[LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas

[Joe R.]

At 12:10 AM 1/27/05 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>Today is a sad one, as I had to part with someone I considered a friend,
>a new collector, and recent addition to the CCtalk community.
>
>Bert had trouble with getting his PDP-11/34 to work (as we have all been
>reading here), and, a while ago, I offered him to have a look at it.
>
>We got together, and I was able to fix the system.  Took a while, but
>hey, that's OK.  I did mention to him I just acquired a new system,
>and needed to have it moved to my place.  To return my favor, Bert
>offered to move my system, as he had a van available, which makes it
>a lot easier than using my car.  Great deal!  The selling party and
>Bert were put in contact, so they could agree on a date and such.
>
>And that's the last thing I heard about it.. until I got curious,
>and contacted the seller if something had gone wrong.. I _am_ out
>of the area and country a lot, so could have missed something.
>
>Nope, everything went as planned, the seller replied - Bert had picked
>up the system that saturday morning, and all was well.  He did mention
>that Bert said that since he picked up _and_ paid for the system, he
>considered it his, now.
>
>(The seller had not yet replied to my question about how to pay for the
>system- this is a bit different in Holland, as we usually just exchange
>bank account numbers here, and then just transfer the amount needed.
>Easy.  So, I was waiting for him to reply with his account number.
>Rather, he did not reply, and when the pickup ocurred, he wanted cash.
>Even this is normally handled fine.. one pays the cash, and then gets
>reimbursed by whoever is supposed to actually receive the system.)
>
>Anyway... when I heard that, I tried to contact Bert, and eventually
>got a hold of him.  And when asked about this, he indeed told me the
>above - as far as he was concerned, it was now HIS system.

  What a snake! Where does this creep live?  Keep me posted on your
progress in recovering the system.

   Joe


>
>To make a much longer story short- I have taken legal action against
>him to get my system back, and the extra (legal and other) fees and
>costs reimbursed for.  Sadly, Bert decided to not accept his being
>wrong, so this will be a full case of fraud in Dutch court.
>
>Your mileage etc etc, but I'd like everyone to take extreme caution
>when dealing with Bert, as his definition of "mine" and "yours", and
>the being right or wrong, might very well be different from what you
>consider such.  This surely was the case for me.
>
>With kindest regards,
>
>Fred
>-- 
>Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist
>Visit the VAXlab Project at                         http://VAXlab.pdp11.nl/
>Visit the Archives at                                  http://www.pdp11.nl/
>Email: waltje at pdp11.nl     BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Mountain View, CA, USA
>
>