10-03-2007, 03:02 PM
Randall Flagg Wrote:At one time Bear did provide a service in that he did give the names and addresses of many schools providing DL. In fact that's all he was doing. His advice was all but useless as it was biased, wrong, and in some cases. misleading. He claimed to be an expert, he said follow my very excellent advice and you'll get what you want, actually what we got was what he wanted. He adveristsed his own schools, he attacked schools that were in competition. Bear was in it to make money, not to provide the most up to date, accurate, honest, information possible.
As a listing of schools the guides were fair, many of the addresses were out of date. He updated the guides slowly and when absolutely necessary to keep them selling.
As a guide to those schools the (so called guides were useless).
True, but none of us knew at that time that Bear was getting paid off by the schools he was touting and even fewer of us know that Bear had stock or other ownership interest in some of them he highly recommended.
A school would start out very basic with less than great material. As it improved and got better Bear's review of that school would remain the same. If it was one of the schools that had refused to provide him information, in a snit he might well continue negative remarks long after the school had much improved. BIAS? laziness? some of one and lots of the other. The point being that he would give poor information by ignorance and by intent. Phone book-yes, Guide book-no.