This is not an anti-sportscar piece as I've dabbled a bit in that game and enjoy watching a few, but more the money men in the sport.
Originally Posted by :
WASHINGTON - A payday lending operation that offers quick cash over the Internet to desperate people, and the race-car driver allegedly running it, are under federal scrutiny after more than 7,000 complaints to authorities.
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint in U.S. district court in Nevada against driver Scott Tucker, his brother and several Internet-based lending companies, including AMG Services, Inc.
Tucker has raced in the American Le Mans Series. The FTC charges that he and others controlled lending companies that piled on undisclosed and inflated fees — in some cases more than triple the amount borrowed — and then collected on the loans illegally by threatening borrowers with arrests and lawsuits.
In one example, a consumer was told that a $500 loan would cost him $650 to repay. Instead, the FTC says, the defendants attempted to charge him $1,925 to pay off the loan. The agency says he was threatened with arrest if he didn't pay that amount.
Payday loans are typically small, short-term loans with extremely high interest rates that are effectively advances on a borrower's next paycheque.
According to the FTC, the payday lending operation involving Tucker has claimed in state legal proceedings that it is affiliated with Native American tribes and therefore immune from legal action. Tribal affiliation does not exempt Tucker and others from complying with federal law, the commission says.
Over the last five years, more than 7,500 complaints about the operation have been filed with law enforcement authorities.
Tucker and his brother, Blaine, are accused of transferring more than $40 million collected from payday loans to consumers to another company, Level 5 Motor Sports, which is controlled by Scott Tucker. The FTC says the money was transferred as "sponsorship" fees for Tucker's racing career.
Tucker and his brother could not immediately be reached for comment.
This guy was a two-time class champion in ALMS. A post on a message board about it:
Originally Posted by :
Scott Tucker is a convicted felon (of this sort of exact thing prior) and has been under investigation for this current case for years. It's one of the reasons he didn't attend any of the Canada rounds. None of this is exactly "breaking news", the guy is pretty much a scumbag all around.
Business ethics aside, this is the same guy that ran himself in two LMPC cars the entire season in 2010 so he could take the points of the higher finishing car, to guarentee a championship..in a class with 3 full time entries. This is the guy bringing a 400k Porsche GT3 cup car and full pro rig to the SCCA runoffs, an amatuer event, to win a 2 car class. The same guy and team who entered the minimum number of events last year in the ALMS to qualify for the championship, ran the 70% distance to qualify for points, so he could win the LMP2 title..in a class with no other entrants.
If you want the full snark review of it all and how sportscar racing is the money laundering sport of choice go here:
http://murphythebear.com/blog/index....ity-of-choice/
And it's not like it's new. Some of you from the early '80s may remember the Whittington brothers, John Paul Sr., and Randy Lanier (Lanier, the Whittingtons, and John Paul's son John Paul Jr. all raced Indycar) were involved in smuggling drugs from Colombia through Florida and used the money to finance their racing operations. There's been a few more sportscar team owners as well in recent years that have ran afoul of the authorities.
We may all rightly criticize the people that run our fair sport or think the rules get gamed by a few owners or that someone is cushy with the rulesmakers, but let's all thank that these men are mostly legal in their daily lives not screwing over the rest of society.
