Reply to "Nessism" et al

Wurm

A long story, but this is in response to the allegations [half-truths, exaggerations, intentional ommissions] posted on bikeforums.net & roadbikereview.com about me by their forum member "Nessism". This concerns a deal that Nessism and I had nearly 2 years ago through RoadBikeReview, where I'd initially met him. Since I cannot post there now, I am posting here in the hopes that some from RBR who have been recently directed here by RBR member "HouseMoney" et al will see it, as well as others who may have interest.

This topic has been too long regurgitated elsewhere by Nessism & company without rebuttal, but I will not further debate it after this post. My intention is only to set the record straight with the actual facts, not to engage in an extended internet slugfest about an old feud that will never be settled. I would only ask the mods to lock it if need be but not to delete it, so that it will serve as a reply that I am not otherwise able to provide.

I had lost all e-mails, addresses, & passwords from a hard drive crash, and also near the same time had been kicked from RBR for arguing politics with another member, so I had no way to contact Nessism to finish paying him for a bike part. (This was long before I knew he was also on Bike Forums, or as I much later learned, the computer forum anandtech.com.) I had paid him about 1/3 of the agreed price of the part initially, and our informal agreement was that I was going to pay the rest over time because I'd had ongoing divorce & financial problems. There was no definite date for payment.

Some months passed, and in the meanwhile before I knew he was a member of BF and could have thus contacted him, I found he'd jumped to conclusions that I was trying to stiff him for the balance of payment: he'd posted a twisted, one-sided story about the deal on RBR. It was some time until I knew it even existed, and at any rate I was/am not able to reply since I cannot post or PM there.

Nessism also - with malice aforethought - posted my actual personal info in that thread on RBR, such as real name, home address & phone number, instead of just posting my website username.

When I was finally able to reach him through BF, I explained the hard drive loss and apologized for the delay, and told him I would pay the balance - IF he would not post my personal info all over the web - so that some lunatic couldn't use it to do who knows what. I have a 7-year-old daughter, a significant other, and the house we live in to consider.

Nessism decided that that was the best way to try to force me to pay him the balance. Up to that point I told him I'd had no disagreement with paying him, and I had intended to pay him all along, but that I was not going to be publically slandered or blackmailed by anyone in that manner - the choice was his. When he persisted in his anger, I offered instead to give back the item because I was not going to reward him for selfishly putting my family & home in potential danger.

He did not need to retract my username or what he claimed about our deal, although that would have been appropriate since much of his claim was/is erroneous; I was mainly concerned that he delete my real name, address, and phone number from his thread for reasons stated. He decided not to do so, therefore he did not get the balance for the item. Subsequently, I told Nessism if he wanted the item returned that he could issue a call tag for the item to be picked up. To this date he has not done so.

By then the damage had been done as I've explained long ago to Nessism, and that because of what he's done he will never get another cent out of me. He continued to harrass me through forum PM's long after, but not through e-mail because he must know that would be a crime. My personal info has been for quite some time and is still being splattered all over cyberspace, thanks to Nessism's ignorant and hasty assumptions, anger, and callous disregard for even the safety of young children.

(Side Note: The last I looked some months ago, he still had in his signature on BF a link to that same thread on RBR, which is why I subsequently put a reference to his behavior in my BF sig as well. However, after Nessism and others began a thread there also - like on RBR - to spread his false story, the mods at BF have said they would not tolerate this issue being battled out in public on BF. They then locked the thread.)

As it stands today, he and a few of his friends on RBR (and/or a few of the "political enemies" I made there) are still trying to keep this thing current by their continued updating to his original thread. Hence my posting here now.

Since this incident began, I and my S.O. have had several identity theft attempts (one that was successful), and attempts to invade our online financial accounts. Also, our garage was entered last July and 2 bikes were stolen. None of this (ID/account theft) had ever happened to either of us in the past, nor burglary here in 6 years of living in this neighborhood. I have no way to know what further invasions, or worse, may be in store for myself or family members.

I would caution anyone to steer clear of "Nessism" of bikeforums.net, roadbikereview.com, and anandtech.com forums.

__________________
"Bush is the first President to admit to an impeachable offense."

- John Dean, former Counsel to the President (Nixon)

The aim of big corporations is to separate fools from their money all of the time and ordinary folks from their money most of the time. The rest of us must fend for ourselves.

Nessism

Funny story, I’m hanging out in the Framebuilders section of Bikeforums.net when out of the blue Wurm (aka Art Smith) starts posting in a whole bunch of different threads. He did this so I would see his new linked signature where he states that I “blackmailed” him. Of course, I clicked the link, which brought me here.

Art’s above post is full of his typical distorted facts. I’m not going to waste my time replying to all his drivel, instead, I’ll post the real story and anyone reading can decide for themselves.

In March 2005 Art agreed to purchase a Columbus Muscle carbon fork from me for $220. He gave me a story about going through a divorce and custody battle for his daughter, thus he could not pay me the whole amount right then. He asked me to ship the fork first so I sent it off and he sent me $60 a month later in April 2005 – the same month he was banned from Roadbikereview.com for insulting other people there. That’s the last money I’ve ever seen from him.

Months pasted and emails to him bounced back as undeliverable. Then…in September 2005, I found him posting as Wurm on Bikeforums.net. Note: this is more than FIVE months since I last heard from him. After performing a search on his username it turned up several threads there where he mentioned purchasing high-end bike parts – so money was not his issue. It sent him a Private Message, then another, and another. Nothing. So to draw him out I posted a thread there outing him as a crook. Several thousand hits on the thread later the mods jumped in and forced Art to respond to me via PM – they also deleted the thread since it was causing too much commotion. Art’s story was that he lost my email and didn’t know how to reach me. This is strange since he knew I was on roadbikereview.com and he could have used his alternate account there, set up after he was banned as AJS, to get a hold of me.

His story now was that I “slandered him” thus he will not pay me the money. He also said he did not have any money – funny how he could have purchased all those parts yet he had no money to pay his debt. I offered to reduce his debt from $160 to $100 and he still refused. Out of frustration, I posted the thread on roadbikereview.com in the Classified Feedback – Scam Warnings forum there so other people would find out about him. I posted his name and address, not his phone number since I never had it, ONLY AFTER protracted PM’s on bikeforums made it clear that he was never going to pay me, and he started to cuss me out in his reply’s.

I’ve given up all hope of ever seeing the money he owes me. He has no integrity and can not be trusted.

[font=&quot]You’ve been warned.

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=40799

[/font]

Wurm

I've given the facts on this, Ed Ness. But it's easy for you to spew this garbage in the public domain because for you, very little of your personal info is involved. Since you've decided to post more lies here, I'll prove to this forum how much of a liar and dramatizer you really are:

I've posted on BF fairly regularly in the past 6 months: June, July, Oct., and now Jan. I've also posted here on CF fairly regularly. "Out of the blue"? Hardly.

And that is just one example.

I started this thread recently only because I happened to see the recent blatherings of you and your pals on your RBR thread and thought I'd finally had enough. Your bullshit reply here is evidence of why I gave your equally bullshit thread long ago on BF short shrift.

You sent this PM through BF on 9-10-05 that I did not see until 9-18-05:

You then posted the very next day on 9-11-05, your slanderous blackmail thread on RBR.

As soon as I saw the PM's in my inbox at BF, I first sent the Admin. at BF a PM dated 9-18-05 in reply to his PM of 9-17-05:

...and then I replied to your PM's:

It was clear to me by then that you would not be reasonable, even after I agreed to pay you, nor even when you could still have sold the fork for a fair amount. You knew this, Ed. Yet you insisted on continuing your blackmail thread, as if that were going to get you anywhere.

Well you found out that that tactic doesn't work on some people, Ed, because I will never bow to bullies. If I had $1 million in my pocket right now, you would not get one red cent of it.

I'm done here.

__________________
"Bush is the first President to admit to an impeachable offense."

- John Dean, former Counsel to the President (Nixon)

The aim of big corporations is to separate fools from their money all of the time and ordinary folks from their money most of the time. The rest of us must fend for ourselves.

Nessism

Hey Art,

My roadbikereview thread has received 8400 hits and the bikeforums thread had 4000 hits, all exposing you as a crook. All this could have been avoided if you had just paid me the money you owe me. I shipped you the fork on good faith, stupid me, and you stiffed me. Plain and simple.

You tried to avoid me by severing communication, but I rooted you out at bikeforums. Your claim of not receiving my private messages there is pretty weak since the PM function is ON by default - it takes a specific action on your part to turn it off. You obviously found me on Anandtech, where I also post, so your claim of having no way to reach me is just another weak excuse.

I could go on and respond to your post point by point but this tires me. As I stated before, pay me the money you owe me and I'll amend the roadbikereview post to indicate you made good. I'll also take down your address from the thread - although I seriously doubt it's your current address (a whitepages.com search turns up a different address - how many Arthur Smiths's could there be in Schenectady?).

Have integrity and set a good example for your child; live up to your word and pay your debt.

wolfix

What a case for "Judge Judy."

__________________
"I rule my world with a cellphone."

Wurm

Dear Paranoid Ass Carrot,

There was no conspiracy on my part to avoid you. I had shown you that many times over through the correspondence we've had in the past. But your insane rage and need for revenge won't allow you to see that.

As far as the BikeForums PM being on by default, I've never been notified of a PM there unless I specifically clicked into the PM section. It could have been blocked by my pop up blockers or spyware blockers or browsers - I don't know why and I don't care, but I don't recall ever having clicked onto BF and getting a PM pop up from anyone. Period. In fact, the pop up feature is on now, and has always been on because I've never touched it.

Fact is, I didn't hang out on BF nearly as much as I used to on RBR, so why would I expect PM's from BF members that I'd hardly interacted with? A post count comparison between both sites before we ever had a discrepancy will prove that.

As far as anandtech, I discovered you there long after corresponding with you at BF, as I've said. I hang out on other computer forums than anandtech, but on the rare occasion go there to read an article or test report that other sites might not yet have. I'm not completely sure, but I don't think I'm even registered there, or if I am, I haven't posted there more than a couple of times.

Another red herring by the angry paranoid Ed Ness.

The crux of the matter is this: even IF everything you've said were true, you still would not accept my offer to pay you once we had re-established contact, because you were bent on extracting revenge at all costs. At that point it was not just about the money. I had mainly asked that you remove my personal info for the sake of my home & family before I was going to send you anything. I didn't think that was too outrageous of a request.

But you had it posted for at least 8 days before I could respond. As if that weren't enough, there was your slanderous thread on BF that eventually got locked after who knows how long.

You could have reposted your complaint on RBR with my username later if I didn't get you paid in full - which still would have been blackmail - but I was never given the chance. Or you could have simply sent for the item and been done with it. In the latter case we both would have suffered some monetary loss.

You must know by now that you'll never get anything out of me except for the item itself if you send a call tag. So the question becomes: at what point is your lust for revenge going to be satisfied, Ed? Maybe you'll be happy when my child or s.o. gets raped or kidnapped, our home gets burglarized (again), or perhaps some skillful hacker breaks into our accounts (again) and cleans us out?

All for a measly $160.? Is that what you call "integrity", Ed? Is that what you would teach your kids to do?

Tell you what Ed: let's level the playing field, shall we? Let's see you post your personal info here, so that I can post it all over the 'net along with my version of events. Then the world will know what you're all about, AND where you live, and THEN you can wait around to see what might be in store for you & yours.

__________________
"Bush is the first President to admit to an impeachable offense."

- John Dean, former Counsel to the President (Nixon)

The aim of big corporations is to separate fools from their money all of the time and ordinary folks from their money most of the time. The rest of us must fend for ourselves.