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NP announced that the data/EUA request was submitted to the FDA an hour before the conference call. That was near the beginning of the CC.
Right, I understand the meaning and value of the term 'statistically significant' but it has been a while since I saw the calculation done out for this situation (probably on this board).
I can do the math but I don't know the equation or what p represents (probability?). Too much of my wayward youth spent in engineering classes to pick up statistics...
Actually I misread your comment "p = .06" as "p = .6" -- I forget how the statistical significance was measured, maybe you can refresh what that means.
The updated post says they were pleased that the results were "clinically meaningful", which doesn't sound like a hard scientific term.
When you look at 21% vs. 9% and do a quick mental check it looks like 50% reduction. But actually, 21% compared to 9% is exactly a 60% reduction - so by the measure you mentioned yourself, it is statistically significant.
OK
Who is belmontx1? Is that you, belmontx, or is somebody using a similar name to try to bank on your name recognition?
I'm not sure whether to register or not, will I just be giving my name to the next fraud artist that wants to abuse me?
Hi all, been out for a while
The comments duped is making aren't really in support of TATF or Steve. If they were they would be outrageous. His "support" is more damning than his bashing ever was before. It seems pretty obvious that duped is just stirring up the anthill to watch the reaction.
These are the key things I don't believe about duped:
1. I don't believe that he ever really owned any trees
2. I don't believe that he forced any action by TATF or Steve through the Texas AG
3. I don't believe that he received any money from TATF or Steve in payment for said non-existent trees
4. I don't believe TATF or Steve ever requested or forced him to stop posting negative comments about TATF
5. I don't believe TATF or Steve ever requested or forced him not to talk about the imaginary payment
I think duped is a high school or college kid with a lot of time on his hands and no women beating his door down. He has hijacked the board for his own entertainment. As any shock jock talk radio host knows, you get the best response when you pretend to hold an opinion that most people disagree violently with. Duped is pretending to be an avid Steve and TATF supporter and he's getting lots of response, probably a bit more than he's able to scare up on the dating and relationship front.
If duped has any intention to really support TATF, the way he is going about it is by creating so much static on this board that no real, important posting is happening anymore. All you see is 15 entries by duped every day and several entries that counter him. Nobody is going to read that for very long. If duped has a purpose in this, it is his purpose to make this board ineffective and drive people away.
So this is my only post regarding duped. Good to talk to y'all again, Matty, just, fawt, belmont, a1, and all. Have a great Christmas!
fawtsc -
The response to this in the past has been that by saying "post 10-year thinning" they are not saying that the trees have actually been thinned, just that your purchase will be applied to trees after their eventual thinning. That way you receive the full number of trees and you only receive trees that were not culled in some thinning process that takes place in the future.
But that sounds a little pie-in-the-sky to me. How do they know how many trees they have available to sell until the thinning process has happened? Will the number of trees sold determine how many trees can be considered culls?
And what would happen if there were a storm or other event that wiped out large numbers of trees after you buy trees but still pre-thinning? Would those trees be considered to have been "thinned", or would they then continue with the eventual thinning process, still assign you a full complement of trees for your purchase and take the entire loss themselves?
That's something I hadn't thought about before.
Establishing a "post-thinning" contract with them on trees that haven't been thinned yet incents them to be less critical of the bad trees and less generous with light and space for the good trees.
Note that it's not unusual in the Internet Age for companies to market their products under many different domain names that funnel to one site. Even reputable bricks-and-mortar companies will purchase more than one domain and direct them to their main page on the chance that somebody will enter the wrong spelling or a different abbreviation than the company intends to direct you to. It's the equivalent of having multiple entrances to the same store on different streets. You can't blame them for wanting to be more accessible. They are not presenting themselves as 100 different companies, just giving you 100 different ways to find them. The banner of each of these sites clearly says "Tropical American Tree Farms" when you get there.
So, this is not a comment for or against TATF's marketing and business strategy. Just a comment that operating under multiple domain names that lead to one site doesn't by itself indicate that this is an illegitimate or shady operation.
As for the rest of fawtsc's post, it's true: when dealing with TATF through any of these gateways, be aware that (almost) nobody has received any of the promised proceeds from their investments with TATF. If you send your money, you are under a serious risk of being defrauded and/or losing your entire investment.
Whether the moral burden of communication is on the investors or not, the de facto burden is. Steve seems to feel he's communicating enough. I don't feel he is. People haven't been able to force or convince him to communicate more by any methods that have been tried so far. In the absence of enough communication to satisfy me, I'm trying to figure things out.
Not sure what you are proposing about communication - are you suggesting that since the moral burden is on Steve, that we shouldn't try to figure anything out and we should wait until Steve lives up to his moral burden? I have to tell you, that doesn't seem very productive. I think I tried that for a few years and I wasn't satisfied with the results; that's why I'm trying this now. If you want to stop communicating, feel free. It certainly can't hurt your investment.
And as for demanding a refund, anyone that wants to is welcome to do that for their investment. It doesn't seem to me like a solution that will work for everyone. I've stated that I'm not intending to do that right now. Unfortunately, I don't agree with your premise that "he should be forced to refund that money if his plan and promises don't work out". If he's stealing or committing fraud, yes. If he thought the tree farms and tree investments would be successful and lucrative and they aren't, well, I believe that's the risk we took on in investing with TATF. When I invested, I hoped and believed it would work out well. Every investment prospectus you get indicates that they want and plan for things to work out well, but they don't control the outcome. Is this investment on some magic TARP plan, that it can't be allowed to fail or do poorly?
Interesting problem to have.
Steve has legal commitments to people that bought trees. The trees are likely not going to produce anywhere close to what he projected as investments. The land is committed for the next 15-25 years and is potentially very valuable now.
I don't think we have enough information to really understand the ramifications here. This is 100% hypothetical, but if you're right and the land is growing significantly in value, here are some thoughts about how things might be:
- Steve can't sell now without getting people to let him break the contracts - who would buy to continue as agent for the tree business? Anyone who bought would want to use the land for other purposes. For people to allow breaking contracts would probably require a significant concession from him.
- Even if he could sell now, even if he divided up the cash, people probably wouldn't get much more than their initial investment back. I don't know how it would work legally.
- If Steve can keep the business running and fulfill his commitments, people get whatever they get for the lumber as commitments are fulfilled and Steve is a rich man when he can sell the land
- If Steve can't keep the business running, what happens? TATF goes bankrupt, land is sold, TATF is probably sued and I imagine a judgment eventually rendered against whatever proceeds come from the land sale. I don't know what Steve would end up with but it would probably be less. He wouldn't be in control of the outcome.
- If Steve could sell some land today and finance the business, I would think it would be in his best interest.
- Interesting situation - Steve has no cash and millions of dollars in land that he can't sell. But shouldn't he be able to get a loan based on the land value?
Can't argue with that Brad.
Planned or not, he is basically responsibility-free it seems to a point. I do believe Steve is duty-bound to provide us with logs, lumber or cash at or before 25 years. I don't see wiggle room in that provision. Legally, he has to do something then or face the consequences. Based on postings of fawtsc and others it doesn't look like what we will have even at 25 years will be worth much. I'd be happy to be pleasantly surprised but my expectations are pretty low right now. However, it should be something.
I don't have a lot of hope for the method suggested by duped but I'd be happy to be proved wrong there as well.
I'm missing something in what you posted: "Out of the 15 or so properties listed in the CR property registry under his corporate number listed indicate that they are his farms. " How many of the 15 are his farms?
Again, if they are tree farms, how could he sell them - he's committed to raising the trees. And I wouldn't think the land would have grown much in value if it's farmland in the middle of nowhere. On the other hand, if he has investment property close to cities that has gone up significantly in value, and it's under the TATF corporation (and thus would be part of the company holdings that any liability would be held against), then why wouldn't he sell it to finance his apparently cash-strapped operations? It doesn't make sense to me.
It sounds good but it's hard for me to believe. I could believe many things here, but it's hard for me to believe them at the same time. If Steve has so much money in real estate, why doesn't he sell some and solve some of his own problems the easy way? Especially if somebody could force him to by taking him to court.
I've already discussed the idea that this is a scam to some extent and at that time people agreed that it seemed unlikely. But for the sake of argument:
Scenario 1: This is a scam and Steve is taking all of our money and converting it into real estate to make a killing.
Questions:
If so, why hasn't he cashed out? I can't believe there's much new investment money coming in. People are suspicious, the government has been involved to some extent already about the Social Security stuff and is likely to get involved more deeply soon. A scam would be getting much riskier at this point. If the real estate is so valuable today, he had better sell it and get out. There are many Spanish-speaking countries where extradition would be tricky at best.
Scenario 2: Steve is an honest but inadequate businessman who can't meet his obligations to us because he sunk all his money into investment real estate that he's just sitting on.
Questions:
Does that sound honest or even likely to you? If Steve is really trying to make a go at TATF, if this real estate is so liquid it would seem that he could just sell a chunk and finance his operations. If, as you say, he has as much in non-planted real estate as all of our original investments, then where is the problem? It's hard for me to believe he would work himself to a frazzle, let his operations stall, not hire enough people to care for his own trees or even to answer e-mails and keep the company running because he doesn't feel like selling one of his chunks of property.
Another question: Would Steve be so stupid as to put his investment real estate and his inadequate business skills into the same bucket of money? I don't know Costa Rican law, but in the US, he could probably spin TATF and his investment real estate into separate companies, and make both separate from his own finances. We could sue TATF and get nothing because TATF is a shell containing only the tree operations, while his real estate portfolio might be worth those millions but be untouchable, and we would have no recourse against Steve himself because they are incorporated.
I would like to believe that it was as simple as turning Steve upside-down and shaking our money out of his pockets, but it's hard for me to believe. Maybe my view of business and law is too cynical, but I just don't see a win for everybody down that path. Maybe for a few, as I said.
Agreed. It's the right thing to do.
If an angry, torch-carrying mob of people were outside my house I would lock my door. If somebody knocked on the door and said, "can you come out here, we'd like to negotiate for a bit?", it might be hard for them to get me to do it until the angry mob goes away.
Congress can force the BP head to go talk to them. I think a few Louisiana fishermen or environmentalists might have a few things to say to the head of BP too, but I doubt he's going to give them a hearing.
Congress just wanted to make some political hay by torturing this guy in front of the media. They needed a goat, they chose him, because the sitting president is a Dem so it can't be his fault. Maybe it made people feel a little better or feel like somebody was doing something, but nothing Congress did slowed down the oil gusher or made the fix happen any faster. All they did was roast this guy for your viewing pleasure. No fish were saved or pelicans untarred by this public humiliation. It didn't save the jobs of any oystermen. From a practical standpoint, it was useless posturing by Congress.
Guaranteed that Steve would look just as much a fool or more as the head of BP if he came on this board and tried to answer the questions. We can shoot him 100 questions a day, and the only answer that really means anything is a check in your mailbox. Unless and until one comes, every word he says will be challenged and ridiculed. Not that it shouldn't. But I understand why he isn't putting himself through that anymore.
Please don't look at this as me defending Steve's silence. I'm offering an explanation. That doesn't mean I like it.
Steve was on the board earlier. Why did he leave? I think things got too hot, he didn't have any great answers to tough questions and people stopped buying the company line (understandably, as TATF wasn't backing up what they were saying). We may never get him back to the board, but I don't think that means we can't get him to open up to some degree to some group of people.
If dupedbysteve truly owned trees and was truly successful in working with the Texas AG to get Steve to pay him back some money, then others could follow his example. My recollection is that duped talked about owning only a few trees - 100 or so. That's pretty small potatoes for Steve to pay back. What did that cost him, a couple thousand bucks to avoid a lawsuit or potential government intervention? He gets a benefit too, gets rid of one angry investor.
But how many investors do you think would be successful before Steve would just say No? Is he going to just keeping opening up his wallet and handing everybody back their money, or will he say, take me to court? He didn't even pay you back everything he owed, did he belmont? How many people does it take before it's costing Steve more to keep it quiet than it is to be taken to court? Unfortunately, I don't think it would take many. 5? 10? 50? One big investor? Do I think I am one of the lucky 50 or one of the unlucky 3000? I don't like those odds.
I think there is a good chance TATF would get shut down or at least have significant costs if Steve gets taken to court. Then it would probably go bankrupt, whatever property it has would be sold (imagine how successful we would be trying to get a good price for a custom tree-processing machine), government, lawyers and other creditors would take their chunk first.
Then what? What do we get? I think all we would get is this: the current value of our trees. We are not Steve's creditors, we are tree owners (at least, belmont, I am). If the company fails, why would we get anything at all? There was no guarantee that our trees would grow. If the land is sold, will somebody buy it to run a teak farm and keep raising our trees? Doubtful. If the land has gone up in value as much as some people have said, it's not because people are eager to start teak farms (since they are so successful). Farmland is cheap. Land goes up in value because people want to build on it. If they want to build on it, guess what they will do with all the trees? Cut them down.
Or imagine that the land can't be sold because there is a lawsuit in progress and the land is in contention. Will anyone be caring for the trees? Not saying that they are doing that now, but how much incentive would there be to care for the trees if the company's going under? Zero.
Again, we are NOT Steve's creditors. He doesn't owe us a thing except what he contracted to do, which as people have discussed is pretty minimal when you boil it down. We are tree owners (at least, belmont, I am). If the company fails, Steve can't meet his obligations to care for our trees - so maybe we can prove that he owes us money then. After the 10-year battle in court that people have told us to expect (think there might be some lawyer fees for that?), we finally win, the judge tells Steve to pay up. OK, we get at the back of the line after everybody else he owes and see what's left when we get there. Good luck with that. Does anyone think that will be more than 25% of what you put in in the first place? My guess is that 25% is pretty optimistic.
There has been talk about fairness to the people that haven't invested yet - warn them. I agree. Why should anyone else get stuck? However, I don't think you are considering fairness to the 3000 people that have bought trees with TATF when you suggest trying to follow dupedbysteve's example. I believe it would gut the company fairly quickly and the rest of us would be left with the stinking carcass to pick over. 50 people get their money back and 2950 are left holding the bag. Thank you for your fairness. If you don't agree, please describe to me how it would be different - what good outcome do you see for what you are suggesting? Steve says, "Ok, guys, I give up", converts his incredibly valuable property into cash and there is plenty to go around.... Yay!!
I think somebody has projected a couple of months ago that the best we can expect for our trees is that we get our original investment out. You know what? That sounds pretty good to me compared to getting my cut of what I described above. If I have to wait 10 years either way for the outcome, I feel like letting it ride could be more successful than taking your advice.
And if we can get Steve to the table, maybe he would be willing to make some concessions at some point. If he honestly didn't know that his dream wouldn't match up with reality, maybe he would be willing to extend the final cut of the trees to 30 years or to a point where they would become somewhat more valuable. I don't know what concessions he could make that would be helpful or increase our chances of getting some money out of our investments, but maybe we could come up with something. The discussion can't even start until we get to a negotiation with Steve. My impression is that your plan would not help us do that.
So from my perspective, if you can convince enough people to topple TATF over, then you cost me 75% of my investment. At least. If you fail at what you seem to be trying to do, I may get nothing or I may get my full investment back. Or TATF may topple on its own, and I get the same result.
Your money is not at stake here, mine is. I would appreciate it if you stop trying to decide what's best for my money.
I ask myself what my motivation is for wanting people not to take the discussion here to a level of hysteria.
Is it to make sure that new investors keep coming and propping up the company so I can get out before it collapses?
No. That's not it.
The reason is because I still have hope that there is some value to my investment, even if small. I have hope that TATF is a legitimate enterprise, even if managed badly. mattyo saw his trees, I believe that mine are there too.
I agree with Jan that the best hope for real communication for investors is to get Steve to the table. I also agree that it seems unlikely that Steve will come to the table while he is being burned in effigy on this board.
It's a good summary.
In a Ponzi scheme, old "investors" are paid with the money from new investors.
This can't be a Ponzi scheme, as none of the investors are getting paid at all.
Doesn't mean it's not a scheme, just not a Ponzi scheme.
"I think I represent investor sentiment when I say they are not interested in the sputtering and fulminating and anguished self-righteousness of the random (and suspicious) forum member, but their primary concern is the lack of any kind of information coming from the company and the owner they entrusted with their money years ago. All those who disagree with this paragraph pleae sign on and say so! "
Since you asked: I disagree.
1. My primary concern is the health of my investment and the potential proceeds.
- I'm certainly very concerned with the lack of communication as it pertains to the health of my investment. However, if Steve wants to keep his mouth shut and just send me lots of big checks, it wouldn't bother me a bit. Not that I see that happening.
- I strongly disagree with your characterization of David Knight as suspicious. You are suggesting that I should trust you more than I trust him. Why? Because you say so? Who are you? I don't put a ton of faith in David Knight, but who cares? I'm not putting a ton of faith in you either. I have a verified name for David Knight (of course, it's verified by another person that I don't know) and I don't have one for you. But I'm not about to hand a blank check to either one of you. What does trust mean on a public, free, mostly anonymous forum? Give it a rest.
- There's enough great crap-detection going on on this forum that I don't think many unsubstantiated positive comments or reports are going to go unchallenged. Shills are not going to survive here because nobody will take them seriously.
- I will take sputtering and fulmination any day over personal attacks, suspicion and McCarthyism. From either side in this discussion. I want to hear everybody's opinion - I can sort it out for myself, thanks.
This is a tropical timber message board.
It is not a TATF message board. It's not specifically associated with TATF and no ownership of TATF trees is required in order to post here. At least, that's my understanding. Please correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure somebody will be happy to do that ;) )
I think belmontx, dupedbysteve, justcfrall and other former tree owners certainly have a right to post here as much as I do or any other current TATF tree owners, or anyone else for that matter. So if the question is whether I want to be exposed to anyone's views in particular, my answer is "yes". I want to hear belmontx's views and dupedbysteve's views as well as David Knight's views and even Ab and Steve if they want to post.
I do hope that if you don't have money at risk, you will consider what others are saying who do. (I exclude from this request anyone who has a payback plan in process - if you are supposed to be getting paid and you are not, then I think you do have money at stake)
I think it's inane to keep calling people shills. It's at least McCarthy-esque. Suggesting that anyone who disagrees with your view is somehow bad and therefore has no right to speak is not promoting a good discussion here. If there are shills on this board, it will be pretty obvious, because it's hard to imagine that anyone can stay truly positive about an investment that is returning no money, including the original ante. There's no point in fighting David Knight. If you are right that this investment is pouring money down a rathole, he will be crying his own tears about that within a couple of years. Enough people on this board have turned from mild questioning to frustration to committed pessimism over the last couple 1000 posts, give David time to lower his expectations. Also, there is plenty of good crap detection going on here - it's hard to imagine that somebody can sneak by with a lot of positive reports without backing it up. It's not happening.
dupedbysteve, it's hard to accept anything that you say when you continue to question others' identity without ever having giving us one single shred of evidence of who you are. You can't even have fear of retribution against your trees now, since you don't own any. If Steve Brunner could have the law on his side against you, then he wouldn't have sent you any money, so you can't have fear of law or courts in this matter. I don't care what your judgment is of David Knight's proof of identity, because at least he provided some. You have never provided any, and with what reason?
dupedbysteve, you certainly have a right to remain anonymous. But if you want to challenge others' identity, I call you to throw your own on the table. Or just stop.
David does seem to have a point there, dupedbysteve.
He has provided his real name, we have independent verification of who he is, and we know that he has purchased some trees - even the number, species, year and what they cost him.
That about sums up all the information we might need as proof of identity and having a stake in this game.
Can you explain what information you are talking about that David is asking for from others that he hasn't been willing to give? Or are you just spewing some meaningless nonsense?
Everyone is welcome to have an opinion, even non-TATF clients, and anyone can post here. I don't have the power to limit this discussion to TATF clients and wouldn't if I could.
Both dupedbysteve and belmontx indicate that they are former tree owners and don't currently have money on the table. Meanwhile, they scoff at the idea that discussions on this board can affect our financial interests. Well, that is true in their case. I understand that your sense of morality has been offended by your perception of the way that TATF does business. But I still have a financial stake here, I'm not ready to burn down the building and lynch the owners as you seem to be. Fun as that might be for those with offended senses of morality, it doesn't do a thing for the health of my investment.
dupedbysteve, I guess the non-disclosure agreement or "talk nice" agreement that we perceived you might be under after you indicated you had made a deal with Steve is now over?
matty
You asked about the date of the message. I received that message about 6 weeks ago (about paying for thinnings).
I had sent a message earlier and was told that thinnings would be started in roughly last week of February (they said, 4-6 weeks from date of my email). I was told that thinnings couldn't start until the rainy season was over and the ground had dried sufficiently for them to safely use their equipment or oxen teams.
I waited until April to check up on the thinnings and the quote I posted is from the response I got at that time. So - a pretty fast 180 from "thinnings are about to start" to "we will do no thinnings before we get paid, there is no market, etc. etc."
Your post about the semantics of "already thinned trees" is the same I was going to say - the fact that they say they are selling trees that have been thinned doesn't indicate that the thinning has actually been done yet. Steve himself posted on this board something to that effect.
I don't want to be considered positive or negative, I want to be considered objective. I think I have both pointed out issues (including difficulty of purchasing lumber) and tried to get people to be objective.
Speaking of which, I think the discussion since the last time I checked in has been really great - much appreciated.
To set the record straight on lumber purchase, I think I was able to get fairly close to purchasing lumber from TATF. After I pursued it for a couple of months, I had something like a quote both for lumber and for shipping. I haven't yet decided to try to complete the purchase, but I believe it would be possible.
- I own 1996 Teak from the fairly recent (3 years ago) special sale and have not received a thinning report. Here is a quote from my last communication with TATF regarding thinnings:
"gentle encouragement" and "assistance with sales efforts" are not ideas I have espoused. I think what I said is something to the effect that I haven't seen anything that I think will be successful yet but I have hope that something might come up. Also that I think trashing TATF is not a winning strategy.
dupedbysteve sure got some fast action. He talked to the TX AG office one day, they told him not to let Steve know who he was, he apparently did, and suddenly all the pieces fell into place. That took what - 3 weeks? and he got the price he wanted for his buyout. How long did it take you belmont? I thought you said years and a long succession of emails, late or missing payments, etc. Fast contact and quick payment do not sound like the Steve that I'm getting familiar with.
Steve must have a lot of faith in the power of the TX AG to get things done in Costa Rica. A lot more than I have.
This has the smell of a setup to me. (Of course, I see no reason not to pursue it). Does anyone know who duped is or know that he owned trees? He refused to tell anyone but Steve. We have no proof that he even had contact with the Texas AG, let alone Steve. What will happen if we believe him? 1000 people call on their AGs to investigate TATF and hope to turn that into instant cash. If Steve was too busy before, now he will see what busy is like. If he had no money before, that will pale in comparison to buying off everyone with an AG and an e-mail account.
I don't buy it, but I shot an e-mail to the Texas AG's office to see if they ever would do something like pursuing investment fraud by people based in other countries.
Didn't somebody else send them an e-mail besides duped a while back? I confess I have no time to go look through posts
If I'm not mistaken, that last part of your post is an idea of how to use some leverage on TATF to get them to take action. See - I knew if we could just get that brain working on solutions instead of finding new problems, things would start turning around! It may be impossible, but it seems you are the kind of guy that can do the impossible if you try.
planb, it's not that I'm living in some fairyland where I think everything is going great. I think I pointed out a few posts ago several reasons why TATF is in serious danger of going down the tubes, if it's not already flushed, and many things need to change. Isn't that mind-numbingly obvious by now after the last 1000 posts? Do you still think you need to convince somebody here that TATF is not producing the projected golden river of cash?
It's too late to ask if I have faith in Steve, haven't we discussed that? I already put my faith in him. He has the cash - there's no more faith to give or withhold(except buying more trees, which I'm not about to do). What extra faith are you talking about? How would I pull back any of the faith I put in him? Please, please tell me, because I would love to try.
I don't need to see my trees to guess that there's nothing great to see, quite likely to the point that my investment is doomed already. Why would I spend the equivalent of 10% of my investment and waste my time going down to be disappointed in person? Why would I subject myself to Steve's schpiel in person when I can read it off the website? Nobler men than I have tried to use that personal interview to talk him into throwing us a bone, anything, and failed. I don't have the classic engineering mind, so I don't have to actually touch something to believe in it. Words are pretty good for me, pictures are even better. I can be disappointed and upset listening to you guys just as easily as I could by going. I'm not a masochist; I don't have to spend thousands of dollars just to make sure I feel as bad as possible.
I am a reverse optimist. I think the situation is already so bad that almost any change would be an improvement. I do consider my investment a total loss. That is very freeing for me.
So now what? On paper I have my wife's whole IRA from when she was working as well as mine from a former job and part of an inheritance, all sunk into these trees. If I listen to you, I should just rip up the papers. Guess what? I can't afford to listen to you or I will be eating dog food when I'm 75. You are too rich for me since you find it so easy to throw in the towel. It's just amazing to me that you find it so worthwhile to keep hashing over the same tired complaints when you don't think it's getting you anywhere.
If we were on a ship with a leak and it was sinking, some of you guys would be moaning and crying and yelling about how we're going to die. Some people would be trying to figure out who made the hole and string them up. Count me in with the people that are looking around for a way to plug the leak or to bail out the water or find a stash of life jackets. Is that too idealistic of me?
- Don't bother telling me "the hole's too big, you'll never plug it and you can't bail fast enough".
- Don't bother telling me "there's nothing to plug it with"
- Don't bother telling me "you would have to go outside the ship and plug it from the outside or it will never hold - it's impossible"
Just get out of my way. Unless you are proposing a better solution. You seem to think I need help --- to give up? If I go down with the ship, I will be spending my last breath trying to save my family, not cursing the captain.
Why on earth would you spend so much energy trying to stop people from fixing the leak and saving us all? I don't care if the chance is one in a million - or less. I do not care. Especially if my wife and family are on board, and guess what - they are on board this ship. Any energy and time I spend on TATF now are going to be spent trying to make it work. If I can't think of a way to try to make it work, then hooray - I didn't waste any energy or time on a lost cause. But I'll keep looking for any way for things to improve until I have no hope left. And like I said, then I will go spend my time on something else, you won't find me around here complaining. I hope.
If I start at ground zero as I am now, all I care about is getting somewhere above zero. It's hard to imagine I could lose any more money if I don't invest more. While I'm hoping, I might as well hope for a profit. It doesn't cost any extra to hope. I can wait the full 25 years to see if something happens - it's for my retirement. I can even give Steve a couple more years than that to come through if that's part of the solution. In the meantime I will watch this forum for info from others, keep reading TON in the hope that there will be verifiable progress at some point, and try to think of ways to force TATF into action, or to salvage some of my investment.
What's "Plan B" for you, planb? What is your brilliant idea of how to spend your time? Sounds like it is complaining. If you imagine your investment as a salary, you are going to spend your investment on complaints. Complain as much as you want but it will take down your wage per complaint. I hope your complaints are worth it to you. Mine would just be ashes in my mouth. If I want a shoulder to cry on, I'll talk to my family or my pastor or my investment counselor (seems like I should get one of those). I don't feel like I need to keep coming here to complain to people I don't know (and some that I'm not sure really exist - Ab ;) ). What a waste of time.
OK, the situation is bad. Very bad. Very, very bad. We learn that in more and more detail all the time. As exciting and interesting as that is, I just get tired of it. I just can't keep caring extra extra much about the money I already feel is gone. Enough already. I'm not interested any more in knowing the exact degree of how bad it is. I am interested in knowing any way to make it better. Even a little bit better.
I would rather look at my situation as earning my investment back as a salary than as spending it. If I consider myself to be starting at zero, anything I get is more than I had. I will be patient, I will be accommodating, I will do whatever I can to bring Steve back to the table. If my effort is wasted and I get nothing out of it, then you and I earned the exact same thing. So turn that frown upside down mister grumpy pants, lets all put our heads together and earn some money.
being pragmatic is being practical.
what you say is truly pragmatic, and yet you are not acting on it. You say "Sometimes there are no fixes and you move on". So - move on! Why are you hanging around this board and talking about TATF if your money is gone? Sell your trees on the board! That will earn you some money back!
Tell me how your actions are practical. You are a very busy man! You don't even have time to say hello in the hallway - that's how valuable your time is! Surely you are wasting a far greater magnitude of time by reading and posting here if THERE'S NO WAY IT CAN HELP YOU!
Again, I point out that you are not being pragmatic. You seem to be on the board for the purpose of pointing out that TATF is wrong. Besides the fact that it's already obvious that TATF is wrong, so your posts are redundant, caring about the fact that TATF is wrong is idealistic when it doesn't lead to a positive outcome. That's called "tilting at windmills", which is a reference to Don Quixote, the quintessential idealist.
(But you are an engineer - it really sticks in your craw to be called idealistic, so I'm sure you will fight it tooth and nail. If you want to be the pragmatist here, it doesn't matter to me. It's just one more label that doesn't affect whether we get our money back one iota (wow - note my very pragmatic point of view!))
I don't think idealism is bad. I'm glad you participate on the board. I used to play sports. Sometimes my team would get behind by a score that would seem insurmountable. People have different styles - mine was to keep playing as hard as I could and try to encourage my team to do the same. I would not stop believing that we could win until the game was over. Why? Because I had nothing better to do in that situation. I was already playing. Nothing else pressing on my calendar for the rest of the game. People would take issue with me walking out - I might as well try. Sometimes I would feel like it was over halfway through - but I would try to keep playing my heart out. And sometimes my feeling was wrong, and we would win.
I didn't know when playing that if we kept trying we would win. All I knew was that the surest way to lose was to stop trying. To me, fighting til the end is the best combination of idealism and pragmatism. If I go down here, I will go down trying to win, not trying to get revenge or complaining about how rotten a deal I got. What's the point? You want some violin music with that song? Now that is truly a waste of time.
I think you should recognize that if you are being pragmatic and moving on as you say I should be doing, then I won't be hearing much more from you now.
I am being pragmatic in this way: the money I invested is too much for me to lose easily. It costs me nothing to continue reading and posting, and I will keep up to date with any events at TATF and the experience of others. If I hear or think of a way that I can be helpful or get some benefit, I can participate.
Again, I reiterate my opinion: If TATF fails, then you will be absolutely right. My money is gone. If TATF is able to string their business along until trees pay off, I may get something back. If TATF prospers and is an honest business, I might even make a profit. If it is a one in a million chance, and it sounds like it sometimes, that is a better chance than throwing in the towel.
If I get to a point where I no longer hold out any hope for TATF, I will drop off the board. Then if I ever get a check it will be a pleasant shock.
I think that, as an engineer, you should probably recognize mathematical pragmatism when it bites you on the butt. If I have a tiny chance of getting some pittance by bringing TATF down and a 10% chance of getting my original investment out by helping TATF succeed, I will go with the chance that somehow TATF will pull through. Even if the chances are reversed in magnitude, I think the potential economic outcome for me is far greater down the path of success - and if there is a legal solution instead, I still won't be left out.
If Steve starts to listen and change and communicate, I think my chance doubles or more. I don't think anyone can know what the chances really are - I just don't see any positive outcomes at all down the path you believe we are on. If you're right I can't change it by bashing TATF any more than I can change it by posting just the facts or by being positive. I would just quit.
There may be a point at which I decide my chance is better by pushing for legal action. I doubt it - I see too many class action suits where lawyers become millionaires while I get a check for $1.37. But maybe I will get better news on the legal front from this forum, or maybe I will feel differently at some point.
It's all a guess. I trust my guess more than yours, but it doesn't matter. Your guess tells me there's no way out. If I don't believe you and you are right, I will still suffer my doom just as you will - don't worry, I will fall along with everyone else - no slower or faster (gravity plays no favorites). If you're right, nothing I can do will help - so I am not hurting anything by trying. If I'm right, the game's not over yet. To me, in that situation, trying is the only logical thing to do. That is pragmatic.
No. I carefully and purposefully did not make the mistake of oversimplifying because I wasn't trying to quote anyone. I said specifically that they are not intended to represent quotes of anyone on the board. I will say it again in case there is confusion. I did not intend to quote anyone with those statements. I was not intending to represent anyone's position. They were not "attributed to an unknown source", I very clearly and intentionally did not attribute them to anyone at all. What I was doing was presenting invented examples of speech.
I made exaggerated examples to make the point clear and make it easy to differentiate between the two kinds of statements. All they are is examples of different kinds of speech - objective facts that are helpful vs subjective statements that weaken the discussion.
I gave examples of the kind of statements that I think are harmful. "The sky is falling" is another example of a statement that I think is unhelpful. Or, in a crowded theater, "FIRE!", in the absence of conclusive proof of fire.
Yep, words are all this forum has going for it. I agree wholeheartedly - let's be truthful and objective. Let's not resort to namecalling. Let's not jump to conclusions and then use those unvalidated conclusions to beat people over the head.
You have a great crap detector belmont. I think Ab is full of it. I like it when people say in response to his posts, "keep in mind that this guy has refused to document his identity and is unrelentingly positive in the face of all evidence that things are going poorly" (not trying to quote here either). That is a great fact, and it needs to be added every time he says something to balance what he is saying. Calling him "Steve" isn't the same. Even if you really think that it's Steve - I think the way to handle that is to gather your evidence that it's Steve, put it together in a logical proof, post it, and then refer to it again any time you want to suggest that he may be Steve - but leave room for the possibility that you're wrong. I say this to everyone: don't be "negative Ab" like dupedbysteve was. Rise above.
belmont, you have done a great job of that a lot of the time. I respect a lot of what you post.
Over time, the only thing that will help is truth. That's my idealistic view. I want truth from Steve, I'm willing to be careful in my statements so that he has no reason to think that he won't get a fair shake with me if he comes forward. Let's stop hitting below the belt. But hit above the belt all you want or need to.
Let's keep track of the promises and the outcomes. Let's collect info on what's happening on the farms and with the business - real, verifiable info with circles and arrows and 8x10 color glossy photographs. fawtsc has great posts - he is gathering info, verifying TATF's statements and posting his conclusions. I don't object to putting facts together and drawing conclusions. If TATF is a scam, mismanaged, untruthful, etc., then collecting evidence and posting it logically will gradually be a lot more damning than emotional assumptions (as it already has been). If the evidence leaves room to think that good things are happening then there may be ways that we could eventually be helpful and work together to dig everyone out here. I repeat what I and others have said: any hope we have that TATF will come through is the only chance we have to see our money again. That's my opinion.
If I want to scare myself needlessly I can go to the movies (I say needlessly because my invested money is almost certainly completely out of my control now. Making myself angry or frightened about it isn't going to earn me a penny. My opinion.). I don't need that from you guys on this forum. If I want a lot of apparently unsubstantiated assumptions and baseless statements that are calculated to hype me up I can just go read TATF's website.
I have no problem with fawtsc's post. Give me the facts.
This statement doesn't make me cringe: "There has been little or no communication of any kind to tree owners about their investments for the last 3-4 years. Yet TATF continues to post new tree offers with projections that are unrealistic based on the experience of nearly everyone who has posted here"
This does: "There is more teak in the paper of your certificates than there is on the farms of TATF"
I'm not claiming to quote anyone here by my quotation marks, just indicating what is a statement.
This statement doesn't make me cringe: "If you can't either post your valid identity to the board or have someone we trust verify it, I have no reason to believe what you say"
This does: "You post nothing but positive comments about TATF. Therefore you must be Steve. OK, Steve, what is your latest lie?"
I'm not asking for positive posts. That would be asking most of us to lie. I like Jan's idea. Let's be as constructive as we can.
I would never suggest that these negative posts have been the source of TATF's downfall if it comes. That's stupidity. All I'm saying is that bashing can speed up the crash or make it more certain or more spectacular.
The source of the crash, the first factor, will be that TATF had a ludicrous business model as we now know - but we were all sufficiently impressed to buy trees. I'm still not beyond thinking that Steve was fooled and surprised also. A second huge, huge contributing factor in the downfall of TATF is the ongoing lack of honest communication to tree owners from TATF and the lack of caveats or full honesty in the projections for new investors. A third is the apparent arrogance of Steve who refuses to change his ways in the face of many peoples' counsel. A fourth is the reported poor care or lack of care of the trees and lumber in some areas. A fifth is the lack of preparation and slow response to attempts to purchase lumber. A sixth is the fact that what communication there is is a regular, steady stream of promises that have never borne fruit up to this point.
My point is that all that is on Steve. We can't force him to change - unless there is a possibility that legal action can do so. It's obvious that he currently has no intention to change, and early attempts to get him to change only seem to have pushed him farther from it, e.g. he left the board.
So what are we left with? All we can control is our own actions. We can pursue a legal solution - the most likely 'positive' outcome from that is a measure of justice or revenge against Steve, not any return. We could rant on this board about the injustice, the probable scam, the ways that Steve will spend our stolen money. Again, I don't see that doing anything to help us get our money back. If it has any effect it can only hurt TATF, it doesn't help anyone.
Or we could pursue a solution. It might be pie in the sky, but it's the only sliver of a chance of a positive outcome that I can see. It's not worth it to me to bash TATF. It could potentially cost me and it brings me no satisfaction at all. I think I have trees in Costa Rica. I don't know if they are being cared for, but I would like to do what I can to make it possible for TATF to fulfill their responsibilities to me. However small my part is. It is more than nil, or if it isn't, it's surely not less in my view.
I'm the pragmatist here. You guys are the idealists, who think that repeatedly pointing out who is obviously wrong will change something. Right and wrong is water under the bridge. I say, what now? What is the best chance to make it work? To me, bashing isn't it.
planb, I wasn't suggesting that TATF is a bank or a publicly-owned company. Those were what I call "examples" of how soft factors can bring down a company that is viable. Business models change. TATF started with a bad business model. They have discovered that and they are trying to correct it, according to their communication. Your negative opinions or speculation presented as fact could be harmful to TATFs ongoing business. If it's hanging by a thread or teetering on a cliff, you are doing your best to cut the last thread and push it over.
planb, this is not true in all cases. In fact, once a company goes public it's not really true at all, ever. The basic concept of stock price is that it is the present value of all future earnings, not current hard assets.
A run on a bank is an example of a "soft value" situation in which word of mouth and fear can cause a viable business to fail in a very short time. Even if the fear was initially totally baseless, it quickly becomes very real and well-founded due to the fact that banks don't keep their depositors' money on hand, they lend it out. If enough depositors want their money at the same time, the bank won't be able to give it to them. The fact of the run on the bank could cause all investors who don't get their deposits out to lose them. Thus the FDIC was born to stop runs on banks. There is no FDIC for businesses, just TARPs.
Stock situations can be similar. A significant portion of a company's value is tied up in its stock. A stock can be devalued to the point that the value of all the shares of stock is actually less than the market value of all the holdings, inventory, etc. of the company. If that happens, often a business will not recover, even if it is viable - a predatory company may but it out to sell off the holdings, shutting down the business, because it is worth more in pieces than it costs. If you owned the stock, you may get a fraction of the real value of what you owned.
Look at eBay. Compare the hard value of what the company owns to its market capitalization. How do you put a hard price tag on the fact that when people want to buy or sell something, they type "ebay" into a browser?
I have seen many companies that list "goodwill" or other soft, non-tangible assets on their balance sheets with a dollar value next to them because they are REAL and VALUABLE despite the fact that you can't touch them. Ignoring that is foolish, but many engineers refuse to believe in things that they can't touch. It's an outgrowth of their wonderful and essential abilities in other areas. I am foolish in my own ways.
It's been pointed out before - companies can finance capital purchases or operations on the basis of the lender's perception of their value. TATF could point to income streams or to the value of their assets in order to get a loan if they need it. Marc - if that income stream dries up (new investors) and TATF's trees are not perceived to have value, they will not be able to get a loan. This hypothetical (but probably real) situation is not a Ponzi-esque problem where we need new investors to service old investors. This is a problem where fear or suspicion causes investors to stop coming and then TATF has no way to dig itself out of this hole.
We made our deal with TATF. If TATF is dissolved and goes bankrupt, they no longer have ANY responsibility to our trees. Nobody who buys their assets will have any responsibility to fulfill their obligations (in my non-expert legal opinion). A viable TATF is the only entity that can have its feet held to the fire over this. I want TATF to be viable.
I don't begrudge anyone their right to say what they want to say. I am telling you that it's not helping me or you to bash TATF. If your idea is to make sure the company fails fast so that we are the only ones who go down with the ship, maybe that's for the best. I still am of the opinion that something could be saved - anything. More than $10 per tree even. It will absolutely only happen if there is a TATF.
It's crystal clear that Steve could do a lot more to save this company by talking than you or I could do by shutting up. We all know that. But that doesn't make shutting up meaningless. We still CAN help the situation - or not make it worse - by sticking to facts instead of a constant stream of bashing.
planb - no effect?
the idea that your words have "no effect" on TATF is a fairly poor assumption to begin with, and certainly not borne out by what happens here on the board.
Unfortunately, that assumption is about the same quality and has the same character as the assumption that saying "bonjour" in the hallway is a waste of your time. Even considered pragmatically instead of socially, that greeting in the hallway when all you were doing is walking (ok, perhaps you were also thinking. Let's not ignore the value of your thoughts about the carpet pattern or da Bears, or thinking "please don't say hi to me and waste my time") can build lasting work relationships that smooth your interactions and help you get work done more efficiently and effectively for years to come. Ignoring that as a factor in work interactions because you don't perhaps feel the effect of that greeting strongly yourself is not very wise. You aren't saving yourself time, you are building resistance for yourself as Jan described before about his coworker. Good move. I hope you are aware that good engineering requires thinking about soft human factors too, such as "will this chair be comfortable" or "will this design create wind noise that people dislike" or "how shall I build this curve in the road so that people can see the scenic overlook without having to turn their head in an odd way and creating a traffic hazard".
Meanwhile, on the board, have you noticed a pattern in the postings of people who have just joined? Here it is:
1. I was mildly concerned about TATF so I started looking around
2. I happened upon this board
3. Now I have been reading the posts and I suddenly have developed a great fear that my investment was unwise.
4. (and sometimes) I was considering buying more trees but I would be a fool to do it now; I had better see how things turn out.
You've seen the posts. This is a common reaction to what YOU are saying, among others here. This forum is having a real, tangible effect on TATF. "Word of mouth" has a verifiable, quantifiable effect on the purchasing decisions of people who hear it. That's why there is a "term" for it, it's part of the "equation" of marketing.
Don't sell yourself short. People do care what you say. In the hall and on the forum. If your eyes are open to that now, consider the effects. If TATF is being affected negatively by your words, how do you think that will affect you? It might be wise to account for that factor.
If you feel your investment is gone and you want to make a statement about it, sell your trees. If you are holding out hope for the investment, give it a chance. Jan mentioned a stock that dropped in value from 200+ euros a share to under 20. What happened to the "real" intrinsic value of the corporation to cause that? Did 90% of their buildings fall over? Did 90% of the money in their cash registers disintegrate?
Your words don't directly change the intrinsic value of our trees and the lumber they produce - but as somebody has pointed out, trees were just sold on this forum for a fraction of their purchase price. When you bought your trees, did you buy them based on their intrinsic value at that time? That would be ridiculous. You bought the idea that they would be worth more than you paid at some point in the future. That was their value. Talking the trees down now that you have purchased them does nothing to improve your chance of getting your money back or increasing it. All it does is decrease the perceived value, or what you could get for them now. Unfortunately it also does that to me and I don't like it much.
duped,
OK - you have me there. That is a valid, logical reason to remain anonymous while you are pursuing government action.
belmont,
sorry if I am twisting or misreading your response. How would you quantify your reason for being anonymous, as based on my paragraph that you quoted? I may be making a bad assumption in boiling the paragraph down to these specific reasons:
- hope that I will get a return on my trees
- fear of losing what little responsiveness I've had from TATF
- fear of losing leverage or ability to motivate TATF to continue caring for my trees
in these cases, I would say my fears are:
a. if not fears that TATF will actively retaliate against me, the fear that I will poison my relationship with TATF and remove any desire they have for positive action on my behalf
b. based on my belief that TATF is a valid business
c. based on expectation of some return from my investment, other than recovery through a judgment against a fraudulent TATF
If TATF is not a valid business, why would I care if they stop communicating with me? And if it's a fraud, why would I care about motivating them to care for my trees or why would I expect a return? Again, these reasons for anonymity are based on the idea of TATF as a valid business.
That was my point about fear of retaliation also.
Marc, where in Pittsburgh?
I'm from a small town in Beaver County n/w of the city...I'd send a private message but I'm not a paying member :)
Schaef
OK, belmont and Marc, you are making my point for me. Your fear is a fear of retaliation. I am right there with you.
In order to want to be protected from retaliation, you must believe (or at least not be convinced otherwise):
a. there are trees planted by TATF
b. there are trees assigned to each person, not just some "show" trees
c. these trees will grow and at least some will have value at some point
d. TATF will at some point cut and process these trees and sell the lumber
e. and there will be proceeds from the sale that should go to you
So therefore, TATF is a real, viable company that is selling real trees. That is your belief, or you wouldn't fear any retaliation. Your tree markers can't be moved and your trees can't be "culled" unless you have some trees. You can't get less proceeds from your trees unless they have value and there are real proceeds.
The same must be true for "dupedbysteve" - who refuses to reveal his identity. So how has he been duped?
In several messages, he says
...there is more teak in the paper of the certificates than there is on the farms
...all we have is a bunch of worthless pieces of paper
...the only real thinning was from our wallets
...Steve is a fraud and probably is already in Rio with our money
My point is, duped, if that is what you believe, what fear can you possibly have of Steve, who is living off your money in Rio, retaliating against your fraudulent trees on the teak-free farms that are attested to by worthless pieces of paper? As the saying goes, put up or shut up. It can only benefit you to reveal your identity if Steve is a fraud - if you say who you are, you greatly increase the likelihood that he will buy you off to protect himself from the government hounds you have loosed against him...as you say. What fear can you have of saying who you are?
I don't believe TATF is a fraud, that is why I am currently anonymous. But what about dupedbysteve?
About anonymity... I think my question to dupedbysteve was valid and I am interested in others' thoughts.
If Steve/TATF had our personal info, how could they use it to endanger those who oppose them on this list or their interests?
- perhaps by sending a hitman after them?
- by arranging tree markers to make sure that they profit the least?
- by diverting proceeds of their lumber sales?
- by bringing some legal action against them?
- by posting nasty things about them on the internet?
I welcome any suggestions of how else Steve/TATF could damage somebody if they knew the names of their opponents on this forum.
Note that, except for the rather dramatic and probably unrealistic method of sending a hitman (or alternately, the somewhat ineffectual and silly method of posting nasty internet references) to take care of their problem investors, TATF doesn't have much recourse against these opponents UNLESS TATF IS A VIABLE BUSINESS.
How could TATF harm an investor by reallocating trees or diverting proceeds unless there were some real, viable trees that had real value to be harvested? How could a false, Ponzi-esque TATF possibly hope to harm somebody by legal action - they couldn't win any action of slander or libel unless they can prove that statements are false. They couldn't prove damage to their business unless there is a real business to damage. It would be insanity for TATF to risk scrutiny in court by bringing action against their opponents if their business is not valid.
I don't know why the gov't would suggest to duped that he not allow his identity to be discovered. No accusation. I don't see the point but it may be true.
I am holding to my own fairly flimsy anonymity (schaef may possibly be a clue of sorts to the most clever among you as to part of my name), because I haven't yet seen any purpose in revealing my identity. I don't care who reveals or doesn't reveal - I don't feel like putting in the effort to verify even those who have given us a name as 'proof' of their identities. I will just take people at face value. It just irks me that dupedbysteve feels free to question others' identity and to put significance on that, when he refuses to reveal his own.
It seems to me that people have come down on the wrong sides of this issue. The people in the position of strength here, who shouldn't need to protect their identities, are the ones who don't think they have anything to lose - those who believe they have been "duped by Steve". How will you bring legal action against Steve without revealing your identity? Ridiculous.
Those who have something to protect are the ones who are still hoping for a return from their trees. I want TATF to respond to my emails, so I don't act like a jerk when I contact them and in case I have anything negative to say here, I hold on to my anonymity. That's pretty much it for me. I agree; there is no evidence that anything good is happening. But I want to be able to send an email every couple of months and hope that somebody will respond. I hope they will be motivated to care for my trees in the hope that I will buy more. These are my reasons for anonymity.
"schaef"
I'm not very impressed by the discussion happening right now.
I don't think it would matter when David Knight made an initial post. If he posts something positive about TATF or something that says negativity isn't helping us, you could always look at it as being Steve himself or some shill in response to some negative comment or threat, because that's all that is going on here.
...threat of litigation
...threat of gov't intervention
...questions regarding whether TATF has ever paid anyone
...questions of whether the trees are real and not oversold
...etc. etc. etc.
Just to be clear, I'm saying that if somebody says anything positive it's always going to stand out like a sore thumb on this board, and to some it will sound suspicious based on recent conversations. "Oh, ho, ho!!! A positive post! This must be in response to the 10 most recent negative posts of whatever variety!!! TATF has been jolted into action and is trying to confuse us!!" Only negative posters are believable, everyone else is a shill and must be Steve.
I don't think David is being 100% positive or saying that TATF is doing great, he seems to be trying to be fair and present both the positive and negative parts of his interaction with TATF.
dupedbysteve, you seem to be saying that David is suspect. He has posted who he is, and as I recall gave us a way to verify that. Too lazy to look it up which message right now. Yet you still seem to be saying he just "came out of the woodwork". I agree with mattyo - who are you to say somebody "came out of the woodwork" if you won't say who you are. Matty has been here since the earliest days, but dupedbysteve, you are about 20 messages older than David Knight on this forum. So where do you get the credibility to challenge somebody else, particularly somebody who has identified himself?
dupedbysteve, you have no more credibility than Ab, who also refuses to identify himself, and at least Ab didn't just come out of the woodwork...
Nobody knows who I am (except TATF could probably identify me fairly easily from the content in my postings), so I don't expect anyone to give me credit for being an established contributor here, but dupedbysteve, you seem to assume that you have some status here to discredit others. You say you aren't posting your identity because you are protecting yourself from some potential retaliation by TATF.
How could TATF possibly retaliate unless this is a real, valid company with real assets? If it's a sham and a scam, you have no trees that could be in danger. There is no danger your proceeds will be delayed or your good trees will be reassigned if there are truly no proceeds coming and no trees. Your money is already lost, and if the government has any findings, they will certainly not find anything against you. Why protect your identity if you think you have been duped? I don't get it. That is pure crap.
On the other hand, David and others, I don't think it's reasonable to expect people not to be negative. If the trees are a viable investment and have some value, TATF should have been able to secure enough capital by using their own trees as security, or by selling lumber or wood products, etc. in order to finance their ongoing operations and their capital needs. (Coupled of course with the multiple millions of dollars they should have received from investors already).
Having read a couple hundred of the inital posts, I agree that there have probably been some posters shilling for TATF - whether that was Steve, a close friend of the Brunners, or somebody from TATF I don't know but I think it's reasonable to make that assumption. However, I don't think it adds credibility to the list, or makes it more valuable or readable if anyone who says something positive gets shouted down or called a liar. Let's hear it all and sift through it for ourselves.
treeless -
I have pursued buying some lumber from TATF off and on, as has gistheman and perhaps others. Their preferred method of shipping seems to be container or half-container loads. As they also mentioned LTL (less than (truck-)load) on their site I dug into that a bit.
I have been interested in an amount of maybe 1000 bf for flooring in my house, thought that I might get a deal by buying in bulk at the prices TATF reports as local market price and then milling it myself in my small workshop.
According to info I have received in a long-term communication with TATF of 3 or 4 e-mails each way over 3 or 4 months, they are offering their lumber at prices ranging from about $1.50/bf for 7-year teak up to a couple of dollars more for 13-year. I would imagine you could get 15- or 17-year-old teak soon.
Those prices:
a. do not include shipping, duties, taxes, "phytosanitary" etc. to get the wood into the US
b. are for unselected timber. If you want additional services of selecting by size (quality?), etc. then add another $1-2 per bf. It was suggested to me that I should expect that maybe a third of the unselected lumber would be usable for my purposes (for 7-year-old teak).
I was quoted about another $1/bf for shipment of the 1000bf (by sea to a US port of entry and then by land to my location in PA). I don't know what additional costs would be incurred for paperwork, taxes, etc.
I was also quoted about $.50/bf for a container load (about 8000 bf) shipped to Eastern US, including phytosanitary and other paperwork.
TATF did the legwork to pursue these shipping estimates with an occasional poke or two from me. I wasn't extremely pleased that it seemed as if they didn't already have some very standard shipping info - this seemed to be a fairly- to very new process for them, particularly the LTL piece. Not what I would have expected for a company that is eager to sell lumber and has done it successfully at least a few times. Still, I did get the info and I feel like I can pursue a purchase and there would be somebody on the other end to work with if I choose to do that.
fawtsc - thanks for the info. That's a little scary.
snap - just for clarity: I'm not suggesting that we here on this board are "killing the milk cow". My suggestion was regarding the hypothetical scam that TATF might be running.
I think in a scam, there would be two basic modes of operation:
1. get as many people involved as possible, sign up a whole bunch of suckers and take as much money as you can from them while keeping up a good front - what I would call "milking the cow" - in other words, getting a steady income flow from new and repeat 'tree owners', word of mouth.
2. when people start to ask questions and things start to get a little hot, there would be an exit strategy. How do we get as much money as we can and then get away without getting caught? I would call that "killing the milk cow" - getting one last big payoff in a way that ends the operation
In order to keep the "milk" flowing, I would think TATF would want to present the operation as very successful, very professional, no hiccups. Just like Bernie Madoff. Year after year of steady, reliable, strong returns. Madoff saw his number and quality of investors grow year after year, so he always had new money to pay out when old investors asked for it.
TATF, however, has not kept up a good front. Information has been lacking, questions have been left unanswered. Investors are seeing farms where trees are not growing well or are not being cared for. TON have been very slow to come. The operation seems unprofessional and understaffed. That's not a good way to keep a steady stream of new investors. If it were a scam, my question would be "why?" TATF is such a great setup for a scam. The big payoff is 25 years down the road. 15-18 years in, very few people are yet expecting any significant payoff. Why not milk the cow for a few more years? If they started paying out small amounts of new money to old investors, this thing could really take off. Why quit?
Again, if TATF were a scam, the way things are moving now it seems like the buildup to an exit strategy. "we have to make one last big push to get new equipment. if we don't have new money now, all the money you already sunk into this will be for nothing. however, if we can get this equipment working, all your dreams of high IRR will come true." Perfect exit strategy. People shell out one more time, TATF gets their one last grab for millions, and leave town.
As we have agreed, the hypothesis doesn't fit quite right. Way too close for comfort, but not quite right.
TATF has dropped the ball enough that people who might consider putting more money in are looking for audits, guarantees, etc. That would even kill the potential for the big payoff.
I agree. I don't think it's a scam, and I don't like my assumptions. It could be a scam. I'm just trying "scam" on as a hypothesis, and it doesn't seem to fit what I would do if I were working it.
It seems way too early to be killing the milk cow - I think a lot of us would have continued to buy trees and recommend TATF, particularly if a little cash was forthcoming. Shoot, many of us probably would have just rolled any proceeds right back in to new trees. If it were a scam, I would think it was designed for a much longer run rather than a big payday right now. If TATF is crying out for help and looking for a big cash infusion, that sounds like the exit strategy to a scam, the last big haul. But why now?
Question for those of you knowledgeable about business, law and mortgages: I would find it very odd if TATF were allowed to mortgage the land our trees are on. Can they use that land as collateral for a mortgage even if our trees are on it? Don't we already have a claim on that land for the life of our trees? To me, it would seem immoral if not illegal to put that land at risk as collateral if defaulting and losing the land would mean that TATF would be unable to fulfill their contractual obligations to us.
I'm curious too.
If this is a scam, even the scam is being handled extremely poorly. Surely it's in the best interest of a fake TATF to keep producing timely TON and glowing reports, new pictures of happy owners, growing trees and beautiful lumber. Surely it's in the best interest of a fake TATF to respond promptly to e-mails and soothe investors' concerns. Bernie Madoff kept it going for decades, and the take grew every year.
This board would be death to a fake TATF - it is turning away new investments and making people challenge TATF about their old investments. A fake TATF would need to spread out some money to shut up this board quickly. I tried to talk several people into buying trees after I found TATF, and I succeeded with one. How much more do you think I would have done to talk people into it if I actually got a check? Now I would certainly steer people away from TATF based on my experiences.
If this operation is a fake, why not produce 15 or 30 fake investors who have received their distributions instead of just 1 or 2? Why not even take some of the $30-70 million we think may have been invested in this 'fake' operation and pay out distributions to a few of the oldest investors, to take the wind out of critics' sails, generate goodwill and positive buzz? We aren't expecting much! A few hundred dollars for the first two thinnings would be a lot more than most of us are expecting by now.
The main reason I searched out this board was the 3 years with no TON. My search was forestalled for over a year by one e-mail response to my question of why I hadn't received a thinning report. It takes very little to ease doubts in someone who wants to believe. As somebody said, it is very easy to keep a web page up-to-date. It's very easy to reply to e-mails. Professional scam artists should be expert at presenting a good front. If I'm being scammed, I'm being scammed by some of the worst scam artists I've ever heard of.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not happy, and I'm not thinking that everything is going well. I haven't run a business, but it's hard for me to understand how Steve Brunner can be so busy for 3 years straight (2006-2009) that he doesn't have time to slap together another TON. He's not flying on an airplane to Costa Rica with a few hours to kill? I know he's not spending that time signing checks to tree owners... I don't know what it takes to start a Raleo or to keep a TATF going, but where are all these hours upon hours of overwork going?
Still, I don't know how we can be suspicious that the Brunners are running a huge scam at the same time we are suspicious that they will use any money we send them to pay their Social Security deficit. How could they incur such a huge deficit if they aren't running a legal operation with lots of employees?
Belmo-
In the absence of many facts, we can all paint this picture however we want to. If I assume that the lack of communication and thinning proceeds shows bad motives and something to hide, the pieces fall into place easily to tell me that this could be a huge scam. If, instead, I assume that the Brunners are basically honest, hardworking people, everything points to stress, overwork, bad surprises, bad economy, unfortunate business decisions, and poor cash flow.
Everything you say is reasonable and makes sense in the context of negative/pessimistic assumptions. But, just like the optimism of the newbies (including me), it "assumes facts not in evidence" - for instance, the Brunners' status as "land tycoons".
The Brunners may have their names on many deeds in Costa Rica. But are those properties mortgaged? Can they be sold at a profit, or is the market down or soft? Do they see a rebound coming that makes them hesitate to sell at a low price? Are any non-tree-farm properties they own producing income, or are they well-sited investment properties that are currently sitting idle, worth less than the purchase price, while property taxes continue to drain whatever cash reserves the Brunners have? I have considerable equity in my own house on paper, but much of that would disappear if I tried to sell in the current market.
The only facts we have are the words TATF presents on their website (not saying their statements are factual, just that they exist), the contracts we have made with TATF, and any interactions we've had with TATF - or lack thereof. Even those facts are not very solid.
-schaef
I disagree with the theory that if the Brunners don't buy trees at half-price and resell, the market must therefore be bad. It's based on opportunity cost.
Consider that TATF's trees get far more than a 50% markup after planting - that's not a knock against anyone, it's just a fact. The Brunners make a significant portion of their money on the initial sale of the trees.
If they want to sell more trees, they will do a lot better by planting more or selling ones they already have than by reselling trees for others. Again, this isn't a complaint or me labelling this as evil, it's just a statement of fact.
So - if they typically spend (just throwing out a number) $50 to plant 100 trees and then they sell them for say $5000, then a $2500 investment could potentially generate 2500/50 = 50 x $5000 or $250000.
So let's compare:
option 1 - spend $2500 to plant 5000 trees - sell for $250000
option 2 - spend $2500 to buy back 100 trees - sell for $5000
Which way would you want to spend your $2500?
Even if the cost is $500 (not $50) per 100 trees planted and selling them 'only' yields a tenfold return, that still beats a twofold return hands down. Not to mention that, as Ab is quick to point out, if you are selling your trees, no matter how small the scale, you are a de facto competitor to TATF. If they buy and then sell your trees, that's one less sale of their own trees that they will generate.
I laugh every time I get that flyer from my local car dealer that says "We've been approached by a buyer and we suddenly have a great need for a whole lot of 2001 minivans". It's ludicrous to think that somebody is scouring the market and asking the dealer for 10-year-old used cars. So the dealer is not really out there searching for used cars. I know that the dealer has no need of my used car - what they want is to sell me a new car. They make lots more money on new cars, dealer incentives, etc. Sure, car dealers don't lose money on the used car, they turn a profit. But really, the margins are comparatively small - the biggest reason they are willing to buy back my old car is so they can sell me a new one. TATF doesn't have even that incentive.
So... is it a bad market now? Hard to say. I would guess it's far harder for TATF to sell trees today than it was 10 years ago. However, TATF is a fairly established name in the tree market, and it's a market that should be growing. There are fewer investment dollars out there to chase right now, and obviously TATF is losing a lot of goodwill. However, I think the number of potential investors is probably still growing fairly rapidly, as people are more interested in environment-friendly investments. There is also a lot of dissatisfaction with or fear of traditional investments - low returns, market crashes and continued unsettling economic news have certainly sent a lot of people in new investment directions.