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matt - no disparagment of you intended; it's a euphemism, one of Richard Pryor's jokes about someone trying to convince you of a fable when your eyes have seen otherwise.
You are the model of tolerance in your interaction with "ab", indeed you are the only person on this board who seems to accept the veracity of what he tells us. I know your intent is to gain as much information as possible, since this person obviously has a pipeline to the Farms. However, I don't regard his responses to you as any more credible than what he says to others: a smokescreen to obscure the fact that this company has fallen far behind, and it has either abandoned its efforts to deliver on its investments or has seriously compromised those efforts.
It is more useful, I think, to engage this person on direct questions pertaining specific thinning schedule for specific plots on specific farms, and on questions about specific efforts to market wood, as others on the board have attempted without success. He needs to explain why TAH isn't selling, or trying to sell, any lumber, among other things. He needs to tell us why investor questions are not being answered and communication with those individual investors is nil, except for further promotion. What is at issue here, at bottom, is whether our purchased trees will ever yield any return no matter how far in the future we are willing to wait since they are at the mercy of this firm.
belmontx
Who you going to believe, "ab'"s testimony or your own lying eyes?
Isn't it interesting that our friend "ab" is the only happy camper on this forum; that his experience with TATF has been all good and chocked with up to date information; and that he has to SHOUT at us whenever he promotes his company?
In all the time he has been ranting for TATF not one other person has signed on to register a positive experience or favorable opinion about it, and most have been disappointed. No investor has agreed with him because, we suspect, no investor has had his alleged good experience. Otherwise we surely would have heard someone speak in "ab"'s support. It would appear that all who invested in Tropical American Tree Farm are in the same leaky boat.
belmontx
How about answering the reasonable questions asked in post 1493 and 1495? They refer to your alarming example cited in your post 1487 where you say: "Your business suffers to the extent that your partners and you are in 'survival' mode and are seeking an additional capital infusion to modernize/improve-the-throughput of your facilities and equipment. You have cut support staffing to the bone."
You seem to be describing the present state of TATF and the questions you have not answered were asked in the later posts. They asked if you speculating about what might happen, or what has already happened to your company. When you don't answer these kind of direct questions about substantive issues you leave little doubt that investors should fear the worst. Especially since many of your earlier posts here have given the most detailed of administrative estimates and forecasts.
belmontx
The squandered credibility of TATF. What does it say about the integrity and authenticity of TATF, TAH, and Raleo when you, as company spokesman, continue to masquerade as a bona fide investor in their trees as if you were like the other members of this forum, people who are actually taking such a hit on their investment.
You have answered none of the direct questions investors have asked you on this forum. For all of your dubious information and propaganda about TATF you have done your company far more harm than good by representing yourself the way you have.
And, whatever happened to your prediction that we would be receiving pre-thinning reports before the end of 2009?
belmontx
plan - Concerning your mention that zero information was provided by TATF to individual investors in 2009, was 2007 and 2008 any different? We all join you in your hope that the new year brings some evidence of continuing operations at TATF. That is the big question now. Are they currently doing anything except trying to sell more trees? The old year has rung out and their prediction last spring that we would receive reports by its end proved to be as false as most all of their other projections over the years of their existence.
belmontx
The original, and continuing, projections did tell investors to expect cash distributions by age 8 for their trees. Doesn't this make anyone who owns '01 or earlier trees overdue for distributions?
There is no evidence of anyone receiving any cash distributions from TATF no matter how old their trees are. Matt, I admire your optimism, not unlike those innocent members of the Cargo Cult mentioned here earlier. Surveys are good; facts are vital.
Member after member who owns '93-99 trees have checked into this forum and reported the same thing: no thinning reports during the last three years, and no distributions ever. It says something when no legitmate investor enters the forum and reports differently.
I agree with eatmainelobster in that we were gullible in falling for the Brunner's faith-based business plan. The irony is that such pious people should continue to solicit investor money when the results of these contributions are so apparent.
See posts #1458 and #1490. Apparently no person on this board has been able to talk directly to him in the five months he has been speaking as an insider in the TATF operation. It is not that several members haven't asked him to identify himself.
belmontx
Why, abnr, did you represent yourself as a fellow investor early in your posts on this forum, then segue into what seems unmistakeably the voice of the company's leadership? As justcfrall asks, who are you, really?
You threaten that comments critical of TATF and its owner are subject to legal action? This is a desperate reaction from a company that is being asked to inform its investors of the state of their trees. This forum has been the only effective way to make these requests to the company, and for individual investors to share their knowledge and experience and opinions, and they are being warned to stop? Did you really think this threat would stifle all criticism?
Read TATF's sunny and promotional web pages, then see abnr compare this company's condition to the one he portrays to mattyo. In abnr's last post he says:
"Your business suffers to the extent that your partners and you are in "survival" mode and are seeking an additional capital infusion to modernize/improve-the-throughput of your facilities and equipment.
You have cut support staffing to the bone"
Since he speaks for TATF and knows its every detail, and is likely the same writer who composes the webpages, investors who read this forum are finally able to glean the truth about the current state of this operation and why it has not provided even the semblance of reports, returns or transparency to its investors. Why is no hint of this on the company's internet sales pages - its website? Investors' apprehensions turn out to be well-founded; the lack of returns reflects a company in "survival mode", not operational mode. To blame the condition of TATF on this forum suggests that the company had no intention of taking care of the trees it had sold unless a steady stream of future sales could be made. What did it plan to do when it ran out of land? Were not the fees assessed tree owners for milling and selling their wood enough to make it profitable? What happened to all the years of promotion of Raleo as the consumer of young teak? Is this an enterprise which can only survive on perpetual sales, rather than one based on sales of a product they grow and develop, then gain from its commission from harvesting of that product? We investors thought we were buying that stewardship when we bought the trees. TATF says so on its sales pages.
belmontx
The Cargo Cult was a group of Pacific Islanders on whose island the U.S. Army set up a base during World War II. This was an economic boon for the islanders since cargo planes regularly landed on their island and the natives prospered from the surplus goods the army gave them. After the war ended and the cargo arrivals ended they looked to the skies daily for the return of the big birds and their cargo. They set up rituals to honor the gods of cargo in hopes of them being blessed with the return of their gifts from heaven. They became known to anthropologists as the Cargo Cult
My reference equated the Cargo Cult with any investor in TATF who still believes in the projections of rich rewards every seven years, or even at the end of 25 years, from the money they sent to Mr. Brunner == that he was going to do what he indicated he would do. It was meant to be ironic, but it is actually pretty sad considering the earned and saved funds that those investors trusted to his stewardship through purchases of trees on his property.
"Ab" should try addressing the basic issue you and others have put to him: why does his company not provide honest and regular information to each investor concerning his trees and their maintenance and the market for them. By only giving promotional spin and not specific information he has alienated virtually all of his investors and is convincing them that this is either a scam or a failed enterprise on his part.
belmontx
More distortions from TATF. Not a competitor, just a bitterly disappointed investor who joins others on this group to provide information to those thinking about making the same mistake by investing in this company. How convenient it is for you to cast critics of your company as competitors. I am not the only one who you and some of your earlier incarnations on this forum have accused of being competitors in the tropical tree business. It is not up to your present investors to help make your company profitable and produce the projected returns. That is your job and either by incompetence or design you are not doing it.
It is your credibility which is the issue here. Abnr, you said on 9/19 that you were leaving this forum.
From my 9/20/09 post I wrote:
"I think we may hear yet more from this source, perhaps with a different handle. Lest we fear that ab's informed communiques will be lost to us, consider, in order, his likely previous voices on this forum, in order of their appearance (doubters may read their style and content to confirm). Very little duration date overlap occured(only the nine days for #1 and #2):
1-sbrunner; 2/17/07 to 3/20/08 - 64 posts
2-happiest tree owner; 3/11/08 to 4/09/08 -13 posts
3-ohio lawyer; 4/17/08 - 1 post
4-fjonas; 10/24/08 to 10/27/08 - 13 posts
5-happy tree owner; 5/4/09 to 7/9/09 - 6 posts
6-abnrgrrvn (you); 7/9/09 to 9/18/09 - 60 posts
"We may miss the entries' unrelenting optimism about TATF but we won't miss the spin promoting the company.
For all the 147 posts we got little factual information about the actual maintenance and harvesting of the trees, and no answers to the direct meaningful questions posed by many members, only sanguine estimates for the future.
"Total posts - 1376 as of this writing. Except for these six nom de plume's we haven't heard from any satisfied tree owners on this forum, only frustrated and unhappy ones who cannot get answers about thinnings or harvests of their trees."
Since then ab has provided 17 more postings containing his "wisdom", knowledge and affirmation about his company.
His responses to actual investor experience on this board has been to claim we are just competitors out to do harm.
What he must do to restore faith in tatf is to provide honest and regular information to each investor concerning his trees and their maintenance and the market for them. Without that we are left to conclude that those trees are not being cared for as promised when originally sold to us.
belmontx
TATF is deceptive to an extreme in its website promotions. The projections of return on investment are flagrantly at odds with current investor experience. The facts are that almost all the of investors who have posted on this website and own trees up to 16 years old have received no distributions and are not told when they will. In fact, as individuals, they get little if any communication or information at all from this company. They don't know if their trees have been thinned, nor when they will be thinned. The story from the company now is that the 17 year (conveniently at least a year away) old trees will start to yield thinning results, but that 25 years is more realistic. A look at the website promotions (particularly the way they were worded previously, when most of us bought trees), shows how misleading they are, The prospective buyer is still led to believe that his "cumulative net proceeds" will return his investment and more by the 14th year. The owner knows this has not happened, yet continues to write these promotions and lure more overseas money from innocent investors. Based on what has happened to their tree investment over their years of ownership (they have received nothing), and their relationship to TATF since purchasing, present owners have plenty of reason to be deeply concerned as to whether they will ever see any of their investment returned.
It is clear that no investor is getting any information about their purchases from the past two years, nor from older purchases.
Regarding your search links, you probably recognized from his post on http://tropicaltreeinvestmentforum.com/index.php?topic=9.0 that "treeguy" is "abnrgrrvn" on this forum, who likely is, in turn, Steve Brunner himself. This person is the only one who gives positive reports about his "investments." See my post #1377 for evidence of this.
Regular members know that this forum is the only place where buyers of Steve Brunner's Tropical American Tree Forest trees can communicate with each other and can post comments which Steve Brunner, himself, reads. It is important that we keep this board active by posting new information whenever any of us receives such. In the absense of any and all communication to investors from TATF during the past several years this shared knowledge is our only source of information about the fate of our trees.
For most investors in TATF trees it is just too painful to regularly go back and review Mr. Brunner's company website. So it is with appreciation that I acknowledge zigyzag's occasional contributions to this forum. It reminds us that two separate realities exist concerning Brunner's marketing of trees.
First, there is the reality of the current TATF website which is more positive than ever about the great opportunities for large early returns on investments in his young trees, complete with compelling figures showing generous returns resulting in a 500% appreciation after 15 years.
Second, there is the reality of the experience of the actual buyers of Brunner's trees -- buyers who purchased their 16 and 13 year-old trees during the past twelve years after seeing the glowing assumptions he made, plus his specific projections of ample returns when their trees reached the 7- 10- and 13-year age. We have at least 22 of these buyers who post on this forum and have stated that they have never received anything from TATF, nor even received notice of any thinning since 2006. No one, other than the likely owner using his alias, has ever posted that they have received returns. If anyone had gotten the expected payout there is no doubt that they would have posted it here so as to counter the growing sense of fraud all buyers are developing.
The proof that the website claims are gross exaggerations, if not falsehoods, lay in the fact that several tree owners have asked for refunds of their original purchase and have been refused. Bear in mind that these refunds would be for trees that have grown from 5 to 14 years since they were purchased. According to Brunner himself these were projected to be worth from 2 to 5 times as much as their purchase price as the years go by yet he doesn't want them back even at that original price. For example,the TATF website projected that my 1996 teak purchased at $3000 per hundred trees would provide me with a "cumulative net proceeds" of $4419 when they were ten years old (3 years ago), and a value of $13771 when they were 13 years old (this year).
Not having him answer any requests for information about why his projections have been so faulty, and when returns will truly happen (save through the voice of his alias, ab), it is safe to assume that he regards my trees as virtually worthless or he would happily repurchase them. He refuses the chance to acquire almost $14000 worth of trees (by his own estimation) for $3000. These are the same trees he forecast to be worth $118,452 just 12 years from now. Would anything be more convincing of the deception of the website offers?
Of course, in this era of Madoff, Stanford, et.al. it may be that the owner is simply self-deluded and truly believes all these projections, oblivious to what has happened to his previous plantings and their buyers. But this, of course, would require that he lives in a reality distinctly different from that of his customers.
May the readers of the present offer on the TATF website discover the truth of the experiences of previous investors by locating this forum before deciding to send their money to Costa Rica.
belmontx
Cargo Cult Members Alert: bfl's trees are teak. (See his January posts). Even so, like all the rest of our trees, they still apparently don't have any value, no matter how old or of what variety. Has anyone asked for a refund of the original price of their trees? The company apparently doesn't think that the trees sixteen years later are worth what they sold for as saplings despite the fact that they were marketed for a projected value several times the purchase price after those years.
Have you heard of TATF thinning then selling any of the resultant lumber? --- Or, for that matter, for any of the trees Mr. Brunner has marketed to us investors during the past 19 years? Has he even done any thinning or maintenance since 2006?
belmontx
TATF AN EXTREMELY UNWISE INVESTMENT. This is true no matter what the owner-representative continuously repeats here. People new to this board should review the postings here over the past two years; read them all. Also, if possible read the original TATF website projections. Ab's statements estimating returns for present investors at 17, 21 and 25 years are the same kind made by the TATF website for many years which assured prospective investors of returns at 7, 10 and 13, along with later years.
It was the projection of these early returns which lured most of us investors into sending this company our money. We were told our teak trees would most likely recoup our entire investment by the time of the third thinning harvest (13th year - $11325 gross proceeds from the original purchase of $4000 for 100 trees). How many of us would have invested if we knew we would receive nothing, not even the symbol of a return, for at least 17 years? We were terribly misled and certainly deserve some of the blame for our niavete, but it is unconsionable that the company continues to make these kind of claims, with only slight lawyerly changes to them. The fiction of Raleo, as a major consumer of young wood, was used to explain the market for the early thinnings. Now ab, as the company voice, encourages patience because "91% of the returns will occur with these later harvests", and, by inference, Raleo is not said to be much of a factor any more. "Ab" claims to have personally received proceeds from the earlier harvests, but we have discovered on this board that no one else has.
Whatever would make a reader of the postings on this board believe that his stated forthcoming returns are actually going to happen, and that we won't be told that it turns out that the real returns will be at the 30, 35 and 40 year marks? This is a business plan which presents a carrot to investors which is forever moved further into the future. Who of us can prove that this man will never make good on his obligations? He can always say it is just about to happen.
This forum is the only device the individual investors of TATF have to push back against this company. It has led us to a collective force which may have far more leverage than any one of us has, and it has provided a source of information for those other unsuspecting souls who might be thinking of buying Mr. Brunner's trees, whether they be teak, nargusta, palm oil, or guatemalan three-leafed sarbis fribsutablans. Do not be pacified by Ab's immediate and relentless reassuring replies to every critical fact and comment posted here.
The suspicion the owner and others have that this forum is damaging the future sales of TATF trees to new investors, thereby further jeopardizing existing investments, is spurious. In effect, citing this argument is as much as suggesting that we all need to be complicit partners in this enterprise's reach out to new buyers, and that the many millions of dollars TATF has already received is not sufficient to assure the care and harvesting of existing trees. The existing net worth of this company and all its vast land holdings in Costa Rica should be ample to see through its committment to present investors..
belmontx
No returns from this investment. This forum still hasn't heard from any investor who has ever received any distributions from their purchases of TATF trees, except for ab who seems to be the owner of the company, or his identical twin. This, in spite of the fact that many of this forum's members are owners of teak trees as old as 1993 plantings (now 16 year old trees), and several requests have been made for anyone who has ever seen a dime returned on their investment to let us know ----- no reports have been posted yet of any of the projected returns being made.
belmontx
planb -- Have no doubt Mr. Brunner is reading your comments. He is with us on the board as we speak. I quote you from your earliest post in July of 2008):
"I do believe that Steve Brunner likes to keep tree owner's from comparing notes as it can only lead to additional negative information regarding TATF. Check out the IP address registrations some time. Steve Brunner owns many 10's, or hundreds of domain names with almost every conceivable variation of tree farms, and teak plantations, .com, .net, .org, etc. Make no mistake, Steve Brunner is in a business venture for himself first here, and he has no priority in making sure owners meet the projections on the web site, either by total bd ft/tree or by total $$. His only promise is that the trees will planted, cared for, and permitted to grow for 25 yrs."
His various ip addresses makes it possible for him to employ various pseudonyms in order to post on this board as a number of different happy tree owners (as I noted in post #1377).
It wasn't until the creation of this board three years ago that our tree owner exchange of information became possible.
It seems to me that your comments continue to be right on the mark concerning this operation.
belmontx
Your guess is a most generous interpretation, matt; this would be giving "ab" the benefit of the doubt concerning his connection to TATF. But it's good to look on the positive side; it appears that somebody got some lumber sold from his trees.
belmontx
You seem to be getting a plethora of detailed and up to date info from your company while no one else on this forum is getting any reports of any kind. Why is this?
All investors in TATF trees please refer to post #1314 on this forum. All may not be lost. Legitimate investors have been meeting together.
to all -- I think we may hear yet more from this source, perhaps with a different handle. Lest we fear that ab's informed communiques will be lost to us, consider, in order, his likely previous voices on this forum, in order of their appearance (doubters may read their style and content to confirm). Very little duration date overlap occured(only the nine days for #1 and #2):
1-sbrunner; 2/17/07 to 3/20/08 - 64 posts
2-happiest tree owner; 3/11/08 to 4/09/08 -13 posts
3-ohio lawyer; 4/17/08 - 1 post
4-fjonas; 10/24/08 to 10/27/08 - 13 posts
5-happy tree owner; 5/4/09 to 7/9/09 - 6 posts
6-abnrgrrvn (you); 7/9/09 to 9/18/09 - 60 posts
We may miss the entries' unrelenting optimism about TATF but we won't miss the spin promoting the company.
For all the 147 posts we got little factual information about the actual maintenance and harvesting of the trees, and no answers to the direct meaningful questions posed by many members, only sanguine estimates for the future.
Total posts - 1376 as of this writing. Except for these six nom de plume's we haven't heard from any satisfied tree owners on this forum, only frustrated and unhappy ones who cannot get answers about thinnings or harvests of their trees.
belmontx
Deception takes many forms.
Matt- Is there any doubt who "ab" is? He is familiar with every minute detail of
the company's operation, past, present and future, answers every criticism of tatf with the identical kind of fluff that characterizes the tatf website in content and style. He has answers for everything related to the day to day operation of the business; spends his days, apparently, composing thorough responses to each comment made here. Yet he claimed to Just on this forum that he hasn't been in Costa Rica in eight years and doesn't even know where the local airport and roads are bordering the tree farms.
Oh, and regarding the value of investors' trees -- if he, the owner, won't repurchase trees as old as 1993 at their original seedling price (give it a try) now as many as 16 growth years later, what does that say about his opinion of the current value of the trees he sold. How many of you fellow investors wouldn't yearn to get just your money back from him, forget the interest?
belmontx
One would have to be gullible in the extreme to believe tatf's latest promotion (are they still pushing palm oil trees?) after knowing about what has happened to the projected returns for 1993-to-2008 investors in their teak trees. Only desperate teak investors, clinging to their slender hopes for someday getting some of their money back, could regard as credible the stuff coming from that company. It is obviously written for potential buyers who know nothing of what has occurred thus far to people who believed prior promotions and trusted their savings to TATF.
It is entirely possible that Steve Brunner truly believes his own ever-changing revisions to his company's enterprises, promotions and committments to prior investors. His intentions may always be pure. That surely doesn't mean anybody who knows its history could believe them.
As for newcomers to the company website, Gmelina makes a compelling pitch.
belmontx
Ab - like all similar nefarious schemes this one always promises the big payoff just around the corner ("17th year distributions just ahead", "first distribution likely before the end of the year","wait for the 25th year growth"), even though all the earlier projected distributions never came through.
And the biggest puff of all, that "million dollar payoff already made to investors" that you and the TATF website (same source?) keep citing -- other than you, ab, nobody of the 60 odd people on this forum has ever reported getting any of that. Are investors to believe that it was all kept by the company in the form of more trees credited to buyers who for some reason have never posted to this forum?
Your regular affirmations countering all the experiences posted here present exactly the same detailed content, and are written in the same promotional style, as those contained in emails from TATF and on the TATF website updates, all likely authored by the owner, Mr. Brunner.
belmontx
If, indeed, you are not promoting Italian Oven teak trees then I think you could get our advice about such an investment by simply reading our posts about TATF over the past two years. Don't risk your funds.
belmontx
So far no answer to you question to abnr as to why he is the only one who gets reports and distributions from TATF; instead we get questions bounced back from him meant to avoid his responding to the original one, and meant to require the questioner to identify himself through his specific purchases (since abnr and sbrunner are either the same or closely associated, they have the purchase records.)
abnr could answer your question if he wanted to, it is pretty basic and doesn't require him knowing which of us own what. As we have seen there are 40-50 members who have reporting owning older teak plantings and receiving no information or reports sent by TATF to them.
belmontx
...and your question is?
Until now this forum has been blessedly free of ads or scams from others seeking to make a buck from members who are already burned by a previous offshore investment. Please don't litter our postings with your promotion.
belmontx
Your info is no more nor less than what we get if we are persistent when we call the TATF office.
Not so strange you should be getting thinning reports (and distributions) and virtually all the other investors on this board are not when the detailed knowledge you have about the operation is considered. All of your distributions have been reinvested in more trees, you have claimed. In light of recent news what kind of an investment does this sound like?
You have said to Just that you aren't familiar with the territory around the farms, having been there only once 12 years ago, yet you appear to be completely familiar with the details of their operation. How about explaining why your company is not communicating directly and honestly with its individual investors, other than you, abnrgrrvn?
When people who have bought trees from TATF (some as old as 16 years) are writing those investments off as losses it is way past time for answers.
belmontx
"HappyTreeOwner" - Your misinformation given to this forum was revealed as such when you never responded to the factual references fawtsc cited in his post of June 30 (#1139). In reviewing your statements it now seems clear that they represented experiences and opinions at odds with virtually all the other investors in Tropical American Tree Farms trees. What, exactly, is your relationship to its owner?
belmontx
abnrgrrvn - try looking at, and complying with, post 1163. Contrary to your assertions, most of us are interested only in facts (facts from credible sources) and logical interpretations of same.
belmontx
Neither bought previously thinned, nor given a report for these now 12 year old trees.
To meet Happy Tree Owner check post 126 and his five subsequent posts during the next month. The writing style and content are remarkably similar to yours and to sbrunner's prior to those entries.
belmontx
'97 teak, San Rafael -- have you thinned any of this? Have you reported to the individual tree owner's anything about their particular owned '97 teak trees? Has anybody else? It has now been 12 years.
Is it helping or hurting TATF to ask such unanswerable questions?
belmontx
Your three thinning reports are three more than most investors on this board have received.
Clearly, in responding to you on this board, we are speaking with a supposed investor who has had an experience sharply at odds with the others. One of the reasons sbrunner and the other two or three defenders of him dance around the essential facts and have not given us the specific age of their teak trees when they make claims for having received thinning reports for them is that this would enable investors to compare their non-results and discover that their trees were ignored (as were likely all the others). As long as the critical numbers are left out we are snowed with generalities, as has been the case with all the Raleo reports. Your interesting way of answering a question by presenting non-relevant statements is reminiscent of Mr. Brunner's posts early in the life of this board.
To deflect any substantive question you ask your trump question, "Are you a tree owner genuinely interested in helping TATF?", this begs the fact that investors didn't buy trees from Mr. Brunner with the obligation to promote his future sales, they bought them with the clear expressed premises from the TATF website that their trees would be taken care of and there would be distributions at fixed intervals, during their lifetime. If you are going to give such glowing reports based on your personal consumer satisfaction you are going to have to be more specific and more convincing than you are lest we confuse you with another representative of management.
The question we have had on this board since its inception is why doesn't the owner of this company give each tree owner regular updates on the status and completed thinning
of his trees? As has been said many times here, he could show his credibility by direct and honest communication with each investor. Even though it appears that he reads the board daily it hasn't happened during the two and a half years of complaints on this board; is it thought that full disclosure would do more harm than good?
We bought your trees on your property with the pitch that you would grow, thin, and harvest them along the lines of your projection table presented to us. We didn't buy them in order to help you sell more trees to more customers. If you are not Steve, please pass this message along to him if he hasn't already read it.
belmontx
With the past 9% completely missing, what on earth would make anyone believe in the later 91% ever being paid?
As long as TATF can make people believe in future payouts they never need to keep their commitments for the present
belmontx
Jim, If you do read all the posts you will find that there are about 45 investors reporting here. In terms of attitude they tend to be composed of two big groups and another two very small groups:
1) two or three who are extremely happy and commendatory of all that Steve Brunner is doing for us and the world (some suspect they are friends or family of his).
2) two or three who remain reservedly optimistic about eventual results
3) about two dozen who are disgruntled, to say the least, and feel that their investment future is in peril
4) then finally, more than a dozen who are angry and disillusioned about TATF and its operation, even wondering about the character of the owner to the point of believing that, short of legal action, they are unlikely to ever see any kind of return of their funds (transparency: this writer is one of this group).
What is significant is that none of them have reported any returns from thinnings even though many own trees planted as early as 1992 and 1993. Mr. Brunner's website speaks of investors who have received their oringinal investments back and it cites investors (Charles B., Susan R., Carl F. et.al.) who have received ample payments in thinning returns. None of them have ever surfaced here, nor has anyone ever signed on to tell us they have received a thinning distribution of any kind.
Unless we are to assume that none of the investors who received returns have ever discovered this forum so that they could straighten the record, then it is fair to assume at this point that that either TATF is grossly mismanaged, or that the owner's committment to his investors has lapsed.
belmontx
So, if TATF does no thinnings nor pays any distributions, and the tree owners cannot cut and remove their own trees, it pretty much leaves the land owner with all the gains and the tree owner with none of them.
And yet the false premises continue to be effusively presented on the TATF website in an effort to lure more investors into its folly. May they all discover this forum first.
belmontx
The 1994 goncalo alves trees TATF is now trying to sell as "special opportunities", and have not been pre-thinned are exactly like the '94 ron ron trees (goncalo alves are ron ron's) owned on these farms by justfrall. His recent post tells us he has a buyer for the logs from these young trees but has been refused access to them by TATF; denying him the ability to cut and remove them.
Now, since they haven't been thinned in 15 years and the owner of them wants to, and is not allowed to, harvest them before they lose much of their remaining value from never being tended, how sane is a purchase of trees on Mr. Brunner's tree farms?
belmontx
Please read post #1062 and contact treeowner by email.
Your location near the TATF farms would be of invaluable help to us.
belmontx