by Jensen. The OIJ guy in the Tico Times piece said they "learned" of the money, not that there was an official confiscation with actual reports, etc.

Some high stakes players at AP back in 2007 have said they don't believe there was long term cheating at the site refuting Jensen's other major point.

I don't know whether there was money on the plane, but it is definitely not correct to suggest all the sources said there was. If money left the site improperly to both founder groups, it probably went via consulting, software, etc. The Mesaros shareholder initiative believes this as well

Thinking about the how and why of money on that aircraft raises a lot of hard to explain questions. It's not impossible but it also isn't a clear bedrock foundation for AP cheating as has been presented.

Thomas Steen Brandi certainly is now recognized as the legal executor of the bankrupt Madeira Fjord entity. The decision from the US DOJ that was announced last week, barring future Avoine claims, made sure to be specifically indemnify him, because he was court-appointed in the wake of the Norwegian tax lien assessment and the Madeira Fjord dissolution. I've reported on the past about how AP's legal games betwixt Avoine and Madeira Fjord ended up pitting the US and Norway against each other after Norway-based interests assumed the Avoine claim, but that is off topic and misleading; please stop harping on it.

You chose to offer a partial answer to one of two questions and think that somehow passes muster. Your answer re: Avoine's function is the official "paper" answer, but offers zero insight as to the "why", as in why was the creation of the Avoine entity even necessary? All of the things you cite could've been done through Madeira Fjord as well. In some ways, the Avoine construct is similar to the eWorld Holdings group on the UB side, which shouldn't be a surprise, as some of the same gaming lawyers were involved in both.

Yet the second question is the key question, and of course, it's the one you're running from. Let's talk about where the SAE boys' ownership stakes went, okay? No answer on that equals no real answers to any of this.

I also want to take a moment to highlight this:

That's seriously obscene. If you have any info that would help any aggrieved parties get their money back -- whether they are cheated players or shareholders -- then the responsibility for releasing that is entirely on you.

Nothing anyone would type in a thread such as this changes that, and as I think about it, it also belies the idea that Mezrich helps propagate in his book, that it was really the US feds that swiped all the AP money. Sounds like you're just throwing **** out there that might appeal to someone who doesn't know any better.

I think those of us that were a part of the prop program early on will dispute this claim. There is more than enough evidence in my mind that the cheating went on well before the admitted time period. There was Pokertracker evidence presented and prop rules that in hindsight made it clear they were trying to protect us from the limits where cheating occurred.

Point taken. Only point I'm making is that it isn't certain and Jensen didn't have any proof for either claim. If they were cheating pre summer, they apparently got real bad at cheating after summer. OTOH, some folks think those Seif sessions are proof as well.

Would love to see the HHs you are referencing though. And again, I'm not saying there couldn't be money on the plane. It just is not as cut and dried as presented. Its a theory.

Actually, Avoine didn't receive 20%. It was 15%; I just went back and checked some old e-mails I have, so let's correct that. Panoratech received an additional slice off the top as well.

I'll provide just a tiny little excerpt from an e-mail exchange I possess from 2010, which was part of the Madeira Fjord investors' war against the AP core group. The information referred to in the following was revealed by an insider under pressure from a prominent shareholder:

"It is stunning that it took so long for you to divulge that our Portugese subsidiary, Avione, is owned by 7 insiders and that they receive 15% of all Madeira Fjord distributions. For 2 years I have been told that those individuals surrendered their shares and have no interest in the company and repeatedly asked why they would give up their interest in the company. Each time I was lead to believe they had no interest in the company whatsoever."

That lie has now come full circle, and Banker -- whoever he or she is -- has no interest in dealing with it.

Mind that all this is from 2010, a full year before Black Friday.

Ben's book has three reviews on amazon.co.uk and has scored a very generous one star (out of five).

http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sho...iews-on-Amazon

Looking at the (very few) 5-star book reviews of Straight Flush on Amazon, one is by "A. J. Wolfson" http://www.amazon.com/Straight-Flush...owViewpoints=0

The only other books reviewed by "A. J. Wolfson" are Ben Mezrich's Ugly Americans http://www.amazon.ca/gp/cdp/member-r...stRecentReview and Ben Mezrich's Accidental Billionaires http://www.amazon.com/review/R17UIR94NNT98X

A bit further digging shows in this court filing http://www.aarongreenspan.com/filing...3.appendix.pdf that Mezrich was previously in hot water for posting false 5-star reviews on Amazon (see p35). The court papers noting "Such reviews constitute “advertorials”—advertisements in the guise of objective editorials written by consumers—that violate Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) advertising guidelines."

So if this is not Mezrich himslef, it appears a source close to him (his publisher?) is doing some false advertising.


Blocked me on FB, so cannot share