Comments on: Casey Serin: The world's most hated blogger?

Failed real-estate speculator finds his foreclosure blog to be wildly popular--among people who hate him and his shady dealings.
Photos: The blogger and the housing bubble

[billmosby]

New Idea for Him

Maybe he could get a "System and Method" patent on all this and
sue others of his kind out of existence.

[aspeth]

Thank You

Thank you for profiling admitted multi-state mortgage felon Casey Serin; and for including my site as a reference point calling for both Casey and Galina Serin to serve prison time for their crimes.

I apologize for the numerous asterisks you had to use in purging some of the language I used toward the dynamic dumba*ses. But know that the Casey Serin Haterz truly appreciate the depths to which you went to uncover the nefarious activities of these two.

$1.5 billion casino, my left arm.....let's all hold our breath until that happens!

[CommandHerTaco]

People worship money.

It is no wonder that people hate him. He defiles their god.

[Too Old For IT]

I hate Galina too!

She is the poster child for all the sexy girls who flocked to their slick bad-boy guys and treated me and other geeks as if we were beneath contempt during my teens and 20's.

Galina, you married your slickster, and now you have to clean houses instead of walking around the upscale stores looking cute. Good.

No form of debasement is enough for her type.

[CommandHerTaco]

My God you have issues.

You should spend some of your upscale income on a couple of upscale prostitutes.

[thedreaming]

Flipping

Flipping houses should be illegal. If you buy a house, it's because you need to move to a new area for one reason or another. You shouldn't buy a house strictly to make a profit from its sale. I know of a few people that now have multiple mortgages because of failed attempts at flipping. It's not worth it.

[Lex Man]

Flipping

Sorry, I live in the UK and my friend does that for a living. Buying run down houses, revamping them and then selling it on for a profit.

Just cause some idiot run up a load of dept doing it doesn't mean it's not profitble for everyone.

[WileySkier]

sucks but...

it's capitalism at it's best! Lex Man is right. If you were doing it and making tons of money, you would not be saying anything about it. Let's say your neighbor invested heavily in Enron or some other stock and lost his house, car and everything else. Would you say investing in stocks is illegal? It's not the people flipping who should be held accountable...it's the mortgage institutions who lend people money without doing enough background checks.

[sanenazok]

that would suck too much

Having the ability to profit from land/real estate is one of the reasons why America doesn't suck.

It's hard enough for the government to go after people who commit "regular" crimes, like this blogger who's a fraud and a liar, just imagine what would happen if there was an "anti-flipping" law. There are already any number of disincentives for this sort of behavior - mostly having to pay income tax on sale profits if you live somewhere less than three years. I bet you tax is one of the reasons what killed the deals for this dude.

Anyways, flipping only seems profitable when an area is overheated and in bubble mode. These people are punished enough when the bubble bursts. So there's no need to make it illegal...just more houses for auction later on.

[Zupek]

Only people are to blame

are the extremely rich banks and people that keep funding him. Its not his fault for trying, its obvious that he has to do finicially stupid things to make his "fame" continue. If you want to point the finger, point it @ two things 1) MONEY, it is the root of all evil. Exchanges for goods and services was a better solution but has now been diluted by the exchange of money 2) AMERICA. money and america go hand in hand (just like the powers that be have always wanted). The once was, american freedom is now american finicial freedom. Yes you can come over here and do this or do that, but you cant do that without that thing called MONEY. America is probably one of the "dumbest" and "laziest" populations out there. We complain about $4dollars/a gallon prices and yet we set a record for sales. We expect the best and demand no changes to our current way of life. wake up, we(america) arent that important. Try paying 6-8 dollars a liter!

[J_Satch]

Where to start...

It's odd how the "dumbest and laziest population out there" (speak for yourself, please) just happens to be the most economically productive as well. Just lazy dumb luck, I guess.

"Money and America go hand in hand." How true. Why did we Americans ever invent money in the first place? Humanity got along just fine without money before we invented it!

"Try paying 6-8 dollars a liter!" No thanks. If you would like to, however, I'll be glad to open a service station near you!

So many easy nitpicks (not to mention spelling and grammar errors, but I guess you need that damn MONEY to learn how to spell and write), so little time...

[suyts]

What is wrong with you?

Your not one of those self-loathing American apologists, are you? I believe the quote is " The love of money is the root of all evil." Money simply allows a way to put a value on the goods and services exchanged. Nothing more and nothing less. And, yes we are that important. I would take the time to list all the reasons why we are important and why you should realize why we are important but I'm afraid that I've already lost you. If not, respond and I'll fill you in.

[Broward Horne]

Casey, the Anti-Meme

My analysis and projections for Casey's site (IAmFacingForeclosure.com) from several months ago regarding anomalous traffic movement of his website. :)

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=an_anti_meme_casey_serin

[solrosenberg]

Barter

Hahaha. Yeah, let's get rid of money and go back to barter. Anyone want to trade lunch for 10 lines of code?

[ajbright]

You have to wonder

If bloggers really do hate him that much. After all they have to know that by giving him this much notoriety they've effectively given him an income, or worse, may in the end make the guy rich.

Fortunately his track record shows he will probably just blow anything he makes away, still it seems to me that the best move would be to simply ignore people like this.

Can't say as I hate the guy myself, his so called crimes aren't all that significant when you compare them to Tyco or Enron - the true gods of destroying peoples lives.

Finally you can't go to prison for being in debt. You can go to prison if you committed fraud to get yourself into debt, such as lying on a mortgage application about your income, but otherwise the worst that can happen is you'll end up with bad credit, no home and have your wages garnished to pay back creditors.

Can't say I feel sorry for though, probably deserves everything he's getting.

[Nigel Swaby]

What about me?

I'm quite honestly fed up with all the media exposure that Serin is getting. I am an AWARD WINNING blogger from Salt Lake City and many people link to me as authoritative.

My success in Real Estate and Olympic Pin Sales have brought me untold riches and it is me who should be held up by the press as a role model.

Just today I was sitting in my expansive garden. I gazed into the 28,000 gallon pond with koi (which are fish)in it and I said to myself, "Nigel, you have everything anyone could want. You have a BMW, you have 12 blogs, you have a POOL... IN YOUR HOUSE; What more could you really want in life?"

Later, when I was sitting in my professionally designed kitchen, I leaned against the high grade counter top and the answer came to me... I want to be just like Casey Serin. Even the love of the entire Jamaican Bobsled Team cannot fill the void in my heart.

I have seen many things in my life. I have met Ziggy Marley, for Christ sake. I have worn the finest leatherette and doused my body in the fancy body spray. I have deleted many comments and I am stickier than any of you will ever know- but I have never had the love of the media.

WHAT ABOUT ME?

[Bobbydog234]

Playing by the rules as they were designed

Once these folks come out of those "classes" to get rich in real
estate on someone elses money the first thing they need is a
willing lender to participate in the scheme.

I spent four very successful years in the mortgage business in
the 1990's being ethical, but there were tons of people will to do
just about anything to "do a loan". About once a week I got
someone coming through trying to do what Casey Serin was
doing. Stated income, buyer paying the closing, owner
occupied...you name it. All you had to do was check the credit
to know what they and he was doing.

Casey looks like he had a lot of (or just one) mortgage brokers
helping him do stupid and very illegal things. Time for Casey
and the sleazy brokers to go get real jobs.

[lwp13]

The New Melt Down

The only thing crazier than the loose mortgage business could be the dot com mania. Will the lost ad revenues hurt these same companies, once these mortgage companies flame out?

[NoVista]

well said, bobbydawg :)

especially mortgage ... sleaze brokers.

Like, going back to Enron, there wasn't any voice in AmeriKa would believe it wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. And why?

Because the Wall St. shills on down [not to mention Ken Lay's personal buddy he advised, George Dumbyah!] told the truth. Any decent bookkeeper could have taken a look and said, Where's the product, where's the expense, where's the profit? But no, our financial masters advised thousands to leap into this sure thing. And all were surprised, and no one said "Same, shame, you gits!"

So, yeah, Lay et al got busted. Lay had a convenient heard attack and quick cremation -- so is he in Paraguay now? or is it Uruguay. The experts cannot quite get that one straight ...

I was totally unfamiliar with the specific individual of this article, though following the housing-bubble story for months. And the conclusion for me is inescapable: is it the greedy, such as this case, or the slime who work the system to suck fools into it, who are really responsible?

I remember this apocryphal story of a woman who gets to school late, just in time to hear her son's speech " ... yeah, and my dad's a drug dealer."

Mom drags him out by the elbow and demands to know how he could tell such a lie.

"Well," the son said. "I'd already told them you were a hooker."

"WHAT?!!!"

"Yeah, well, mom ... I didn't want to confess you were a real estate agent and dad was a hedge fund broker."

[declan00]

More details on Casey and our News.com article

Folks:

I wanted to respond to some questions about Casey and my article:

* The links to his site, iamfacingforeclosure.com, didn't work because he was transitioning servers to one hosted by godaddy.com and was having some problems with the move. Unfortunately he chose to do this on a Monday morning instead of over the weekend, when having the site up wasn't as vital.

* The article was edited a bit for space and some of the last section was abbreviated. To elaborate: Galina told me that she initially had agreed with Casey that he should go to Tahoe but then rescinded her permission after considering the cost. She was suspicious when Casey packed his toothbrush and laptop for what was supposed to be a brief drive to go bike riding, and her suspicions turned out to be accurate.

* She forced Casey to return the $600 video camera even with a 15 percent restocking fee.

* Casey said his business credit has a relative as a guarantor, I believe his mother.

* As for "Nouveau Riche University," Casey told me that he has paid them $16,000 but has not made any commissions by signing up the first two people. The first two generated no commissions. Future signups will generate commissions.

* More photos are here:
http://mccullagh.org/theme/casey-serin-iamfacingforeclosure.html

* Our podcast talking about Casey is here (http://news.com.com/2324-11424_3-6183605.html). We asked him to join us but he said he didn't get the message in time. We may have him on our podcast on Wednesday if our schedules coincide.

* Yes, he showed me the murse. Very fashion-forward.

-Declan

[dnheller]

The end of responsibility

People like Serin subvert the values and principles that built the United States. Why be honest and responsible if you can lie and walk away from debt without responsibility and with little consequence? Serin and his ilk push us further towards disorder and lawlessness.

[nigels guest blogger]

Hated?

Casey Serin is doing his best to quickly reshape his image, sadly that seems to be a moving target based on whatever knuckleheaded scheme dangles in front of him.

Much like the attention Casey receives, this article tends to just look at the surface (maybe a little under it with the Haterz analysis). Exurban Nation is the hub of the group of folks that have followed this trainwreck for a long time. I don't think anyone there hates Casey, they just know two things.

Initially, people were very receptive and tried to offer much help and great advice in the beginning of this saga. But what unfolded kept people around. Turns out Casey isn't really an entrepreneur as he likes to portray himself, but jsut a low-level scammer who's tried many times to "get rich quick" without actually doing anything. Whether it's actual fraud or other pyramid schemes Casey Serin has a history of trying to play the system only to meet with failure.

Many of these exploits can be found on the other Serin Satellite sites like Foreclosure Avoiders Changed My Life, Twelve Years Of Being Annoyed By Chloe Sevigny, Blog about a blog about a blog about a blog, What Casey Means..." and many more.

I don't think any of us hate Casey, I personally think he should shut down and give up his dreams of striking it rich without working. I think most of the Haterz just want to make sure that a once and future get rich quick artist should be shown for what he is, not just the shallow "victim" that has been portrayed in most articles.

He's dug him self a hole that is going to take a long, long time for him to dig out of.

[jefframse]

Another Reality show.. "in reality".. is ok

WE all have something valuable here, An Example. More settled people may not be as profitable to Serin as the riled up detractors who give their time and interest to him. We all have an example of sorts to learn from. Sometimes the best way to learn is from failures and hardships. What better way than to extrapolate these lessons from another person's life? I have no grudge against Serin for his actions nor for his current mode of success. At the very least it is a function of the market and better yet for me it is an opportunity to learn about people from his example.

[alanknight]

casey serin

Baa! Baaa! Baaaaa!The ease with which agents and PR people can turn a freak/ne`er do well/crook, whatever into a million dollar money spinner is beyond beleif. This fella would fit right in most lots of places. Financial ineptitude is everywhere. What am I saying, this time next year he`ll be a millionaire. Baaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

[jhoarty]

In Defense of Casey

Here's a different take on Casey: <http://www.quickestore.com/wordpress/index.php/2007/05/18/in-defense-of-casey-serin/>

[George Barr]

Indian companies discriminate against U.S. citizens for U.S. jobs

Quoting from this Information week article

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199602025

"... Wipro and Satyam note that H-1B workers make up most of their U.S. staffs."

These are H-1b dependent companies, are making no effort to hire U.S. citizens into these U.S. jobs. Satyam, Wipro, and Tata openly discriminate against U.S. citizens for U.S. jobs.

A company with more than 15% of their employees on an h-1b (and these companies are well above that), has to make a good faith effort to hire a U.S. citizen. These Indian It outsourcing companies are not doing that.

Clearly they are breaking U.S. law. The George Bush Department of Labor is doing nothing about this.

In open testimony before Congress, a job applicant made a phone call to a recruiting agency for a U.S. job. She was told they would not interview her, despite her excellent qualifications, simply because she could not be sponsored for an h-1b Visa. This incident was witnessed by dozens of congressional personnel. The George Bush Department of Labor did nothing about this.

Senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley are merely asked for information regarding the hiring and firing practices of these outsourcing companies. And as a result the Indian Commerce Minister is threatening trade sanctions against the United States, for merely asking for such information.

This is a huge cover-up of discrimination againt U.S. workers because of their national origin, on the part of companies operating in the United States. It is so big, that whole governments are motivated to cover it up, that is why India is threatening trade sanctions against the U.S. for even asking questions. And the George-Bush Department of Labor is doing nothing (absolutely nothing) to stop it.

It is time to shine a light onto the biggest case of open discrimination based upon national origin, EVER, in the United States.

Federal Laws against discrimination are being broken. And the United States is being threatened with trade sanctions for asking questions about it, talking about, thinking about it.

[svadoe]

Should he become the next Apprentice?

He should apply for the next Apprentice

[jaimekaren]

Casey's fleeing back to Uzbekistan

Casey is selling his blog :
http://www.myebid.com/cgi-bin/auction/view?cmd=view&listingID=4046



?iamfacingforeclosure.com is now for sale, the Feds are getting too close and I am fleeing back to Uzbekistan, it was fun why it lasted. Thanks everyone!?

[mikenyc2001]

selling his blog?

http://iamfacingforeclosure.com/249/sell-my-foreclosure-blog-for-100000

why buy it for 100K or more
when the better option would be
iamfacingbankruptcy.com being auctioned

https://www.tdnam.com/trpItemListing.aspx?&miid=7623644