Soaring Community Consumer Warning

To the soaring community,

In the interests of full disclosure, I have known Tim for 14 years now starting at the age of 14. When I was in high school and flight computers were first becoming commonplace I worked for Tim as everyone in the soaring community adapted to the new racing rules and no one could make a serial port work, except for a 14 year old nerdy kid... This led to some of his clients flying me out to their homes and spending a day doing on site training with them. It was a great business for a 14-18 year old, and taught me many of the important business skills I use today in the Venture Capital industry. In fact, I'm sure I got some early internships / jobs because of these early entrepreneurial experiences.

Tim helped me find, buy and restore several gliders when I was "wet behind the ears." Without his help, encouragement, and convincing of my parents that gliders held their value (and actually I've made a profit on every glider I've owned, thanks to Tim's advice), I probably wouldn't have gotten far in soaring as I have, and doubt I would still be involved. He built me new panels, traded me instruments, sold me everything I've ever purchased at his cost (and sometimes below.) Furthermore, Tim has been the seed that has kept soaring together in Western New York / Northwest PA, helped found the very successful Brokenstraw soaring club, sold the club an L-23 that he owned right after our L-13 was grounded for $20k, when there were numerous, not nearly as nice models, listed on his website for $40k or more. Thank you Tim. I, and many others, owe you more than you could ever know.

On to the current situation. Soaringcafe.com started their want ads by "scraping" Tim's ads. Every glider that went up magically appeared on Soaringcafe.com. This is truly unfortunate, because I have otherwise found Soaringcafe.com to be an excellent resource with great content. But in this case, they clearly crossed a line to seed their own want ads by stealing from Tim's 10+ (maybe 15) year program of providing this service for free in order to drive more traffic to their (Soaringcafe.com) site that appears to be a money-making effort, based on their numerous ad placements. There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between this and the SSA attempting to put Hawke Tracking out of business. It also appears that some of the same people may have been involved. While there has been much questioning of Tim's character, no one seems to have asked the opposite questions...

If you talk to just about anyone in the soaring community, they have bought and sold gliders off the W&W want ads. Imitators have come and gone, but the W&W ads are still there because they have high traffic and a history of success. If I had a choice of listing on W&W or EVERYWHERE else, I would choose W&W, and I think most would as well.

Finally, having literally spent 100s of hours with Tim at W&W, you would have no idea how many times glider repair shops and experienced pilots have called Tim looking for a specific part, often not even knowing what they are looking for. A question of "What model, what year, ect." will result in a "you need an XYZ type hydraulic line at this length." Tim has probably owned more than 50 gliders (has anyone else in world owned more?), and is an encyclopedia of knowledge of what works with what, especially with the older, smaller production gliders where it is nearly impossible to get support.

I know that most business owners in the Soaring community work very hard for what they earn. It has not been uncommon for me to stop by Tim's at 7am while he is on the phone with Germany or at 10pm making sure a package can be overnighted to a hotel in NYC first thing in the morning where a foreign airline pilot is staying.

Tim's policy was not created out of thin air with some sort of malicious intent, but was rather a response to Soaringcafe.com stealing his ads. He did what any person who was essentially having material stolen from him probably would. I hope this helps set the record straight and provides a better insight into Tim's character for those of you who are new to the Soaring community and are wondering who to deal with to meet your needs.

Best regards,

Kevin Christner

I like many others understand that the glider community is small, and perhaps getting smaller. In trying to sell my glider, I placed an ad on Tim Mara's Wings and Wheels. He states on his website that he offers this for free to help the community. Or so I thought.



Selling a glider is a difficult task, especially in this economy and to a niche interest group. As for me, I'm buying a new glider and need funding from the sale of my present ship. I do all this on a tight budget. So letting the soaring community know about my offering is a marketing effort of importance and I know that to be successful, I need to cover the bases. Not everyone will see an ad in one given location. Coverage is the issue.



I've placed the same advertising offering on SoaringCafe.com's marketplace page. I used the same information there as I did on Wings and Wheels. I've also put the same details here on RAS, and I will likely put them on the SSA paid website marketing pages and anywhere else I feel is appropriate for seeking buyers. I simply want to sell my glider.



I've been a customer of Tim's and have spent a lot of money with his enterprise. Which is why I was stunned when he emailed me back saying I cannot duplicate my ad on SoaringCafe and he would pull mine off Wings and Wheels if I didn't discontinue the SoaringCafe ad. His message was "I don't allow it"...period.



Why would someone who should know the value of a customer, and the small scale of our community, do that? Anyone know why? When I called him he was indignant and said the policy was in his reply email to me AFTER the ad went up. Such a policy is not stated ANYWHERE on his website. It makes no sense since SoaringCafe is not in competition with Wings and Wheels other than advertising other vendors, who pay for that visibility. SoaringCafe's web presence it different.



Tim notified me yesterday that the ad was being removed since I hadn't complied with his demand (24 hours after making it). In calling him to discuss it, he was indignant with me, refused to listen, and hung up. Nice going Tim, you just lost a customer who will now exercise his consumer rights and inform the community of your detrimental decision that undermines my effort to sell my glider. And yes, I will use the internet bully pulpit to let the community know of your attitude towards that community. Hats of to SoaringCafe and goodbye to Wings and Wheels. Honoring and valuing your customers doesn't seem to be in Tim's business plan. I can't think of a worse business attitude.



Beware soaring community of those who make it tough on you…like hanging up on you and not listening. Instead, patronize those who go the extra mile and work with you.



Bob DeLeon

Glider pilot and owner since 1997

On 3/23/2013 3:45 PM, Kevin Christner wrote:
On to the current situation. Soaringcafe.com started their want ads by "scraping" Tim's ads. Every glider that went up magically appeared on Soaringcafe.com. This is truly unfortunate, because I have otherwise found Soaringcafe.com to be an excellent resource with great content. But in this case, they clearly crossed a line to seed their own want ads by stealing from Tim's 10+ (maybe 15) year program of providing this service for free in order to drive more traffic to their (Soaringcafe.com) site that appears to be a money-making effort, based on their numerous ad placements. There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between this and the SSA attempting to put Hawke Tracking out of business. It also appears that some of the same people may have been involved. While there has been much questioning of Tim's character, no one seems to have asked the opposite questions...
Thank You, Kevin.
This had needed to be brought out once, again.
I was hoping that some of the other RAS users would have long enough
memories to have recalled this previous incident, exposed by users of
Tim's classifieds finding their ships being advertised at an
unauthorized source.
I thought some of them would step forward.

Tim is justified in not allowing the use of his web assets to further
the business of those engaged in the act of stealing from him.

Russ

At the risk of flogging a dead horse, I wanted to thank Kevin (and Russ) for the new insight. In the absence of a response by or for SoaringCafe, I assume Kevin's comments about "screen scraping" are accurate. I was not aware of it. Screen scraping is a time-honored way for aggregator sites to collect prices or fares or ads from other, originating sites in order to fill out their offerings and make them more attractive to visitors. Battling screen scrapers is equally time honored, as vendors sometimes want to maintain exclusivity to make their sites--on which they depend commercially--more attractive. I can well understand Tim's frustration with having ads he's accepted for free to provide more of a "one-stop shopping experience" appear on other soaring vendors' sites.

One might reasonably ask whether having, say, SoaringCafe.com copy an ad is the same as the glider owner independently listing his aircraft on the two sites. But the effect is the same. For that matter, I'm not sure how Tim would be able to tell whether an ad was lifted from his site or entered by the owner. So I can understand why Tim has decided to enforce this policy.

As to whether it is new or undisclosed, I noted the following phrase in prominent red letters: "These ads are intended for private sellers only, not for other aircraft dealers, resellers or commercial vendors!" That seems to have appeared the first time about five years ago (based on a quick review of the Internet Archive). I don't think the average consumer would think twice about this. Another commercial site might--and probably should--hesitate before scraping such content for inclusion on their site. I don't know the legality of it in this situation but I suspect if there were any real money in the soaring equipment business, someone would have filed suit about this already, at least as a deterrent.

Hopefully this issue has been resolved. For sure we're tired of talking about it. For the record, however, Bob, I did re-read Eric's post but I'll stick with my earlier opinion (and it's just that) that your "warning" the worldwide soaring community about an policy issue over a free service that didn't harm you was hitting below the belt. You may offer your own opinions about what Tim's reasons might be or how the soaring community might be served better. But until and unless you're hurt financially, trying to deter others from doing business with a guy who, by everyone's report including mine, has always bent over backwards to help us is inappropriate.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

Chip, you must suffer from "selective reading disorder." Eric's comments were fact. The statement on Tim's webpage that your quoting: "These ads are intended for private sellers only, not for other aircraft dealers, resellers or commercial vendors!"… does NOT state that I, the seller AND MY AD, is restricted only to his web site and NOT allowed by me, the seller, to be placed on another website.

I'm not a "dealer", "reseller", or "commercial vendor" in this case. You need to take a course in contractual law and understand how the wording should be. In plain language it should have been, as Tim LATER stated 3 months after I placed MY ad on Soaring Cafe, "You volunteered your ad and information to be placed on the W&W Want-ads where it is well known that nearly anyone looking to buy of sell a glider, aircraft, trailer or parts goes to as the one most up-to-date source. These website like others before them are simply trying to create a commercial website and use want-ads like yours to draw viewers and advertisers. Though they promote this as a service by stealing ads and adding want-ads to their site but simply taking away the one most useful single source for up-to-date listing for all buyers and sellers alike. W&W ads are free as always and still in continuous use since the days before the internet became a household media If someone wants to list with other websites and freely submits an ad to them that is up to them to decide where they think they will get the most benefit and exposure and I will never send spam or copy ads to list on Wings & Wheels want-ads but respectfully decline to offer them the free space to list on the Wings & Wheels want-ads a duplicate listing."

If this is his policy, he should have stated it up front on his classifieds page. But it wasn't AND I was not aware of the past issues of ad stealing. I placed my ad on Soaring Cafe because my Jonker dealer suggested it. I was unaware that Soaring Cafe offered classifieds, so I place MY AD. It was not stolen or copied over by them. A month later, Tim sends the above message. That's a backdoor policy--and it does hurt me. I believe that my chance to sell my glider is best served by getting as much exposure as possible. Making that tough on me by way of an incident that he apparently hasn't settled with Soaring Cafe is penalizing me. If his policy had been stated CLEARLY UP FRONT, I would have been given the choice. And knowing that his web classifieds are the prominent place to advertise, I would have complied. But bullying me into making the choice later on is not good business, so I'm exercising my right to let the community know what happened to me. If there is an aftermath to this, then Tim needs to reword his online policy right now.

I understand the affection for his business. He's helped me out in the past as well and I was a loyal customer. But I also believe in having a choice. Now he's not helping me out with a major and difficult thing to do: I just want to sell my glider in the midst of a difficult economy.

So Chip--that's my position. If you are myopic in not understanding, that's just you. But don't accuse me of being unfair as to what transpired. Me, I'm moving on.

Hi, Bob,

This is fun!--at least compared with doing my taxes. I agree; time to move on. The more you say, the worse it gets, even with 189 words of "plain language."

I'll think about that course in contract law you suggested--after I finish my current sessions for selective reading disorder. Until then, my layman's impression is that among other elements required for a valid contract is "consideration", for example if you had agreed to refrain from posting ads on other sites that you would otherwise have had a right to do. Absent consideration, my view is that all you had was Tim's promise to display your ad for as long as he felt like doing so. Subsequently, you two entered into a negotiation: he made an offer, you declined to accept it. Again, no contract.

That said, Eric's suggestion is a good one: make the policy more explicit. We do a lot in soaring fairly informally. But Tim is in business so it's in his interest to avoid misunderstanding (although my impression is that he's coming out of this fray looking pretty good!). I apologize for being a little oblique in my last epistle. I intended to convey that Tim's "These ads are intended for..." disclosure was probably aimed at other commercial sites that might attempt to clone the ads on his site for their own purposes, not at the individual glider owner. [Hey, my selective reading disorder instructor has published a self-help book. Would you like a copy?]

Seriously, best wishes on selling your aircraft...and on finding a soaring vendor brave enough to risk his/her future reputation by selling you equipment for the new one. I'm not saying it's right that Tim hung up on you, but after participating in this discussion, I have some appreciation for why he might have felt obliged to do so.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

I just took a look at the W&W and Soaring Cafe classifieds. It appears the owner of Soaring Cafe's glider is currently listed on the W&W Want Ads and not Soaring Cafe. Market validation?

2C

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

If you're still bothering with this thread, you've gotta read this:

Saw Glidergeek's "waaah waaah" response (I don't always understand cryptic, unsigned posts but I guess I get the message here, Russ). Just for grins, I did a few checks. If you liked Bob DeLeon's irate "consumer warnings" about Wings & Wheels, you'll LOVE this one (summarized):

Andrew from the UK: He had emailed Richard at Craggy Aero about an S-NAV for sale. No response. The S-NAV was sold. He's miffed that Richard never bothered to reply: "one less customer for the future". [editorial comment: the old adage about "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" has never tried to do business with a glider pilot]

Multiple pilots: There's a massive amount of email out there to track. And Richard's a very conscientious guy.

Richard at Craggy Aero: Apologizes, noting politely that he tried emailing twice (and, helpfully, to which address) but Andrew's ISP rejected it both times. The S-NAV is, indeed, sold.

Another "helpful" pilot: Email problems are common, Andrew. You're overreacting, especially since there's no financial harm and it was your ISP that bounced the emails.

Andrew: Apparently unsatisfied with the responses he's getting (sound familiar?), blasts Richard for publicizing his actual email address and protests that he doesn't use spam filters and has never not received emails before [which I assume means that no one had ever emailed him and, not receiving a response, posted or telephoned him to ask why]. He then lauds Tim Mara (!!!! No, I'm not making this up!) for having been exceptional in past dealings. So despite satisfied customers springing to Craggy Aero's defense, Richard's response has ensured that Andrew will not be among them. So there.

More responses:

- Having a bad day, Andrew?

- My experience has always been great with Richard.

- And from Glidergeek: a tongue-in-cheek (?) complaint about how Tim Mara always lists used instruments that never seem to be available.

Sarcasm? Or has Glidergeek been waiting NINE (9) years to stick it to Tim for the Sage CVA he missed? That's right; this is from 2004. Oooh, the drama continues!

The soaring weather is arriving so hopefully moods will lighten, egos will return to normal size, and we can get back to making jokes about the software developers who arrogantly claim their applications are superior to all others yet cheerfully profess ignorance of the U.S. competition rules.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

On Friday, March 29, 2013 12:05:25 PM UTC-4, wrote:
If you're still bothering with this thread, you've gotta read this:



Saw Glidergeek's "waaah waaah" response (I don't always understand cryptic, unsigned posts but I guess I get the message here, Russ). Just for grins, I did a few checks. If you liked Bob DeLeon's irate "consumer warnings" about Wings & Wheels, you'll LOVE this one (summarized):


Chip Bearden

ASW 24 "JB"

U.S.A.

Yo Chip,

There's a whole cottage industry (okay - not so "cottage" anymore) around customer sentiment analysis and management. Maybe we can get a couple of the aforementioned programmers to dump 10 years worth of R.A.S and see if they can parse the text to discern any obvious trends on either side (reviewers or reviewees). Maybe they can be ready by next Winter. Should make for some fun viewing.

In the meantime, this thread reminded me to call Tim - I need some updates to the panel.

P3

I am the developer of Glidersource.com

I started working on this platform about two years ago at the urging of some others. We saw the W&W ad pages (10 pages of unsorted, center-justified, one photo, limited info ads), and other classified sites at the time as something that could be vastly improved upon.

Paul Remde of Cumulus Soaring, Inc., provided moral support (but no other affiliation) and replaced his own manually-operated classified effort with links to GliderSource.com.

In the early days, I (regretfully) wrote to some of the folks advertising their aircraft there to let them know of an ADDITIONAL source to list, that would allow more text, more photos, embedded video, contact feature, hit counter, search capabilities, 24/7 self-post & edit, and other modern web goodies.
I got a lot of thank you's and ONE objection, in Sept of '11.

I've never "scrapped" ads of of his site, and I can't speak about any accusations that anyone else has either. The worst I did was send some sellers a single email. Considering the email traffic these days, it seemed pretty harmless.

Tim responded by creating or enforcing his W&W-Only policy (as mentioned, it's still not possible to tell he has such a policy without testing the waters).
Tim emailed the folks who posted their ad in both places and, well, let them know that they won't be in two places any more. Tim did not contact me, but when a dozen sailplanes fell off my site in one day and I made inquiries why, it didn't take long for someone to forward me the email that Tim sent to him. At that I stopped the direct-email campaign and apologized, including to Tim.

I contacted Tim hoping we soaring-community folks could all "play nice" together, and even offered to do some web programming to help his site be more user and owner friendly. ( Tim told me he spends "hundreds of hours" on his classified ads. That's because he gets the photos by email, has to crop and resize, create the copy, post in a web page and manually do all this work rotating his 10 or more classified ad pages around. All that is automatic on my site.) Tim declined the offer.

Tim obviously has a vested interest in keeping his want ads as THE go-to place, as the classified site is at the doorstep to his store. That's fine, how could anyone object to that? I think what people object to is that the free market is not part of that plan, since his advertisers are constrained from posting on places Tim doesn't like. Ever heard of a newspaper the won't let you advertise on craigslist too?

I've had more than one person tell me first hand that when posting an glider ad on W&W Tim delayed posting the ad a few days while offering the seller less himself. Now, I can't swear that happened, because it didn't happen to me directly, but why would someone make that up?

My interest was to for there to be a classified ad site that was highly functional, easy to use, and that users could post ANYTHING soaring related. Last I checked W&W was aircraft and parts only. As of today GliderSource.com has 38 ads for instruments, 7 for soaring equipment, and a smattering in other categories, including sailplanes and motorgliders, and 9 wanted ads.

Knowing of Tim's policy, I felt it fair to advise my potential advertisers, before they go to the effort to create an ad only to have it shot down by T.M. So, without mentioning W&W, since that might seem like I was talking bad about it, I have the following notice on my home page:
- - - - -
What if I already have my item listed on another site?

Successful advertisers across many industries place their ads in many places, not just one. All soaring related ads are welcome here. But, a prominent glider classified provider does not appreciate this effort for glider and motorglider ads. Check with your current ad carrier to see if he requires exclusive handling of your ad. I think competition improves the market. What do you think?
- - - -

I'm still hoping that Tim will make the W&W ads easier to use (fewer pages, allow more info, more photos photos, sorted, search function, etc.) because he does have more sailplane ads than anywhere else. But it seems to me that as long as he's the 800 pound gorilla in the room, he doesn't feel he needs to improve his website to compete. (remember, I even offered to help him do it - I obviously have the software skills to do so).


In conclusion, it's hard to argue with Liam's posting:
"Who will corner the market for hosting free ads serving a dwindling niche
market, in the process capturing literally hundreds of page views per
month? As Sayre's law says, the conflict is bitter only because the
stakes are so small."