It’s not just for turkey…
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Less than 6 months after John McAfee was found dead in his Spanish jail cell, the anti malware company that still bears his name is back in the news. The anti-malware and internet security firm, McAfee announced Monday (11/08/2021) that it had reached an agreement to be bought. The McAfee has been bought by a global investor group in a deal worth more than $14 billion.
McAfee will move forward as a privately held company. The new firm will be a pure consumer cybersecurity play. McAfee has 20 million subscribers for its security services globally.
The global investor group is made up of Advent International Corp., Permira Advisors, Crosspoint Capital Partners, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, GIC Private Limited and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
McAfee sold it’s Enterprise business in July, 2021 for $4.50 a share to Symphony Technology Group. The sale equaled $4 billion.
The move takes the publicly-traded company private again after the initial public offering of McAfee by Intel and TPG last year.
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Confused? I don’t. blame you. The firm has a history of changing.
2020 – McAfee goes public again with a $740 million IPO on Nasdaq under ticker symbol MCFE. This marked its return to the public market after 9 years.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Followers for the Bach Seat know that printer ink is one of the most expensive materials on earth. Well, the U.S. Department of Justice just prosecuted one of the worst examples of the sky-high price of printer toner. The DOJ announced that Gilbert N. Michaels of West Los Angeles was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison. He was convicted of orchestrating a decades-long, multimillion-dollar telemarketing scheme that defrauded more than 50,000 victims by selling printer toner cartridges.
According to the DOJ, his firms, IDC Servco and Mytel International, with the assistance of boiler room call center operators, fraudulently sold over a six-year span more than $126 million worth of printer toner cartridges throughout the United States. Michaels’ companies handled the billing and shipping of the toner. He charged the boiler rooms at or above retail prices for the toner they were selling to victims. Michaels provided price catalogs to the boiler rooms to use in making sales. The catalogs listed the price of the toner at up to five to 10 times the retail price. Many of the victims already were receiving toner at no additional charge under their existing contracts for copiers and printers.
To pull off the scam, the telemarketers would pretend to be representatives of toner-supply companies many of the businesses already had contracts with. The telemarketers would then tell the victims that the price of printer toner had increased. The fake sales reps told the victims they could buy the toners at the previous, lower price, prosecutors said.
Believing they were dealing with their regular suppliers, the victims would sign order confirmation forms. IDC would then ship toner to victims along with highly inflated invoices. When the victim businesses realized they had been scammed, they called IDC to complain. The victims were typically told that IDC could not cancel the order or refund money because the victims had signed order confirmation forms. IDC also failed to disclose its relationships to the telemarketing companies that brokered the fraudulent deals.
IDC would threaten legal action or turn them over to collection agencies, prosecutors said. If IDC did agree to take the toner back, it would demand significant “restocking fees,” prosecutors said.
Michaels’s operation dates back to the 1970s. This is not his first run-in with the DOJ. Michaels and his companies were under scrutiny in 1988. At that time, the companies were reprimanded for making false statements. They were forced to use an independent sales company to sell printer toner.
As part of the sentencing, Michaels was ordered to pay a $200,000 fine. His net worth is said to be $6.7 million. Ciaran McEvoy, the spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, said, “Mr. Michaels led a conspiracy whose deceptive practices were particularly damaging to the small business community.”
Six other defendants were also found guilty along with Michaels:
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Happy National Coffee Day! Wednesday 09/29/2021 is free coffee Day. Here is a hot steaming list of coffee sellers that are offering free coffee on nation coffee day. Some of the deals require an additional food purchase, most offer free coffee—especially if you order through their rewards apps. Support the folks who are offering a caffeine fix for free in celebration of this most wonderful time of the year – Free Coffee Day !!!!
National Coffee Day!
drinkers can get a free 20-ounce hot brewed coffee Wednesday.
Caribou Coffee All Caribou Coffee Perks members who visit in-store Wednesday will get a chance to win rewards. The rewards include free coffee for a year, free size upgrades, free beverages, and more.
Dunkin’ will offer a free medium hot or iced coffee through their app.
Jack In the Box offers a free regular coffee and Jumbo Egg Roll if you use code “JUMBOROLL2021” in the company’s app.
Scooter’s Coffee is celebrating with a free small brewed coffee Wednesday. You will need a coupon from the Nebraska-based company’s Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter feeds. Or ask for the deal in-store. The offer is available in-store or curbside but not online.Related article
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
