July 2007

This is Part 2 of my commentary of the case of Immediate Capital Group Inc. dba Incredible Discoveries vs. Robert Danoff (filed in the District Court of Palm Beach County, Florida.

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In looking over the Plaintiff’s Petition, I tried to keep an objective eye and see it from Immediate Capital Group dba Incredible Discoveries (ICG) point of view but it is difficult because I have such differing opinions and philosophy of doing business.

And I have to say, if ICG is a legitimate business as they claim, it strikes to me they are being a bit paranoid and pointing out things that, in my opinion, are very weak.

In reviewing the points ICG made, these are my impressions.

Point 2 – ICG appears to be playing the sympathy card by phrasing their employees as “50 Florida residents…. with their families.” Well, how are they different from any other company that have layoffs, downsizes, or goes out of business? Very few people talk about the family situations and it is not really relevant to the case. It is a sympathy play.

Point 3 – There is probably some truth to Bob Danoff being a disgruntled, former employee that happens to know how to use the Internet. However, it is a bit melodramatic to believe that any one disgruntled employee can bring down an entire company and business. If that is in fact the case, you have to wonder about how strong and solid the business was to begin with.

Having dealt first-hand with the Cobra Collection Scam, people give me credit for helping them shut down. And yet, it really wasn’t me alone. It was the waves of angry, disgusted, and frustrated ex-employees, ex-clients, and ex-debtors that came out and rallied around the website I had created. Likewise, I don’t think Bob is that “powerful” by himself. There has to be a lot of negative karma going on for Bob to have any real power as was the case with the Cobra Collection Scam. There was so much negative karma going on, it hit a boiling point. Is there negative karma going on with ICG / Incredible Discoveries? I simply don’t know.

Point 4 – There are negative comments for almost every established company and product in the Google search engine. There are also disgruntled employees in every company that has been in business any number of years. I have negative reviews on my books but that does not put my publishing company out of business. I have unhappy ex-tenants whom I evicted, sued, and garnished for non-payment. I also have some people who I have fired who might be unhappy with me.

Fundamentally, no one can please 100% of the people but I strive to run my business well. That goodwill and success more than offsets the small number of complaints I get from customers or ex-employees. I also issue credit or refunds if I need to unhappy customers. What I do is no different than what most reputable businesses do. But most companies will not be brought down by this small amount of negative karma. How can Bob’s lone comments (if any) on Google bring any one company down? Give me a break. If ICG has truly been damaged, they need to look elsewhere and not a scapegoat.

Point 5 – ICG is upset with Bob for asking for legal assistance on the Internet. So what? Asking does not mean he will get it. And if he does get the help he wants, we have to assume that Bob and the attorney agreed to it. If ICG is afraid of being perceived as litigious, then maybe they should stop suing so much.

Personally, I don’t mind having the reputation of being a bit litigious. It tells people I am not goofing around when I do business. If you do wrong by me, I will not sit back and be silent. I have sued and will continue to sue if it is absolutely necessary. I also do not like going to court but I do what is necessary to protect our interests.

In browsing through the Broward County Courthouse records searching “Incredible Discoveries” and “Immediate Capital Group”, ICG does seem to indicate they do sue a fair amount of people. But then again, so do we. We have successfully sued lots of deadbeat tenants and we win all our cases. It does not hurt our feelings that if it our newer tenants know we will sue anyone who does not pay. It keeps the deadbeat types away and the others in line.

Last thing, ICG wants to go after Bob because he does not want to list his home phone or cell phone publicly on the Internet? How ridiculous is that? If I was a private citizen and did not have a business, the only way I would want incoming communication is email. Giving out your personal phone number is too risky today. Too many kooks on the Internet. And who wants strangers to burn up their cell phone minutes or fill up their voicemails with junk? Certainly, not me.

Point 6 – I have nothing to say on that as I cannot even find Bob’s Myspace page. I am a pretty good Google user and I couldn’t find it. Again, I think ICG is being a bit paranoid here. Besides, who would seriously pay attention to the content on most Myspace pages?  I have seen many Myspace pages.  They are either goofy personal stuff or blatant advertisements.

Point 7 – This is the one most relevant to me as parts of my blog are being used as a court Exhibit. I do take exception to this as ICG never asked my permission to reprint the contents of my blog for use besides personal reading.  Do they not know that the contents of my blog is copyrighted?

ICG is most focused on the comment by “AndJusticeForSome”. ICG has clearly made the wrong assumption on the true identity of “AndJusticeForSome”. I know for a fact it is not Bob. It is a woman who contacted me through private email. And if it is Bob, he is one hell of an actor capable of a gender change. I have also compared the writing styles of Bob’s public articles and “Justice”. “Justice” writes very well. Bob simply writes adequately on the articles I have seen.

Points 8 to 11 – I have no specific comments on these items.

Bottom line: I think that ICG just needs to let this case go. They are spending way too much time and energy over one ex-employee that I believe has marginal impact on the world at large.  If ICG is supposedly as successful as they claim, one disgruntled employee should not be able to bring them down. They are being paranoid. And if one disgruntled employee can bring their business down, they need to see what is wrong with their business model and operations that is so vulnerable to a “few” customer complaints and negative comments.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.

Yesterday, Bob Danoff, ex-employee of Incredible Discoveries, brought to my attention that parts of my blog are being used as Exhibits in a court case he is involved in. Specifically, the case of Immediate Capital Group Inc. dba Incredible Discoveries vs. Robert Danoff (filed in the District Court of Palm Beach County, Florida. This bothers me because everything on I write on this blog is copyrighted material and you are supposed to get permission to reprint or use it elsewhere.

Nevertheless, I was quite curious about how and why my name and words were being used as Exhibits in a court case.

Bob felt that I should be informed of an upcoming court hearing he had to attend because parts of my blog were going to be presented in a court case. I think Bob was concerned that if for some unforeseen reason I somehow had to go to court, I would be upset. As I am protective of my reputation, Bob would be right. It is strange because I have nothing to do with the dispute between Incredible Discoveries and Bob.

I have only written about my few interactions with Incredible Discoveries. As a whole, they seemed respectful and professional to me. The only reason I wrote about them at all was the fact that it seemed interesting that an infomercial company would want to talk to me. After all, I have no illusions of being anywhere close to a best-selling author (at least for now). At the end of the day, I am still very skeptical of the infomercial industry as a whole. And when someone asks me to pay money to the tune of $75,000, I am very, very wary and suspicious.

I happen to know a couple of people who were part of nationwide infomercials and I know they did not pay anything as the production companies believed in the individuals and the products they were selling. In any case, even if I was going to cough up that kind of money, I would use it as down payment to buy a smaller commercial real estate property in our local area, not spend it on an infomercial.

I asked Bob to fax over his paperwork so I could see how my name and content was being used. The fax included the Certificate of Service and Plaintiff Petition. Surprisingly, the documents were written in a direct, easy to read and understand format.

It appears that I have to set the record straight before this gets out of hand. First, it appears that the folks at Immediate Capital Group Inc. dba Incredible Discoveries (ICG ) appear to be giving Bob Danoff way too much credit for the alleged damage against Incredible Discoveries.

Second, I know very little about Bob to this day because he has been very guarded in what he says regarding Incredible Discoveries. He simply encourages me to do due diligence. Sometimes, when someone is very careful in what and how he speaks, it tells way more than anything he might say. However, if he is telling the truth, that is a whole different story. Bob clearly wants this conflict to end and he does not want to be accused of saying things he did not say. I cannot say I blame him.

I told Bob to not worry since his advice came too late. I have been naturally skeptical of the infomercial industry as a whole. And as a matter of course, I do a Google search on any company or individual I intend to do business with. I read what interests me and form my own opinions. If Incredible Discoveries feels I formed a negative opinion of them because of Bob, they are greatly mistaken. There were other sources involved.

In Part 2, I will give my comments on the Plaintiff’s Petition. It was very interesting reading.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.