Dear Friends and Fellow Shooters,
I'm writing this note today as a letter of gratitude for the friendships I've made on this forum, many of which have become frequent phone calls and personal bonds with the wonderful group of people that make up this board. Unfortunately, this note is a letter that is regrettably "goodbye for now" because I cannot participate on this forum any longer.
As some of you already know, I'm in a profession that requires not just integrity, but a professional record that is void of any friction with anyone. I help companies during tough times to make the right choices about risk, acquisition, staffing and legal issues that require a level of trust and respect in the industry. Many times, my prospective employers will perform due diligence by looking at anything written about me on the Internet to insure that every area of my life is handled in an above board manner.
Over the past couple of years I've continuously reduced the amount of friendly communications on the general discussion board because I've drawn the ire of a member on this board that I do not know personally, nor have I corresponded with via phone or personal email. This individual goes by the nom de plume of HomelessjOe. Because of this individual's repeated comments on the general forum that have always danced narrowly on the side of personal threats to harm or outright accusations of unfair trade or outright disparaging remarks, I have left that forum for discussion altogether. The deciding line was a post a few weeks ago where we were trying to assist a new member who had an old belgian double that he wanted to determine if it was safe for shooting. HomlessjOe suggested that he'd like me to fire it with a 3" magnum proof load personally, one of those subtle ways where this individual would enjoy harm coming to others. There have been many, many encounters that I've ignored on a great many issues by HomelessjOe. I retreat from this individual because there is no "win" scenario here, all that can be done is harm my ability to earn a living through slurs and accusations from a complete stranger hiding behind a keyboard anonymously.
The remaining forum that I've used is the for sale forum. I've regularly and consistently paid Dave Weber for the services of using that forum as can be seen by the $10 payments to Dave that I've sent many times. As some of you know, I need to sell many of my shotguns and I use this forum to provide excellent guns and what I know to be fair prices. Work has been slow due to the economy and my 4 year old daughter has bone tumors that require treatment. My insurance is mediocre and therefore the bills are quite high as of recently. The sale of some of my guns purchased in better times was to assist me in taking care of some of these unintended expenses at Northwestern and Children's Hospital. Unfortunately, I cannot use that forum any longer either because of the ongoing harassment by HomelessjOe. Some examples he has done of the hundreds of posts targeting my ads:
When I posted an item he placed comments on 35 other for-sale items so that my listing immediately disappeared from the first page of the for-sale section.
Repeatedly has appraised the items I have for sale, always at 1/4 to 1/3 of what my fair asking price is in order to harm my listings
Has called me numerous derivatives of "a-hole" on my for sale listings in an irrational and unsolicited manner in order to harm my good name
Has always cast a cloud over my fine guns trying to put them in disrepute erroneously, which has disrupted my sales and harms their sale price
Has ignorantly made claims that my guns are dangerous or otherwise not worthy for sale harming the overall faith a buyer has in my listing
I believe I've always offered things at a fair price and could illustrate three guns I listed here that HomelessjOe thought were worthless garbage and actively destroyed on the for sale section. An Osborne, a Mortimer and an Ugartechea. In all three cases, my asking price on this forum was LESS than the cash I was given by Cabelas, who eventually purchased them and marked them up for resale. So not only are my guns good values in direct contravention to HomelessjOe's harassment, but a large dealer bought them for more than my asking price here to resell them at 50% markup. Here are the guns that used to be mine that I sold to Cabelas after HomelessjOe harassed me and my ads on this forum as examples:
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Mortimer-Son-Boxlock-Ejector-12-Gauge/1394300.uts?Ntk=GunLibrary&searchPath=%2Fcatalog%2Fsearch.cmd%3Fform_state%3DsearchForm%26N%3D0%26Ntk%3DGunLibrary%26Ntt%3Dmortimer%26x%3D0%26y%3D0&Ntt=mortimer (I was asking $1600)
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Ugartechea-Model-SLE-12-Gauge/1394293.uts?Ntk=GunLibrary&searchPath=%2Fcatalog%2Fsearch.cmd%3Fform_state%3DsearchForm%26N%3D0%26fsch%3Dtrue%26Ntk%3DGunLibrary%26Ntt%3Dugartechea%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%26WTz_l%3DHeader%253BSearch-Gun%2BLibrary&Ntt=ugartechea (I was asking $2700)
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Gun-Library/Hoffman-Estates-Gun-Library|/pc/103792680/c/105940080/Charles-Osborne-BLE-12-Gauge/1335350.uts?destination=%2Fbrowse.cmd%3FcategoryId%3D105940080
(I was asking $2300)
So the second point of my departure from this board is that there is no point to advertise a quality gun at a fair price because the harassment in the for sale section is not conducive to selling a gun. The behaviors expressed violate the terms of service of the forum, violate Internet stalking laws in many states, and are grounds for civil damages when someone intentionally seeks to harm someone else financially, justified by their own irrational malice.
The last point is that I'm actually afraid of this person, HomelessjOe. I've seen caustic conversations in the misfires section (I do not participate, just observe) where HomelessjOe, who always remains anonymous, has taken comments from others he dislikes and SENT EMAILS TO THEIR EMPLOYERS in an attempt to GET THEM TERMINATED FROM THEIR PROFESSIONS. Friends, this is exceedingly dangerous behavior. Can you imagine the possible chance of someone trying to take physical retribution when an Internet stalker gets a person fired from their employer? All of this is too crazy and points to a serious mental illness that is permitted to be expressed on what should be a fun, informative and harmless internet forum. This is not fun, it is not moderated, and it is beyond the pale.
I've asked Mr. Dave Weber dozens of times to deal with this individual directly and I get nothing more than occasional removal of his unsolicited posts from the forum after they've been viewed and responded to by others countless times.
In closing, goodbye for now to my friends and thank you for your kind comments and support for my little girl that is going through so much right now.
If anyone wishes to get ahold of me, you can at any time.
Regards,
Troy (aka Rookhawk)
Dtroymoritz at gmail dot com
