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Afternoon Links: Targeting Fake Debt Collectors, Wiffle Ball Pros, and Can Tax Reform Save Newman’s Own?

By Jim Swift

Newman’s Own’s future depends on what happens in tax reform. I‘ve always had a special place in my heart for the late actor Paul Newman, whose childhood home was three streets over from mine. His charity/business, however, is at risk of being put out of business if a provision isn’t included in the GOP tax reform bill. POLITICO reports:

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During the Senate’s consideration of Republicans’ plans to rewrite the tax code, Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough struck a provision that would have spared Newman’s Own from an unusual 200 percent tax it’s facing. It had been seeking the provision for eight years, and appeared to be finally on the cusp of victory. Both House and Senate Republicans had included the exemption in their tax plan drafts, with little controversy or debate. But MacDonough deemed the provision — along with more than a dozen others — to be violations of the Senate’s rules, so they were deleted before the legislation was passed last week.

Of course, Newman’s Own is a clear exception to a obscure rule designed to target rich people. Only now, the unintended consequence is that a charity which has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to people in need is now potentially on the chopping block.

The problem is a 1969 tax law that bars foundations from owning more than a small stake in private businesses. It was written with an eye toward preventing wealthy people from using foundations as tax shelters, and it imposes a deliberately confiscatory 200 percent tax on those that don’t unload their businesses after a certain period of time.

Newman’s Own has until late 2018 to pay up. If a solution isn’t passed soon, they say, they’ll have to begin the complex and lengthy process of dismantling the company.

Rachel Dolezal is back. The white woman who self-identifies as black is back in the news: she’s selling a sexy calendar, replete with inspirational quotes! My favorite is: “Living in full color means stepping outside of the boxes prescribed by society and following the nature of your soul.” Unfortunately, those seeking to buy the calendar as a gag gift for friends will be disappointed to know that it’s already sold out.

“…but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.” This feature at BusinessWeek is perhaps the best story I’ve read all week.

I have long enjoyed toying with the tax collection scammers who call me threatening jail unless I pay them, but what I haven’t had much experience with is being hounded by a debt collector. I can only assume these guys are far far worse.

Meet Andrew Therrien. He’s a normal guy from Rhode Island who decided, as a hobby, he was going to take down scammy debt collectors who call over invented debts.

When the scammers started to hound Therrien, he hounded them right back. Obsessed with payback, he spent hundreds of hours investigating the dirty side of debt. By day he was still promoting ice cream brands and hiring models for liquor store tastings. But in his spare time, he was living out a revenge fantasy. He befriended loan sharks and blackmailed crooked collectors, getting them to divulge their suppliers, and then their suppliers above them. In method, Therrien was like a prosecutor flipping gangster underlings to get to lieutenants and then the boss. In spirit, he was a bit like Liam Neeson’s vigilante character in the movie Taken—using unflagging aggression to obtain scraps of information and reverse-engineer a criminal syndicate. Therrien didn’t punch anyone in the head, of course. He was simply unstoppable over the phone.

Sound awesome? It is.

Each night, after his wife went to sleep, he cracked open his laptop to comb lawsuits, unearth filings, and uproot the owners of the agencies calling him. When he got names, he’d phone them, often surprising them at home, and make clear that he wouldn’t go away until they’d revealed who supplied their debt portfolios. “Here’s the deal,” he’d say. “I don’t really care about you. There’s a million guys like you out there. You’ll never get your money back. You might as well get blood out of it. Tell me what I need to know to put these guys in jail.”Sometimes, Therrien would make a small payment on the fake debt, then check bank records to see where it went. He found people with convictions for counterfeiting, stock fraud, drug dealing, and child molestation. He started a spreadsheet, Scums.xlsx, to keep track. On weekends he’d harangue them from his couch while watching New England Patriots games. He used persuasion techniques he’d learned selling copiers, some drawn from a book called Getting Into Your Customer’s Head. On the phone, Therrien is a savant. He has an instinct for when to be a friend—one gruff payday lender tells me, sheepishly, that he simply doesn’t know why he speaks with Therrien so frequently—and when to be a bully.

Run, don’t walk, to enjoy this gem. Spoiler: Justice can be frustrating.

I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. A woman in the United Kingdom broke off her engagement after claiming to have an affair with… a ghost. Click through, if you’re prepared to be creeped out.

Professional Wiffle Ball players? Yes. At VICE, former Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Fernando Perez has a look at the world’s greatest Wiffle Ball tournament in Staten Island. These guys are intense, and can throw curve balls with 4 feet of break. Enjoy.



Steve King, ladies and gentlemen! Just remember the 9:00 show is completely different from the 7:00 show. Enjoy the veal! Iowa’s Republican Representative Steve King has a habit of making stupid statements on Twitter. Only this time, he is quoting somebody John McCain has labeled a “neo-fascist dictator” to make the point “Diversity is not our strength.”


Contrast that with Reagan’s famous quote: “Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.” America has been made better by centuries of mixing cultures, but apparently Steve King doesn’t think so. Shame.

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