Many have questioned my motives regarding going SOOOO public in this case and dedicating sites to the issue. The following might explain a little better why I have made this a mission in my life.
Motives
I have a pretty big web presence due to a lot of web sites and years invested in getting them ranked really well. I kinda stick out like a sore thumb. From what I can tell, this is why Guardala contacted me in the first place.
The amount of junk mail I receive is stupid. Most the mail is Phishing Scams. I get them for PayPal accounts, eBay and second chance offers, Banks, online accounts and more - 100s, everyday on many sites. The amount of time added to my work day, thanks to these lowlifes is wrong! I can't trust a single email from any of my CD sales network, and have to check each account, everyday for sales or orders because of this.
At some point, I began trying to report the spam and scam stuff to help the problem, not just complain about it - more time.
When I got burned by a trusted Sax Guru that I well knew, I went ghetto on him. It's bad enough that we can't trust anything we see online or in our email folder, but to have to not trust a longtime business associate, supplier, friend. Dude, that was personal.
When I was tipped off to this being a scam, it was on SaxOnTheWeb, and came with the sad proof that this was not an isolated event. It looked like Dave had been stealing from lots of people. As I looked further into it, I realized someone had to stop it.
The Saxophone Community was one of MY WORLDS. Not just a place I skipped into on rare occasion, but a place I had lived for decades, had many people I cared about and thousands that I had tried to help thru the web sites I was running.
I had been involved with a few "causes" before, but this one was personal and even closer; it was mine.
I only go into this lengthy explanation because many have questioned all the effort invested, and I have had a few responses questioning the issue of letting go and moving on from a loss.
I felt an overwhelming need to stop this from going on. When I realized Dave was building his new crime business like the real (MPC) business, I went public. As the information began flooding in of how many people, how he knew these guys and they trusted him, how much more he was stealing from these people (100K or more), how personal it was for many of them, the amount of lost homes, wives, families, friends, and destruction that followed.
What would anybody do with the volume of evidence stacked up against Guardala?
The other contributing factor is - with all these sites online and the fine tuning done to get them top placement on the WWW; I have the most visible position of any sax player on the internet. I know this, because I track, and fine tune to stay there. GOOGLE - Sax Player or Saxophone Player. On a good day, I might have a dozen sites in the top 20 for any major search engine and all over the world.
Am I bragging - NO. With presence comes responsibility. Not trying to preach here, but my Pastor has said many times that with affluence comes responsibility. He then says, "You think God gave you this (skill / position / opportunity / or whatever) for your own personal benefit? NO. It is for everyone else's benefit." This makes sense when you think about 'music' and playing all by yourself or sharing it in concert. It feels great sharing music. Doesn't feel like much of anything keeping it all to yourself at home.
SO,
Not only did I feel like I had to stop this from going on, but I felt responsible to use web skills and get it out, top 10, worldwide, because I knew I could.
The work has been done and Guardala started running into informed people. Rumor has it, he then jumped industry and began using other names. I'm glad that it looks like he has been stopped. I hope we all can glean something from this story that can keep us from suffering such senseless loss in the future.
A quick look at motives. Thanks for letting me explain.
SAXBOY
