Whose been ripped off financially by his JW brother?

by Spectrum 35 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  slugga

  I used to do building work for 2 brothers in another congregation. One day I was given a bathroom to tile single handily and told how much they'd pay me.

  I got talking to the homeowner and she started moaning about how much it was costing so I asked her what she was paying and it turned out I was on less than a third of what she was paying.

  I was still on a fair wage and I liked working for those brothers but I did think they were taking the piss out of me slightly

  (She'd brought the tiles herself)
• 

  Spectrum

  I just remembered, my JW brother-in-law ripped me off when he sold me a car. He hyped up the price to it's market value had it had warranteed mileage and sold it to me with warranteed mileage. A few months after buying it I asked him to give me the warrantee as I wanted to sell the car, he told me he wouldn't give it to me. Obviously the car's mileage wasn't warranteed. Without the warrantee the car was worth about £800 less. Scumbag.
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  cruzanheart

  On my parents' advice (first mistake), we hired a JW to build a deck for us. He asked for 2/3 in advance, sunk three posts in concrete, and we never saw him again. We tried doing things the "theocratic" way by talking to his elders and even paying him a visit at his house, where he promised that yes, he'd be there NEXT WEEK. Instead he left town. His elders said they didn't know where he had moved to and his relatives (also Witnesses) disavowed all knowledge of his whereabouts.

  We filed suit and won by default -- turns out his debt to us was a drop in the bucket compared to what he owed people all over town, so it's no wonder he left. My dad (an elder) and others were shocked that we would file suit against a brother -- oh my, that was SO against how we should treat the loving brotherhood!

  I did a little detective work, played a hunch, and found the scumbag in Austin hiding behind his wife's name in the telephone directory. We obtained a judgment against him and sent the police after him and finally got our money back.

  Nina
• 

  sinis

  Here is what I have seen:

  Story 1:

  Local elder 1 (current ex-elder) borrowed money from elderly elder 2 who is wealthy to start up a business. Well, elder 1's business fails within a few months and tells elder 2 that since his business failed he did not need to pay him back. Well elder 1 was eventually removed. Elder 2 dies a few months later. The body of elders tells elder 1 that he will never be used as an elder again unless he A) pays the widow the money that was owed to her husband, or B) elder 2's widow dies. So if and when she dies he is appearently free from owing this family, though elder 2 had several daughters and sons. BS if you ask me.

  Story 2:

  New congregation (1) is being built in a nearby town. The brothers there cannot qualify for a loan, though several of the elders are VERY wealthy. So they ask another cong (2) to lend them money as a down on the propert. The other cong (2) loans them 50k and there is a stipulation that the new cong (1) will pay them back within a few months. Well, cong (2) asks cong (1) when are they getting there money back as they need it for a renovation. Cong (1) tells cong (2) to pound sand, and that they will not be paying them back. Cong (1) contacts the WTS and the WTS says we will not get involved but if you would like we will loan you the money you lost at 3% interest (supposed admin fee).

  Story 3:

  My brother in law owns his own business and used to higher witnesses. Paid them a VERY good wage but eventually stopped higher witnesses as the witness would show up late, not do any work, complain that they were not making enough, and on and on. He also used to get contracts from witnesses to do work. MANY, times he said they would not pay him, or pay him less saying his work was shoddy. He wised up and went to the Worldy contractors and never had another problem.

  Story 4:

  My brother in law did some work for the cong PO. The deal was (cong PO had a computer job with IBM) that he would so the work on the PO house for free, the PO only had to buy the material (we are talking at least 2-3K in labor). The deal was that the PO would build my brother in law a new computer and my brother in law would only have to buy parts. Well a month or so later my borther in law speaks with the PO saying his system finally crapped out and he would like a new one. The PO said that he had received a memo from IBM saying he was not allowed to do ANY outside work, even for family or friends. Needless to say, I helped him out.

  Funny how the witnesses love to USE people and then when they are done they discard them like a used condom...
• 

  coffee_black

  When my dad was having our house built, he hired a jw contractor to do the framing. My dad was very hands on, and showed up on the jobsite unannounced. He found them burning 2x4s to keep warm (it was early spring) There was not a single stud that was square. He had them tear it all down and hired another company to do it right.

  When our kingdom hall was being built in the late 50s (which he designed) there were very few who would actually show up to work. Dad would be there long into the night...working all alone. If there was going to be pictures taken, all of a sudden they came out of the woodwork to be seen helping.

  Coffee
• 

  Forscher

  I was ripped off more than once. I lived in a small country town. I later found out that some of the Dubs, who were businessmen in the community went around slandering me to other businessmen. That, and one other incident I am not at liberty to detail, made it where I coudln't get a job outside of whatever brother would hire me. So for years I had to put up with wages so substandard that I couldn't even keep up with the bills, much less get together the money to leave. One was even bold enough to rip me off to the tune of over a thousand dollars on one job I did for him and never got paid for. And he is now an elder! Such is life in the Borg!
  Forscher
• 

  2112

  We had a sister in our hall who was in a auto accident, she was rear-ended. Was not hurt bad but was a little shook up. Many witnesses convenced her to sue, she did a got a large payout. Well low and behold that very same sister was then rear-ended 6 more times in less than a year. Each time she sued and won. I was really amazed at how this poor sister had suhe terrable luck until I was able to see how she did this. She would change lanes real fast in front of someone and hit the breaks. On the last time she did that the person swerved and only cliped her car but did not stop. So what did she do?- She followed him, found out where he lived and then called the poilce. All that while injured so bad that she wore a neck brace until after her court date.

  My wife an I also hired a JW to do a room addition. The price we were quoted for the whole job was great so we went with this guy. His wor was excellent however he came back with a bill that was $3,000 more that we agreed on. His reason was that the blocks and the cement were more than he expected. Well he learned then that he needs to check with his sub-contractors before he quotes a price. No we did not pay more that we agreed, after all I am a bad satan worshiper. My JW wife wanted to pay him what he asked because "he was a brother", but then he started to lie about our agreement and pulled out the contract to show us. The contract was altered to read differently and you could see where the changes were made. I guess he thought we were to stupid to remember we had a copy of the contract ourselves, or he forgot he even gave us a copy. After that my wife said do not pay him extra.

  Oh yea. still an elder in good standing, and I an still the evil one. Ha ha ha
• 

  DannyBloem

  Yea, big time. Do not want to chare the story, but more then 10000 euro's....
• 

  luna2

  I foolishly loaned money to a sister once. She borrowed some from me and some from her bookstudy conductor (who is very well off...or was when this occurred) to get some major car repairs done. She paid him off first as he was obviously the most important. Everytime she'd see me, she'd say she'd be paying me back soon, but there was always something that would come up. She even continued taking her yearly vacation...which I found out when I tried calling her on one occassion and was informed she was out of town. Apparently paying a friend back came in a distant second to recreation. I was patient and didn't pester her for the money because I knew her budget was pretty tight. I should have been a pain in the ass until I got it back.

  I haven't been to the KH now in four years (the loan took place a couple of years prior to my fading). I know I'll never see that money now.

  There are some JW's I've dealt with who have been honorable and honest business people. There are some that are meticulous about repaying loans or other obligations. Many, however, are notorious for their shoddy, sometimes, illegal business practices, for doing a poor job, for not paying their bills and for not repaying loans. It seems to me that this latter group (those that aren't fake JWs, fleecing the flock intentionally), tell themselves that their dear "brothers" and "sisters" will forgive them because that is what is required in Jeheehaw's lubbing organization. I'm not sure what happened to the love these freeloader/unscrupulous business owner JW's are supposed to have for their brothers....guess there are some who think that decency and honesty just don't apply to them.

  I've always loved how the stupid Watchtower would print hundreds positive stories about what great people JWs are for every one non-so positive story. Reading that junk made you think that your congregation had to be some sort of abberation because the negative JW behavior at home outnumbered the positive by about two to one.
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  Spectrum

  It's sad to hear these stories. Brotherly trust violated, loyalty repaid with a knife in the back.