EDITOR THREATENS JOURNALIST WITH LEGAL ACTION FOR QUESTIONING HIS PAPER'S ETHICAL STANDARDS

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Terry Worley

          I have recently exposed the Northern KwaZulu-Natal Courier on my blog for accepting an advertorial from ponzi scheme promoters that the paper itself had named as crooks. That was my first post on this subject, Newspaper Behaving Badly - the Courier exposes Ponzi Schemes and then takes their Tainted Money for an Advertorial

(Newspaper Behaving Badly)

          It was followed by another one Newspaper’s Embarrassing Lesson after Libelling Engen (Newspapers Embarrassing Lesson) in which I took the paper to task because of the Engen logo that appeared, among others, in the advertorial. This was included, it would seem, to give readers the impression that the members of the De Beer family, who are behind the Coin-It and CommEx ponzi schemes, are very reputable business people.

         But like their ponzi rip-offs, this too was fraudulent. Engen has absolutely nothing to do with any member of this family or any of its companies I was told by Gavin Smith the firm’s External Communications Manager.

          In this post I included a very prominent link to my first story so that readers could see the explanation the paper gave for carrying the advertorial in the first place.

          Before posting my first story I sent an email to the Editor Terry Worley at the paper in Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal asking him why they had accepted that advertorial that painted Coin-It as a ‘do good’ charity organisation.

          “The Courier has just gone one better than the Sunday Times for appalling double standards just to make money,” I told him. You have also completely blown your belief “in the community newspaper being the trustworthy watchdog of the community.” This was one of his own quotes.

            I was referring to the fact that the Sunday Times carried two advertising inserts from CommEx and My House, ponzi schemes promoted by the same people as Coin-It, a few days after its sister publication had revealed that Coin-It and CommEx had been raided by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), which has since closed Coin-It. 

          Worley referred me to their advertising department without giving me the name of somebody to contact. He did however say: “Thanks for that. To be pedantic it was a half page ad, not a full page. PS. Loved your piece on Rowena’s (a ponzi investor I wrote a post about) plight, very well written. It appears as if the investigation has become stagnant with the Hawks but we are following up and apparently more investors, who have not received money need to make statements. We are told not even 15 have made statements and there are apparently 27 000.”

          Of my own volition I sent a similar email to Rod Skinner, the Regional Editor for this Caxton Group newspaper after establishing his credentials on Google. This time I added: “Surely that was the antithesis of good newspaper ethics. The message it sent was that your newspaper only cares about making money, not ethical behaviour.”

          He replied saying: “In fairness we had to give Coin-It a right of reply. They however insisted they wanted to reply in this manner. It is not for us to dictate how they as a company wish to exercise their right of reply. Nothing in the advertorial solicits business for the scheme.”          Since when have outsiders, particularly crooks, had an automatic right to tell a newspaper what and how they want something published?

          After posting my story about Engen I sent a link to Rowena James the anti-ponzi scheme activist who has been doing her best to get these ponzi promoters behind bars. I had also featured her several times on my blog.

          She then put a link to this on Facebook where she has a group called: The Truth - Exposing the Dundee Ponzi scheme boss.

In an interaction between her and Terry Worley that followed he stated: “You may like to know we are taking legal action against this person. Thank you.

“He himself followed no journalistic ethics to the ‘other side of the story’. We suspect his motives.”

Rowena then commented: “Terry Worley feel free to express your side of the story here, if you so wish.”

He replied: “It’s fine many thanks. It is out of my hands now as it has been escalated to our legal department in Johannesburg.”

After Rowena told me about this I replied saying that if I was to write about this threat I would obviously have to mention her in view of where it was made. I asked if this was okay as she could not be blamed for what I wrote about the Courier.

“I’m not scared of Terry,” she answered. “He probably was hoping for me to remove the post. I won’t do it.”

A few days later I received this odd email from Terry.

“Just a correction to your blog, our paper is paid for.” I had mistakenly stated that his paper was a free one. I immediately deleted the word “free” from the sentence that included “which has a weekly free distribution of 15 000 copies.”

He finished his email with this: “Meantime, thanks for all the free publicity. Best Terry. PS Check PMB High Court Dec. 4 Liquidation bid against Coin-It resumes. I assume you will cover this on your blog.”

 In my email reply I told him I had made the correction and asked: “What’s this I see on Facebook about you threatening legal action against me. It would not make much of a case if your only complaint about my reports (Totalling 1637 words) so far is that I got one word wrong.”

          He answered: “Our legal department is taking it up.”

          The Courier is part of the Caxton Group, one of the largest publishers and printers in South Africa. Its revenue this year was R6321-million with a profit of R452-million. So it has plenty of money to enable it to throw its legal weight around in this David and Goliath encounter.

          Let the truth prevail, because that’s what really seems to be what’s bugging the Courier, otherwise its Editor would surely have contacted me by now with a far more substantial complaint than that I had a word wrong that made absolutely no material difference to the main thrust of what I had written.

          Regards

          Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman

         

      

NEWSPAPER'S EMBARRASSING LESSON AFTER SLANDERING ENGEN

Dear Newspaper Readers,

          Those in charge of advertising at the Northern KwaZulu-Natal Courier must surely be regretting it now.

          The paper’s greed was such that it accepted feloniously obtained money from people it knew were crooks. It had first hand knowledge of this because it had carried not one exposé of the Coin-It and CommEx ponzi schemes, but three in quick succession.

          Then, on the face of it just to make money, it accepted a half page advertorial written by the promoters of these schemes that did nothing else but extol the charitable work Coin-It had been doing around Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal where these con-artists are based.

          At the bottom of this notorious puff for Coin-It the promoters included colour logos of what a reader could only conclude were businesses own by members of the De Beer family, the people behind these ponzi schemes. One was for Engen the R70 000-million a year South African oil company that was voted South Africa’s Favourite Petrol Station this year for the ninth consecutive time in the Sunday Times’ annual Top Brands Awards.

          Hardly a company you would expect to be associated with these Dundee crooks. So I sent an email to Yussa Hassan Engen’s Chief Executive asking him if he was happy to have Engen’s name linked to the De Beer family and their ponzi scheme rackets. Shortly afterwards I got the following reply from Gavin Smith Engen’s External Communications manager.

          It was clear that Engen had been seriously libeled by the compilers of this advertorial and the Courier for printing it. They were very lucky that Engen was evidently not interested in taking it any further.

          But it shows how dicey it is for a newspaper to print something like this, especially when it comes from known swindlers.(Newspaper behaving badly)

          Meanwhile activist Rowena James quit as the Administrator of the Facebook group she started to try and nail those responsible for these ponzi schemes.

          “I actually feel I have done all I can,” she told me. “So there it is the activist has hung up her hat. Our advocate failed to get an urgent order to liquidate Coin-It because the company suddenly found 28 investors who had been paid every month.”

          This is just a token amount among what is said to be 27 000 people who put their faith in Coin-It for a better life only to find it has now been closed by the authorities.

“So they are opposing the order.” Rowena continued. “We go back to court on 4^th December.
“I still have not heard from the Hawks. I did however email Gerrie Nel’s office. I got a reply and apparently the Commercial Crimes Unit; Asset Forfeiture Unit and the National Prosecuting Authority are all working on this case. I was told to just cooperate with them.” 

          A day later Rowena had changed her mind. “I have been dragged back into the fold due to some new developments,” she said. “A number of investors asked me not to hang up my boxing gloves just yet.

          “Last night a man phoned me and told me he had been a policeman for 30 years. He asked me not to stop as he said I was doing a sterling job. He is from Pietermaritzburg and undertook to visit Sgt. Zuma (the member of the Hawks dealing with the investigation) and get us some decent feedback.

          “So, I am stepping up my campaign to get investors to make statements to Sgt. Zuma and we are doing all we can to cooperate, despite the fact that my statement was leaked.”

          She added that some investors had staged a sit-in outside Coin-It’s premises and had refused to leave until they get paid. (Rowena James gets death threat)

          It was very brave of a small community newspaper like the Courier (Readership of 15 000 around Dundee with a weekly distribution of 4 500 papers) to expose the shenanigans of these ponzi schemes that have millions to spend on legal actions, but then they spoilt it all by taking that advertorial. I gathered that the Editor Terry Worley had no say in the matter as so often happens on newspapers when money making advertising is concerned.

          Regards

          Jon, the Consumer Watchdog you can count on.

P.S. I didn’t go any further with my investigation into the logos of the businesses that appeared in the advertorial as I felt that Engen was the most important one.

   

NEWSPAPER BEHAVING BADLY - THE COURIER EXPOSES PONZI SCHEMES & THEN TAKES THEIR TAINTED MONEY FOR AN ADVERTORIAL

Dear Readers,

How is this for dubious newspaper morality? The Northern KwaZulu-Natal Courier, a community paper in the Caxton Group carried three exposés about the activities of members of the De Beer family’s Ponzi businesses Coin-It Trading and CommEx Minerals.

          The first one early last September was headed Drama unfolds as Coin-It and  Commex Minerals are raided. It was about how the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) had launched an investigation into these two companies.

          Its next report was headlined: Investment scheme maintains everyone will get paid.

          Then on September 18 it announced: Coin offices closed pending FSCA probe. Readers were told that it was too early to say what will happen to investors in Coin-It and CommEx Minerals following the raid by the FSCA.

          Soon afterwards the paper, which has a weekly free distribution of 15 000 copies in the coal mining town of Dundee (Population 34 000), carried the half page, controversial paid advertorial headed Coin-It Traders Speak Out! It would have earned the publication something like R7 000. 

This is how the Courier coined it & how
the advertorial began

          It was a huge puff extolling the good deeds these Ponzi scheme promoters had done for the people of the area as if their kind of business was perfectly acceptable.

          After weeks of controversy, Coin-It Trading appeals to the community to not forget all the good it has and is still doing, the ad began

          Speaking to the Courier, it went on, Coin-It’s representative, Peter Estrice said, “The public was not informed in the past on the big scope of activities that were taking place and the participation of social activities carried out by Coin-It.”

          Coin-It described itself as a huge part of the Dundee community and as such had aided many people.

Peter Estrice

          He claimed that when “last year’s terrible floods took away five lives, including three children, from a family in Sibongile (a Dundee township) Coin-It was there. We played a big role in helping the needy and even went to the extent of repairing some churches that were damaged.”

           Small businesses that relied on Coin-It had been enormously affected.

          “Other companies have also lost revenue when we stopped our service, such as the buying of trucks,” Estrice maintained. “Our hardware companies can no longer continue with business as everything has come to a standstill. Coin-It has donated signage to schools in the area and will continue to assist schools in other districts in the future.”

          Referring to the pending FSCA investigation Estrice stated: “As much as Coin-It is taking a beating it is also affecting our small businesses and individuals who relied on Coin-It. Our clients come from different backgrounds such as government officials, working class and the unemployed and Coin-It takes care of them.” He promised that they would have a "ceremony with our clients once everything had been sorted." 

          The advertorial concluded with the logos of the businesses the De Beer family evidently have an interest in.  

          In an email to the Courier’s Editor Terry Worley I asked how his paper could expose the Coin-It Ponzi scheme and then take this advertorial that promotes it.

          “The Courier has just gone one better than the Sunday Times for appalling double standards just to make money,” I told him. "You have also completely blown your belief in the 'community newspaper being the trustworthy watchdog of the community.'”

          I was referring to the fact the Sunday Times carried two advertising inserts from CommEx and My House, another Ponzi scheme promoted by the same people, a few days after its sister publication had revealed that Coin-It and CommEx had been raided by the FSCA.  (Heartless Sunday Times)

          Worley told me to refer to their advertising department. In a subsequent email he started that the Hawks investigation appeared to be stagnating, but they were following up because more investors who had not received their money still needed to make statements.

          “We are told not even 15 have made statements and there are apparently 27 000,” he added.

          I sent a similar email to Rod Skinner, Caxton’s Regional Editor for the area that includes the Courier asking why that controversial advertorial was accepted. “Surely that was the antithesis of good newspaper ethics,” I told him. “The message it sent was that your paper only cares about making money, not ethical behaviour.”

          He replied saying: “In fairness we had to give Coin-It a right of reply. They however insisted they wanted to reply in this manner. It is not for us to dictate how they as a company wish to exercise their right of reply.

          “Nothing in the advertorial solicits business for the scheme. Our investigative team is still investigating it along with several others in Northern KZN.”
                                     *     *     *

          Regards

          Jon, a Consumer Watchdog and the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman.

P.S. The Caxton Group is no stranger to accepting adverts just to make money regardless of the morality of what it is doing. For years The Citizen, its daily paper that circulates mainly in Gauteng has been carrying Herbalist ads, when even one of its editors conceded to me that they are not believable.  Full of people claiming to be doctors, professors and the like when they are clearly nothing of the kind they offer services like “100% win lotto” and “manhood enlargement.” These are obviously nothing else but lies. (Lies,lies and more lies)

P.P.S. An advertorial is an advertisement written in the same style as a newspaper article. So it’s not hard to guess why the Ponzi promoters wanted their ad in this form.