6/14/2007

Cross a Cheerleader, Fear Your World

Hell hath no fury like a cheerleader whose pom-poms have been knotted and sullied. Such is the case with Casey Serin's former cheerleaders, who have turned against him with more venom and vigor than any so-called "hater" could ever muster.

First, there were Nigel Swaby's attempts to slough off Casey Serin and make nice with the critics, who saw through his antics as just another attempt to whore for attention and drive traffic to his multiple blog drivel. He straddled the fence between the two camps, eventually switching back to Team Casey, only to recently be publicly disparaged by the Boy Wonder.

Things were quiet along the western front, until a strong wind blew in from the south. Duane LeGate was the next to go public, refuting Casey Serin's troll on the "I Am Facing Foreclosure" site that he was (pout) thinking about shutting down the blog.

Duane offered a great deal of insight into his role with Casey--and what he demanded in return. One of the few strangers to approach Casey Serin without an outstanding agenda of his own, Duane LeGate demanded that Casey start to live up to his adult responsibilities. When Casey continued his dance of deceiving and ignorning, Duane decided to go public.

Casey Serin's brother, Steve Serin, popped up next in a Friday Night Fraudcast. Like Duane LeGate, the guy was obviously trying to rattle his older brother in an attempt to have Casey Serin realize just how desperate his life had really become.

LossMitPro (Mark Villasenor in the real world) started to dance on the dark side after Casey Serin went into supporterz-ignore mode with him. As his moniker suggests, this loss mitigation specialist was working with Casey to get the half-million or so in outstanding payments down to manageable nuggets.

Like all who came before him, Casey Serin fucked this supporter as well. And apparently the new affiliation with Marty Stewart and his vague threats of lawsuits, DMCA complaints, et al, have sent Mark Villasenor into seizures of glee.

Because Mark Villasenor has always seemed to want to have a good fight with someone. And the Marty Stewart-Casey Serin posturing provided him with a great opportunity to flex some legal muscle.

Mr. Villasenor fired off an "I dare you" letter to Casey Serin and Marty Stewart. In essence, it's a response to the copyright claim that the dynamic dumbasses are making in regard to Casey Serin's "brain dump" recordings. Mark Villasenor counters that they are in fact evidence of Casey Serin's multiple crimes, and because of that cannot be copyrighted.

Giving both Casey Serin and Marty Stewart the big middle finger, Mark reposted the recordings for "public inspection." It had been theorized that "LossMitPro" was working, not for Casey Serin, but for his lenders, to ensure that Sercasey did indeed pay his debts. The message on Mark's company website confuses that theory.

What Mark Villasenor has said is that he's chomping at the bit for Casey Serin, Marty Stewart or the combination to sue him. He even says that if they don't sue him that he may initiate a case himself.

While this sounds, and perhaps is, a bit fucking crazy, it seems that Mr. LossMitPro is calling what appears to be a huge bluff. Casey Serin has too much to hide, and sitting through depositions would not only require him to travel back to California from his little hideout in Australia, it would force him to reveal, under oath, the details of all the shady dealings he's been doing for the past year and a half. Perhaps longer.

It's an incredibly interesting twist in the Casey Serin saga. And it will be crazy to see it all play out. Certainly, Marty Stewart may have lost some of his plucky backtalk as the week ends.

While I have no first-hand knowledge, I've heard it said over the past year that if you save the cheerleader, you save the world. I don't know if this is true or not, but one thing long-time "haterz" do know--it really is harder than it looks to keep a cheerleader on Team Casey Serin.

Marty Stewart, Crybaby


In my opinion, of course.

Casey Serin's so-called publisher Marty Stewart consented to an interview with cnet's Declan McCullagh earlier this week.

Marty Stewart starts the interview on a hostile tone, implying that anyone who has seen the web pages where he and Casey Serin had parked content must have hacked his server.

(The good folk at Caseypedia have transcribed the conversation for those who would rather read than listen.)


Private Content

Marty Stewart says "I never wanted to get sucked into, uh, Casey's story, per se, I just wanted to kinda report on it, you know, in book and info product form just as you are, with articles! And, um, basically, our content, er, actually, a chunk of our content and creation [phone] calls were actually on a hidden web page on our site, as well as other client proposals and other client-sensitive material and somehow, I don't know how yet, these people-- call 'em Casey's Haterz™-- found out about our... somehow found these hidden pages. I don't know if one of our servers was hacked or what, but basically--"

Declan McCullagh interjects, "Basically wasn't it just indexed by the Alexa search engine?..."


Exactly. Marty Stewart is whipping out some pretty inflamatory accusations, that some hacker actually committed a felony to bust into his servers. The truth is that the pages in question were available for public viewing on an Alexa page. Marty quickly reverses his hacker tirade and goes on to say,

"Yeah I think what may have happened... just because, obviously we're marketers, (Twelve Years insert: I thought you were a publisher, Marty?) so we have Alexa toolbars on even our assistants, our virtual assistants, everybody who works for our company has Alexa toolbars installed. So the only thing I can surmise is that somehow just by surfing with Alexa...So, now it's being uploaded and blasted all over the place, and now me personally and my company, you know, is being blasted and smeared all over the Internet, so uh, now I'm, to be frank I'm very pissed."


Copyright! Raw Content! Internet Sophistication!

Marty Stewart has been referred to as some sort of Internet Marketing Guru. But his internet sophistication is such that he didn't understand that, by requiring all of his independent contractors to surf with an Alexa toolbar (are you getting some sort of affiliate kickback on that, Marty?) he was putting his private files online for all to see.

Oh, Marty....That YouTube video of you (the one you pulled down) expounding on the Adsense improvements you learned from some other jackass guru shows a true pro! In fact, what I gathered from your video is that you're one of those guys who parks a domain, uses some scrapers to pull content and headlines from sites like this one--you know, the ones with original content and then load it up with Google ads.

Is that really a professional job? Because to me it sounds like the internet version of the old woman who comes around to snake aluminium cans out of my recycling bin before the trucks come each week.


Nigel Swaby Redux

Much like Nigel Swaby tried to surf Casey Serin's coattails by issuing his "Aspiring Internet Journalist Lands Real Estate Story of the Year" press releases, Marty Stewart tried to steer the exact same trainwreck. But Marty Stewart must have an incredibly steep learning curve, because he doesn't seem to have gotten the lesson that not only does Casey Serin fuck every associate he comes into contact with, the supposed "haterz" use that person as a chew toy.

Yet this supposed Internet Marketing Guru doesn't understand even the basics of DMCA, copyright, and fair use. He actually thinks he's going to somehow track down the Haterz via their user names (another Nigel Swaby move) and pursue some nebulous plan of attack. Marty Stewart says,

"You know, obviously it's copyrighted content and it's being smeared all over, and also, whatever procedure... that's what we're still trying to figure out today, is that through Google? Anybody's screen name, as far as people that are leaving certain posts, and are actually screen names for people that are uploading onto various websites, we're going to aggressively pursue finding out who these people actually are and, again, now it's a principle thing in my mind."

Declan McCullagh is again the voice of reason, pointing out that "It seems like the more you try to make a stink about this, and file legal threats or lawsuits, the more people are going to mirror the content maybe in other countries, put it up on freenet, that sort of thing. Maybe if you just ignore it, it'll just go away."


"Those People"

Marty Stewart likes to refer to Casey Serin's critics as "those people." Marty, those people are the fucking base you're trying to sell these shoddy pamphlets to! Unless you're truly bottom-feeding and hoping that some rube on the outskirts is going to actually take foreclosure advice from you and Casey Serin.

Marty Stewart seems much like Casey in failing to see his role in the give-and-take between the critical community. The opening salvo that Marty Stewart printed in "I Am Facing Foreclosure" asked for Those People to contribute content to his publication! (Pardon me while I gasp for laughter.)

"You can even be quoted in the book as “haterz” or as “supporterz”. There will be one chapter dedicated to both sides! Love him, or hate him, you have a chance to be quoted!"

Sorry, Marty...Those People aren't necessarily clamouring to have their ideas and words handed over to you so that you can shill your shite all over the interwebs.


You Are Reading Criticism, Commentary and Opinion

I suppose Marty Stewart somehow believed that he could be the one person to come out of a Casey Serin deal unscathed. The hubris! Of course, this is the same guy who says on "I Am Facing Foreclosure" that he basically twisted Casey Serin's blue balls to get him back into the game. He tells the IAFF audience that,

"We have been privy to many details in Casey’s life he’s revealed only to a close few in his “inner circle” and some details he’s never shared with anyone.

These things were “leverage points” we had to use with Casey to point out what route we “could” take, but merely pointed these out to get Casey’s attention, as he ignored us for over 4 days. We had to assume the worst, and that Casey was flaking out on his publishing deal with us.
...Having “insider information” into Casey’s life, allowed us to touch on some hot buttons that Casey’s creditors have no clue about.

I won’t go into detail here, as it would provide a roadmap for his creditors to follow."

Marty Stewart must also share the trait of being irony-free, as this mansack-twisting is outlined immediately before a subject header that contains the words "Honoring, Morally, and Ethically." Oh, too funny, that!


Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain!

When Declan McCullagh tries to pin Marty Stewart down regarding any of his clients, past success stories, or even number of employees, Marty becomes audibly uncomfortable and evasive.

This would, in my experience, put Marty Stewart into the category of so many untold thousands of Southern California men, known as the Fake It 'Til You Make It Guys. These are the ones who like to wear shiny shirts and talk a big bag of crap about their supposed businesses.

They range from club promoters to internet jockeys, and they toss around terms like "VC guys" and "angels" at cocktail parties, trying to impress everyone within earshot. But when pressed, like Declan tried to do with Marty Stewart, there are no answers...just shady side-stepping and subject changes.

These guys always fall back on the "non-disclosure agreement" line. Always. Because all they have are the smoke and mirrors. A few vocab terms. And a constant eye toward finding people who will work "on spec," for commission, or for equity.

Bwaaahhaaahaaahaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!


More Private Content. Dont Read This! STOP IT!!!

It's really a beautiful thing when the universe pairs people up like this. Soulmates are so hard to find. Yet when Casey Serin needs to find one, like he has with Marty Stewart, all he has to do is mine his Inbox for the gold that lurks within.

Who's running the betting for how many months until Marty is showing up on a "hater" blog to tell his side of the story? My bet is that it happens sometime around the end of summer.

6/11/2007

Casey Serin Flees the Country

Were law enforcement agencies getting close to arresting Casey Serin? Now that we've learned that he's fled the country to Australia, that certainly seems plausible. After all, the website Myebid has been posting a listing for the sale of "I Am Facing Foreclosure" for over a week now.

It's difficult to tell if this is really Casey Serin posting the website for sale, but as of this evening, the current bid is $20,000. The listing says "iamfacingforeclosure.com is now for sale, the Feds are getting too close and I am fleeing back to Uzbekistan, it was fun why it lasted. Thanks everyone!"

Galina Serin is finally talking. And it's because her husband, Casey Serin, has fled the country, leaving her with a mountain of debt and possible criminal charges looming.

Rob Dawg at ExUrbanNation posted an incredible Casey Serin scoop...namely, that Casey Serin has been crashing with his folks, presumably persona non grata at Yulia's at the moment. He called Galina to tell her that he was leaving and if she wanted to say goodbye to come over immediately.

What Galina Serin did not immediately know is that Casey Serin had cleaned out their accounts, leaving her with no means to pay the bills. An "I Am Facing Foreclosure" fawning imbecile fan had donated a plane ticket to Australia, where two other gullible morons sponsors have offered the care and feeding of one Casey Serin for the next couple of months.

Considering how difficult it is to get a freeloading Casey Serin out of one's home once the invitation has been extended, I have to wonder about the wisdom of that.

Assuming that Casey Serin did not plan his trip too far in advance, he would have gotten an ETA in lieu of a visa. This would allow him to stay for three months at a time in Australia. No doubt, it would have greatly appealed to him that "employment is prohibited."

A fresh, new, unused excuse for Casey to tramp out!

To call Casey Serin a coward is simply too easy. He's so far outside the bounds that, even after a two-family intervention, Casey Serin is still willing to flee from the deeds of his own hands and leave his wife holding the bag.

I recently finished a great book called The Floating Brothel, which details the journey of Australia's first female convicts to populate the island after being cast out of England.

The juicy bit of the story comes from the fact that these founding mothers, in essence, prostituted their way to the new world. As their ship made dozens of stops on its way to Oz, the ladies used their feminine wiles to their advantage, collecting quite the handsome nest egg before their arrival to the new world.

And isn't that just the path that Casey Serin has taken? He's whored himself around the interwebs, and every so-called opportunity that presented itself was just another way for him to flatback his way through life, ultimately landing in Australia.

(That said, the story of the Aussie founding mothers is an amazing tale, and I came away with an incredible amount of respect for what these women accomplished. This is where the parallel to Casey Serin ends.)


There is more snark to come. Schnapps I will be doing a joint post of goodness, where two smart, snarky girls come together in a cyberspace coffee shop (or wine bar, depending on the time of day) to hash out the details.