HISStupidity Goes Canadian

[wserra]

We have been discussing HISAdvocates.org - former Turner associate Kelby Smith and company - for some time. It appears they are branching out - an intentionally-chosen phrase for scammers with the intelligence and vision of a tree.

HISAdvocate "hermetic" has posted a lengthy screed on their site. Since you need to be a member to read it, I'll give you the idea. Basically, ol' hermetic says that you can just walk off after helping yourself to a vendor's product - gas, groceries, haircut, whatever - unless the vendor gives you a "bill of sale":

See, every transaction that you people do everyday, whether it’s buying gas or gum, YOU DO WRONG! You do it wrong because you do not understand CREDITOR, DEBTOR relationships, OFFER and ACCEPTANCE, and even MONEY itself!

All of you guys to a one, at every till you go to, do it wrong, you set your property (purchase) down on the counter and the clerk rings it in and then announces the amount of the charge. Then what do you do? You reach into your pocket, wallet or purse and volunteer payment..........without ever having been obligated to do so!!!!!!!! Yeah that’s right, you heard me right!

You’re missing something so elemental that it boggles the mind! You walk out of the store *****ing about the price......of gas.....or whatever; AND YOU WERE NEVER EVEN BILLED FOR IT! YOU WERE NEVER PRESENTED WITH THE BILL! They told you what the charge was, they always do, but they never give you the BILL!

See, quite simply, without a BILL, there is no obligation! PERIOD!

So why the **** don't they just give you a "bill of sale", if that's what you want? Groyse chochem:

THEY CAN’T CREATE A BILL! THEY WILL NOT DO IT,....AND, IF THEY DO, THAT’S PERFECT!!!!! THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT!

Huh? Don't I want free stuff? But wait:

There are many reasons for this ranging from the fact our company CANADA is insolvent, operating in receivership, and the crap that you call money that you traded your sweat for is really a debt instrument!!!
...
Are you ready for the bomb? The reason they don’t give you a bill, is that if they present you with a BILL, then you can settle with your signature, and a notation on the bill

- “Consumer Purchase”!

Did you get that? If they give you a bill, and even if they fail to complete it, or sign it, you can simply accept it, sign it and give it back to them! Don’t believe? Check out the so-called ‘laws’ of CANADA.

BILLS OF EXCHANGE ACT

[Snip lengthy quote from Canadian statute that doesn't say anything like what they say it says.] And now the exclamation points start flying:

I think you should be getting very excited by now! This is telling you that if you sign the bill, you gave it value! It’s telling you that your signature IS the money! BY signing the bill, and returning it to them, you gave them value! It says, “In absence of evidence to the contrary”. Where is that going to come from?

Who on planet earth can provide proof positive that your signature has no value? That’s actually a slander of credit because your signature DOES have value, PERIOD! No body can provide proof to the contrary, EVER! The bank accepted your signature as having value on your mortgage, did they not? They accepted your signature as having value on your car loan, did they not? They let you take the car didn’t they? What does everybody want from you all the time? Your signature!!!!

Wouldn't want to slander credit, would you?

So all you lucky Canadians can just walk in and take what you want. Why don't you start with "hermetic"'s computer? Just be sure to leave your signature!!!!

Who believes this stuff?

[grixit]

How can you slander the credit of someone who has made known their intention to never pay any of their debts? And how can the signature of someone like that have any value?

[notorial dissent]

Not that I'm surprised, but that stuff has whiskers on its whiskers.

An interesting justification for theft, i suppose, but not one that any court will find amusing. Besides, aren't you techinically presented with a bill when you are told the price, and the receipt stands as your bill of sale(or record of purchase) as I understand it.

Amazing what you can rationalize if you put your feeble felonious little mind to it, I guess.

[Hilfskreuzer Möwe]

Oddly, the scheme proposed by "hermetic" has been percolating around Canada for quite a while. If first shows up in:

• Ramjohn v. Rudd, 2007 ABQB 84: http://canlii.ca/t/1ql7t
  
  Papadopoulos v. Borg, 2009 ABCA 201: http://canlii.ca/t/23nxk
  
  [these are the same matter, the latter an appeal]

but the cases are a bit vague on just how this thing is supposed to work. In 2011 the Ontario Court of Appeal gives an even more summary treatment of the scheme: Toronto-Dominion Bank v. Di Iorio, 2011 ONCA 792: http://canlii.ca/t/fpbh1

However, the entire 'consumer purchase' thing hits big time last year when Robert-Arthur: Menard begins to aggressively promote the concept, and specifically launches this website:

The Association of Canadian Consumer Purchases (ACCP): http://consumerpurchasers.ca/

Menard explains that the Bills of Exchange Act and the Bank of Canada Act, when combined, allow one to make purchases and pay for them with the mechanism reported by wserra: see http://consumerpurchasers.ca/?page_id=269

But rather than you go through the trouble of actually doing that, Menard will himself do the heavy lifting, and implement the 'consumer purchase' scheme for you. All you have to do is pay him a certain sum of cash, and he will issue you a kind of debit-card like thing which will have much more value than your initial processing fee. With your 'Menard-Card' you can't just buy anything though, only certain 'necessaries': http://consumerpurchasers.ca/?page_id=35 Definitely no video games.

Oh, and it's super-good for artists: http://consumerpurchasers.ca/?page_id=273

This concept and website appear in 2012. According to persons posting in long-standing JREF forum thread on Menard, the woman who actually had set up the ACCP website for Menard, and who was administering the scheme was contacted by forum members. She then realized this was no more than a scam, and bailed. The result is the ACCP website has remained static since that time.

However, Menard is a persistent individual, and has once more returned to this concept in the last couple months. He is now promoting what he calls "ACCP Phase 2" on his Facebook webpage (http://www.facebook.com/robert.menard.52) and Association of Canadian Consumer Purchasers user group (http://www.facebook.com/groups/457133764361174/).

$100, and you're in!

Menard's promotional hook is explained on his Facebook page. He claims to have gone to a Vancouver restaurant, ordered and eaten a meal, then attempted to pay by writing Consumer Purchase on his bill. The police are called and Menard is arrested. However, after a first court appearance (where Menard invokes the power of his magic common law peace officer badge), the charges are subsequently stayed. And Menard has a letter from the Crown to prove it: http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-a ... 7039_o.jpg

Naturally, Menard announces that this result means that the Consumer Purchase scheme works, the authorities are afraid to allow a trial so that the result will be generally known, and that this stay is, in fact, a legal precedent.

And now yesterday he posts this:

So excited! Big meeting on Tuesday with Van City Credit Union concerning the Consumer Purchase Association! Happy thoughts, well wishes and prayers gleefully accepted!

My prediction is that Menard will gladly take those $100 sign-up fees, but somehow the Menard Cards will never be delivered.

SMS Möwe

[grixit]

You can get a friend to cover your lunch. There's no bill, but there is an obligation.
Before credit cards, shopkeepers had books to record when someone bought something "on account". But eventually, repayment was expected. We still have bar tabs, they have to be repaid too. Before there were preprinted checks, people of means would write out "notes of hand", which could be cashed at the local bank. And before there was writing, there were verbal agreements.

There were welshers in those systems too, but there was never an acceptance of anything other than payment or debt forgiveness.

[GlimDropper]

But rather than you go through the trouble of actually doing that, Menard will himself do the heavy lifting, and implement the 'consumer purchase' scheme for you. All you have to do is pay him a certain sum of cash, and he will issue you a kind of debit-card like thing which will have much more value than your initial processing fee. With your 'Menard-Card' you can't just buy anything though, only certain 'necessaries': http://consumerpurchasers.ca/?page_id=35 Definitely no video games.

Well you at least have to give Robert credit for expecting contingencies, from the above link:

Q: What purchases are NOT covered?
*
*
*
*Things of no value or which are not consumed

So you can't use the Menard-Card (great line btw) to pay for Robert's teachings.

Does this remind anyone of the John Dillinger Died for You Society? They had membership cards the size of regular credit cards but with a hole in them large enough to slip the card over the barrel of a pistol. The card carried the inscription:

Present this card at the end of a pistol and request that your purchases be charged. In most states the charge will be armed robbery.

Only Robert dispenses with the pistol, so that's nice at least.

But reading the list of goods and services Robert claims are now free gives us what I am quite sure is a very incomplete list of legitimate occupations Robert Menard is not employed in. No sovereign guru would accept A4V as payment for a seminar, even if it was an A4V seminar. Why should Robert be any different?

[ArthurWankspittle]

It's worse than you are making out. I've just looked at that site:

Q: What purchases are NOT covered?
A: Such things as
• Land or interest in land
• Things purchased with cash (gum, chips, smokes)
• Things not subject to being an item of trade i.e. illicit drugs, human beings, prostitution, gambling
• Tools for your trade, calling or business
• Work clothes, gas for your work vehicle
• Computers, game consoles, televisions, and other electronic devices
• Things you can resell
• Things of no value or which are not consumed

"Things purchased with cash" So that's pretty much anything then?
"Things not subject to being an item of trade" I'd say drugs, humans and prostitution are very much "subject" to "trade" albeit usually not legally.
"Things you can resell" Again, pretty much any tangible item and things like software, music, etc.
So you pay him $100 for a card that you can't use for anything? Nice get out. I have this motor insurance policy on offer which will cover anyone on any car provided there's no fuel on board.

[wserra]

However, the entire 'consumer purchase' thing hits big time last year when Robert-Arthur: Menard begins to aggressively promote the concept

I should have known. Nothing new under the sun of ScamLand, just old schemes that didn't work recycled into new schemes that don't work.

Thanks, Möwe.

[Kuz'kina Mat']

Menard's promotional hook is explained on his Facebook page. He claims to have gone to a Vancouver restaurant, ordered and eaten a meal, then attempted to pay by writing Consumer Purchase on his bill. The police are called and Menard is arrested. However, after a first court appearance (where Menard invokes the power of his magic common law peace officer badge), the charges are subsequently stayed. And Menard has a letter from the Crown to prove it: http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-a ... 7039_o.jpg

It's going to be a little... inconvenient if you have to go to court every time you eat out.