Last week I got a letter from a Sydney law firm representing Phil Travers.

A number of commenters on this blog, including former employees, have named Phil Travers as one of the principals in the JBC, ESL, CFS, OP Solutions, GTA, etc, etc stock trading software scams.

The letter noted that these comments were causing Phil to lose business. If your business is ripping off unsuspecting Australians, then that’s great! The less business you get, the better place the world will be.

My response to that letter is below.

Incidentally, as others have noted, the Queensland Fraud Squad is finally taking this scam seriously. If you have been scammed by JBC, OP Solutions, GTA, CFS or any of the other incarnations of this ripoff, please contact them. Ask for Detective Sergeant Melinda Kleidon.
——————————–
Dear Ms … ,

ALLEGED DEFAMATION OF PHILLIP TRAVERS

I am sure you are a good person, and your firm seems reputable, but your if your client is the Phil Travers associated with the stock market trading software scams I have warned about, then he is a rancid piece of slime who deserves everything he gets.

Were I of a more frivolous frame of mind, I would be inclined to refer you to the response given by the defendants in Arkell v Pressdram (1971). However, your client’s behaviour warrants more than a frivolous response. He has made a very good living stealing from some of the most vulnerable members of society. As you quite rightly note, it is difficult to imagine anything more reprehensible.

It is not an excuse to claim, as he or some of his chums have done during their 2am phone calls threatening me and my family, that anyone who is dumb enough to buy their product is gullible and has only themselves to blame. Gullible is just another word for decent and trusting, something your client is definitely not.

According to my search of the White Pages there are at least forty-six persons named P. Travers residing in Australia. If your client has nothing to do with the Gold Coast rip-off schemes which have been the subject of my blog posts, and which are the subject of ongoing police investigations, then all he has to do when someone asks, is to say “Do you mean the slimeball, scumbag, louse-infested, psychopath, rip-off merchant, rotten, commo, poofter, mongrel bastard Phil Travers? No, different guy.” Just as if my name were Larry Pickering and someone said to me “Hey, you’re Larry Pickering.” I could say “Do you mean the former smut cartoonist turned sports and stock trading software shyster and political pundit? No, different guy.”

Of course, if your client is the slimeball, scumbag, louse-infested, psychopath, rip-off merchant, rotten, commo, poofter, mongrel bastard Phil Travers, then he is unable to use that option. Instead he seems to be claiming that his continuing sales of fake stock trading software, repackaged every couple of years as word gets around, complete with fake reviews and fake awards to lull the “gullible” into a false sense of security, is actually a perfectly legitimate way of conducting business, and that anyone who complains about this or talks to someone else about it, is like, really mean. Or something.

So if your client decides to initiate some sort of legal action over this, I can only say how pleased I would be. It would be the most ill-advised litigation since Oscar Wilde took a swipe at the Marquess of Queensberry. I have an extensive list of people from all walks of life, including elderly and disabled persons, who would be delighted to have a day in court to explain publicly how their life savings have been stolen and their lives destroyed by schemes operated by your client and his chums.

Nonetheless, and despite the foregoing, I am indeed willing to make your client an offer. It is this. If he contacts investigating police and offers them his full co-operation, and arranges for every person affected by the JBC, ESL, OP Solutions, etc, scams to be fully refunded, with a public apology, and then commits to earning an honest living, I will gladly remove any references to him in quotes from victims or former workers in my blog posts, or in any comments.

Yours sincerely,

etc