Jon Reed

The first of these emails appears at the bottom of the page.

Jon Reed:

Maybe it is true that you talked with David Caputo and discussed with him that he shouldn’t trash me to other people. If you talked with David Caputo about not talking trash about me years ago you never told me about it, and even if you did, it is completely irrelevant to me. David Caputo has so little credibility that I don’t care what he says about anything.

I know that in your little world of Western Massachusetts, what people say about each other is more important than any other thing. I know that there are so few resources in Western Massachusetts that you never want to alienate anyone because in the future you may need them to do business with, no matter how bad they have been to you. Living in Western Massachusetts, a place that is so starved for work, is a horrible way to subsist.

In my world, if everyone in Western Massachusetts thought badly of me and never did business with me again, it wouldn’t make any difference in my life. I will make do just fine with doing business with the few million people in the city that I moved to, not struggling in a town of a meager thirty thousand. I just want my $16,000 back from David Caputo so that another web developer can render the services that I paid David Caputo for.

I believe you when you say that you have never paid or been paid by David Caputo directly. However, I think that you know that David Caputo is a hustler and someone not to work with, because you told me that you would not have recommended that he build my web site for me. For many of us, including some Hidden Tech board members, it took being badly burned by David Caputo to learn that lesson.

But Jon, you ARE doing business with David Caputo. By allowing David Caputo to continue to use Hidden Tech to promote himself, when you know that he is disreputable, you are endorsing his services more than any direct transaction could.

I got hooked by David Caputo because I believed that a member of Hidden Tech would be vetted by the group as reputable. I was horribly upset when I found that Hidden Tech not only doesn’t endorse the services of its members, but has no dispute procedure between members, and has no mechanism to remove members, even if they fail to provide the services they claim to. I was even more upset when I learned that members of Hidden Tech knew that David Caputo was a conman, and still kept him in the group.

I understand that you are not asking me to take down my web site reporting on the activities of David Caputo, but I am asking you to remove David Caputo from the Hidden Tech emailing list. The community service that I am providing is to prevent David Caputo from ripping off other people the way he ripped me off, and the best way that we can do that is to limit his access to customers.

If you saw that someone was about to get in an accident, wouldn’t you do something to prevent that from happening? When I am informed that David Caputo is promoting his low quality wares on Hidden Tech, I feel that it is my responsibility to prevent others from being hurt as I was. If David Caputo can email to these Hidden Tech members about what he claims to do, aren’t I providing a more valuable service by telling them what he actually does?

I know that Rich Roth screens all of the Hidden Tech email posts. When I posted the link to http://AmherstParkingTrap.com he contacted me and gave me a warning. He wrote to me that people who live in Amherst felt bad about what I had posted, despite the fact that what I wrote was only a reiteration of a statement made by former Amherst Town Manager Larry Shaffer. What I now understand is that making people feel bad in Western Massachusetts is a worse crime then ripping them off for money.

Jon, in my world, substance comes before impression. You can stop defending my honor. This is not a matter of a verbal dispute having to do with trash talking. David Caputo defrauded me of $16,000 and and I want my money back. I will stop contacting members of Hidden Tech when David Caputo is off the list. Your call.

Thank you for going on the record with your position. And thank you for your encouragement in my pursuit of getting my money back from David Caputo.

Phil

*****************************************************************************

From: Jon Reed <jonreed@earthlink.net>

Cc:
Date: Friday, June 03, 2011 11:33 pm
Subject: for the record

Just for the record, I called David Caputo after I called you when
you and first discussed this years ago. I had a strongly worded
conversation with him. That’s ok if you don’t remember but I do and
so does David.

David gave me his word he would no longer trash you.

Recently we David brought this up with me I re-iterated to him that
he should not trash you in public and he agreed and said he was not doing so.

You can believe whatever you want.

Unlike you, I have never been paid by David Caputo or paid David
Caputo for anything. I have no dealings with David, commercial or
otherwise, and in fact we have never done a Hidden Tech event that
included David as a featured participant, sponsor, etc, check the
records for yourself.

Nor did I ask you to take your web site down or stop whatever
campaign you have against David Caputo in my most recent email. What
I asked you to do was to stop trashing him in the context of Hidden
Tech by emailing Hidden Tech members. I continue to request that. I
will enforce the same with David to the degree that I can.

I honestly wish you luck in your pursuits.

Jon