Rebuttal to Krivit's Accusation that Andrea Rossi is a Fraudster

Pure Energy Systems ^ | Oct 30 2011 | Sterling Alan

[stinkerpot65]

If this works, environmentalists are going to hate it more than they do gas-fracking, because it destroys their dream of Marxism through global warming regulation.

Maybe that is Krivit’s motive.

Not that anyone can say for sure whether this really works or not. All you really have is Rossi’s word and a lot of blog opinions.

[Johnny B.]

What, in your view, would be the goal of Rossi’s scam?

Who is he trying to scam and what’s in it for him?

That's easy. He's trying to get investors.

He's just spent almost a year producing high visibility demos that almost demonstrate a revolutionary new technology. That "almost" is important. Rossi claims (with absolutely no evidence) that he heated his factory with an E-Cat device for six months on a single "fueling". If that's true, he would have had no problem producing a seriously impressive demonstration. Instead, he produced a bunch of "teases" which were just enough to keep the faithful hooked.

Now that he has a huge amount of press, most of which is breathless praise by a handful of gullible fans (and spread by people like Kevmo), he has the "legitimacy" to convince greedy investors that they should buy in. Since this would certainly involve keeping it a secret (so no one else can get in on the incredible deal), it may already be occurring.

Like every other aspect of this, the claim that Rossi has been refusing to accept money for his "invention" is based (so far as I know) solely on Rossi's word. A con man carefully chooses his "marks" based, in part, on their willingness to keep the deal a secret. Web bloggers and reporters don't fall into that category, so Rossi (if he is a con man) certainly wouldn't trust them with the "secret" deal.

[Johnny B.]

One additional comment:

Most people don't know much about con men and scams, unless they've been a victim themselves. In general, no one involved wants the scam to become public. The scammer obviously doesn't want to be identified, and the victim doesn't want the embarrassment of being publicly identified as a chump.

Here are a couple of links to other scams. One is over a century old, but the parallels to Rossi and his E-Cat are remarkable. The other is recent, and shows that even big companies can fall victim to scammers.

Is it a 'magic box' or a high-tech hoax?

THE KEELY MOTOR COMPANY

[Johnny B.]

For what it's worth, here's an analysis using Rossi's data from the recent test that shows that as little as 70kW was generated, rather than the 470kW Rossi claimed.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/H-Ni_Fusion/message/791

[Jim Noble]

When I think of Rossi, I think of his degree from Kensington University.

Google it.

[aruanan]

When I think of Rossi, I think of his degree from Kensington University.

Google it

And when I think of Edison, I think of his degree from...uh. Oh, he didn't have a degree, went to only a few months of elementary school, and then was homeschooled and self-taught. That's probably what pissed off so many of the scientific elite who claimed he couldn't do what he had already done. But, of course, we all know that there could never be anyone else like Edison.

[Free Vulcan]

Been waiting for you to expose them for weeks now. All I’ve seen is slander and lawyer tricks. You’d make a great journalist for MSNBC though.

[dsc]

“Seems to me that can only be done by limiting the public disclosures to those necessary to attract R&D funding and venture capital.”

Well, that would certainly account for it. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

[Toddsterpatriot]

They don't want the "mundanes" to know they are responsible for twenty years of environmental destruction, the current energy crisis, and massive human suffering -- which all could have been reduced if cold fusion technology had been taken seriously twenty years ago .

LOL!

[steve86]

And his sponsor is questionable also.

"My trip was sponsored by Farlie Paynter of Canada, as well as by Mike Spitzauer, CEO of Green Power Inc (GPI), the Waste-to-Diesel Fuel company in Pasco, Washington."

Spitzauer appealing Green Power Inc. shut-down order

And Green Power's financial issues with the Port of Pasco aren't the only ones plaguing the company, which claims to have developed the technology to turn municipal waste into fuel.

Spitzauer and his company face more than $18 million in lawsuits in Benton, Franklin and King counties, and has had numerous complaints to the state Department of Labor and Industries for failure to pay employees or paying them with bad checks. Court records show outstanding tax warrants for money the company owes in unemployment taxes and industrial insurance for employees.

He has a history of other legal troubles dating back to the early 1990s, when he served three years of a six-year sentence in Austria for fraud. Spitzauer told the Herald in 2009 that he didn't believe criminal troubles two decades ago should be held against him now.

Read more: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2011/01/12/1323457/green-power-seeks-new-lease.html

The Green Power situation has been in the local news here.

[Moonman62]

And when I think of Edison, I think of his degree from...uh. Oh, he didn't have a degree, went to only a few months of elementary school, and then was homeschooled and self-taught.

Thomas Edison took classes from Cooper Union, one of the finest engineering schools in the country.

[Moonman62]

As the author pointed out, Rossi has sunk large amounts of his own money into this invention, including selling his home to pay for demonstrations and tests, which Rossi has funded himself.

How do you know any of that is true?

[Moonman62]

It’s looking more an more like Rossi’s customer is a shill.

[aruanan]

And when I think of Edison, I think of his degree from...uh. Oh, he didn't have a degree, went to only a few months of elementary school, and then was homeschooled and self-taught.

Thomas Edison took classes from Cooper Union, one of the finest engineering schools in the country.

From National Park Service.gov

Did Edison go to college?

Young "Al" Edison went to school only a few months. His teachers thought he was very slow. Afterward his mother taught him at home. He then taught himself by reading constantly and trying experiments in the basement. He never attended any technical school, college or university. In later life, he said that his mother was the person most responsible for his success.

Edison had strong opinions about education. Most schools, he believed, taught children to memorize facts, when they ought to have students observe nature and to make things with their hands. "I like the Montessori method," he said. "It teaches through play. It makes learning a pleasure. It follows the natural instincts of the human being . . . The present system casts the brain into a mold. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning."

My point still stands. Edison was self-taught and self-motivated. When he needed to know something, he went to where he could find it, either in a book or elsewhere, perhaps at Cooper Union for industrial chemistry, though the single reference to this in Wikipedia returns Oh, dear... I cannot seem to find the webpage you are looking for." The point is that Edison did not go to a college to get a degree in something which would then "entitle" him to be considered "educated" in that subject and, thus, worthy to be listened to or heeded.

[Moonman62]

The point is that Edison did not go to a college to get a degree in something which would then "entitle" him to be considered "educated" in that subject and, thus, worthy to be listened to or heeded.

Agreed. Unlike Rossi and his fake EE degree.

[Johnny B.]

Edison was self-taught and self-motivated. When he needed to know something, he went to where he could find it, either in a book or elsewhere, perhaps at Cooper Union for industrial chemistry, though the single reference to this in Wikipedia returns Oh, dear... I cannot seem to find the webpage you are looking for."

Here's the link to Cooper Union, which lists Thomas Edison as a notable alumni:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union

Since you're such an expert on Thomas Edison, perhaps you can help me find any references to when Edison was convicted of fraud, as Rossi was.

[fightinJAG]

How do you know it isn’t?

Of course, it’s implicit that “assuming what the author says is true.”

If it is true, do you agree that fact has meaning?

[fightinJAG]

I don’t find the reporting very “breathless.”

I also don’t see how you can really say this is about gullible investors. If he were making an IPO, maybe. But the process of attracting venture capital is unlike soliciting the general public to invest money in an invention. That process includes its own checks and balances and its own risk-management procedures, including wiping out venture capitalists who don’t do due diligence.

So what? That’s what venture capitalism is about: taking risks and taking the consequences of taking risks.

How does that hurt anyone, and isn’t that the definition of a scam? A fraud that hurts innocent people, i.e., those who were deliberately deceived and/or who had no way of checking out the claims?

That’s not the case here as far as I can see. If someone wants to take a chance on the technology and, after having the legitimate (to their satisfaction) opportunity to observe the technology, decides to pay Rossi zillions for the opportuinty to take that chance, again, SO WHAT. That’s business as usual, not a scam.

Also licensing the technology (as I understand Rossi has done - to be honest I just started following this and am not doing so all that closely) is very different than getting investors.

In the former arrangment, the technology is actually turned over to the licensee, so the licensee has every opportunity to, well, not be scammed.

If Rossi were taking investment money and keeping his boxes behind closed doors, always promising to deliver to the customer but never doing so, that would be one thing. But that’s not what happens in a licensing situation, nor when the technology is delivered to two universities for basic science research.

[fightinJAG]

Again, I’ve not followed e-cat too closely, but my understanding is that Rossi licensed (i.e., turned over) his technology to a customer.

If that is correct, then, as I said, that is very different from what happened at the two links you provided. There the con men got people to invest in their *idea,* backed up with hoax demonstrations, etc., all the while continuing to control and promise the technology supposedly implementing the idea.

That’s very different from building your technology, demonstrating the technology (however much one wants to denigrate the elegance of the demonstration), and then, after giving a customer the independent opportunity to test the technology (however much one wants to claim they know better than the customer how the technology should have been tested and evaluated), licenses the technology to the customer for them to physically take back to their own place of business and put through its paces.

If a scam, wouldn’t the customer quickly discover that it could not replicate the results it thought it got in the official sales demonstration?

Would they never see the man behind the curtain if he were there?

So. Maybe since I’m new to the subject, I’m just asking the question why some seem to see a scam under every rock here. When, as far as I’m concerned, the hallmarks of a scam — at least one that might actually enrich the con-man for more than five minutes — are not exactly here.

[TheOldLady]

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