More B-J response, written prior to the lawsuit, and posted on a blog site where the original rumors were posted.
Barrett-Jackson responds
As always Barrett-Jackson wishes to thank our many customers, guests and fellow car enthusiasts. Working together we create something very special in Scottsdale every January and Palm Beach a couple of months later.
However, some recent, false postings on blogs and discussion forums now force us to shift from thanking so many to asking an irresponsible few: “what were you thinking?”
Also, please consider this posting an official, legal request of this blog from Barrett-Jackson to remove all content sparked by the post below since the original source of the information has since retracted the story and further publication of it, such as on this forum, will be subject to the aggressive legal action we should and must take to eliminate the absurd and false information contained on this site.
Though our attorney disagrees with me, I am of the mindset that Mr.
Barer’s original comments at
www.apexstrategy.com (fourwheeldrift blog) – comments that led to others such as this blog to post the same inaccurate, irresponsible and legal defamatory information about Barrett-Jackson’s business practices -- may have been naïve or
innocent. That’s because he may have simply been careless to repeat
rumors he has heard from so-called “insiders” who claim to know various salacious things about our recent event. It is hard to imagine that a “freelance journalist” (as Mr. Barer’s website defines him) would recklessly publish so many unfounded and untrue statements in one package. Regardless of Mr. Barer’s intent, Barrett-Jackson takes all public attacks on its business practices quite seriously, particularly when they are published to an audience as far-reaching as users of the Internet by someone holding himself out as a professional journalist.
As with Mr. Barer’s original posting – one he has now replaced (see
below) --repeating his original comments on this blog does not excuse the false and defamatory information now posted as a result of Mr. Barrer’s original, bogus entry.
As President of Barrett-Jackson, I can assure readers of this forum that the claims made in Mr. Barer’s posting are patently false. There is no lawsuit by a well-known judge. There is no class action lawsuit. There is no situation involving Barrett-Jackson owning many cars that are run through the auction and providing “shill bidders” to inflate prices of vehicles. There are no secret trucks transporting vehicles back to Barrett-Jackson’s “warehouse” after unsuccessful sales. It is impossible to respond to each of the claims made in this posting in any reasonable, professional manner, and Mr. Barer should not be so reckless in repeating as “proven” such fabricated stories. This forum should not be so reckless as to repeat them.
In fact, the laundry list of wrongdoing cited as fact by Mr. Barer would be almost comical if the statements were not so directly harmful to the business that hundreds of people have worked so hard to build in these last
36 years.
The varied and far-fetched claims made by Mr. Barer in his story are not worthy of any further response other than to say that the only lawsuit surrounding these matters is likely to be one for defamation filed by Barrett-Jackson against any and all who repeat fantasy rather than fact.
Finally, thank you to all of our bidders, buyers and enthusiasts who wrote in and directly refuted this nonsense. It had an impact on Mr.
Barer and if we have one thing to thank him for is that he was willing to listen after receiving an avalanche of testimonials and facts directly refuting his rumor and innuendo.
Good people when confronted with good, new information re-evaluate and correct course. That is what Mr. Barer has done and what this forum should do as well.
Steve Davis
President