To: Kevin G. O'Neill who wrote (58 ) 5/17/1998 From: ztect Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 291
Copy of Letter to "Stock Detective"....ztect(spelling not checked)... Dear Sirs: Hitherto, I have valued your service. I have gone so far as to recommend others view your site. In the past, I have found your insights into issues regarding companies like BAAT to be very useful. In particular, you noted how BAAT had made claims it couldn't substantiate, and offered products it couldn't deliver and didn't even have applications for patents. However, I feel you have been a bit premature and irresponsible regarding your current assessment of ProNetLink. You reach conclusions prior to the site being launched. AND YES, THE SITE WAS LAUNCHED. A few hours late...but successfully. You also made many conclusions based on the comments of a firm, Chatfield & Dean that has a very dubious history. See these comments below: "1994 Chatfield and Dean involved in SEC disciplinary precedent involving stock price manipulation" "1996 Chatfield and Dean again clipped by the SEC this time for operating w/o sufficient revenue" "1997 Chatfield and Dean broker nicked for insider trading Chatfield & Dean" "Chatfield Dean & Co. (Greenwood Village, Colorado) and Scott Carothers (Registered Principal, Greenwood Village, Colorado) submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent pursuant to which they were fined $25,000, jointly and severally. Carothers was suspended from association with any NASD member as a financial and operations principal for 10 business days and required to requalify by exam as a financial and operations principal. Without admitting or denying the allegations, the respondents consented to the described sanctions and to the entry of findings that the firm, acting through Carothers, conducted a securities business while failing to maintain its minimum required net capital." You have also failed do you your research on why the company is unique and not just duplicating services provided by the other companies you noted on your web page. ProNetLink, does duplicate ALL these services and then goes steps beyond. First it provides ALL the services in one location at a modest fee. Second, PNLK isn't just a search engine, or reference site, ProNetLink provides all the support required to enact and complete transactions including banking. Now regarding your particular comment about the company's size and start up capital. I strongly suggest you are trying to apply antiquated models of business to "brain power" industries. Let me refer you back to a recent article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine of about two months ago. This article noted how today's new software companies working in "incubators" with daring entrepeneurs have started HUGE companies with brain cells and other people's money (i.e. Venture Capital). The only thing that is unusual about PNLK's path is that it didn't go the route of the traditional IPO. By not going this route, the company opened the door to a lot of small investors like myself, who otherwise would have never been provided the opportunity to invest in such a idea. And yes we all realize, we are investing in a idea....that's what every company starts as (e.g. microsoft, apple, amazon, et cetera). The power and strength of PNLK's idea you have failed to realize. You have also failed to mention in your critiqued, the caliber of the other companies sharing ProNetLink's vision including Proxicom, D&B, Zagoran, et cetera. These are not fly by night companies. These are companies with reputations to maintain. You fail to realize the legal ramifications of falsely claiming association with these companies...if this is indeed what ProNetLink has done. Your cursory analysis, and reliance upon dubious sources, undermines the worthwhile efforts you have tried to implement with your web page. However, again I reiterate that you have acted and reported in an irresponsible fashion. Were you somehow remiss, that Glenn Zagoran didn't have time to talk to you on the day of the launch? Maybe he was busy? Were you pissed becaused you didn't get invited to the party? Sorry, since your actions were so irresponsible, your motivations have to be called into question...and your company has to be considered complicit in any further actions taken against Chatfield & Dean, unless you immediately post a retraction and apology or, at least post, my reply as a counter point to your point of view. Besides any potential ramifications against your company, you have done yourself a disservice by rushing to press a story that severely undermines the efforts your company tries to obtain. Sincerely, ztect cc enforcement@sec.gov