Tag: Corporations

Corporations, Energy, Environment, Lobbying, Tech

Former Public Utilities Commissioner from Paonia sends up warning flags about legislation, construction of hyperscale data centers & the sharp rise in electricity consumption

by Anne Landman • March 11, 2024 • 5 Comments

Inside a hyperscale data center. More than 100 such data centers were built in 2020, and now hundreds more are in the pipeline. Their massive power consumption is threatening the power grid.Amazon, Google and Microsoft operate half of the world’s 600 hyperscale data centers.

Colorado Senate Bill SB24-085, “Sales & Use Tax Rebate for Digital Asset Purchases” introduced on January 24th, would give substantial tax savings incentives to stimulate construction of new data centers in Colorado.

John C. Gavan of Paonia, who has a 25 year career in tech and sat on the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, argues this is a VERY bad idea for Colorado’s environment and ratepayers, and he really wants readers to know why. He says he can only talk about this now because his term as a commissioner on the PUC expired last year, which freed him to discuss it.

First, readers need to know that the boom in computer-intensive tech, like artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, crypto mining and businesses outsourcing their IT to cloud-based systems, combined with the rush to electrify cars and homes are all pushing our country’s existing power grid to the brink, leading to a major power crunch and imperiling utilities’ ability to meet the rapid, massive increase in demand.

Local owner of Red Rock Auto pushed out

by Anne Landman • February 22, 2024 • 14 Comments

Bryan Knight, the now former part-owner of Red Rock Auto dealerships

The sole local owner of the Red Rock Auto dealership chain, Bryan Knight, has been pushed out of the company.

Documents from the Colorado Department of Revenue show Mr. Knight, who oversaw the Red Rock dealerships and had long been listed as a partner and minority owner of the Red Rock GMC and Honda stores, is no longer an owner of record for any Red Rock stores.

The rumor that Mr. Knight had been pushed out of Red Rock Auto came on January 19, when someone in the local auto industry contacted AnneLandmanBlog to say “Bryan Knight no longer works at Red Rock.”

Rumor: In a reversal, Red Rock got fleeced by a customer

Second Red Rock Auto financial manager charged with crimes against customers

by Anne Landman • September 5, 2023 • 3 Comments

Daily Sentinel headline, August 29

A second former Red Rock GMC financial manager has been charged with forgery, criminal impersonation and identity theft within the last month after posing as a customer on a phone call to the Canvas Credit Union to try to expedite a customer’s vehicle loan.

Matthew Morris acted as an accomplice to Tiffany Miller, the first Red Rock GMC financial manager charged with the same crimes in early August. Both Morris and Miller were fired from Red Rock, but in her arrest affidavit Miller pointed to Red Rock management as pressuring her to commit the crimes. In the same affidavit (pdf), Morris said that Red Rock GMC Sales Manager Tyson Chambers and General Manager Caleb Stillman both knew he and Miller were making the fake calls to

Tyson Chambers, General Manager of Red Rock GMC

the lender and that they “and essentially encouraged the behavior.” Morris added that “he was terminated [from his job] not for making the call, but for being caught.”

Red Rock promotes its reviews on TV, but wait…

by Anne Landman • September 3, 2023 • 1 Comment

Screen shot of a Red Rock TV ad

The Red Rock Auto Group, which owns five dealerships in Grand Junction, has been advertising heavily on local news with ads that tout what they say are their many positive reviews.

We’ve already seen evidence, however, that indicates Red Rock manipulates online reviews by coercing its employees to write positive reviews (a violation Google policy) and by purchasing good reviews from customers by offering them perks like free gas and oil changes in exchange for positive online reviews.

But we shouldn’t forget the slew of gritty and honest negative reviews that show the real difficulty Red Rock has caused so many customers, and the responses or lack thereof to such reviews from “the owner.”

Red Rock Auto Group’s greedwashing campaign

by Anne Landman • April 18, 2023 • 11 Comments

Red Rock got this free media from the Daily Sentinel on January 19, 2023, with this photo of their donation to Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA). Red Rock also got Joy Thompson of CASA to say “We love Red Rock” on a January 19, 2023 local KREX-TV news segment about the donation.

After a company has been outed as over-the-top greedy, there’s nothing left for it to do but make conspicuous donations to local charities to score public relations points and blow smoke to make people forget about how their business has harmed the community in the long term.

That’s likely why, near the end of 2022, after all the unseemly tactics Red Rock Auto dealerships had been using on customers to fleece them out of thousands of dollars over the last 7 years were exposed, Red Rock suddenly started ramping up its donations to local charities and promoting their donations in ads on TV and through free media given to them by local TV stations and newspapers.

A company that ingratiates itself to reputable charitable causes as a way to distract from its immoral acts is engaging in a form of “greedwashing,” a term developed during the taxpayer-funded federal bailouts of the big banks during the economic crash of 2008-2009:

Criminal investigator who was investigating Red Rock quits & goes to work for Red Rock

by Anne Landman • February 23, 2023 • 10 Comments

Dale Sundeen (Photo: Auto News)

Dale Sundeen, the Colorado Department of Revenue Auto Industry Division’s criminal investigator who was investigating Grand Junction’s Red Rock dealerships, quit his job with the state and went to work for Red Rock Auto Group as their “Corporate Director of Compliance.”

More claimed forgeries on Red Rock dealership documents

by Anne Landman • February 22, 2023 • 7 Comments

After examining paperwork from their transactions at Red Rock dealerships, more people report they’ve found forged signatures on their contracts and other documents from their deals:

Red Rock’s forgery problem

by Anne Landman • December 18, 2022 • 11 Comments

Jesus Acevedo’s signature next to the signature a Red Rock Hyundai employee forged on a contract in his name that would have added a $10,000 extended warranty to his contract, had he not caught the forgery while at his credit union to arrange financing.

People have sent information to AnneLandmanBlog that indicates customers of Grand Junction Red Rock dealerships have had their signatures forged on documents, and that such forgeries have likely been a problem at these dealerships for some time.

Red Rock starts getting the message, unwinds deal for strapped couple & gives out personal cell phone numbers of local partners for people to call if they’ve been wronged

by Anne Landman • December 13, 2022 • 13 Comments

Red Rock Nissan at 2582 Highway 6 & 50 in Grand Junction

The Red Rock Auto Group seems to be starting to get the message about the financial hardship they’ve been causing people by defrauding customers and carrying out business in bad faith.

This week Red Rock Nissan went out of their way to help “the Andersons” (not their real name), a struggling young couple with three kids, two of whom are special needs kids, who were recently featured in this blog as an example of the kind of bad deals people were unknowingly getting into at these dealerships.

Another former Red Rock employee gives more information about how the dealerships defrauded customers, banks, lenders

by Anne Landman • December 5, 2022 • 12 Comments

Red Rock Nissan at 2582 Highway 6 & 50 in Grand Junction

Note: I am re-posting this article from last December, now that a second former Red Rock dealership financial manager, Matthew Morris, has been charged with criminal impersonation, forgery and identity theft. This article contains information from a former Red Rock financial manager about how Red Rock allegedly (and routinely) defrauded customers as well as lenders (banks and credit unions). The article got little notice at the time I posted it, but it’s even more relevant now that criminal charges have been brought against a second Red Rock employee, who has implicated upper management in these activities..

Yet another former employee of a Red Rock auto dealership has contacted AnneLandmanBlog wanting to unload about what they experienced while working for Red Rock, and wanting others to know how business is done at these dealerships. This person has more detailed knowledge about financing of vehicle deals. Their name is withheld at their request. I asked this person follow-up questions based on information provided by a previous Red Rock employee who came forward and told about the illegal acts allegedly taking place at the dealerships, like falsifying customers’ financial information to lenders, misuse of digital signatures, forging of signatures, and more. This new person has even more detailed insight into these dealerships, the things they do to customers and banks, and how and why Red Rock dealerships operate so differently from other dealerships in town and around the country.

Local family unknowingly gets into deep financial trouble after patronizing Red Rock Nissan

by Anne Landman • November 22, 2022 • 10 Comments

Lyn M. says this screen shot “is all we know about the loan” she and her husband got from Red Rock Nissan in Grand Junction. They went to Red Rock to buy a car advertised on the dealership’s website at $17,000. Without knowing it, they came out with a loan for $30,000 at an interest rate of 12.49%, far above what they could afford.

Lyn Anderson and her husband Jim (not their real names) thought they should trade in their older Ford pickup and get a slightly newer, more family-friendly vehicle, so they went online to see what was available locally.

Little did they know what they were getting themselves into.

Another Red Rock dealership victim

by Anne Landman • November 17, 2022 • 3 Comments

Red Rock GMC contract with unauthorized $4,995 charge for “Portfolio” (an extended warranty the customer wasn’t made aware of), “Worry Free Maintenance” that the customer was told would give him three “free oil changes,” and a $2,500 charge for “Resistall” coating, a treatment that ruined the glass on his truck. Red Rock dealerships are affiliated with the Tim Dahle Auto Group dealerships out of Utah.

Last spring, Daniel Macias (not his real name) went to the Red Rock GMC dealership on First Street to buy a used Chevy Silverado pickup truck. Like other Grand Junction Red Rock dealership patrons, he was unaware of the trap he was walking into.

Customers fleeced out of thousands by Grand Junction Red Rock dealerships

by Anne Landman • November 1, 2022 • 58 Comments

Red Rock Nissan at 2582 Highway 6 & 50 in Grand Junction

People who patronized Grand Junction Red Rock dealerships are warning others shopping for vehicles locally that the dealerships used shady techniques to cheat them, or attempt to cheat them, out of thousands of dollars without their knowing.

3 reasons why government should not be run like a business

by Anne Landman • February 10, 2020 • 3 Comments

Video from MinuteMBA, an online MBA course website.

Corporations, Economics, Media, Pop culture, Weird Grand Junction Stuff

Bonsai Design sued over injuries incurred on Vail’s Game Creek Zipline

by Anne Landman • November 29, 2019 • 2 Comments

A platform at Vail Resort’s Game Creek Canopy Tour zipline attraction.

A lawsuit** (pdf) was filed in District Court last July against Las Colonias Business Park anchor tenant Bonsai Design and Vail Resorts for injuries a guest incurred on Vail Resort’s Game Creek Zipline Tour on July 7, 2017.

Lisa Cowles of Wisconsin filed the lawsuit (pdf) on July 22, 2019, challenging the “unreasonably dangerous and defective design, manufacture, installation, and maintenance of the ‘Game Creek’ zip-line course in Vail, Colorado.” Bonsai manufactured and installed the zipline course in 2015, and Vail Resorts operates it.

Why I voted “no” on Proposition DD

by Anne Landman • October 31, 2019 • 0 Comments

Proposition DD on the November 5 ballot would legalize gambling on amateur and professional sports and tax the proceeds at a rate of 10% to pay for “water projects,” purportedly projects proposed in the Colorado Water Plan. I wasn’t sure how to vote on Prop DD until I did some research on it and put some thought into. What I found convinced me to vote “no.”

Here’s what I found out:

Beware local sales pitch for a free filet mignon dinner

by Anne Landman • September 5, 2019 • 0 Comments

Postcard mailed out locally that promotes a free meal in exchange for sitting through a financial services seminar.

Have you received a post card in the mail recently promising a free gourmet dinner, with your choice of filet mignon, poached salmon or grilled Portobello steak, at the Ocotillo Restaurant in exchange for sitting through an “informational seminar and insurance sales presentation”?

My first thought upon reading this post card was that given the high cost of the promotion — a sit-down filet mignon dinner at a really nice restaurant — that the company sponsoring this free dinner must be having a VERY hard time attracting customers on the merits of the company alone. I read the postcard thoroughly and squinted to read the mice type, which said “Securities and investment advisory services offered through Woodbury Financial Services.”

Then I looked into Woodbury Financial Services, and it was no wonder the person putting on this promo buried the company’s name in the mice type.

Grand Junction may soon lose its only secular hospital

by Anne Landman • January 30, 2019 • 9 Comments

A previous blog discussed why Mesa County residents should be glad to have an alternative to a Catholic hospital in the valley and why it is so important to people’s health to have a secular hospital option available for medical care. But our valley’s one non-religious hospital option may disappear, and soon.

In October 2018, Community Hospital and Centura Health Network signed a letter of intent to merge. It provided each party with a 120 day-long window to evaluate the deal and decide whether or not to go ahead and finalize it.

Those 120 days are almost up, and a final decision on the merger must be made by February 10th.

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