Aubrey Martin

Journalism and digital media have become complicit in spreading falsehood and various conspiracy theories in the recent past. With the growing trend of independent journalism, mainstream media face an epistemic crisis, where specific individuals and websites often spread fabricated information.

One such media outlet is OffshoreAlert, owned by David Merchant. He has mastered the art of embarrassing and fawning individuals or companies because of the fame and money he gets from collusion.

OffshoreAlert is looking to advance partisan agenda by exposing individuals and companies across the U.S. and other parts of the world. In contrast, the majority of what it reveals often indicates shadowy entitlement that masquerades the legitimacy of mainstream or local news media.

Various findings on the website’s credibility from non-partisan engagements indicate the entity has unreliable news sources to purvey misleading information.

But why do we say David Marchant and his media outlet are bogus and meant to destroy people’s identities or defame companies through false information?

First, David Marchant is the CEO of a shady paid blog that makes money by ruining other people’s reputations. While reputation precedes their investments or opportunities for other journalists, Marchant’s interest in cash supersedes any form of reputation management.

When someone is building their business, the first thing they look at is providing customers with stellar services or products. When the company operates at high standards, they receive a reputation, and other people can duly trust and rely on its services. However, the online reviews by customers of OffshoreAlert indicate how David Merchant’s website continues to swindle people’s money in the name of subscriptions for news updates.

For instance, a comment made by TimF of Denver, US, in 2011, connected with services received from the website indicated that “The publisher of the Offshore Alert Newsletter, David Marchant, claims to be a journalist exposing wrong-doers, when in fact he is TOTAL FRAUD himself. I signed up/paid to receive his newsletter (yes, me and about 25 other people, total) only to find out that Mr. Marchant makes up crap about successful businessmen and organizations, seemingly to make their lives difficult.”

Moreover, a recent review on the website by Mosad on May 05, 2020, indicates that “I was approached by David Marchant, the owner of Offshore Alert, at their last conference. He said he was willing to pay for information on company activity, trading, news, etc., even if fake, or defamatory. I asked why he wanted news of this nature, he said that any news would sell and bring revenue! True or fake. What about the victims I asked, he said he does not care about them, “he can make money from their misery” he said.”

As a business owner, you will be concerned with building a reputation by engaging in effective deals and not by fraudulent means. However, this is not who David Marchant is- his target is ruining other people’s lives by spreading unverified information, provided he earns some pennies from that information.

Secondly, any ethical journalist in America has responsibility and rights in their journalism life. An excellent place to understand what this means for most of them is through the Society of Professional Journalists’ codes of ethics. Thousands of them have voluntarily subscribed and embraced these codes in the U.S. Unfortunately, David Marchant is not one of those that have chosen to abide by the ethical principles of journalism. Therefore, he has no right to be classified as a true journalist in our society, lest he gets registered by a professional body like the Society of Professional Journalists in the United States. That alone gives us sufficient evidence that his approach to journalism is based on dishonesty and unfair gatherings, interpretation, and inaccurate and unjust information reporting.

An even nefarious example of this can be in a comment made by JRBAILEY of Eustis, US, on September 09, 2011, who noted that “David Marchant IS a ‘journalist.’ I say that with conviction because all you need to do to qualify as a journalist in this country is to publish a ‘newsletter’ on the web. There is no necessity to study; there are no exams, no criteria, no checks and balances, and short of a lawsuit for libel, there is no recourse to address the crap a “journalist” can publish.”

Similarly, David Marchant has shown obstruction of justice by escaping potential arrest in previously resided countries. He has become a nomad with no original place to stay after moving from England to Bermuda and later to the United States upon persuasion by his victims. Marchant used his news channel to humiliate anyone worldwide and escaped justice whenever taken to court. Having started his work in the United Kingdom, he moved to Bermuda after facing multiple defamation charges in England, Canada, and the Cayman Islands. Unfortunately, he has never been able to pay the costs or damages caused by disinformation, apologize, or even retract information after losing these cases.

He has now moved to Miami, where he purports to investigate various financial frauds in the U.S. The biggest question remains, why did Marchant flee England and Bermuda without first clearing with his plaintiffs? There will always be doubts about where David Marchant resides as long as he keeps moving after crossing lines with the authorities. Although we understand he currently lives in the U.S, we cannot ascertain his address, and we don’t know where he might be moving next based on previous experiences. A comment by JRBAILEY in 2011 notes that “Mr. Marchant does not have an office in Miami – that is a figment of his imagination. The address he provides is a re-mail address in Miami. He actually lives somewhere else. If you would like his home address and phone number I can provide it.”

Also, David Marchant’s stature is ruined, particularly from internet reviews on the OffshoreAlert.com website, of which he is the sole owner. Customer rating plays a vital role in telling us the kind of person or business in question in the current internet world.

For the past few years, customers have relied on reviews to rank the legitimacy and reputation of the OffshoreAlert website. And ignoring such checks in the present world can dent your business. Unfortunately, customer reviews in this space show consumers were dissatisfied with David Marchant’s kind of reporting, and he never cared to rectify his behaviors.

While reviewing the website, one customer named Dishonest Publications writes, “January 15/2015 – Hello Complaints Board. Well, I accidentally found your website. I can see you have an excellent service. As to your “Category of Complaint” I could not find a title to fit. To clarify, I have a serious complaint against Offshore alert publication – owner David Marchant. I am presently working on all of the papers and evidence I need to send to you for publication. This is complex and this is going to take several weeks to get everything in logical order.”

If this was an issue of one customer rating the website negatively, we would have no issues with the Merchant’s way of doing things. But, negativity is filling his website, which shows questionable conduct in journalism.

Moreover, the blogs’ credibility would be taken as a critical element for the success or failure of a business. David Marchant has consistently shown a lack of credibility. For that reason, his materials have never been adopted by popular newspapers worldwide.

The primary desire of any serious newspaper or media source is to access fact-based and honest journalism that can never be questioned. However, previous engagements with David Marchant’s coverage show a downward spiral in ascertaining their credibility on cases they covered. For instance, Dale Peters writes to OffshoreAlert, “To suggest, as you have done, that companies based in the TCI are crooked until proven otherwise is totally misleading and demonstrably and palpably false … If the balance of your efforts bear no more resemblance to reality than those with respect to the TCI I suggest the existence of [OffshoreAlert] will be brief and its demise swift, just and certain.” For that reason, no media house would want to associate themselves with this kind of news headline where there are no facts.

Another issue is Marchant’s peddling of ultimate lies about his might to win any case inside the legal systems. He claims to have never lost a lawsuit against his victims. That is far from reality. We hope that Libel Complaint involving Timothy Schools V. David Marchant et al. at the British High Court on November 22, 2012, is not one of them. Because by all means, there is sufficient evidence in the public domain that he lost the case, which left the OffshoreAlert website highly exposed for their massive claims on damages.

With the majority of the financial cases still pending in court, more than 90%, Merchant cannot take credit for never losing a case when there is still much to come. There is also a need to make these documents public and not just say he has won all of his claims without any absolute truth.

Additionally, objectivity in journalism is vital as it helps audiences make up their minds about a particular story or idea; Marchant’s posts do not objectively represent the facts. He is the master of casting his victims to false falsified fabrications through snappy headlines on his articles. That is a deliberate cause to generate audiences on his channel and a brilliant idea to get their subscription.

Therefore, his media outlet ignores most facts and conflicts in modern society by giving negligible coverage to financial matters. It remains the ultimate duty of the chief editor, who in this case is David Marchant, to reflect his audiences in his posts accurately. Instead, he gets a negative spiral of criticisms from his audiences that lack accuracy, and objectivity in what they communicate.

Elsewhere, any accused person should get a chance to respond to claims made against them. The right to reply is critical in offering individuals unfairly criticized or defamed the right to respond and their response published in the same media outlet.

While other media outlets would consider following this rule strictly, David Marchant’s outlet blocks any effective right of reply by his victims. Instead, they draft an email to the victims and demand a reply immediately before their story becomes published. That is obvious for his victims- he is not interested in truth- but in making their lives difficult without listening to their side of the story. In short, David Marchant is never interested in the fact but in making money using other people’s predicaments. On the other hand, one wonders how much confidence a victim can have in telling a similar figure his version of the facts, knowing that everything he says will be misrepresented and used to further fuel media looting by David Marchant.

Again, we live in an online environment, where there is a constant deluge of information from different sources; it is, therefore, wise to verify their content. David Marchant has constantly admitted disinterest in rectifying his stories. He takes the opportunity to increase his following when his clients come asking him to edit stories they have featured in and whenever there are inaccuracies in those headlines.

Since no one is perfect in their work, we expect someone dealing with such high-value financial claims with the capability of defaming other people’s lives. They should also admit mistakes whenever an investigation is complete and no proof to support their case. However, he arrogantly noted that “David and/or OffshoreAlert have been sued multiple times for defamation in the Cayman Islands, Canada, England, Grenada, Panama, and the USA and have never paid one cent in costs or damages to the plaintiffs and never published an apology or retraction regarding articles being complained about.”

In addition, Marchant understands what false attacks on an individual or company can do by severely denting their identity. However, he is forever ignorant of such facts when the law favors his victims. His first target is on curtailing facts by making spiteful implications on how the case is settled amicably while the previous claims remain faultless.

That is the ultimate display of a constant lack of respect for the presumption of innocence. By far, such acts deny your victims any benefit of the doubt. In contemporary society, the idea of innocence is an integral part of the laws. If there is a doubt in a particular case, David Marchant should allow the accused parties a benefit of the doubt and clear them on the burden of proof. However, this is not the case for almost all his subjects. He has no sensitivity to the judicial ordeal of people who may be innocent. It is not even a question of bias; he is interested in having discovered a new victim to put in the pillory. If this was the perfect person, as he claims, he should understand the importance of refraining from prejudging the outcomes of his trials to allow the accused a fair trial. Instead, he is all over the media making public statements to affirm his clients’ guilt when the cases are still underdetermination.

To add, Marchant doesn’t give his clients privacy or respect their private sphere. He even intrudes on their families. An accused person’s life does not matter to him anymore. The only thing that counts is the number of subscribers he gets to his channel through his fabricated stories.

Yes, everyone can agree there are scraps of evidence against the accused, but his approach to unraveling the truth translates to a game of gaining more subscribers to his media channel than guided by the rule of law.

As much as David Marchant is a specialist in tracking financial fraudsters, he displays negligence, incompetence, and dishonesty when dealing with individuals. He does not hesitate to ruin your reputation if you are accused of something. Not once or twice has David Marchant found his way into the corridors of the legal system for defamatory and false statements intended to harm other people’s reputations. A good example is Kellermann, who has struggled to restore his reputation since the Ponzi claims hit his back. To this, Cobus Kellermann admits that “He ruined my career, my reputation, my family, my balance sheet … my life.”

Until that point, when investigations are thorough and there is definitive proof to associate a suspect with schemes of such magnitude as the Ponzi scheme, media reporters cannot instigate investigations and run defamatory statements on a suspect as OffshoreAlert does. And even when the case is positively determined on the client’s accused, David Marchant refused to own up to the defamatory claims and give an apology.

It is a grave concern that OffshoreAlert fabricates and spreads false information for political mileage. David Marchant has applied this hypocritical ethic against the whole offshore world without distinction and insight. A seemingly fraudulent entity, ‘Offshore Alert’ with its roots in the U.K., purports to investigate all commercial enterprises and groups from different parts of the world. Then, how are we expected to believe in its intellectual expression if there is no sign of identity in other offshore countries? David Marchant should make a recognizable distinction in his ‘offshore’ expression.

Nevertheless, there should be a reason for someone of David Marchant’s stature to understand the essential elements of the economy between countries before exposing specific schemes to the public. The economic approach in some of these countries is highly dependent on the rich and developed countries. However, his reports have no sympathy for any developed or developing land. However, much of this information needs to be verified and distinguished before it makes its way to the media and public to prevent the dire effects it can cause to the poor in developing countries.

It is evident now that David Marchant’s criticisms fail to consider what is happening right where he lives. And as the saying goes, “charity begins at home.” Marchant focuses heavily on other countries’ fragility, conflict, and fraud across the borders without setting his eyes on what is happening in his home country. Some structures and frameworks in the U.S. sanitize fraud he purports to investigate in offshore countries.

As if this isn’t enough, David Marchant’s portrayal of himself seems like he is of the highest moral standards and an excellent example to everyone worldwide. No, this is not the case! His deceit and connections to love for money by his subscribers show the behavior of an identity scammer, turning his tactics to unsuspecting parties in the name of instigating standards.

For Marchant, everything is about money, and it’s not always business as usual when his blogs are not earning him more every day. For that reason, he can go to any extent and organizes conventions for only the high-ranking individuals like him with blissful speeches to show his stature in American society. But, this is the extreme brutality on audiences expecting the ideologies of such conventions to abide by truth and law.

Conclusion:

Claims by OffshoreAlert are outlandish, but many could consider them blatant fraud. But the damage they are causing right now is cumulative. Therefore, allowing Offshore to continue pretending to be a legitimate news source casts doubt on the trustworthiness and integrity of other sources. It will result in extraordinary apathy and mistrust in journalism to a large extent.

We are all asking ourselves whether that is what journalism should entail. And the answer would be a no. That translates more into vulgar marauding than investigations.

So, what credibility can such a person have? What respect can we have for such a person? None.