Up North Progressive

Up North Progressive made a mistake.

Out of concern for the people who live in the same town as bnz4350@aol.com, the Up North Progressive got in contact with the IT department of Merchant’s Bank of Indiana and let them know someone used their server to leave very nasty comments about hunting wolves and progressives on the blog. Very shortly, there was a response:

“The initial problem has been resolved,” That sounds vague, and ominous.

The next part however is important, because as stated before, Up North Progressive made a mistake.

It is important to note that mbi-capital.com is not the same company as merchantsbankofindiana.com.  While I appreciate you concern, I would ask that you to edit your article linking the two.

If you have any additional concerns, please let me know.

Matt Hostetler
Merchants Bank of Indiana
Vice President – Information Technology

Pay attention to that bolded name, it’s important.

Usually the Up North Progressive is pretty accurate locating the source of a comment when it’s necessary to find that information out. The IP address 12.47.252.252 is AT&T, and the IP lookup listed mbi-capital.com as the corporate entity using this address. Type mbi-capital.com into a browser bar and it will take you to Merchant’s Bank of Indiana. Type it into a Whois search tool and it displays this.

And although it says mbi-capital.com belongs to the website Merchant’s Bank of Indiana, the registered name for mbi-capital.com is actually PR Mortgage.

And here is the admin information for PR Mortgage:

You may have noticed the email address listed there for the admin email for PR Mortgage. Look familiar?

So, let’s recap.

This is the home page for Merchant’s Bank of Indiana:

And this, is the home page for PR Mortgage:

You can clearly see from the style sheets used these websites are two separate, unrelated companies.

That share the same tech admin.

And are both in Indiana.

But, the Up North Progressive will admit when they’re wrong. Even when the company that says they’re not the source of the comments that appeared on this blog still somehow were able to resolve the “initial problem.”

Born yesterday.