This editorial review web page contains and includes our opinions, hunches, suspicions and best
guesses, and the opinions, complaints, hunches and unverified allegations of many, many others:

 

EASYNEWS.COM STEALS, SCAMS, AND LIES?

 

Page One

 

Page Two

 

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This page is approved and monitored
by our US First Amendment Attorney

Page Two of the EasyNews/Paypal Review

UPDATE:

November 12, 2021: This site has now been hacked (sometime in October).

It was a two-pronged attack.

One attack featured the re-writing of our robots.txt file to disallow all search engines. We were notified of that via a service we employ, on Nov. 12, 2021. The fix took 20 seconds. We believe the attacker came in through an old obsolete Wordpress portal that had never been deleted, but we're not sure (For God's sake, just say no to Wordpress. Really).

Gee, we wonder, who in the world might be motivated to do this?

Who, indeed.

Let the games begin.

Remember, we PREDICTED this would happen months ago.

We had dropped this matter and moved on to more important things. However, since this has happened, we want to know a very, very great deal more about these people. It appears to us that our instincts were correct all along.

The second phase of the attack involved a barrage of "complaints" to Google re the content of this page.

Google is leaning more and more toward "The Facebook Way", because they've discovered they LIKE being the world's biased censors (think as Facebook does or don't think at all). You will see more and more of this kind of thing from Google as the years wear on. We strongly suggest availing yourselves of what appears, at least so far, a much better search engine than Google: DuckDuckGo. We get far and vastly better and more accurate results there than from Google. It's reportedly "private", but who cares. We couldn't care less if the entire world knows what we search for and what pages we visit; we simply want a search engine that provides the data we search for; no more, no less.

In any case, Google apparently went through the domain and declared everything "acceptable", whatever that means, and the pages have been re-indexed as of November 15, 2021, and are propagating at this moment.

We'll say it again: We predicted this months ago.

We've taken and are taking steps to disperse this content to servers around the world and in other languages, on numerous other domains, some of which are live now, and most of which are setup as fallbacks, meaning that if any content "mysteriously vanishes" from one server or domain, others will kick in. It will usually take at least a few weeks for the new pages to propagate. But this content will never disappear from the earth, and every time "someone" pulls a dirty little stunt like this, it will be reported to us within days (or minutes, depending on the severity of the attack). If the issue becomes too much to deal with, we will declare all copyrights to this material null and void (rescinded), and we will offer it to the Public Domain, to be copied and disseminated as the user wishes. Concerned parties can then spend every waking moment for the rest of their lives playing Whack-A-Mole and won't that be fun to watch.

We said a few months ago: "Let the Games Begin" if this shit starts happening. Okidokie. The games have begun.

 


EasyNews Steals?

Last Edited August 29, 2021 (Asia date)

Memo to shady businesses:
Don't double-charge, overcharge,
scam or steal money from the
credit cards of customers or
ex-customers, because:
THIS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU.
People are sick to damned death of this.

SLeasynews?

If you can't make a living honestly, then
your business model ain't working.
FIND ANOTHER JOB.

This is the Home Page of...

EasyNews Steals?

Easynews.com Holdings Inc.
Winter Park, Florida, and many other addresses at UPS stores around the US and possibly overseas.

We truly believe EasyNews.com Steals!

Can we prove it? Let's find out!

We do know that EasyNews Sucks!

This is PAGE TWO of "EasyNews Steals?"

Return to PAGE ONE

 

 

This is Page Two of "EasyNews Steals?"

Go back to Page ONE.

 

The next step is probably to go looking for marriage records and records of dissolution for a handful of these punks. Yes, we can continue to uncover bizarre connections and cover-ups and liaisons and shady business partnerships until the fucking cows come home, but that won't get us closer to WHERE CHANCE SLEEPS. And that's the next cog in this wheel that needs to be addressed to move the project forward toward a meaningful conclusion (called a REFUND).

Marriages, but especially divorces, are always very, very fertile ground for getting to the bottom of many things. Couples seldom separate because they're friends. They split because one hates the other, or both hate each other, and one or the other is ALWAYS willing to blab ALL KINDS of shit.

Next will be criminal records. Those often yield a real address, but even if they don't, bail records do, and witnesses do, and victims do. We do all this preliminary stuff because WE CAN, and any attorney we end up with in Winter Park MAYBE CAN'T. We're better at it than most of their investigators and we're cheaper.

Next is real estate records through various county assessors. Somebody, somewhere, knows SOMETHING.

We need this so we can hit them with a formal, legal demand letter. The Corporation Commission has a mechanism whereby Corporations can be served, but these can be easily circumvented by people who EXPECT to be served, and we want to serve Chance, personally, anyhow. Once that's done, we will probably have to sit back and wait them out for 30 days, or whatever the laws in that state require, and it can depend on the court as well. That's just for a civil suit. The criminal proceedings are out of our hands. We've documented the case and passed it on, and we'll pass it to other agencies too, but we can't "force" that through the system. We worked once in another state where, if the local PD refused to DO THEIR JOBS and the local prosecutors refused to DO THEIR JOBS, there was a mechanism which could be used by victims to force prosecution of a case. You had to file a petition for an order of due process, and it HAD to be granted, by law, and once granted, YOU, the victim(s), could file the actual charge(s) instead of the prosecutor, and it by-passed the police and the D.A. and went straight to an arraignment and trial date. There was a catch however, in that if you didn't successfully get a conviction, and there are plenty of really, profoundly stupid judges on the benches these days, you could be sued for wrongful prosecution, so the bar was high. You had to be DEAD SURE of your case, or, in a way, dead. We don't believe that exists in Florida, in any case, but it should exist in all states as a last resort to lackadaisical law enforcement and weak prosecution.

From there we go to utilities companies, though most are reluctant to disclose things like addresses, and these twits might be using proxies to pay their utility bills anyway. We suspect they are living as though they're in a witness protection program, and who can blame them?.

Universities are usually very verbose about their little groups and clubs and sororities. Sometimes yearbooks are public. Friendships, which are no longer friendships, are often obvious. People KNOW where these crumbs live. It's just a matter of clicking the right button and asking the right questions in the right ways of the right people.

Past employers can sometimes help.

Court records are ridiculously revealing.

A picture of a house where someone doesn't even live anymore will often show a vehicle and the plate can be traced to a new address in four minutes.

Or, let's see. What's an easy alternative to all this bullshit?

Chance Brannen could simply pay us what he took.

But that would be too easy.

We know that various agencies have delivered this URL to at least a few of these twerps, and the username and email address for the wronged account is included in most of those complaints. Yet no refund still.

So be it.

But second, a few public record dumps.

And first, a few words about public records dumps.

Several of us here have had to deal with and submit public records dumps due to our work in SE Asian orphanages -- mostly Laos and Cambodia (lots of land mines blow up parts of families in Laos, where ladies use rats to sniff them out by the millions. I volunteered but was told I didn't have the right temperament for that work. Probably correct). Cursing at land mines is never productive.

Public records dumps are absurdly, insanely inaccurate and they're famous for exactly that plus so much more. We caution any reader to stay strictly away from run-of-the mill consumer-grade services like Intellius (sucks), Truthfinder (sucks), Instant Checkmate (sucks), US Search (sucks), PeopleFinders (sucks), InfoTrack (sucks), BeenVerified (sucks), and others. We've used them all. Intellius and Instant Checkmate were the worst, but none were good. None. A couple were sort of ok in their very early days, but they ALL quickly metamorphosed into absolute scum of the earth -- rather like EasyNews. They produce mostly gibberish, and we have a feeling they only steal data from each other, so you end up with a precious few nuggets, but truckloads of nonsense, all obviously coming from other services but slightly re-worded so as to look original. But it's clearly not. Every single one of these is world-famous for misleading advertising, and for, basically, the same bullshit that EasyNews pulls -- namely, that you sign up for one thing and get charged for another thing. Often they will charge you FOR CANCELLING or opting out of a further subscription. They'll charge your credit card multiple times for services you never ordered, and when you finally, finally, finally think you've gotten this dog shit off your shoes (which can take 6 months to a year), keep checking, because you WILL find new charges on your cards, and maybe cards you never used with these "services". The ONLY way to get disconnected from these thieves is to cancel the affected credit cards and get new ones re-issued. The BBB and Attorneys General in every state have fat files on these sons of bitches, yet none of them has ever been shut down. It's a mystery. We suspect that some crazy, sometime, somewhere, won't worry about shutting them down -- they will simply find them and burn them down. Now, if we witnessed that, and we were asked to testify against the fire bug, would we?

The graphic below tells you all you need to know about ALL of these outfits. They're all the same. They all operate in the same way in our experience. They are ALL grossly dishonest, shady, incompetent and amoral. And besides that, in our view, THEY WILL STEAL YOUR MONEY. Oooh! Does that sound familiar? Maybe EasyNews has some connection to some of these worthless shits. InfoTrack also settled. More SHOULD have settled and we anticipate more WILL settle as the FTC gets around to them. We believe ALL of those listed above should be hauled into court and made to pay. We've sent the EasyNews case to the FTC as well.

Note that the Instant Checkmate suit was a Class Action suit, meaning there was a very large number of victims. We feel that we MUST get access to the financial banking records of EasyNews so we can determine exactly how many complaints of overcharging, double-charging, and unauthorized charging have been levied against EasyNews. Paypal is one of their payment portals, and we believe Paypal knows a VERY GREAT DEAL about EasyNews' record of complaints. A subpoena will uncover those (which Paypal will fight, but will lose). But EasyNews also has, we believe a regular merchant account, such as we have, and the complaint files for that will be yet another goldmine. If we can document enough complaints of this kind of activity, we might see the FTC sit straight up and yell HELLO EASYNEWS! and get busy.


https://search.usa.gov/search?query=instant+checkmate&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&affiliate=ftc_prod

What happened to Instant Checkmate, above, is what we will try to bring about for our friends at EasyNews.com Holdings Inc. and maybe a few of their associated businesses as well. Lots of digging to do.

All ripoffs:

Intelius.com sucks

Acxiom.com sucks

MyLife.com sucks

ZabaSearch.com sucks

Spoke.com sucks

BeenVerified.com sucks

PeekYou.com sucks

USSearch.com sucks

PeopleFinders.com sucks

PeopleLookup.com sucks

PeopleSmart.com sucks

PrivateEye.com sucks

WhitePages.com sucks

USA-People-Search.com sucks

Spokeo.com sucks

PublicRecordsNow.com sucks

DOBSearch.com sucks

Radaris.com. sucks

We feel that we can guarantee to a degree of 100% (one hundred percent) that if you try to use any of the above services, even one time, you'll be ripped off and defrauded to one degree or another, in one way or another, and in the end you won't even get what you're looking for. That's how bad they are. We do still occasionally use the services above, but after this many years (decades) we know what stunts each one pulls and we can easily watch for those and stop them instantly. It's like the assassin who raises deadly snakes to go after his contracts; he knows the risks of handling snakes, but they perform a service for him and he's ok with that. He knows he'll be bitten -- but he takes a little anti-venom every day and the bites are like those of mosquitoes.

We'll do some records dumps of some of the characters in this charade and post them here with the caveat that as much as 75% of the data contained therein may be inaccurate (and probably is). In my own, submitted for one Philippines charity, I'd estimate the inaccuracies were more like 95%. I was associated with a GIANT list of people I'd never heard of, with schools I'd never attended, states I'd never lived in, degrees I never attained, and not degrees I DID attain. There were addresses in countries I'd never so much as spent a night in. There were jobs and whole careers in fields I was clueless about. And they were ALL different with different data. It was only occasionally that one listed a place I had actually lived or a school I'd attended. When it came to criminal backgrounds they were just as bad; for instance, I once caught (and kept) an illegal fish (2" too short), and was caught, and fined. It was a Federally regulated check (halibut) and so should have shown up on any comprehensive background check. But THAT has never once shown on ANY background check, especially formal checks by law enforcement for various positions and airport security clearances. Even when I had a weird job handling radioactive materials, a public background check was used for the clearance and it was 90% erroneous data (and they granted the clearance). It was ridiculous. You use personal data dumps at your own peril because they can waste HUGE amounts of time and energy. To reiterate, they'll give you CLUES, but seldom FACTS.

The way they can be useful is to chase down the IMPORTANT leads and the ones that show up again and again in multiple reports in multiple contexts. Those usually produce real results. One might show an address for Chance Faris Brannen, at 1510 BerkshireWinter ParkFL, let's say, or 4841 Saxon Dr 1060, New Smyrna Beach, 32169 Fl., let's say, with Amy, Ann or Duke and with associations to some other key people. A hit or a miss? We'll find out. These aren't FACTS, they're POTENTIAL LEADS, which you must then run to ground or ignore. Unfortunately, when you pay a few hundred dollars for a GOOD service, you'll end up with an overwhelming volume of data that can create a hell of a lot of work -- maybe as much as 100-300 pages. They're a blessing and a bane. In 40 seconds we've grabbed eight addresses for a Chance Brannen (A. or F.). Now we must run each one down to the end, and chances are high, especially if Chance has taken to hiding, ALL will be dead ends, but it's like playing a bunch of mini-lottos; you just never know, and it's fun.

We're digging up two possibilities in the Orlando greater area -- a Chance A. Brannen, and a Chance F. (Faris) Brannen. This is common when you start doing these crappy, private-sector background checks. One shows Chance living with "Amy" and one shows him living with "Ann". The idiot college interns who do a lot of the manual transcribing for these fly-by-night databases aren't exactly known for their attention to detail or basic intelligence. Had trouble with your bank or financial institution lately? It's very probably due to their "hiring" (for free) a gaggle of college interns who work "for the experience" but screw up nearly every fucking thing they touch. In our case, this inattention to detail just creates more work.

And as an aside, if you do decide to look someone up using one of these databases outside of law enforcement, be prepared to pay and pay and pay and pay all the fraudulent and duplicate charges that will be coming your way very soon. These companies are, like EasyNews, the bottom of the barrel, the sleaze of the sleaze, and they WILL, we positively GUARANTEE IT, steal from your credit card when they think you aren't looking. They say you never canceled your "account" and that you must pay a year's subscription at an absurd price, or that you opened two accounts and yes, you canceled one, but you must pay for the other, just like EasyNews.. Absolutely every single one of the private sector so-called "People Finder" type services will do this -- except one.

Remember, these are people who've almost certainly never done a single day of real, honest work in their millennial lives, but think they can just scam a living by typing on a keyboard. In fact, a very few of them can. But most of them were never smart enough to come up with a REAL product to sell, so they jump on the backs of others and become "facilitators", like EasyNews. Every Goddamned thing they do is half-hearted, half-witted, unprofessional, dirty, backwards, dishonest, dishonorable and stupid. Yet their families think they are...."successful". They are successful only at the business of scamming, stealing, infringing and fraud.

Law enforcement won't need this data. Once they get into this investigation and get engaged they'll know where Chance sleeps and with whom and where he shits. But we can't use that data until it comes to court. Even then, the accused will try to have it hidden, and the court will usually agree, but we'll get it anyway.

The statutes in Florida say that a crime doesn't become Grand Larceny/Grand Theft until it hits $750. We're POSITIVE we can find enough victims to put this over that threshold. One victim alone is claiming a loss of $2000.

"Under Florida law, Grand Theft is any intentional and unlawful taking of property valued at $750.00 or more. Grand theft is a felony offense, with penalties that may include prison, probation, fines, restitution, and a permanent criminal record."

You can't undertake a project like this merely to reclaim a stolen lousy hundred bucks. You do it because you're mutherfucking sick to Goddamned fucking death of shysters and thieves and shitholes and parasites and fuckups and losers and all those dirty little dickheads who eat away at the very fabric of society and productive civilization like termites in wet Fir. Think about it. How many keys do you have on your key chain right now? Probably six or more. We have a large, five-floor industrial building in SE Asia. This building has roughly 60 keys. We (society) wouldn't need one single key for anything at all, if it weren't for people who steal. Going after people who steal is a Calling for many. It sure as hell is for us. 99% of the time we help OTHERS who are victims. But we can help ourselves as well.

You don't do this for a hundred bucks or for ten thousand dollars.

You do it for the principle. We don't think Chance Brannen has any principles at all.

Have you paid back the others you've shafted on credit card deals, Chance? Maybe a few. But not many and not the big ones.

---------------------------------------------------------------

We've found a great deal of chatter during our few days' investigation thus far, about why the EasyNews principals aren't simply IN JAIL -- and not for schlepping money from credit cards when no one is looking, although, like Al Capone, it could very well be something silly like this that finally brings them down, and into custody. Rather, people openly wonder and discuss why the big software devs haven't gone after them in truly big and meaningful ways. The likes of Microsoft and Adobe could & would have an address and have these folks, all of them, served in 3.2 minutes if they thought they had a case they could win. The question seems to be, could they actually make a case in court. Brannen is only, officially, selling ACCESS to illegal data. He says he can't control the content of that data. We dispute that mightily, and surely the big boys dispute that mightily, but there must be some tiny, tiny catch that's preventing them for putting these people away for decades. We're just now beginning to see EasyNews remove or cut access to some high-profile, high-dollar pieces of software that they charge to access. So if they can control a little, they can control a lot, and we wonder if the big devs are just now starting to sit up and take notice of this apparent change in policy. If Easynews is just now DEMONSTRATING that it CAN block access to the "good stuff" in the newsgroups, then legal challenges, it seems, could begin arguing that it MUST, and not only the big stuff, but the little stuff too. If Easynews can block or otherwise limit access to the Adobe Suite, say, then it can control access to a $59.95 graphics app, and if it doesn't, then it's liable. Or maybe we're misunderstanding the argument. We're really just musing out loud and we don't really care. We only want our hundred bucks back and a conviction or two. But others care, and we hope they extrapolate this argument out to a variety of logical conclusions. You can bet that board meetings are held on it regularly.

In any case, if Easynews is ever forced to control access to the theft of illegally-gotten software, then we posit that Easynews is done. Done as an overcooked turkey in Christmas Vacation. Because, and here's the crux of the case, Easynews HAS NOTHING ELSE TO SELL. Not really. Yes, there are some cool things in the newsgroups, mostly academically-oriented stuff, which won't command any price beyond pennies. Our need was to research really old newspaper archives. But we couldn't get a single aspect of the service to work AT ALL. 9-11 of us tried for days. Maybe it had to do with our location in SE Asia. But we're not even really bitching about that. We complained. We were refunded with only a minimum of BS and hassle, and they promised the account was canceled and we would never be charged again. Done deal. Nothing there to even remotely warrant a public complaint. But the subsequent theft DOES warrant a complaint, and that's our purpose here, and we ain't about to slow down.

A few leads. Are these our people?

How about the 4841 address? When we get multiple sources that all point to the same people and the same address, then it becomes worth noting. Could we get Chance served right there, right now? We're thinking maybe. Ever seen people move so much? We haven't. Some of these names pop up again and again in relationship to various "endeavors" Chance has been associated with -- Highwinds, Usenet, EasyNews, Omicron, and a whole host of UPS drop boxes in four states and a few countries. So we're probably close. Once we're "sure enough" that this is our turkey, we'll start doing data dumps and post them on this site. Then, when we're POSITIVE this is the guy, and that he is ACTUALLY and CURRENTLY at this address (or whatever address) we'll go ahead and get him served.

 

UPDATE August 2, 2021:

GoDaddy hasn't bothered to respond after promising they would. We would have been stunned if they had. Typical Millennials, and we're sick to fucking death of them. Idiocracy is forming right before your eyes. Enjoy it -- it's immensely entertaining. A new complaint goes out to GoDaddy via registered snail-mail. What bullshit. Can these people do even one thing correctly, competently, professionally, morally, honestly? Ever? Even one frikkin thing in their entire lives? No. This next complaint will document that we did try, per ICANN's rule, to resolve this through GoDaddy, but, as usual, GoDaddy can't be bothered to do ANYTHING correctly. We'll give GoDaddy another 30 days and that will constitute sufficient documentation that we TRIED ICANN's WAY, which we KNEW wouldn't yield any useful result. Millennials. Wastes of flesh and anchors around the throat of society.

Interesting note: As we comb through endless pages of research on multiple twits in this group, through tearful stories of drug addictions, domestic problems, laughs and deaths, marriages and disasters, good times and bankruptcies, one thing sticks out like a sore thumb: These people change careers and corporations and affiliations faster than a Cambodian whore changes condoms. These people have their fingers in SO MANY PIES, that switch and mix and swirl together like dry leaves in a tiny whirlwind, then fall apart, then are reborn somewhere else under different corporate umbrellas but with mostly the same core of people pulling the strings and doing their best to create cash from nothing. We've never seen anything this fluid and mixed up in any of our careers. Is it intentional to avoid detection? Partly, probably, yes. But it's more likely that these people just can't make anything REALLY WORK, so, like a career gambler, they're always looking for the angle that will set them up forever, but never really finding stability or peace. It's like a huge game of Frogger for them. What a way to live.

We're not going to even suggest to you to avoid people like this and their "corporations" and "services". If you don't know that already, then you fully deserve to do business with them, and to end up getting screwed in any way they can dream up and manage. We call that "natural selection". Will we be sorry for you? Nope. We'll view it as a low budget sitcom.

--In fact, that ought to be pitched as a story idea to some Hollyweird producers. It could be a weekly series about hapless Millennials who go out and think up bizarre, barely legal ideas for schlepping cash from the unwary, but they're incompetent and dishonest, and nothing they do ever works correctly, and they consciously and unconsciously screw over so many people that they end up with literal hoards trying to find them from around the world so they can do God knows what to them and their families, and every time the public pressure becomes too much and the government is closing in, they just sort of dissolve and merge and re-emerge and metamorphose into something different but the same, and that throws pursuers off the track just enough.... And it never ends. The show would feature all the seedy details that are naturally produced by seedy personalities -- what partner is fucking which wife at the Christmas parties and which wife is secretly a prostitute and which brothers are fucking dope-heads and dealers (but found Jesus, of course) and what parents were pedophiles and which CEOs were butt-fucked by their fathers until they were 14 -- and in the end, through all of the seasons in every episode, not one decent human would ever be shown, or if they did pop in accidentally, they saw what was going on and got out of it as quickly as possible -- you could go on like that for, what -- five seasons?

It occurs to us that without the Internet, so, so many of these types would be working for wages at smoke shops on the wrong side of the tracks selling cigarettes to 11 year olds and porn to the 9 year olds and later on, well, what the hell, a little crack never hurt anyone, right? To be working with computers, they think, gives them "credibility", even though their souls are right down there in the gutter along with the smoke shop punks.

 

 

Still trying to track down where Chance sleeps NOW. Probably, but not guaranteed, one of these.

Either way, we be thinkin' Chance can afford to pay us back our hundred bucks.

The data dumps are coming very soon.

Should we buy one really good one, or a dozen less invasive reports? Maybe some of each.

 

UPDATE: Aug. 3, 2021:

We are now beginning to reach out to prior victims in hopes of raising the aggregate amount to above $750. As stated, by Florida law, that puts it into Grand Larceny territory. There may be other "computer crimes" or "credit card fraud" crimes that we're not aware of that would put this case on a somewhat higher pedestal than just the run-of-the-mill stealing of money.

In most states the statutes on something like this runs out in 7 years; however, many or most states tend to "lose interest" at about 5 years and will sometimes just flatly refuse to prosecute a case after five years, even though the case is well documented, straight-forward, and solid. The reason is that there are simply too many crooks and not enough time in the courts. Fortunately, most of the frauds we've seen in this case are well within the 5 year limit.

 

UPDATE: August 4, 2021:

One more victim has formally lodged a criminal complaint of credit card fraud against EasyNews and by default, Chance Brannen, in Winter Park, Florida. We think this may put the amount well above the $750 threshold but it's not yet confirmed. What we may do is establish a secure message portal to find and coordinate other victims.

Below, just some tidbits for research purposes (work-notes)

BRANNEN, CHANCE OTI SOFTWARE, LLC L02000017150
BRANNEN, CHANCE OTI NL, LLC L14000011130
BRANNEN, CHANCE OTI PARTNERS, LLC L14000013155
BRANNEN, CHANCE HALOGEN NETWORKS, LLC L14000125386
BRANNEN, CHANCE WIR HOLDINGS, LLC L16000024865
BRANNEN, CHANCE HALOGEN STUDIOS, LLC L17000050750
BRANNEN, CHANCE HALOGEN DIGITAL, LLC L17000050759
BRANNEN, CHANCE WIR PAYMENTS, LLC L18000188148
BRANNEN, CHANCE MB HILLPOINTE, LLC L19000295811
BRANNEN, CHANCE MB HILLPOINTE II, LLC L20000330483
BRANNEN, CHANCE CYPRESS REEDY LOGISTICS, LLC L21000152224
BRANNEN, CHANCE HW MEDIA GROUP, INC. P03000071565
BRANNEN, CHANCE NEWSHOSTING HOLDINGS, INC. P05000126975
BRANNEN, CHANCE UNS HOLDINGS, INC. P06000028929
BRANNEN, CHANCE EASYNEWS HOLDINGS, INC. P06000068956
BRANNEN, CHANCE OMICRON MEDIA, INC. P06000084472
BRANNEN, CHANCE OMICRON NETWORKS, INC. P06000129203
BRANNEN, CHANCE OMICRON BUSINESS SERVICES, INC. P07000016921
BRANNEN, CHANCE EIS MANAGEMENT, INC. P11000104639
BRANNEN, CHANCE READNEWS, INC. P14000043952
BRANNEN, CHANCE OMICRON TECHNOLOGIES, INC. P16000097998
BRANNEN, CHANCE OTI HOLDINGS, INC. P17000052641
BRANNEN, CHANCE ASTRAWEB, INC. P18000070054

 

On Dec. 5, 2020, another victim filed with the Canadian Anti fraud Center against EasyNews.

In Sept 2020, another victim contacted the Brookings Register, the local newspaper in Brookings, South Dakota where Easynews had a UPS box. 

We're not sure what EasyNews was up to in South Dakota; we just haven't gotten that far, but we will.

Another victim has entered a claim with the Winter Park, Fl., Police for the amount of $2000 they claim they were defrauded of. With that, assuming Winter Park adds this amount to the total, we are well above the $750 Grand Theft threshold in Florida.

Caution:

As it happens, law enforcement agencies are not known for being reliable. While the Winter Park department "seems" sincere in this, we have yet to see any meaningful movement. These things take time within bureaucracies, but they are also prone to fizzling out completely and often the victims are left with no palpable excuse and no logical recourse as a criminal proceeding. Therefore, we caution any other victims who are watching this case carefully, to hold back their excitement; we won't know if Winter Park is truly "in it" until they file a charge or charges. It's too common that small departments will find teensie little technicalities that cause them to back out and drop cases. They do this when there are teensie little technicalities that really do prevent them from moving forward, but they do it too often when they WANT TO FIND teensie little technicalities so they can drop the case because (a) they're swamped with rapes and murders and crack dealers, or (b) they're lazy and just don't want to do the work, or (c) the accused has a big family with connections and they make "arrangements" with departments to quietly fail in a case. Which is more common? In my law enforcement experience, probably all three equally. Sad but true.

We suggest that if you also lost money to these people under similar circumstances, you contact the Winter Park Police department without delay (opens additional tab in your browser). Their website is clean and easy and they actually do respond, which is truly refreshing. Only about 30% of law enforcement agencies across the US will ever respond with anything that makes sense. Usually, their replies are designed only to obfuscate a case, to try and shake its foundation to see if they can make it go away. So far, knock on wood, Winter Park hasn't done that, but they might. They might. If it turns out that happens, we will direct the other victim(s) to another solution. In any case whatsoever, there will be a high consequence for schlepping funds from customers' credit cards. There will be a reckoning. The entire fucking world is fucking tired of this bullshit. It's truly at the point now, in 2021, where people realistically can't use their credit cards online for any reason, except, maybe, through Amazon or the like, and we've been screwed a couple of times by Amazon too. You're taking a big chance to use a credit card online these days, and that's sad. It very, very often turns out just like this. You'd think any online company would know better. But they get away with it often for decades. So why stop?

When we get nearer the end of this, we will also send statements and links to newspapers in ALL of the areas EasyNews and all its many, many iterations have planted seeds (or left rat droppings, as the case may be), and we'll notify all the UPS drop box services, etc. etc. etc. This is a months-long project; maybe years, if these dweebs want to come back at us with bullshit, instead of repayment and heartfelt humility. Some people (us) really, really don't like having our money taken without permission. We can virtually guarantee others will be looking for data on this guy and his associates, and so this site will serve as a repository for whatever we dredge up. To us, it reads pretty-much like a demon's resume. What in God's name is this guy up to.

 

UPDATE Aug. 6, 2021:

We will be slow to update for about a week. --Knee-deep in Covid here, bodies literally in the streets covered with tarps. We were lucky to all get our jabs awhile back. Almost everyone else here had to settle for Sino-vac and -pharm garbage, which is providing antibody half-lifes of 40 days(!)(Thank you China!), if they got one at all. Imagine, August 2021, and 4.6% of the population here vaccinated. Go China! We had been offering up to $1500 per jab for "the good stuff" under the table but no takers in a land of under-the-table takers; it was quite perplexing. You can literally buy your way out of a murder for not much more than that, but we couldn't get a vaccine. Suddenly Singapore popped up with American vaccines for us for free. Ah, connections! The US gov helped us not one damned whit. Not one iota. In fact, they even made it impossible for us to procure and pay for our own. And as a capper, the IRS took back our Covid relief payments. Lovely country, the US. The ONLY thing that could draw us back to that insane asylum is a lawsuit and/or criminal proceeding against Chance Brannen. Dying relatives? Nope. A Chinese invasion? Nope. Aliens from Mars on the White house lawn? Nope. But the possibility of nailing Chance Brannen's ass for grand larceny would have us on the next flight.

 

UPDATE Aug. 6, 2021:

Inquiry for clarification re jurisdiction, delivered to Orange County, Florida, S.O. (County Sheriff's Department) and acknowledged:

Orange County Sheriff's Office
PO BOX 1440
Orlando, FL 32802-1440

https://www.ocso.com/en-us/

Since we only have addresses of properties belonging to Chance (and his parent(s), we don't know FOR SURE if he lives at any of them, or can be served at any of them. Process servers run from about $80 to $250 depending on the state (and the hood). We've heard prices in Manhattan that were staggering and seem like they couldn't possibly be true -- like $2500. They will generally try to perform a service three times for that initial fee. If they can't find your mark, you must pay them again, and again, and again. Some of them sort of take it personally if they KNOW their target interacts at that address but is ducking them; it becomes a game and some of these people are VERY serious about winning. It affects their credibility if they lose the game. But some of them are just slouches, like most Snowflakes and Millennials -- they have no work ethic, no sense of competition, no desire to WIN. They just want to slough through life with as little input as possible. We've done services ourselves in certain cases and it really is kind of fun. You get to play James Bond for an hour or two sometimes. Maybe you only have a verified girlfriend's address, so you get to stake it out. I developed a peculiar mindset when working narcotics stakeouts. I could sit and watch for five frikkin' days and never get bored. I don't know why. I'm bored with everything else, but never with that. It was a phenomenon. The point is, you want to be fairly sure where the person can be served before you just go popping off service fees because you can waste thousands like that. We want to know from the Orange County SO if (1) we should be routing our criminal complaint through them, based on where THEY know Chance lives, or (2) if we should continue on with the city PD, based on where ANYONE knows Chance lives or frequents. What can the SO tell us? What WILL they tell us? You never know until you ask.

 

UPDATE August 7, 2021:

Winter Park has re-acknowledged their involvement in the complaint against EasyNews.com and Chance Brannen, and has issued a case number and has specified which group would be investigating. Again, if you are a victim of EasyNews, we urge you to add your case to this effort by contacting the Winter Park Police Department, Criminal Investigations Unit.

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It has been suggested to us repeatedly that Chance Faris Brannen is a pedophile and that he "got into" EasyNews after Jeff Minor (Godzilla) specifically because he, personally, wanted to dabble and circulate in pedophile newsgroups and pedophile rings. We've given this all of 10 minutes investigation, and so far we find NOTHING to substantiate these claims. Either the claims are true, and we just haven't gotten that deep in the feces yet, or they're patently untrue, and those suggesting this are simply ticked at EasyNews and/or Chance Brannen for whatever unknown reasons, legitimate or otherwise, and are trying to smear his name farther than he has already degraded it himself by these credit card antics. SO FAR, we suspect the latter. We'll drop a few mildly interesting links below, for anyone's research purposes. We've skimmed these pages and saw NOTHING that indicated Chance Brannen even MIGHT be a character of a pedophilia nature.

We honestly aren't interested, right now, in whether he is or isn't a pedophile-type entity here on this earth. Right now, we want our money back, and we want him to pay back FULLY to his other victims, and we want EasyNews/Chance Brannen charged, tried and convicted of credit card fraud, and subsequently punished appropriately, and we want the rest of the world warned to stay THE HELL AWAY from this company and this guy and ALL his peripheral endeavors around the world, FOR THIS REASON, lest the same damned things happen to them and their credit cards and cost them uncounted hours of anger and BS, filing chargebacks and filing complaints and arguing with Easynews and losing sleep -- the sheer bullshit and havoc Easynews causes when it schleps credit card funds is beyond calculation.

Could our interest in looking into the truly sleazy aspect of EasyNews and/or Chance Brannen change for any other reason? If we're unable to get a clean, straightforward conviction for credit card fraud, we will then be forced to realize that this outfit isn't going to be punished at all beyond our civil suit. We will then look "far and vastly" more closely at the allegations above.

There's one other scenario that will put us on that nasty trail, and that is if EasyNews, or Chance, or his demon-spawn brethren in any of the many, many companies, big and small, that he has his greasy fingers into, or his family, friends, street-people, neighbors, massage therapists, ski instructors, whathaveyou, are turned against us with any of a wide, wide variety of sleazy, dirty, underhanded attacks of any type -- and we'll know where they came from and why -- then it becomes open warfare instead of merely an editorial/investigative little web page in an honest effort to recover a hundred bucks. Then it's no-holds-barred and we will get to the very bottom of his very soul to find out what makes him tick. Some of us have always wanted to try living in Florida; it's sure as hell cooler than Cambodia (though Cambodia is sure as hell more interesting).

We'll see how many of these things we can accomplish. The Muslims would say, "Allah Willing". We, instead, pray to The Great Pumpkin and have enjoyed good results.

A couple of links of interest, below:

https://www.jag.navy.mil/courts/documents/archive/2005/200100199.PUB.pdf

https://alt.security.espionage.narkive.com/8OixDeT6/easynews-subscriber-claims-admins-leaking-private-info

https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2011/06/13/lincolnshire_abuse_ring/

https://forum.quartertothree.com/t/the-legality-of-binary-newsgroups/26485/8

 

It has LONG been held by law that if an online entity doesn't screen, censor or cull ANYTHING that comes across its site, it enjoys a sort of free pass status. If it DOES elect to screen, censor or cull ANYTHING, then it is duly noted and accepted that it has taken responsibility for the content it provides, and provides access to?, and is therefor liable for it.

The Free Pass option is apparently what Chance and EasyNews have adopted.

Fine and well.

We believe in that. We're as big a Free Speech proponents as you'll find on this earth.

Except-- it is APPEARING as though Chance is selectively beginning to cull certain content that he provides ACCESS to. Is that the same as censoring content he might PROVIDE? We're not sure, but we think so. That being the case, he is liable for all the illegal shit he DOESN'T censor as well. As nearly as we can interpret the law, EasyNews can be sued for all the bad crap he's specifically selling access to since he appears to be taking responsibility for the content. We noted in one "Easynews Sucks" type website that the writer said, "I wonder if Easynews keeps a countdown clock on the desk, because their days are surely numbered".

Let's say you own a bus, and people pay you to ride on that bus, and you drive it every day to only either of a total of two destinations. One of the destinations is a whorehouse, far out in the woods at the end of a dead-end dirt road, and it's stocked with eight year old children who are chained to the beds and paid pennies to have sex with old men. The only other destination on your route is a University archive building where you can find scholarly technical documents that you might use to enhance your work, your business, or simply to learn about science from.

Now let's say Chance's bus makes 100 trips per day. 91 of those trips takes creepy old men to the kiddie playhouse, and 9 passengers pay for the ride to the University archives building. Chance gets busted for running a bus line that goes specifically to a den of evil where Felonies are being committed every few seconds. The prosecution says Chance knew where he was taking those customers because he has been doing it since 2012. Chance says yeah, well, it's a free country and besides, I take people to OTHER PLACES TOO, so I'm clean and you, Mr. DOJ, can fuck yourself off. It would be an interesting case and someday, some state is going to try its luck.

Now I'm going to tell a personal story about whorehouses far out in the woods. I was a helicopter pilot flying logs in a US state about 40 lifetimes ago. When logging was slow and no fly-outs were booked, we offered our three birds for charter: A Hiller 12E (piece of engine-crapping shit), and two turbine Alleuettes. We didn't get a lot of work but we got some, and one of the most lucrative hires came from a group of state politicians, circa 1975-1979. We were hired to fly people ("people") from various pads in the capital area, to a "ranch" far out in the hills, that had no road access to it whatsoever. Grand parties were held in the big house, teeming and overflowing with fat, greasy, stupid, loudmouth, drunken state politicians -- some of the biggest names in the state. All fine and well so far, right?

Those politicians constituted about 20% of the riders. We could haul nine at a time. The rest were children -- we estimate that 90-100% were under 18, and some were very clearly in the 12-16 year range. They would show up at the landing pads holding "special invitations" They would usually be wearing sexy and somewhat skimpy outfits under raincoats or overcoats. About 80% were female, 20% male, and they were all shy and nervous as hell, like the Jews must have looked, being told to enter the showers.

Sometimes we flew them back out after a few hours; sometimes they stayed the night and we saw them on some other run the next morning or day.

In the beginning they offered that they were children or relatives of so and so politicians and we really didn't give it any thought at all. Just none at all. They were kids going to join their parents, uncles, whatever, at a fun party in the woods. The attire seemed a trifle odd but we were busy flying and being polite and dealing with 100 meters visibility in those nasty hills and nothing really registered for quite awhile.

We began to notice that when we flew a lot of them back out, they tended to look REALLY WELL USED. Occasionally one or two would cry all the way back to the city. Much later on, like a year later, we had our own female friends or wives fly along, and sometimes they'd sit in the back if we had a co-pilot in the front, and, being naturally compassionate as many good ladies are, they would gently coax and tease bits of information from the girls who were upset. The truth began to come out and form a picture. They were under-age escorts, paid for by many of that state's "finest". It went all the way to the governor's office -- right smack to his personal office.

There was no GPS in those days -- I doubt I could find the place today, if it even still exists, if it even has the same owners or the same activities. It was a dark kind of place, nestled expertly into 120 foot firs -- you wouldn't notice it unless you were specifically looking for it. I seem to remember it was about 15-20 minutes flight time, each way, so maybe thirty-forty miles, which would be a good way toward a coastal town, but south of that straight line. It probably had some other secret name, known only to the pedophiles, but we never learned it. We were just told to go to "the ranch" which was so far east of this hill and so far south of such and such river, etc. We did ultimately send letters to various agencies whom we thought MIGHT not be involved, but we never once heard back. No agency even wanted to know the details. Not long after we began to look into it, my partner was killed (not related to this), and the whole logging/helicopter operation fell apart and that was that. I went to Alaska to make friends with bears.

The point is that to say this activity is prevalent would be the grossest understatement you could ever make. In a way, the male world of the powerful and rich or hope-to-be-rich REVOLVES around this and, I swear, for many, it is their very purpose for living. In a way, the circles of the Big Boys kind of runs on this shit like a car runs on petrol. In court, it may well turn out that, to the intense consternation of the prosecutors, EasyNews might find itself being seriously protected by dark under-the-table forces. Even the Feds aren't immune to this.

We had a relationship to a polygraph examiner about ten lifetimes ago. She held a state contract for testing incarcerated pedophiles. The deal was that the jails were overflowing toilets and the state gov needed to find creative ways to get people out and open up the cells for more serious crimes and criminals(!). If a convicted pedo wanted out, he (she?) could appeal to a state board for consideration to be placed into a "special program". In that program, the gov would simply let them out of jail -- on the condition that they report to our friend some specified number of times per week, maybe once a week, maybe every single day, probably depending on their crimes and perceived risk factors to the community.

So that's what they did. In order to stay free, they had to be polygraph tested on their assigned schedule, and it was solely up to the examiner whether they could stay out, or be slammed back behind bars. Obviously they all wanted to stay out and so they would go to great lengths to try to fool the machine.. A very, very few psychopaths CAN beat the machine, but I don't believe any human with even a tiny, basic moral conscience can beat the machine, assuming the examiner is skilled and asks the right questions.

When things were slow, she and I would play with the machine because I really wanted to learn about it. In Federal law enforcement I had never been tested, even though it was common practice, and I wanted to be, because it sounded fun. So we would make up mock question lists, and I would actually take a little time and try to drum wrong answers into my head. Like, did you go see a movie yesterday? Well, no, I hadn't gone to see a movie in years, but I would invent one in my head and take maybe ten minutes to cement that false memory into the neural connections until I pretty-much believed that, YES! I really did go see Jaws or whatever at the theater and it was GREAT! So she'd hook me up with a smirk on her face because she KNEW....and go through the preamble and ask me a few of these questions, and I'd smugly answer with a lie, and BAM! She had me by the testicles in five seconds flat. I remember her once calling her colleagues into the room, laughing, and she told them, "Man! This guy really REALLY hates to lie! Look at this graph!" I was flummoxed because I KNEW I had aced that sucker. But I wasn't even within a frikkin' light year of ace-ing that sucker.

So I came to respect polygraphs to a great degree and by God, what I wouldn't pay to put Chance Brannen on one. I've offered in the past to pay crooks to take one, on the condition that if they pass it, I would pay them 5 or 10 thousand dollars, but if they failed it, they would give me legal permission to use it in court. Yes, you CAN often use a polygraph in court if both parties agree to it. Not a single crook, liar, miscreant, ner'do'well, thief, con-artist or scammer ever, ever accepted my kind offer.

It comes down to a great degree to the examiner, too. She can ask a pedo, "Did you rape that boy yesterday at the school?" Pedo answers, "NO!", even though he totally raped that boy yesterday at the school. And he fucking passes and gets sent back out onto the street.

How did he pass?

In his own mind he is really, really, truly telling the truth. He didn't rape ANYBODY! EVER! That boy wanted it just as badly as he did! (even though he didn't). A higher quality examiner would have followed up and asked, "Did you insert your penis into the rectum of that boy yesterday at the school?? Pedo says, "NO! NEVER!" And the alarm horns and claxons go off (not really) but he fails the test and goes straight back to jail. I have seen so many fucking criminals get off without even an investigation because the examiner was a fucking retard and didn't ask the right questions.

For her clients, with her fees often being paid by the state because that was cheaper than keeping them in the cells, she'd rig them up and start asking questions: Did you feel ANY arousal towards or in the company of ANY minor yesterday, or this week, whatever? They'd answer, and BINGO -- she knew EXACTLY when they were lying. Either way, truth or dare, she'd probe further and further and further, getting right down to the intricate nitty gritty and stunningly morbid details. Did you feel your penis enlarge when you were on that bus and you looked at the 12 year old girl? NO! NEVER! --------EEEEHHHHH. LIE!

I don't know what her exact criteria was for sending them back "home" (to jail). Were mere feelings of arousal enough? Or did she wait until she asked them, "Did you follow that girl when she got off the bus?" I'm pretty sure a lie there would have rung the bell. Hell, the truth probably did too.

Ultimately I don't know if that program was a success -- did it save children? Did it save lives? Save families? I never saw any stats on it. I know she was very, very good at her job and she was one of those people who had a certifiable sixth sense about pedophiles. I never had that sense and I wish I did. A few of my friends had it and they were dead-on every single time, to my sheer amazement.

I was fairly good friends with this lady over a couple of years and since that was her primary business (she did general testing as well), we tended to talk about that, and the more she taught me, the more interested I became in the phenomenon. I much wanted to learn to have her sixth sense about pedos (and others too). Trying to get a handle on a broader overview of pedophilia I asked her once, if we look outside at that crowd of several hundred people over there by the shopping mall, what percentage of those males (the number of female pedophiles is so small it's barely worth mentioning) would be pedophiles? I had never considered this before, but I wanted to know what HER estimate would be. If someone had asked me that question, I might think about it and consider my very limited experience encountering these fuckers as a child, and I might answer something like point two percent and I told her that. I mean, really, there just aren't that many pedophiles in the world, right? There are some, for sure, but not that many. Point two percent seemed about right. Maybe I was completely naive and whacked, and she would answer something really crazy, like 8 percent or something. But no, the world wasn't THAT cracked, right? No. Not eight fucking percent. Never. Not even among animals.

She looked at me like I was a mentally handicapped four year old -- I'll never forget that look -- shook her head, then looked at me again in a peculiar way, and answered: 50%.

I laughed out loud. Because now I knew she was crazy and of no credibility whatsoever.

She sensed that sentiment and began to patiently explain, and show me numbers and graphs in psychiatry books. Her criteria was this:

50% of adult males, she demonstrated, who were in a situation where they thought they would never ever be caught, under the right circumstances, would TRY to initiate sexual contact with pre-pubescent girls (or boys), to whom they felt an attraction.

Ok. So 50% weren't VIOLENT RAPISTS. But 50% would TRY.....with pre-pubescent minor children.

That was her expert assessment. I didn't believe it at the time and honestly, the process of trying to accept this as fact was a little like trying to accept the existence of aliens. But finally I do accept it, mostly, and I realize how pitifully naive I was back then.

I asked if she could spot these cases. She said oh, yes, absolutely, like they are wearing big purple spotlights on top of their pointy heads. She could spot them in her office, in the store, on the streets, at the fair -- like she could spot a Martian that no one else could see. She interacted with convicted pedophiles more than with the regular public. She knew them inside and out.

I asked her if she thought I might be a pedophile. She laughed and said no, no way. I asked, how do you KNOW? Maybe I am! How could you possibly know I'm not? She laughed again, and said it was crystal clear I wasn't. I asked WHAT was crystal clear? I wanted to start to learn to spot the telltales of these people, the vibes they put off. Did they wear certain kind of clothing? Did they move their bodies in certain ways? Did they have a certain demeanor, a certain voice, a certain look in their beedy eyes? I wanted this power! She said she could give me a few tips, but not enough for me to KNOW. She did give me a few tips over time but, she was right, I never learned to KNOW, Pedophiles can spot each other across a busy fucking boulevard. But they are invisible to me, and that bugs me.

The point is that these people are absolutely everywhere. Look at any ten males, and, according to this expert, five of them would rape your 12 year old daughter if they thought they could get away with it. Think about that. It will change the way you live.

Imagine a world where most people were "onto" most other people. Pedophiles could be readily spotted, rapists, thieves, shoplifters -- in fact, this CAN be done. It takes training and practice and a bit of mentoring and a real interest on the part of the student. The Israelis became startlingly adept at spotting would-be and wanna-be terrorists in their airports. I also believe in telepathy, and I believe some people can empathetically pick up "signals" from others. It's not a strong nor reliable talent, but it does exist and maybe it can be developed. How such a thing could transform the world.

Some time after I learned these things about pedophiles, especially the 50% thing, I had occasion where I had to take two little neighbor girls, age 8 and 9, with me to a big supermarket for a full couple hours of grocery shopping. They were cute little girls and I liked them and felt naturally a bit protective over them because I had known them for many years and watched them grow up. We shopped and walked around in that store and I swear, I SWEAR, that 50% of the fucking males in that store were looking at "my" little girls with impure thoughts. I felt it in my bones, and it started to irk me, and after while, after maybe the second or third look by some grizzled old cocksucker I started to sizzle quietly then snap and I'd get in their face and ask them a little loudly just exactly what were they FUCKING LOOKING AT. This was the first time I'd ever had to look after little girls and I was surprised at my own weirdness about it. Damned good thing I never had daughters. The old greasers never said a word but instantly looked away and, to me, looked guilty as hell, which fueled my suspicions all the more. Finally they ended up avoiding the aisles we were in altogether. Maybe because they were pedophiles, or maybe because I was simply insane. Was I cracked in the head? Probably. But that friend had awoken some awareness in me that could never be put back in the bottle. I've never been able to look at males again the same way. In a way, it ruined me, but of course it was an enlightenment that HAD to happen. The loss of innocence is never pleasant or fun, but it's useful.

And I venture to guess that somewhere around 90-97% of these fucks are right there on EasyNews or other providers/enablers and all the other access facilitators and I submit that Chance Brannen knows this perfectly, perfectly well and he KNOWS that he has amassed that little 1.3 million dollar net worth (mostly real estate appreciations) on the backs of these pricks and here's the capper: HE. DOESN'T CARE.

Does Chance have children? We haven't looked that far yet. We probably won't, unless it turns out they're older AND are involved in Easynews. But if he does, what a legacy to leave them: By the way, dearest daughter or son, your intuition will be paid for by pedophiles; that's ok, isn't it? Now run along and get a good education because I EARNED THAT FOR YOU. What fine, hardy pilgrim stock.

Is Chance the guy who drives the bus to the kiddie-whore playhouse but doesn't REALLY go inside, and so is SO INNOCENT? We believe he is that guy. Is Chance the guy who puts the ten year old on the back of his moped and drives them to the corner crack dealer, and after the sale enjoys just a little kickback from the deal with a wink-wink, come again soon? We believe he is.

[Update]: We've now done more research into the allegations that Chance Brannen is in any way a pedophile -- we have, again, found absolutely nothing to suggest that. His criminal backgrounds are on the way but we don't expect to find anything of that nature in them either.]

We just want our fucking money back.

Once we get it, we're done and Chance can go "facilitate" the sale of nuclear bomb material, for all we care (humanity had its chance -- now it's the "immune-to-radiation" cockroach's turn with the planet and I'm pretty sure they'll be better stewards than we were).

But a word of caution: After we get our money back by whatever means, do NOT come at us from any quarter, from any shadow, by proxy or by friend or by hired assassin. We'll come right back at ya 10,000 times harder and there will be no rules whatsoever.

If a court were to find that, by controlling a little bit of the content he charges to gain access to, Brannen is liable for ALL content, then Chance would be in very deep doo-doo indeed.

This is all still a very gray area, even after all these years of Newsgroups. We ran BBS services long before there was a WWW and we were painfully aware EVEN THEN that this was the way the laws were shaking out, even though the laws were not fully congealed at that time. Some of us elected to censor, some to not. I still remember the exact moment when we first got hooked into the real Internet, and our jaws hung slack for an hour.

We'll be curious to see how Chance handles this in the future. There is no way on earth that EasyNews, or anyone else, could ever be responsible for the entire monstrosity that is Usenet. All those facilitators would have to instantly shut down if even one of them got toppled by such an interpretation of the law in a suit, concerning access providers, as opposed to content suppliers.

We know that Chance knows exactly what he's selling. He's selling access to porn (who cares), and pirated, buggy, poorly designed, grossly over-priced software (we don't care TOO much) but often child pornography (we care). We guess that constitutes at least 80% of what he provides access to. Without those two cash cows, we doubt EasyNews and its ilk would be around for 90 days. Of course they'd just move on to other sleazy angles to accomplish the same thing, and in time they'd be taken down for those endeavors as well. In the meantime, they might get rich. Chance Faris Brannen's personal net assets are recently listed at $1.3 million. Granted, not big money these days, but more than he'd have made working at 7-11. Would he have schlepped credit card funds at 7-11 also? We think so. We think that's who he is at his core. We're thinking we don't want our stolen funds to increase his net worth any further, and that we fucking want our fucking money back with interest.

And yet another address: 1510 Berkshire Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789

 

Maybe the reader didn't really understand us when we said we're really fucking angry and we want our fucking money back and by God, one way or another, we're going to get it. And that sentiment is shared by many. Suggestion to Chance: Try to grasp the concept.

 

EasyNews Subpoenaed by FBI regarding "SOBIG.f" virus upload

We keep getting asked what we think about this.

We don't think anything about it.

First, it was seven lifetimes ago, ancient history, back in the very questionable days of Godzilla.

Next, it was a dirty little shithole who uploaded a bug through Easynews.

Easynews can't stop them all. No one can.

Easynews did nothing wrong, as nearly as we can tell from ancient reports.

We suggest sticking to things Easynews IS doing wrong.

There's plenty of that to go around.

Child porn downloaded from Easynews.com

This is a nice piece

 

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UPDATE August 8, 2021:

A few miscellaneous tidbits for the researchers

More tidbits for researchers

And....Even mo' for researchers

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We stumbled on a curious link, below (Then there's THIS about Bandcon).

We don't have the time nor the interest to continue tunneling down these insane rabbit holes. Honestly, we have to go help load some Covid bodies in the backs of pickups and THAT is more important than THIS, but we'll toss out these three links just for anyone who's interested. Make of them what you will.

We know that Chance Brannen is big in Highwinds and that Highwinds bought Bandcon

And Omicron and Stackpath are buying EVERYTHING

Then there's THIS about Bandcon

What in God's name are these people up to

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Full disclosure:

There appeared to be hundreds of these. Easynews DID resolve some. But completely ignored others. We simply got tired of posting them.

We are noticing something odd -- it is that sometimes, Easynews appears to offer normal, professional, timely, good service that actually works and resolves problems and customers go away happy. But in a vast number of cases, they absolutely and completely drop the ball in really stunning ways, even when customers go to law enforcement agencies and complaint sites, even when the problems looked to be dog-simple to resolve. Even then Easynews often enough just pretends as though these customers don't exist and that they (Easynews) can simply KEEP THEIR MONEY. It is completely alien to us. But it is what it is.

One might ask why customers would have THIS MANY problems in the first place, all too often to do with over-billing and missing-in-action support. We've not seen a single case where anyone says they were "accidentally" granted some service for free. Of course humans have a tendency to clam up when that happens, but there should be at least the occasional report of it. But no. The mistakes appear to be ALWAYS in favor of Easynews' bank account. Always.

The only way we're going to quantify these billing "irregularities" is to get into the merchant account and Paypal accounts for Easynews. Then we'll know if the apparent frauds number in the hundreds, or thousands. How many chargebacks on a REAL merchant account has Easynews caused through idiotic, lazy, incompetent, unprofessional, dishonest, lackadaisical customer service? How many disputes on their Paypal account for the same reasons? A real merchant account will limit the number of disputes it suffers before yanking your entire fucking account. We have a hunch Paypal absolutely doesn't care how many complaints it receives about one of their flock -- the offending companies have carte blanche to just keep on keepin' on forever. How many real merchant accounts has Easynews burned through in the past ten years? We're betting a few.

So let's find out.

A civil suit will be far easier once a law enforcement investigation or three have been completed. But we still want to know where Chance sleeps, so we can be ready to get him served.

https://scamalytics.com/ip/isp/highwinds-network-group-inc

 

This was Easynews' "Subpoena Contact", last updated 2014:

EasyNews.com

Online Service      EasyNews.com
Contact First Name      Brad
Contact Last Name      Beard
Contact Title      VP Global Support , Highwinds
Address      3300 N. Central Ave., Suite 200
City      Phoenix
State      AZ
Zip Code      85012
Phone Number      407-215-2428
Email      abuse@easynews.com
Last Updated      November, 2014

 

We've listed this as an old, defunct Easynews contact point, but now we're wondering....

Let's dig a little more on this and on the contact name.

Oops. Now we remember:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

We are in online retail through five different online websites and e Commerce portals.

Our employees process close to 100 CUSTOM MADE products PER DAY.

How many online complaints can be found about our businesses?

Zero.

Good customer service IS POSSIBLE. It really is, and it's not that difficult.

All one must do is imagine that they, themselves, are in reality THIS TICKED OFF CUSTOMER.

Then imagine what THEY would want to be done if they had the same problem as the current customer.

THEN DO IT!

It's truly not rocket science -- except to those who, in their heart of hearts, don't fucking care ABOUT THE CUSTOMER.

They forget that it is THE CUSTOMER that SIGNS THEIR PAYCHECK.

That is absolutely, literally true.

Politicians don't grasp this concept either.

We mentioned this earlier: We see the same pattern through Easynews, Highwinds, Omicron and all their other little "tentacle offshoots" that permeate this kind of "feathers in the wind" industry, and we see the same stupid shit being perpetrated against their customers again and again and again ad nauseam forever.

This tells us that whoever is at the top, in the top five to ten positions, are clueless fucking twits. They don't WANT to take care of their customers, and they don't CARE if they do, either. Yes, they are "clever", but they ain't even remotely "wise".

They should NOT be in business in the capacity of making decisions. They should be strictly limited to what we used to call "donkey work" -- that is, work that requires virtually NO CREATIVE THOUGHT, because that is precisely the juncture at which these types of brains run off the proverbial rails and out into the corn fields. It's where they STOP PRODUCING and START RETRACTING their given businesses. You wouldn't let Jim Carry, fool extraordinaire, be CEO of Disney. Disney would immediately start to rock and tilt and the foundation would crumble and it would come crashing down within 90 days. Sure, the fool can ACT. So limit him to that and absolutely nothing else. Do not (NOT) even let him be chairman of the fucking snack bar because THAT'S BEYOND HIM. And don't let Bob Chapek ACT, either! You don't send a hound dog to round up sheep, and you don't send a Chihuahua to take down a fleeing criminal.

In the Internet and networking world you've got a gaggle of dimwits (quite a few thousand Millennials and Snowflakes) who were educated far and vastly beyond their intelligences, yet they scrape together a few bucks -- sometimes they chance upon a lucky idea that actually generates cash until they fuck it up and run it morally into the ground (Zuckerberg, anyone?), or sometimes somebody's Mommy dies and leaves them a small mountain of cash and they invest in some some idea, which might actually be a good idea, until they get ahold of it and choke the Goddamned life out of it.

These folks need to recognize their own shortcomings. As Clinty said, "A man's gotta know his limitations." But these turkeys don't. Their supreme arrogance blinds them. They are, each and every once, precious little princes and kings -- they KNOW this is true (because their Mommies and liberal teachers told them so about 87 times per day). And they ain't beholden to NOBODY! Not even those upon whose heads they trod with cleated boots! Their customer service skills are nearly non-existent -- kind of like their personal hygiene skills -- and we're betting their wives secretly think the same things. Maybe they really could run businesses that didn't require customers and do great. But when customers are signing their checks -- and make no mistake -- customers sign the checks for ALL businesses around the world, those customers will, little by little, get tired of being shat on for their trouble and their pens will run dry.

P.T. Barnum, the greatest, most obnoxious (asshole) circus barker ever on earth, said there was a sucker born every minute, and that's who these tools aim to rely on for their dinner bells, forever. Except that, sometimes, a sucker a minute isn't enough.

We muse over the seemingly millions of little mergers and buy-outs and acquisitions and repositionings of all of these company names within just this larger cluster of the Omicron-Highwinds-Easynews knot, which seem to occur with the complexity and speed of a two dollar kaleidoscope, and we wonder what is the motivation behind them? Certainly, networking is changing with the speed of hot mercury, and in order to stay competitive, you've got to be just about that fluid. But we wonder how much of this constant, incessant motion within just this network of businesses and presences is necessitated by their failures to maintain viable business relationships with their customers. A company poisons it's own roots through stupidity and laziness, as seems the case with Easynews, and begins to shrivel, but the trunk and the physical branches are still there, so, what the heck, let's just move the shrub a few meters and call it a poplar instead of a rosebush, and everyone will be fooled for awhile, until we poison the new roots again and have to move it again, and then ---

We long for the days when a smart man learned to make good quality shoes and he built a comfortable shop and cultivated a community of happy, loyal customers and the world turned smoothly and people were content.

We thought initially that we were dealing with a small handful of Millennial louts at Easynews who thought it was funny (and profitable) to charge credit cards without permission because they could seemingly get away with it forever, and it gave them lunch money and giggles.

Now, we're beginning to surmise that this overcharging bullshit with Easynews might run far and vastly deeper, and that these little credit card frauds are merely the tip of the iceberg. These are just the things people can easily see, while the real river of fraud runs far underground. FTC, where the fuck are you on this? We know you've received countless complaints about EasyNews and friends, so exactly how many does it take before you ACT? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

UPDATE August 10, 2021:

We've started several run-of-the-mill and generic data dumps on some of these Easynews-and-friends turds, and we've discovered that the "people-finder" type websites have devolved significantly just in the last year or so, since we've used them. We didn't think they could GET any more scammy, but they have. It's like an art form for them. Snatch and grab, catch us if you can (but we know you can't). We had a conversation with one just today who basically said, in effect, yes, we would be overcharged, and catch them if we can. They're physically located in Europe but operating as if in the US (sound familiar?) and the FTC simply hasn't gotten around to shutting them down yet. But even if and when they do, it's just a game of whack-a-mole. They'll pop up later under a different name (sound familiar?) and continue to cause misery and havoc for as long as they live (sound familiar?). We're beginning to wonder if a "different kind" of solution is the only real solution for creatures of that ilk. The law can't and/or won't stop them, often a combination of the two. But, of course, they CAN be stopped, if someone has the guts to stop them.

It's beginning to look as though the world public has two choices:

1. Continue on as they are, being at the mercy of every Goddamned thieving Mr. Hanky termite on the network when they have to use nearly ANY app or service these days, and then getting ripped off (and in some cases having their lives ruined) by this same mentality, with, really, no relief in sight unless the victim is prepared to effect a one-off remedy and spend the rest of their lives in prison or sucking on a needle. Or:

2. People can choose to denounce the entire electronic world and get their freedom back.

Ah, but that's impossible you say.

It wasn't impossible before the WWW and it's not impossible now. You simply have to learn to accept the inconveniences, understand that in so doing, you will be less inconvenienced in the end. No, you don't have to go live in a stinky hippie commune. You can just drop the tech to a far greater degree than people realize. If enough people did it, of course, the leeches would be starved out of business. Not enough people will ever do it, mind you. But you can regain most of your life by simply disconnecting.

We help orphans, mostly, and other victims, even rich ones sometimes. But mostly we work with orphans and that's mostly what we care about. We're beginning to take a look at how that work might be effected if we were completely unplugged from tech of all and any kinds. We'll post, somewhere, sometime, our conclusions. In the meantime, we have shits like Easynews to deal with, and hungry SE Asians who are increasingly being found dead in their jungle huts due to Covid. Jackasses like Easynews make THAT work all the more difficult. The hundred dollars plus that Easynews stole would feed, literally, one starving peasant here for a solid month and that's quite good food. Two of them for two weeks. If they're not old and frail and well enough to hike around the jungle a bit, they could, supplemented with food they can scrounge (and it's fairly easy to scrounge a bit of food in many of these countries), extend that to two plus months for two people. Jerk-offs like Chance Brannen, who may well be chuckling over this theft of funds, ought to try going two months on a hundred bucks.

I was in eastern Laos about four years ago, just touring on a motorbike that was so decrepit ALL lights swung by their wires. One day I ended up on a dirt road that was supposed to be a shortcut to a paved road but which went on interminably. I stopped near a three sided "structure" that turned out to be in fact the home of two adults and their three kids. They had an ancient fiberboard book case facing out towards the dirt road and the shelves were half full of various commercial products that were well sought after by the locals but unavailable to most due to the price. I remember a can of Spam. As a curious aside they had what appeared to be a brand new US Army Jeep hidden in the jungle, under cover. It had been abandon during the war and the family was afraid to try to do anything with it lest the Americans come back and punish them. Indeed, artillery of all kinds can be found all through eastern Laos, just sitting there, rusting away -- even ancient French pieces. They would probably still fire with a little work.

The family had a tiny plot of land where they grew coffee and hand-roasted it over hardwood coals in pits in the ground, and that brought them a very meager income but still put them on top of the status list for the area. They invited me in for soup and (what else) coffee and I was busily slurping down the excellent noodles and guzzling the ATOMIC COFFEE and eating raw coffee beans off the bushes by the damned handfuls (don't do it) when I noticed that my hosts were all looking over my shoulders, and into the dirt road a couple of meters in back of me. I turned to see a large crowd of locals there, maybe forty or more, and at first I was alarmed because many rural areas of Laos, especially along the Vietnam border near the old Ho Chi Min Trail are still a bit hostile to whites, all of whom they figure had some nefarious role in the raping and killing that was rampant during the "American War" (Vietnam). It seems that "The Fucking Americans" committed far more rapes than there were females in Laos, and burned more villages than ever existed. But still, conservatively there are still 80 million unexploded land mines in Laos, especially in that region, and it's probably uncommon that you would go a day and not see a child missing a limb or two from those mines in 2021. Let's go play a game of baseball in that field over there? No. Not going to happen. I was afraid to walk three meters off the roads to relieve myself.

In any case I was told to relax, that they had just never seen a white man and had come to look. In their midst was a young girl, maybe 15, with a baby, maybe 2-4 months old; both were shockingly rail thin. Ethiopian thin. She was so thin I wondered how she could stand and support her own weight, let alone hold the baby. I asked why. I was told no food. But the others aren't so thin? They have more food, but not enough for this girl and her baby. She was just abandoned by the baby's father, as is almost always the case.

I wanted to give her money, so I pulled out a kip note worth about $30, thinking that would give her a couple of weeks of better nutrition. I was told no, no. Half of that would be more than generous. So I gave that and asked how long she and the baby could eat. I was told four months.

Fuck you, Chance Brannen, for stealing a Goddamned year worth of food from people like that. Just fuck you up the fucking ass with a Goddamned wad of Goddamned rusty razor wire, you fucking piece of cocksucking worthless shit.

Maybe Chance Brannen didn't personally click the keys that caused my Easynews account to be reactivated for over a year, two months after it was successfully canceled, but he's the captain of that Goddamned little SS Minnow, and all shit slides to him. Besides, all he has to ever do is Google is own rat-bastard company to see he has a gargantuan problem with exactly that stunt, and then to take real steps to stop it once and for all. But he hasn't. So fuck you again, Chance Brannen. Hopefully someday we'll meet. And we can chat. And I can show you pictures, whether you want to fucking look at them or not.

Do you like Laos stories? Ok, here's another one, because I want the reader to understand the impact a lousy hundred dollars has on people who are actually poor -- and NOT just lazy dope-head cockroaches on endless welfare in the US and UK.

I was in northeastern Laos, again near the Vietnam border, not terribly far from the wonderfully terrible place called Hanoi (princess Jane Fonda's home away from home).

I was cruising, dodging buffaloes and kids, and when I was hungry I spotted a roadside food stand. These are really just Asia's version of lemonade stands, seldom as nicely build as those of eight year old girls in the US. These can be found absolutely anywhere, even miles and miles from any crossroads, and you wonder why in God's name anyone would travel out to the middle of absolute nowhere to set up a stand. Well, they don't. If you look closely enough you'll always see a few upturned leaves at the edge of the jungle, which means there is a trail there, and that trail leads to a hut, which might be just a few sheets of corrugated tin fashioned onto trees to keep the rain off. The hut might be fifty meters in, or 500 meters in. In any case, they stash the boards that make up their "lemonade stand" in the jungle at night because if they don't they'll be stolen by daybreak.

I know these tiny fruit stands intimately. In that region of Laos, depending on their location, the rural ones might gross an average of 40 cents usd per day. That would be an ok day. The net profit is the same as the gross profit because they have no utilities, no motorbikes to maintain, no water bills, no electricity, no TV, no internet. The fruit is free for the climbing. They often go a few days at a time with not one customer. It would be very unusual for them to gross, say, eighty cents in one day.

They eat their own fruit and wild vegetables, and they supplement that with meat from snakes, frogs, rats, bugs and an occasional dog who was stupid enough to look for human friends. When they make a few pennies to spare they buy some little bags of rice and try to find second hand clothes for the kids. Many have NEVER owned a pair of shoes. Their huts are mostly lean-to's that mostly shed off the monsoon rains but are deafeningly loud during a storm because corrugated tin is about all that's available for roofs. The huge jungle leaves are good but must be replaced often. There is constant fear of snakes -- they have no reason whatsoever not to slither right into your hut and strike, or strangle, your babies, or you. I am currently in a very upscale area, for SE Asia, and yet not long ago we had an eight year old little girl who was found dead in her bed in a well-built home. There were two tiny holes in one finger. The cobra was found under her clothing, waiting until it figured she was dead enough to try to eat. The constrictors will come in and either strike viciously and then roll like an alligator and squeeze the life out of you, or slither silently until it is sure it has the lungs well encircled, and then SQUEEZE and there is never time to cry out. I watched a tiny constrictor hit a frog, and constrict, and wait, but somehow the frog managed to get out an occasional desperate squeak or three. The snake would rear back and viciously strike it again and again and again, apparently angry that it had the audacity to squeak out its last breaths. They'll do that to you baby in your hut in the night. And they'll do it to you.

There is the constant danger of bites from centipedes and those MUTHERFUCKING Malayan Pit Vipers. --Not as deadly as the Cobras but they are patently vicious (crazy and will strike ANYTHING and they will continue to strike it again and again like machine-gun fire until they're exhausted). The parents will carry the child out to the road and pray to Buddha that a vehicle comes by that will pick them up. The kids have about 20 minutes after the bite to get the anti-venom. After that, even if they live, they will almost positively lose the bitten limb. Medical clinics with anti-venom are usually many hours away. I was once bitten twice by one of the big Thai critters. It had crawled up into my motorcycle helmet while I was getting a haircut in a chicken field and once I left and got up to speed on the highway it nailed me twice -- one in the back of the head and once in the back of the neck. I thought I'd been shot. I nearly hit a truck head-on but managed to pull over and shake it out. That was an isolated incident for me, but these rural roadside sellers live with this constant threat, minute by minute. You ask the grade school kids how many of their friends got bit by something at home and never came to school again. ALL kids know at least several.

I looked to see what this one was offering but regretfully they only had about four clumps of bananas for sale. I looked behind them, maybe ten meters, to the lone banana tree these had come from.

I don't remember the particulars in detail anymore. I think I wanted three bananas and I tried to indicate this to them, and I sorted out the money for three bananas as posted on their hand-brushed sign. The price was absurdly low, like a penny each or something. The woman handed me three clumps of bananas for that price. I said no, no, sorry, I only want three bananas. They kept shoving three clumps at me after taking my money. I finally broke off three and went to my scooter to lean on it and eat them. They brought the three clumps to me and dropped them in my basket.

While I was eating, I noticed that there was another board set up a few meters away with a pretty girl about 16 tending it with a small boy, probably three, give or take. It's hard for me to judge ages there because malnutrition plays tricks on development. But this stall had nothing to sell whatsoever, it was just a rough, bare board on end-stands, and there were no more bananas on the only tree.

The boy kept finding excuses to saunter close by me, to look longingly at my bananas. I let him do this maybe four or five times, I'm not sure. And finally, I took a clump or two over and set them onto the girl's board, and smiled, and walked back to my scooter. Surely they would understand they were a gift, and they could resell them or eat them, whatever. I sure as hell had no use for dozens of bananas. I'd be in a real village in a couple of hours, motorbike willing, and I could feast on rice.

The girl curiously slid the bananas to the very edge of her board, closest to me, and looked at me pointedly, then went back to dusting off the other end of her empty board. I wasn't sure what she meant. The little boy immediately went to them and started to break one off and she smacked his hand away and pointed to me. The boy picked up one clump and start towards me with it, but I intercepted him and put them back on the board, closer to the girl. She turned away then and refused to acknowledge them, but didn't slide them away either. As I recall the boy then broke one off and began to eat it, but this was several lifetimes ago and I don't fully remember.

In any case, I think I ate about five, and put all the remaining ones on the girl's board, and then helmeted up in prep to ride away. The girl stood and stared at me, as did the boy. I didn't know why. Maybe just to see the weird white man for another minute.

Just as I was about to sit on the scooter, the older woman, from whom I had bought the bananas, came over and took the younger girl by the arm in a kind of "decided" manner, and led her to my motorbike (something like a 110cc Chinese something piece of crap), and pushed the two of us together in a motion you might use to gently knock two heads together. The girl was clearly mortified but just stood there, her body pressed against mine. The little boy looked on, probably wondering "what the heck?"

I had less than no idea what this was about. Prostitutes are as plentiful as monkeys here and there, and I thought maybe the older woman was trying to get me to take this girl as a prostitute. But that didn't seem to fit. Then I realized the older woman was this girl's mom. Sometimes I am a bit thick.

The mom, realizing that I wasn't getting this at all, went and found a few belongings from the girl's side, and rolled them into a bundle or maybe put them in a bag, along with a toy the boy had been playing with, and she put those into my empty basket, and led the girl to the back of the scooter, and told her to sit on the seat, then she lifted up the boy and put him in front of the girl, and she made some motions sufficient for me to finally figure this out. I was supposed to take this girl away and make a home and a family somewhere.

Once it clicked in my tiny reptilian brain I backed away from the scooter and motioned for the girl and boy to get off, and they did, and I tried to somehow explain that this could not ever happen. It just wasn't in my life plan, even if the girl had been of appropriate age. I was very honored by the gesture, but I simply couldn't help them. How do you get all that across with hand gestures? You don't.

The girl was crying by then. The boy was clueless about the whole thing but he was clearly a little stressed. The mom was miffed and kind of harshly told the girl to go back to her own stand, which she did. Years later I wondered if the mom was angry at the girl for not using her wiles to "snag" this rich white man, but who knows. She refused to look at me then, because I had disrespected the entire family. Only then did I notice an older man standing maybe forty meters off from this scene, watching. He then came over and by his demeanor and interaction with the older woman it was clear they were man and wife, parents of the girl. The woman was maybe 30, and the man had to be mid sixties.

I stood for a minute, trying to figure out SOMETHING I could do. The total sum of my Laos language skills was about three words. You can only make so many stupid hand gestures. I tried to offer them a hundred thousand Kip (about $10), but by then they were almost mortally offended that I had refused their most precious gifts. I had deeply disrespected them. Had I taken the girl, then I would have been instantly part of the family and any gesture would have been gladly accepted, not so much as a gift, but just as normal family sharing. In the end I kicked up the wheezing, smoking motorbike and just rode away, shaking my head at my own stupidity. I just rode away. There was nothing else I could do. I was around 60 years old at that time.

Year later it occured to me that I could have put a million kip on the ground, maybe 40 feet away from them, and weighted it down with a stone, and made sure they saw it, and then rode away quickly. The family would have felt deeply dishonored by that as well, but they would have kept the money and hopefully done something good with it for the girl and her child. Hindsight is 20/20.

A similar thing happened to me later in southern Philippines, and again in Saigon.

And Easynews thinks it's funny, we presume, to steal hundreds or thousands of dollars from credit cards and then refuse to reply when caught. Chance Brannen and all his ilk couldn't possibly be more hated and disrespected by me and by my group. I wish them a life of hunger and disease and hopelessness in the fucking Laotian jungle. Wouldn't that be a cold dose of reality for Brannen and his whole prissy troupe of off-Broadway pukes. They'd off themselves in under a week with sugar cane reeds and I'd show them where to find the reeds and how to use them Pol-pot style and good riddance.

In Manila you can sit in any sidewalk cafe and watch a steady stream of fat, greasy, stupid old white cocksuckers stroll along the sidewalks and alleys, and they will look for young girls from about eight to 15 in age, and they will sidle up to them like fucking serpents in the grass and hiss in English to ask if they are hungry, are they alone, do they need some help, would they like some money, do they want to go to a restaurant, and 85% of the girls just freeze and won't make eye contact and never utter a sound or turn their heads until their bus comes or whatever happens that facilitates their escape. They are intensely mortified by this shit. But 15% will reluctantly nod yes, because they really ARE alone and hungry. You can witness this in "prime target" locations on average of maybe ten or more times per hour. In the Pi, it seems to be mostly Americans doing this. In Thailand it's mostly Brits. In Laos, I never saw much of it at all. These guys are all 60s and 70's, and you just want to punch them in the fucking temple and hope when they go down their head accidentally hits the concrete curb and society is a smidgen better off for the loss. But of course you can't. Because there is "the law".

This has been continuing for a couple of generations at least -- maybe more like ten generations -- and probably always will. I put these fucks in Chance Brannen's circle of friends.

I sometimes fantasize about switching my life purpose from finding and helping people in serious trouble, to cutting off some of that trouble at the root -- namely, fat, greasy, stinky, loud, obnoxious, filthy Goddamned farangs who prey on these kids. But what I do now is legal. REALLY doing something good like that would be illegal. Who knows what freedoms a case of terminal cancer might bring.

I sometimes think about what it might take to make me back off from Easynews and Brannen and his ilk. Would financial compensation do it? No. But their compensation would be reported here, and that might stretch a few inches to the positive side in my estimation of the value of their souls. In a way, I see them as not far off from the greasy white pricks who roam the streets of SE Asia. I don't have a lot of hope of getting a criminal conviction against Chance Brannen. He'll just say it was some rogue employee who is long gone and untraceable. On a ship, and I was a captain much of my life, it wouldn't matter. The skipper takes the shit for the crew. But in corporate America, the CEO is responsible for nothing except the bottom line. Still, what would it take to lessen my hatred for the Brannens of the world? I'd like to see Chance personally dish out our lousy hundred bucks, which he will, this side of a courtroom or the other side of a courtroom, and I also want him to donate $10,000usd to a charity here in SE Asia, with the stipulation that it be allocated to me and me alone. I want that stipulation because I am intimately aware of how charities operate here (and everywhere), and I don't trust a single one of them for a fucking New York Second to distribute those funds in a way that would have real meaning. I've worked with countless charities and all are the same: For most it's simply a way to support themselves. THEMSELVES. Yes, the kids get some portion of the proceeds they attract from donors, but not nearly enough, and not in ways that truly benefit them in any long term manner, and the kids are sometimes seen as a kind oif afterthought -- more a means to making money. Like sheep.

I watched one of my formerly favorite charities, in late 2019, hold a giant dinner party for it's paid employees. Literal truckloads of very high-dollar foods were brought in and served until the crowd of about 40 was beyond gorged. Then, after they'd rested and thrown up, they went back at it, and after the second binge they had reduced the pile of exotic seafoods and steaks by about 30%. Then, they backed their vehicles up to the doors of the banquet hall and loaded up their trunks and minivans to overflowing and drove away with truly scrumptious meals for days and days to come. I ate nothing and I took nothing. This was a charity expressly for orphans, yet not a single child was in attendance because none were invited. It was truly a sickening spectacle, reminiscent of the days of Roman gorgings that lasted for days. And, again, not a single child was invited.

I watch this same charity, guided by a magnificently talented funds raiser, attract truckloads and truckloads of really cool stuff FOR THE KIDS. It gets dumped off at the center, and the principals and employees pick through it and take the very best stuff -- toys, electronics, phones, clothing, sports equipment, tools -- and they take home what they want. Later in the day the kids --you know, the kids this stuff was GIVEN TO -- are allowed to go through the leftovers. These truckloads were INTENDED for the kids. That's who this stuff was specifically, explicitly purchased for! Yet they get a pittance of it, only the crumbs. My hunch is, Brannen would operate in exactly the same way. That's how I see him.

So what DO you do to make an offering have REAL VALUE in the lives of these hungry jungle kids?

First off, if they're starving, you feed them. They can't even think straight if they're starving. If they have pressing medical requirements, you try to address those. Next, you try to arrange things in such a way as to give them a bit of SECURITY in getting fed. If you feed them once and walk away you've accomplished nothing. They need to know they will probably be able to eat TOMORROW ALSO. Because ONLY THEN can they relax enough to start evening beginning to think about their life and what comes next.

Virtually all of the charities in SE Asia are Christian oriented. I am not Christian and only one of my group is. I have only a shred of respect for Christians (or any religion). Sorry. It's nonsense -- except the Ten Commandments, which are pretty cool. There are over 5000 "God's" being worshiped in the world today, but ONLY YOURS is the REAL ONE? Give me a fucking break. I DO have a God. His name is "Great Pumpkin". He serves me very well. Someday I'll build his Shrine.

I was in a major city two days ago and it was hot and I was thirsty. I walked to a street vendor in an alley who had a small banner up on their lemonade-stand style business showing a selection of drinks. No English labels. I had no idea what the drinks were -- it was just faded pictures of cups with "something" in them. I am allergic to most fruits. I pointed to one that looked like it might have been a chocolate icy kind of drink and asked, "Chocolate?" That word didn't work. I tried a few more. They couldn't begin to grasp what I wanted and I couldn't begin to grasp what they were selling. The crowd in this area was about 40% white. No whites could order from them easily. The same thing happened in a Burger King recently. Even pointing to the items on the menu couldn't get them to simply cook and get paid for what I wanted. They had a million "specials" and "deals" and "sets" and they spoke ZERO English and we simply could not communicate well enough to get the order done. I walked away and they lost that sliver of revenue at a time when EVERY sliver of revenue is deeply needed.

Around 93 countries speak English to one degree or another. Only one country speaks Lao. Only one country speaks Burmese. Even in the Pi (Philippines), English is NOT prevalent at all, despite rumors to the contrary.

It's often said that the best thing you can do for a SE Asian if you want to help them systemically in their lives is to TEACH THEM ENGLISH. I do teach English online but only a handful of sessions per year. It pays nearly nothing and although I am very good at it, I find it tedious. The problem with giving this gift of language to someone who desperately needs it to succeed in ANY tiny business venture is that it's expensive, it's very time consuming, and if they don't have the opportunity to use it EVERY DAY with NATIVE SPEAKERS the little they learn will atrophy in no time at all, like months, like a fucking worthless Chinese Covid vaccine, and then all that time and money is largely wasted. So, Chance, wanna make up for some of the shit you facilitate in this world? Send some kids to English school. Got the balls for that? No, you don't.

The next best thing you can do is to teach SE Asians how to start up and run little businesses. The average wage in arguably the richest country in SE Asia, Thailand, is about 350 baht per day for a full day of hard factory work. That's ten bucks. The other countries pay far less.

Building your own business is just about the only way out of this poverty. I have a good friend for ten years whose family put her through a prestigious university and she attained a law degree. She went to work at the stunning wage of $400 per month with no hope of improvement for YEARS. She quit and built an incredible business online selling noodles, making as much as $2000 per month. She bought a car and got her first room with air conditioning and was able to finally regularly send rice to her mom. Her 72 year old German boyfriend named Oliver outright stole it from her. We're still looking for him. Her car was repossessed and she want back to a $50/month shithole room. Now she works as a car saleslady for about $150 per month and "I" feed the mom.

It's tough to run even the smallest business in SE Asia because, after all, who the hell is going to buy your products? The factory worker making $10 per DAY? But those struggles are vastly compounded by the fact that (1) they can't speak English so it's incredibly difficult to sell to the few people who CAN afford their products (whites) and (2) they have unspeakably poor business sense. Their schools teach them NOTHING of practical value (sound familiar?).

So. The way out of this mess is this:

1. Feed them if hungry.

2. Try to get them eating regularly without fear of being hungry tomorrow.

3. Tend to any PRESSING medical emergencies IF POSSIBLE.

4. Teach them English and help them operate in an environment where English is prevalent because that opens the world to them.

5. Teach them how to PROPERLY set up and run a small business AND KEEP IT GOING.

Some countries have "government health care". I've been in plenty of those facilities. They are slaughter houses. Let me say that again because I didn't choose the phrase lightly or offhand: They are slaughter-houses. But they're kinda, sorta free. Even in socialist countries, quality health care costs. Who can pay for it for them? You?

So, Chance Brannen, wanna man-up and stop DETRACTING from the world and start ENHANCING society? No, I didn't think so. But if you ever change your mind, just send your donation to my Easynews PayPal address. The Winter Park Police department has advised you of it. Or if you are so anal you want to legally write-off your donation, I can direct you to one or two licensed charities who can accept it and provide you back the required docs. I see another of your victims made you a similar offer. He only requested his own money back in that manner, not anything extra, paid to his favorite charity. But you never sent it to his charity, did you Chance? No. You never did.

And what would I do with these donated funds?

I'll find the most hungry in the jungle -- my friends will direct me. And with cameras rolling showing the purchases and the receipts in real-time, we'll buy the foods and deliver them to the people in the tin huts who need it most, and we'll post those videos RIGHT EXACTLY ON THIS WEBSITE and we'll name the donor(s).

But, like that other victim, we'll say this:

We're not holding our breath, Chance. Good thing he didn't either.

The point of this entire, long and probably boring aside is specifically that a hundred bucks in the US is not even remotely the same as a hundred bucks in many, or most other cultures.

In Vietnam once I cashed in $2000 usd and walked away with two large grocery bags of paper money. Lucky no one knew what was in it. My very nice hotel was $3 per night.

 

 

 

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