I'd like fellow Kossacks help in answering the following question, is "occupytheplanet" with its PayPal link to "occupytheworld" a scam?
As Occupy spreads around the Nation, local TV stations are starting to cover the events. I was readying a story from San Luis Obispo station KSBY about Occupy SLO at the Thursday Farmers Market. At the end of the story the reporter states, "For more information on the protests nationwide, click here." The link goes to something called OccupythePlanet.com.
A DOT COM site? Now that is odd. The real Occupy sites all have DOT ORG designations.
OK, but who registered the commercial site Occupytheplanet.com?
A Whois search gives the following results:
Registrant:
mellissa stephens
15597 gardnersville rd
demossville, Kentucky 41033
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: OCCUPYTHEPLANET.COM
Created on: 28-Sep-11
Expires on: 28-Sep-12
Administrative Contact:
stephens, mellissa batman@opensourceworld.us
When you google "batman@opensourceworld.us" you will find that batman is a big Ron Paul supporter.
batman statement at Dailypaul
A little more googling and I still have the following questions. Why is "occupytheplanet" run from a trailer in the Kentucky hills? Ms. Stephens is also registered at the Bridal Registry at Walmart and the husband to be appears on the State of Kentucky site for Sex Offenders. He's got a lifetime membership it seems. No I'm not making this stuff up. Why aren't they active in a Demossville occupy?
If you go to "occupytheplanet.com" web page along with legit links you will also see a PayPal for "occupytheworld.org". So where are these donations going?
Whois shows:
Domain Name:OCCUPYTHEWORLD.ORG
Created On:28-Sep-2011 20:45:39 UTC
Last Updated On:28-Sep-2011 20:45:40 UTC
Registrant Name:Philip Berardi
Registrant Organization:Industry Advanced Technologies, Inc.
Registrant Street1:P.O. Box 3372
Registrant City:Thousand Oaks
Registrant State/Province:CA
Registrant Postal Code:91359
If you google "Industry Advanced Technologies" you will find it's "a leading manufacturer of professional camera support equipment and accessories, for the motion picture, television, and broadcast industries.." Philip Berardi is the CEO. So why has Berardi registered the occupytheworld.org site to get PayPal monies, yet the site for occupy the world is not up yet. So where is the money really going? Is Mr. Berardi active in any occupy location? Why not link to a PayPal to one of the bigger groups like OWS (the orginal) or Occupy LA, if it has an account?
What's going on here? This does not smell good.
Another question. How did a small town TV reporter get this link? Is this being "fed" from some source I haven't noticed? (I'm going to have to dust off my tin foil hat)
One last question. When I first googled the site last night I also found a few threads over at Big Government that were discussing occupytheplanet. Hmmm? Could this be some more agent provocateur action? Let's discuss in the comments.
