Litigation

What?s your favorite Overstock.com lie?

By Tracy Coenen

Sam Antar and I have weighed in with our opinions on the lie machine known as Overstock.com, run by the country’s most incompetent CEO, Patrick Byrne.

This week has been a treasure trove of new lies and manipulations, as Overstock management tries to cover their lies with new lies and… oh what a tangled web we weave…

Gary Weiss has his own favorite lie in all of this:

I’m saving the best for last. The pièce de résistance was the fish story provided at the conference call and in the Wired article as to why the earnings were released unexpectedy on Friday. As I pointed out the other day, this was a blatant effort to squeeze the shorts on an options expiration Friday, and to bury devastating news of a five-county criminal investigation of its advertising practices by California prosecutors. Even one of the normally supine analysts who cover this company acknowledged at the time that a short squeeze was at work.

Explaining this one away would take a real whopper, and Overstock’s “designated liar” (the way you might appoint a “designated driver” after a party) obliged in the Wired article:

“What happened was this: Patrick Byrne was speaking at Wharton [School of Business] on Friday, and we wanted to get to the numbers out before he gave that speech,” Johnson says.

But if that’s the case, then why did the company schedule the release of fourth-quarter results beforehand, but it didn’t schedule the release of first-quarter results?

“This time we did not know when we would have a full sign off from auditors,” Johnson says.

Yup. Overstock is physically incapable of putting out an earnings release when its invaluable CEO, a man dedicated 24/7 to editing Wikipedia and posting on message boards selling memory foam and toasters, strays from the premises and is engaged in giving one of his excellent speeches.

Run on over to Gary’s blog and see his take on all of this week’s antics. As always, much thanks to clown Patrick Byrne and the three ring circus he runs…. the gift that just keeps on giving.

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Full post as published by The FRAUDfiles Blog on April 23, 2008 (boomark / email).