Innovative Technologies Group, LLC
Technology for a better world!
On January 12, 2002, we received an email from GeekExtreme stating they were investigating us. Below I have attached a copy of several emails that we sent back and forth. I think you will see that it is an example of media bias and why it is so hard for us to get anyone in the media to write an objective piece on what we are doing. Throughout this page, my respsonses will be shown in blue.
From: Benjamin A. Hunter AKA The Headgeek
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2002 9:13 PM
To: marketing@innovativetechsolutions.com
Subject: You are under investigation.
You are being investigated by GeekExtreme.Com as a possible source of spam and fraud. If you would like to respond to these allegations, please feel free to reply to this email address, with supportive proof, including any POC or Business Plan information.
Failure to respond to these allegations will result in our posting a very one sided story, in which we conclude you are running email spam ventures and scamming the innocent public.
From: IT Marketing
To: Benjamin A. Hunter AKA The Headgeek
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 4:55 PM
Subject: RE: You are under investigation.
Benjamin,
I would be happy to respond to any allegations that you may have. However, before doing so, I need to know what the allegations are. Please provide this information and we would be happy to respond. It would also be helpful to know who made the accusations, since our system of justice (I realize that this is not a court) gives people the right to "face their accuser." I'm not familiar with your organization. So, it would also be helpful to know a little about your organization.
Best wishes,
Dennis Styles
Innovative Technologies
From: IT Marketing [mailto:marketing@innovativetechsolutions.com]
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 6:50 PM
To: Benjamin A. Hunter
Subject: Reply to GeekExtreme investigation
Benjamin,
Sorry for the delay in answering your last email. I try to take Sundays off. I'll answer your questions below. Each answer will begin on a new line beginning with [DS].
Best wishes,
Dennis Styles
Innovative Technologies
From: Benjamin A. Hunter
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 7:17 PM
To: IT Marketing
Subject: Re: You are under investigation.
Quite simply, we have been informed that you have no working model of this so-called generator that you are plugging on your website.
[DS] We have never claimed that we have a "final working model". What we have done is demonstrate the most important components during two national tours. In 1999, we did a 45 city tour where we demonstrated the Hummingbird motor. The tour was announced on September 17, 1999 in a full page ad in USA Today. The Sundance generator was demonstrated in all 50 states during a 2001 tour. That tour was announced in a full page ad in Newsweek on October 10, 2001. So you see, we are not only not hiding our activities but we are going out of our way to tell people what we are doing. On both tours, thousands of people saw the technology. Both ads invited people to bring their own test equipment to test the claims we made about the efficiency of the equipment. Hundreds of people on each tour took us up on the offer and not once did anyone show that our efficiency claims we false. We demonstrated the Hummingbird motor at 500% efficient. The most efficient motor you can buy today is about 90% efficient. The Sundance generator was demonstrated to be at least 100% efficient. The most efficient generator you can buy today is about 60% efficient. We are not claiming to have a perpetual motion machine. But we are claiming that we have figured out how to get permanent magnets to do work, something that scientist claim they won't do. We demonstrated that permanent magnets can do work on the 2001 tour. I've also seen a demonstration of the Hummingbird motor running at about 4000% efficiency. At the time, I had an electric engineer with me who has been investigating these kinds of motors for about 10 years. I'm not technical so it would be easy to fool me. But he is very technical and very knowledgeable about this kind of technology and it would be VERY difficult to fool him. He was completely convinced that what UCSA was claiming was possible and would work. While it is true that we haven't yet used the Hummingbird motor to direct drive the Sundance generator, it should be easy to see how we would do such a thing. It also should be easy to see that if we took a motor that is well over 100% efficient and marry it to a generator that is at least 100% efficient, that we can produce electricity at no operating cost, "free electricity". This is what we claim we will be able to do when we release the technology (which we haven't done yet).
We will not release the technology until we get 1.6 million people registered. This link contains an entire article on why we will wait until this goal is achieved, http://www.innovativetechsolutions.com/ReleaseWhen.htm.
In addition to this, let me suggest that you take a look at this link on my web site, http://www.innovativetechsolutions.com/FreeElecQ&A.htm#permanent%20magnet%20motor It might provide you some insight into the type of motor that can run at greater than 100% efficiency.
It is furthermore claimed that you are operating an illegal "ponzi" scheme, or something very similar to it.
[DS] A ponzi scheme is one is which you take money from people to pay out to other people (who gave money earlier) so that the earlier people will tell all their friends that you pay fabulous returns. Then they will get their friends to give money. These schemes collapse when eventually the people receiving the money get an amount large enough to satisfy their greed from people who got their friends to join and they disappear with the money. A cursory examination of our material makes it obvious that this is NOT a ponzi scheme. We aren't promising to pay out money at some fantastic rate of return. We are claiming two things:
1) When we release our technology, we will give the people who signed up 26,000 kwh of electricity each year. Our units will produce 30 kw per hour. We will give the people who register 26,000 kwh per year. That breaks down to about 3 kw per hour. So that leaves us with 27 kw per hour to sell. That's where we will make our money.
2) We do promise to share some of the revenue we make from selling electricity with those who help us get the 1.6 million people registered. For each person who refers someone to our program, we will give them an allocation of an additional 26,000 kwh of electricity each year. We will sell this for them and give them the proceeds. If we can sell the power for 5 cents per kwh, that would be $1300/year/referral. All of this is explained on this web page, http://www.innovativetechsolutions.com/IncomeOpportunities.htm.
So, it should be obvious that this is NOT a ponzi scheme.
Essentially, you are not planning on giving anyone "free" electricity, and anyone who spends the $5 you ask for will find themselves the victim of yet another scam, with nothing to show for it.
[DS] First, let me point you this web page, http://www.innovativetechsolutions.com/5fee.htm, to answer the question about the $5. You will notice that I make almost nothing for registering people for this program. It also shows that it costs me something to process their registration. It's not free to me. I'm not independently wealthy. The $5 is an attempt to get people to cover their own cost for being registered and nothing more. Furthermore, from March through December 2001, I signed up about 4000 people who chose the "$5 processing fee" option. Only about 2000 of the 4000 people have paid me. That means I have carried the cost of registering the remaining 2000 people thus far. So the people who have paid their $5 fee don't even come close to covering my cost. I've lost money so far. I have been working about 60 hours per week since March 2001 to get people to register and thus far, I have not paid myself one penny in salary. I'm not stupid. If I wanted to scam people (which I don't), I would at least do something that would make money rather than cost me money. Again, the motive for the $5 fee is to get people to cover their own cost, and nothing more. I currently send out certificates when people register and trust them to send the $5 fee. I may have to change this since fully 50% of the people are not living up to their commitment.
Second, let me point you to this web page, http://www.innovativetechsolutions.com/NotScam.htm, which is an article written by Dennis Lee (head of UCSA) that answers the question of this being a scam.
Third, the only way I, as a UCSA dealer, am likely to recoup the investment I have made in the UCSA dealership we operate is if we release the technology. I have tens of thousands of dollars tied up in the dealership. When the technology is released, I will share in the electricity revenue and I will be well rewarded for my effort. But, this won't happen until the technology is released. Needless to say, I'm HIGHLY motivated to help UCSA get the 1.6 million people registered. I'm doing everything I can to achieve the goal and I make no apologies for doing so.
As further evidence of the legitimacy of this business, I would also point out that we sell a whole line of products offered by UCSA. There is ample material on these products on the web site, www.innovativetechsolutions.com. Those who have purchased our products have been satisfied.
Furthermore, it is said you engage in sending unsolicited emails to people, otherwise known as "spam," to get them to sign up for this particular "opportunity."
[DS] I have many people who are working under this dealership to register other people for free electricity. I have no mechanism that would allow me to control what they do to share the information. I do insist on approving any advertising they may send out to make sure they don't make any false claims. I have no specific knowledge that any of the people working under this dealership are sending spam. In any case, to the best of my knowledge, there is currently not federal law against sending spam. So, while people may be irritated by receiving spam, there is nothing illegal about doing so. I must also say that the effort people put into stopping spam seems silly in light to the fact that everyone gets lots of junk mail via the US Postal Service every day and no one makes much of a fuss about that. They just throw it away. Why don't people just throw the email away they don't like and quit whining about it?
I am not at liberty to discuss my sources, but I will disclose that there is more than one. GeekExtreme accords itself as a member of the press at all times, and we consider these sources to be confidential.
[DS] I you conduct yourself with integrity and use the information that I provide to refute the claims made against our dealership. In additional to all of the material I have already provided, I would also like to point you to our Q&A page, http://www.innovativetechsolutions.com/FreeElecQ&A.htm, which answers a host of questions about our free electricity program. Most of the questions you might ask are answered on this page. I want to let you know that I'm going to post this email on my web site so that people can see what you have asked and how I responded.
As for GeekExtreme itself, we are essentially an online community. We review hardware, software, etc. We report news related to the industry, and we occasionally weed out a few scams and/or spammers and/or dishonest
business persons -- partly for the fun of watching them squirm, and partly because we don't like people getting
ripped off. We are however, impartial, and this is why I'm contacting you for your rebuttal. Should I be convinced that this is not a practice as accused, I will not run the story. I'm sure, if this is a legitimate business activity, you should have no problems showing me some POC documentation, photographs, or other information that will show the POC is not only feasible but is actually being implemented by your company. Photographs of the inside and outside of your facility certainly wouldn't hurt. A patent number on your generator would be fabulous. Surely you have patented this "life changing" invention.
[DS] UCSA is in the process of patenting these devices. However, getting a patent on this type of device is difficult. The U.S. patent office has had a policy since the early 1900s of not granting a patent to "perpetual motion devices" (their term not mine). So we have to be very careful how a patent is worded. The work to patent the devices and/or provide other legal protections is being done at UCSA. I do not have any patent numbers. But I've already offered a lot of material to demonstrate our legitimacy. As far as POC (I assume you mean "proof of concept"), the 1999 and 2001 national tours should have satisfied this requirement. I do sell videos of the 2001 tour ($25 + shipping & handling, 4 hours of video on 2 tapes) should you wish to buy one.
I'll look forward to your response.
Benjamin
From: Benjamin A. Hunter
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 8:43 PM
To: IT Marketing
Subject: Re: Reply to GeekExtreme investigation
Congratulations, you almost had me convinced. I ran this by some more technical types, and beside the fact that they openly dispute your claim that the most efficient generator on the market is 60% efficient (It's apparently 90%+) they managed to come up with some interesting information. Unfortunately Spamming Scammers like you can come up with fancy technical specifications that fool the non-technical types. Close your sites down, and get an honest job. I'm reporting as many of your websites as I can find to the BBB, and sometime in the next 24 hours I'll be posting a warning on GeekExtreme.Com regarding your activities, and warning all not to trust anything YOU are personal involved in, as you have obviously proven the allegations against you.
Have a nice day,
Benjamin
From: IT Marketing
To: Benjamin A. Hunter
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 12:09 PM
Subject: Hollow claims of objectivity
Benjamin,
I must say I'm deeply disappointed in your actions. You claim that you hold to journalistic standards of investigation and objectivity. If this were the case, you would have at least looked at the material on the web site and then you would have ordered a copy of the video of the 2001 tour to see the "proof" that we presented. But, sadly there is no indication that you even looked at the material on the web site and you didn't order the video. Just because you believe I that I got one little fact wrong in my response, you discount everything that I have to say and assume that I am a liar and a cheat. By the way, I don't think I got that fact wrong. The generators themselves may be 90% efficient but when you consider the efficiency of the gas or diesel engines that drive most generators you will see that my estimates was not far off the mark.
You claim to be neutral and just trying to protect the public. Your actions do not back up your claim of objectivity. It seems to me that you already had your mind made up and weren't really looking objectively at our claims at all. You seem to just be looking for an excuse to slam us.
I again claim that we are an honest business that is trying to do something which is very difficult. I'm not talking about the technology. We are trying to tell the public about something incredible which could greatly help our environment and our society. Just imagine the implications for our society if our claims are true. We could end most of the major forms of man-made pollution on the planet while still providing all of the power needed to drive an every increasing advanced society all over the earth. This would be an incredible benefit to humanity. But it is very difficult to tell the world about what we are doing because it has been virtually impossible to get anyone in the "media", including you, to take a serious look at what we are doing. Every media outlet that we have had any dealings with, takes a cursory look and then write a negative story. If you really cared about the people you claim to want to protect, you would take a serious look at what we are doing. Alas, your claims of concern for your fellow man have a hollow ring to it (at least in this case).
If you want to gain some insight as to why it is difficult to bring our technology out, I would suggest you read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. It's about a group of inventors and capitalists who are tired of society using them and who covenant together to withdraw from society. It tells what happens to society when they do pull out. John Galt is one of the main characters in the book and he invented a technology which produces electricity without any operating cost or pollution. The book was written in the 1950s and the author is a Russian. Ayn Rand seems to know more about capitalism than most people living in America today.
Do what you feel you must do. But as for us, we are resolute in our intent to bring this technology to the world.
Best wishes,
Dennis Styles
Innovative Technologies