Sorry if I sounded terse, but it wasn't intended to be at you.
It was meant to be directed at the culprit that had the mentality to be so, thoughtless & inconsiderate at best and down right nasty at worst.

Luckily, I'm past the point of caring who knows what about me, but there was a time when something like that could have devastated me and pushed me over the brink of despair.
Regardless, its still MY right to tell people what I want them to know about me, not someone else's.

And thats why I could never presume to be dismissive of this type of behaviour.
Nor could I speak on behalf of others and say "who cares?", because it only takes a modicum of empathy for your fellow human being to appreciate everyone has a right to privacy in this sort of circumstance.

(09-21-2011, 03:52 PM)Baldrich Wrote: I feel bad for the guys, but it is everyone's own responsibility to preserve their privacy if they value it, by blanking out photos they post and using an untraceable yahoo account for hairpiece-related stuff. It's hardly rocket science, and everyone knows there are competitors, voyeurs and other kooks on the Internet, and these sites are not private.

Now if Gary was indeed letting slip these guys' identities, so that someone could out them and link their anonymous posts to them, that is a very serious breach.

I have to make some corrections to the information in this thread about what happened. I know at least two of the people who had their identities revealed had done all the above and had yahoo email accounts exclusively set up for BA's forum. At least some of the information linking screen names to real people came from BA himself. BA announced that his email account was hacked and so this is likely the source of the information. But then again BA is known to lie about other things and mislead people on a regular basis so who knows if he was hacked or if he leaked the info himself to scare customers and then be seen as the saviour when he had the blog shut down. I'm not making any accusations, just putting out possible scenarios.

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(09-21-2011, 10:12 PM)Hersute Wrote: Nor could I speak on behalf of others and say "who cares?", because it only takes a modicum of empathy for your fellow human being to appreciate everyone has a right to privacy in this sort of circumstance.

I am totally with Hersute here. The point is if men are uncomfortable enough about people knowing about their hairloss that they hide it in public by wearing hair, then doesn't it make sense that they would not want the secret announced to the whole world? Wearing hair is seen as a very taboo thing in society and whether the wearer cares about that or not does not change the fact that many people will see them differently, talk about them behind their backs and refer to them as "oh you mean the guy with the wig?". That can cause a lot of harm to a person's lifestyle and confidence. And if the first thing a potential employer, business partner, old highschool friend or lover sees when they google a person is them with and without their wig on, that can also have a detrmiental effect.

@Hairenough

I'm not aware of BA at any point claiming he was the hero that had the blog removed from the website.
He asked a group of people to all contact the website and complain, which we did and the blog was removed shortly there after.
This episode was the trigger for making his forum a private one and in my opinion was probably the worse move BA could have made with regards to attracting new business.
I strongly feel that the lack of new revenue heavily contributed to the problems he has recently faced.
Based on that, it hardly seems likely that he knowingly leaked any personal details.
As I said, no website is 100% secure and with the best will in the world it would be impossible to prevent someone from extracting information, if they were that intent on finding it.

All very good and valid points made.
It is a pity that the lowlife who leaked the names and info on another forum ( i also think he posts here under another username?) doesn't have any sense of decency or morals.
In his own twisted way he thought he was having a pop at BA when all he was doing was harming inocent guys caught in his crossfire!

Well, just went to his site to look around. Nothing has been posted since the 21st and you can not post or reply anymore there. That seems to me like a "It´s shutting down" on the plus side no one will be ripped off anymore and sent half ass excuses as God as my witness!
Not too mention he´s changed his email yet again.

(09-23-2011, 07:14 PM)michaelg Wrote: Well, just went to his site to look around. Nothing has been posted since the 21st and you can not post or reply anymore there. That seems to me like a "It´s shutting down" on the plus side no one will be ripped off anymore and sent half ass excuses as God as my witness!
Not too mention he´s changed his email yet again.

I think you will find tht he will still operate his business,just not him fronting it!
As far as i understand it will be a man and wife who will front the operation.
Didn't another new company, who closed down recently, was run by a man and his wife?
Maybe it will be them coming in?

It seems to be pointless to speculate what is happening or what is going to happen, based on information supplied by BA.
Time after time (over the last few weeks) he has made promises and then broken them or handed out an explanation, well after an event, that contradicts what he was saying at the time.

I have noticed that at no point has he used the word 'SOLD' or 'SELLING' in reference to his business. He talks about it being 'taken over' or 'transferred'.

Quite correct Hersute.
As i said he is not selling and has no intentions to sell (this is after all is his main income and he has no other source of income apart from his martial arts classes that he was thinking of returning to but even they don't bring enough cash to pay the bills etc..) but is merely looking to bring in this man and wife team to handle everything.
I am speculating though about the man and wife team though who did have anew business recently but then strangley folded at about the same time that Gary had his problems?
Gary will still be there although no longer the contact person at front of house.
And don't be surprised if the new address is in the U.S either and no longer Canada.

Yeah, I remember him saying that he wanted a husband & wife team to help with the processing of the ordering etc.
But subsequently he's 'implied' that he wants to 'get out of of the game, 18 hours a day, 24/7'.
Reading between the lines, I think you're right LTB.
It will be a change of name & front person.
I've read on this forum that there are restrictions preventing him from selling from the USA, so this will also aid him in circumnavigating that.

No doubt that it will aid him by selling from the U.S as Canada is, i understand, a bit more tricky regarding taxes and customs.
It is worth noting also that when i mention the other company that ceased trading not so long ago,SNM, that 1 of their contact numbers was registered to the area that Gary lives in Windsor,Canada could be total coincedence but i have always had my suspicions about them from the start.