Don't Call or Email Matthew or Oscar Asking for FREE Help. It's Disrespectful.

[Matthew Chan]

This has been said many times both directly and indirectly but now we have to make a sticky post so it is an ongoing reminder to newcomers.  We have tried to be polite and firm about it but many people still don't get it.  People are so caught up in their fears, they don't think twice about disrupting our personal and business lives by trying to force their communications and problems on us.

Oscar and I have given a lot of free help over the years through our forum posts, blog posts, and online videos. When I say a lot, I do mean A LOT.  Take a look at the ELI Document Library, the many videos and interviews, and hundreds of blog and forum posts. That doesn't even include several dozens of emails we have responded to over the years.

People always say they "only want a few minutes" except it never ends up being a "few minutes".  It ends up going 10, 20, 30 minutes because the questions never stop at 1 or 2 questions. We answer one question, then another gets asked. We give an answer, then because the person has little background in the extortion letter situation, they are confused or don't fully comprehend the answer.  This cycle goes on and on.

Both Oscar and I probably get at least 100 emails each day, if not more. Oscar runs his law practice and "freebie" people used to jam up his email account or call his office "to check him out" or wanting free answers from him. And then legitimate paying clients who pay for the Defense Letter service ends up complaining for slow response.  Then I get emails saying they can't get ahold of Oscar, can I contact Oscar for them?

It all got to be too much and it detrimentally hurt Oscar's law practice and my business through "theft of time".  It got so bad we finally had to remove Oscar's email address and replace it with a generic email address which Oscar's staff now checks on his behalf. Oscar is under no obligation to respond to anyone except those people who want to become clients of the Defense Letter Program. It is a simple "take-it or leave-it" program. We aren't going to hard-sell anyone on it.

For me, I never listed my email address or phone number on the ELI website.  But people would take it upon themselves to find my phone number and call me anyway. They call morning, afternoons, evenings, and weekends. Or people would send me private forum messages expecting a response from me. Sorry, I don't welcome these actions. It is too intrusive.

People would ask for help and advice, I would try to help and some would complain they wanted a "sure-fire" approach, still received extortion letters, or they wanted an alternative approach. Some were downright ungrateful. Because they had no spine or intelligence to handle it themselves, somehow it became my problem because they didn't like what I was telling them.

All of this came to a head in early 2012. Both Oscar and I decided we were not willing to lose our time or money to support ELI. Either it is self-sustaining or it gets shut down.  We developed some hard-line rules to protect ourselves. If anyone expects Oscar and I to run a charity through ELI, that isn't going to happen and we make no apologies for it. We don't expect to go in the hole supporting others in THEIR extortion letter problems.

I recently had to shut down the private forum message feature for both Oscar and my forum accounts. I had no choice. People send us messages and if we don't respond, we are the bad guys.

So now, there is a hard line we draw. If you don't want to pay, then you are restricted to the FREE resources of the discussion forum, blog posts, forum posts, and online interviews and videos. That's it.  Don't be sneaky, rude, disrespectful, or insulting to us by trying to circumvent this simple policy.

If you want personal help from Oscar, you will have to become a paying client in the Defense Letter Program.  If you need my personal help via email and telephone, you will have to become an ELI Support Contributor. Those are your options until we can come up with better ones.

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/getting-help-with-your-extortion-letter/

Oscar and I value our time.  We are comfortable in saying we have provided more free extortion letter information and resources over the years than anyone else or any other website.  Remember, ELI is NOT our primary business. It is something we do "on the side" to help others but ELI is not a charity service we are running.

If you are looking for charity, go elsewhere. Every letter recipient pays one way or another. You pay in money, time, energy, OR stress. You choose how to proceed. If you don't want to pay money for our help, fine. We don't do hard-sells. But be prepared to pay with your own time and energy to study. But don't expect us to "donate" our time to you.

I regret having to type this firm notice but I don't believe in repeating ourselves forever. Going forward, it is far easier for us to cut and paste this link/post as a reminder to others to BE respectful and courteous to us. Oscar and I are not running a charity service through ELI. We have plenty of free online resources but if that is not enough, be prepared to pay for services and financially support ELI.

Going forward, we trust you will respect our wishes and follow our policy in regards to asking for personal replies and personal support.