LINK

http://www.johntreed.com/gurucustomers.html

The dumb market segment
Many visitors to my Web page are just plain dumb. They cannot understand my explanations about why nothing-down and lease-option techniques usually hurt the people on the other end of the deal from the investor. Nor do they understand why they should not be getting financial advice from a guy whose books contain numerous serious inaccuracies or illegal advice.

I cannot help dumb people. My typical newsletter subscriber is generally successful ($1,000,000 net worth), mature (47.5 years old), experienced (12 years owning rental property), and highly educated (over 16 years, in other words, my average reader attended graduate school). I have never pursued the low-IQ market segment and do not plan to start. But the Internet now brings them to me for the first time in my career.

The hate mail I get is almost always anonymous. That is, the writer hides behind a handle or screen name and refuses to give his real name. I randomly investigate such hate mail using standard Web resources. For one thing, I suspect some are sent by opposing gurus or their associates. One recent hate mailer gave only his AOL screen name. When I asked him for his real name, he refused to give it. I then asked various Internet search engines what they knew about that screen name. Heres what I got:

His full name; city; state; marital status (married); parent status (has family); days of the week he works (Monday through Thursday); hours of the day he works (nights); his wages ($750 per week); the amount of sleep he gets per night (4 or 5 hours); his occupation (truck driver); the kind of guns he carries (.357 Magnum and 9mm with 13-round clip); the fact that he carries a concealed weapon without the necessary permit outside his home state; the type bullets he carries (hollow point); the fact that he secretly and illegally tape records phone conversations with his superiors; the fact that he lied to his bosses about whether he carries a gun on the job (he does); his favorite curse words and profane expressions (likes to use the work pork as a verb); the fact that he poses as a pious Christian on religious Web sites; the fact that he calls police pigs; the fact that he was denied a workers-comp claim, ultimately got money by hiring a contingency attorney, then had trouble getting jobs because he was marked as a workers-comp abuser; his X-rated masturbation session with a full body masseuse at a truck stop; and his refusal to do ------work where the hyphens represent what is commonly referred to as the "N word."

Did I hack into his computer? No, not at all. This information all comes from the mouth of the perpetrator himself, bargging about what a bad ass he is on the Net. He assumed no one would ever know who was behind the screen name he used. Assumption, of course, is the mother of all screw-ups. I took me about two minutes to learn his real name, city, and state. If I had been willing to spend a couple of bucks, I could have gotten much more legally. But what I found from the normal search engines like Ask Jeeves and Alta Vista was more than I wanted to know. I suspect this sordid soul is the typical customer for guys like Carleton Sheets. Its also the typical guest on the Jerry Springer Show. This is not a market segment in which I am interested, or to which I appeal (Thank God).

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), August 06, 2000

Answers

Good link. I also noticed that he says, "Disagreeing with me is no crime." (Obviously, No Comment Necessary...)

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), August 07, 2000.