Bed, Bath, and Beyond investment cult

October 21, 2024 7:03 AM

The sequel to Gamestop-- people convinced to invest in BB&B even as the company was going bankrupt. It was orchestrated by a man who got out, tanking the stock. A bunch of people kept buying it, losing their life savings and sometimes their marriages. The investors (at least a fair number of them) kept trusting. They were giving each other tremendous emotional support. They still have hope.

They're still looking for tiny clues and making up reasons why they're going to get rich.

On one hand, it's an hour and a half. On the other hand, you'll only get the full effect if you hear the voices.

There's the current theory that you shouldn't be smug about not falling for something like that-- that anyone can be taken in by a cult. This is unprovable, but does look like people of every demographic can be taken in.

posted by Nancy Lebovitz (56 comments total)

It may be the case that anyone could fall for a cult or other scam, but this is an unusually stupid cult being kept alive by a couple evil Youtube grifters who mostly exhale big vape clouds and say things like "we already won" and "I dunno maaan". Oh, and one failson who manipulated his dying grandfather into giving him a few million and now spends his time on Twitter making poor people dance for his amusement and a few bucks, and who is trying desperately to mold the BBBaggies into forming a political hate-group (also for his amusement).

...if you're delusional enough to find those things to be a compelling argument for investing in a company that literally specifically says DO NOT INVEST we are dying, well, you may need to assign Power of Attorney to someone smarter that can help you take care of your finances.
posted by aramaic at 7:42 AM on October 21 [8 favorites]

This troubling documentary shows how anyone can fall victim to a sophisticated scam
posted by theodolite at 7:50 AM on October 21 [7 favorites]

It's hard to con an honest man.

It's not impossible, but it is a lot harder than trying to con someone who's capable of believing they somehow are on the inside track to exploiting a magic trick for wealth or power.
posted by tclark at 7:55 AM on October 21 [12 favorites]

How is BBBY scammed
posted by chavenet at 8:03 AM on October 21 [63 favorites]

There's an undercurrent of greed to things like this that makes it hard to feel sorry for the victims. They aren't trying to pay off student loans or a catastrophic medical bill that's gone to a collection agency, they want to be rich. My sympathies lie with the (ex)spouses and families of these folks who are now facing an uncertain future.
posted by tommasz at 8:05 AM on October 21 [4 favorites]

Whenever your patience for investment scam victims gets tested (and, while I do believe anyone can get scammed, I'd be lying if I said no victims are unsympathetic), keep in mind that the scammers will almost certainly make worse, more harmful use of the money than the victims would have.
posted by praemunire at 8:26 AM on October 21 [9 favorites]

It's hard to con an honest man.

Maybe harder, but I'm not sure about hard. In my case, I think I'm a fairly intelligent and honest person, who wouldn't be suckered into something like this because I just assume the money I make should be the product of my work, and I don't generally believe in free money.

That being said, it's happened to me several times in my life where I've been scammed and manipulated in very transparent ways, because I'm a generally trusting person, who may lean into people pleasing to get out of awkward situations. And I'm rather thankful that these things happened (while also haunted by embarrassment), because in the grand scheme of things they did little damage, but made me keenly aware of my own limitations.

I'm too security minded to ever do anything like hand over my passwords to someone. But I have no doubt that a skilled manipulator could have insights into my own behaviour that I might not be aware of, and use it to get me to do all manner of stupid things.
posted by Alex404 at 8:28 AM on October 21 [20 favorites]

keep in mind that the scammers will almost certainly make worse, more harmful use of the money than the victims would have.

Generally yes, but in this specific case the scammers themselves have small, shitty lives and are mostly using their grifted incomes to either pay for food and housing, or else they're losing it by playing with options in a weird attempt to prove their stock prowess.

The only real winners are the various counterparties in the stock market -- and not just huge financial firms. For a while there some people made pretty decent money (tens of thousands) by selling ludicrously out-of-the-money options to the cultists. If you know a company is going to go bankrupt, and soon, and you know there are people foaming at the mouth to claim that stock is really worth hundreds of dollars, you can print cash. Then, when it DOES go bankrupt, you dust off your hands and walk away with free money.
posted by aramaic at 8:34 AM on October 21

Oof, this one is rough. "Anyone can get scammed" yes, and scammers are the real villains, but how much blame do we apportion to people who are just kind of shitty and then stop engaging? Ryan Cohen seems like a bad person who enriched himself off the painfully credulous, but genuinely, how much do these investors think BBB should have been worth? The kindest way I can think of it that all these people thought they were going to get rich based off greater fool theory, and then discovered that they were the final fools. The ones who were reality-based acknowledged this and moved on; the others started drilling into weird conspiracy theories. The end of the video is sad, but also...it feels like these people drove themselves insane? Before the internet, are these just people who would've found an in-person religion to get really weird about?

Also, did BBB ever exist in England? It was always a funny name, but something about it being drawled with a British accent is sending me.
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:54 AM on October 21

It's hard to con an honest man.

No, it isn't. It's absurdly easy. The levers are different but the difficulty of pulling them is the same.

So many people I know have fallen for fake charities, or giving a relative "rent money" that went straight up his nose, or have helped a "struggling friend" who they only know online and have never seen or spoken to in person.

Honest living may be virtuous but it is no shield from the unscrupulous. If anything, it just opens up another vector of attack.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:56 AM on October 21 [14 favorites]

It's hard to con an honest man.

I'd like to iterate a little bit on this. It's not wrong, and I don't wanna "um achtually" something that doesn't warrant it.

In the context of modern American capitalism, getting ahead if you're not already ahead to begin with can be infuriating and often impossible. The idea of retiring in unimaginable comfort, luxury, or of escaping the choking feeling of not having enough (emphasis on feeling, this scam hit a lot of people I'd describe as having enough) can hijack people's brains into doing otherwise foolish things. Investment and stock trading can be full of unusual vocabulary to folks who haven't dealt with it before. A scammer can spin the words and numbers to make a losing bet seem like a sure thing to someone who doesn't have enough information.

The people being conned aren't dishonest people in this scenario, they're responding to pressures and promises with the limited information they have. They've been conned completely, and some have gone Adventist about it. It's sad, it's tragic, but the blame lies solely on the people who perpetrate the false narratives for personal profit. Them's the dishonest men.
posted by Philipschall at 8:57 AM on October 21 [7 favorites]

Is this exact same thing happening with Trump media stock? A month ago it was down to 12.12. It's currently just over 30.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:04 AM on October 21

they're responding to pressures and promises with the limited information they have

This was the information they had at the time many of these people invested. It was even linked in their own delusional subreddits:

"Holders of the Company’s equity securities will likely be entitled to no recovery on their investment following the Chapter 11 Cases, and recoveries to other stakeholders cannot be determined at this time. The Company cautions that trading in the Company’s securities given the pendency of the Chapter 11 Cases is highly speculative and poses substantial risk. Trading prices for the Company’s securities bear little or no relationship to the actual value realized, if any, by holders of the Company’s securities in the Chapter 11 Cases. Accordingly, the Company urges extreme caution with respect to existing and future investment in its securities."

The "solution" was to say well, the company has to go bankrupt because otherwise we won't get equity in the NEW company which will destroy Amazon and make us all godkings. That 10K means our NEW equity will be unbelievably valuable! Phone-number valuations incoming, win confirmed!

...the name of that new company? They couldn't decide -- it was either going to be Teddy or (and I am not joking at all here) BUTTFQ.

Yeah, really. Go search for that last one on Reddit, you'll find plenty of examples. Adding the term "DD" may help garner superior results, as that's a code-term they use to describe posts that explain how they're all going to be wealthy enough to buy Margot Robbie (I am also not joking on that one either).

[and on preview re: DJT, yes. It's happening there too, but with the added frisson of influence-peddling]
posted by aramaic at 9:13 AM on October 21 [3 favorites]

Is this exact same thing happening with Trump media stock? A month ago it was down to 12.12. It's currently just over 30.

That's different -- if Elon, Donald, and their complicit media are able to meme Donald and "not Project 2025" back into the White House, it'll prove to have been a good investment.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond isn't about to maybe turn into Apple on the effective outcome of a coin flip.
posted by tclark at 9:27 AM on October 21

So P.T. Barnum WAS right?
posted by Czjewel at 9:35 AM on October 21

I think part of what's going on is people not having a sense of causality. All this money is floating around loose for no particular reason, and why shouldn't they get a lot of it?

The other thing is the desperation to have an enthusiastic social group.

We don't know what they were like before they fell into the scam. They seem to at least have been kind of functional.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:38 AM on October 21 [2 favorites]

I think part of what's going on is people not having a sense of causality.

???? huh??
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:53 AM on October 21 [1 favorite]

MisantropicPainforest, those folks didn't have a sense that money has to come from soemwhere. It has to be earned or stolen or *something*. Instead, they're expecting that large sums of money can just happen to them.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:57 AM on October 21 [1 favorite]

it's happened to me several times in my life where I've been scammed and manipulated in very transparent ways, because I'm a generally trusting person, who may lean into people pleasing to get out of awkward situations.

I'm not saying such a thing doesn't exist, but I literally can't think of a single cult-like group where people are doubling down on bankrupting themselves for the sake of pleasing people. I'm sure there are people out there who do that, but not many have an entire HODL meme-and-cult apparatus facilitating it.
posted by tclark at 9:58 AM on October 21 [1 favorite]

"...where people are doubling down on bankrupting themselves for the sake of pleasing people."

The Franciscans made a go of it but that didn't last.
posted by aleph at 10:08 AM on October 21 [1 favorite]

My brother-in-law's mother was scammed by someone claiming to be her grandson, who needed bail money wired quickly or he was in trouble. The motive there wasn't greed, it was love. You just con an honest person differently than a dishonest one.
posted by fatbird at 10:09 AM on October 21 [11 favorites]

As has been said, "the levers are different".
posted by aleph at 10:11 AM on October 21 [3 favorites]

How does gender play into this? Are there a reasonable number of women who buy meme stocks? My gut feeling is that some of the stupidity is about wanting to look masculine - caution, holding back, etc being too girlie/gay.
posted by Frowner at 10:14 AM on October 21 [1 favorite]

And then there's meta-games where, for example, you startle/disturb them first with something unrelated => makes them easier to hit with the con
posted by aleph at 10:14 AM on October 21

So P.T. Barnum WAS right?

It seems that the sucker/minute ratio is increasing all the time, sadly.
posted by JHarris at 10:17 AM on October 21

From the vague stories I've seen "going by" women seem more susceptible to relationship cons than meme stock cons which do seem more male.
posted by aleph at 10:18 AM on October 21

"It seems that the sucker/minute ratio is increasing all the time, sadly."

Naah. Just nowadays we can *reach* them in scale!
posted by aleph at 10:19 AM on October 21 [2 favorites]

How does gender play into this? Are there a reasonable number of women who buy meme stocks? My gut feeling is that some of the stupidity is about wanting to look masculine - caution, holding back, etc being too girlie/gay.

I was interested to hear one interviewee say that Ryan Cohen's "father raised him right."
posted by Well I never at 10:20 AM on October 21

This was the information they had at the time many of these people invested.

This was part of the "information" they had. They interpreted that specific language in light of their bizarre mental models of capitalism and the stock market and bankruptcy process and...I guess "causality" is a decent word for it (e.g., do they believe they can manifest things, do they believe in a just world, do they believe in an anti-just world where it's the cleverest who are inevitably rewarded). All information has to be interpreted in light of its context, after all, and they brought a specific context born of the late capitalism they're steeped in.

Greedy and stupid is a combination that gets up my nose, too, but I think the existence of people like this is a symptom of how weirdly distorted a lay understanding of economics and the courts can arise under our weirdly distorted system.
posted by praemunire at 10:21 AM on October 21 [1 favorite]

How does gender play into this?

So, first, they call themselves "apes" (as a nod to r/wallstreetbets which hates them and bans them at every turn), the people that laugh at them call them "baggies" (because they're the ones left holding the bag), but the most apt (and most devastating) term I've yet come across is this:

Fincel
posted by aramaic at 10:22 AM on October 21 [12 favorites]

I can help you unlock the secrets of scamming an honest man with this one weird trick
posted by Western Infidels at 10:22 AM on October 21 [2 favorites]

I think women are more likely to get into MLMs.

However, there are a lot of gender-neutral scams, too, like implausible cures.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:03 AM on October 21 [5 favorites]

Are there a reasonable number of women who buy meme stocks?

During the height of GameStop mania I knew a couple of women who bought into it, though they didn't make it their whole personality.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:10 AM on October 21

Definitely MLMs. I'd forgotten Tupperware (having only heard about the parties second hand). Many others.
posted by aleph at 11:17 AM on October 21 [2 favorites]

How is this any different than QAnon?
posted by misterpatrick at 11:41 AM on October 21

1) There's no such thing as a type of person who is susceptible to scams. There is a set of circumstances and frame of mind that makes us susceptible to scams. You are one tired evening away from clicking the email link.

2) The internet and social media have made scams internet scale, and this is a serious problem that will continue to get worse if we don't fix it.

3) If your solution involves "people just need to" then your solution is not a solution. People will not just. In the whole history of the world people have never just.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:49 AM on October 21 [17 favorites]

I think part of what's going on is people not having a sense of causality.

I think part of what is going on is that people can feel the ground falling out from underneath them. They can look around and see that other people have lots of stuff and things go their way, but the looker does not have that life. So, what to do?

They can see that people get paid very well to go into court and say special words and get huge payouts or get paid for doing that for others. They see people making a lot of money (or seeming to) looking at the lookers' damaged bodies, doing some incomprehensible tests and telling them to take mysterious pills. They can see people in lab coats getting paid (they imagine) a lot of money to stare at test tubes and instruments and make fantastic products. They at least hear about people messing around with arcane rituals around stocks and other investments and making loads of money.

So, it's possible to see that and say "I need to figure out what those people know" and get in on those careers, but that takes time and money and access to other resources, so, instead, they do what humans have always done and turn to the basest forms of magic. Instead of getting a law degree, they memorize magic words that sound like things lawyers would say and become Sovereign Citizens. They search around on the internet and find recommendation for Alternative Medicine or maybe they take up doing Cargo Cult science or math. Or, like these people, develop an elaborate proto-religion around investing in just the right way.

If theya re drawn to politics, then they cut through the fog of mystery with conspiracy theories -- Alex Jones, QAnon, what have you.

Note that this is not a defense of these people exactly, it's an explanation for their behavior. And when our educational systems seem more and more beleaguered and/or focused on political indoctrination by the Neo-No-Nothings, then should we be surprised that people turn to the weirdest and basest of magics and religion to satisfy their hope that somehow things will get better.

It helps, of course, that their are a lot of grifters looking for just that audience.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:52 AM on October 21 [15 favorites]

It’s also weird that none of these people seem to know Ryan Cohen. Why didn’t someone just ask him if he had plans instead of searching children’s books for secret clues? Just boggles the mind.
posted by misterpatrick at 11:54 AM on October 21 [1 favorite]

However, there are a lot of gender-neutral scams, too, like implausible cures.

There's a really big scam that is patriarchal but the targeting of victims is gender neutral. It often involves implausible cures too, and claims to answer all your life's worries and existential anxieties. But if I point it out I get eye rolls and told that I'm being an obnoxious atheist.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:54 AM on October 21

There's no such thing as a type of person who is susceptible to scams. There is a set of circumstances and frame of mind that makes us susceptible to scams. You are one tired evening away from clicking the email link.


ever been in a church?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:02 PM on October 21

A lot of different kinds of churches out there. I've been to a couple of very weird ones. They're not all alike. And that's if you stay in the "Christian" ones.
posted by aleph at 12:17 PM on October 21 [1 favorite]

Why didn’t someone just ask him if he had plans...

He's under an NDA! That he may have signed with himself! Also, he's been secretly communicating with a random guy on Twitter. His 69D chess (niiiice) plans would be disrupted by hedgies and shills if he spoke openly, so of course he has to communicate with the loyal apes via childrens' books! He's just waiting to light the candle for MOASS, let him cook! Sure, he said he wasn't involved in that court case, but those were just legal documents, they don't mean anything, everyone lies to judges!

(all of the foregoing have been used as actual justifications)
posted by aramaic at 12:19 PM on October 21

this is financial advice - folding ideas
posted by shesdeadimalive at 12:50 PM on October 21 [7 favorites]

for anyone who's wondering, "What Does Dan Olson think about this?"

on preview: JINX. The Folding Ideas video is about a year old and is mostly about the cult thinking that goes into all meme stocks, and hits on BBBY as the worst example of it; but yeah, Dan Olson's general career of digging into the Internet and online forums as a catalyst for conspiratorial thinking is very relevant to this conversation.
posted by bl1nk at 12:55 PM on October 21 [5 favorites]

It's hard to con an honest man.

I've come to believe that this, and similar formulations (cf. W.C. Fields) is just basic con man bullshit. It might be easier to get away with a con if the mark is guilty of something--or, more to the point, if they believe that they're guilty of something--but they'll take their money where, when, and from whom they can get it. My impression of the memestock cult is that they generally seem to believe that everything that they do is perfectly legal and that it's the short sellers who are the real unethical crooks, since they're betting on failure. (I'm getting this from Dan Olson's video, which is indeed very fine.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:13 PM on October 21 [2 favorites]

"It's hard to con an honest man."

I think they meant something different with "honest" than "not illegal" when that expression was created. Different times. Including more hypocrisy. "Get rich quick" was frowned upon in a lot of places. "Honest" was seen as against that. Why I can't say though maybe from association with the con man/swindlers.
posted by aleph at 2:23 PM on October 21

being too girlie/gay.
This is the part I don't get. Bed Bath and Beyond was the single girliest retail outlet outside of the mall. My one friend and I used to go there AAAAAAAAALLLLLL the TIIIIIIME for the girly bullshit they sold. That's where I got my disco shower curtain and matching towels and bathmat for my all gray bathroom, so chic. Were there any bros in the store? There were no bros in the store. Why are all the bros trying to prop up that stock? Why would it not be obvious that Ryan whateverhisnameis was thinking, "here is another deal similar to Gamestop, on which I made a small fortune, I wonder if I can do it again with an even more obviously catastrophically bad business model like trying to sell kitchen gadgets in a brick and mortar store when there is Amazon?"
posted by Don Pepino at 4:18 PM on October 21 [1 favorite]

"Men/Bros don't understand Women"?
posted by aleph at 4:25 PM on October 21

Bed Bath & Beyond was acquired by Overstock, a wholesaler of largely discontinued items. That's probably how the memestock followers got attracted to it.
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:28 PM on October 21

Bed Bath & Beyond was acquired by Overstock

Amusingly, their Chairman of the Board Mr. Lemonis has a small sideline in dunking on apes via Twitter. Every now and then when someone is spinning their psychotic ramblings into a reason why they're all gonna be rich, they touch on Beyond/Overstock and how they're going to get shares in that company instead.

...he then pops in to say something like:

"Not going to happen."
posted by aramaic at 4:45 PM on October 21

Yeah, we need to re-formulate the "can't cheat an honest man" meme.

I think of myself as pretty honest, but in my handful of decades of life I've almost fallen for "sketchy guy selling speakers out of the back of his van" and "distraught family at gas station out of gas" and "hi do you remember me? I'm the girl who sat four rows behind you in French class" and a few others that I cringe to remember.

Saying that you can't cheat an honest man implies that if you did get cheated then you must deserve it because you must be dishonest and so you get what you get. When the truth is, as said above, we are all just one bad, tired evening away from clicking on that email link.

It's harder to cheat a modest man, who doesn't believe in fast cash or money for nothing or get rich quick. It's hardest of all to cheat a man without any attachment, for what would he care about material things? What would he care about a "kidnapped" grandson, or a friend who can't make rent? But what kind of life would that be?
posted by fuzzy.little.sock at 5:28 PM on October 21

You can't cheat Buddha!
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:33 PM on October 21 [2 favorites]

Ryan Cohen’s face in the photo he keeps zooming in on is disconcertingly smooth.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:47 PM on October 21

Yeah, imagine these fools putting all their eggs into one basket like stocks, when instead they should have relied on the trustworthiness of the currency, their pensions, the social welfare system, their hard work for their corporate employers, their hard work for their small businesses competing with their corporate rivals, their government, their church and ufos or whatever... investment is gambling. Not gsmbling is guaranteed loss, gambling is most likely a loss. No ones winning honestly in this economy, your choices are lose definately, be scammed, or do the scamming. These folks fell for the scam of being the ones who would be sticking it to someone else. They bought the tulips late, but its tulips all the way down. AI anyone?
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 1:30 AM on October 22 [1 favorite]

No ones winning honestly in this economy

If you'd invested in a total-market mutual fund in 2019, and sold everything at the end of 2023 because you needed the cash for meme-stocks (thereby missing out on the massive rise during 2024), you'd have still doubled your money even if your returns only compounded on a yearly basis.

Zero effort. Just exactly as easy as "investing" in a bankrupt towel retailer. They could even use the same brokerage app.

Maybe nobody is winning honestly, but some of us are winning pretty goddamn easily, simply by purchasing index funds rather than scanning reddit for dying companies to throw our life savings at. Hmm. Sure is a puzzle, ain't it? How can anyone win? The game must be rigged against the mythical common man.
posted by aramaic at 7:33 AM on October 22 [2 favorites]

16 minutes into the video at 1.5x speed. This is just another cognitive dissonance thing, right?

Douglas Coupland once made a poster that read "I miss my pre-internet brain". The internet's been very good for me personally, but I miss the time when people actually had to think for themselves. Because so far in this video, 16 minutes in, I haven't seen any evidence of that ability.
posted by morspin at 8:07 PM on October 22 [1 favorite]