Terra Extraneus

NewsOK.com reported on December 2, 2008 about a Jackson County man ripped off by BlueHippo, a company that sold inexpensive electronics at inflated prices and then never delivered about a third of the sales, continued to dun checking accounts and generally practiced economic vampirism.

This sad story was not just about a victim in Jackson County, but about a sad news heritage gone and lost forever. NewsOK.com did not seem to know the Attorney General of Maryland forced BlueHippo to mend its ways in May 2007, did not know that a class action law suit against BlueHippo also endangered Gateway, a computer manufacturer, and did not know that at least one ABC affiliate in Baltimore had already done an expose on Blue Hippo many months ago.

At least, none of that was in the story by NewsOk.com.

The other sad part of the story is that NewsOk.com could have used the fact that there have been “thousands of complaints nationally against the company” according to the Central Oklahoma Better Business Bureau as a case study of consumer protection. The Oklahoma Attorney General received twelve complaints in 2008, but there was no action taken. Thus, clearly, there is no consumer protection.

Finally, it seems unlikely the victim in Jackson County will be able to engage a tort reformed lawyer to address the fraud. The legal profession does not have the capital any longer to address such small claims which would require multi-state suit and collection efforts.