The Blog of P.U.R.E. and Sue Scheff

As the kids get older, Christmas becomes different - now I am blessed with a grandchild, and of course, as all grandparents think - the most beautiful one..... Life is definitely wonderful! All the bumps and turmoil brings us to where we are today since life is not perfect. 2008 will bring my first book - " Wit's End!" published by Health Communications Inc . In January I will be announcing my second book with HCI that will continue to help people in today's sometimes crazy world and the issues we are faced with today..... I will announce it very shortly. Merry Christmas to all and take the time to enjoy your loved ones - family and friends.....

Calling In Pros to Refine Your Google Image By Susan Kinzie and Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, July 2, 2007; A01 At the height of the cyber-abuse, Sue Scheff , a consultant to parents of troubled teens, would type her name in a Google search box and brace herself: Up would pop page after page of attack postings. Sue Scheff is destroying lives. She is a con. She takes kickbacks. She is the biggest fraud there ever was. The stream of negative comments began in 2002 after a woman who had sought advice from Scheff turned on her. The postings appeared on PTA Web sites in Florida , where Scheff lives. On bulletin boards and online forums. There were even YouTube videos threatening her. She sued for defamation and won an $11.3 million verdict , but the attacks only got worse. In December, Scheff turned to ReputationDefender , a year-old firm that promised to help her cleanse her virtual reputation. She no longer dreads a Google search on her name. Most of the links on t...

Reputation Defender and MyEdge is a service that is priceless in an age where a few keystrokes can literally destroy years of a reputable buisiness or person. Forbes, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Orlando Sentinel, New York Post and many other major news outlets have featured Reputation Defender and their unique services.

Web can ruin reputation with stroke of a key Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, May 6, 2007 The first postings appeared soon after Sue Scheff, who runs a Web-based referral service for parents with troubled teenagers, advised a woman from Louisiana to withdraw her twin sons from a boarding school in 2002. Scheff is "a con artist," "a crook" and "a fraud," according to the messages, which peppered blogs and Internet forums for parents of troubled teens. Soon, calls to Scheff's Parents Universal Resource Experts dropped by half, said Scheff, 45, who lives in Weston, Fla. "People would say: 'You know, I just read this about you online. How do I know I can trust you?' " Scheff, whose 6-year-old service usually draws a lot of traffic, is a victim of an emerging phenomenon: online smear campaigns, which can wreak havoc in the victims' professional and business lives at the touch of a few keystrokes. "It is happening ... o...

Why You Should Spy on Yourself By M.P. MCQUEEN April 21, 2007 More people are running background checks. On themselves. Used to be, the best way to pry into someone's past was to hire a gumshoe. However, today everyone from prospective employers to identity thieves -- and even first dates -- can do surprisingly sophisticated searches, looking for skeletons in your closet. Schools, too, are dialing up their snooping. Wharton and Columbia Business schools are using investigators to weed out fibs and padded resumes. Harvard recently added a former professional screener to its undergraduate admissions staff. In the past few years, 47 states, including Connecticut, Missouri, Nevada and Pennsylvania, have released records from some courts online, with case files ranging from gun possession to littering violations. Specialist companies like ChoicePoint Inc. and Reed Elsevier PLC's LexisNexis Group quickly mine and sell information like this to companies for a fee. HOW TO CHECK YOURSEL...

April 9, 2007 A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs By BRAD STONE Correction Appended Is it too late to bring civility to the Web? The conversational free-for-all on the Internet known as the blogosphere can be a prickly and unpleasant place. Now, a few high-profile figures in high-tech are proposing a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse. Last week, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate. Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship. A recent outbreak of antagonism among several prominent bloggers “gives us an opportunity to change the level of expectations that people hav...

The Capital-Journal Published Tuesday, February 06, 2007 Once dismissed as foolish, Internet addiction is now getting second look from parents worried about teens' time online. Oh, what a tangled Web we weave, when first we practice to... get online. Many Topeka teenagers admit they never feel quite right until they have checked their MySpace, Facebook or e-mail accounts in the morning and when they get home from school and again before bed. None, however, believe they are addicted to the Web. Since the term "Internet addiction" was introduced in the late 1990s, Web users and medical professionals have dismissed the idea. Some think the long hours of isolation characteristic of too much Web use are just a by-product of other mental issues such as depression. But Kimberly Young, director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery, said the idea is gaining popularity. Parents are starting to research the addiction as they watch their teens become more attached to the com...

Posted on November 1, 2006 People who may believe they can say whatever they want on the Internet should consider a recent verdict in a Florida courtroom. A jury awarded the head of a children's services referral company $11.3 million in damages in one of the largest-ever awards in an Internet defamation suit, according to The Associated Press. The suit was filed in 2003 by Sue Scheff of Weston, founder of Parent's Universal Resource Experts, after a former client, Carey Bock of Louisiana, posted comments on the Internet calling Scheff a "con artist" and a "fraud." Such language is mild compared to many comments and rants posted on various Internet sites. But, making defaming comments on the Internet is no different than making such comments in other public arenas, the jury found. "Just because you don't like someone or what they do, it does not give you carte blanche to post false statements about a person on the Internet," Scheff told the AP....

Internet Defamation can carry a Big Price Tag Thu, 2006-10-12 13:51 Daya Gamage – US National Correspondent for Asian Tribune Washington, D.C. 12 October (Asiantribune.com): A Florida woman who won a lawsuit against a Louisiana woman, who posted messages on the internet accusing her of being a "crook" and a "fraud" said of the State of Florida’s Broward Circuit Court jury award of $11.3 million "People are using the internet to destroy people they don’t like, and you can’t do that." Susan Scheff and her Weston-based company, Parents Universal Resource Experts Inc., won the jury verdict in Broward Circuit Court in Florida against Carey Bock for posting defamatory statements about her on an internet bulletin board viewed by parents, according to court pleadings. In this case, the Broward Circuit Court jury sends a strong message that freedom of speech has limits, and the case will make people think twice before setting out on a campaign to destroy others....