Customer thinks I'm a liar, cheat & thief

On Tue, 23 May 2006 17:22:59 -0500, Brian O wrote:

"Jerry Dennis" wrote in message
oups.com...

Q: Why are lawyers safe in the ocean?
A: Professional courtesy with the sharks.

Q. What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?
A. Ones a bottom dwelling scum sucker and the other is a fish.

Sure, guys, laugh it up, but the way I look at it, it's kinda like the
septic system sewage sucking service guy. I don't particularly want to
have lunch with him, but I'm sure glad he's around if I need his talents.

"Aram H. Haroutunian" wrote in message
...
On 23 May 2006 13:37:35 -0700, "Jerry Dennis"
wrote:


Jud wrote:
Q: Where do vampires learn how to suck blood?
A: Law school
8-)

Q: Why are lawyers safe in the ocean?
A: Professional courtesy with the sharks.
:-D

Jerry

Q: What's the difference between angry wet hens and lawyers?
A: Angry wet hens cluck defiance.
Aram.

Oh. Two and a half minutes in and I get it. I had the right idea, just
wasn't putting it together quite right. Uh, duck, clefiance? No. Defy
clance? No. But, finally, de clients.

Bill

Hello again Jerry.

Jerry Dennis wrote:
Fjord wrote:
This is not to say that there aren't crazy lawsuits. Suing McDonalds
for one's obesity, for instance. As infuriating as that lawsuit
sounds, it was rightly thrown out of court.

Agreed, FJORD. :-D

What I want to know is:

Unfortunately it would take thousands of lines of text to adequately
discuss the issues you're talking about below. I'll just offer a
comment or two with the honest disclaimer that this is not a fair
dissection of the subject matter.

1. Who stuck the gun to my head and forced me to take up smoking 30
years ago?

No one. At the same time I don't think that personal responsibility
and corporate responsibility are absolutes. Tobacco corporations lied
repeatedly about the safety and addictiveness of their products. While
no one forced people to use the product, I don't see how this protects
them either.

If we can agree that people or companies that lie about their products
share at least some liability when people get sick, it's really just a
discussion of percentage.

2. Who decided that I'm entitled to only $1.25 in a $100 million
class-action lawsuit against some asbestos company that insulated one
of my old ships when it was built in 1960? And if it were a $100
million settlement, why do I only get $1.25 while the scum sucking
lawyers get $30 million? It's my life that was affected.

As far as class action lawsuits go, I don't know enough about them to
feel entitled to an opinion.
If the details are exactly as you describe them, it certainly sounds
bad.

The only questions I could ask are this: 1. Are you suffering ill
health from asbestos, and 2. If the answer to 1. is "no", are people
who are suffering ill health also only receiving $1.25?

3. For construction accidents, if I hurt myself working on my own
house, can I call one of those TV liability lawyers and sue myself and
get independently wealthy?

Heh. Seriously: How many people are independently wealthy from suing
over some hare-brained thing they did? I don't mean the lawfirms. I
mean the plaintiffs. I don't know anyone who has. I've heard stories,
but the details are always fuzzy and we never hear who won the lawsuit.

4. Why is it okay to say just about anything, no matter how degrading
or indecent, EXCEPT you can't yell, "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater?
Isn't there a law about not being permitted to do any act which could
incite a riot?

Is it okay to say just about anything? I thought it was quite the
reverse these days. Political correctness and post 9/11 "don't give
support to the enemy" rhetoric has had quite a smothering effect on
free expression.

When I can't make sexist racist jokes while complaining about the
government, you know something's gone horribly wrong.

5. When someone's nonpolitical rights are being violated, where's the
ACLU?

I'm not certain what nonpolitical rights would be. Presumably if
they're our rights, they exist independently of any politics, so they'd
all be non-political.

As for the ACLU, they are a self-directed advocacy group that sets
their own agenda. They seem intent on a subset of the bill of rights,
most notably amendments 1, 4, 5, 6, 8 and maybe 9. They pretty much
say so on their website.

Hope the addition was smooth sailing, have a good one.

---
Fjord

Fjord wrote:
Ian wrote:

Fjord wrote:


Good lord, why *wouldn't* the lawyer charge the client?

a sense of shame perhaps? Nah I guess not. `Sense of shame' and `lawyer'
are not compatible statements.


You're contradicting yourself.

Not really. Is there something I said that you didn't fully understand?
I'd be happy to clarify.

Just below, you write:


Well now, I don't know about that. Most jackass lawyers have a sense of
shame...or at least a sense of `face'. While most can cope with
distancing themselves from feeling shame, they really do hate having egg
showing on their face and if that had gone to court there would be so
much egg showing on his face that it would hurt.


Pure speculation on your part.

I'm just following the lead you provide.......

The attorney's motivation for dropping
the matter is irrelevant. Whether it was due to some deep seated fear
of exposure and loss hiding in his dark, evil heart or simply sound
advice from an attorney to his client doesn't change the fact that the
seller was saved a great deal of grief by being told not to pursue the
matter further.


You are just being silly now. The attorney's motivation is everything.
He is the one doing the advising. THAT is what he gets paid for is it not?

You hate lawyers.

No I don't.

You dislike them so much, that even when one
*doesn't* sue somehow it's yet more evidence of their evil ways.

Hate? no Dislike? No.

I can't bring myself to dislke a snake for being a snake. So why would I
dislike a lawyer for being a lawyer? Not all lawyers are venomous after all.

Distrust? Yes

Do you even know any lawyers? worked with any? hired one?


Yes to all three of your questions.


He saved the
client a fortune by counseling them to drop the matter.

He did?.....as opposed to having cost them uneccessarily?

Your evidence is where?


Wes said:

---
It seems after I "educated" the attorney he made a few phone calls and
came
to the conclusion that we were right.

Yes. It does seem that Wes educated the lawyer concerned. Pity that he
was caused the grief by the lawyer in the first place. Getting educated
on Wes's time and at his clients expense. Nice one.

Dave Hinz wrote:
On Tue, 23 May 2006 17:22:59 -0500, Brian O wrote:

"Jerry Dennis" wrote in message
oups.com...

Q: Why are lawyers safe in the ocean?
A: Professional courtesy with the sharks.

Q. What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?
A. Ones a bottom dwelling scum sucker and the other is a fish.

Sure, guys, laugh it up, but the way I look at it, it's kinda like the
septic system sewage sucking service guy. I don't particularly want to
have lunch with him, but I'm sure glad he's around if I need his talents.

The septic tank pumpers won't screw up your system to have you calling
them time and time again at outrageous rates. Lawyers, on the other
hand, are advertising "become instantly wealthy by filing a lawsuit."
Whatever happened to accepting responsibility for your stupid actions
and common sense? Oh, yeah, the ACLU got into it.

Jerry
"Here's your sign."

On 24 May 2006 19:35:29 -0700, Jerry Dennis wrote:

Dave Hinz wrote:

Sure, guys, laugh it up, but the way I look at it, it's kinda like the
septic system sewage sucking service guy. I don't particularly want to
have lunch with him, but I'm sure glad he's around if I need his talents.

The septic tank pumpers won't screw up your system to have you calling
them time and time again at outrageous rates. Lawyers, on the other
hand, are advertising "become instantly wealthy by filing a lawsuit."
Whatever happened to accepting responsibility for your stupid actions
and common sense? Oh, yeah, the ACLU got into it.

Damn Jerry, go drink a beer or something and lighten way the hell up.
Sheesh.

"Here's your sign."

Indeed.

"Wes Chormicle" wrote in message
k.net...
Last week I had 2 or 3 different discussions with a man about the
collection
his 80 year old mother had. This was a collection that had belonged to
his
father with a few pieces from grandparents, etc. He stated that the
decision to sell would be his mother's and that she was too frail to bring
it into the shop and could we come to them and do the appraisal. He
estimated the collection in the 50K range.

This past Wednesday at noon, Troy (my partner) and I go out to see them.
It
turns out it really wasn't a collection, but more of an accumulation. The
only nice coin was a 1798 Lg Cent in Fine. Everything else was basically
junk silver and 6 Kugerrands. The son thought "1OZ" on the Kugs meant 10
ounces. In this accumulation were 56 (or so) common date Morgan & Peace
dollars including about 20 1922 Peace dollars in AU/BU. These dollars are
coins that we typically buy for $11-$12 and put in our "$15 Each" tray.
These were not gem bu coins, just low grade uncs (talking the Peace
dollars
here, the Morgan's were all G-VF).

After all is said and done, it comes to about $13,000. The mother and son
mull it over for a few minutes and agree to the price. We get back to the
shop and dump the junk silver into the buckets where we dump all the
silver
that come in the door. Pretty much everything gets processed into our
inventory. And that pretty much ends the day on Wednesday.

Thursday morning the phone rings in the shop within a minute or two of my
arrival (I'm always the 1st one there). It's the woman who sold the
coins,
says she didn't sleep all night and says she shouldn't have sold them and
wants them back. I told her most of it was already mixed into all the
other
junk silver, but to let me see what I could do and I would call her back
by
10:30 (she called at 9:00am).

At 10:35 Charlotte tried to call her back (3 time), but the ladies phone
was
"out of order". At 12:00, I get a phone call from the lady's attorney.
He
says she wants her money back, that we didn't return her call, and that we
"grossly under paid" what the coins were worth. I was shocked and offended
(and told him so). I asked him to name a single coin that we "grossly
under
paid" her on. He tells me that according to the "guide" the 1921's were
worth "hundreds" of dollars and the 1922 dollars were worth "upwards of
$40,000"! And we "stole" them for $11-$12 each.

I replied in shock, "What on earth "guide" are you looking at?" He's
looking
at the Redbook, far right column on the 1922 High Relief PF 65 Peace
dollar.
And he looking at 1921 Peace dollar rather than the 1921 Morgan dollar. I
really unloaded on this guy (not my nature) for about 10 minutes. I gave
him some specifics about the 1922 Peace High Relief dollar (like a PCGS
pop.
of about 5), the difference between a 1921 Morgan and Peace dollar. I
invited him to call ANY dealer in the country and ask what they pay for
common date Peace & Morgan dollars. I really blasted this idiot. Told
him
if he really had the best interest of his client at stake he should have
them come in and see us, and we'd see what we could do.

A couple of hours later the lady and her son come in. The lady is visible
upset and shaking. I told her I would give her her $500+/- face of silver
and her 56 Dollars back if she felt so strong about it. I also told her
that they would not be the exact coins because they all got dumped into
buckets with other coins. That was not acceptable to them. They are
convinced that they had something like 20, 1922 High Relief 1922 Peace
dollars, and that we are stealing them. No amount of explaining could
convince them how unlikely it was that they had ONE, much less 20 of the
coins.

They stormed out mad. I fully expect to be sued on this.


In hindsight, you probably should not mix fresh sales with other coins the
minute you walk in the door. But that is no help now. I wish you well, and
maybe they will just drop it. It sounds like you played right into their
scam. It sounds like they planned this all along. I thought the mother was
too frail to come. Then she comes in. Yes, it sounds like a scam to me.

Maybe in the future you can explain each and every coin and show the red
book value to the customer as you go along making your inventory for buying?

Again, I wish you well and hope they just drop it.

Jonathan_ATC

"Wes Chormicle" wrote in message
k.net...

They stormed out mad. I fully expect to be sued on this.

I fully believe that you gave them a fair deal. I don't want my previous
post to insinuate that I think you did anything wrong. It was just a
hindsight comment or two.

I would not hesitate to sell to you or buy from you and believe I got the
best deal I could get.

Jonathan_ATC