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In Mic's defense it is possible people are buying these drops for something other than recovery. As a refining forum its possible to lose sight of other uses for the material. Checking the purchase history of a couple of his buyers shows they are buying up a lot of this material at these super high prices. That's not a hobby you are going to persue for months before realizing you are losing your shorts. Its possible its getting made into jewelry or some other item with an intrinsic value (one of his buyers has some jewelry making oriented purchases as well as the drops)
 
Consider the reverse. I have on several occasions purchased items on e-bay that I knew were underpriced and made a profit relisting. Is that immoral? Should I have advised the seller of the situation. What about people gathering computers for free? I recall several years ago someone made a huge profit selling pet rocks.
 
darshevo said:
In Mic's defense it is possible people are buying these drops for something other than recovery. As a refining forum its possible to lose sight of other uses for the material. Checking the purchase history of a couple of his buyers shows they are buying up a lot of this material at these super high prices. That's not a hobby you are going to persue for months before realizing you are losing your shorts. Its possible its getting made into jewelry or some other item with an intrinsic value (one of his buyers has some jewelry making oriented purchases as well as the drops)
Click to expand...

I thought this may be the case also. But then again if you're equipped to use these "gold drops" to create things like jewelry I would have to assume you are also equipped to get your own material and melt it into workable medium. As far as going months before realizing what you have... you'd be surprised. When I first started getting into refining my cousin once asked me if 18k was a real thing :shock: She had a ring that was stamped 18k but wasn’t sure if it was "real" because it was really shiny(double :shock: ) I could see someone buying up this material thinking they are stocking up and investing for upcoming hard times. When it comes to gold some people truly have no clue.
 
Three things.
1. This issue is wrong from every honest, moral and ethical standpoint.
2. Having to explain why it is wrong, is even worse.
4.Veiled attempts to justify it as "right" is worst.

On the flip side, this thread is important in the sense that it gives a clear indication of the business ethics and morals of the individual posters. With respect to those that I have conducted business with or may conduct business with in the future, rest assured that the conents of threads like this one will be definitely considered.
If one must go to great lengths to discuss and justify whether something is ethically or morally correct, believe me, it isnt. And I believe that those who would look for loopholes and ambiguity to justify the morality of such issue, really need to take a step back and consider what member Harold said.

Dont get me started with the " I have some low grade circuit boards, but if I shred them and mix with other shredded high grade boards, i can sell it to some trusting unsuspecting individual".....or the placing of high grade circuit boards on the top of boxes of low grade boards for the next unsuspecting sucker, or I have some regular pentium CPUs that I need to crush before I sell them ,or I have some pins to sell but I better melt them into a shiny bar and call them military grade..........I have seen many.
Dr Z
 
AlZabrisky,

With all due respect, how can you possibly declare what is moral and immoral? In Harold's post he prefaces his reply with the fact that it's his opinion. And at the most fundamental level morals are just that. Opinions. Opinions that differ from individual to individual. As Harold said "It's a moral call". But who is the authority on morals? The individual.

Obviously the question at hand is whether it’s moral to facilitate the purchase of something for $100 that’s really only worth $10. Some would say no. But now look at it this way. Some may say that it's morally wrong to NOT force someone to learn the hard way. If you simply tell them something is not worth the asking price they won't go do the research on why it's not. They will later on go and buy something for $1000 that is only worth $100 all because they didn't learn their lesson on the $10 object. Do you see why it's quite useless to debate about the morality on subjects of this nature? Or any subject for that matter.
 
Merriam Webster
Fleecing:
the exaction of a grossly excessive charge for goods or services.

Synonyms: fleecing, gouging, highway robbery, overcharging
Related Words: cheating, chiseling (or chiselling), defrauding, skinning, swindling.

Wordweb:
Fleecing: Rip off; ask an unreasonable price.
Synonyms: Hooking, overcharging, robbing ...
Types of: Extorting, squeezing, gouging.

Thanks for the respected response.
Questions for ourselves.
Would I sell such a product at the knowingly inflated asking price as listed on ebay?.
Would I buy such an item with the vague unsubstantiated description at the inflated asking price?.
My posts are not limited to the matter under discussion, but all similar situations on or off ebay.

Dr Z.
 
I have to side with Mic on this. As long as he makes no false statements, what has he done wrong? They are what they are described as, melted and cast gold plated pins. He's starting to produce some good-looking bars and making those takes some labor, thought, and effort. At least they have some gold in them, unlike those overpriced copper ingots made from bus bar or so-called "gold flake." The dollar value of anything is only what you can sell it for.

Were it me, though, I would get rid of the final part of the ad. I wouldn't even mention refining or assaying, since an assay would probably cost more than the gold value and refining it would probably be unprofitable. I would treat it as simply an object (a bar) made from melted pins.

As far as judging him is concerned, here's an old saying that seems appropriate.

"Why do you keep watching the tiny speck in your brother's eye while you pay no attention to the log that is in yours?"
 
I think it all comes down to how you want to live your life.

For me, I prefer to try and live my life as a just man. If anyone has read Plato, and his idea of the "forms" and of a "just" man you will understand what I am saying. Morality, Justice, etc are all ideals that exist outside human experience in their perfect form. Plato called these forms, but we can call them ideas, it makes it easier to understand. So these ideas exist outside our experience in their perfect form. Because we are not perfect, we can only ever strive to attain these ideals.

However, I would beg to differ on the point that it's all opinion. Because these things are ideals that exist outside of our own experience, they are not up for debate. They exist as concepts that should be pursued according to Plato. What makes a Man a just man is not how just his actions may or may not be, but his desire to strive towards that perfect form of justice. But the perfect idea of being just, or being moral, exists regardless if we believe in it or not, follow it or not. We can only discover what it means to be just, but we cannot argue what is just or not.

Our problem as human beings is that we are constantly trying to justify (make just) actions that we know are not justifiable. We make excuses for doing things we know are not right. We will even spend time justifying other peoples actions because we identify with what they have done, and would do it ourselves.

I really don't see this as a debate about what is right or wrong, We all know what is right or wrong. I see this more as a discussion about justifying or not justifying bad behavior.

Scott
 
Ohhhhh my. I guess my comment was very judgemental and for that I apologise. It was a kneejerk reaction to something that really caught me by surprise.

Mic is what i consider a long distance phone friend. We have spent many hours talking about life, cars, gold, news, money, business, family and so on. Many hours. Mic is a good guy with a good heart who has had more than his fair share of hard knocks. He helped me out in the early stages of refining with advice and knowledge. He even did testing for me early on so I would know what was worthwhile and what to pass on. I do miss his contribution to the forum.

I was very much an avid fan of his posts here, always looking to see what "Mic had to say today". If you want some insight into this, look up some of his old posts from last year. To me he was as much a champion to the underdog as Harold is the champion to proper decorum and accuracy.

To be blunt, Mic would tackle you like a bulldog if he thought you were unjust or unfair. He would also jump right in with an explanation and apology if he was wrong. You could always count on Mic to bring the fireworks.

I have read and re read the opinions posted on this thread and I see that people whom I respect and admire have come down on both sides of the issue. Surprised? A little I guess. Better informed via new opinion? Definitely. If asked " could I do that"? i would have to say no...... not right now. Under different circumstances I could not rule it out in the future. They would have to be pretty difficult circumstances tho. I guess it could happen.

So Johnny, I do owe you an apology and I sincerely offer one. I hope all is well with you and the family, and that things look up for you. I should not have labeled it as fraud and for that I am sorry.

The bar does look pretty nice. mike
 
goldenchild said:
SBrown said:
...We all know what is right or wrong.
Click to expand...

Scott,

What do you mean by this?
Click to expand...

It means, regardless of how we might try to justify what it is we want to do, we know what is right to do. Anytime you take advantage of another person, we know, as thinking, mature adults, strictly speaking, it is wrong. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen, it doesn't mean it cannot be justified, but I think we all understand that it is, strictly speaking, fundamentally wrong.

If you were to say that you have a family, and you were going to loose your home, or you had no food to eat, and you fleeced someone knowingly so that you could make money, a person might then claim it wasn't wrong because they were supporting their family. Strictly speaking however, it is wrong, period. There is no gray area. The question revolves around the conditions that caused you to do something fundamentally wrong. It is wrong to kill someone, we all know this. But if someone breaks into my house with a gun I am going to shoot them dead. It's the conditions that make it a morality issue. Under certain conditions you can be justified doing the wrong thing.

Now then, the question that cannot be answered in this thread because the person who it is about is no longer here, is what conditions existed to justify his actions. I might not think he was justified but the next person might believe he was. That is what morality is.

Morally this post is ambiguous at best, however, so far as right or wrong is concerned, strictly speaking, it's wrong to fleece people. With that being said, he very well could have done the right thing considering his situation, whatever that might have been.

I know it seems like i am going around and around in circles, I am finding explaining what I am trying to explain difficult. I am not saying what Mic or anyone else has done is morally wrong, I am saying, strictly speaking, that it is wrong.

Scott

EDITED: I'm a real person and not nearly as uptight as I might sound, I'm really not uptight at all, I have done things in my past that were strictly speaking, wrong, because I felt I was justified in doing so.
 
SBrown said:
EDITED: I'm a real person and not nearly as uptight as I might sound, I'm really not uptight at all, I have done things in my past that were strictly speaking, wrong, because I felt I was justified in doing so.
Click to expand...

Like beer kegs :p

I think what is missing out of this discussion is whats is the forums stance. I feel that this is wrong and if you do this than than that makes you wrong. Mic could sell pins not melted and be in the right ,but when you melt them say there is gold here and use a yellow light to make the bar more "Golden". This is wrong. This is the same as using the "list" in an ebay auction when you know its misleading and wrong.

Mic made reference that he got scammed this year and that sucks, but that doesn't make it right. Karrma.

Eric
 
etack said:
SBrown said:
EDITED: I'm a real person and not nearly as uptight as I might sound, I'm really not uptight at all, I have done things in my past that were strictly speaking, wrong, because I felt I was justified in doing so.
Click to expand...

Like beer kegs :p

I think what is missing out of this discussion is whats is the forums stance. I feel that this is wrong and if you do this than than that makes you wrong. Mic could sell pins not melted and be in the right ,but when you melt them say there is gold here and use a yellow light to make the bar more "Golden". This is wrong. This is the same as using the "list" in an ebay auction when you know its misleading and wrong.

Mic made reference that he got scammed this year and that sucks, but that doesn't make it right. Karrma.

Eric
Click to expand...

Yes, including beer kegs, although I think that was vastly different than what we are talking about here. In any case, I didn't have to justify anything I did, and ended up with two, legally. That's not to say that I didn't need them for what I was doing, and wouldn't have found a way to obtain them if I couldn't have the way I did.

Scott
 
your all very funny preaching for the good of human while you could be building house for the poor ,feeding the children or going in street to give awareness about the rising child protitution in country touched by those last very bad weather case.
 
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