Rest of the story on LifeLock
I linked to the story of the guy who stole his own father’s credit cards to start a business, something that violates the nature of Credit Card VC.
There was one bit of the story that bothered me, however, and it was that the story originally broke in the Phoenix New Times, parent company of a newspaper I once toiled at. In the years since I’ve left I’ve seen that the New Times company has gutted investigative reporting in Denver, and all over the country including at the Village Voice in New York City.
So the thing that didn’t quite make sense for me about the story was that the original investigative reporting came from the New Times.
Now, thanks to Mike Arrington, we know the rest of the story. The only way the New Times was able to do an “investigative” story was by pasting together an anonymous email, probably from the credit reporting agencies who might lose business if this company does well.
I’m not saying Maynard is a saint, but if that company takes away a bit of business from the big three credit agencies, I have no beef with that; and Maynard is gone.
My other takeaway? Thanks goodness for the Interweb, and especially guys like Arrington who are willing to pull back the curtain a bit on the way the media works.
In my second go around as a Credit Card-Self-Venture-Capitalist.
It’s interesting to speculate as to who helped pull these facts about the fraudulent past of Maynard and LifeLock together, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. It’s likely that a lot of people realized what liars and crooks these guys are and spilled the beans. Whether you think Maynard’s bankruptcies are relevant is your own opinion, but when a man defrauds lenders and legitimate businesses, uses his father’s identity and is then held up as a victim by his company and investors who claim to know the truth, that casts a shadow on the entire company not just the founder, who incidently, still works for them as a consultant. LifeLock has no credibility. They are just a marketing scam. When I investigated options to protect myself, my first consideration was reputatation. When I learned that RelyData (www.relydata.com) was the only company recommended by the credit bureaus, that told me a lot, and I’d found a solution provider.
That’s funny. I never received an e-mail from Credit Card VC or Arrington before they wrote this “rest of the story nonsense.” Bloggers aren’t reporters, that’s for sure.
Ray,
I was a reporter for a dozen years, including a couple at a New Times property. If you think my post, or Arrington’s, has some problem, let us know.
Being arrogant and trying to make a distinction between bloggers and reporters doesn’t help make your case, making your case does. Let’s hear it.
If you need help getting started, here’s one way you could do it: Publish somewhere (in print or here if you can lower yourself to write for a blog) the story behind the story. Tell us about who first contacted you about the story. Did you get a package of PDFs anonymously? Make the case that you are sure that no credit agency shill was behind your story.
Nobody is trying to say Maynard is a saint. That said, Arrington raised some legitimate questions about the motivation of whoever leaked that story.
Go to Arrington’s site and read what I posted there.
I’m not the one trying to make a case of connections between my article and the credit agencies. You are. And you’ve failed to make that case, in part because you didn’t bother to e-mail me before you wrote your piece. I’m not being arrogant — I’m being frustrated that bloggers like you don’t choose to research what you write.
ray