John Lee On: Customer Care, Part 2

This will be an ongoing series. Again in the Plumber's Snorkel thread (it's huge, go look!) John often posts emails sent to him privately on his public forum. Even if there is a privacy statement at the bottom. While reading this, keep it in mind, that John's minions typically do not use their real name when trolling other boards.

John Lee:

Another one:

From: Dendy Jarrett [mailto:nashvillerover@comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 9:34 PM
To: Ho Chung; John Lee
Subject: Expedition Exchange/Expo Dialogue

Dear Ho and John:

Respectfully, while I don't agree with your political views on your forum regarding the treatment of customers and others for that matter, I assure you that I have nothing to do with the e-mail blasts that you are accusing me of on your forum. Had I participated in this, I would have at least given you the courtesy of a heads-up. I request that you remove any reference to this accusation from the internet. While you may attack my truck all you care to, ... you may not attack my character online.

I am the administrator and master moderator for the world's largest musician forum and am coached weekly in internet law with our corporate law team, and I do know that harassment on publicly visible forums is a criminal offense, as is hijacking photos from other forums and posting them without permission — being a lawyer ... you should know this as well.

I am choosing not to venture into your "forum" however, you should know that up to and including today, when attempting to log in (just to see images), I simply get a message that my registration is complete, but my participation is awaiting admin approval, so even if I choose to answer your challenge to rebuttal, I would not be able to log in to do so. (incidentally, no where in your sign-up, does it state that one must use their given name. This must be a rule you are creating for this situation - examples- members musky man and blue)

It is important that you understand that I come from a very small Southern town (still a population of 88) and was raised with upstanding principles, a virtue that is seemingly missing in your forums. Even if you guys are downing folks trucks or gear for your own amusement, it shows very poor character and invites like behavior in other areas of life. It is quite sad that you have chosen to condone that type of behavior. The spirit of adventure and exploration is stained by this type of environment and attitude. That is a shame, as your venue could be used for so much good.

We all choose our paths.

This is my only courtesy communication with you. The discussion regarding this ends for me with this e-mail.
Sincerely,
M. Dendy Jarrett
aka: nashvillerover

Note:
This e-mail is intended for the privacy of the recipients only and any reproduction is not permissible.

Michael aka Dendy aka Nashvillerover:

I think you need a reality check. I never accused you of having sent that email to vendors. Read again what I wrote. Read it carefully. I can tell that you like to see only what you choose to see, but read again my statement. Nowhere do I accuse of you having sent that email. That would be a little absurd on my part, because I have no real idea who sent that email. I merely said that I was guessing it was you. That's far different from accusing you of anything.

This bit about "[w]hile you may attack my truck all you care to,....you may not attack my character online" is more than a little funny, isn't it? You seem to like saying things that you think sound profound and High Road. Have you ever thought about the fact that it was criticism about your vehicle that got you all riled up in the first place? You can feign indifference all you like, but you were seriously hurt and pissed that your truck was not in fact an inspiration but a ridiculous attempt at an offroad vehicle. And now you say that I'm free to poke fun at your truck all I like? That's more than a little insincere.

Take a look at yourself in the mirror. I mean really look. Do some introspection and reflection. Don't just see what you want to see and brush off what you don't want to see. You have a real problem. You post pics of your truck online and look for validation from others. When you get the validation you're seeking and hoping for, you're quite pleased. When someone doesn't like your truck, your entire little world comes crashing to an end. And then when part of your brain realizes how silly your disappointment and anger are, you come up with excuses for your behavior. You're not angry because someone doesn't like your truck. No way. That would be silly. You're angry because someone else's truck was criticized, and that's wrong. Or, you're angry because a vendor is criticizing a customer's vehicle, and that's wrong too. Yeah, that's it.

Well, that's not it. You can come up with all of the rationalizations that your weak mind and its defense mechanisms will accept, but that doesn't mean those rationalizations are true and correct. You have a weak mind. You believe what you want to believe. You tell yourself comforting things and your weak mind accepts these comforting assertions as true. You have a real problem.

So harassing someone on a publicly visible forum is a criminal offense? Because some people on our bulletin board don't like your Range Rover, that rises to a criminal offense? Again, I think you need a reality check. You might consult your corporate law team once again.

As for hijacking photos from other forums and posting them without permission, I ask you to take another look at yourself in the mirror. You seem to do the same here:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/foru...ad.php?t=34940

Isn't that a pic from our site? That looks a lot like my Defender in the background. You seem to have no problem engaging in behavior that outrages you. Is this part of your upstanding upbringing?

Are you angry because someone hotlinked to your very public photobucket account that shows off pics of your poseurmobile to the entire world? You know, this page:

http://s721.photobucket.com/albums/w...ver/?start=all

You created that public album. The pics are there for the entire world to see. There are pictures galore of your vehicles and even of your children. And someone hotlinks to one of these photos and now you're outraged? If you're such a private person, you might want to take down those photos of your vehicles and children. Or, you might change your settings so that your photos cannot be hotlinked to.

I can see the dilemma brewing in your little brain already. If you took down those photos, how then would you seek the validation of others online? Your "build thread" on ExPo would be meaningless without those photos of your build and your expeditions to the local municipal park. This is indeed a dilemma and I leave the resolution of same to you.

Of course you choose not to post on our board. What could you say? The same meaningless feel-good talk that passes for discourse and actually generates validation and group hugs on ExPo wouldn't fly here. People would actually call you out on your stupidity, hyprocrisy, and meaningless of your statements. There's no safe-harbor provision here. Even your weak mind can comprehend that. Your excuse that your account is not yet active is just an excuse. Ho checked your account this morning and it's active. You can post. You just choose not to.

As for requiring a name to register on our board being an excuse on my part, do you really believe that? Or, like almost anything else that comes out of your mouth, are you just saying that because it makes you feel good to say it? Why did you give your name "Michael Jarrett" when you registered? I see your other usernames on D-90 and ExPo and there's no "Michael Jarrett" listed there. And yet your full name is listed here. Why is that? The reason is because your full name was required during registration.

Full names are required on our BBS. We require this for several reasons. One, user accounts on our BBS are limited to EE customers only and how else would we know if a new user on our BBS was a customer or not unless he gave his full name? Second, we require the names because we don't want anything said on our board that someone wouldn't sign his name to.

I can tell you went through our entire members list while drafting your email. Apparently, you found two usernames out of many that didn't have full names listed: blue and muskyman. I just looked at muskyman's profile and his full name Thom Mathie is indeed listed. Perhaps he edited his profile recently or not. I'm not sure. But his full name is listed right now.

I just checked blue's profile and indeed his full name is not listed. Blue must have edited his profile after creating his user account. When blue did register, he did include his full name. If you want to know blue's name, his full name is Bill Gill. I'll ask blue to update his profile to include his full name. We require it.

You say you were raised with upstanding principles. You're apparently quite proud of it. You probably think quite highly of yourself and your upstanding pedigree. As I said before, I think you need to do some reflection and look at yourself. Far from being raised in an upstanding fashion, I think quite the opposite is true. I would venture to guess that you were raised in an environment of falsity and comforting thoughts rather than reality.

In fact, I think you're anything but upstanding. I think you're quite a low-life with serious self-esteem issues. The way you lie through your teeth and tell yourself what you want to believe is pretty pathetic. That thread on ExPo is now deleted, so I can't reference it. However, what little tidbits remain are quite illuminating. Here's an example:

I have purchased quite a bit from EE and never have they "approved" me for their forum, nor have they ever answered my inquiries as to why.
I have a truck that I would put up against any truck owned by the owners there. My (enormous ... as they call it) trailer is a South African expedition trailer manufactured for the South African Military. There is nothing shabby about that.
I call a place that allows you to spend your money, but then will not allow you to participate in their forum, and then pokes fun at a customers truck ... SNOBBISH!

PS: my snorkel is a Mantec ... not a plumbers snorkel.

Again, your user account on our BBS is active. You can post whatever you like. You just choose not to. But you lie about not being able to post because you're too much of a coward to post here. So your snorkel is a Mantec. Yeah, good for you.

Another example:

I'll also add, that I have no thin skin. I don't care what you think of my truck, ... but DON'T take my money, and then bash my truck.

and:

The fact that they poked fun at my truck was not the issue here ... nor was it adelatoa's. The fact that we are Customers (yes, we may not spend their minimum required monthly amount to qualify as a forumite), but we were customers none-the-less — and to find customer's trucks on their site being poked fun at is totally UN COOL (especially when they have no means to question the motivation of the comments).

This is another lie. You have very thin skin and you care very deeply what others think of your truck. Your don't-take-my-money-and-bash-my-truck argument is just subterfuge for your outrage. You're pissed off all right. But part of your supposed upstanding upbringing knows that being pissed off because someone doesn't like your truck is just silly. So you fabricate a different, High Road explanation for your outrage. Which is worse--being hurt because someone doesn't like your truck or lying about it?