• Douche of the Day: Diego Norte/James Brausch

    John Biggs

    Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

    Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

    We’ve been getting some spam emails from someone purporting to be Diego Norte offering us exciting notes to post on our blog. These notes include tips on how to cheat on your taxes and how to lure children into vans (I didn’t read the entire thing, so I can’t confirm that that’s in there.) I’m sure you, as an Internet Professional, have brushed up against this character.

    Luckily, we know a bit more about him today. His real name is James Brausch and he’s essentially a scammer, creating fake sites left and right. Some notes from Complaints Board:

    “Diego Norte” is a fake name. The picture on the web site is not him, it is also fake. The person is actually:

    James D. Brausch
    REDACTED

    His personal web site is: jamesbrausch.com and he has a family web site at brausch.com.

    He also operates weightlossdude.com if you want to see what he looks like.

    Basically he tries to get people to post spam for him where it does not belong. Don’t fall for it. And if you have or know someone who has, be sure to post it on all the “rip off” web sites and BBB.


    More information about James Brausch:


    http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/360/RipOff0360502.htm


    http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/371/RipOff0371537.htm


    http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/343/RipOff0343401.htm


    http://www.complaintsboard.com/suspicious-companies/james-brausch-aka-diego-norte-a69538.html


    http://www.complaintsboard.com/suspicious-companies/james-brausch-diego-norte-james-brausch-diego-norte-a59688.html


    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080309162337AAP30a0


    http://rayedwards.com/james-brausch-thinks-i-hate-him


    http://entrepreneurs.about.com/b/2008/06/25/james-d-brausch-glyphius-and-shilling.htm


    http://www.cybercashology.com/the-internets-big-bully

    Why am I posting this? Because we’ve seen an increase in fake “grassroots” news sent to our tips box and this is one of the most egregious offenders. Although HTC apologized for their slip-up, PR folks are discovering that by emailing “Hey! I saw this hawt link on the MySpace http://www.mycrappycompany.com”; they can convince someone out there to give them some bits. There’s enough noise out there without guys like this making our inboxes a toilet.

    UPDATE – There’s a lot of he said/she said going on in comments. I’ll leave them open for now but I’m basically trying to say that Diego Norte – who is believed to be this Brausch guy – needs to stop spamming.

    Comments are closed.