I thought I would share an interesting (albeit sad) post from a sister site:
TWO PREDICTIONS: The worst is yet to come / There will be no meeting in Las Vegas on October 1
Because I have been hoping and hoping that I might in the end turn out to be wrong, and hoping and hoping that the Smart Money folk(s) here might (after having been wrong 10,000 times) finally be right for once, I have mostly held my tongue on this board for the past five years. Often I have resorted to playing the fool (or maybe playing a greater fool than I actually am), which has always seemed to upset this board's Smart Money (I have had posts instantly deleted and I have also been threatened with banning), but I have seen the Smart Money turn out to be this board’s biggest fools and the most harmful of all — even if they are even now unable to see it…
But now I’m going to share two tidbits of personal history and due diligence, and then I’m going to make a couple of predictions that are based on NOTHING except my gut (which is easily as good a predictor as any other tool that has been employed by anyone else on this board.
Personal history/due diligence Tidbit #1:
Probably Everyone on this board who has ever recommended MDMN to a friend or family member (or anyone who has ever simply brought the subject up for discussion) has encountered the same ridicule and shame that I’ve encountered. Since I have so very desperately wanted to, for once in my life, be right, since I have wanted so very desperately to do something smart and brilliant and awe-inspiring in a financial sense, I ignored all of this ridicule and shame.
(Brief timeout here, so that I can toot my own horn for a moment: I began buying this stock in November 2011 on the bedazzling advice of a friend who I highly respected. Within three months I sank $40k of my own money into it, and, because of my recommendation, fifteen friends of mine also bought the stock. Approximately two weeks after the “done, done, done” meeting of February 2012, I wrote a long email to each of my friends and said that I apologized for having sucked them in here, that I no longer trusted this stock (at the “done, done, done” meeting, we were told that the contract would be finalized within a few days — just as soon as the done-done-done-sters could get back to Chile and make a trip to the notario — a formality, we were told, and when that did not happen, and when no explanation was offered I sat down and wrote the aforementioned letter), and while my fifteen friends were of course free to do whatever they wanted here (at that time, most of them could have gotten out with a profit or small loss), I could no longer in good conscience recommend MDMN — when you say you’re going to do something, and you don’t do it, and you can’t even offer a simple apology or explanation, well… there’s no way you (I) can with a clean conscience recommend something like that (MDMN) to friends… I believe that this letter saved my friendships with all fifteen of them, even though I do, appropriately, still get a lot of ribbing from them...
Nonetheless, I stuck it out here, wanting to be right, wanting to be rich — in fact I upped my investment to $125k — my entire life savings, which this afternoon is now worth less than $12k. (Don’t feel sorry for me — my wife has a 401k that does not include any MDMN — we am fine — I am lucky — and I know that there are people reading this who are much less fortunate, and I’m very sorry about that.)
As the months wore on, I so very very badly did want to believe in the continual barrage of positive encouragement being posted on this board, mostly by one individual, even though every single bit of it turned out to be wrong… And during two different periods along the way, I actually came to believe that it was as good as fact (almost "done-done-done") that I was going to profit some $2-5 million. And believing that — believing that I was about to enter a financial realm I’ve never known — was, to me, a very interesting and heady experience, and it was certainly worth something — in the same way that a good wet dream can certainly be fondly remembered.
Anyway, in a moment of wavering, in October 2013, I wrote an email to a friend I grew up with. We were extremely close, and while I did not want him to think that I was the complete idiot that I have in fact turned out to be, I also wanted his opinion on MDMN, because this very close friend had grown up to work in the fraud department of a major bank/brokerage, and he was, I knew, considered one of the world’s leading experts in ferreting out corruption and fraud in publicly traded companies. How about that! I described my investment, and here was my friend's response:
"Took a very quick look at the web site. Noticed that none of the
management have any mining experience. In fact their experience does
not inspire confidence. Casino operators, a retired LAPD Sergeant, a
health supplements promoter with a background in 'multi-level
marketing' -- he doesn't say that, but that's what it is.
"Unless someone could make a really compelling case otherwise, would
stay away from this myself. Were I still working for the bank, would
note that based on what I've seen would recommend the highest degree
of caution and scrutiny should anyone still want to go ahead with
possible business dealings. Afraid there's alarm bells going off in
my head at least."
It was not what I’d hoped to hear (I had hoped to hear: “Thank you, thank you, thank you for this fabulous tip! I’ve bought $100k for myself…”), and I ignored it.
Instead, I sent an email to another friend — more high-powered, more successful, who runs his own tremendously successful hedge fund, and on the side advises a stable of high-profile NFL players on how to handle and invest their money — and while he responded in a phone call instead of in writing, I think I can accurately sum it up: “Hey-man-you-know-I-love-you-but-please-don’t-ever-send-me-an-email-like-that-again! I-would-never-in-a-million-years-touch-a-stock-like-that-with-a-thousand-foot-pole-and-I-would-not-want-anyone-I-know-thinking-that-I-might-and-I-certainly-don’t-want-any-paper-trail-of-such-stupidity. By-the-way-you’re-a-effing-idiot-and-I-am-not-kidding-and-you-know-I-love-you-and-I-am-not-kidding.”
I laughed, hung up, ignored his advice, and hung on another year and a half before I performed...
Personal history/due diligence Tidbit #2:
I have a blood cousin, about 40 years old, a very busy hotshot securities lawyer who worked for several years in New York, but a few years ago moved to Toronto. In February of 2015, there was talk on this board of us MDMN shareholders maybe growing multiple pairs and filing a lawsuit against the MDMN board of directors. I sent my cousin an email in which I described the broad outline of the MDMN situation, and asked if he might steer me toward someone who handled those kinds of cases. His response was that these sorts of cases are his specialty: "Representing the shareholders against the company and management…” I asked where he did most of his work. “On the Toronto stock exchange.” I asked if he’d ever heard of Auryn or Maglas or any of their principals, and I named all the principals I could identify. He didn’t reply to that email for several days, so I followed up, apologizing for taking up his time, but had he gotten my last email? He sent me a short response:
"Brad, no problem. It is difficult for many people to digest the pill that they were swindled. Trust me.”
I left it at that, never contacted him again in regards to MDMN. In the ensuing year and a half I have listened to an endless string of ridiculous "due diligence” on this board, plus an endless string of ridiculous positive predictions.
Now I have two predictions of my own. I hope that I am wrong on both of them.
PREDICTION NUMBER ONE:
There will be no shareholder’s informational meeting in October.
In the next week or two, we will receive a communication (well written, completely logical and understandable), saying that, with such uncertainty in the air, it would be unwise to have such a meeting now, and it is being postponed until a later date when there is more clarity and information to convey. Sorry.
PREDICTION NUMBER TWO:
The worst is yet to come. Before October arrives, MDMN will be trading for half-a-cent or perhaps much lower.
NOT A PREDICTION, BUT JUST A LITTLE PIECE OF FORWARD-LOOKING ADVISEMENT (CONSIDER IT A BONUS)
With every involved party (except the shareholders) already lawyering up (sometimes, even with the same lawyer!), it will be months (but more probably years) before we stockholders will even be able to see the shape of the legal battle ahead. It will not be any sort of surprise to see trading in MDMN halted. It will not be any sort of surprise to see the Chilean Ministry of Mines intervene and suspend any mining permits that have been issued (and make this suspension official with a trip to the dreaded notario).
And I’ll make a one-share bet with each of you: I will bet that you have already thought of all of the above, and probably much more that is beyond the grasp of my little pea brain.
Again, hoping I’m wrong. (I do have tickets and reservations for Las Vegas.)
But okay. Let the bashing or the banning begin.
— madmen
