DONATIONS GREATLY APPRECIATED
We Need Your Help!
Donate to Ripoff Report - www.ripoffreport.com / Parent company:
Xcentric Ventures, LLC
Xcentric Ventures, LLC is not a 501(c)(3) – so your donation to our website is not tax-deductible.
Ripoff Report (Xcentric Ventures, LLC) provides a forum where consumers can come and post anonymously about their personal experiences with particular individuals and businesses that they feel have ripped them off in some form or fashion. That way, consumers are able to educate others about potential scams, frauds, or other questionable acts. Through this service, we have saved consumers thousands of dollars, either through a legitimate warning or because once a Report was posted about a particular situation, the person or business came back and actually remedied the situation that may have otherwise gone unattended.
If we've helped you in some way, or you otherwise think our initiatives are beneficial as a whole, please don't forget about us. Whether it be $1.00, $5.00, $10.00, $20.00, $100.00...or more…every little bit helps and goes a long way towards helping us with our expenses and providing us with the much needed resources to implement and fund current and additional positive, forward thinking, initiatives.
What Are The Donations Used For?
WEBSITE MAINTENANCE AND ADVANCEMENTSRipoff Report is comprised of hundreds of thousands of web pages, which continues to grow every hour of every day. Our website has an extensive search engine, along with sophisticated placement capabilities, and a dedicated database server. Also, due to the very nature of what Ripoff Report is, we have enhanced firewall security to guard against the continuing attempts to intrude and commit sabotage against the site. The system is backed up, monitored, and managed constantly. Also, as technology advances we too have to upgrade our systems. Many new features are projected for the web site, but as you can likely guess, all of these upgrades require much needed technical resources (which don’t come cheap).
GENERAL OFFICE STAFF AND EQUIPMENTBeyond the technical aspects, it takes a lot of equipment and staffing resources to run this website as well. From equipment such as cameras, recorders, and computers to the basic office supplies, management to ensure that everything works effectively, and accounting personnel to help pay the bills ensuring that the lights are on and the internet is moving at a high rate of speed. We have a set of eyes on every Report that is filed to help ensure consumers are being protected from the potential for identity theft and fraud...not to mention the removal of nasty obscenities that some people feel the need to include in their Reports. We get a lot of Reports…so an abundance of staff is needed to watch and monitor those Reports and send out notifications to those who don’t file a Report correctly or perhaps file some questionable content. Of course, it goes without saying that we need to have people to assist with our Customer Service and Support Department too. Someone has to help people manage their accounts when they forget passwords or need assistance uploading images. All this and more goes to help ensure that consumers have a place to voice their concerns.
LEGAL COSTS FOR IN-HOUSE AND OUTSIDE COUNSELWe also incur an insurmountable level of legal expenses. Because Ripoff Report doesn’t give in to bullies who demand that a Report be removed and because we won’t just hand over an author’s information when someone asks for it, Ripoff Report tends to deal with a lot of correspondence from those who write to Ripoff Report to ask for the author’s information, to ask for something to be removed, or write claiming that they want to sue Ripoff Report (because of something someone else – not what Ripoff Report wrote). We also have to deal with the aspects relating to Intellectual Property claims. All of these inquiries that come into our Legal Department must be handled by our in-house attorneys (or sometimes our outside counsel). As you can guess, between the costs associated with in-house staff attorneys and our outside counsel, who handles many matters for us, including litigation, the legal bills can be quite large.
COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH OFFERING SERVICES TO INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSESAs we grow, and consumers and businesses come to us with different issues that they need a resolution for, we continually try to develop and implement solutions to help resolve different problems. We have a lot of great minds here at Ripoff Report that work towards providing valuable services to individuals and businesses; however, all of those great minds cost money to staff and provide adequate resources too.
COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH KEEPING OUR FOLLOWERS INFORMED OF LATEST SCAMS/FRAUDS IN THE NEWSWe all know that you don’t have the time to sit and watch the news, around the country, 24/7. That is why Ripoff Report has a social media department that helps bring that information to you! The Ripoff Report Facebook page and the Twitter page are updated regularly with many of the latest scams, frauds, and other consumer information! Of course it is also sprinkled with “feel good” positive vibes and reminders that we all sometimes need.
COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH COMBATING CYBERHARASSMENT AND CYBERSTALKINGAs we grow, and people come to us with alleged Reports that were merely posted as a form of revenge, cyberharassment, cyberstalking or cyberbullying, as resources permit, we assign the Report(s) to be reviewed by specific staff members under our current policies. When warranted, this requires follow up communication with the authors and other various administrative tasks. As Ripoff Report has become more aware of these kinds of concerns we have been taking steps to help combat these negative efforts. It is this kind of personal attention for review and follow-up that takes significant staffing resources. The more resources we have available to us, the more timely these very serious, yet time consuming matters, can be addressed.
Why Are Donations Needed?
TOGETHER, WE AREA CONSUMER-REPORTING NEWS AGENCY,
BY CONSUMERS, FOR CONSUMERS.
Ripoff Report works very hard on behalf of the consumer to help preserve civil and human rights and keep up our consumer advocacy. In response to Reports placed on the website, we broadly watch for certain kinds of abuses and help individuals defend their rights – often by assisting officials or news media with information that furthers their investigations into questionable activity. Since our inception, we estimate that we have helped consumers collect millions of dollars to date, and have prevented the loss of untold millions more for our readers. Additionally, thousands of consumers have thanked us for forewarning them about disreputable businesses through Ripoff Report.
We need funding from consumers to maintain your database of complaints, so others won't be victimized... Together, we are a consumer-reporting news agency, by consumers, for consumers.Ripoff Report can give you all of the information you need! In order to do this job well - offering consumers the best help and the most comprehensive information available nationwide and beyond and unique solutions to problems - we need YOUR help. The more funds we raise, the more consumers we can help on a daily basis by keeping the site up and by rolling out educational pieces on consumer issues.
HELP US HELP YOU! We ask for your support so we can be there for you when you need us in the future. While sometimes certain levels of effort may come with a “suggested donation” amount, in reality, we are absolutely grateful for anything that you can spare. Whether it be $1.00, $5.00, $10.00, $20.00, $100.00...or more…every little bit helps and goes a long way towards helping us with expenses and providing us with the necessary resources so that we can implement and fund current and additional positive forward thinking initiatives.
We take pride in our ability to get the best results for our readers and we would appreciate any financial support you can offer in assisting us to maintain our unprecedented results.
How You Can Make a Donation.
FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION. Your non-tax deductible donation can be made via PayPal or by mail. We love our supporters and believe that recognition for good deeds and contributions to these efforts is important. As such, please be sure to let us know if you are donating “anonymously” or if we have your permission to add your name to the list of contributors/supporters of Ripoff Report.
PAYPAL:SNAIL MAIL:
You can mail your non-tax deductible donation (checks should be made payable to Xcentric Ventures, LLC) to the following address:
Ripoff Report DonationsP.O. Box 310
Tempe, Arizona 85280
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX? While funds are always appreciated, if you think you can help by providing any type of resource, outside of a financial contribution, please contact us by e-mail editor@ripoffreport.com and let us know how you can help!
We are always open to new ideas, feedback, and resources that are “outside of the box”.
We thank YOU for your support!
Sincerely,
RIPOFF REPORT STAFF & VOLUNTEERS
Updated 01/15/2015
