http://www.ripoffreport.com/attorneys-legal-services/legal-authority/legal-authority-a-harrison-ba-573p4.htm

Looks like the rumors about outsourcing all operations to India are true. What a joke. Like I would ever trust a U.S. emloyment company based in India. I mean, in this economy I’m not even sure if I would trust one based in Canada.

http://www.ripoffreport.com/employment-services/bcg-attorney-search/bcg-attorney-search-and-affili-a7g3b.htm

Full story is here
http://blog.jobshouts.com/2010/01/07/hound-com-is-a-scam/

The FTC today finally ruled that blogsters who are paid to post reviews on products or services must now disclose the fact they were paid or face penalties up to $11,000 per infraction. This action by the FTC formalizes its long-standing belief that a lack of such disclosure violates consumer protection laws because such blog comments amount to undisclosed paid endorsements amounting to fraudulent and deceptive advertising.

The first indication that A. Harrison Barnes either paid people to post positive comments about his companies or asked people to post positive comments even if they were unfamiliar with the service first surfaced in 2008 in a blog posting by Cathy Gellis who confirmed that Mr. Barnes manipulated Amazon’s mTurk service to enlist individuals to “plant” false positive comments about Barnes’s companies. Ms. Gellis worked with Amazon to effectively bar Barnes from further use of mTurk. Since that time, scores of other similar incidents appeared on other websites.

In response to having been caught in his deceptive practices, A. Harrison Barnes then launched a virtual carbon copy of mTurk called Shorttask and used this site to pay thousands of people to plant comments and links that would make his companies appear to be much more effective, positive and favorable than the general view of other more reputable sites. Shorttask has been widely criticized as a deceptive and manipulative tactic to counter the rising tide of complaints against both he and his companies. (It should be noted that during the same period Barnes decided to sue individuals who posted negative comments about both he and his companies claiming $10 million in damages).

The latest move by the FTC merely formalizes what people have long known – that A. Harrison Barnes is willing to engage in questionabe, and probably illegal, consumer tactics to mislead the public as to the nature and poor quality of his companies and their services.

NYT Article: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/05/technology/AP-US-TEC-Bloggers-FTC.html

FTC Statement: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

It astounds me that you continue to write your blog with such blatantly dull and bizarre stories. I have tried to comment a few times but you seem to block anything critical of you or your musings. That’s OK. It’s your blog.

But yesterday, 8/25/09 was a “Barnes-burner.” Your laments about some beautiful and well-accomplished girl in your early school was incredulous. You said that she was a black belt and then said that she viciously attacked a fellow classmate merely because she called her a whore.

As a student of martial arts I know that your story is bull. A highly ranked martial artist is trained to understand that they are bestowed with a potentially lethal weapon and force should be used only when necessary. A true black-belt would not have have knocked out someone’s teeth because of a mere insult and lacking a need for physical self-defense. Your BS is piling so high that people need neoprene wayfarers to stay above the manure. Then you conclude that you knew that the allegations weren’t true because you knew of her every activity outside of class (even if you limited it to a lone reference to her martial arts class attendance).

Your diatribe did give insight into why you are lashing out at your critics. Somewhere in your childhood you seemed to have learned that tirades earned you better results as opposed to stoicism and renewed focus on tolerance and self-improvement. It seems that you view the law and lawsuits as your personal version of a misused black-belt. Just plain pathetic.

One last point. Please stop your constant referrals to women as either physically pretty or hot or ugly or fat as though that has any relevance to your theme. It is gross and insulting although your beauty and appearance fixations speak volumes of your character.

Do us all a favor and aspire to something better.

Thank you for your time.

BBR

Anyway, I tried Lawcrossing. I never was able to find out if the jobs that I applied to were real but I did get a letter back from the attorney general’s office of a state next to where I live stating that no such jobs existed in their offices and further asked me why I thought that there was a job opening. I told them through Lawcrossing and the person in the office told me that they had a lot of problems with that company because they advertised many jobs that didn’t exist including jobs for deputy attorney generals.

Then I tried to cancel my subscription and that was a total nightmare. No online or e-mail options so I had to call at my own expense because there was no toll free number. I was on hold forever only to reach a person with a typical U.S. name but obviously not from the U.S. He tried everything to keep me as a customer or sell me other products. I couldn’t just hang up because I wouldn’t be sure that they processed my request. After I finished with their customer service I immediately called my own state attorney general in MD, the attorney general in the neighboring state (PN) and the better business bureau to complain.