Home : Blogs : Kristal Kraft ~Denver Real Estate~303-589-2022 : Denver Real Estate & Relocation

An Example of Plagiarism Right Here on Active Rain

It never ceases to amaze me how really dumb people can be. We have discussed plagiarism and copyright infringement multiple times. You would think everyone here would be aware, even if they are not honest.

But no, that is in a perfect world.

On 8-31-06 at 01:21 PM I posted this (you can verify the time by looking below)....

Today, it was brought to my attention that Michael Iuculano, who claims he is a VERY SUCCESSFUL mortgage broker...who specializes in ....(I'd quote him more, but my spell checker will go crazy and quite frankly who believes self-proclaimed hyperbole anyway?).

I left Michael a message earlier, most people who have half a brain would remove the infringing material and submit an apology. Instead Michael sent me a nasty, insulting email. He obviously doesn't have a clue.

Plagiarism is a crime. It is also a moral issue. Who would want to do business with anyone that cannot be trusted?

Notice the date of Michael's post. Any Questions?

Posted by Kristal Kraft ~Denver Real Estate~303-589-2022 on 09/01/2006 09:49 PM

Comments (77)

plagiarizers live on active rain

Originally posted at: Denver Real Estate & Relocation: An Example of Plagiarism Right Here on Active Rain

77 Comments on An Example of Plagiarism Right Here on Active Rain

SEP

2006

Your post of this was after my post of a few weeks ago. Do not listen to Kristal.

I suppose you wrote this

Before Be Successful News wrote this ?

Michael, USE your BRAIN, all of your posts here on Active Rain are cataloged. I suppose you deleted it after I copied you.

Oh my! Michael here's another story someone stole from you.

Credit Card Abuse - The American Horror Story

In yours you even admit it's an article of yours.

I'd continue but you aren't MUD in our Rain. Clean up your act or take a hike.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

AR should have some kind of honor code and disciplinary panel...Plagiarizers should be banished

this morning he hadnt even bothered to change the thing about being a jersey girl. I did a double take. A girl named Michael?? I know there is another guy out there who posts for his wife, so I thought it was something like that...Charles.

The nice guy pleads...

<<<<<Message details:
From: Michael
Email: michael@michael.com
Subject: this is ridiculous

Are you really putting this much effort into this on a Friday night. I am waiting for me girlfriend to get here but I am certain that this is your friday night. I mean I find it hard to belive that you actually sell homes. Why dont I pull that add off my blog and you delete yours?>>>>>>>

I love that you are trying so hard and even posting fake e-mails to try and make yourself look good. The effort is very admirable.

Message to Michael,

I put a lot of effort into most everything I do. Whether it be selling homes or writing original content.

Have another drink Michael. Maybe you can find it within your self to apologize to me and all the other people you have STOLEN from or offended.

Wow! This is still going. The fact that you took that ad from me from a few weeks ago and you are trying to justify it by my repost is ridiculous and shows your lack of professionalism.

Your wisecracks are also good little indications to the rest of this community as well and I am sure they are taking note of it.

Michael if you really wrote that blog "a few weeks ago" where is it with the confirming dates???

Just trot it out and I'm sure Kristal will be happy to apologize to you.

Until you do however you go on my list of not very nice people and you're going to have a tough time being my mortgage banker for a day, not to mention "life".

The community is indeed taking note but probably not the note you're hoping for.

I just got my first "hate" email from an anonymous AR source. Since you just did the same thing to Kristal, I assume it was you Michael. Get a life.

He deleted the comment I wrote on his blog when I read the jersey girl thing...

Why Maureen? Maybe he is a Jersey Girl. We should not to too judgemental. :)

Jim, the gentleman always. I still love you after all these years.... ;-)

After expressing my opinion about the incredible skill it takes to cut and paste other peoples work and add your name to the bottom, I received a similiar email. It read:

Name:Email Address:Subject:Message:

michael

you are fat@fat.com

wow

for a fat guy, you sure are out there

All this time I never knew. well it could be worse, I could be...un-original

Here's one I got.

<<<

You've received a contact message from your Contact Form on the ActiveRain network.

Message details:
From: i just farted
Email: badteeth@fat.com
Subject: your fat

In addition to being overweight, you need serious dental work>>>

All these from a guy who doesn't post his own photo.

Do you think we should tell him about IP addresses? Oh please don't, I'll blog about it then maybe he can cut 'N paste.

Hey JP, thats the same thing I got. But at least he bothered to say that I am a girl. Thanks for noticing Mikey.

Kristal you got extra special attention from him cuz' you copied him.

Seriously....I can't even believe this is happening. Somebody just delete the guy and log his IP for future banishment. AR, where are you?

My goodness...I am sure Matt will be happy to do SOMETHING after all this....hehehehehe

I am sure a banishment will be in the works or at least some serious fanny whipping......

Not you, dear Kristal....Him.....whatever his name is...:P;)

Maureen, how did you know? I reached around into the future and grapped his post and copied it. I have many talents!

They are gone for the weekend. Ben is holding down the fort. This guy will do himself in. What fabulous negative advertising he has just done for himself. I am glad this post is NOT members only. His plagiarizing and immature emails will be out there for ever! I bet that is what he was looking for.

Ms. Mikey Iuculano is the name, Jersey Girl his claim to fame.

Well I gotta jump on this one...

Michael is not being very mindful of his business. I would be horrified if anyone ever thought that I was anything other than professional. Is he really thinking that none of the rainers in AZ are reading this?? I think that it speaks very poorly of him that not only has he obviously stolen your post Kristal, he has to resort to "below the belt" insults to combat his weak arguments. Sounds like someone caught in the corner to me!

Michael, feel free to send me the hate mail too.... Just try not to plagiarize the insult! It sounds like you used the same one on JP & Maureen!

I just love that this blog will likely be one of the most commented ones all weekend. It will always be at the top of the comment search button, so EVERYONE will see it. And see him for what he did.

Wrong to do in the first place, but the way he has acted since is just unbelievable.

It is time for Mortgage Man to put in his 2 cents! So it is 12:15am Saturday morning or as most would call it, Friday Night. Yes, I am sick in bed with my laptop. I went to the night University of Connecticut Football Game and I got sick since I was wearing sandals and shorts. I had no idea the weather was going from 85 to 50 degrees. Anyways..

Wow, what is going on with this BLOG? Kristal is my partner! She is my girl. Kristal who is messing with you hun? I would have to go with my girl Kristal on this one. As far as copy n pasting other peoples work, that is just un-ethical. Just come up with your own original work. Michael, read some of my blogs, they are ALL NATURAL.

Kristal we love you!

Have a long holiday weekend everyone.

Always,

Nima

http://www.MyNima.com

http://activerain.com/mortgageman

The website in question seems to have dissapeared

Magic

Here is another one I recognize from his blog posts...

Rory Siems posted this: http://activerain.com/blogs/rorys32 yesterday.

Michael Iculiano posted: http://activerain.com/blogsview/road-noise?6384 today....

Strangererrrr and strangererrrr...

Hi Nima, You are so huggable! Thanks for your support!

Us "fat" folks gotta stick together tonight...this has been amazing.

Joshua, Never fear, I just wrote a blog about what to do whey you catch a thief and Of course I follow my instructions. I have the offending materal saved on my hard drive.

As you can tell I have extensive experience in this arena. Too bad...

Ros, Is Rory copying Michael too? Darn that Rory!

Looks like it! I recognized it from yesterday when I went through the top couple of Michael's posts... how did he POSSIBLY think no one would notice? Wonder how long this has been going on for?

I have posted a comment to let Rory know!

SEP

2006

Mortgage people have been cutting and pasting GOOD information when they start (I did for the first couple of them). Here is an example of one of the mishaps I made as a first-timer. I don't think it was because we were trying to plagiarize; just trying to share good information.

I caught on quickly that blogs are supposed to be original thoughts and NOT a cut and paste from an MBA economist.

Blatantly plagiarizing from another participant's blog? Then not recognizing the mistake you made and atoning? Really bad...really bad.

Ros, good eye. Michael is clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. If he were he would have stolen some of my posts. He doesn't even recognize great posts!

Maureen, I'm going to use your posts for Monday. I'd rather go hiking.

Brian, your posts are very good. Where do you get your material?

Original and relevent post Kristal. And causing a lot of discussion. I think this is worthy of a gold star personally according to the points rules. And then getting a bunch of bonus points for having to put up with stealing. I totally agree with you...Down with plagarism! Its a good thing my posts aren't all that great, I don't think I'll worry about someone stealing them. Keep up the good work.

Adam

Micheal -

You've been outed YET AGAIN:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/Yet-ANOTHER-blatant-THEFT-?6493

As a Phoenix area REALTOR, I must say it disgusts me that you're from Scottsdale.

Wanna see who knows more real estate agents, me or you?

I hope you don't rely too much on word of mouth for your business. We realtors get kinda funny about lenders with no ethics.

Kristal (and others) -

You may want to go in and check your associations. Seems our local thief has added several people as associates. I was surprised to see he had added me, despite the fact I don't know him from Adam.

With the cool new "block" feature, you can remove yourself from Mikey's associations.

Now I'm off to a few forums frequented by MANY Phoenix area agents. I think maybe I'll post about the ethical, moral and legal aspects of stealing content. I have a few prime examples...

Man... and I thought the school yard growing up was rough.

This guy is locked out of the system and hidden from the directories and taken out of the ranking. I'll leave deleting his account to the AR police - who are out of town this weekend.

We'll be implementing IP logging soon and make that publically availble on anonymous content (contact messages, anon comments, etc.)

Sorry for the late reply on this.

To put it another way plagiarism is stealing. If this guy is willing to steal words... just think how he treats clients and customers.

Legitimate mortgage brokers have to fight slime like this all the time.

As I say... the cream rises to the top. Unfortunately sometimes there is scum up there too.

Thanks Ben, I hope the AR Police don't call or log in. We don't want to ruin their weekend.

I appreciate your attention to this matter. As always something good will come of it!

Kristal,

I certainly would never condone plagerism. Having said that Somehow I missed your 1st post and missed the plagerised version as well. This is the first post I saw "Easy spell check for Dummies" I have been using a dictionary, I didn't realize I could use my google spell check on Activerain. So thanks for the post. I was a real dummy.

I don't know how I missed all ten rounds of this fight. I must say I wondered about "Jersey girl" myself and have certainly noticed the clearly plagiarized material popping up from time to time. The scariest part of this to me is that he still doesn't get it. Everyone else is the problem. And how does he react when outed? He copies another post. Good work!

Just plain weird.

I am not real big on slamming others, I could...but...I won‘t...However, I will say I am "dumbo-founded". I saw M's Jersey Girl come up while I was reading my daily Blogs and thought "Kristal wrote that yesterday". With all the system modifications being done on the AR site, I honestly thought it was a computer glitch. Not once did it occur to me someone would cut-n-paste right from the site. That makes me "dumbo-founded". Kum La Ka Lakka!

SEP

2006

Just the kind of person you want handling a large amount of money for you. AR should adopt a ZERO tolerance policy on copyright infringement. Its stealing. PERIOD. This directory is set up to help promote realtors and associates, so why help someone who is a blight on the industry? Just my two cents. -Charles

Charles, well stated. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

DEC

2006

I'm coming at this two months late and I'm sitting here with my mouth agape. I had no idea it could be this bad. No idea.

Jeff ~ Are you lost? We've come a long way since the early days...hopefully.

Kristal, I just caught this for the first time as well because of Caleb's post on plagiarism. I'm sure that's where Mitchell just got it from. It was quite entertaining in a way to see the hubris of the lowest of fallen humans and what length they will go to (and someone told me only women will go that far with a lie?). At least I learned something - I didn't ever notice the spellchecker on my Google toolbar before! I have posted plenty of blogs and replies with spelling errors, even suggested to the AR gang that they add a spellcheck button on the blog module toolbar, but now I find my answer (for those of us with that toolbar) has been right in front of me all along! The first time I tried it I lost this reply but I think I got it now that I have typed this twice?!

After reading this blog and all of these comments, I am ashamed to be a Michael AND a Mortgage guy, and I didn't copy anything!

Gabriel ~ thanks for telling me why Jeff was here. I thought this messy thing was dead and buried! Glad you now know about the Google spell check bar. It took me ages before I noticed it! You are not alone.

Michael ~ Oh my! I know you are one of the good guys...don't worry about being mistaken for a plagierizer...as long as you're clean! This other Mikey was a real case. He's gone now, thanks to our friend Ben Wiseley.

I especially liked the comment of:

"JAY & FRANCY THOMPSON

Wanna see who knows more real estate agents, me or you?

I hope you don't rely too much on word of mouth for your business. We realtors get kinda funny about lenders with no ethics. "

Word of mouth in our industry can be a death sentence, it is my sincerest hope that you granted the sentence.

DEC

2006

Ethics.

Either you have them or you don't.

Kinda like the shortest poem ever written - "Fleas" Adam hadem.

Man this is the funniest thing I have seen on activerain. He even sent hate mail wow!

Laurie ~ that was a great statement by Jay. Wonder what Mikey was thinking?

Ed ~ I like that poem, never heard it before.

John ~ Oh we got the hate mail that day. He was sending it out like nobody could figure out who was sending it. Then he tried to "make a deal" with me by saying we should just delete all this. hahaha not on his life.

Better than Krystle versus Alexis!

LOL! Oh those girls were really mean!

DEC

2006

somehow I never saw this post before, this is crazy stuff!

Craig ~ sometimes things are best left "unseen!"

Happy Holidays to you!

DEC

2006

KK - thanks for a great post. This should definately be one of the top AR blogs of 2006!

I stand by any effort to limit/curb/ban/restrict/prosecute those that blatantly plagiarize other's work and distribute it as their own.

Rich ~ thank you for putting this blog in the top. I wish there was no need to even have a discussion about copyright infringment here. Sadly though it is.

JAN

2007

KK, Congratulations for having one of the most memorable posts of 2006.

Congratulations Kristal, on having one of the best posts in Active Rain's first year!

www.HomeRome.com

MF & Margaret ~ Thanks for the congrats. This was a sad post in my book.

MF ~ thanks for the trophy!

JAN

2007

Kristal

There is a great way to handle this sort of thing... I take a lesson from Cicero, the greatest ancient Roman orator, who, when giving a speach to the Senate of Rome about a series of battles, somehow neglected to mention one of the generals... The general had upset Cicero for some unrelated reason... The general commented that Cicero had slighted him... Pompei, another and quite famous of the generals involved, was also perturbed at Cicero, not for neglecting to mention him, but for having said negative things about him. Cicero said to Pompei: something to the effect of, You should consider that by mentioning you, I have helped to preserve your name to posterity... by not mentioning the other fellow, I have erased him from history...

It was true... to this day we have no idea who the first general was.

May I suggest that we cease to mention this plagiarist... he will be completely forgotten to all... a fate he deserves well.

Paul ~ that is a very good story and a good lesson for us all to learn. Thanks for sharing it.

JAN

2007

The dates are shown on the two snapshot images above showing his post was made after Kristal.

...

Truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it; but, in the end; there it is.

~ Winston Churchill

JAN

2007

Mario ~ I like Winston, he was an inspirational leader.

JAN

2007

I enjoy your original content, and I like to see Rainers keepin it clean. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. I like what you are doing though. Keep it up.

Bradski

AUG

2008

What a pig! I have my own issues with plagiarism but this guy is a disgusting pig!

If he had any balls he'd just delete it and admit he screwed up.

JAN

Kristal, just found this while looking for an explanation of the little symbol with the red line through it. Well, time tells. Michael has 4000 points and I never heard of him, while your name and great reputation are known far and wide in the blogging world. Can't believe he actually put up a fight over something so blatant!

JAN

The new response above resurrected this old post. Speaking of old posts; it seems ol Michael is even ripping off testimonials from his fellow mortgage folks as well as Realtors.

Original:

""Nima is a rare find. In my business, I meet with professional people everyday. However, I have yet to deal with someone as dedicated to his work as Nima. I would recommend Nima to my clients and family alike."

Michael's version:

""Michael is a rare find. In my business, I meet with professional people everyday. However, I have yet to deal with someone as dedicated to his work as Michael. I would recommend Nima to my clients and family alike."

Original:

"“I had a phenomenal experience with Mr. Martinez when I refinanced my 3 unit home this January……………. i was in a financial situation where I needed to cash out on my property, I had tried 2 other institutions and they were unable to help me, their rates were either too high or my credit was not good enough for them to do anything for me. Mr. Martinez was recommended to me thru a friend that had just recently refinanced his home. Mr. Martinez understood my needs, and did not try to take advantage of my situation. All terms and conditions were explained to me in the beginning and never did I receive any surprises on changed rates or anything like that. I was able to get my cash out within a week, and now I am grateful enough that I want to encourage other people to use his services. No surprises and very professional. "

And Michael's version even to the two different font colors:

"“I had a phenomenal experience with Mr. Iuculano when I refinanced my 3 unit home this January……………. i was in a financial situation where I needed to cash out on my property, I had tried 2 other institutions and they were unable to help me, their rates were either too high or my credit was not good enough for them to do anything for me. Mr. Iuculano was recommended to me thru a friend that had just recently refinanced his home. Mr. Iuculano understood my needs, and did not try to take advantage of my situation. All terms and conditions were explained to me in the beginning and never did I receive any surprises on changed rates or anything like that. I was able to get my cash out within a week, and now I am grateful enough that I want to encourage other people to use his services. No surprises and very professional. ""

Apparently the boy has no shame.

Hello Active Rain,

I guess I got an alert when someone commented on this blog. Someone is stealing from my testimonials? Great, I'm not even upset. To each their own. I don't think I have time to get upset or even do anything about it. Thanks for the update though. Hope all is well with everyone.

Your Active Rain Original Friend,

Nima

Kristal,

How did you make your background on Active Rain different? I want to change mine too. Can you help?

Nima

I always wonder how people manage to find and comment on these old blogs. I'd long forgotten about it.

As Jim mentioned some people also don't change their ways either. Oh well. It will catch up to them in the end.

Nima, Hello old friend! I changed my background border by going to MY BLOGS CUSTOMIZE. They've made it very easy. Good Luck with that.

SEP

Can't we all just get along...

NOV

I realize this is an old thread- I found it when searching the infamous Michaels name. I am searching because of concerns with my mortgage and the 8 months of hell trying to modify. His name is in a forwarded email from another company I believe robbed me. I must say, I'm not surprized, but I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Leave a response…

Name:

Email:
(optional)

Comment:

What does the graphic say?