Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Casey Serin: An elaborate hoax?

Everybody loves a good conspiracy theory. Take the Flat Earth Society's opinion on the Apollo Moon Landings. I propose here that one should consider that Casey Serin's story on iamfacingforeclosure.com is an elaborate internet hoax, like Primate Programming Inc. Here are a few reasons:

  1. Nobody could get in 2.2 million dollars in debt so quickly at such a young age with no employment history. It's true that 0% down no-doc neg-amortization loans have been out of a while, but 8 properties? Didn't the subprime mortgage market start to collapse in 2006? Then again, Casey Serin wonders aloud why is my credit score so high, since it takes a few months for one's credit rating to be affected.
  2. Despite Casey's loathing of "haters", Casey is willing to put up a collection of satire on himself. This is an indication to me that the whole site itself is satire.
  3. Even though Casey Serin is constantly mocked and parodied in comments and in other blogs for abuse of the word "sweet", Jamba Juice product placements, and obsession with wheatgrass shots, he continues to do so. Even today, he has a whole post dedicated to juice.
  4. Deliberate irony in several posts. The foremost on my mind is the post entitled Homess Dude Trespassing on my Property, despite the fact that he himself is homless (he lives with in-laws) and soon will not own the property either. Another is the post with the foreclosure auction, where the auctioneer is wearing a hat that says "flop", and uses a trashcan as a podium. There is also the above-mentioned posting of satire pictures.
  5. Despite comitting mortgage fraud on a massive scale, among other scams, the State and Federal governments have not yet used him as a posterboy for mortgage fraud, despite his high profile public image.
  6. Nobody posting on Casey Serin's blog has yet met him in person, as far as I've read in the comments (can somebody prove me wrong?).
Despite all of that, there are a number of things that are not in my favor:
  1. Numerous photographs of properties that would be time consuming to steal from other pages, and pictures of events that require paying for entry.
  2. Pictures of legal and financial notices that might be tough to fake.
  3. Appearances in the media and with Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) that would make it difficult to fake one's story.
  4. The fact that many real estate purchases were timed to have a minimal impact on credit score (though this may not have been intentional), and they were done in multiple states to allow for easier committal of fraud.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

First Post

Setting up a blog has become almost painless these days, so I decided to join the foray. I'll be looking forward to making posts on various topics in the near term. A few topics that have been rattling around in my brain have been: posthumanism (or transhumanism), Casey Serin, forthcoming deflationary collapse, peak oil, programming, and so forth. Stay tuned.