It's only natural to want to hold up champions and cling to people that seem to represent our ideals. I liked a lot of what I heard on Anarchast too, before I got closer and peeked behind the curtain. Fortunately, even though men can be corrupted and killed, ideas and principles cannot. The trick is to just be your own hero and don't invest your identity in anyone else. That's a hallmark of true personal responsibility.

I don't know why I cannot reply to your post below @piedpiper. Believe me when I say I do not champion or cling to ANYONE, including Jeff Berwick, or any other anarchist. I do however love the ideas of anarchism and decentralization. But even those concepts do not rule my life. Nobody is perfect, so I don't see any reason to put anyone on a pedestal. And in reality anarchism is in line with what you said. I don't put faith in governments, or politicians, or political parties to take care of people, create jobs, or solve everyones problems. So when I say i'm disappointed  if this were true about Jeff, it's because he claims to have similar values as me, and scamming people would not hold up to those values. However, like anyone else with any other idealogical view, there will be people who do not live up to what they preach. I'm not convinced that he has scammed anyone, because I see no legal action against him. I do see in the videos that he has had problems with his businesses and money. And he also has addressed his personal problems in other videos and posts. I think the key thing here is to try to separate bad business with intentional scamming. Maybe someone will shed some light on this. Maybe Jeff himself will address @stellabelle on her post of accusations. I'm sure he's had to defend himself on these issues elsewhere. The other thing to think about, is what about the financial incentive to call someone like Jeff out. I mean one of the easiest ways to see posts upvoted here is to call out a power user on Steemit. Hell, you could call out @stellabelle on here and your post would probably do well. I'm not saying that was her intent, just an observation. P.S. if anyone can tell me why I was not able to reply to @piedpiper below, I'd appreciate it. I can see the post but there is no reply button.

Hi @framelalife Yeah, unfortunately, there's a limit to how long a back and forth conversation can be carried out here. I hope they fix that in a future update.
When dealing with international scams, there are very few options available to people seeking refunds and restitution from scammers. It would require the police from both the victim's country and Mexico to cooperate in a joint effort, which only ever happens in major cases involving terrorists, drug smuggling rings, etc. I doubt something as small as Jeff's little racket would get such care or attention. Also, it's a shady business model to begin with, which require clients to either remain willfully ignorant of the laws that are being broken or disregard them intentionally. Most law enforcement officers would most likely think that you deserved to get scammed because you tried to subvert immigration laws. Ironically enough, this is likely the kind of situation that calls for some vigilante action from the victims themselves.

@framelalife - I'll 2nd what you said & I have no idea if he's a scammer or not, I can only talk about MY experiences.

Back in 2006 I posted a negative review of this young copywriter.

Within a year there was a site up claiming I was a fraudster & a scammer.

Then anyone who got pissed off at me would go onto these 2 blogs & post how terrible a person I am. I'm not of course, but only a person who knows me & is sane themselves would know that.

Of course Google allowed these blogs (they are on their blogspot servers) to stay up, & fought us on the IP addresses for the defamers' accounts.

The defamers hid their IPs by using one at York University in Toronto.

In my opinion, yes many Canadians are VICIOUS online. I get cyber stalked by a scam mortgage broker min. once per year & she's been doing it since 2009.

The other IP was out of some Eastern EU country (I'd have to look it up.)

Obviously, that was done behind a VPN.

You know someone is a shady when they hide behind a VPN or a public untraceable computer to write a supposed TRUTHFUL blog post & this was done back in 2007 when most people didn't even know what VPNs were.

And then years later I pieced together some facts that this kid must have hacked or hired someone to hack into one of my blogs where my review of him was because I realized that ALL of the posts about copywriters (there was at least 3) were deleted.

Nothing else was deleted, just those posts.

My point is, most humans are liars & more & more people have become chronic liars.

It's sooo easy to lie online.

I'm honest to a fault (except when it comes to corrupt power that can ruin my life) & I lie maybe once or twice a year if that.

Unfortunately honesty doesn't get you anywhere, as most people don't WANT honesty because it scares them.

Only a truly honest person appreciates honesty.

The things people get away with online are HORRIFIC.

I learned all about this area of the net where people defame others.

Disgruntled employees, the competition, ex-wives, students that got bad grades & went after a teacher by lying & saying she molested him/her (I can't remember).

That was before I knew all about how EVIL CORPS spread lies about anyone who crosses their path, & of course all the politicians who lie about their competition or people they need to discredit.

This shit is DANGEROUS & makes me sick to my stomach.

AND the American law, which seems to be the ONLY law that matters online, allows it because of some archaic law back in the 1700's, I think it was, that says you can post a warning about someone & attach it to a tree.

Well the Internet is NOT a tree, it allows the ENTIRE world to see the lies spread about you.

I don't even trust the Rip Off Report because the owner is a scammer himself. He was known for encouraging posters to use vicious words like scammer, fraudster, criminal, etc.

He's all about sensashionalism.

He's also know for extorting money from companies trying to get them to pay thousands to remove negative reviews.

Every company who's taken him to court has lost due to this TERRIBLE American law that allows people to defame people online.

Other rating sites like "Yelp" & "The Yellow Pages," do the same thing, but on a smaller monetary scale.

He has no fixed address because he's constantly being hunted by companies he's hurt.

He also refuses to remove posts if the poster wants to remove them afterward.

One woman who was clearly a bit emotionally unstable based on her numerous postings, spent years stressing herself out trying to get the post about her ex-husband taken down. She posted it in the heat of the moment & regretted it later on.

The ONLY companies who can get this shit taken down are medium to large corporations who have money.

Small companies or even just regular people who got defamed are almost always SOL.

One woman DID win a case, but she's in AUS where the laws don't allow people to just go around defaming people without PROOF.

She went after Google (I hate them) & won because she proved she couldn't get a job due to the lies spread about her online.

That teacher I found out about lost her job & was NEVER able to get another teaching position all because of what the kid(s) did to her.

Like I said, I had to learn all about this BS when this happened to me.