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Posted
1 hour ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

The feds really need to engage their American counterparts and deal with this.  The law didnt change in the US so the increased scrutiny is a bit ridiculous.  They're essentially asking people if they ever broke the law but were never caught.  

I know people who have a burner cell phone for going to the US for this very reason.

Posted

i worked for a local call centre scam many years ago. I initially worked for the owner under one of his legit businesses and then moved to the illegitimate side. I lasted about three hours before I quit. They were raided by the RCMP twice before they were finally shut down. 

Posted
1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

i worked for a local call centre scam many years ago. I initially worked for the owner under one of his legit businesses and then moved to the illegitimate side. I lasted about three hours before I quit. They were raided by the RCMP twice before they were finally shut down. 

One world united or Canada Drugs.com ?

Posted
36 minutes ago, Brandon said:

One world united or Canada Drugs.com ?

I believe it was National Infotech (or something like that).  The company had another name as well iirc.

Posted
27 minutes ago, bigg jay said:

Lol i've followed the local scene for a long time and those RCMP raids were pretty notable.

One fact most people don’t know.  Our PCW offices were in the same building.  When the Mounties raided everyone was kicked out but we got in because they didn’t realize that fact.  We shared office space with the IT arm of NIC and they were not allowed in. 

Mounties wanted to seize the company servers but someone (executives or lawyers) argued that it would cripple our business and while we shared an owner we weren’t named in the warrant. So they downloaded what they wanted and let the servers stay. 

I left before the second raid happened. 

Posted
On 2018-10-31 at 4:27 PM, bigg jay said:

I believe it was National Infotech (or something like that).  The company had another name as well iirc.

I've been gathering some of my memories of that time for a podcast project and our exchange here made me to some online research.  I found an article I dont think I'd read before that delves into the whole business (and scam nature of it):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/2002/12/25/hounded-harassed-harangued/a14d9699-2630-4f5a-9c88-11f64fcc4ff6/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8ade24f6f2b1

 

Posted
1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

I've been gathering some of my memories of that time for a podcast project and our exchange here made me to some online research.  I found an article I dont think I'd read before that delves into the whole business (and scam nature of it):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/2002/12/25/hounded-harassed-harangued/a14d9699-2630-4f5a-9c88-11f64fcc4ff6/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8ade24f6f2b1

 

What was the fall out of all of this?   Did anyone get jail time or massive fines?    How come wrestling promoters seem to always work with con artists?

Posted
7 minutes ago, Brandon said:

What was the fall out of all of this?   Did anyone get jail time or massive fines?    How come wrestling promoters seem to always work with con artists?

The business was shut down in Winnipeg, though I believe the Montreal office continued.  There were two legit businesses operating under NIC (or owned by the same guy) - an IT firm and us (PCW).  The IT firm was spun off under a new name and new ownership.  And we, ofcourse, were effectively shut down by the owner and continued to operate under our own ownership.

One year after the arrests, the owner (John) died in another newsworthy event.  He "fell" out of a window at....cant remember the name, that shitty hotel across from HSC.  He survived the fall, landing on an over-hang where he froze to death.  The WPG Sun helpfully included a photo where his body was visible (I think it ran on the front page).

With John gone, charges were dropped against everyone else.  There is talk the police were more interested in some other connections John had and just wanted the scam business shut down due to the complaints.

He did briefly run an internet pharmacy as well, in the same location, but it didnt last long  

I think wrestling attracts shady people because it both operates under most mainstream radar and because there is a glamour aspect.  Jeff Dyck, for example, running an office job might have been his primary occupation, but it's not very "fun"...if you're a wrestling fan, its not nearly as fun as doing glitzy PPV tapings with an assortment of big name stars you grew up watching.  Its the "cool" factor.  

Whereas most legitimate businessmen who arent just "marks" are less likely to invest in wrestling because it's generally a lousy investment.  

John was a wrestling fan but not a big fan.  He was more a UFC fan.  But two of our wrestlers worked for his company and they were young, good looking, popular...so for John, he was attracted to that element.  He wanted to be the guy throwing money around to rub elbows with cool people.  He lost interest almost immediately (Our first big show was March 2002 and he was effectively out by April....kept letting us use his office and keep up the facade that he was "in" and actually locked us out of the office by late summer).

I actually was going to pitch him on an MMA promotion that summer but was over-ruled.  I wish I had.  PCW was always legit though as the money John seeded in us at the start was proceeds from a lawsuit he had won (I think it was over a company stealing his "swish" logo).  Where it fell off the rails is John fell of the wagon and began using funds from our account for his own purposes to hide his extra curricular activity from his wife who was the corporate accountant.  Once he had exhausted our account, he was done with us.  We ended up getting very little investment from him outside of the equipment and use of his legitimate businesses (like web design, graphics etc)

Its actually kind of crazy we survived because we kept up the illusion we were backed by an aggressive millionaire who'd go after anyone who screwed with us.  When the truth was, we were run by two guys in their 20's with no money (and what little we had, we'd put back into wrestling just to keep it going), scrambling to keep the illusion going and stave off competitors.  

To run a wrestling promotion, you have to love it because you're not doing it for the money.  

Posted
58 minutes ago, Brandon said:

Stick with wrestling...  MMA is also expensive and way to many liabilities for it to be worth the effort. 

This was back in 2002. We’d have been way ahead of the curve. I’m not a huge fan so it was just business to me. But we had connections to some people in that world and I think we could have done some cool things. 

Posted
52 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

https://ywgdeals.com/winnipeg-to-las-vegas-212-personal-item-only-to-272-with-luggage-cad-roundtrip-non-stop-flights

Example J28-31

Sadly Jets not play during the sale period.

40% off other cities.

I saw this...but its January/Feb.  Might be nice if the Jets played (or to catch a Vegas game) but its not pool weather.  Plus, packages to Vegas are pretty cheap, once you add hotel to this its not much better.  If you get comped rooms though, go for it.

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