Founded in 2008 and based out of Irvine, California; weedmaps.com is a go-to website for those looking to source cannabis shops via GPS location in their area.
With a few clicks on a cell phone or computer, customers can find practically any type of cannabis product, along with the fastest route to the store selling it. Ratings from other consumers help potential patrons decide what to buy. Customers can also order online through weedmaps.com and even have their cannabis delivered.
Weed maps is an online site that offers retailers and consumers a platform to purchase and advertise cannabis on their platform. This platform supports both illicit and legal cannabis for purchase through paid advertisements on its business page.
Now, this sounds like a great and legal way to purchase cannabis. In reality, Weedmaps promotes sales of illicit cannabis business on their platform along with side legal shops, bypassing laws and restrictions by governments in each country they advertise in. For a very long time, I have wondered how a business like Weedmaps could advertise without any criminal actions?
Weedmaps.com is clearly in a practice that they understand and have no problem bypassing regulator laws and rules in any country to obtain finical gain. They know that it is illegal to advertise these businesses and in California, they have been closely monitored and are currently under the watchful eye of the federal government in the U.S.A.
What does this mean? This means that they can no longer affiliate themselves with this illicit business that they advertise for or face legal and criminal actions. Problem is that Weedmaps.com does not care or clearly puts finical gain over personal responsibility and respect for the law.
From 2008 up until 2022 weed maps.com has been collecting advertising revenue from multiple city listings and paying no taxes in return. Even as we are reading this article you can go to Weedmaps.com and see all the illicit businesses running alongside the legal stores!!!!!!!!
Not only are the small black market cannabis business cashing in on legal cannabis but it looks like big tech companies are taking advantage of this new legal cannabis market. To put this in perspective, weed maps sells its advertisement listings to illicit and legal businesses, the catch is that their listings are sold by a bidding process in which weed maps will sell its top 20 listings at a premium price.
The process in which they sell these 20 listings is nothing less than extortion on a regional scale. Weedmaps representatives will up bid each listing in an attempt to increase the price of a listing. By keeping the two parties bidding against each other for the listing, weed maps reps manipulate the cost and in turn raise each listing regardless of its worth.
Let me give you an example of the money Weedmaps makes of 20 listings:
| $15,000.00 per month ( up bided by Weedmaps reps, the listing will increase at any time) | $5,000.00 |
| $12,000.00 | $4,500.00 |
| $9,000.00 | $4,000.00 |
| $8,500.00 | $3,500.00 |
| $8,000.00 | $3,000.00 |
| $7,500.00 | $2,500.00 |
| $7,000.00 | $2,000.00 |
| $6,500.00 | $1,500.00 |
| $6,000.00 | $1,000.00 |
| $5,500.00 | $800.00 |
In Canada, we have 235 cities which means that Weed maps.com has 20 listings in these cities and is charging a premium rate that can easily net them anywhere from 235*$112,800.00=$26,508,000.00 (PER MONTH!!!). This is a staggering amount of tax-free money that Weedmaps.com has collected from both legal and illicit cannabis businesses in Canada.
The problem with this type of business is that they bypass laws and regulations for-profit and in turn make it very hard for legal businesses to operate and create a framework of legal-run cannabis shops.
Now take into account that a basic listing ( one that is not in the top 20) is $295.00 plus $195.00 for any extra location pins for your business. This means that they up-bid the top 20 listings to increase the value regardless of the traffic and they have clients paying for multiple GPS location pins. This is extortion and tax evasion on a scale that has not been seen in a very long time.
Remember they pay no taxes to the Canadian government and they are an American company collecting millions in revenue off the legal/illicit Cannabis market in Canada. This is another tech company taking advantage of a legal cannabis system and getting away with millions and they have been doing this since 2008 the revenue is astronomical and it’s all tax-free.
At this very moment, Weedmaps.com has been requested to send all documentation, etc to the U.S. federal government and it is not looking good for them. Not only will the U.S. federal government be watching but the Canadian government may have a watchful eye on them too. As of September 2022, Weedmaps will be removing all illicit listings and no longer advertising them on their platform.
But the question still remains? How did Weedmaps get away with advertising all these listings and collect revenue from them tax-free? We are talking about millions collected by a legal company tax-free off the illicit advertisement of illegal cannabis business in a country that is not their own.
This is just amazing and a story that has truly been missed. If Canadian O.C.S shops have to compete against these types of business and their total disregard for Canadian law and regulations, our O.C.S pot stores do not stand a chance. Remember this is a company that clearly knew from 2008 that they were advertising these listings illegally and against the rules of the U.S. government.
In turn, they moved back across the border ( Canada) and continued the same illicit practice in our great country, collecting millions in revenue and when the fire pan got hot they moved out.
Clearly, this company has hurt the legal market and got away with the largest tax evasion revenue scam not seen in a very long time. Seems big companies always get away with white-collar crime and the small business suffers and the consumer pays in the end.
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