[HN Gopher] Crazy Eddie: The popular electronics chain that scam...
___________________________________________________________________
Crazy Eddie: The popular electronics chain that scammed America
Author : yarapavan
Score : 254 points
Date : 2022-03-28 12:07 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehustle.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehustle.co)
| pjc50 wrote:
| > "We arrogantly committed our crimes simply because we could and
| we had no empathy whatsoever for our victims," Sam E. Antar later
| wrote
|
| Surprising moment of honesty there.
|
| The fraud is a distinctly pre-21st century one, relying as it
| does on handling large amounts of cash while operating parallel
| books. Then pivoting to stock fraud to take in a bigger pie from
| investors.
| cannonpalms wrote:
| At the time of that statement being written, he had taken a
| plea deal in exchange for testifying against his son.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| It was likely written for him and he agreed to sign or say it
| scrozier wrote:
| I was struck by the same line. No real reason to add the part
| about "no empathy." And it seems like something very close to
| empathy to understand that one had no empathy....
| mbreese wrote:
| They probably had no empathy at the time, but after years of
| reflection and a criminal plea, finding empathy (or something
| very close to it) is possible.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > The fraud is a distinctly pre-21st century one, relying as it
| does on handling large amounts of cash while operating parallel
| books. Then pivoting to stock fraud to take in a bigger pie
| from investors.
|
| I mean, I'm not sure that either of these have exactly gone out
| of fashion.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It is much harder with electronic payment systems forcing
| accurate accounting.
| mgbmtl wrote:
| Today's equivalent might be to wire money back and forth
| between companies in different jurisdictions.
|
| I once spoke with tax auditors of Pornhub (while they
| casually audited our company), many years ago, it seemed
| like a pretty intense headache.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am not sure what wiring to different jurisdictions
| allows you to do, but I was referring to the parallel
| books for the purposes of underreporting revenue for tax
| purposes or stealing from other business partners. The
| card processor always has your sales amounts available so
| come tax time or audit time, you will not be able to hide
| revenue, as seen on 1099-Ks.
|
| https://www.irs.gov/payments/general-faqs-on-new-payment-
| car...
|
| This is always a funny video clip about electronic
| payments making low level shenanigans more difficult. The
| game nowadays is to do it legally, and getting involved
| in the political machinery.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >handling large amounts of cash while operating parallel
| books. Then pivoting to stock fraud to take in a bigger pie
| from investors.
|
| They were pretty advanced at this in the 19th century
| already.
| pjc50 wrote:
| These days you have a lot more EPOS systems and a vast
| majority of cashless transactions, especially for high value
| goods.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Moments of honesty are always rare when predatory activity is
| the prevailing attitude.
|
| Sooner or later you end up with an Enron, Madoff, or even a
| Theranos.
| jefftk wrote:
| Is it that surprising, given that he was testifying against his
| estranged son in exchange for leniency?
| fortran77 wrote:
| Their former CFO has an active twitter account and is fun to
| follow.
| fishtacos wrote:
| Surprised to see Systemax/TigerDirect and the Fiorentino
| brothers, who were convicted of embezzlement, security fraud and
| tax evasion, wasn't mentioned. Perhaps because they didn't
| outright scam customers. (although I do think they with run-by-
| night 0-support AV crapware we bundled with everything we could
| as a value-added service, or pointless "optimization" services
| that did absolutely nothing).
|
| Don't have much to add here beyond the fact that I worked there
| in the 2012-2013 strech and a little beyond. Run about as spartan
| as could be, no LP but millions of dollars worth of equipment
| that were there ripe for theft and fraud with nearly zero
| oversight. (fraud was rampant in the store - can honestly say I
| never engaged, but I was offered the opportunity multiple times).
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| It's kind of interesting how every single time that some kind of
| fraud damages the system, not only is there no effort to fix or
| revert back to an undamaged version, but the damage is simply
| allowed to grow and fester as copy-cat fraudster corporate types
| latch onto the barrier that was breached.
|
| It's literally every single time. Internet "bubble", housing
| "bubble", "Affordable Care Act" fraud, and the mountain of other
| frauds committed before and since; including all the various
| "recovery act" type of Government fraud where the same class of
| people who commit the fraud and cause the damage, are then the
| primary beneficiaries being rewarded with billions, approaching
| trillions now. And that's without even touching on the murderous
| fraud of the type like the deliberate fraud of the Iraq war.
|
| Just look at the common complaints today regarding work-life,
| wages, and even supposed staff shortages (the claims of which
| themselves are fraudulent); they all are directly linked to
| things like this guy knocking yet another section of the wall out
| through Sunday workdays that was then never reverted/rolled-back
| even after the fraud was revealed. Is Chick-fil-A really just a
| fluke in how efficient and happy it's employees are in spite of
| the fact that they shut down on Sundays? I sure don't ever think
| so.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| >> It's kind of interesting how every single time that some
| kind of fraud damages the system, not only is there no effort
| to fix or revert back to an undamaged version
|
| Enron
|
| The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
|
| _The bill was enacted as a reaction to a number of major
| corporate and accounting scandals, including those affecting
| Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems, and
| WorldCom. These scandals cost investors billions of dollars
| when the share prices of affected companies collapsed, and
| shook public confidence in the US securities markets.[3]_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal#Sarbanes-Oxley_A...
| rsynnott wrote:
| Hrm. So is Crazy Eddie in "The Mote in God's Eye" a reference to
| this, or are they both a reference to some prior thing?
| Metacelsus wrote:
| I was wondering about this too.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Actually, I think there almost must be an earlier common
| origin. The chain started in 1971 in New York. The book was
| published in 1974, so probably written in 1973 if not
| earlier. Neither Niven nor Pournelle lived in New York or
| anywhere near New York, so it's unlikely to be inspired by
| the store (unless it became so instantly culturally relevant
| that everyone knew about it within a year or so, which seems
| unlikely)...
|
| I mean, maybe it's coincidence and they both just came up
| with the same name, but that also doesn't seem likely.
| [deleted]
| akeck wrote:
| The full saga: https://whitecollarfraud.com/crazy-eddie/crazy-
| eddie-saga-ta...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This is a good story to compare and contrast with the 2008
| subprime fraud cases, for example 'Crazy Lloyd Blankfein' of
| Goldman Sachs.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-open-criminal-probe-of-gol...
|
| "Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges
| Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO, CBS 2010"
|
| The amount of fraud committed was far greater than that, and
| there were no criminal charges involving jail time for any of the
| culprits. Kind of like doing armed robbery at a bank, getting
| away with $100K, then being fined $50k for the crime with no jail
| time. A profitable business model in other words.
| jkaptur wrote:
| This is the context of that story, right?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs_controversies#20...
|
| I think one important difference is that the story in the OP is
| fraud directly against _individual retail investors_ (and the
| government, to be fair), whereas the Goldman story is a
| conflict between two hedge funds and an investment bank.
|
| That seems important for the subtext of what you're saying.
| johnebgd wrote:
| Banksters really got away with a lot in the States.
|
| Iceland at least held theirs accountable.
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iceland-has-jailed-26-b...
| okboomer9 wrote:
| Never hear anyone suggesting we start charging people who lied
| on their loan applications even though it was rampant.
|
| People frequently would say they were going to make $X/yr where
| that number came from the amount of money they expected the
| home to go up, not actual income on a W2. Banks were selling
| the loans so they often didn't care to get real documentation
| of income either.
| not2b wrote:
| I've often seen this take, but what it misses is that at the
| height of the liar loan boom, those loan applications with
| the lies were often filled in by the loan originator, knowing
| it was a lie, and they would then sell that loan off as soon
| as it was issued. The borrower often didn't even know what
| was on the form.
|
| They thought they could get away with it because they
| believed real estate could only go up, so if the borrower
| defaulted the lender could get the house and still make
| money.
| [deleted]
| rr808 wrote:
| OK charge the originator then too.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| Yep. Happened with my mortgage; I only know about it
| because the bank actually asked for evidence to support a
| level of liquid assets that I never claimed to have. In my
| case, it wasn't really a problem as the mortgage was in
| line with what I knew I could afford. What was surprising,
| however, is that the bank offered to loan me considerably
| more than I could afford. I found it all very odd, but I
| didn't understand the meaning of it at the time. A few
| years later when it all blew up, I realised what had been
| going on. Again, I was fine as I did my own math, but I can
| imagine many people were sold on mortgages that they were
| never going to be able to afford.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| Yep, happened with me too.
|
| I remember my wife being adamant about a fixed rate
| mortgage while the banker was being super pushy about
| doing a 5 year arm. About a month after we got our house,
| we started getting the letters, "Your loan was sold to
| Bank XYZ, your new loan holder is ABC company." Literally
| every month our loan was getting sold multiple times.
|
| Then Wells Fargo started calling about re-financing our
| mortgage around late 2006. We were like, "Huh? We're on a
| fixed rate." and the guy was like, "Says here your 5-year
| ARM you signed is expiring in 2008 and your rate is going
| to go way up."
|
| Alarm bells started going off. We made an appointment to
| sit down with the guy at Wells Fargo. Sure as shit, the
| guy who was pushing us to do a 5 year ARM falsified our
| loan papers. Inflated a bunch of our assets to get us
| qualified for a bigger loan that we didn't need. He put
| us into a 5 year adjustable rate that was set to increase
| wildly in 2008. We refinanced and got our mortgage into a
| fixed rate again. We talked to an attorney about suing
| them, but by then the crisis was starting to gain some
| real steam and the company who did our original loan had
| already been out of business for six months.
| rconti wrote:
| You're not wrong, but I always wonder why this is a reply
| when suggesting we charge and prosecute the bankers. To
| create an equivalency? To change the subject? Why?
| otikik wrote:
| There's a certain group of people who self-identify with
| the super rich, even with the ones that are orders of
| magnitude more wealthy than them. An attack on the rich is
| perceived as an attack on "their group". So they retaliate,
| usually against the poor, which they otherize.
| rr808 wrote:
| Because the investment banks took loans and repackaged
| them, then didn't do anything illegal. The most sketchy
| thing they were accused of was repackaging loans when they
| should know the documentation was fraudulent, ie borrowers
| were lying on their forms. Its a long chain of paper
| pushers who are blaming each other, I'm not convinced
| anyone is worse than the others, just GS is most famous.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Actually, the transfer and repackaging of loans was not
| done legally, and courts had to rubber stamp massive
| amounts of backdated paperwork when cleaning up the mess
| so the houses could actually be foreclosed upon.
| worik wrote:
| > Because the investment banks took loans and repackaged
| them, then didn't do anything illegal.
|
| They did very illegal things. They lied, flat out lied,
| to their customers about what was in the financially
| engineered structures. Lied.
|
| That is a crime (in civilised jurisdictions, and in the
| USA)
| rr808 wrote:
| Please tell me which customers you are talking about? Is
| it the hedge funds who bought billions of CDOs but says
| they didn't understand what they were? Are they the
| people you're concerned about.
| LanceH wrote:
| The bankers were doing what we wanted them to do by giving
| us loans, even when we didn't qualify. Now they're
| continuing to do what we want them to do by being the
| villains. As long as they get paid...
| Retric wrote:
| Bankers where ultimately using other peoples money to
| issue loans so they didn't care if the information was
| accurate and therefore not only didn't check but actively
| falsified the information themselves.
|
| That's how you get this kind of crap: "How much do you
| make? It varies, I made 50k last year. That's going to be
| a little tough, hmm let's say next year went well, how
| much could you make? I don't know 60-70k. Great 70k is
| going to make this all very smooth."
|
| The applicant assumes he's being clear when getting a
| loan from the company he's talking to. Meanwhile the
| company is only interested in selling Fake AAA bonds and
| just needs warm bodies to sign some paperwork.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| > Never hear anyone suggesting we start charging people who
| lied on their loan applications even though it was rampant.
|
| Loan industry operates on "victim blaming" philosophy. If you
| give money to someone who could not afford the loan you are
| on the hook. That's reasonable.
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| It's because these loans usually don't make it through
| underwriting. Most of the time they don't even make it past
| the originators desk. Banks have no incentive to prosecute
| people who "forget" to mention there's a lien on their house.
| Also, who is to prosecute in cases where documentation of
| income isn't required? For instance, if I say I make $200k/yr
| because my boss told me I'd make that much in this new sales
| job am I lying if it turns out I won't make that much and
| documentation wasn't required?
|
| People have such a school-house view of how the world works.
| lupire wrote:
| > were going to make
|
| That's a documented risk the lender knew about and
| encouraged.
| smm11 wrote:
| The 80s have not left us, to this day.
| alephnan wrote:
| > Crazy Eddie stores stayed open on holidays and Sundays, at a
| time when many retailers still followed a Chick-Fil-A schedule.
|
| Wait. Retailers weren't always open on Sunday?
| mbg721 wrote:
| Grocery stores often weren't, as recently as the 90s, at least
| in New England.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| People are acting like this is a relic of the past, and I'm
| surprised you're surprised. I live in a small-medium-sized
| Canadian town at the edge of the GTHA (not the hub of economic
| activity, but not exactly the boonies) and many shops are still
| closed on Sundays. To the extreme even--many only open for
| short hours (4-8) during the weekdays and a half-day Saturday.
| It's a relatively quiet place. We've wondered how some can stay
| in business. Given the area, our guess is wealthy families
| backing them. I don't think massive profit is their primary
| motivator, just involvement in the community. And social
| influence, I'm sure.
| pythonaut_16 wrote:
| Consider that for a lot of shops and restaurants demand might
| be inelastic over the course of the week. If everyone in town
| is closed on Sunday and consumers don't have convenient
| access to other options it's likely that demand will simply
| shift to other days, thus being closed on Sunday would reduce
| operating costs without significantly affecting revenues.
|
| This is arguably a big factor for both Chick-fil-a and liquor
| stores that are prevented state-wide from opening on Sundays
| (in the US)
| Melatonic wrote:
| The problem for me (at least with Chic-fil-a) is that I am
| really only eating fast food ever on Saturday or Sundays.
| Those are the days I have off and the days I am most likely
| to be traveling (by car or other) and when I would be
| mostly likely to indulge in fast food. Probably about 2/3
| of the times I would have gone to Chic-fil-A I could not
| due to the Sunday closure.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| In some cases for sure. Our speculating was about some
| oddball cases--like clothing stores that are _never_ busy
| and only open a few hours a week. And dealing in odds or
| purely consignment goods. They must be hobby projects
| (expensive ones, considering the rents around here).
|
| But for others, definitely that's the case. And it's been
| this way for so long I'm sure it's just a known and we're
| essentially tethered to Hamilton via transit and highways
| so there are a ton of options just a few minutes further
| down the road.
| astura wrote:
| For many, many years they were prohibited from being open on
| Sundays due to so-called "blue laws" which were ubiquitous, at
| least where I live on the East Coast. They started to be
| repealed in the 1970s for general retail and the 2000s for
| alcohol. In some locations (a couple towns in New Jersey IIRC)
| blue laws are still on the books and stores are closed on
| Sundays.
|
| When stores first started opening on Sundays it was usually for
| only limited hours. I remember everything shutting down around
| 4-5pm on Sundays when I was a kid. That's not really the case
| anymore. When I was a teenager in the late 90s I was paid $1
| more an hour on Sundays.
|
| This was published in the NY Times in 1986
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/19/nyregion/sunday-shopping-...
|
| >Similar changes are being felt throughout the region and
| indeed in most parts of the nation. Like New York, many other
| states in recent years have struck down legal restrictions that
| prohibited the sale of most goods on Sundays. The curbs, called
| blue laws, date from colonial New England, with the observance
| of the Sabbath being their main purpose.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Costco Business Center isn't open on Sunday! I nearly found out
| the hard way yesterday.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| From my memory opening on Sundays slowly became the norm
| through the late 80s and early 90s in Texas.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah it's tied to the rise of rent and the fall of wages.
| the-dude wrote:
| In The Netherlands, opening times were strictly regulated by
| law up to 1984 : no openings on Sunday, weekdays not later than
| 18:00 and Saturday no later than 17:00.
|
| This scheme was common up till the mid nineties. Since then it
| has been relaxed, but it is still regulated.
|
| One of the reasons listed for the regulation is the protection
| of 'Mom & Pop' stores.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > One of the reasons listed for the regulation is the
| protection of 'Mom & Pop' stores.
|
| A silly motivation. Smaller-scale businesses on the
| "convenience store" model are _more_ likely to provide
| extended opening hours than any large store operation. That
| 's as close to "Mom & Pop" as it gets.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The motivation was religious.
| mangamadaiyan wrote:
| Probably in Gelderland, I guess? Not too sure about the
| rest of NL.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Limburg and Brabant are in the present day a lot more
| religious than Gelderland, as is Zeeland and a large
| chunk of the area North-East and East of Amersfoort.
|
| NL is percentage wise (or rather, was) one of the
| countries were religion was 'on the way out',
| unfortunately that trend seems to have first stabilized
| and is now reversing. It's a pity because personally I
| think religion should have absolutely no place in
| politics or organized society, though I do believe that
| people should be free to practice whatever religion they
| want as long as it does not negatively affect others.
| mangamadaiyan wrote:
| I last visited NL about two decades ago, and spent most
| of my time in a Gelderland village. I must say that I was
| reasonably well-tolerated as a visiting heathen ;)
|
| As you mention, it's the religious intolerance that one
| finds disturbing, not religion (of any kind) itself. It
| is fairly rare to have one without the other these days,
| it would seem. The phenomenon is not limited to NL alone,
| I think.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's fair but the strong Islam presence has lots of
| people upset to the point where I would say the Dutch (as
| a group, of people without religion or subscribing to
| some religion) are now less tolerant of (other)
| religion(s) than they were 20 years ago. This is a factor
| in the right wing extremist presence who use this to
| drive a wedge between people who otherwise probably would
| not care that much, it is clearly positioned as 'Islam
| against the rest'. Most notable for this is Geert
| Wilders, who is a complete asshole but there are others
| as well.
|
| Gelderland (where my family is from) is definitely more
| religious than say Amsterdam, but far less than the South
| of Limburg or the 'Bible Belt'. At the same time, those
| are all various offshoots of Christianity, whereas if you
| were to look at Islam you will find the opposite, it is
| strongly represented in the big cities, where there is
| hardly any Christian offshoots left (and if they are they
| are dying).
|
| Churches are disappearing, Mosques are rising up
| everywhere, and I'm not sure if the longer term will find
| NL with a more tolerant version of itself or if it will
| regress at some point.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| It's not really the Islam presence that bothers people,
| it's specifically _intolerant, militant_ religion that
| happens to be of the Muslim type. Let 's be clear, nobody
| there is complaining about an overabundance of wise Sufi
| mystics.
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, but there are many more people complaining about
| morning calls to prayer than there ever were to complain
| about church bells (with the exception of Tilburg).
| the-dude wrote:
| The Winkeltijdenwet was instated in 1976 when we had the
| Den Uyl government, which consisted of Partij van de
| Arbeid (PvdA), Katholieke Volkspartij (KVP), Anti-
| Revolutionaire Partij (ARP), Politieke Partij Radikalen
| (PPR) en de Democraten 66 (D'66)
|
| That is a lot of left radicals and only 1 religious
| party.
| jacquesm wrote:
| As you are no doubt aware concessions are often made to
| smaller parties in order to secure their votes on other
| subjects is well established in Dutch politics.
| the-dude wrote:
| There is no reason to assume the left wanted to work on
| Sunday.
| jacquesm wrote:
| https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/kst-24226-3.html
|
| And many others besides.
|
| Really, why would you even try to argue something that is
| pretty much settled history at this point in time? The
| Netherlands historically had a very strong religious
| streak running through it and one of the last vestiges of
| their direct influence on Dutch society is the
| 'Winkelsluitingstijden' law.
| the-dude wrote:
| That link is a wall of text. Could you please quote what
| is supposedly proving your point? Because I can't find
| it.
| the-dude wrote:
| I don't get your POV.
|
| I talked about the 80s and 90s and a healthy work/life
| balance was still a political talking point at the time.
| Macha wrote:
| Also single worker households, which meant there was
| someone to patronise those stores while the breadwinner
| was themselves working.
|
| (To be clear, I'm not saying everything was great in the
| days of "all women are house wives" but it would have
| been nice if the stigma of a house husband went away
| instead, rather than the actual turn out of "both adults
| must work").
| crimthrw2022 wrote:
| > rather than the actual turn out of "both adults must
| work").
|
| It was almost an inevitably. Especially for the middle
| class, I would imagine that both sides of the couple
| working provided a substantial boost in economic
| mobility. Or at least a perceived one. At that point its
| just keeping up with the joneses.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Same thing in Germany. All shops are closed on Sundays and
| bank holidays, and while opening times on weekdays have been
| deregulated in most states, some - like Bavaria - still
| enforce opening times of no more than 6:00 to 20:00 or 6:00
| to 22:00.
|
| I'm generally a fan of longer opening times, but having a day
| where everyone but entertainment and hospitality has free
| time simultaneously seems very healthy for both families and
| society at large.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > All shops are closed on Sundays and bank holidays
|
| Unless, of course, they are in a train station. This
| loophole seems to be _heavily_ exploited.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Some of the New York camera stores are closed on Saturday (the
| Jewish Sabbath) to this day. I think there's even one or two
| that actually disable ordering from their web site on that day.
|
| A state I lived in as a child allowed grocery stores,
| restaurants, and pharmacies to be open on Sunday, but not much
| else. Restaurants were also allowed to sell alcohol on Sunday,
| while liquor stores weren't. A local restaurant took advantage
| of this double loophole and put in a drive-through booze window
| that they only opened on Sunday.
| jedberg wrote:
| In the 90s in Manhattan, almost everything was closed on Sunday
| until the evening. When I asked our hotel receptionist about
| it, she said, "It's so everyone has enough time to read the New
| York Times Sunday Edition". I'd like think that's apocryphal
| but as a teen at the time I believed it.
|
| It stood out to me because in California most everything was
| open on Sundays. So it seemed to be more of an East Coast
| thing.
| macintux wrote:
| When I was young, the only places open on Sundays were grocery
| stores and gas stations.
| mleo wrote:
| We had one KMart open on Sundays. If we needed something on
| Sunday, that was the only place to go.
| nunez wrote:
| Yup. Can't buy electronics and clothes on Sundays in NJ b/c of
| Blue Laws. Garden State Plaza, one of the largest malls in NJ,
| is still closed on Sundays because of this.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| When I last lived in the area (pre-pandemic), Garden State
| Plaza itself would be open on Sundays (the mall has a bunch
| of restaurants and a movie theater), but most shops would be
| closed. And it extended beyond electronics and clothing --
| most consumer goods would be unavailable on Sunday, and there
| was always a puzzling list of exceptions (for example,
| cosmetics could be sold, but paper notebooks could not).
| jrockway wrote:
| Can you get Amazon same-day delivery there, or is that also
| restricted?
| ricktdotorg wrote:
| shops in the UK are STILL restricted to six hours of trading on
| sundays, the law was last changed in 1994[1] and the number of
| hours that a shop may open on a sunday is determined by the
| shop's size.
|
| there are some exemptions such as airport shops, petrol or
| motorway service stations, etc.
|
| the main reason there are still legal restrictions on sunday
| trading are advocacy groups such as "Lord's Day Observance
| Society" and the "Keep Sunday Special" campaign.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Trading_Act_1994
| dljsjr wrote:
| In the US a lot of places used to have so-called "Blue Laws"
| that restricted what you were allowed to do on a Sunday. Some
| places still have reduced versions that apply specifically to
| vices; e.g. where I live in FL, alcohol sales are restricted on
| Sundays to certain times.
|
| It used to be heavily regulated in Canada (or at least
| Manitoba) until very recently as well, like some time in the
| last 20 years or so. I remember when Wal-Mart first entered
| Canada, they had a really hard time in some places because
| labor laws and blue laws prevented them from being open 24/7.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Formerly very catholic Quebec still has one of those crazy
| laws.
|
| During certain hours (such as, past 8PM on weekends),
| groceries are only allowed 4 employees. Which is almost
| impossible in those very large groceries. For many groceries,
| they just assume this is part of doing business, they would
| rather pay the fine than angering customers with long lines.
|
| https://www.economie.gouv.qc.ca/bibliotheques/conformite/ouv.
| ..
| dljsjr wrote:
| I know a lot of places in MB still open later and close
| earlier on Sunday but I don't visit as much as I used to or
| keep my pulse on the civics anymore so I don't know if
| that's convention or blue laws.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| These laws were repealed just a few months ago, actually.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| > In the US a lot of places used to have so-called "Blue
| Laws" that restricted what you were allowed to do on a
| Sunday. Some places still have reduced versions that apply
| specifically to vices; e.g. where I live in FL, alcohol sales
| are restricted on Sundays to certain times.
|
| Blue laws around vices (specifically around the sale of
| alcohol) are still commonplace in the US.
|
| However, Bergen County, NJ, still has the rare Sunday blue
| law that applies to everyday consumer goods -- you can
| purchase food and medicine on Sunday (and even alcohol after
| noon, per a state-wide vice blue law), but everything else is
| prohibited. If you visit a big-box store like a Costco or
| Walmart that sells both food and goods, large swaths of the
| store will be closed down on Sunday.
|
| https://www.wnyc.org/story/assessing-bergen-countys-blue-
| law...
| paul_f wrote:
| In New York, until 2006, liquor stores were closed on
| Sundays. Was quite common across the US
| tarentel wrote:
| It's by county in New York. Where I lived liquor stores
| were open but not until 11 or 12 I can't remember exactly
| it's been a while since I lived there. Similarly, you
| couldn't buy beer between 2am and 8am. I am probably
| misremembering the times a bit because it was a long time
| ago but that's roughly what it was where I lived in NY.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >In the US a lot of places used to have so-called "Blue Laws"
|
| Used to? Hell, in Texas, you cannot buy alcohol until after
| noon on Sundays. Still. Today, er, yesterday, but you get the
| point.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Not just that, but you can only buy beer and wine on
| Sundays, and only at places like grocery stores.
|
| Liquor stores (which also sell beer/wine) are not allowed
| to be open on Sunday, period.
|
| Note this pertains to off-premise (i.e., stores, not bars)
| only. Bars, you're free to get sloshed to your hearts
| desire on any type of alcohol and as early as 10AM on
| Sundays.
| astura wrote:
| This used to be the case in New York too, but those laws
| were repealed in 2008. It seems there's been a trend
| since around then for municipalities to slowly repeal
| alcohol blue laws as a few other places followed suit
| over the next few years.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Unless you're in a state determined to make a real-life
| Gilead where the laws are getting more restrictive than
| less. I present to you as an example the same Texas from
| earlier.
| alexilliamson wrote:
| Fun fact this is also true about Chicago except it's 11am.
| brimble wrote:
| No. In the distant past of the 1990s and earlier, lots of stuff
| was closed on Sundays. Get this: many gas stations used to
| close at night. Lots of grocery stores used to be closed by 9
| or so on a week night, if they were even open that late, and
| earlier on the weekend. Even Wal Mart closed fairly early most
| days (IIRC they started rolling out the 24/7 thing to many
| stores--though I think still not all, even today--a while after
| they introduced the "super center")
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| Not all stores are 24 hours, moved to North Carolina and the
| Wal-Mart by us closes at 11pm I believe. That's weird to me
| since it seemed like all of them in California were 24 hours.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| That's a "since the pandemic" thing. Most all were 24 hours
| for many years.
| nunez wrote:
| Plenty of Wally Worlds are still not 24/7.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Quel surprise... how could Walmart have known about Canadian
| laws beforehand. :-D
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Reminds me of Dell Schanze and Totally Awesome Computers [1] in
| Utah.
|
| [1] https://www.ksl.com/article/260958/a-look-at-super-dell-
| scha...
| rdiddly wrote:
| New York by 1987 seemed to have a jam-packed little hole in the
| wall electronics store in every block. Suddenly now I wonder if
| they were jumping on the Crazy Eddie bandwagon.
| subpixel wrote:
| The Crazy Eddie story is most interesting to me as a window into
| the highly insular and particularly successful Syrian Jewish
| diaspora.
| the-dude wrote:
| Guess who was of Syrian descent as well?
| marklar423 wrote:
| Who?
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| He's talking about Steve Jobs.
| mdorazio wrote:
| What's interesting to me is that he started with a successful
| business model that really did change the industry for the better
| in a few ways (better hours, better customer service, etc.). The
| greed and sociopathy turned that into fraud.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| It's Christmas in August!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmF2lCXV8lQ
|
| I remember the bait and switch was big with these stores. The
| stuff they advertised was not in stock, but they tried to sell
| you what they did have.
|
| I'm surprised they didn't discover what Sir Alan Sugar had: that
| you could make more money on house branded stuff made in Hong
| Kong.
| technofiend wrote:
| This was also lampooned in Adam Sandler's movie Zohan, with
| electronic store employees proclaiming everything had "Sony
| guts!".
| quercusa wrote:
| The NYC camera stores were famous for this: "That Nikon lens is
| out of stock but we've got a Zeus lens for the same price and
| it's actually a better lens".
| meatsauce wrote:
| My parents bought my first computer (Commodore 128 with printer)
| from a store in Queens. That singular act got me started down the
| road of programming and to some degree engineering.
|
| I also believe they purchased an Apple IIe from them far earlier
| but I can't be certain.
|
| I do remember when the PSU for the C128 failed, they gave us a
| new one no charge.
|
| Oh the memories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml6S2yiuSWE
| bitwize wrote:
| My dad bought me my first computer, a Commodore VIC-20, from
| Crazy Eddie's when I was 5. When people ask me how I got started
| programming, I tell them the story of the VIC-20 from Crazy
| Eddie's, often having to explain what Crazy Eddie's was if the
| questioner is a millennial or younger. The chain and especially
| the commercials were part of the cultural landscape especially in
| the northeast, and were even parodied in television and movies.
| CPLX wrote:
| The decision to do an IPO for a company that was literally not
| paying payroll taxes and keeping profits in suitcases just has to
| go down as one of the worst criminal decisions in recorded
| history.
|
| Like without the IPO I would suspect they could have gone on for
| many many years basically skimming and scamming the government,
| maybe with some eventual consequences and fines but most likely
| being able to pay their way out of it.
| mwexler wrote:
| It's fun to see this story get rediscovered every 3-5 years.
| Electronics stores, like car dealerships, appeared to need
| showboating to stand out, and that appears to be the starter-drug
| for fraud in a surprising number of cases.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| It's weird how this pattern repeats itself. Madman Muntz[1],
| who Crazy Eddie emulated, is an endlessly fascinating character
| as well. Less of a criminal, but still...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_Muntz
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Also see this documentary on Muntz:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deFlB2G0mH8
| Inhibit wrote:
| Although I'd argue Muntz, becoming a verb, probably achieved
| what Crazy Eddie claimed to have done.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Oh yeah, the impact of Muntz is huge. Both engineering-wise
| and culturally.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Who could possibly have guessed that a guy named "Crazy Eddie"
| might not be entirely honest??
| jstarfish wrote:
| I can appreciate self-disclosure. With him identifying as
| such, you're either going to get an insane deal or shanked,
| and should not be surprised by either outcome.
|
| "Honest Eddie," on the other hand-- stay away from that guy.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| surprised he didn't claim insanity; seems like a slam dunk.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Talk about showboating... there's one Polish electronics outlet
| that always aims for the most annoying advertisements and so is
| widely hated for that.
|
| https://bezprawnik.pl/czy-media-expert-celowo-denerowal-ewel...
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Electronics stores, like car dealerships, appeared to need
| showboating to stand out
|
| Reminds me of the themed Fry's Electronics stores.
| irowe wrote:
| The space-station themed Fry's store near Houston, TX
| recently closed. I only ever visited it in the twilight years
| where there was so little inventory in such a large footprint
| that it seemed like a front for something. The architecture
| and decor was definitely imaginative.
| lqet wrote:
| > Strangely, Crazy Eddie's fraudulent history gave it an
| advantage. To provide the illusion of quickly increasing profits
| ahead of the IPO, the Antars simply reduced the amount of cash
| they were skimming.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| There was someone like this as well... a man who had a
| bookstore and invested all of their profit into expansion so
| when expansion was scaled back, they could easily report
| massive profits.
| alephnan wrote:
| Are you suggesting it is the Prime customers or the investors
| who are being scammed ?
|
| I don't think it's fair to compare a growth company to this:
|
| > There was just one major problem... Crazy Eddie had been
| lying about its numbers since its inception
| kube-system wrote:
| With the _slight_ difference that "investment activities" is
| a line on a cash flow statement, and "embezzlement
| activities" usually is not.
| sleepdreamy wrote:
| Amazon is notorious for aggressively re-investing their
| profits which is why they're as massive as they are. They are
| constantly trying 30 different things at once.
|
| "You must spend money to make it", this adage is true since
| the very inception of monetary value.
|
| Not sure this is a great comparison.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| That's not really at all like the scam Crazy Eddie was doing.
| Reinvesting is perfectly legal, and so common any investor
| knows to look at revenue (and many other things), not just
| profits. In fact, I'd bet most investors would prefer profits
| be reinvested rather than paid out to investors, as the
| increase in the share price usually dwarfs the payout.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Except expanding the business itself is a perfectly valid way
| to use the business' profits. Amazon used 100% legal
| accounting measures.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| I heard about this, apparently the owner also devised a
| scheme that paid his employees so poorly he was able to get
| the federal government to subsidize his workers food using
| programs originally designed for the unemployed and disabled
| persons. To perfect his fraud he expanded his book store to
| include groceries so that he could profit on the government
| subsidies directly by having his employees buy their food
| from him.
| mturmon wrote:
| This same owner encouraged customers to avoid paying state
| sales tax on their purchases -- and then, when the state of
| California wanted to collect the tax, threatened to divest
| his company of all California workers. And then dragged his
| feet for years with threats and obfuscation to delay
| implementation.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Genius! Innovation to be lauded and copied! Whoever thought
| of this should be rewarded with more property and increased
| control over their employees and regulators.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The overlap between people on government food assistance
| and buying a significant fraction of their groceries at
| Whole Foods is probably not very high...
| ev1 wrote:
| Fresh/Go, not WF
| toss1 wrote:
| >>But Zinn immediately discovered $45m of listed inventory was
| missing.
|
| Living in Manhattan in 1983, when the cable installers came to
| hookup service, they offered us brand new TVs at about half the
| price of Crazy Eddie's stores - from what little I could find
| out, it seems they'd been recruited by Eddie's warehouse workers
| to push fell-off-the-truck / out-the-backdoor sales of Eddie's
| inventory.
|
| I'd bet that there were a lot of the appointments that bit on
| that offer. I was not surprised to see Eddie's rapidly declining
| in the following year. You just can't survive with truckloads of
| your inventory going missing every day...
|
| And reading about how he paid employees 'off the books', no
| surprise they were also freelancing off the poorly controlled
| inventory flow.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| If you just want to know, it's Crazy Eddie.
| CSactuary wrote:
| Posted on slashdot 13 hours before this...
| TomVDB wrote:
| Slashdot still exists?
| nunez wrote:
| lol sure does, though they're usually a few days behind
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Is there a point to that comment? Many of us don't follow
| slashdot.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Good thing it was posted here then, otherwise I never would
| have seen it.
|
| I've never, ever understood people pointing out "reposts" like
| it's some kind of shameful dirty act.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Shameful? No, informative. I haven't checked out slashdot for
| awhile it is good to know I'm not missing anything.
| bhartzer wrote:
| I remember Crazy Eddie's very well. I was a teenager in the
| 1980s, and I still have the portable Sony Discman I got there for
| $100. I mowed a lot of lawns in order to save up for that Sony
| Discman from Crazy Eddie's.
| carrja99 wrote:
| Not gonna lie... thought this was going to be about Radio Shack's
| rebranding as a crypto scheme.
|
| Guess that will be an article for next year.
| [deleted]
| janandonly wrote:
| I never knew that the role of "Crazy Eddie" in the series The
| First Wave [1] was in fact based on a electronics chainstore...
|
| [1]. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160277/
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Oh man, I loved that show. Late 1990s Canadian sci-fi is just
| the perfect blend of cheesy and interesting.
| erichurkman wrote:
| So was Crazy Earnie's Emporium [0] from Brave Little Toaster!
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1glJgOtyM8k
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