Merchants Barter Exchange revolutionized the trade industry. When they started in 2000, they were told it wasn’t possible to have clients trade hard goods at 100% trade- now barter companies have to claim they do in order to compete. The leaders in the industry actually had full time people to facilitate the cashing out of merchandise of members. The founder of the company, Steve Bolles believed barter could be done better. He saw it as a way to truly help businesses, if done right.
Merchants Barter Exchange was a member of both NATE and IRTA until it proved detrimental to the MBE vision. Bolles states,
“Our clients would get mad at us if we offered something we had found from a NATE or IRTA member and were asked to pay part cash or some sort of cash fee. The prices were already inflated to begin with!”
Merchants Barter sold wholesale product at 100% trade and in return took 10 years to finally spend out their reciprocal trade dollars on bad trade deals. The company did not see the benefit of belonging to such networks.
Merchants Barter Exchange and it’s founder Steve Bolles refuse to take the scams and fraud committed by a sociopath on Rip-Off Report and scam.com quietly.
The sad fact is that these sites thrive on people making negative statements. They pride themselves on NEVER removing a post even when proven false. For a fee, they will ask the poster to remove a post and that is it!
In 1996 Congress passed the Communication Act – which protects Web owners from any real liabilty to slander or defamation. All Ripoff Reports are false about Steve Bolles and Merchants Barter Exchange, claiming that he and/or the company has misused credit card info or taken thousands of dollars of product from ANY member is false. How do you prove you DIDN’T do something? That’s why the presumption is on innocence unless guilt can be proven.
THE TRUTH IS – The company fired a man that was handling the sales and marketing of our Licensee division when it was discovered that he used many aliases and false documents to procure new business. All current and prospective Licensees were notified of his actions. Since that time, this man Bruce Gorcyca has posed as a former licensee, clients, employees, an elderly couple, and an angry ex-wife and posted completely untrue statements online. He has even pretended to be an investigator and called friends, family and clients in an attempt to find some real dirt to use and was unsuccessful. He resides in Canada so legal action is futile. Reports and details of the trail of fraud have been filed with local and state police, the FBI, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He spent a few years in prison, during which time the internet showed no negative reports, then within a month of his release, the negative posts resumed. The Communication Decency Act of 1996 needs to be amended by Congress to NOT allow this sort of Character Assasination that Ripoff Report generates.
