Geekgate Continued.
In my last post, I took an opening look at some of the sixteen comments on my Cops and Bloggers post, and here are some more of those comments.
So who was to blame for the Twitter eruption almost two weeks ago?
Paul Spry of Geeks Toy puts the blame fairly and squarely on the shoulders of Betfair Pro Trader James, suggesting that:
Why it started was because a rank hypocrite, & name calling child who seems to make a career out of slating others to sell product made the mistake of calling my integrity into question.
http://www.geekstoy.com/ForumPics/Why.png
Stones & glass houses spring to mind. Ditto my opinions on dodgy characters.
http://www.geekstoy.com/forum/showthread.php?6305-The-Blagger-or-The-Bragger-%A31500-Charity-Challenge!
As for the rest, no alcohol involved, sales are just fine, & I apologise profoundly for not having a 100% command of the English language which seems to be the second most heinous crime round these parts.The Blagger link refers to a disagreement dating back to September 2011, with the Blagger apparently Tony Hargraves, or Hargrief as Paul refers to him. Tony Hargraves was the subject of a post here in March, where I pointed out the illogicality of his claim to avoid Betfair's Premium Charge by placing his losing bets on that platform, and his winners elsewhere. If only it were that simple.
Without wishing to immerse myself in a disagreement from six years ago, the gist of it appears to be summed up here in Paul's opening post of that above-referenced thread:
In the 3 years I have known Tony, all we have seen is "after the fact" cherry picked videos & screen shots of him winning, followed by a desperation to flog courses, eBooks & tipping services. Not once has anyone seen any genuine proof that he makes the kind of money he claims to on Betfair, even though he advertises himself as a "Professional Sports Trader" on Twitter today and has also claimed publicly in a Bloomberg news article last year that he makes "400 USD an hour" trading sports.Those expressed concerns appear to me to be very similar to those which many people have about Caan Berry today.
James later commented:
Reading the vendor [Geeks Toy] statement above makes no mention of the fact that I referenced articles published on this blog (Green All Over).
And yet, the vendor in question is cordial to the author of this blog (Green All Over) and makes no complaint about said articles on this blog (Green All Over).
This I find most curious.
Have other comments from said vendor been blocked or are we to take it that the vendor is merely going after a soft target i.e. the parents of someone brave enough to publish in his real name?If anyone has a problem with anything I have written on this blog, they should comment here, or email me, and correct any mistakes or offer what the Trump administration call "alternative facts".
I am told that I am not perfect, though supporting evidence is, in my opinion, lacking, (my only fault is perhaps that I am too modest**), so the possibility of an error exists, but I am always happy to correct any that are pointed out.
I am happy to confirm that no comments from Geeks Toy have ever been bocked. The only comments that are not published are those that are spamming some great betting site or product, or which are rude, offensive or from known trolls.
Moving on, and there were a couple of comments from Tony, later deleted by him, I think because they showed up in a confusing sequence. One offered agreement to the statement that "Sports trading gets harder every year, never easier" - hard to argue with that - while the other asked if I was still trading, and if not, why not. Perhaps a post for another day, although my thoughts on the topic have already been published.
Back to the main thrust of the comments and Geeks Toy bounced back with:
Has nothing to to with being a soft target James, it has to do with the the fact you are a complete hypocrite. Whether you lived with mummy & daddy at the age of 52 is irrelevant. The electoral roll said you did, and seeing as you've been extrapolating & jumping all over Caan and Peter with incorrect assumptions and degradation, based upon what you yourself described as "Excellent investigative journalism" I felt it was high time you got a little dose of your own medicine.
What no one was expecting was the toys coming out of the pram quite so dramatically, and the admission of the fact that you yourself were the very thing you were accusing the chuckle brothers of being. You couldn't make it up!
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, however if you live in a glass house and keep throwing stones, it should be no surprise if somebody throws a dirty great rock back at you. { 2 other sellers in this industry made this mistake a few years ago, and the rocks I threw back at them still get referenced to this day, as I'm sure this one will for some time to come.}
Marketing is everywhere, but yet I don't see you going after Colonel Sanders managing to convince generations that unhealthy, greasy shite is finger licking good. :D. But yet constantly you are digging out Caan and Peter for some reason, and after your latest outburst, it's very clear why. Notice you haven't rebranded your site Betfair failed trader, and are still selling the books though. See you conveniently forgot to mention in all your snideness that you were actually making more money from the books than you were from trading for a considerable time now. { BTW Peter & Caan are rank amateur marketers compared the the genius of Paul Reblo and Adam Todd. }
Marketing is even here, where for some reason Cassini refers to you as a best selling author. Best selling at what exactly? Can't see JK Rowling being to worried about being knocked off the top spot by somebody who now admits their time would have been better spent working in McDs.
The fact that even after our private communications you still felt the need to publicly question why pick on poor James shows a distinct lack of intelligence and character on your part. { Ditto when I pointed out one of the many incorrect claims made on your blog that still remains. }
I have no beef with Cassini, although I do agree wholeheartedly with what Aaron said above. {
But between you you do remind me of Statler & Waldorf. :D } However I and quite a few others { as you have seen } do have a beef with the 2 distinct commercial agendas that constantly keep fuelling, this rather targeted witch hunt.
Yours is transparent as hell, so doesn't need any further explanation, and if Cassini isn't wise to the other one yet, he's more than welcome to join me for a beer or a coffee any time he and I are in the same part of the world.
PS Apologies in advance if there are any spelling or grammar errors, as I'm just a lad from a council estate that opted out of formal education at an early age, writing this on a mobile device.
I haven't too much to say on this, other than my reference to "best selling" are usually in quotes, as the description is, I hoped obviously, a little tongue in cheek**.
As for the offer of a beer or coffee in Corby, I'm afraid I have no plans to visit that area any time soon. I spent a weekend in Kettering around 1980, and I still haven't fully recovered from the experience, although I do still look for the Poppies' results, sadly in the much lower reaches of the football pyramid than was formerly the case.
James' response was:
Who cares which UK address I use for certain matters? I'm not going to buy a house in the UK just to use it as a letter drop. A house I would spend little time in as I am out of the country most of the time. Some might find it admirable that I still associate with my parents. I am sorry if that is not the same in your case. Not everyone is lucky in that regard.
I have a way to go to my 52nd birthday. Are you sure you have the right address? You appear to be backtracking on Twitter by saying, "some random address".
A hypocrite in what regard? We have two separate marketing models.
Me: Book 1, save money writing your own software instead of subscribing to software like yours. Book 2, a review of various trading methods, warning people away from the well worn tracks. On my website I do not make any boasts about success or lifestyle. I even said in one article that I am not a PC payer. My website exists to tell people that sports trading is extremely hard to make a profit from. That the vast majority will lose money. My website is an attempt to help people to lose the minimum amount of money possible. If I put people off trading then I regard it as a success, just as much as if they had made a profit. "Betfair Pro Trader?", a common search term. Far better that people find my website before many others.
You: Software you have to subscribe to. A lost subscription is a loss to your income stream so you (your colleague and the likes of Webb and The Badger) have to churn out articles daily to keep people interested in trading and subscribing.
I have sold only about 2000 books, you will be glad to hear. Not much of a threat to your subscriptions. At least I hope so, though if you go after small fry like me then maybe you are just a small player in the trading software market.
I have always thought that selling subscriptions for software that in over 90% of cases will lose the subscriber even more money is like being a used car dealer who flogs cars where over 90% of the vehicles have no engines.
My website has guided a lot of people into making decisions that will save them money. Something that you can never say because you don't care whether people win or lose so long as they do it through you.
Now, do run along because I have said all I will ever say about sports trading. Wasting your valuable keyboard time on me is just that, a waste of your time.
Two people with different perspectives. As mentioned before, I have no problem with someone selling software, and both Bet Angel and Geeks Toy appear to do the job just fine. The problem comes in selling the line that it is possible to make £100,000 a year from it. OK, so it may be "possible" but it is highly unlikely.
Jamie, not James, joined in to contribute this comment:
I am confused to why Geek Boy is such and angry cat, or indeed any software vendor should be. Provide your software and let the traders get on with it. There will always be someone who doesn't like the software. Let them subscribe elsewhere and get on with it. I have flitted between different vendors over the years. They are much of a muchness. Some have a few features that may suit a certain traders style but that's it.
As regards to the 'expert' traders selling their 'knowledge' I want to start by saying I don't really have a problem with any of them. Anyone like myself who knows his way around trading can see that for the money being charged you ain't going to learn anything new if you have been trading for a while and are still around to tell the tale. I am still around after about 8 years. Why ? Well not because I've made loads of money its because I've managed to stay in the game by managing the risk side of things. The edges I have had have come and gone and the search goes on for more. But it was managing he downside is why I am still in the game. That is never covered by the experts selling their ebooks or training courses. Trading is a very difficult & sometimes dangerous game and they put it across that anyone can do it and learn it all in one days training. I think that what was James and Cassini have been trying to say (that has been my take on it). But unfortunately things have gotten out of hand on what could have been a very constructive and informative debate between both sides of the argument which is a shame.
Again I have no problem with the peeps who are selling their courses. But I can see where the suspicions about them lie.
I've no personal problem with Mr Berry but when I see most of his posts retweeting Geeks Toy or starring in Betfair promotional videos or even posting photos of himself at the races as a guest of Betdaq, then you must expect people to start asking questions.
Same with Mr Webb, again no problem with him whatsoever but again heavily involved with BetAngel. Posting videos of himself at Betfair HQ has a peculiar whiff about it. Same with the Badger involved with racing traders, he has given over time, several different reasons to how he avoids the Betfair PC none of which make any sense.
So Mr Geek when someone like me sees these things, without any other outside influence or opinion, my alarm bells ring and I am strongly inclined to give them a swerve. I guess it will with others also. James & Cassini are merely bringing this to the public attention and is more of a help than a hindrance to the newbies who don't know any better. Letting them know it not as easy as some would make you believe.
Well that is my side of the debate from an outsider Mr Geek. But I strongly feel that it is not in your interests to agree. But I posted it all the same.
Look forward to any comments, disagreements, name calling or even threats (especially them) about the comments above.
Y'all take care now.Rather surprisingly, I agree with every word Jamie wrote, the downside of which is that I have nothing to add other than it's good to see there are others out there who see things in the same way.
The final comment I'll include - the others got a bit silly - is this one from Geeks Toy:
James sells an educational product, so do the people he has been extremely critical of. Yet for some reason James thinks he & his product is in some way superior. They are not.
James is very quick to highlight what he considers the dubious market practices of others when he isn't whiter than white himself. James was quite happy to reference, extrapolate and publish incorrect assumptions as fact based on the perceived business & personal information of others, but yet doesn't like it one bit when he is on the receiving end of the same.
James made the mistake of throwing one of those incorrect assumptions in my direction, hence my involvement. The debate itself I will stay out of as being a seller of a sports trading related product, like James I am somewhat biased.I'm not sure it's fair to compare James' educational product with that of Caan's.
James is from a scientific background, a graduate of artificial intelligence and his books are about methods, as he admits "an edge shared is an edge halved.". His books are published on Amazon, with money back guarantees, and promise nothing in the way of fortune making
Contrast with Caan's "educational products" which are produced by someone with no education, no relevant background or experience, are not guaranteed, and comprise pdfs and trading videos.
I don't think anyone remotely neutral in this debate would argue that comparing those two is hardly an apples to apples comparison.
** Speaking of too modest, and tongues in cheeks, I came across this quote from Sir Roger Moore who wrote in his autobiography:
"This is, after all, a book about me: a suave, modest, sophisticated, talented, modest, debonair, modest and charming individual - of whom there is much to write."Someone else who doesn't take himself too seriously. RIP Sir Roger Moore, and I leave you with this great anecdote:
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