Booming Bookkeeping Business

A summary of what happened?

Booming Bookkeeping Business, founded by Bill Von Fumetti, offers a course that claims to help individuals start a successful bookkeeping business without prior experience. However, the program has been met with several concerns, complaints, and accusations from participants and reviewers. Here are some of the major issues:

1. Misleading Marketing Claims: One of the biggest concerns is that the course promises that anyone, even without a bookkeeping background, can quickly start a profitable business. Many participants have expressed doubts about these claims, arguing that a solid understanding of accounting principles is essential, which the course doesn’t fully provide. Critics believe that the course oversimplifies what is needed to succeed in the bookkeeping field.
2. Issues with Tools and Support: Several users have complained about problems with setting up key tools, such as QuickBooks’ ProAdvisor feature, which is necessary for client acquisition. Some participants, particularly those located outside the U.S., reported difficulties in getting listed on the ProAdvisor directory, a key component of the course’s client acquisition strategy. Despite reaching out for support, they felt the course’s leadership did not provide adequate solutions.
3. Payment and Refund Complaints: Participants have raised concerns about the payment plan structure, finding it difficult to cancel once enrolled. Some reported that when they tried to cancel, they were met with additional fees. Complaints about how disputes were handled, such as removing participants from affiliate programs and community groups after complaints, have added to the negative feedback surrounding customer service.

These issues have led to growing frustration among students, with some questioning whether the course delivers on its promises and whether the costs are justified given the limited content and challenges faced.

Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)

Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.

What was Booming Bookkeeping Business trying to hide?

Booming Bookkeeping Business‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling Booming Bookkeeping Business in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information Booming Bookkeeping Business may be trying to remove from the internet –

Booming Bookkeeping Business, created by Bill Von Fumetti, has attracted significant attention and criticism from users and reviewers due to various concerns and complaints. While some find value in the course, several negative reviews and allegations have emerged:

1. Overpromising on Outcomes: Many participants have expressed concerns that the course overpromises on the ease and speed of success. The marketing materials suggest that students can easily start a booming bookkeeping business and quickly secure clients, but participants argue that the course does not provide enough comprehensive information about the challenges involved in building a business from scratch. Additionally, users have reported that the program does not adequately address key bookkeeping fundamentals, which are essential for success, making it less effective for individuals without prior knowledge.
2. Payment and Cancellation Issues: Many customers have reported difficulty canceling their subscriptions. The course has a strict payment plan requiring 12 monthly payments of $197, and users have expressed frustration when they attempted to cancel, only to be hit with additional fees. Some even claim they were charged for services they no longer wished to use, making the program feel financially burdensome.
3. Lack of Support for International Users: International participants have complained about the lack of adequate support, particularly when it comes to setting up a QuickBooks ProAdvisor profile. While the course suggests that participants from outside the U.S. can still thrive, many international users have faced challenges in getting their ProAdvisor profile listed, which is a crucial tool for client acquisition. This has left some feeling misled by the program’s promises.

These concerns have led to mixed feedback about Booming Bookkeeping Business, with many calling for greater transparency in marketing and better customer support.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of Booming Bookkeeping Business (or actors working on behalf of Booming Bookkeeping Business), we will inform Booming Bookkeeping Business of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that Booming Bookkeeping Business may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from Booming Bookkeeping Business, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to Booming Bookkeeping Business to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –

Since Booming Bookkeeping Business made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally

We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which Booming Bookkeeping Business is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for Booming Bookkeeping Business

Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.

Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.

Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.”  Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).

Is Booming Bookkeeping Business Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. Booming Bookkeeping Business used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. Booming Bookkeeping Business could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.

Faced with these limitations, some companies like Booming Bookkeeping Business have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. Booming Bookkeeping Business is certainly keeping interesting company here….

The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.

Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.

Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi

The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.

Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by Booming Bookkeeping Business creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.

The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.

The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.

In committing numerous offences, Booming Bookkeeping Business either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about Booming Bookkeeping Business, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.

The Reputation Laundering

Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.

The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.

In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.

This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.

Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. Booming Bookkeeping Business is in great company ….

What else is Booming Bookkeeping Business hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [Booming Bookkeeping Business] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)

To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on Booming Bookkeeping Business that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].

All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.