cw0909, where did you get the quote, which included the sentence:
"....who have years of experience and the best equipment ...."
Here's the scoop: This guy's directory thing, on the surface, is not a bad idea. Ie.: a roster of will-call hunters who, for a fee, go out to look for lost rings and such. There is a charge to be on his national listing database (not too expensive, but I can't recall the exact cost). The cost gets you a web-page for interested parties (those who respond to your craigslist lost-&-found prompts) to click, to read the speel. Nothing wrong with that so far, because of course, there are domain name costs, hosting costs to create and maintain a website which has those subpages of members to have their own individual links, etc... This is standard, you would expect from anyone who goes through the trouble of creating such a franchise network. The person who's hired the ring-finder franchisee pays a certain amount to the hunter for the call-out. And then can add a tip if the hunt is succesful. That's the way I think the system works. No problem still, as there's nothing wrong with charging for a service, right?
But the problem is, the quote:
" .... who have years of experience and the best equipment ...."
You see, there is simply no way the creator of this website, franchise thingie, to actually know that persons who pay in to subscribe and get this title, are .... in fact .... "experienced". Essentially anyone who pays this guy the fee, is .... PRESTO, a member. No criteria for his experience level, type of machine used, etc...
And if you think of it, there's really not much the creator can do, to police this anyways. I mean, what is he supposed to do, fly around the country and meet and test individual persons all over? Of course not. It's an "honor system" of anyone who claims to him, to be skilled, etc.... Herein lies the problem: Any yahoo, who picks up a machine from harbor freight, practices in a few sandboxes, and then thinks he's "skilled".
We're having this problem in my locale. A fellow near here, runs his ad every week or two (to keep bringing it back to the top of craiglist), advertising his services. When you click on it, it brings you to this ring-finder site, which is very well presented. The viewer would have no reason to think, he or she isn't about to hire the services of an "experienced professional" (especially seeing how professional the website is, etc... it's an easy conclusion to come to). However, this particular guy, is apparently a rogue beginner. He might have the best intentions, he might be having a lot of fun, and heck, he might have even had a few successes so far. But if you watch this guy for a little, and you are an experienced hunter, you immediately recognize all the beginner signs: Swinging the coil a foot off the ground. Rushing over to show the customer every single pulltab he finds. And (my favorite) a coffee can with holes drilled in it for a sandscoop
He's dressed like a homeless guy. And his machine for the beach was not a wet-sand beach machine. A friend of mine, observing this local fellow, and his customer, while detecting. From a distance, he saw the unsuccessful hunt end, and saw the lady hand the guy the cash. My friend however, went right behind this guy (my friend has over 20 yrs. beach experience), and found the ring for the lady. He handed it to her, no charge.
Now you might think "why do you guys care if this goes on? you can merely answer lost & found ads yourself, and go do it for free if you like?". But the problem is, people are seeing this "service" ad, calling him, and not putting their lost ads on craigslists, to begin with. After an un-successful call-out, they might assume "why bother letting another md'r try, since I already had a professional try and it wasn't there". Because of course, the average public doesn't know a good user, from an un-skilled one.
So I contacted the owner of this ring-finder service, and ..... I didn't wanna cause trouble or anything, because I'm sure this beginner is sincere. Yet it's causing all hobbyists to look like geeks, if they think this guy portrays the face of detecting. I asked the owner of franchise "how do you monitor your franchisees, to make sure they're "experienced" as your site says they are?". His answer was, that there is no way he can police or monitor for that. He merely has to go by the say-so of whomever he allows to be on his list. And therein lies the problem. No accountability. Just immediate "professionality", simply because you're on a glitzy list.
I sympathize with the owner of the franchise list, because the concept is a good one. I just wish he could weed out cases like this. I don't see how he could do it, but .... certainly there must be some way to do it. Either that, or remove the blanket statement that "you will be hiring a professional with the best equipment", unless that part is a known truth, for each payee.
