jmercer Critical
Thinker
Registered: Jan 2005 Location: Upstate NY Posts:
412 |
You know,
I told myself I was done with this thread... but I can't just
let the most recent set of posts go unanswered. I work in a
customer-service oriented industry, and grew up in a resort
town where all the jobs were pretty much customer service in
nature. I fully understand the points made here about
politeness, professionalism, etc. In fact, I practice them
daily.
However, Kramer is not selling a product. He is
not providing a service that people pay for. He is not
soliciting participation in anything, attempting to get
donations, or providing educational information to the public.
He is, of course, acting as a contact for JREF, and should
conduct himself professionally... which the vast majority of
the time is true. And when he acts less than politely, it
appears to me that he usually has justification for his
actions.
Perhaps a brief recap of what happened (in
semi-chronological order) will help clarify this entire
event.
Sean began his dialogue with JREF questioning
the financial structure, availability and soundness of the
million-dollar prize. He did so without submitting a claim,
and refused to confirm or deny his intentions regarding
submitting a claim. In other words, he simply questioned them
about the money without any other justification for his
queries than an apparent desire to know about the
funds.
JREF's immediate (and apparently standard)
reaction was to have Goldman-Sachs send him a letter verifying
the availability of the funds. (This action was cited in
Kramer's second post in this thread.) Additionally, the
founder of the organization (Randi) assured Sean via email
that the bonds were immediately convertible into
money.
This apparently didn't satisfy Sean and he
continued to pressure Kramer and Randi for more information.
Apparently, it was at this point that both Randi and Kramer -
based on their experience - determined that they were once
again being jerked around by someone intent on wasting their
limited time.
Kramer became curt - and yes, even
somewhat rude - during his correspondence with Sean after this
realization. However, from Kramer's perspective and
experience, this was an utter dead-end, time-wasting
discussion that had nothing to do with the primary purpose of
Kramer's job - that of handling and processing
claims.
Kramer then started this thread as an
example of the types of non-claim nonsense that comes in for
him to handle, and how some of these people simply demand
attention and time from JREF without any intention of making a
claim.
Sean, utterly gratis, joined the forum as
"peebrain" - a vulgar reference obviously designed to get
attention and sympathy about how he felt he was treated - and
immediately posted about his confusion concerning bonds vs.
cash. (Failing, I note, to mention anything at all
about the letter from Goldman-Sachs and why it was
insufficient to answer his questions.)
Following that
post, Sean also launched a diatriabe against Kramer, accusing
him of modifying the emails listed to show himself and Randi
in a better light, etc. When he didn't get the reaction he
wanted, he then complained that Kramer provided the answer to
his questions in the forum, but refused to do so to him in
email.
(Which, of course, was not true. There was
nothing in the forum post that wasn't both in the emails and
available in the agreement that Sean himself had cited during
his private emails to JREF.)
He then claimed that his
confusion was that he (Sean) thought the bonds were the prize.
(So why didn't he simply ask the question "Are the bonds the
prize, or do you pay out in cash?" instead of asking all sorts
of detailed questions about the bonds themselves?)
When
a number of posters began to respond to Sean's comments by
asking about what his claim is, he provided completely evasive
answers - just as he did to Randi and Kramer.
Keri
then did a wonderful job of explaining to Sean how the
financial aspect of using bonds as liquid assets normally
works. Sean thanked her, but also responded by saying he still
doubted the existence of the funds. (There's a big "Aha!"
right here in my opinion.)
Keri posted a link to JREF's
990 from 2003. Sean ignored that post (in fact, he never
posted here again) and sent Kramer a private email accusing
him of evading Sean's questions. Kramer posted that email in
this thread.
Sean then sent Kramer this (apparently)
final email:
quote:
From Sean (peebrain) to Kramer Dear
Kramer,
I was unaware that you were posting messages.
I do not wish to pursue this matter
further.
Incidentally,after looking around your site,
I find your work very interesting, and I wish you luck with
refuting claims that are not valid. A great deal of progress
that has been made in our world has been made from people
such as yourself who have said "No. That is not true. That
is absurd." There are certainly a lot of off the wall things
being said on your website.
Would you kindly take my
messages off of the internet? I thought that the messages
were going to be kept private. I see that you are very tough
with people who cannot back up their claims, and I respect
you for it. The world needs someone like you bury kooky
ideas and claims.
Please e-mail me to confirm that
you have taken the messages off.
Good luck in your
endeavors to refute the absurd!
-Sean
If I've misrepresented the intent of
Sean's posts or emails, please correct me.
When you
look at all of this in context, Sean wasted Randi's time;
Kramer's time; ignored all the information he was given;
attacked Kramer and JREF; wasted OUR time in the forums;
created an internal furor over JREF and Kramer; outright lied
about some things (see above) and apparently never intended to
submit a claim! And to create all this confusion, all he did
was ask a valid question - then continually refused to accept
the responses given.
(Personally, I'm glad this jerk
was given short shrift - he deserved it.)
If anything
good came out of this, it's that the wording of the prize was
made less confusing, and there may be a FAQ made available
that will allow Kramer and Randi to simply say "Go and look at
this FAQ, then come back if you have any
questions."
This, of course, is simply my
interpretation of the events... but I thought it would
appropriate to provide a summary version of this week-long
debacle.
__________________ "The only thing necessary for the
triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmond
Burke
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