A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by jessaustin on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @09:44AM (#16754586)

He called a friend — a military veteran with contacts at the FBI — and soon the bureau unearthed a suspicious legal trail and launched a criminal investigation. In that case, Ervine handed over the information he had collected on the family and spoke with law enforcement.

He thought the matter was over. Yalincak was convicted of fraud, sentenced to 42 months in prison and then deported.

If one hasn't been on the wrong end of this kind of situation, one might miss the significance of this part of the story. It could be argued that NPR is actually misrepresenting this process, by omitting the certain fact that Ervine paid this "friend" tens of thousands of dollars for this FBI-as-my-own-taxpayer-supported-private-investigation-and-fast-track-to-federal-prosecution-service. Much of that money either has or will make its way back to the FBI agents who did "the work" on this case. Yes Virginia, this is corruption. Normal citizens don't have Hoover's Gang at their beck and call anytime they're disappointed by a business experience.

Since FBI can generally make a case against any innocent victim who comes to their attention, it's far from clear that Yalincak ever actually did anything wrong. ("proposed a sham hedge fund"? What the hell is that?) It is clear that this Asian immigrant and his family disappointed this rich well-connected asshole WASP Ervine in some business deal, and then he spent 42 months in federal PMITAP. Any human being would be frustrated with that situation, and might even publish his account of that frustration online. (Which account seems to have disappeared into some memory hole, but maybe that's the point?)

Fuck Jeff Ervine, and fuck anyone who uses his wealth to hide the fact that wealth is based on fucking people over. Question: do we think little Jeff has something to do with this URL?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakan_Yalincak

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by dang on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @04:56PM (#16758976)

Whatever reasonable argument you were making here is canceled by the rant at the end, which breaks the site guidelines. Please don't do that. You may not owe better to Mr. Ervine but you do owe better to the community you're participating in.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by kitsy on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @10:19AM (#16754905)

Can you cite a source that Jeff Ervine paid for access to the FBI? An admittedly quick search didn't show anything making that claim.

Also, that URL redirect appears to be because "this person was only notable for one event." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editor_assistance/Re...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by jessaustin on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @10:37AM (#16755094)

This sort of thing is not reported. Ask yourself: if you had a business disagreement, could you reach out to a good friend and get the other side thrown in prison for years? You have no particular reason to believe me, but I have seen a similar situation play out for a friend of the family. This is a person of spotless ethics, who had never done anything untoward in business, but who nonetheless was entrapped into a federal conviction and loss of career.

If the word "Yalincak" doesn't appear on the page "List of Ponzi schemes", it seems problematic to redirect his name to that page. This implies something while offering no evidence for that implication. The discussion you link seems to imply that the oft-cited New York Magazine article was retracted, but I can find no proof of that.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by kitsy on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @11:43AM (#16755780)

You said NPR is "omitting the certain fact that Ervine paid this "friend" tens of thousands of dollars", then offer no proof and say "This sort of thing is not reported". It's not really a certain fact then, is it? It's just your assumption.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by jwilk on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @04:14PM (#16758569)

Mention of Yalincak was removed by an anonymous editor in March 2015:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Ponzi_sch...

Edit summary for this change was "added a hyphen and fixed a grammatical error". Hmmmm.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by isleyaardvark on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @10:23AM (#16754932)

A simple Google search suggests otherwise. How you managed to find that Wikipedia link and not do a Google search is beyond me.

https://www.google.com/search?q=hakan+yalincak

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by sdoering on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @09:53AM (#16754667)

You are really making an elaborate case with your well thought out arguments and your classy choice of words.

If ever one needs proof of the validity of an argumentation it would be delivered right in your style.

Sorry for my cynicism here. But ad hominem cursing and the defamation of people not able to defend themselves with unproven allegations is really below the HN standards (at least I hope that to be the case).

[Edit:] Typo

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by jessaustin on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @10:09AM (#16754800)

Clearly, Ervine is quite able to defend himself. I'm betting that if I never have any direct communication with him, he won't be able to get me sent to federal PMITAP. Fingers crossed!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by pjc50 on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @09:54AM (#16754676)

Is the story about the $25m forged cheque true, or not? http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/12070/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by boombox521 on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:21PM (#16817500)

NY Mag was sued at least when I looked up the case and there appears to be a notice of settlement posted on the docket. I believe they settled. Sometimes it makes more sense to get money than ask for a retraction when coming out of prison :-)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by jessaustin on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @10:06AM (#16754766)

I have no way of knowing. After all, only one side of the argument is allowed to speak in a voice that I can hear.

Assume that detail is true. Should that mean that Yalincak is silenced? Should we assume that only one side of any business deal can act improperly?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A man who spent $100K to remove a lie from Google by boombox521 on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:20PM (#16817492)

The NPR story has been retracted. Jeff Ervine lied, got called out, and for an anti-cyber bully activist, he did exactly what he complained of. The NPR link has a retraction posted at the link, on Facebook, and on its Twitter feed.

[ Parent | on HN ]