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Promo by FedEx!

Gus

Patron with Honors
What your donations buy...

Last week, I got an overnight FedEx delivery. I wasn't expecting anything and I wondered what it was.

Well, it was a friggin' full-on glossy heavy paper pitch to buy the ACC lectures! I guess this was the big, world-saving news at the New Year event.

This was FedEx overnight! Even with bulk rates, that had to cost close to ten bucks! Plus of course the glossy waste of paper therein.

Has anyone else been sent this promo by FedEx?

I thought that was bad, but then what should arrive today, but another FedEx envelope. This one had a sticker on the outside that blared, "Find out why the New York Times is talking about THE BIGGEST LRH RELEASE IN HISTORY (their caps). I wondered why the sticker didn't ask me to find out what the Saint Petersburg Times was saying...

Well, I guess they decided to cut back a bit, because this one was FedEx Ground. Another set of the same glossy promo.

So, I thought I'd dig in and have a look... the special buy-it-now for all 1,020 lectures in 30 subjects (!), full price being $11,550.00, but if you purchase them today, is the low low price of $7,500.00.

Oh, but of course this is less than it cost to purchase them the year they were delivered (the promo so helpfully informed me) - it was $25 per lecture in 1954, so the package would have cost $25,000.00 in today's dollars!!!!

But thanks to that little midget fuck, they only want $7,500. For a limited time, of course. Christ, I feel for the people who are still in right now. They are probably still paying off the $3K they borrowed to get the basics package last year.

As a bit of "freakanomics" I looked up the price of The Beatles Stereo Box Set and did a quick and dirty comparo... From what I see here the $7,500.00 (for a limited time only) ACC comes in 25 "sets" of CDs. Each set appears to have about 15 lectures, presumably one per CD since The Fatman usually rambled for an hour or so at a time, so about 15 CDs or so plus the transcript booklet.

The Beatles set comes in one "set" of CDs, and contains 14 CDs plus a DVD and a nice photo book.

So, 25 Beatles Box Sets, at $175.49 each (Amazon) comes to $4,387.25, significantly less than $7,500.00 and a shitload less than the "full price" of $11,550.00. I'm thinking there might be more spiritual gain in that one box of Beatles CDs...

Back to the New York Times - enclosed with the usual tacky gold-lamé-themed promo crap is a copy of an AP story entitled, "Restoration of Lost Scientology Materials Complete." It reads like a press release from DM, with a few very minor bits added about the "price of $7,500.00 being likely to raise a few eyebrows..." designed to appear like "balanced reporting."

I might scan this for the Board's enjoyment if I get any time in the next few days, if someone else doesn't scan it first.

Imagine the amends projects with this one! Now, instead of shelling out $3K to donate a Basics package, you're out $7,500 to donate an ACC package. Don't fuck up your sec checks!

And imagine the pressure to BUY NOW or cough up $4,000 more if you wait. I can hear the regs now: "You know, the interest on that credit card will be less than the $4K it'll cost you to wait..." Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that, that'll give the OSA lurkers good ideas to pass on to the registrars.

I didn't look to see exactly who sent the FedEx overnight package, and I've chucked it already, but the FedEx Ground package was sent by ASHO. Contacts are Jon De Vries or Nancy Vaughan.

Damn, I'm glad I don't have to run the Reg Gauntlet anymore...

Gus.
 

Gus

Patron with Honors
Looking at this a bit more - this is an awful lot of significance. There's nothing in the promo about applying it. And the ACCs were all about auditing. Shouldn't these be co-audited or something? What's the purpose of buying them? Yes, there's all the nuts and bolts, but shouldn't one who studies these be auditing people?

Does COS care about auditing anymore?

Gus
 

Tim Skog

Silver Meritorious Patron
Who knows, maybe the push to buy these tapes will drive more people out of the cult. :coolwink:
 

Outethicsofficer

Silver Meritorious Patron
That's right

Looking at this a bit more - this is an awful lot of significance. There's nothing in the promo about applying it. And the ACCs were all about auditing. Shouldn't these be co-audited or something? What's the purpose of buying them? Yes, there's all the nuts and bolts, but shouldn't one who studies these be auditing people?

Does COS care about auditing anymore?

Gus

Gus
You're right on the $ they don't give a flying f**k.

No more than a year ago I would've lined up with all the other poor sods ponied up some hard earned bucks and got myself a bunch of other shit for the book shelf, not this year, I bought a motorbike with some of the money we got back from the church, each time I get on it and ride I think to myself "great set of lectures I'm ridding' then I turn up the throttle....

I suggest this is good use for such funds.

James
 

Once bitten

Patron Meritorious
Gus
You're right on the $ they don't give a flying f**k.

No more than a year ago I would've lined up with all the other poor sods ponied up some hard earned bucks and got myself a bunch of other shit for the book shelf, not this year, I bought a motorbike with some of the money we got back from the church, each time I get on it and ride I think to myself "great set of lectures I'm ridding' then I turn up the throttle....

I suggest this is good use for such funds.

James

lol James

:lol:
 

Cherished

Silver Meritorious Patron
Gus, my hunch is that the report of what the NY Times has to say is minus one or two telling sentences. Such as those about how the ARIS survey says the number of US scientologists has plummeted from 55,000 to about 25,000. :p

Edit: And James, that's a wonderful use of you hard-earned money. Good for you.
 

Zhent

Leakus Maximus
I bought a motorbike with some of the money we got back from the church, each time I get on it and ride I think to myself "great set of lectures I'm ridding' then I turn up the throttle....
:D :thumbsup:


Oh and I would be interested to see a scan of the NYT piece, be interesting to see just what edits they made to remove entheta from it.
 

Gus

Patron with Honors
Here are the paragraphs from the AP story that are missing from the enclosure that came with the promo package:

Though sure to be derided by the church's many critics, its followers say the materials amount to an opportunity to deepen understanding of the religion and to release the last known unpublished Hubbard works dealing with Scientology and Dianetics.

(in the above paragraph, the first clause {"Though sure to be derided..."} is omitted in the promo copy, and the sentence begins with "Its followers..." There is nothing in the promo copy to indicate the omission.)

----


''Scientologists are literalists, fundamentalists in the sense that they take Hubbard's writings as literally true,'' said David Bromley, a professor of religion and sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University who has written extensively about Scientology.

----

It has enjoyed worldwide growth and exposure unlike any other new religious movement, but has also been routinely called a cult in which members are scammed and abused. The church claims millions of followers in the U.S. and millions more internationally, though one respected count, the American Religion Identification Survey, reported the estimated number of Americans who identify as Scientologists plummeted from 55,000 in 2001 to 25,000 in 2008. Davis says the survey's number is impossibly low.

----

Gus.
 

skydog

Patron Meritorious
Gus;360438 The church claims millions of followers in the U.S. and millions more internationally said:
Well if Tommy Davis says the survey is wrong, who are we to argue?
 

HappyGirl

Gold Meritorious Patron
What your donations buy...

Last week, I got an overnight FedEx delivery. I wasn't expecting anything and I wondered what it was.

Well, it was a friggin' full-on glossy heavy paper pitch to buy the ACC lectures! I guess this was the big, world-saving news at the New Year event.

Yeah, I posted this on another thread:

You can view the New Year's release at:
http://www.lrh-books.com/advanced

I can't believe they are FedExing this crap to SPs!!! What a waste of money. :duh:
 
It's even crazier when you realize that a CD costs them 2 cents to make.

A plastic binder is like $3. Printed matter $1.

That full set of lectures could not have costs more than $100 to make.

BFG
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
It's even crazier when you realize that a CD costs them 2 cents to make.

A plastic binder is like $3. Printed matter $1.

That full set of lectures could not have costs more than $100 to make.

BFG

Well, yeah, but they have to cover the cost of FedExing promo to the entire T&P list too, per HCO PL 10 Jan 2010 FEDEXES ARE DISSEMINATION.

Paul
 

wiseman_of_the_watchtower

Patron with Honors
When I was at ILO, I heard from people in bureau 2 that there is a huge discount from Fedex. Apparently some senior management from Fedex went to a CC INT briefing called "this is scientology" (live).

The Fedex people were so 'blown away' that they gave ILO a 60% discount on all shipments from that building!

So Fedex basically doesn't make any money from them at all.

And that is how they can afford to Fedex on a large scale.

-Wiseman of the Watchtower
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
When I was at ILO, I heard from people in bureau 2 that there is a huge discount from Fedex. Apparently some senior management from Fedex went to a CC INT briefing called "this is scientology" (live).

The Fedex people were so 'blown away' that they gave ILO a 60% discount on all shipments from that building!

Even supposing that is true, no way could that be viable. A 60% discount on a $10 charge means it costs $4, as opposed to maybe 20 or 50 cents by mail. A contract or time-sensitive document — sure. But a promo piece to a cold customer. . . .

"Bulk mail FedEx" when the org can't afford toilet paper is insane.

Paul
 

Spirited

Patron with Honors
It's even crazier when you realize that a CD costs them 2 cents to make.

A plastic binder is like $3. Printed matter $1.

That full set of lectures could not have costs more than $100 to make.

BFG
Phew!! It puts things onto perspective doesnt it!!

Fedexing promo pieces, what next?? ridiculous waste of cash!! just think, how much real help they could give to Haiti with that money if they really wanted to help people.
 

Gus

Patron with Honors
Phew!! It puts things onto perspective doesnt it!!

Fedexing promo pieces, what next?? ridiculous waste of cash!! just think, how much real help they could give to Haiti with that money if they really wanted to help people.

Yeah, I opened the overnight package and basically junk mail spilled out. I about plotzed. (oooh, I got to use one of my favourite Yiddish words!)

Gus
 

Truth&Honesty

Patron with Honors
Fed-Ex pissed at Scamology - considers them "deadbeats"

***

This is some additional info I found on the net regarding Fed-Ex and Scamology's relationship. It was posted a few years ago, but is very revealing. It is also talking about the movie "The Profit" showing in Clearwater at that time. Here is the website:

www.holysmoke.org/cos/the-profit-in-cw-deadbeat-cult.htm

Excerpt:


"One such story was from a lady who works for Fed Ex and who, for years, delivered Fed Ex packages to downtown CW. She told us an interesting fact:

Because Scn owes SO much money to Fed Ex (translation: they're not paying their bills) that for quite some time now, Scn has been required to pay cash for all deliveries. Yes, SCN, according to the Fed Ex lady, is a dead beat!

GO FIGURE! Evidently the sum they owe is pretty substantial and nobody likes to do the deliveries there because it's such a hassle to do each package one by one for cash.

Other folks we're seeing multiple times are employees of Scn owned companies. They have SO many stories about their bosses and the shenanigans that go on in the workplace, but to protect their jobs, we will not disclose the names of the companies or their bosses. BUT, for the illegal activities they're observing, we're directing them ALL to the proper authorities.

Another gentleman told us that a lady friend of his, used to work for the IRS as the secretary to Fred Goldberg. Yes, she was on staff and at her desk the day that DM blew past her to Mr. Goldberg's office. She was astounded that someone could enter that office without an appointment, as it had never been done before during her employment. There are a lot of other elements to this story, but once again, we cannot reveal them in a public forum......for obvious reasons.

We continue to have at least one Scn per show who takes a head count and never stays throughout the film. They usually leave when the audience starts laughing and snickering.According to our surveys and to the folks we are lucky enough to meet after each show, THE PROFIT is having quite an impact on the CW residents who have felt that the cult in their town would never get exposed. They thank us profusely for doing this film and we hear more often than not their words to us as they leave: "God Bless you".


Lovin life, :happydance::happydance::happydance:

T&H
 

Zinjifar

Silver Meritorious Sponsor
"Bulk mail FedEx" when the org can't afford toilet paper is insane.

Paul

You seem to think it's about the delivery, and not the sending stat.

They could toss them in a dempsty dumster if they were allowed to take a stat for it.

The old USSR used to use the same system.

Zinj
 
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