Archive for April, 2007
David Miscavige – World’s Youngest Billionaire – Time for Accounting
by Larry Brennan
If one follows many points that I and countless others have made on here and elsewhere, they can clearly see that David Miscavige (“DM”) runs complete control over the many and varied corporations, associations, trusts and other legal fictions of organized scientology.
This is despite many statements he has made to the contrary in courts and elsewhere.
To just list one of many different examples that has not already been used many times before, I could point out that “the church” has said things like the following in one of its submissions to the IRS on the subject of control and use of “church funds”:
“The ecclesiastical body within the hierarchical church’s Finance Network with primary responsibility for managing central reserves is the Reserves Committee. At present, each member of the Reserves Committee is a full-time staff member of CSI holding a high ecclesiastical position. The purpose of the Reserves Committee is to ensure that central reserves are kept safe, expended only for purposes of the religion, and are increased to
assure continued expansion of the church and broader defense and dissemination of the religion……..
The Reserves Committee itself consists of five CSI staff personnel — WDC Chairman, WDC Reserves, International Finance Director, SOR Chief, and Reserves Board Finance Officer.
The specific responsibilities and functions of each of these members; are:
1. WDC Chairman. WDC Chairman, CSI’s most senior ecclesiastical official, chairs the Watchdog Committee (”WDC”), which oversees the ecclesiastical management structure of the Church. WDC Chairman serves as the chief executive officer of WDC.
2. WDC Reserves. WDC Reserves is CSI’s highest ecclesiastical authority with respect to central reserves. WDC Reserves is the member of WDC who oversees the finance network and reserves system of the religion. WDC Reserves has the responsibility of keeping WDC informed as to all financial matters of the Church.
3. International Finance Director. ……
4. Sea Org Reserves Chief. The Sea Org Reserves Chief (”SOR Chief”) …….
5. Reserves Flag Banking Officer……..
Ideally, proposals for expenditures from central reserves will be prepared long before the expenditure is necessary so they can be incorporated into the Finance Network’s annual budget projections for large, known expenses and into proposed projects for the upcoming year. These long-term budget projections are used to establish a stable base against which more detailed budgets are developed for each month and week of the ensuing year, as well as for coordinating with management on planning and execution. However, since the need for funding from central reserves can arise at any time during the year, organizations often submit their proposals for reserves expenditures when the need arises. Regardless of when submitted, all proposals are processed by the Reserves Committee under the same procedure, as outlined above.
The Reserves Committee does not have unfettered control over reserves accounts, however, if a proposal involves any large, unusual expenditure for a particular church or trust, it must be approved by the Board of Directors or Trustees of the church or trust concerned, but only after ecclesiastical approval by management and financial approval by WDC and the Reserves Committee”. (emphasis added by myself)
OK, there are a lot of things interesting about just this relatively small quote with respect to control of the funds. For example if you know any of it to be false (local Board of Directors and Trustees having to approve these expenditures, which is ludicrous in scientology as the locals have no control of this, etc.) , you could supply that information as part of the Factnet questionnaire mentioned below.
It’s kind of “cute” how they use such terms as “ecclesiastical body”, “ecclesiastical management structure” and “hierarchical church” in submissions when they want the religious cloaking and protection afforded by US law but will in a heartbeat claim no central control and hide behind corporate veils when matters of potential legal liability surface. When they do this, they leave a trail of provable lies.
But I point this out to show another angle of how they lie about DM’s control of the funds. They “point out” to the IRS that there are these five staff members within CSI on the “Reserves Committee” apparently some how controlling the usage of these millions of dollars. But they neglect to point out things like the fact that DM has busted, beaten, sent to hard labor and/or otherwise abused most if not all of those folks and ran many of their duties himself. Interesting omission!
What DM has is the ultimate control of “the church’s” many millions, if not now billions of dollars scattered throughout the world.
Many of us know how he brutally seized control of first all “the church” entities and their accounts and then did the same with Hubbard’s fortune after Hubbard died.
Countless people have been beaten, financially destroyed and/or otherwise horribly abused as part of this takeover.
And countless lies have been made in courts, to the IRS, other government bodies and the like to cover this all up.
Much of this has been covered many times in many posts so I will not be elaborating on this area specifically as part of this post.
But, as I often do these days, I do want to refer all concerned again to the ongoing investigation into crimes and abuses as covered in the attached link. And I highly recommend anyone who has information, and who is comfortable with doing this, to share the information as per that post.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.r…20e202cc0cdcff
That said, what I would like to focus on in this post is financial accountability and something that might be called “socially conscious investing” for all that money controlled by DM.
What of the monies might have gone to DM’s personal use and/or to his friends is another matter. That is covered in the above link about the Factnet questionnaire.
What I am talking about now is how are those funds really invested and is that done in a socially conscious way as you might expect a church to invest.
Other churches of which I am aware have oversight committees or other people or bodies who oversee their investments to try to ensure they are as wise as possible and that they are socially conscious investments that are consistent with the stated aims and purposes of the church.
For example most churches would thus not want to invest in activities they would consider harmful or contrary to the public good such as currency speculation that might lead to the collapse of local economies or forms of short selling that depend on destroying companies and lost jobs so that you might gain a high financial return.
Even Hubbard spoke out against such types of manipulation he considered was taken by the likes of many he considered to be his enemies such as “the world bank” in their “unscrupulous” actions of money speculation and such.
So is DM engaging in such socially beneficial investments on behalf of his “church” as he would like the world to believe? Are their investment activities compatible with the glowing PR they send out all over the world about how wonderful they are?
In what have they really been investing, besides real property, in the past 25 years under DM?
Well, the public does not know and there are ZERO oversight committees or persons checking on or having any real say in what DM does with the money of his “church”.
That in and of itself should be a red flag. Especially as I am understanding information now coming in from those once connected such as DM demanding some 25% return on investments and, to get same, some highly speculative, high risk and non socially conscious investing being done.
This investigation is in an early stage but red flags are flying here and I would highly recommend that anyone newly out with information of a public interest on this matter share it as part of the Factnet inquiry.
How very odd that so very many millions invested by what promotes itself as a “church”, yet is solely controlled by one man, who has made much personal financial gain from same and who has a reputation of lies, abuse and the like has no real oversight whatsoever.
IMHO
Larry
Scientology false advertising regarding refunds. Time for Class Action
by Larry Brennan, a former high-ranking Scientologist.
IMHO it is time for a class action suit against David Miscavige and organized scientology for, amongst other things, false advertising and fraud relating to what they say and do with respect to refunds and repayments to dissatisfied customers.
First of all, here are a few broad facts:
1) scientology promotes that it will refund payments to dissatisfied customers. It has even made that clear in its filings with the IRS as part of getting its “non profit”, tax exempt recognitions from the IRS;
2) it professes to be a religion with religious scriptures and yet, unlike other religions, demands ten of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars from its “parishioners” in order to share many of those “scriptures” with them. And it uses very hard sell, abusive and some times even illegal tactics to get many of those parishioners to pay such monies. They couch those payments in deceptive terms such as “fixed donations” when they are in fact mandatory payments for their services;
3) countless people are in fact dissatisfied with those services and want their money back. Yet the vast majority do not get their money back while organized scientology holds countless millions of dollars of these payments, accruing interest daily.
So how can it be that an organization that widely promotes that it will return monies to dissatisfied public has so many dissatisfied public who want their money back and yet do not in fact get it back?
IMHO it is because “the church” is guilty of blatant false advertising and fraud in their promotion to public and in their statements to governments on the subject of the return of monies to dissatisfied public.
“The church” has adopted a policy that monies will be returned only in two cases:
I) if the money was “on account” and not actually “used for services”; and/or
II) if the request for repayment was made within three months of “the service” being delivered.
Furthermore, it lays out something which on the surface sounds “fair enough”. It says that it has a “Claims Verification Board” that exists simply to “verify” that the monies were paid prior to returning them to the “parishioner”.
Oh but what a tangled web of deceit, lies and fraud is woven behind these seemingly innocent “policies”.
The facts are that “the church” is completely focused on money and has no real intention of returning same to anyone. They have in fact worked out many ways to prevent others from getting their money back that they do not mention in their promotions to either individuals or governments about this subject.
First of all, most people usually have the take the services to find out they were dissatisfied or in fact the services themselves were of a fraudulent nature and did not in and of themselves produce the results promised in “church” literature.
This means that perhaps the vast majority of potential claims for the return of monies paid are not in fact money any longer on account but rather are in the category made by “the church” of having to be claimed within three months of taking the service.
It is here where the most insidious and hidden fraud lies. “The church” has it rigged so that most people can never in fact claim a return of monies within three months of taking the services.
Just a few things that support this are:
1) I believe that just about anyone who made such payments did so because they believed “the church” would deliver the result promised. And many of those people made those payments under great “hard-sell” duress. But when they took the service and found that they did not get the results, they were told by “the church” that it was their fault and that they needed other handlings. These “handlings” be they “ethics”, “qual” or whatever would be dragged out to last well over the three months allotted for refund of payments;
2) the people taking the service were strictly forbidden, under severe penalties, from talking about their dissatisfaction with anyone else, nor could they look elsewhere (such as the internet) for help and so had no one else but organized scientology to go to in order to handle their dissatisfaction;
3) due to the very nature of the mental aspects of all this, it can take decades, not three months, for one to come to terms with the fraud perpetuated on them through the services they took. Very, VERY few people in my opinion are able to see through the lies in just three months;
4) perhaps the worst of it all, is that the church says that you will be declared a “suppressive person” if you get a return of monies. That means that if you are dissatisfied with your services and get the return of monies that they so widely promote as available, then in the eyes of “the church” you are a suppressive person. And this means that you will immediately lose all contact to family, friends and work that still remain in scientology. Most people will go through hell before they will give up their loved ones. And this prevents almost anyone from making their claim within three months, if ever. NO WHERE does “the church” say broadly in its benign-sounding promotion to potential paying public about refunds available that, should the person get the money back, they lose their family, friends and contacts still in scientology. Nor do they tell that part of it to the IRS or other governmental organizations. Oh how insidious that is!!!!
Now let’s look at the “Claims Verification Board” (CVB) routing form itself to see how this works.
I just got the current copy of the two page routing form this month.
If by some miracle the person wanting money back managed to rise above all the points covered earlier and in fact make his/her claim within three months, the routing form itself is rigged to stop the claim. Yet they will try to force you to do the routing form as they usually included language about it when you paid them the money.
The purpose of the routing form is NOT to get you your money back. Its stated purpose is: “To give the person seeking a refund or repayment a procedure which lays out what he is supposed to do”.
In a “NOTE TO THE CLAIMENT” on the form, “the church” makes it clear to the claimant that he/she must take the form in hand and see each person on the routing form, do the steps required with each person and then ensure it is mailed to the CVB.
He/she must see a “CHAPLAIN” and do what handlings the chaplain says to do. When all “handlings” are complete and he/she still wants a refund, he/she must get a signed statement of what the chaplain did, get all cancelled checks, invoices and receipts, do some paperwork with them and then take that all to a treasury secretary.
He/she also has to acknowledge that an “administrative charge” will be made by the CVB. No where does it say how much the charge will be.
Then, somehow, the claimant has to get from the treasury secretary various different statements from the “Technical Secretary”, the “Qualifications Secretary” and the “Flag Banking Officer” and then put all this together and send it to the CVB.
For anyone doing a routing form in most orgs that involve this many people good luck getting it through timely. But here it is even worse, you have to subject yourself to “handlings” by people who DO NOT want you to complete this form and who will get in trouble if you do complete this form. Every “stop” conceivable will be put on your actions to prevent this from going any further.
And remember, there is no time commitment for this form. You probably have to go out of town, stay in a hotel or whatever and be away from work while you somehow push this form through wherever the organization to whom you gave money is located.
Heaven forbid that you want money back from more than one organization (say a local org, flag and “the ship”) as you would have to go to all these places and separately do such a routing form for each one.
Now if by some miracle the CVB, in its own time, agrees that some portion of your money will be paid back (you don’t get to see that alleged “Board”) they inform the local Flag Banking Officer and the claimant by mail of the decision and arbitrarily decide what “the administrative charge” is.
Now, months later or whatever, when the claimant gets the above communication back from the CVB and the routing form back, he/she must go again to the organization, take it to an ethics officer, do whatever “actions” are listed and then you must fill out and sign a release, waiver and writ of expulsion (note: you sign all the above before you get any money back).
Now you, as an expelled person who may no longer have contact with your family, friends or anyone else still in organized scientology, must somehow take all this to the treasury secretary again with the written “attest” of the ethics officer and then somehow the org/orgs will give you back your money. There is no time limit put on this in the routing form. Could be days, weeks, months or years until the organization has the money to pay you.
And remember, you must do this for every organization from which you want your money back.
And here is a great one: The routing form says “If you have any difficulties in using this routing form or need any assistance in proper use of routing forms, please contact the Senior Routing Form I/C Int”. What????????? Who is that? How do you contact him/her? Does this mean that if you are stuck at flag in part one of your routing form that you somehow appeal to this unnamed person for help and just sit there out of town and away from work to wait and see if and when he/she will reply? Scheeesch!!!
Bottom line folks is that the whole “church” promotion about “friendly” refund policies is nothing more than false advertising and a complete fraud IMHO.
How many of you are out there now, dissatisfied and wanting your money back but have given up on it? Well you have been defrauded and you are the victims of false advertising. I believe that civil complaints can be made to relevant governmental bodies on this matter and a class action suit successfully prosecuted if we get together on this.
Through civil complaints perhaps we can get appropriate governmental bodies to take actions to force “the church” to cease lying about and otherwise misrepresenting their refund policies.
For example, I think that “the church” should have to include a very specific written briefing to all prospective payers for services that, should they request and get a refund of the monies they are being asked to pay now, all of their family, friends and business associates that remain in good standing with “the church” will be forced to disconnect from them. The church policies about suppressive persons should be made available and it made clear that they will be considered suppressive persons simply by virtue of getting a return of monies.
Additionally, “the church” should be forced to change its “CVB” policies so that all monies are returned within seven days of request (or some other appropriate finite number of days).
And, given the nature of the “services”, there should be no time limit for making a refund request.
These sort of things are needed to prevent false advertising and fraud on this subject.
I say send your information to Factnet along with anything else covered in their questionnaire. See this post:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.r…20e202cc0cdcff
Let us each who wants a refund compare notes and resources and see what can be done about this. Together we have an overwhelming, compelling story. We just need to get together on this more. The Factnet thing is a great start.
If anyone is already dealing with an attorney or legal help center, I suggest we get our respective representatives in touch with each other now.
We can do something about this! It’s really just one man that stops us. That would be David Miscavige. The rest of corporate scientology is nothing more than his alter ego IMHO.
SME
