Developer Dirty Tricks - CONFIRMED

[Geo]

This is the first article in a lengthy series on corporate corruption in
Harmony.

Summary:

.) Someone using a Starwood / Harmony Development Company
computer vandalized the Wikipedia page about Harmony.

.) All references to any criticism of the developer were
expunged from Wikipedia. This included the references
to the history of Harmony documented here since 2006.

.) Shad Tome, President of Harmony Development Company
blamed the vandalism on a young UCF intern. According
to Mr. Tome the intern did the work on Mr. Tome's own
computer at his own desk in his Harmony Development
corporate office without his prior knowledge.

.) The UCF intern denied Mr. Tome's claim.

.) The director of interns at UCF (University of Central
Florida) confirmed that editing Wikipedia is not part
of the intern's job description.

Details:

This is a continuation of a previous topic posted with a similar name almost
two years ago (see "Developer Dirty Tricks?", http://tinyurl.com/dx7e8v7 ).
That topic was posed as a question at the time since developer involvement
could not be proven (then).

This is all about Wikipedia vandalism (see "Wikipedia Vandalism",
http://tinyurl.com/7vg9fny ) and the extremes that a multi-billion dollar
corporation like Starwood (see "Don't be Evil", http://tinyurl.com/c8b4srs )
will go to in its efforts to hide the truth from the public.

Unless Starwood / Harmony Development Company now wants to claim that
someone hacked into Shad Tome's computer and did the dirty deed for them,
developer involvement in the Wikipedia vandalism can be proven beyond a
shadow of a doubt.

This is also about the developer's multiple apparent attempts to hide
Harmony history from prospective home buyers (see "Finding Harmony History",
http://tinyurl.com/7dszaes ).

In 2010 Jim Warren (see "Agents of Starwood", http://tinyurl.com/7gcvpym and
"Full Disclosure", http://tinyurl.com/7lzxvw9 ) was the only person to ask a
question about the previous vandalism incident (again see "Developer Dirty
Tricks?", http://tinyurl.com/dx7e8v7 ).

George wrote:

IMHO, these recent goofy acts show the unmistakable
tracks of Bozo, big floppy footprints and all.

Jim wrote:

Who is this "Bozo" George?

At the time I didn't answer Jim's question. I will now.

Based primarily on the false identity of the vandal, I really thought that
it was Jim Warren who vandalized Wikipedia in 2010, but I wasn't sure. That
is why I didn't name him.

I must apologize to you Jim. I think that we were both being used and
manipulated at the time. The use of "Garnett Keeler" (a British PR firm) as
a false identity for the vandal in 2010 was clever. Whoever did the
vandalism at that time knew Jim Warren is British. They also knew that I
knew this. So apparently the vandal wanted to make it look like you did it
Jim. Or perhaps a British firm was just selected by random chance. There is
no way to know for sure.

Is it plausible that folks who work for a multi-billion dollar international
real-estate empire like Starwood might know about "Garnett Keeler" (see
http://garnett-keeler.com/ )? That seems plausible to me.

That was then.

I now have definitive proof that either Shad Tome (see "Harmony Cast of
Characters", http://tinyurl.com/7d2px3k ) or someone working from Shad
Tome's computer in his Harmony Development corporate offices vandalized the
Wikipedia page about Harmony on December 7, 2011.

This is what the Harmony Wikipedia page looked like before December 7, 2011:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=444316948

This is what the Harmony Wikipedia page looked like after December 7, 2011:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=464585014

You will notice that a paragraph was removed that begins "In 2005 the
development of Harmony was purchased by Starwood Capital Group." Also the
link to the "Harmony Residents Independent site" in the "External links"
section was removed. Both of these items were originally added to Wikipedia
in 2008.

You will also notice that the person making the changes is only identified
as "edited by 71.43.235.118". Thus we only know the editor by his IP
(Internet Protocol) address. This is the unique identifier that makes it
possible to pinpoint computers anywhere on the internet. It is roughly
equivalent to an internet street address. Figure out who owns the IP address
and you will unveil the identity of the formerly "anonymous" editor.

The vandal not only shows no regard for fairness and objectivity, but he
also lacks the courage to identify himself publicly. He did his work in
secret, anonymously, with impunity and apparently with a sense that no one
would ever know what he was up to. Why not? It almost worked before. It
could work this time.

The two references to the actual history of Harmony (see "Harmony History",
http://tinyurl.com/cge5pyt ) were completely expunged from Wikipedia. One
reference was in the paragraph that was removed and the other was in the
"external links" section. These two distinct removals were done as two
separate edits, each one a minute apart.

Thus all references to any criticism of Starwood / Harmony Development
Company were completely and anonymously removed from Wikipedia by someone
located at 71.43.235.118.

On December 7, 2011, the physical address associated with IP address
71.43.235.118 was this:

Harmony Sales & Information Center
Harmony Development Company
3500 Harmony Square Drive West
Harmony, FL 34773

Shad Tome quickly reversed the changes (once he knew the changes had been
traced to his computer and after first denying even knowing what Wikipedia
is - "Wikipedia? Not comprehending the question."). This incident shows what
lengths a multiple-billion dollar corporation like Starwood will go to
service its own business needs.

Apparently Starwood thought that it could secretly destroy information in
Wikipedia. Perhaps it thought that its publicity problem could be solved in
this way.

No more links from Wikipedia would mean that this information would be
hidden from easy view. Starwood's prospective customers would likely never
see it. Even if the Wikipedia changes were noticed and reversed, no one
would know that it was Starwood / Harmony Development Company that did the
anonymous vandalism.

A multiple-billion dollar corporation like Starwood apparently thinks that
it's OK to rewrite Harmony history. Starwood seems to do whatever it takes
to keep unsuspecting home buyers from reading the truth about Harmony (see
"Historical Revisionism (aka "negationism")", http://tinyurl.com/7bed4cp ).
It does this knowing full well that the truth is now very easy to find
(again see "Finding Harmony History", http://tinyurl.com/7dszaes ), but only
if readers are able to find this newsgroup's links in Wikipedia first.

This kind of abuse of power has long been well known. It has been written
about before, but usually in fiction. One of the best examples is Orwell's
1984 (see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four ). From chapter
3:

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party
imposed - if all records told the same tale � then the
lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls
the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future:
who controls the present controls the past.'

This is all very reminiscent of yet another attempt by the developer to
revise history here (see "Harmony Revisionism" http://tinyurl.com/29pu945 ).

Everyone who buys a home in Harmony lives under this kind of manipulation
and control whether they want to believe it or not.

After Shad Tome's denial, I called Bob Geimer, the VP of Starwood
responsible for Harmony. I told him about the evidence that traces the
Wikipedia vandalism to a computer in Shad Tome's corporate offices. In a
matter of minutes Shad Tome called me. We met in person shortly thereafter.
Mr. Tome admitted that someone in his offices did indeed edit Wikipedia. Mr.
Tome also claimed that he did not know in advance that the vandalism would
occur.

Mr. Tome volunteered that the vandalism was done "accidentally" by a
temporary UCF intern whose employment had since expired. The intern was
hired by a UCF graduate, Bill Fife (see "Harmony Cast of Characters",
http://tinyurl.com/7d2px3k ). According to Mr. Tome this young UCF intern
(who is still a student of the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at
the University of Central Florida) sat down at Mr. Tome's private computer,
in Mr. Tome's chair, at Mr. Tome's desk, in Mr. Tome's private office on the
second floor of the Harmony Welcome Center (see "What is Harmony?",
http://tinyurl.com/8abn5fe ) and vandalized Wikipedia without Mr. Tome's
prior knowledge or consent. Mr. Tome refused to divulge the intern's name.

Mr. Tome claimed that the UCF intern was simply instructed to update
Facebook and Wikipedia about Harmony.

So I spoke to the UCF intern myself. The name of the intern is being
withheld since I believe that this intern was used as an unwitting
scapegoat.

This is an excerpt of the email summary of our phone call (identifiers have
been removed):

When I informed you that I was told by Shad Tome,
President of Harmony Development Company, that an
intern made edits to Harmony's Wikipedia page last
month, you were surprised.

I asked if there were any other interns working for
Harmony last month besides you and [removed]. You
confirmed that no other interns were working for
Harmony at that time. Since you were the only [removed]
intern working at that time you agreed that any
reference to an intern as [removed] must have been
referring to you.

When I told you that Mr. Tome indicated that you (ie.
"the intern", [removed]) not only made changes to Wikipedia
but also to Facebook, you told me that instructions
were given to you by Bill Fife (not Shad Tome) to make
changes to Facebook only (via Constant Contact).

You did not edit the Harmony, FL Wikipedia page. In
fact, you have never edited anything on Wikipedia.

When I told you that Mr. Tome indicated that the
"intern" who made the Wikipedia changes did so while
sitting at Mr. Tome's corporate office desk, you were
also surprised since you have never seen Mr. Tome's
office. In fact, you have never even used a Harmony
Development computer on the second floor of the Harmony
Development corporate offices (where Mr. Tome's office
is located). You have only ever used computers on the
first floor of the Harmony Development corporate
offices and certainly not for Mr. Tome directly or in
his name.

Note: For the record, this summary of my phone call
with the UCF intern is accurate. But the intern
refused to go on the record either to confirm or
deny it. This refusal occurred after the intern
made a subsequent phone call to Shad Tome.

In my efforts to confirm the intern's story, I contacted Dr. Sheri Dressler,
Director, Office of Experiential Learning, UCF. Dr. Dressler is responsible
for internships at the UCF Rosen College. It is my understanding that she
spoke to the intern's direct supervisor as well as to the intern. Dr.
Dressler did not hesitate to go on the record about this matter.

I forwarded to Dr. Dressler the above account given to me by the intern who
worked for Harmony. This is Dr. Dressler's reply:

From: Sheri Dressler
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2012 1:09 PM
To: George Schiro
Subject: Re: Account of Recent Harmony Intern Events


Dear Mr. Schiro,

Based on the information that I have, the job
description of the internships that we support in the
Town of Harmony does not include working with Wikipedia
and we have no knowledge that any of the interns
interacted with Wikipedia information during their
internships. These interns are under the supervision of
staff members in the Town of Harmony, and perform all
their duties at their direction. Other than that, there
is no other information that I can provide.


I was happy to talk with you over the phone and hope
that you can resolve the issues you are trying to
address directly with the Town of Harmony.

Sincerely,
Sheri Dressler

Therefore it is apparent that someone other than a UCF intern sat at the
desk of the President of Harmony Development Company and vandalized the
Wikipedia Harmony page on December 7, 2011 with the intent to expunge all
links to Harmony's history as well as all references to free and independent
points-of-view about Harmony.

Furthermore, assuming that the intern and Dr. Dressler were being truthful,
why would anyone try to blame such a nefarious scheme on an unsuspecting
innocent in one's own care?

[Geo]

Future posts to this thread will only be accepted from Bob Geimer, Bob
Evans, Shad Tome or myself.

Alternatively, if anyone else has documented evidence that refutes or
supports what appears on this thread, that will be accepted as well.
Naturally, anyone can post whatever they like on other threads (within
reason, see various discussions on group moderation policy as well as
"Welcome to HarmonyFL !", http://tinyurl.com/89mcfnt ).

[Geo]

On January 4, 2012 the email below was sent to Bob Geimer of Starwood
Capitol Group (see "Harmony Cast of Characters",
http://tinyurl.com/7d2px3k ).

On January 6, 2012 a letter was sent to my home from Bob Geimer by way of
Bob Evans (see "Lochmere Development Group", http://tinyurl.com/7qmjsn5 ).
It arrived on the 7th.

On January 9, 2012 the same letter from Bob Geimer / Bob Evans was hand
delivered to me personally by two Osceola County Sheriff's Deputies (see
"Living in Fear in Harmony", http://tinyurl.com/75o4rfk ).

My wife is convinced that the stress caused by Bob Geimer's letter helped
send her to the St. Cloud Hospital emergency room a few days later.


From: George Schiro
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 6:31 PM
To: Gei...@Starwood.com
Cc: Shad Tome; swt...@ymail.com
Subject: RE: Wikipedia Vandalism


Note: Shad Tome made it understood that you were not
happy after receiving a call from me on your cell phone
last month. He repeated your words to the effect "How
did he get my cell number?!" (Answer: You gave it to me
Bob, 6 years ago.) So I am following-up with you by
email. Also, since it is my understanding that Mr. Tome
is blocking my emails once again at his corporate
address, I have included his private email address here
as well.

Mr. Geimer,

This is a continuation of the previous emails sent to
you about "Wikipedia Vandalism" almost 2 years ago,
emails which you completely ignored (see below).

The problem has been repeated. And it is even more
egregious this time.

It would appear that you made no effort to impress upon
the folks running Harmony that such illicit behavior is
not something fostered by or sanctioned by Starwood. On
the contrary, since the act was so blatant this time,
it would appear that perhaps it was done with your
knowledge and consent. I would really like to know for
sure if that is the case.

Here is the paragraph removed by someone at Harmony
Development Company on 12/7/2011:

In 2005 the development of Harmony was purchased by

Starwood Capital Group. Since then several existing
amenities in Harmony have been removed and many
others promised by the original developer have
either been rescinded or remain unfulfilled. These
actions on the part of the new developers have
created much controversy and consternation on the
part of long standing Harmony residents. The
marketing promises that were apparently broken or
remain unfulfilled by Starwood / Harmony
Development Company have been documented in detail
by a residents website with an open newsgroup.[5]

Note: The [5] footnote references to the
HarmonyFL Google group was also removed.

Here is a separate link to the independent external
website (further down the page) also removed by someone
at Harmony Development Company on 12/7/2011:

Harmony Residents Independent site

You can see what the page looked like after the
vandalism was complete here:

http://tinyurl.com/7pwfx72

As you can see, all external references to any
criticism of the developer was removed from the
Wikipedia page about Harmony, Florida. This obvious
attempt to suppress the truth would be outrageous if it
was not also laughable. Once again the person making
these changes did so in the most cowardly and
ham-handed manner possible. But as I told on the phone
on 12/8/2011, I have evidence which proves that the
changes to the Harmony page on Wikipedia were made by
someone at Harmony Development corporate offices. This
is true even though Mr. Tome initially denied any
knowledge of Wikipedia changes. Only after I spoke to
you did Mr. Tome change his position. He admitted that
the changes had indeed been made by someone in his
offices.

As you may know, I met with Mr. Tome shortly after I
spoke to you. At that time he claimed that the
Wikipedia vandalism was done by accident by an intern
from the Rosen College. Mr. Tome denied any knowledge
of the Wikipedia edits prior to my bringing the issue
to his attention. But he did say that it was done by an
intern sitting at his desk. According to Mr. Tome,
"she" (the intern) was given access to Mr. Tome's PC
for the purpose of updating social networking sites
about Harmony as well as Wikipedia. That is what I was
told face-to-face by Mr. Tome on 12/8/2011. Needless to
say, I found Mr. Tome's account hard to believe.

Now that the holidays are over, I have had the
opportunity to investigate this matter further. I
contacted both interns who did work for Harmony at the
time of the Wikipedia vandalism. Both denied any
knowledge of Wikipedia changes. In fact, the only
female intern stated plainly that she did not use Mr.
Tome's personal computer and she has never even seen
the office where his PC resides. Her work was done on
behalf of Bill Fife, not Shad Tome directly.

It would appear that either the intern is lying or Mr.
Tome's account of this matter is not accurate. Either
way, this has the appearance of an attempted cover-up.

Finally, let me allay any doubt that Mr. Tome's
personal computer was used to vandalize the Harmony
Wikipedia page, as he told me. Wikipedia's change log
clearly shows that the location from which Mr. Tome
made the corrections to the vandalism (fixes which he
has fully acknowledged in writing making himself) is
one and the same location from which the vandalism
originated.

So I will ask you directly Mr. Geimer. Were the changes
effected from Shad Tome's computer to the Harmony, FL
Wikipedia page made with your knowledge and consent? In
other words, does Starwood condone such clandestine
activity with the apparent intent to remove a
long-standing historical reference about Harmony?

Does Starwood condone such secret attempts to sway
public opinion in this way?

What exactly is Starwood's position on this activity?

Sincerely,

George Schiro




From: George Schiro
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 6:28 PM
To: Gei...@Starwood.com
Subject: RE: Wikipedia Vandalism


Bob,

FYI, the Wikipedia entry on "Harmony, FL" has now been
fixed. Recognizing that an abuse was perpetrated, the
bogus "GarnetKeeler" account has been blocked by
Wikipedia administrators and its changes and change
description have been removed.

I assume that you understand how your non-response will
be interpreted.

Thanks anyway for your time.

'Geo

Ps. I have verification that you received the previous
email and that you will receive this one.




From: George Schiro
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 7:01 AM
To: Gei...@Starwood.com
Subject: Wikipedia Vandalism


Hello Bob,

It's been several years now since I have written to you
directly. I have no doubt that you would prefer this to
continue. However, something has happened recently that
I believe is important enough to warrant your immediate
attention. I feel that you should be given every
opportunity to respond before this matter proceeds much
further.

It is my impression that someone associated either with
Starwood, Birchwood Acres or one of your ancillary
vendors may have been involved with a recent false and
malicious change to the "Harmony, FL" page on
Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony,_Florida

Here is the original paragraph that I added to
Wikipedia almost 2 years ago:

"In 2005 the development of Harmony was purchased by

Starwood Capital Group. Since then several existing
amenities in Harmony have been removed and many others
promised by the original developer have either been
rescinded or remain unfulfilled. These actions on the
part of the new developers have created much
controversy and consternation on the part of long
standing Harmony residents. The marketing promises that
were apparently broken or remain unfulfilled by
Starwood / Harmony Development Company have been
documented in detail by a residents website with an
open newsgroup.[5]"

As you can see, what I wrote was neither unfair to
Starwood nor inflammatory. My prose was the plain and
simple truth without exaggeration or emotion. Notice
also that my name is clearly visible in the change
history for all to see as the author of this paragraph.
Unlike the vandal, what I have written shows no
cowardice.

The vandal recently changed this sentence:

1a) "on the part of long standing Harmony residents."

to this:

1b) "on the part of one long standing Harmony
resident."

and this:

2a) "have been documented in detail by a residents
website with an open newsgroup.[5]"

was changed to this:

2b) "have been chronicled in obsessive detail by a
resident on a Google group.[5] This one resident has
alienated everyone who has tried to engage in civil
discourse with him.[6] [7]"

In each case, the truth was changed to a falsehood.
This fact can be clearly documented.

I will be working with Wikipedia to trace the
originator of this change. Will you be initiating your
own investigation? I would assume that Starwood does
not condone such behavior.

I am sure that you can imagine how damaging this
ham-handed act of vandalism may appear to a wider
audience, especially if it is determined that the
perpetrator is in some way connected to Starwood
Capitol.

I am willing to cooperate with you in any way that I
can to get to the bottom of this. I seriously doubt
that Starwood is involved since this act is so
obviously the work of someone with very limited ability
to see the scope and potential repercussions of such an
underhanded misdeed.

Would you be willing to cooperate fully with Wikipedia
should they require your assistance with this matter?

Please let me know soon how you intend to handle this.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

George Schiro

Ps. I would have approached Shad Tome with this, but he
is blocking my emails. Also, perhaps this is a
coincidence, but the day after I was queried by Bob
Evans at a CDD meeting about how the HarmonyFL google
group is moderated (I said that only spam gets
deleted), for the first time ever I received a spam
report from google. It indicated that several of my own
posts were "classified as likely spam messages". FYI,
anyone can attempt to have a message deleted by using
Google's "Report this message" or the "Report spam"
feature. This would appear to be another ham-handed
attempt to hide or distort the truth.

-----Original Message-----
From: harm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:harm...@googlegroups.com]On
Behalf Of Geo
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 7:07 AM
To: gg
Subject: Developer Dirty Tricks - CONFIRMED