Customer Abusing Online Seller Arrested
A person would never really expect the US Postal Inspector to come knocking at their door one day with an arrest warrant but that is exactly what happened to Vitaly Borker. Borker, a Russian immigrant, is the man behind DecorMyEyes.com, a designer eyeglass company on the internet. Borker made headlines last week by bolstering his search engine ranking with negative comments posted to other websites.
Borker launched a rather unique plan to increase the traffic to his website. He had a customer who complained about his customer service and posted the complaint on a website, complete with a link to the DecorMyEyes.com site. Borker soon realized that he was receiving traffic from the complaint site.
He then started abusing his customers, forcing them to post complaints. The next thing he knew he was receiving more traffic than ever and was making piles of cash. But the problems started when he got out of hand with the abuse. Things took a turn when he threatened a woman who was nine months pregnant with sexual assault and continued to call her with threats.
The woman went to the police and the investigation started. When the story broke Google quickly changed its algorithm to prevent similar actions by other online sellers and the Postal Inspector moved in.
Borker has been charged with mail fraud, for selling counterfeit items, harassment and intimidation as well as other criminal charges. He faces a total of 50 years in prison if convicted on all counts. He was ordered held without bail in New York.
