> It's pretty easy to scam a customer if you only sell one item and flee, if > you sell items so > cheaply that the duped find the cost of recovery higher than the value > recovered, or if the item sold is actually illegal. But selling large > industrial equipment to a > knowledgeable customer with a large legal department, in the hope of > then selling them another one in three months is a scammers nightmare. >
> > Investors exchange money for an unknown future return. Business plans > typically change radically as they encounter reality, unknown unknowns > dominate the landscape. Decisions to invest are often irrational, > emotional, and have less to do with physics than with hope. Investors > are the ideal targets for a scammer: they are already dealing in > intangibles and the time lines are long and the opportunities for the > scammer to exit, stage left, are numerous. Investors are making high > risk, high return bets. > > When we discuss the flow of money here, I think we should be clear > about the role of the customer vs. investor, and draw conclusions as > appropriate. Steorns actions are entirely consistent with wishful > thinking on the part of investors and entrepreneur (if not an outright > scam); Rossis actions are entirely consistent with a bold attempt to > bootstrap a business on personal capital and customer sales. > Perhaps you're relying too much on what Rossi *says*. The Rossi story looks superficially much like Steorn's. In January 2010, Steorn gave a big and flamboyant but silly "demo" at the Waterways Museum in Dublin. They claimed that their spinning magnetic motor was "overunity" (making more energy than it used) but it required an obvious and large battery to run. It was tested in public but only with Steorn's instruments, setup and methods. The test results were not as convincing as Rossi's but Steorn said they were good. In this case, the audience asked better questions than the sort Rossi is asked after his demos. Steorn deflected the questions. They also removed the question and answer portion from their videos of the event. Fortunately, someone else preserved them. They helped confirm in many people's minds that Steorn did not have any unusual device and that their claims were wrong. Steorn also claimed that they were setting aside two days of the museum rental period in order to let private companies who had applied to test the device do so on their own terms. That is analogous to Rossi's claim that someone bought a megawatt plant and is testing it. Since then, Steorn said many companies tested but they have never told anyone who the companies were. No company has ever confirmed that they tested or bought any Steorn product. Free Energy Truth (Craig Brown) reported only glowing praise of those events, not the proper questions and ridiculous answers that followed. I don't recall exactly but best I remember, Sterling Allan also continued to promote Steorn from his site despite the bizarre results of the Waterways demo. Possibly, that is where we will be in a year with Rossi. He may claim more sales but they may be secret also. He may claim university research is being done but it also may remain secret. Steorn's scam, for those who accept that it was and is a scam, was collecting 20+ million Euros from investors. They did not scam buyers/customers because there probably never was one. One theory about Rossi is that it's an investor scam, not a purchaser scam. You are relying on Rossi's word for the customer being real and distinct and separate from Rossi. But even Jed Rothwell admits that much of what Rossi has said in the past was hype, exaggeration, and sometimes plain lies. I do not see why he would be trusted when he says he has a customer for that awkward and poorly put together machine in the container. Investor scams are much more convenient for the scammer than customer scams. The written agreements with the investors can be cleverly written so as to make the prospects for the device seem less certain than what the promoter says to them in secret verbally. There can be NDA's which may prevent investors from complaining in public and on forums. The scammer can appear to meet deadlines for demonstrations and products without actually doing so in a meaningful way. At one big meeting with prestigious scientists from all over the world, Steorn showed only a pitiful Minato type wheel that couldn't and didn't work and then they claimed the ridiculous excuse that its bearings failed. It was laughable but maybe it was done simply to meet contract requirements with investors. From history, it is clear that there are many ways to cheat investors. I don't remember them all!
