Brian Kennedy and How Ed 2 Go was Used to Bilk Jobseekers

This was passed to me by someone very special. I usually ask if you want to be credited. Didn’t ask this time. Just let me know if you did. Particularly before I forget it was you that sent me this, which happens often.

Everybody else, remember this is just a complaint. These are just allegations. I haven’t seen any other documents on this case, so view it through the lens of allegations.

The quick version is that Cengage, d/b/a Ed 2 Go, a/k/a the people that were apparently working with BlueLedge to draw people into digital court reporting in a way that I found dishonest and arguably defamatory, was working with a man named Brian Kennedy according to this Colorado Attorney General’s complaint. It starts off really well. The man uses like four different pseudonyms for his business dealings. Allegedly.

And Brian even owned the National Association of Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives and the National Association of Medical Sales Representatives.

The allegations, as I understand them from a skim or two, are that the guy basically lies about the products/services he offers and uses pseudonyms, fake organizations, and fake emails to make things more believable. Allegedly, he employed others, and assigned pseudonyms to them too. He then used Ed 2 Go to sell his stuff. He made up somewhere around 30 fake recruiting companies, posed as recruiters, and enticed consumers into using the training he’d designed.

For anyone whose eyes glazed over, basically imagine a world where I start a nonprofit called the Stenographic Society of America, create some trainings under that, and then make tons of fake accounts and organizations to try to get people to buy my stuff. Pressure people into believing they need my stuff. Make believe my stuff will improve their professional outcomes.

And that’s basically where I stopped reading, threw my hands up, and said “I’m just going to publish this.”

No offense to Ed 2 Go, but if this is indicative of the people they’re doing business with and the kinds of things that can occur under whatever “quality assurance” protocols they have, then they’re basically a mechanism that can be used to bilk college students and cry “I didn’t know” when things go bad. I don’t know if the attorneys general of the various states would see it that way. But you think the big company being used to broadcast these programs across the country doesn’t know some of them are questionable?

Maybe it’s just not profitable to have safeguards in place against deceiving consumers.

P.S., unrelated creative writing exercise.

Anybody else enjoying the Eric Adams coverage?

To all you egalitarians, I just want to say, some recent behavior on Staten Island was not cool. But I truly believe that if Staten Islanders knew who was raising their cost of living and how, they’d be a lot more welcoming, and a lot more angry at the right people.

That journalist I snubbed still reads our stuff. But your middle-of-the-road approach to a situation that has one side that lies and changes the story at will and another side that has been fairly consistent since discovering the malfeasance being enacted upon it was troubling. It’s also troubling that nearly two years after being alerted to and given evidence of a fraud against civil litigation lawyers, including being alerted that the fraudsters complained of got sued and shut down their website, Law360 can’t bring itself to publish about the fraud. Don’t you fucking get it? Others are too afraid to speak up because these assholes collectively control a large percentage of the field and can lock them out of huge amounts of work. I’m insulated against that. I used my insulation to stand up for a field that’s 88% women. When you sit in silence as these folks bamboozle these women, I hope you remember your friends, coworkers, mothers, wives, and sisters, and how you would feel if you learned someone with the power to help them sat in silence as corporations illegally snuffed their careers.

This is a great social experiment. Can a decentralized worker structure organize enough to push back against the illegal actions of a cabal of corporations despite the media blackout and inaction of government? Will other court reporters start sending the fraud timeline to news outlets? Will news outlets ever mention the pilot studies of Testifying While Black? Can society overcome its bias against mental health issues for someone that’s done everything they’re supposed to do to stay stable? If appearances and first impressions are all that really matters, are we inviting a society of conmen? Can outside help be attracted? Will the small businesses of the field rally and realize that the success of my media means tons of work pouring onto the market? Will the corporate fraudsters ever come to the table or will they continue to risk me actually gaining more traction?

I wrote an “okay” Medium article. If we pass it around the community and get enough clicks, maybe it’ll get some attention.

I wonder how many attorneys realize the game of adding extra charges the court reporter doesn’t charge to keep the page rates artificially low is a thing.

Seeing that concert kinda made me a Swifty to the extent someone that doesn’t worship celebrities can be one. Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby and I’m a monster on the hill. Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city. Pierced through the heart, but never killed.