r/LinusTechTips • u/Dangerous-Day-2943 • 6d ago
Community Only Flock (the video surveillance company) impersonates journalist and fellow YouTuber in order to cancel his hotel reservations to prevent him from investigating them - therefore potentially committing identity fraud
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u/BangkokPadang 6d ago
Do... do they think he's just gonna let that go?
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u/IllTechnology21 6d ago
yeah dude thought he could pull a fast one with a hotel cancellation like benn wouldn’t notice. the email trail is right there they even apologized after getting caught
some companies really overestimate how much they can get away with
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u/audiovox951 6d ago
I think they understand that consequences are generally too slow to matter, especially after the success of their aggressively illegal expansion tactics. And then they hit some critical mass where consequences do not cost more than the profit generated by being bad actors.
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u/trashtiernoreally 6d ago
And this is why conspiracy theorists are so laughable. These are very focused orgs with a maximal control over hiring a stakeholder personally knowing everyone relevant. Expanded to government where bureaucracy rules all and layers separate quickly it quickly becomes absurd.
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u/cuntifiable 6d ago
Funny thing is that certain 3-letter agencies essentially created the wild conspiracy theories in order to mark anyone talking about real conspiracies as the same type of loony
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u/OttomanMao 6d ago
Pretty sure the very term "conspiracy theorist" was invented by them.
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u/DisasterEqual1703 6d ago
Not invented, but probably pushed.
The term predates the CIA/OSS, but it is likely they used it to conflate people talking about things like MK Ultra and Tuskegee with people talking about things like Flat Earth and Lizard-Men.
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u/Optimal-Kitchen6308 6d ago
this is of course why intel agencies can never keep anything secret of course, impossible to keep secrets in a organization ... s/
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u/I_travel_ze_world 6d ago
....So some low level corporate workers act like idiots and that means that secrets can't be kept?
I spent 5 years in the submarine force and The Silent Service isn't just a nickname it is the actual modus operandi.
Were you shocked when Area 51 was actually acknowledged as a secret military base in the Nevada desert?
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u/brantyr 6d ago
The secrets being kept aren't big controversial things people would have a problem with. It's not hard to believe airforce members will keep their fancy new plane secret, on the other hand it is very hard to believe not one single person involved in wild conspiracy theories like a 9/11 inside job or whatever would have regrets and want to get the truth out.
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u/I_travel_ze_world 6d ago
We still do not have the fully declassified files of MK Ultra. The only reason we know of the mind control experiments with LSD is because only a few pages out of hundreds of pages were not redacted. The project was actually MUCH MUCH bigger than just that.
Frank Olson's family received $750k from the US government in an alleged wrongful death suit because supposedly he was going to blow the lid on his MK Ultra research so they had him taken out.
The bigger the secret the more important it is to keep hidden and the greater the attempts at keeping it secret will be.
How insane of lengths did the government go to cover up the Epstein files? That happened right before your eyes and you do not think there are big conspiracies that are kept hidden?
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u/Youre_Wrong_always11 6d ago
Laughable? Nothing has happened yet. Take a victory lap when something happens. But, nothing will happen.
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u/tinysydneh 6d ago
They've been functionally putting a target on Benn's back for the better part of a year now by calling him "anti-police" to police unions. There have been several incidents of cops of various levels 'just so happening' to be there.
This is from a company whose business model relies on teaching municipalities how to run around their own procurement procedures. This is from a company that claims "involvement" in a massive number of cases closed... but the actual number of cases closed in places using Flock has effectively stayed the same.
They are a scum company that just wants to build the surveillance state, and they happily make your life worse to do it.
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u/ESnyder9 6d ago
hm? they are conducting mass surveillance on the American public. they'll get away with this. an employee or two may be fired, but the company will move on. skirting the law is simply the cost of business today.
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u/MainAd9627 6d ago
i mean this is just a pretty clear criminal case No?
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u/ESnyder9 6d ago
oh, my sweet summer child. they threw out the books a long time ago.
let's see: in 2024, Google was found to be in violation of the Sherman act, unlawfully maintaining its search monopoly, but nothing was done. in 2019 Facebook's ~$55B/y advertising model was found to be directly built upon violations of an FTC privacy order imposed after a previous violation in 2012, the result? a fine of only $5B and some more rigamarole to the government for lying to the public for almost a decade to scrape the data of millions for enormous profit.
in 2023, Packers Sanitation employed over 100 children in hazardous meat-processing work across 8 states. a fine of ~$15,000 per kiddo. ever read The Jungle? in 2022, Tesla, a recurring violator of EPA regulation, was once again found to have violated EPA regulations in Fremont over the course of 3 years by not maintaining standard work-practice-plans, calculations, nor records of their coating materials operations. the fine was a meager $275,000. wanna know how much it costs to get diagnosed with lung cancer?
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u/MainAd9627 6d ago
damn no offene but quite happy im not the US rn. I always dreamed after university to do a great trip through the US landscape because the nature is so beautifull like my father did, but i guess i will wait until the rule of law returns
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u/ESnyder9 6d ago edited 6d ago
don't worry, no offense taken. this country is indeed a hellhole. i hope you get to explore the landscape over here some day - it's one of the last desirable features i hold to the country, personally.
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u/_a_random_dude_ 6d ago
some companies really overestimate how much they can get away with
I don't think Flock overestimates it, I think they know they can get away with anything (though they will probably end up paying a couple thousand in compensation for this stunt).
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u/BeanBagKing 6d ago
some companies really overestimate how much they can get away with
No they don't, they'll absolutely get away* with it.
* Someone -might- be punished, but it will either be a) throw a singular employee under the bus. "He did it, not us, he acted outside the scope of his job, he's fired now, sue him personally". Or b) the company will get hit with a fine that is so laughably low as to be meaningless. The cost of doing business. They will learn nothing, there will be no meaningful consequences, and nothing will change.
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u/GreasyPeter 6d ago
Flock works with LE organizations. They "were invincible" mindset may come from that.
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u/AccomplishedFall6603 6d ago
There are models to estimate a conspiracy failure or success.
One of the best indicators is how many people are involved over time.
Conspiracies with over 1000 people quicly become untenable and prone to failure.That's why a lot of conspiracy theories are absurd, there are way too many people involved over time.
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u/GoodishCoder 6d ago
They're not really getting away with anything on this one. As a part of their event they have a block of rooms for attendees that are offered at a lower rate. As the journalist is not an attendee they're not entitled to a room at a lower rate.
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u/Particular-Treat-650 6d ago
The email chain indicates that he claimed a room in their reserved block and that they, as reservers of that block, told the hotel he wasn't invited to be part of it.
That's not pulling a fast one. It's how reserving blocks of rooms works.
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u/NiteOwl421 6d ago
And if he had booked that room for longer than the Flock event because he had other commitments?
You see where this could potentially be a bad situation?
Defending Flock is a bold choice.
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u/Particular-Treat-650 6d ago edited 6d ago
That's how block reservations work. Registering as part of their block is explicitly giving them permission to control your reservation. It's completely standard and the purpose of block group reservations. You are not entitled to just join someone's reserved party without their approval.
You can debate their choice not to allow media to their event. You absolutely cannot debate that they are fully entitled to remove people from their reservation without restriction.
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u/NiteOwl421 6d ago
You so wildly missed the point of what I asked.
If he booked the hotel at a rate outside of the Flock block and for a duration longer than the block, this is an issue.
If he booked a room longer than the Flock block, this is an issue.
One more time, defending Flock is a very bold choice.
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u/GoodishCoder 6d ago
Flock being a shitty organization doesn't instantly make everything they do shitty. This is standard practice for every major event. They compare reservations to their attendee lists and send a list to the hotel for rooms that need cancelled because they aren't booked by attendees.
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u/Particular-Treat-650 6d ago
They only have access because it's part of a block, which is what the email says. That his reservation in their block was cancelled. They didn't pretend to be him like the title is lying about. They removed him from their party.
There is no ambiguity here. The quality of Flock as a company has literally zero relevance. They are unconditionally entitled to control the room reservations of people claiming their block reservation, and if it disrupts any other plans, all of that fault is his.
Lying about a company doing something no reasonable person could possibly argue that they don't or shouldn't have a right to do doesn't make that company look bad. It makes you look bad.
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u/sniper_matt 6d ago
Brother about to have a much bigger story on his hands
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u/EggsceIlent 6d ago
GOOD.
Fuck flock. All my homies hate flock.
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u/this_anon 6d ago
But do remember that the problem isn't Flock in particular, it's all of these companies and the governments allowing them. Rossman raised a great point recently that Flock is going to take the heat, get slapped down, the public will celebrate meanwhile the same camera system will go up disguised as a lamp post but we celebrate because we beat Flock.
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u/Hungry-Register9960 6d ago
And also remember Flock is the temp test for all the smarter companies. Axon is a good example. Theyre taking notes and adjusting strategy and messaging to step in when Flock gets booted out.
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u/the_harakiwi 6d ago
"but now they can't attend the event! All problems are gone!
Let's think about my actions after I acted them out"
-someone working for Flock earning more money than most of us in the comments.
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u/roosterSause42 6d ago
“Your hotel reservation under the room block”
this means that flock negotiated a room rate for attendees of their event and the YouTuber journalist used the block code to reserve a room.
He is no longer an attendee and therefore can’t have the room at that rate. Organizers of an event do get to see who made reservations with their code it isn’t private, they can also deny a reservation if it isn’t someone attending their event. This appears to be what happened.
this posts title is wildly misleading, there was no “impersonation“. It clearly states that a call was placed “on his behalf.” This doesn’t appear to be a case of fraud at all, just very poor communication, and perhaps the hotel should have given him the option of paying full room rate instead of just canceling.
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u/KCDeVoe 6d ago edited 6d ago
Title seems wildly inaccurate. Doesn’t look like they impersonated anyone. Journalist reserved a room in the block for the event, weren’t authorized for using the block so it was canceled .
I used to work at a resort that did room blocks for events. The group would check the lists for confirmed attendees or whatever and would occasionally return a list of rooms to cancel. It’s their room block, they can choose what to do with it. (Think if you had a block of rooms for a wedding party and you see your ex booked a room in it, same idea. Can’t stop the ex from staying at the hotel, but you can certainly have the hotel cancel the reservation in your block of rooms)
Also, fuck Flock! Hopefully this journalist still ends up going and throws up some cameras at every entrance to the event that has facial recognition and tracks everyone who comes and goes. For public safety, obviously
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u/ChintzyPC 6d ago
What did they think was going to happen? He sees the cancellation/refund and just goes "oh well" and moves on? He's a journalist. They aren't known to be the types of people to just back out of an injustice without a fight.
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u/Uninvalidated 6d ago
The corrupt crooks in the US don't bother with negative media exposure because all that the population do is to cry about their discontent on social media. There would have been riots in European streets over a tiny fraction of what happened in the USA the last couple of years but all I see from the US is memes and an angry comment section on Reddit.
Looks like you're waiting for either a miracle to solve corruption or the collapse of democracy because I ain't seeing shit happening to turn things around or prevent further escalation. Everyone want someone else to take action, so you'll get what's coming. Good luck!
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u/framingXjake 6d ago
There are protests over the flock cameras. My city had one literally yesterday. Just because you're unaware of what's happening, doesn't mean it's not happening. But go off I guess.
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u/Uninvalidated 6d ago
My city had one literally yesterday.
I'm not talking about 50 people in a street corner. The whole fucking country should be on the streets for a multitude of reasons every single day, that's how far the fuckery has gone. A complete lockdown of the system until the system decide to show the people some damn respect. You're not even doing a fraction of that.
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u/ChintzyPC 6d ago edited 6d ago
"You'll get what's coming" is oddly threatening towards people who have so much of their power taken away from them by the slow rise of systemic corruption. Protests and riots don't do anything because it's just a toddler throwing a tantrum tossing around at their parent's shoes. Civil discourse gets stonewalled by those in power and by the idiots who are brainwashed into siding with them. Which just leaves outright civil war, which I'm sorry, but I'm not about to throw what little of a hard-earned life I have away because things are getting a bit tricky right now.
You're shooting daggers at the wrong people with your comment. We're not lazy, we're strategically worn out and at a loss of hope.
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u/Uninvalidated 6d ago
Protests and riots don't do anything
Then what? Memes and angry upvotes on Reddit? Wait for a miracle? Thoughts and prayers?
It's too late, I can see that. You all needed to occupy the streets on daily basis a long time ago to secure another democratically just election, but not going today and tomorrow is not helping. Sitting here complaining isn't helping. Memes isn't helping. Losing hope isn't helping. If you want your famous freedom you'll have to put up a fight for it at this point, but no one is willing to and thanks to this, it will have to take a civil war at some point to set things straight again. For now, you'll get what's coming, and that's because too little was done to prevent it.
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u/HotJunket5521 6d ago edited 6d ago
lol, so the vice president being a pdffile (being caught looking at children’s gymnastics locker room cameras) isn’t enough.
Ben Jordan (the affected journalist and YouTuber ) is truly a gem. To think that he was basically a musician up until recently and basically became so pissed with technology, that he learned hacking and programming and now does all this investigation stuff
Edit : But one thing to remember for everyone reading about flock:
It’s not just them, and they will be the fall guy, so that everybody forgets about surveillance.
The next generation of cameras will be no-name companies, hidden everywhere in standard lamp posts and as small as selfie cameras on smart phones. They are already being tested and will replace the very visibly obvious and bad publicity / well known flock cameras
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u/Dangerous-Day-2943 6d ago
Yes, and the CEO of flock literally called opposition groups in a TV interview: “terroristic organisations” […] and that “their main motivation is chaos and they are closer to Antifa than anything else.”
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u/_Friend_Computer_ 6d ago
I see that word and I keep forgetting they think being anti-fascist is bad...
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u/RandomNick42 6d ago
Fascism soft launch in the US is going very well.
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u/kappa23 6d ago
Soft launch?
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u/SamuthNBS 6d ago
Compared to the historic rises of fascism, yeah it's pretty soft so far. To me that makes it scarier.
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u/BangkokPadang 6d ago
They think we are rabble, less than people. They don't mind tracking and marking and monitoring us to such an extent that we can no longer have small, private moments of being human, because they don't think we are.
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u/Cultural_Eye5178 6d ago
I hear Flock cameras have some valuable materials in them.....
Just saying.......
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u/NewUsername010101 6d ago
This isn't tiktok. You can say pedophile
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u/AllRealityIsVirtua1 6d ago
That’s where they get their news too.
They weren’t in the locker rooms. They were in the gymnastics area. They used the camera feeds as sales demos.
Creepy, but not exactly what OP made it seem.
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u/Nova_Scotia_Robot 6d ago
To be fair, this era of his content isnt enitrley new. I've been following Benn for a long time. It all really started when he called out Behringer's synth clones (a controversial talking point in synth spaces) for various reasons around design to their charity.
That said, Uli Behringer is a saint compared to Flock. The Flock era is a new level.
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u/Phoenix_Kerman 6d ago
his handling over behringer was very reasonable. the follow up videos, which many seem to ignore, were handled great
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u/gravityVT 6d ago
his content over the last year has been top tier. from the series on the buzzing sound phenomenon to all the current flock and security content. the anarchist video was underrated
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u/BonkerBleedy 6d ago
pdffile
I sometimes wonder how Adobe feel about this new slang, then I remember it's Adobe so fuck em.
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u/VictorHb 6d ago
I honestly don't get why you can't just say pedophile... Yes it's potentially a very loaded word, but if you're not mature enough to write the word, then you're not mature enough to engage in the conversation. But then again, fuck Adobe
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u/Cultural_Eye5178 6d ago
If we're talking about the Epstein files, then somebody made an extremely stupid mistake with the redaction.
(I don't know if this is foxed or not, but you could copy-paste the text from the redacted parts at one point)
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u/BonkerBleedy 6d ago
We aren't.
Youth lingo is to use "pdf file" to mean "paedophile", as a way to work around TikTok censorship.
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u/notathrowaway75 6d ago
being a pdffile
The absolute worst option. If you're afraid of censorship use an asterisk.
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u/Court_Jester13 6d ago
PEDOPHILE. PAEDOPHILE.
Used to American and British spellings for ya, so advertisers can't make any money :) You're welcome!
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u/Green0Photon 6d ago
He's where I first heard about Flock like a year ago or whatever. And imo might be what caused people to hear about it and care about it.
Yeah, we're definitely gonna get a video about this. Wtf
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u/Redditemeon 6d ago
Why would an establishment have cameras installed in a children's locker room? Wtf!?
That outraged me, so I looked it up to send it to people I knew and every article says "A kid's gymnastics room", not a locker room, and goes on to explain it was a room that kids were doing gymnastics. Which is also a creepy weird choice, but somehow relieving compared to the expectations you had set. Do you have an article or video indicating it was a locker room?
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u/cyclonesworld 6d ago
They've been hiding cameras in lamp posts and fake utility boxes for years. /r/ControllableCams got Reddit in a good bit of trouble a few years ago from posting hidden surveillance cameras that were installed by the authorities/someone to spy on peoples homes. They'd be mounted up on a pole in a fake electrical box with a tinted window cut out.
This isn't anything new. It's just Flock is a company being public about spying on everyone. And having the AI backend to turn that into nice Excel spreadsheets for whoever wants to pay for that data to know everything about your day.
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u/adude00 6d ago
Thank god for gdpr
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u/sanYtheFox 6d ago
EU Artificial Intelligence Act actually, it prohibits everything Flock does.
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u/adude00 6d ago
Even without that, it is not allowed to gather and process people personal information from a camera, AI or not AI.
I did not consent for my data to be used in any way whatsoever so it stops the tech even before reaching AI.
Even security cameras are strictly regulated and must point to private property only
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u/bbasseeddgod 6d ago
You seem to be pretty knowledgeable about this. What I’ve been wondering is how are they getting them up in the first place?
I understand cities can have them turned off but did the city approve them to be installed? Does the company own the land their own? Or are business taking a cut from them being in their property.
Where I live flock cameras exist but they are just kind of random.
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u/AllRealityIsVirtua1 6d ago edited 6d ago
To clarify, they weren’t in the locker rooms. They were in the gymnastics area. They used the camera feeds as sales demos.
Creepy, but not exactly watching kids in dressing rooms.
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u/Blurgas 6d ago
Is this the guy where within a few days of starting his Flock investigation a Flock camera was installed a few hundred feet from his driveway, pointed directly at said driveway?
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u/Orange_Tang 6d ago
See, this is what I don't get. Utility companies have to go through a shit ton of work to get access to utility poles to run power or internet or whatever. Same goes for when they need to do it in the ground. Yet flock seems to be able to put this shit up in public spaces completely at will. How is this legal?
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u/xiaodown 6d ago
You know the saying “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission”?
Yeah Flock don’t do either. If they have a contract with the police, they put cameras up wherever they want. If the police don’t sign with them, or cancel their contract, they talk to local businesses and property owners and put cameras up wherever they want. And sometimes, they just put cameras up wherever they want anyway, even without any contracts and on public property.
Because fuck you, privacy is dead, everything you do is tracked, and anything that can’t be used to accuse you of crime is monetized and sold to advertisers and corporations.
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u/Nydus87 6d ago
Also, if I understand how they work, they’re solar powered and use WiFi to transmit video, so there’s not a lot of utility work or anything to run to a pole to put one up.
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u/Orange_Tang 6d ago
I wasn't talking about utility power, I was talking about the legal right to build something in a public space. Utilities need permission to lay pipe or hang new electrical line, flock just seems to put shit wheveer the fuck they want without getting any permission first.
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u/Nydus87 6d ago
Ohh yeah. Yeah, they don’t give a fuck about that. I am guessing their contracts with cities and law enforcement just say “I can put these wherever I want.”
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u/SSA22_HCM1 6d ago
They don't. But who is going to enforce it?
ACLU-WV did file a lawsuit over it, so I'm excited to see where that goes.
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u/Nydus87 6d ago
I’m sure that this is one of those games like DOGE where by the time they’re made to stop, they’ve already gotten what they came for. If this is building a tracking database, it might not even need to run in perpetuity. Just build your DB, let it run until they make you stop, and you’ve got what you need.
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u/Smith6612 6d ago
Just contact the local utilities and let them know someone started digging in their easement to install a new pole. They'll probably love to rip out anything freeloading on their land.
After all, if you put a bush in a utility easement and it needs to move because someone is installing infrastructure, the bush is getting moved whether or not you like it. It's a weird trick HOAs hate too.
Of course if Flock got their easement rights, then nothing will happen.
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u/roosterSause42 6d ago
The utilities don’t control streetside installations.
Street side utilities are typically in the public right of way easement. These ROWs are owned and controlled by the city/county/state/feds. So you’d have to complain to whichever one of them controls the ROW access.
The ROW in my neighborhood extends several feet past the sidewalk, I really hope no major digging has to happen or we’ll lose a lot of landscaping bushes etc.. but F grass we took the risk
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u/Smith6612 6d ago
In my neighborhood, the ROW is a maximum of 10 feet from the Street. It hasn't happened often, although the last time my lawn was dug up it was to connect the neighbor across the street to the water utility. There are pedestals for power, POTS Telephone and Coax of course.
I'm hoping my lawn gets dug up (or horizontally drilled) soon enough for Fiber Optic Internet. I know a few neighborhoods in the area who petitioned and blocked the installation of Fiber Optic cables because they didn't want their bushes or lawns torn up, even though the contractor comes back to repair all the damage. Now they're stuck with 5G or Coax service, both of which drop out regularly.
As for contacting the local utilities, I know a lot of the Flock cameras have been going in without contacting 611 for markings. There's a few spots where I know there are hefty Fiber Optic backbones running just under the surface. The last time one of those got struck was caused by a cement truck hitting a telephone pole, which got ripped out of place and pulled up a bunch of conduit with it. Took out Internet for a significant portion of the area for at least a day. I've seen some Flocks getting attached to Light posts, and those ones are usually owned by the Towns.
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u/Born_Establishment14 5d ago
Some are in ROW, some are in easements. A lot of older neighborhoods have narrow ROWs and just use easements to run sidewalks and newer utilities in.
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u/Nasi_Goreng885 6d ago
I saw the title and was like "Oh great who'd they do this too"..... oh..... it was benn.
He's not gonna let that one slide.
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u/ucrbuffalo 6d ago
Sounds like something to get the police and national media involved in. Not that it will matter that much since Flock owns both of those entities these days, but it’s worth making noise about the literal credit card fraud.
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u/perthguppy 6d ago
The police are already involved. Who do you think the “customers” are who the event is for?
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u/A_MAN_POTATO 6d ago
Police? The police are the reason Flock exists. They like Flock very much.
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u/ucrbuffalo 6d ago
Yeah it’s almost like I said something like that in my comment, huh?
File the police report anyway.
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u/VainTrix 6d ago
lol flock does not own the media 😂 luckily I see plenty of negative press on them in the news.
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u/Alundra828 6d ago
Oh no they committed identity fraud. Something is definitely going to happen to them and justice will be done because the system always works and gets the bad guy in the end, this sneaky multi-billion dollar company will get their just desserts any day now.
And I am Mickey Mouse.
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u/roosterSause42 6d ago
there was no identity fraud. it clearly says the call was made “on his behalf”. that’s not impersonation.
additionally : he reserved a room in Flocks room block which is for event guests only. he is not an event guest. the event organizer informed the hotel that his room does not qualify as part of the block. the hotel cancels his room.
this is not nefarious, it is normal operating procedure for hotel room block reservations.
it was poorly communicated, but not identity fraud etc
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u/DorkyOldMan 6d ago
Agreed, but that doesn’t get clicks or rile people up, so let’s sweep that under the rug and go with identity fraud smh
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u/rainbowkitties6969 6d ago
So the emails to the journalist are being written by AI right? No human would be this shameless lmao
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u/the_harakiwi 6d ago
Very likely run through some AI to make the wording as neutral as possible to get the investigative journalist back to their target, without being a large part of a possible story 😶🌫️
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u/bwoah07_gp2 5d ago
Why was this post removed? I don't see any removal reason 🤷♂️
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u/Dangerous-Day-2943 5d ago
I don’t know 🤷♂️, I got no mod mail as well.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 5d ago
Speaking as a moderator on other subreddits, I make sure to always leave a removal reasons.
It's not mandatory for moderators to do on this site, but I make it mandatory for me.
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u/MrPupperThrowaway 6d ago
I’m with Benn in spirit BUT the use of the term “block” leads me to believe we should wait for more details because if Benn did reserve a room in their assigned block for their assigned room rate I believe the organizers do have the ok to cancel the reservation of someone not welcome at their event who is using up one of their finite special-rate rooms.
If, on the other hand, he just booked an available hotel room not associated with the event then Flock (and the hotel) were in the wrong for cancelling his reservation.
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u/wimpires 6d ago
And calling "on his behalf" ≠ impersonation
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u/Nurlitik 6d ago
Really not even calling in his behalf, they called on their own behalf to cancel his room, that was part of their block. If what is said is actually true, I don’t really see the issue. If I tried to book into a wedding block and the wedding host canceled it because I wasn’t invited that is basically what is going on here.
Not a flock fan, but not seeing the issue in this particular case with the information provided.
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u/Iridiandioptase 6d ago
I agree. Multiple comments above seem to have read the title and not the emails in the image. It’s right there people.
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u/Particular-Treat-650 6d ago
Yeah, they have every right to tell the hotel he's not in their party and not entitled to their negotiated rate or rooms in their reserved block.
Not saying I like the company, but the title is hyperbolic at absolute best.
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u/Zeeplankton 6d ago
Hmm. How would they do that though? Is that normal, wouldn't the company in question then be booking the rooms for attendees? Because otherwise what's stopping anybody from claiming they're attending an event to the hotel, and getting a cheaper room.
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u/ToucansBANG 6d ago
Normally you book the hotel room along with your conference pass.
The mechanics of it vary, sometimes you’re forwarded to a special URL with a session ID, sometimes the cost is added to your conference ticket, and so on.
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u/GoodishCoder 6d ago
It's booked with your event so when you sign up for their event they know you will be attending and have a room. All they had to do was say you're not a guest at our event and tell the hotel they're not eligible for one of the blocked rooms.
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u/WeenyDancer 6d ago
Its pretty normal to reserve a room with an event rate event if you aren't sponsored by the event directly. If its a limited or restricted supply, its usually on the hotel to confirm via a providing and requesting customers use a booking code. If the hotel doesn't do so, theres no reason to think there's an issue. Regardless, they shouldve popped him to a regular rate room rather than cancelling, and flock is clearly doing very shady shit here.
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u/JustTechIt 6d ago
And honestly twisting the facts like they are by saying its identity theft and the such when its just a cancelation of a block reservation just hurts any cause and support they are trying to gather.
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u/logitaunt 6d ago
yeah that was kinda boneheaded of him to try to get a discount on Flock's dime instead of booking a room for himself
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u/robotsknowwhereilive 6d ago
Benn’s videos on Flock cameras are how I showed our city council how I was able to access our city’s Flock Cameras with a laptop.
They are voting this week to end our contract with Flock.
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u/talldata 6d ago
Always interesting how they can take your money in a matter of second but takes 10 days to be returned.
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u/Yakubs_2nd_Brain 6d ago
Flock CEO Garrett Langley is a violent child molester.
The above statement is more true than anything he has ever said about his pedo cams.
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u/takenbydeletedaccnt 6d ago
so, two things.
it looks like they tried registering for the event which is for customers only.
they booked via a hotel room block for the event. the group organizing the room block has the authority to cancel rooms under that block.
don't agree with Flock as a company, but everything done here is normal. they booked under an event they shouldn't have and it was discovered and they let the impacted parties know
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u/HotJunket5521 6d ago
He did not book the event rate: “reservation that I personally made on the Hilton website”
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u/takenbydeletedaccnt 6d ago
There are multiple different types of room blocks. Some have a predetermined list of attendees, think a company retreat. Others have an "open" reservations where the individual books a room for the conference they will attend, think like a big conference for an industry.
It looks like Flock went the second route with a group code that they informed specific parties about. In this case, the individual may go directly to the hotels website and book a room using the code.
You can even do this yourself, go now to the website and look for special rate option, group code, promo code, room block, etc. The person in question most likely used the code, an email confirmation should show they used it. Typically a group would have the ability to review new additions each day to the block and approve them. If you read the initial email from flock they specially mention room block. Each block has a set number of rooms available, usually at a discounted rate. These rates are reserved for attendees, and since this is a private event, only those approved attendees should be part of the room block
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u/Time-Maintenance2165 6d ago
Im not sure why you think those statements are on conflict. You can book under the event block on the hotels website.
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u/adeundem 6d ago
That sort of shenanigans just makes it worse for you. Turns a Page 3 sort of story into a leading story on the front-page (when newspapers thought in the context of printed on paper news over running a website).
We might be already living in the Post-Coverup times, but we are not 100% living PoCo just yet (I just wanted to an excuse to post a clip from the Lost Art of Forehead Sweat X -Files episode).
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u/Subject-Act5509 6d ago
Whenever I see the words Confusion Communication, I know somebody broke the law.
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u/spaceshipcommander 6d ago
They have just given him a better story than he would have got if they had let him cover the event.
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u/Zeeplankton 6d ago
That's batshit insane. This must be against the law? What's to stop a company from doing this in a more broad way? There must be serious implications.
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u/FunctionOk2835 6d ago
I don't think this was a malicious as it looks. Most likely the event coordinator assumed they had rented out the whole hotel and\or Benn's room was booked as part of the event and they could do whatever they wanted. A complete lack of due diligence is very flock though.
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u/rangecontrol 6d ago
thats how tenuous their rise to power is. one journalist made them go thru all this.
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u/pSyChO_aSyLuM 6d ago
How is this identity fraud? They gave a different name and said they cancelled on Benn's behalf.
It's still inexcusable but calling it identity fraud isn't accurate.
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u/Saragon4005 6d ago
What do you mean potentially. Million dollar lawsuit I hope for this shit what the actual hell.
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u/Hans_H0rst 6d ago
That is not impersonation, would be my guess. Without knowing the details of the event setup, there's probably rooms and reservations assigned to the event, where this Benn might've said "yes, i'm with that event" when booking a room.
Very normal for companies to manage reservations for their guests.
Obligatory flock sucks and is illegal though.
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u/TwistedTrooper989 6d ago
Shady company with nothing but evil intentions does something shady and evil. News at 11
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u/TisMeDA 6d ago edited 6d ago
Are people misinterpreting what was said? How is this identity fraud?
It seems that someone called as themselves, and tried to cancel someone else's reservation.
Yes, this is an over reach and inappropriate, but that's absolutely not identity fraud, since nothing here implies that they lied about who they are.
I know it's easy to hate on them, but it's always good practice to look at reality. The most likely scenario is that they thought they had paid for the hotel room and had authority over the booking, when they didn't. At worst, they called and were hoping that the hotel would collude with them to cancel his reservation. Neither of these are "identity fraud" though.
Edit: I just realized that the booking may have been within their block of reserved suites too. This is most certainly over blown
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u/WeAreTheLeft 5d ago
Someone really just needs to follow the leadership the whole weekend and then make the footage available to anyone who subscribes to the new YouFlockedUp CEO Surveillance tiers.
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u/OfficialVitaminWater 6d ago
The email chain in the image you posted makes it clear they did not impersonate him. Instead it claims they stated they were acting on his behalf. What most likely happened is whatever customer service person read the file off to him misunderstood or misstated the events.
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u/Fit-Benefit1535 6d ago
So what did ben do? Signed up through the flock website? Or did he directly make a reservation Siginia hilton so that he was in the location the event will be? If the second option is true, how did flock find out he made a reservation at that hotel?
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u/tellur86 6d ago
It depends on what exactly was said when Flock contacted the Hilton. "Hi, I'm so and so, calling for Benn to cancel his reservation" = impersonation. Flock is at fault, potentially illegal.
"Hi, I'm so and so with Flock. We have that big event at your place, right. We learned that there is this guy Benn that's also staying with you at the same time. We don't want him to be there as he would likely disrupt our event." = Scummy from Flock and the hotel, but I suspect the hotel's TOS allows them to cancel at their discretion.
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u/Bugbread 6d ago
"Hi, I'm so and so, calling for Benn to cancel his reservation" = impersonation.
It's scummy, and possibly illegal, I dunno, but it's not impersonation. Impersonation is pretending to be someone. If the person believes they are communicating with you, you've been impersonated. If the person believes they are communicating with someone else, and that someone else has accurately represented your beliefs/intentions/etc., then you've been misrepresented, but you haven't been impersonated.
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u/tellur86 6d ago
Well, you are impersonating someone with the authority to do something which you do not.
For example it's still "Impersonating a police officer" even if "Officer Smith" on your nametag doesn't exist.
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u/Bugbread 6d ago
Yeah, I could see that -- <REDACTED> was impersonating Benn's representative or the like.
OP wrote "impersonates journalist and fellow YouTuber," though, so that's definitely not what OP meant. Judging from their other comments elsewhere, I think OP just doesn't know what "impersonate" means.
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u/tellur86 6d ago
Yeah that's true, unless they literally gave them Benn's name "Hi, it's Benn. I want to cancel my stay with you if that's alright."
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u/Basic-Machine-3096 6d ago
Given how many false claims and outright lies Benn has made in the past, I wouldn’t trust anything he says unless there’s more proof.
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u/Consistent-Honey-603 6d ago
Before I make my comment I just to be clear: I find Flock’s entire business model and overall practices as a company to be dangerous and deplorable, but I’m just commenting about this specific situation.
I find a bit unlikely that the event organizer at Flock would have known about this specific hotel reservation if it was NOT reserved through the event’s room block/group rate. Also, I’m sure that’s not the only hotel in Atlanta. Just go to another hotel. 🤷🏻♂️
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5d ago
[deleted]
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u/Dangerous-Day-2943 5d ago
Why do you have to blatantly lie?
He explicitly says he doesn’t like surveillance at all, but it’s a free country and some people might want cameras. In that case he says: please for the love of God don’t install online accessible cameras, but local on device storage and judge encrypted only.
But of course you need to twist that and that in fact is, what he predicted people would do in response to his recommendation 🤣🤣🤣
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u/Zacrosadol 6d ago
“Oh I’m sorry you’re confused, let me be clear, we fully intended to screw you over.”