SHAM RECYCLER USED AS CORRUPTION BAIT
FBI agents fishing for corruption in the Tennessee legislature used a phony electronics recycling company to ply legislators with cash payments and out-of-town trips.
The result of the investigation has been indictments of four state lawmakers, including one member of a prominent Tennessee political family, according to published reports.
The FBI’s "Tennessee Waltz" operation involved setting up a sham company called E-Cycle Management Inc., which offered payoffs to lawmakers to sponsor a bill that would allow the business to buy and sell used electronic equipment from the state. The bill nearly made it to the legislative floor for a vote before being withdrawn in late May after the sting was made public.
Tennessee Sen. John Ford, one of the lawmakers charged, allegedly received payments totaling $55,000, beginning in 2004. Before resigning in late May, Ford reportedly told the undercover agents posing as electronics recyclers, "You are talking to the guy that makes the deals."
NETTING VISITORS
SSI, a 25-year-old industrial shredding company in Wilsonville, Ore., got an unexpected boost to its Web site traffic thanks to footage of everything from boats to refrigerators being consumed by the hungry jaws of its shredders.
During a general redesign of its Web site in 2004, SSI added movies of its shredding equipment in action. For the first few months that the new site was up, site visitation nearly quadrupled as people began to forward the link to friends and colleagues, according to an SSI press release.
The shredding movies attracted the attention of bloggers and the now defunct TechTV show called "The ScreenSavers," which featured a visit to the SSI site March 8th.
In the days following the airing of the show, which was available to DirecTV subscribers, SSI says it began to get hundreds of thousands of hits to its site, culminating in a half-a-million visits by the end of March. While "The ScreenSavers" and TechTV have been yanked from the airwaves since the show, SSI’s Web site continues to benefit from increased traffic as bloggers add the link to their own sites.
While most of the hits are likely teenage boys who think it’s cool to watch things being destroyed, SSI says one benefit to having a half-a-million freeloaders drop in for the show is that all the attention makes its Web site more interesting to search engines.
SSI says it did not intend to increase its market visibility "on the backs of adolescent males," but to share the shredding demonstrations that the company conducts on a daily basis. In the process, it’s netting the attention of potential customers.
I.D. THEFT BITES INTO THE BIG APPLE
A study by Identity Theft 911 reveals just how seriously the crime of identity theft threatens New York residents.
The "Analysis of Significant Identity Theft & Crime Patterns in the State of New York" study notes that:
•
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), identity theft in New York has increased by 39 percent since 2003.•
New York ranked seventh per capita and third in absolute terms for identity theft in 2004, according to the FTC.• Identity theft cost New York companies and victims nearly $6 billion and more than 42 million hours in resolution in 2004.
• The most heavily victimized New York metropolitan areas include New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, Rochester and Buffalo-Niagara Falls.
In light of this information, MetLife Auto & Home has added free identity theft resolution services on its renters, condominium and homeowners policies.
The new services, provided by Identity Theft 911 of Scottsdale, include one-on-one identity theft victim resolution and ongoing proactive education. MetLife Auto & Home rolled out the policy enhancement to New York policyholders June 1.