Ezymounts Email #1

Hello Mary,

It has been about 10 working days since the complaint was first sent and there has been no response from the Herald to fix this article. This complaint has been sent via the form:

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Researchers from MoneyHub have also reached out about this article, citing the company’s website was barely registered two days before the article came out. We believe this isn’t true metrics for this business.

https://www.whois.com/whois/ezymounts.online

It took maybe 30 minutes to debunk this story:

“Ezymounts

If it looks like a duck...

The Ezymounts article was careless and the most obvious advert for yet another sales funnel. There’s an outstanding press council complaint against the Herald over the misleading reporting, especially since it has been syndicated overseas.

Quite a lot of local entrepreneurs called this out as well over suspicions. It's a very new business without much of any history behind it than what is claimed. There's no Instagram account I can find, so unless they have an impressive mailing list, they don't seem to be active.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/NewZealandtechstartups/permalink/1883391841772657?sfns=xmwa

Additional websites to watch for:
https://themagnetmount.com
https://www.magnetcased.com

The magnet mount is a different company by different people, and he just copied the idea and marketing materials for his own website. The second company, magnet cased, might be his old company. All Alibaba products.

His personal Instagram profile is also suspiciously new.
Apparently, his old name on Instagram was joshbrown328. being that he operates in California and rents property so he’s harder to pin down. A lot of sole proprietors in America don’t even bother registering their business.

He also could have bought someone else’s Instagram account and scrubbed all previous photos. Nothing adds up at all. https://instagram.com/joshbrownnz

There isn’t much history on this guy before 5-6 weeks ago, but he’s associated with someone named Luke who seems to be big into e-commerce mentoring and influencing.
https://instagram.com/lukealll

Just speculating here, but Luke might be behind manufacturing this whole story, with Josh being either a student/client or friend.”

Sales can easily be faked in Shopify using phantom orders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH4utLdh980”

-Howard

Mar 13, 2019, 4:19 PM by info@mediacouncil.org.nz:
Good afternoon Howard,



Thank you for copying the Media Council in on this email.



You have done the correct thing by taking the complaint to the Herald in the first instance, as you may be able to resolve it directly with them.



Kind regards,



Mary Major

Executive Director





From: hkanner@tuta.io [mailto:hkanner@tuta.io]
Sent: Wednesday, 13 March 2019 4:09 PM
To: formalcomplaints@nzherald.co.nz
Cc: Media Council; chris.keall@nzherald.co.nz
Subject: Formal Complaint About Ecommerce Business Reporting



Hello,



I would like to write a complaint about a recent business article reported in the Herald.



Auckland student creates $1.2 million company within months:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=12211578&ref=twitter



The problem I have with this financial declaration in the headline and this type of reporting is that it is horribly misleading. We have seen this with the Iyia Liu saga, that the "million dollars" often quoted in headlines is actually half or less than the amount stated. I appreciate the attempt to include

25 per cent margin, but please better explain what margin is as new business owners might mistake margin for markup.

This is irresponsible as it may entice others to get into drop-shipping when it is a high-risk business "investment".



But I would like to see the herald refrain from the following:

"Auckland student creates $1.2 million company within months"

"A fortune is to be had from a laptop in your bedroom."



These statements are misleading, and e-commerce gurus are encouraged to send press releases stating these headlines and numbers in order to continue boosting their business, and in this case, he's using this as a way to boost his SMMA (Social Media Marketing Agency).

On average these guys make the same salary or less than a mid-level engineer in NZ, and that is likely a one-off year before they have to move to sell guru courses or finding a job.



-Howard