The IAS has come up with a new fundraising scheme.
You have heard of gold, platinum and black credit cards….
Well, the IAS has invented a new level of “status.” The blue, gold platinum and black anti-credit card for the discerning connoisseur of the finest in rip-offs.
You can now proudly display to your clubbed seal friends that you have committed to paying a certain amount each month…. Just whip out the black IAS card and impress your neighbors. When you cannot wear your gaudy gemstone encrusted pin or show off your bowling ball trophies in the display case just inside your front door, you can now whip out the new “I’m a whale” cards.
Just when you thought there was nothing new they could come up with to bilk people out of their cash, the IAS doesn’t disappoint.
I wouldn’t want the frugal, low-budget blue card for $250 because it makes me look like a downstat cheapskate compared to the higher shelf ones the really wealthy whales have. And I’m not rich enough to afford the others. So I guess I’ll just have to pass on the whole works.
And the last of terminally stupid get sucked dry automatically. No continual regging needed for these diminutive minds.
I can only the imagine the huge flaps that are going to happen when someone needs to cancel their automatic debit of their bank account. Or has Insufficient Funds. Or has closed their account. A flurry of False Report Reports! Lower conditions! Committees of Evidence! SP Declares! Disconnection!
scientology – it’s so much fun, it WILL ruin your life!
Well the ultimate business model is in subscriptions. Look at all the services that charge monthly subscriptions. You can even buy products through places like Amazon on subscription. Scientology is no different except that they don’t provide a service, this is just a money making scheme.
This is sad. Very sad.
A new level of lowness and desperation to squeeze what little cash the empty headed animal food trough whoppers (with apologies to the French soldier with the outrageous accent on the battlements) have in their bank accounts by Der Drunkenpoxy.
Mike, this is actually a serious question. Who would have come up with this idea ? Would it be the tinpot dictator himself or some sycophant who would be required to get approval from COB ?
Pretty sure no-one makes changes to the IAS fundraising operation without the blessing of the Blessed Miscavige.
When we set the original prices ($300 Annual, $2000) we thought that was crazy.
When Bertie Hoecke suggested to me that we should have special “statuses” we came up with two, one was that you could only get as an award for good work done I cannot remember what it was called but we wanted a status that you could not buy. That did not go down well with Yager and Miscavige. So we decided to pick what we thought was so outrageous that maybe, just maybe, 5 dumb rich asses would pay
And thus – “Patron” was born.
Jeez we got that wrong.
They should have reserved the black ant-credit card for Nation of Islam participants to make them feel special, Missed opportunity.
Cindy asks to those in LA district the following.
This is a bit off thread, so forgive me. In LA, District Attorney Jackie Lacey is running for reelection. We need to spread the word to not vote for her. She is the corrupt DA who won’t do her job on either indicting or not Danny “Donkey Punch” Masterson. He gave rape drugs to 4 women and while they were unconscious, he raped them in the most horrible ways. All four filed police reports on Danny Masterson. jBut the DA won’t move on it because she doesn’t want this to hurt her chances of reelection. That was leaked by one of her own staff. So please, if you live in the LA area, please vote for the person running against Jackie Lacey. Let’s get her out of office so that Danny can be brought to justice by a DA who is not afraid to do his/her job.
I’m already voting for George Gascón, who seems to be her best opponent, but this is new to me, interesting to hear.
By the way, since you’ve been on here a while, I think you want “Losing” in your username instead of “Loosing”. “Loosing” makes it sound like you’re turning your religion on people, like an attack dog.
I have been out since 15 years out from the cult. Then reading Mike’s blog and following also Leah videos I wake up and found to be still some how ‘infected’. So I decided to loose “get rid off” (more than lose) my ‘religion’. If awake I can be an attack dog. I am awake and want to help to inform others about what I know and I was 15 in the sea org.
Moose I was laughing a lot because I took the Webster dict and checked well the meaning of loosing and I fully got what you meant saying that it looks like I am turning my religion on people like attack dogs. I can’t stop laughing. I am Italian and sometime I fight with english.
If they fail to collect the monthly pledge, you will be sent to the new Scientology Blood Donor Project. It is here where you will be required to make up the difference in pints (units) of blood. They will draw blood until the pledge is paid off, or until you run out of blood, which ever occurs first…..
When Scilon TV finally hit the airwaves several of us over at the Bunker prophesied about what could possibly be the next level of fundraising. Several posters agreed that a monthly donation scam was in the works. I think that they’ve tried to get monthly donations before but without the ‘trophy’ the whales weren’t biting. So the ‘anti-credit card’ is the new trophy. It costs about $10 online to have a thousand of these fake cards made up and all they have to do is emboss the whales name and IAS ‘number’ and tada a new ‘trophy’. God how lame…’Here’s my 10cent card that shows I give 5k a month to Davy.’
Another thing that I have thought Davy boy might try is the old ‘telethon’ scam on his lame TV network. Since it has few to no viewers I doubt he’ll try it anytime soon but I don’t doubt that eventually he will try it. I mean it’s practically free money. Just go on TV and beg people to send you money…how hard is that. My sig-others grandmother kept SonLife TV on 24hrs a day (that’s Jimmy Swaggarts own TV network…ick) and every month for 5 days they have a ‘Share-a-thon’…what they ‘share’ I have never found out but what they want is for you to ‘share’ your dough with them. Swaggarts son Donnie is the main guy now that the old man is getting too old to be on all day every day…his favorite saying is “Whatever amount you are thinking of sending add a zero to it.” Yeah these are real true ‘Christians’ for you. But Davy could learn a thing or two from watching these scammers in action. Every ‘Share-a-thon’ brings in millions and every time I saw it I just wondered in amazement who the hell these people were that sent this idiot money. Then I heard my Granny-in-law say that if she had the money she’d send him some every month. I asked why…he’s been caught in several scandals. She said that was between him and God and that he explained the Bible in a way she could understand and she liked the singing. So there you go Davy…you got a ready made market of old lonely people you just have to learn how to take advantage of them like Swaggart does.
Didn’t Elron make some songs they could play on Sci TV? Musical interludes.
Strange, I’m wondering WHEN they can actually flash their debt cards.
I was tempted to say “debit cards”, but debt card seems more right after an auto-correct. I’m thinking ISNOINews is right and “only your Reg knows for sure”.
Begging is out PR ,,, Moving up in status is far more impressive and pro-survival ,,, lol.
My Televangelist Story.
When I was 6 years old I was watching TV on a Sunday afternoon. Oral Roberts had his own show. My mother was in the kitchen cooking; my father was outside in the yard doing something. Oral Roberts was a televangelist. I’d never watched him before. That day he was talking about a group of people somewhere who were in bad shape. They needed God; they needed Jesus, they needed Oral Roberts. They were poor – shoeless, as I recall. Hungry. These people had a lot of problems. Oral Roberts wanted to help them, feed them, save them. To my 6 year old sensibilities he was a magnificent speaker. Very eloquent. I was very moved. From memory I will paraphrase:
“GIVE!”, he cried. “Give, from your hearts, good people! Send a dollar! Just ONE dollar from each of you can do so much! ONE dollar can and will LIFT them not only out of their wretched poverty but into the arms of the Lord and Eternal Salvation…GIVE! Give now! Don’t delay! Do it RIGHT NOW! Place that dollar that you give from your heart into an envelope! Send it to me Oral Roberts…” An address flashed on the screen. I grabbed a nearby pencil and wrote it down on top of TV Guide. “…don’t delay! From your hearts! From your HEARTS! Just ONE dollar, good people! Thank you! God thanks you! Jesus thanks you…” Ok, you get the idea.
As I said I was very moved. There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to send a Reverend Roberts a dollar right away! And getting it was no problem because my father would give it to me. He always gave me whatever I asked him. Always. I ran out into the yard.
He was digging a hole to plant some sort of very large shrub. It was mid summer; hot work; he was sweating.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
“What?
“Can I have a dollar?”
“Yeah.”
I waited. He kept digging.
” I mean right now?”
“As soon as I get this (whatever it was) in the ground, yes. My wallet’s in the house.”
“How long will it take?”
Panting, digging, “An hour maybe.”
Me, channelling Oral Roberts: But this cannot wait! There can be no delay! I need a dollar right away! Right now!”
He stopped digging, looked at me. “What’s the matter with you? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing! Nothing’s WRONG. I just need it, that’s all!”
An ice cream truck was jingling a block away. “You know you can’t have ice cream before dinner. Your mother will have a fit.”
“I – I don’t want it for ice cream.” For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him what I was going to do with it.
“Then why do you need this dollar right away?”
“I just need it, that’s all!”
He continued to look at me, steadily.
“I asked you a question”.
Cornered, I said, “I have to send it to Reverend Oral Roberts”
“Who the devil is that?”
“A man on television, Daddy! He needs a dollar from EVERYONE – right away! Its very important!”
My father put down the shovel. “Come with me”, he said.
“Are you going to give me a dollar?”, I asked.
He, the most generous of men, looked at me and frowned. “I don’t know”, he said. “Let’s go in the house. I want to talk to your mother.”
I was frantic now. “I have to have it, Daddy!”
“OK. Let me talk to your mother for a bit. Go into your room.”
With my bedroom door almost closed I listened while my mother briefed him on who Oral Roberts was. The next thing I remember hearing was:
“The NERVE of that God-damned son-of-a-bitch!”
“Shh, don’t curse, she can hear you”, my mother said.
“The NERVE!”
Then the kitchen door slammed.
My mother called my name. “You can come out now”.
I ran out of my room. My mother in the kitchen putting something in the oven. My father was back in the yard, digging. I ran out to him.
“Can I have my dollar now?”
“No”.
“Wha?…but you said -”
“You’re not getting one red cent to send to that -”
“But I have to have it! I have to send it to him! He NEEDS it! He – ”
“No.”
“Please! Please please please please – ”
His voice was gentle but firm. “Stop it. Stop this nonsense now. Go inside”. He was digging at a furious pace.
He hardly ever said no, but when he did, that was it. Crying, I turned and trudged toward the house. Before going in I heard him swearing to himself, “The NERVE of that son-of-a-bitch!”
I’m trying to think of what circumstances you would *ever* show someone else the card. Or at least, show someone else the card without looking like a total douche bag. At least with a Gold, Platinum or Black credit card you pull out the card to make a payment and thus “incidentally” show your status. With this, no.
The only situation where I think showing the card *might* be justified is if one was regged for the IAS at an event and said something like, “I already give monthly” and flashed the card as proof. Even then, I think flashing the card would be prima facie evidence that, yes, you are a douche bag.
Exactly what I was thinking. Well said!
Yeah, but the kind of douche bag is important ( to some douche bags).
Now you can be a Douche Bag of Valor and have a card to prove it!
It is things like this that make me glad that I am dead. If I was alive and involved with this I would have to be some real dumb muther-fucker.
but that’s only IAS regging. Surely there are no ends to the exceptional single-purpose donation drives?
I’ve wondered why the $cn. cult never went for the straight 10% of income like Morman’s. (Well,actually I know why, the $cn. cult is greedier)
it’s really way past time they tried something like this. Typical trailing edge 1950’s UFO cult catching up with technology…
Heck, why not just take it to the logical conclusion, I just have my paycheck sent to the IAS every month and they decide how much they need. lolol
They get a third to a half of a lot of members’ income – they wouldn’t want to settle for a measly 10% when their high-intensity regging techniques can squeeze out a lot more.
Jeffrey Augustine has estimated that the IAS has $1.5 billion in reserves – and that doesn’t count what they do actually spend, which may include some big-ticket items like lawyers and subsidizing “ideal” orgs. Figuring they may have as many as 10,000 adult members who work outside of the CofS itself, that’s $150,000 per member just in money sitting in the bank. Property assets are in the same ballpark. The amount of members’ income and assets that they manage to capture, is mind-boggling.
And that’s further proof that Miscavige is an idiot. Parasites who want a long term future do not kill their hosts. Mormons figured that out a long time ago. Had Scientology stuck to “only” 10 percent, or even 20, they’d probably be substantially larger today. Combine that with scaling service prices to income, and they might have managed to approach mainstream status in terms of active members.
“Back in the day”, I was sometimes at the “bleeding edge” of technology. Those cards are bled-dry edge of slavedom(Still working on the concept).
scn registrars only leave dessicated husks behind. 😉
It moves Scientology to an entirely new, monumental and epic level of disgustingness.
What great material to show and discourage people from getting into this scam!
nomnom, THAT’S channelling your “inner Sherman”….
Hi Mike
Using the same keyword as both category and tags in the same post is SEO, av very bad SEO giving BAD (counterproductive) results. So why using the same keyword in both category (filed under) and tags?
Here in this post it is “IAS” in both tags and category, why?
Pls let your excellent posts be visible!
Don’t know. I didn’t know it made a difference
It doesn’t. It’s a petty objection. I was an English major and a teacher, and I find your posts to be to the point and just what those of us who come here are looking for. Also, I have no quarrels with your grammar or your use of language generally – and I’m picky!
Looking up “SEO” after my response, I see it has something to do with search engines and the Wide World of the Innerwebs. *shrugs* OK.
What is the reason to have both categories and tags for keywords in the first place?
-to fill in the very same keywords in both?
#6
https://themegrill.com/blog/using-wordpress-tags-and-categories-for-seo/
Mind. Blown. I sometimes get fundraising burnout because I have so many grandchildren in so many activities. But there’s never any pressure. (Although I always do buy whatever because hey they are my grandkids). But we are talking every couple of months and I get to make the decision and I always get something (coffee, popcorn, a hat a tshirt) in exchange.
And to commit to a monthly payment with no end in sight? Wow. I guess they forgot about the whole start change stop that they have been taught too. There is on end of cycle once you are on the IAS hamster wheel.
For an organization that drills into your head that exchange is the most important thing on the planet, a group that sneers at charity as giving people something for nothing, they are certainly being required to outflow a lot for absolutely nothing in IAS.
Note to self proofread before hitting post.
There is NO end.
“Note to self proofread before hitting post.”
We ALL make these mistakes. My only tip is perhaps compose in some local text-editor, or the notes app, review, cut and paste into the comment text box, review, then hit the POST button. I’ve been flying without those training wheels lately and can’t say HOW many times I wished I could unpost or re-edit, as we can do on other sites. Usually, I drop words out I SWORe I’d typed. 😉
Well I can see making these cards the new status symbol in the Clampire. Who wants to lug around a 5 foot tall bowling trophy that has enough sharp edges to skin a cow?
Does each holder have to show up at the mOrg once a month to actually ‘donate’ or is it an automatic payment from your bank account? I’m kidding, of course it’s an auto payment. And now the reges can focus on new meat because you’ve been hooked for the next year.
ZeeMoo stated:
“And now the reges can focus on new meat because you’ve been hooked for the next year.”
And don’t forget the many people who forget for a moment what their monthly debit is and sign up for even more on top of that. Soon, all the money’s flowed OUT with no human intervention. And if you inadvertently overtop your card limit, your friendly neighborhood Reg will call your bank for you and get your limit bounced WAY up so they get their stat.
Decades ago, when I was in, Scientology and its staff were concerned about helping me and others. I got some gains. Scientology was growing. Then things changed. Scientology and its staff became mostly focused on fundraising and getting money for no exchange. I experienced losses. (of money) Scientology is shrinking. What a coincidence!
IMO, it’s no coincidence, and according to Tubby, it’s guaranteed when the exchange is out of balance like that.
How in the world are you supposed to show off that card to your fellow cultist?
How is anyone going to see what a big spender you are?
That’s the $64,000 (per month) question: When CAN you show off how subjugated you are? Will the various statuses be status symbols?
I see that as the primary reason for the different levels, and the IAS is ONLY a status “thing” for the clapping seals, anyway. It serves no other purpose than to line the twerp’s pockets AND spark an unhealthy “keeping up with the Joneses sort of thing.
Mike what do you think would happen if that month for any reason the IAS doesn’t get the promised money from the person?
Black helicopters landing on the roof of his house?
They would be referred to ethics for a sec chech at their expense.
And trust me, ethics is much scarier to an active scientologist than any stinking black helicopter.
Of course. From the helicopter would come out a squad of ethics officers asking him his God damned crimes. Deja vu.
This is a bit off thread, so forgive me. In LA, District Attorney Jackie Lacey is running for reelection. We need to spread the word to not vote for her. She is the corrupt DA who won’t do her job on either indicting or not Danny “Donkey Punch” Masterson. He gave rape drugs to 4 women and while they were unconscious, he raped them in the most horrible ways. All four filed police reports on Danny Masterson. jBut the DA won’t move on it because she doesn’t want this to hurt her chances of reelection. That was leaked by one of her own staff. So please, if you live in the LA area, please vote for the person running against Jackie Lacey. Let’s get her out of office so that Danny can be brought to justice by a DA who is not afraid to do his/her job.
Well Cindy this is never off thread.
Sorry. I leave in Italy but others reading your comment can do something about. Hey peole let’s listen to what Cindy asks.
I add a comment on this with you msg. Cool.
Agreement, as We’ve seen Lacey’s fingerprints all over one or more apparent cover-ups. She’s apparently part and parcel with the abuses we see scientology committing. My gut feeling is that a new guy MIGHT get justice rolling, for once — or for 4 times on one particular case that Lacey “slow-rolled” — like snail’s pace, sometimes backwards (losing paperwork, et al. I can’t vote against her or for another, but I can promote her being replaced by the voters out there.
Sounds like the cult has “safe-pointed” Jackie Lacey. Scientology may even be funding her reelection campaign, covertly, or even legally. I’m not sure if it would be legal for the cherch to support her this way but then, since when did something being illegal ever stop these grifters? It would be really easy to funnel their money to a private Scientologist who in turn would donate it to Lacey’s campaign.
Actually, I think the private Scientologist would get the money from the cult and then in turn donate it to some PAC which would then donate it to her campaign. “Dark money”. Its all legal and yet difficult to trace to its original source. But you could bet that LACEY would be told where it was coming from…oh, yes! The cult wouldn’t leave her in the dark about THAT.
Cindy, I agree with you, but believe we protect ourselves by religiously using the weasel words “Alleged” and “accused of” until he’s convicted of the crime(s). Certainly, I believe the plaintiffs when they detailed their allegations and how they say scientology treated them as a result.
Jere, good point. I should change my wording and add “alleged” and “accused of” so as to make it more politically correct. My bad.
Cindy, Lacey’s been on our “watch list” for awhile, so I don’t see your reminder as O/T though it’s not the direct subject of Mike’s post, today.
Is there something WE can do long-distance, not being LA voters? What’s that new guy’s name?(my sieve of a brain says “age or /gage or something, but it’s likely wrong as I’m on the Right coast, only having spent a week in LA 40-45 years ago (October ’75, IIRC, to start the SHSBC at ASHO before it scuttled over to Big Blue.
The people Jackie Lacey is running against are George Gascon and Rachel Rossi. I think Twitter, Facebook, and all the other on line public media are ways to get the truth out about Lacey’s sitting on the Masterson thing for more than a year. She’s running ads now for her campaign. Information spread far and wide about what she has done will help.
Hey, it’s been done before!
I’m not Mike, but I see these monthly pledges being converted to monthly electronic transfers from the public people’s bank accounts or credit cards. They won’t get the high-status card without the required paperwork having been filed. At most the clapping clam can choose the day-of-month for the transfer to occur. I expect they see that as “fair” to ensure “exchange” is kept properly in, though in reality, the org’s not offering anything real in exchange so they’re wildly out-exchange…. BUT WHEN has miss savage cared about such niceties, anyway, if he gets the MONEY, that is.
You are right. The out exchange perpetrated is massive. Just financial irregularities.
The IAS has come up with a new “Solution to Scientology contraction” formulae! 😁
Their “solution to contraction” is to implode the cult immediately, by bankrupting EVERYONE they can persuade to remit monthly.
What the hell. It’s fantastic. The PLs on finances and advance payments cover none of these stuffs. IAS acts like a business corporation hiding behind the status given by IRS to the sect and doesn’t pay taxes. And it is even highly “off policy”.
Wake up once in a lifetime!! If someone from the orgs is online please listen: THIS IS GONNA KILL YOU! No income for you org or mission and in exchange what do you get? A lot of lies and blabla about sps etc, and how you are part of this change. WAKE UP!
LoosingMyReligion: MustSavage has struck “GOLD” with this new racket. He promises nothing material in exchange, doesn’t have to DO anything in particular with the money, and can get the rubes *competing* to earn higher statuses that mean NOTHING nothing except to other RUBES (IAS contributors), and all he has to do is order the registrars to get the money IN, NOW! (by Thursday @ 2) and he gets ALL that money to play with.
I wonder what the IRS would say if they saw where the “buck was stopping”.
. Inurement???
. Davey-Boy??
. HEAVEN FORFEND! All that whiskey was a GIFT to DM from CST or CSI for the outstanding job he’s done in the past 3 decades.
[OOps! In the past 3 decades, it’d be the “Anti-scientology Cult’s SPs that gifted it all to him for the !!OUTSTANDING!! job he’s done decimating the multi-national criminal organization masquerading as a religion. We SPs couldn’t have done a better job of it, could we?
I get heartsick and slightly stomach-sick reading this kind of news about the Still Ins getting newly and further scammed. But then, I have to get myself in hand and remind myself that, well, they are pretty stupid, aren’t they? To keep donating? To never question? And if they’re this dumb, this willfully blind, this continually gullible, then, it must follow, that if Miscavige were not scamming them, someone else would be. Some other group would be ripping them off. Right? Actually, this theory doesn’t make me feel better either.
Lol. He did and keep doing a great job. The IAS became the heart of Scn and orgs and public are there to feed it. No to clear a planet. The new motto can be “let’s clear the wallet!”
Crap on a cracker, they don’t have one for $1001 to 4999! I was so gonna get one😉 oh well I guess ill just continue to put the extra $2000 towards extra principal and savings for the kid. I won’t get a neat card to show my friends, my house will be paid off sooner and the kid will have a good down payment on her house after college but I’m really bummed about the cars…,😭😭😭
I just called up the IAS. Like In ‘N Out Burger, they have a special menu of statuses which are off the official menu … I asked about the secret TRULY high end “Complete Moron” status card (only known to elite “Blue Whales” such as myself), which allows the IAS to fill in each month whatever amount they want.
* But wait until they find out that for payment, it’s tied into my old Circuit City account via my bank account in Bangladesh, which has a current balance of four cents … Hahahahaha
The highest level is brown, for those with their head completely up their ass.
Gadfly quipped:
“The highest level is brown, for those with their head completely up their ass.”
GOOD one, if a bit vulgar for my taste.
Charles Ponzi was a fledgling compared to Hubbard and Miscavige.
what does the card do? It is it just a portable form of trophy?
No. It just force/impose the person to give monthly that amount. Every holy month. I believe that it is just shocking. They found another way to squeeze money
Those aren’t “I’m a whale” cards. They’re “I’m a sucker” advertisements.
Same thing!
So, is the top level card black because you need have a black heart to do things like defrauding the elderly to come up with the money to reach that level?
That, and also if you only see black you miss what the little leader is up to.
It isn’t just the elderly Still Ins, not by a long shot.