Rextiles

I guess with this, we have to reach a consensus of what a donation is compared to that of a sale.

According to the dictionary, the definition of sale is:

1. the act of selling.
2. a quantity sold.
3. opportunity to sell; demand: slow sale.
4. a special disposal of goods, as at reduced prices.
5. transfer of property for money or credit.
6. an auction.

The definition of donation is:

1. an act or instance of presenting something as a gift, grant, or contribution.
2. a gift, as to a fund; contribution.

Both words mean something entirely different. Selling something, in this instance, means you are offering a product for the exchange of money. Whereas a donation means that you are contributing money regardless of whether you are to receive a product or not.

With that said, it's one thing to solicit for donations as long as people know that they may or may not be getting something out of it. That's fine, I don't see a problem with that. For example, "For those who donate, if we reach our goal of $10,000, we will be able to produce DVD's and those will be distributed to those that donated to our cause." Again, that's fine. Everybody at that point understands that their money is actually going towards the organization and not an actual product.

However, what happens when you say advertise like this?

"PRE-RELEASE DISCOUNT!

FREE shipping if your order before November 1st.

Alterna Rush is the first feature length documentary from Small Scale Films, a conservation non-profit, and all proceeds will go to the promotion of reptile and amphibian conservation. Reserve your copy before November 1st and receive free shipping!

We will be making a few adjustments, having some sound work done, adding in the animation which has been expertly executed courtesy of Ambient Skies Productions, and we should have the DVD's in the mail no later than November 1st!

Reserve your copy before October 3rd and receive free shipping!

RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW!
ORDER!"

BTW, this was all taken from Dan's actual web site that has been archived by The Wayback Machine which was last archived on March 25 2013.

It would appear that The Wayback Machine only had this one page archived. If you go back from 2008 to Feb. 7 2001, there is an archived front page that just has a Paypal donation link, but that is all. Regardless...

Dan states that there are "lengthy descriptions" in regards to how his organization worked and how the "donations" were to be used. However, I don't see any of this from the page that was archived. All I see are things like pre-sale and order a copy. Those are words that imply a product is being sold and should be expected, especially when it states that if you "Reserve your copy before October 3rd" you will "receive free shipping!". To me, that doesn't sound very donation-ish.

Let's be very clear about this. I'm not "yelling" anything (which is an interesting choice of toxic words). In fact, I was on a vacation and completely unaware of Gregg's intentions on coming here and bringing this up and was only informed from a friend of what had transpired. It's also noteworthy to add that even after I learned of this thread and Gregg's involvement, I stayed out of only until Chris Ivins came here and flagrantly lied about what transpired on Facebook.

Who did what now? These two obviously can't keep their stories straight. Regardless...

To be quite honest, while I definitely don't have any love for Dan Krull, I also did not have any interest in coming here and throwing all of this stuff out there because if that were my intent, I would have done this over the summer when I discovered all of this information about Dan. I was more than happy to let things be until, much to my dismay, Gregg came here and stirred this whole thing up.

Again, I sat on the sidelines for a long time until I saw that this whole thing turned sideways into more of a popularity contest than one about the facts. I know how Dan can come off versus Gregg and in a popularity contest, Dan would probably win more times than Gregg but only because Dan knows how to play up to people's sympathies whereas Gregg is a lot more straight forward and sometimes brutal in how he deals with stuff; I, of all people, know this all too well as I've butted heads with Gregg over differences of opinions on more than a dozen occasions. However, that doesn't make Gregg a bad guy or a liar to any extent, he just doesn't feel it necessary to schmooze people to get his point across. Unfortunately, Gregg sometimes fails to get his message out because some people dislike him first and ignore anything he has to say later, which is what I felt was/is happening here. That and the fact that Gregg was not presenting sufficient evidence to back up most of what he was saying.

And that's basically all I'm trying to do here, provide the evidence that is out there so that people can make up their own minds based on what they see. If they feel that after all has been shown that they'd still prefer to trust Dan, then by all means, go for it!

I know that many here might feel that I'm merely siding with Gregg because I too have an axe to grind. All I can say is that that is merely not the case. Gregg will attest that when I talked to him on the phone after getting back from my vacation, I laid into him about this, and I basically told him that I did not want to get involved, and I really still don't want to be. I just feel it necessary to present the evidence as Gregg has eluded to. If anybody chooses to judge me based on that, that's fine. I just see myself as the messenger at this point.

Well, here alone were 2 people that claimed to have purchased a copy that more than likely never received it. The OP didn't seem too happy about his situation considering that he felt compelled to bring it up here on the BOI.

I will gladly post a few other screen shots from the other forums on a separate post as I don't fully understand the attached link process in regards to keeping things within a certain continuity.

That's a fair enough point, but as you can already see here, one person obviously felt wronged enough to start this thread in the first place. I'll post other screen shots from the other forums to back up what has been said in the next post.

What I have seen from the other inquiries is that people did initially feel that they were misled or ripped off until Dan eventually replied to those concerns and schmoozed them enough to get them off of his back. But the initial posts were definitely ones of concern.

So the question is, should we be concerned at this point if those that got suckered into buying into a vaporous product if they ultimately shrugged it off? Perhaps not, but I think it is of enough significance to shed some light on it so this type of thing never happens this way again. Dan should have been more forthright with these people from the beginning with what their money was actually going towards and how he solicited for sales of a product he ultimately never delivered.

So yeah, there are plenty of lessons to be learned here, so I think it's very worthwhile to bring all of this up. Perhaps not in the aggressive manner that Gregg did, but there are definitely things here that will help people to make more conscientious decisions about how to invest their money as well as those that do want to do legitimate fundraisers and how to better go about it. Don't you think so?

Actually, if you look carefully at the screenshot, there was a timetable "we should have the DVD's in the mail no later than November 1st", which was back in 2011.

You've brought up a couple of other issues that I'd also like to address but again, I want to have some continuity to my attached pictures, so I will address them in separate posts later tonight or perhaps tomorrow if you will kindly indulge me.

Attached Images