Amazon Sellers ASGTG

🚨A wild 🧵19 thread on a different type of lawfare.  

In Sept 2020, I was the lead defender of a 100$ Million criminal conspiracy.

I never had a chance to refute the allegations, and there is no due process once indicted for a regular citizen in such a type of case.

I explain that in this article https://medium.com/@effyrosenberg/1b17682215ee

It appears Amazon used backdoor connections to the DOJ to "make it happen."

WHY?
Amazon was motivated to stop me because I raised concerns about how it mistreats legitimate US sellers, so they submitted this indictment to stop me under the guise of "stopping corruption," knowing the "process is the punishment" and taking advantage of the DOJs unfamiliarity of the industry.

This is commonly referred to as lawfare.  I will now debunk the indictment.

You can follow along here as I debunk. Ask me if I missed anything.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/six-indicted-connection-multi-million-dollar-scheme-bribe-amazon-employees-and

A🧵/1 of 19

Firstly, ASGTG is not a "consulting company," as wrongly mentioned in the indictment, but a loosely connected group/union whose stated mission is to educate sellers to learn the rules so that we can follow them and thrive and to help Amazon have fairer & clearer rules. We are Pro TOS and Pro Amazon. I also urgently surface incorrect suspensions so Amazon can correct them, which is good.

You can read more about ASGTG here, including how it started and its great relationship with Amazon.

https://x.com/AmazonASGTG/status/1881709165673845045

/ 2

💀💀
In Oct 2017, my emails and email list were hacked by some bad actors, and I was threatened with mass email attacks to my members with false defamatory info against me to damage my reputation.

More here https://medium.com/asgtg/the-amazon-bribery-scandal-8b3eaefae265

The hackers tried to get me to partner up and drag me into this black hat world to make it look like ASGTG was involved in nefarious activity. Of course, I refused.

They stole my email list in an attempt to pressure me to comply.  Having no one to turn to for help, I “befriended” my attackers in the hopes of fostering a “relationship” to give them something to lose if they made good on their threat.

The seemingly incriminating emails on the indictment are the Black hatters sensationalizing everything and me either ignoring or nervously “playing along” to prevent an attack. ,

With this background, all of the out-of-character conversations are explained: ✅✅

I was only connected to a few isolated acts on the indictment, and all were wrong or missing context. I had nothing to do with everything else (sabotage, llama cash, takedowns, insider reinstatement), and I only first heard the majority of those events from the indictment. I will explain the isolated emails.

/3 🧵just getting started

With this additional information, everything is easily debunked.

On Jan 13, 2018, I was offered insider reinstatement when I did not need insider reinstatement since the whole point of ASGTG is to help sellers survive legitimately, and I opened 1000s of accounts for free via legitimate channels.

You can see more here on the ethical escalations https://x.com/AmazonASGTG/status/1881709175765361106

Being offered illegal activity without actually doing it is not a crime. I was communicating to prevent mass email attacks. This is why there was never corroboration from any sellers; it never happened.

/ 4

This is one out of the 12k accounts I worked on that is still open, and there was some confusion in the chaos.

I explain below what happened and how I handled this wrong, but sometimes, under extreme blackmail, you can make a mistake. This was no crime.

This article https://medium.com/asgtg/primegoodsobsession-81e8b4ebcbc5 shows how wrong the indictment was, EVEN on this one account.   /5

Once again, the Black Hat consultant sensationalized these conversations (I was responding to under blackmail) to give Amazon + DOJ "something" on Ed, which this was about.

DOJ+ Amazon took the bait.

I was kibbitzing to prevent mass email attacks. There are no corresponding payments, and anyone who knows me knows I do not talk like that and do not need shady insiders when I am communicating so often with Amazon executives.

Communicating with someone under blackmail to prevent mass email attacks is not a crime against America, even if Amazon says so.

A misreading of the facts.  /6

I was sent a hyperlink PDF by someone blackmailing me, and I said, "Wow, cool," to placate him. I am unsure how that's a crime, nor do I know what the PDF was.

It's also interesting that we jumped from March 5, 2018, to Feb 21, 2019, 11 months, and nothing on Ed Rosenberg, so clearly, this was not thought through.

The $350 was "giving into blackmail" communication, so I got some notes from him as a way to prevent mass email attacks. If using "some notes" (which I only got because of blackmail in this case) from 2019 is bribery, then at least 99% of long-term Amazon sellers are guilty, which shows how zero investigating was done.

I did not know I could do something that was NOT an Amazon TOS violation but was suddenly a felony against Ed Rosenberg when Amazon needed a crime on me.

https://medium.com/p/abdef420ccc1 More on "inside info"

https://medium.com/p/fc8393ef2679 (proof it was not about "inside info") /7

More communication from someone emailing me, which I cannot stop. If someone emails me and I do not accept the offer, this is not a crime, so much more when I am only responding under pressure, trying to prevent a mass email attack.

If I wanted black hat methods, then it was wide open at shows and Facebook groups, and if the indictment didn't know that, then it's disappointing.

Every Amazon seller knows this to be true, and ASGTG is the antidote to this. Here are some samples

https://medium.com/asgtg/realblackhat-7f59a69164c4

/8

On Sept 23, 2019, I was mass-emailed from an unknown alias with defamatory information sent to the whole seller's community.

This was all false, and no account was suspended, but what I tried to avoid with the above conversations happened. 

Instead of the DOJ going after those criminals, they came after me for helping sellers via legitimate channels and falsely claiming I was part of this conspiracy that hacked me, blackmailed me, terrorized me, and mass-emailed me.

This is what happens when you do things not in the interest of justice /9

Cash in UBER!!!! 🚕🚕🚕

The Uber story was another piece of “evidence” wholly taken out of context. I paid a Black Hat consultant cash in response to a direct threat of blackmail consisting of mass email attacks if I did not comply. 

Not paying would have resulted in attacks against the Amazon VPs I was working with to damage my relationship with some of these execs. Granted, I did not have to be that dramatic and send cash in an Uber, but I was scared and wanted to send the requested cash to placate them and move on with the great work ASGTG does. I did not want to be tied to the black hat in any way, shape, or form, so I did what I felt at the time would achieve that result to prevent mass email attacks and harassment. This explains why the indictment never mentioned the Uber story again and opted for other “sins” that quickly imploded later.

It also explains why the indictment kept switching, pivoting, adjusting, and rearranging facts about what I did wrong as the case began to unravel, as those conversations made no sense on their own.  /10

More communication in which the black hat sensationalized everything to give the feds what they wanted: "something on "ED"  to show Amazon they delivered.  🧵 It's about to get crazier / 11 

Now for THE Mistake of the indictment, client-1. 🙃

A large suspended seller went to the black hat consultants who may have had shady insiders at Amazon and offered $200K for reinstatement. The black hat was unable to reinstate the account.

The seller then came to me, and I explained that I open accounts legitimately and ethically only if it's a true false positive. 

After verifying that the account seemed legitimate, I emailed a senior Amazon employee for Client-1, asking for another look.

So far, no crime. Keep going...   / 12

The senior Amazon employee opened it after investigating the merits with the email below.

I charged nothing to the seller like always. I have done this over 1200 times successfully, and this is via legitimate Amazon channels where Amazon makes the decision on the account, not insider reinstatement.

In this article, I explain the difference between ethical reinstatement, which I did, and insider reinstatement, which the indictment largely ignored but should not have.

https://medium.com/asgtg/ethicalescalations-95de3d2895bc

/ 13

🖼️
$55k was then thrown into my account without my approval. A modern-day frame job that the DOJ+ Amazon fell for hook, line & sinker.

As you can see in i) others said: "..somebody high up and paid them to save his account." 

I cannot control that, and I was not in that conversation.

That account did 100m$ in sales, so that made ME the lead defender in a 100m$ scheme.

It gets much worse.

/14

For this, 30 FBI agents from Seattle came to my house in Brooklyn to exercise a search warrant armed with assault rifles in the middle of a pandemic while the Occupy Seattle Chop was raging.

They terrorized my family, emptying my kid’s school knapsacks and checking their school uniforms, looking for the cash I was suspected of sending to Amazon Seller Performance Senior executives in Seattle.

But there was no cash to be found because the allegations were preposterous. A peaceful, law-abiding family was treated like criminals simply because of the misperception that what I did for client-1 was somehow part of some pay-for-play scheme. I know nothing about client-2 or anything else stated in the indictment.

A shocking injustice that should not happen again in America.

The search warrant was obtained because I use WhatsApp and I send invoices. How did this happen?

@HawleyMO @elonmusk @PamBondi @Amy_K_Nelson

/ 15

I was then tied to everything THOSE consultants ever did since we were now connected on that client-1 account and now accused of sabotage, fake docs, deleting negative reviews, and all the horrific things ASGTG worked so hard to make obsolete.

I was shamed throughout the world for something I didn't do without anyone taking as much as a second to identify the contradictions.

/16

It was a made-for-TV indictment that was not based on a true story that got the facts wrong on me with no way to refute it. How is this justice?

/17 

You can read much more about the lawfare Amazon used simply because I was giving voice in a respectful way to legitimate sellers.

https://medium.com/p/f99ab6f25d91/ Index

https://medium.com/p/db3fd03c9f97/ Every Myth debunked

https://medium.com/p/3c4c6cd9747e/ Why Ed Rosenberg was the lead defender

https://ft83.medium.com/fb75b6350972 Seller reaction to this.

/18

I also started a pardon petition to correct this historical wrong, and I hope you can sign and share it.

https://www.change.org/PardonASGTG

Should @realDonaldTrump @PamBondi @HawleyMO   pardon this, it would send a clear message that all kinds of weaponization against innocent American citizens are not acceptable. The seller community wants this.

@elonmusk @libsoftiktok @EithanHaim @Amy_K_Nelson @Kash_Patel

https://medium.com/p/9f6fb005825e/ Common sense changes needed in the justice dept.

(Please note I do not disavow the apology and the plea on some notes)

 /19 (End of 🧵)

There were also DOJ+Amazon failed entrapments, including a fake Black hat website, fake black hat offers, fake black hat consultants, and fake black hat telegram groups, all of which failed to lure me into doing anything wrong.

DOJ got duped by Amazon + the other consultants, and I paid a heavy price.

All the while, 1000s of others WERE doing illegal activity publicly, causing havoc to the marketplace.

More in this article on the failed entrapments

https://medium.com/asgtg/the-amazon-bribery-scandal-8b3eaefae265#9c07

@RepYvetteClarke @RepJeffries @SenSchumer @SenGillibrand your my local representative. Please see this.

@RepYvetteClarke @RepJeffries @SenSchumer @SenGillibrand @PaulIngrassia @Kash_Patel please see this thread as well as @Amy_K_Nelson . It's a no brainer.