FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Buy Presidential Dollar Coins with CC @ Face Value, Free Shipping
Old Jun 30, 2011, 9:06 am
  #15422  
Marathon Man
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: BOS, MHT
Programs: AA ltg, B6, DL, UA, AS, SPG/Marriott Plt, HH, Hyatt
Posts: 10,052
the coin story? oh gawddddddddd!

Well people, I'd say order up now and order big cuz this gig is gonna die!!

NPR is doing a follow up on coins and they had contacted me to try to inclulde me on a story about what we do here at FT.

I invite you to read this email correspondence below (in reverse history) and then my further notes on today's call with the reporter asking her to kindly refrain from doing what she is about to do:

RE: presidential dollar coin

FROM:
Caitlin Kenney

TO:
[ME]


Thursday, June 30, 2011 9:56 AM


[ME],

We are doing a story on what you call the “coins gig.” If you want to be a part of it, we would be happy to talk to you.

- Caitlin

* | Caitlin Kenney | Planet Money| [email protected] | 212-880-3439

From: [ME] [mailto:[MM's email]@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 8:20 PM
To: Caitlin Kenney
Cc: [ME]
Subject: Re: presidential dollar coin

Hi

While I appreciate your thinking of me I would respectively ask that you do NOT do a story on the coins gig. This will only over expose it and possibly ruin it. Hard to understand that but basically the idea is that most of us will share with anyone who shows a vested interest in travel and deals and can contribute to same on the forums. But to broadcast it to the rest of the world is only going to bring unwelcomed pains to this gig.

Do not let anyone talk about it on the air. Let them find it and go from there. When WSJ published something on it a while back it changed the program. Now your show would do the same. It will be over in no time

Cheers!

MM

From: "mangotea22 @ FlyerTalk Forums" <[email protected]>
To: [MM's email]@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 12:49 PM
Subject: presidential dollar coin

This is a message from mangotea22 at FlyerTalk Forums ( http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/index.php ). The FlyerTalk Forums owners cannot accept any responsibility for the contents of the email.

To email mangotea22, you can use this online form:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/sendm...ember&u=404767

OR, by email:
mailto:[email protected]

This is the message:

Hello,

I work for NPR, and we are doing a story about presidential dollar coins. We are hoping to talk to someone who has bought coins and used them to earn frequent flyer miles or bonus points on their credit card.

From what you've written on the forum, it sounds like you would be a good person to talk to. Would you be willing to do a short phone interview with us?

Please feel free to email me directly [email protected].

Thanks,
Caitlin


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

Ms. Caitlin sounded nice, giddy and friendly at the beginning of the phone call I just had with her, but I could hear her tone change increasingly as we went on. She was more adamant and determined to show me a thing or two or something like that when we ended. I said I can appreciate the news and its need to cover all angles of an interesting story but if she runs this one it is GOING to kill the deal. Why, I asked her, would you want to kill off a deal that serves so many people?

I do hope I am wrong about that and this is all still good to go (ordering, free shipping, miles/points on CCs, banks accepting boxes) long after this day goes by. But I somehow doubt it. In fact she may even get off on what she's knowingly doing here.

She responded saying that when it got published in the WSJ, the deal did not die. I said that after that time, the 10 day rule was invented so it did have a serious impact. Having said she's read this coin thread, she knew about other avenues we have taken to get where we are. I said that once things like GCs were utilized and discussed too openly, they too got off'd by the mint because, well, it got too public.

I tried to explain that the ways and means of a site such as FT are that (most) people who have interest in what we do come here to read and possibly share ideas...That the theory is that if my idea makes you get something you like, you would share an idea that gets me something I like and so on.

But by putting it out on the radio/media, we now invite people that have no input to offer, and may even cast a negative light on all of this claiming we are fraudsters or scammers, and of course the banks will really take notice now that they all know what's going on once they listen. (Why renew THIS kind of interest by running this and invite banks to take further notice?)

As well, people who offer nothing to this or any other FT thread and are just spoon fed data from all of the hard work we have put in to get things to happen will never share a thing and the deal will collapse due to this problem.

Firstly, many listeners who have NO concept of miles or what we do will immediately think of us as gaming a system or being illegal. because they are not part of FT, they will not understand it.

Next, people who do not wish to offer help and only to reap or possibly commit fraud will come in here and crowd it even further than it is now.

This deal will die because people wont know how to handle what they heard and may just jump in the deep end without knowing how to swim.

Well, she actually told me, "ah well you will find other deals!"

I said, "Well, that's like me saying I am going to go into your closet, steal all your dresses and just smile and tell you you still have one or two left so no big deal!"

There was a pause after that.

But she is a reporter, and she probably has to do what she has to do (I might add I have a family member who is one too and he has a bit more ethical reporting savvy than this chic!)

We ended the call with me saying something along the lines of, 'You will go and make YOUR money as a reporter while ruining the miles-gain that I and others receive from our Ft community and its ideas and I hope you feel good about that.'

She also had already confirmed that since I have no interest in being a part of her story, she cannot use anything I say in her piece.

Now, some could argue that anyone (like me) who has a lot of posts in here is part of the problem, but I do not think that's it at all here.

Firstly, in this case, NPR IS doing a story about the coin itself and so she told me this was just part of that bigger story and part of followup.

But also, in cases such as these, I think reporters are looking for the big game stories with strange twists--like, so what is the public DOING with these new coins to find a use for them?

Either way, it's a darn shame:
People like Caitlin didn't put in the time... The months, days and hours into toiling with credit cards, FRs, banks, deposit issues, missing or damaged boxes, gc issues, payment and credit report/score issues, driving around with coins in the trunk issues, UPS issues, long hold times with customer service, and more over the past several years. No, people like her just troll the site for things they can use to make a name for themselves. I always liked NPR but now they may find they have one less listener because of this.

People who HAVE talked to her--and she said there were a few--will gain a moment of NPR radio and internet fame, but they will also have just potentially shut the very thing they enjoy and the very thing that got them there.


thanks.
thanks a lot.

Seems Caitlin is right. I WILL have to find other gigs... and guess what: When I do, I aint tellin a soul!


MM
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