David and all,
I would also suggest that anyone receiving such phone calls take a moment to
notify your local Better Business Bureau and even the police if you believe it
would be helpful. Yes indeed, scams are out there everywhere! The BBB has a
page on their site <bbb.org> which they call scam Trackers. You can report and
find a lot of scamms, nationally and locally.
On Jul 25, 2020, at 10:34 AM, David Plumlee <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I also want to warn all listers about a telephone-based scam which has come
twice to our house on two different phone calls. On one call, a fellow said
that he was offering me a grant of $80,000 which I could use for anything I
want, tax free, coming from something he called a reinvestment and recovery
act. I knew that nobody, especially the U.S. Government, is out there to
give me EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLARS with no strings attached! I recorded the
information he gave me on how to apply for the grant.
When I discussed the call with Debbie, she agreed that there has to be a
"hook" somewhere by which the scammer would get money from us while
providing us nothing; or maybe the scam was to get us involved with some
crooks stealing government money. We stayed out of it!
A few days ago, I received a call from a woman supposedly offering me a
grant of $15,000. Having already discussed this kind of scam with Debbie, I
told the woman on the phone that nobody is out there to give us that amount
of money and that we are not interested. I then immediately hung up the
phone. More than likely, the phone numbers from both of the callers were
spoofed and therefore untraceable. The calls probably came from someone
overseas. I haven't yet figured out how the scamming group was going to get
money while they were giving money to me with no requirement that I pay any
kind of fee to get it; but I'm sure there is a "hook" somewhere in those
deals, and our best approach was to leave both of them alone!
I take time on this list to tell of these scams because I wouldn't want any
of us to think, if we got such a call, that we could apply for a grant in
order to provide funds for research and development of a new Optacon. Most
of us are in no position to get scammed out of our own limited funds, and it
is sad indeed that scammers have apparently discovered this list and sent
some fake messages, perhaps "feelers" to see if anyone will offer to advance
some money "down the rat hole." I also share the opinion that we cannot
expect a new Optacon anytime soon - and maybe not at all. If I understand
"the way the wind blows" these days, education of young blind children has
moved so far into recordings and computerized speech that nobody will
seriously look at the device which has been so helpful to us.
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Carolyn
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2020 9:19 AM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Fake Messages
That was why in my post, I said that $10,000 was a lot to an individual, but
not to a foundation or the like, and not much money for R&D.
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Noel Runyan
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2020 6:31 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Fake Messages
Catherine and listers,
I will start by echoing a strong warning about getting your hopes up for a
new Optacon 3 product anytime soon, and I encourage you to be extremely
suspicious about anyone asking for money to fund new Optacon research.
With that said, I hasten to point out that Charles Pond's recent messages to
this list were not asking for money, although he did state that he needed
$10,000 to $13,000 in order to finish his new Optacon display development.
Clearly, that relatively small sum of funding would not come anywhere near
the many hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to develop the rest of an
Optacon 3 device, assuming the tactile display development portion was
successful and working well.
I also encourage us all to be extremely careful when making and sharing
assumptions or suspicions about the poor health or death of individuals.
Does anyone on this list have any actual proof that Charles Pond is truly
deceased, or do we only have unsupported assumptions and irresponsible
gossip?
In two of his recent posts to this Optacon list, Charles Pond mentioned
being his brother and writing for Charles.
These appeared to me to be the kind of ill advised humor one might expect
from someone who has been falsely proclaimed to be deceased.
In the last several months, I have had two direct Email exchanges with
Charles, and they both were very consistent with his former writing style
and technical issues. He mentioned Halbach magnetic arrays, a technical
term for a special kind of magnet I told him about several years ago.
I am sure that a poser would not have known to use such a unique technical
reference in Optacon discussions with me.
Certainly, I am comfortably convinced that Charles Pond, the one we've heard
from in the past, is still alive and has recovered enough from his severe
health problems to be able to continue some discussions about Optacon
tactile displays.
However, I am also convinced that we have not had independent observation of
and confirmation of any working prototypes of Charles's Optacon 3 tactile
array devices, something that causes most experts in the field to have
serious doubts about its performance and viability.
To be taken seriously by researchers in the tactile display field, Charles
Pond will need to be more open and willing to share details of his design
concepts and any prototypes.
Sincerely,
Noel
-
Noel H. Runyan
Phone: 1-408-866-7564
Email: Noel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-
At 11:35 PM 7/23/2020, Catherine Thomas wrote:
I think someone is having a joke at the list's expense. Idoubt vey
seriously that the messages are authentically from Charles.The english
is wrong, the writing style does not match and the tone iswrong. If
anyone receives any private requests for funds claiming tobe from
Charles, just delete them. This is only my opinion based onyears of reading Charles'
messages.----------
Catherine
------------------------------------------------------
-Catherine Thomas
braille@xxxxxxxxx /
-----------------------------------------------------------
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