Gene Steinberg's Financial Shenanigans @ Paracast forums

Wait - that's not your Twitter?

I am not trying to be funny, I am authentically confused.

 

The new "Crisis update!" is here:



Sadly not much new about it. Looks like he cut and paste together lines from the last week or so of messages.

 

It must be hard coming up with inventive ways to beg for money after all these years.

I still don’t get the rebuilding of the Paracast thing. How does he think that will bring more money in? The damn website is on life support as it is. (I just looked, 8 of the past 10 posts are by Murphy or Steinberg.)

Sorry Gene, the word is out on your schemes. You need a new angle.

 

Especially hard when you are a lazy person who is also afflicted with having no imagination (I would refer you to his interjections on the Paracast as an example of this).

The thing is the Paracast has been garbage since it went on GCN and had to be recorded live with constant interruptions from ad breaks.

It completely destroys any continuity of subject and thought.

They also recycle the same old guests and show topics. There is absolutely no variety.

So not only is it impossible for the show to cover any topic properly due to the interruptions, but the actual topics themselves are stale, boring and highly repetitive.

Chris O'Brien would occasionally bring something interesting into the conversation but now even he has gone.

Add to that the fact that Gene has to interject with his constant pointless reminiscences from yesteryear and facts about TV shows nobody cares about and you have a pile of steaming shit, that nobody wants to listen to.

No amount of marketing can solve that. You need to have a product that people at the very least want.

As for the forums themselves, they looked out of date 10 years ago. It shouldn't really matter that much since they are just discussion forums - just look how sparse Reddit is - it is hardly a design masterpiece but it doesn't matter.

The real problem is that in typical Gene fashion he has filled the forum and website up with adverts to the detriment of the information and presentation - the guy simply has no restraint or taste for that matter.

It is simply painful to read.

He could easily remove some of the ads and tidy up the formatting himself in a few minutes but that is not what I think he intends to do.

Indeed Gene will never do that because he is a complete moron when it comes to realising that "less can be more".

I strongly suspect that he actually wants a marketing expert to help him saturate the forum with even more adverts - (it would be consistent with the way he thinks).

All that will do is drive even more people away (assuming anyone is left) because Gene runs it like a communist dictatorship.

Undesirables are erased from history and put on a permanent banishment list - anyone who even slightly disagrees with Gene is treated this way.

It is not a coincidence that the place is a ghost town now.

Again no marketing or design change can help with that. The only solution to it would be to get rid of Gene and have a real host.

 

"...where the landlord is willing to overlook our previous troubles."

Troubles. Nice euphemism for their history of skipping out on rent. Troubles - somehow scans to me like some unavoidable things happened to the Steinbergs, rather than bad outcomes for themselves AND their landlords, that the Steinbergs brought on repeatedly through their own irresponsible behavior.

You were evicted, what, 4 times in 18 months, something like that? What you are doing is not working. No landlord should overlook your history. Landlords aren't a charity or public service. If your own family won't take you in why should they?

 

agree this is the only one that made me laugh hard, i found all the others boring or offesive, lets hope he doesn't make one of mine!

 

Yes Gene likes to use language which portrays the non-payment of rent as some kind of natural event that is not related to him - like the weather.

Somehow his rent just doesn't get payed even though he can pay for expensive cars and so forth.

It obviously has nothing to do with the fact that he doesn't pay it. No Gene is not involved and because of that it is not his problem to solve.

Everyone else must chip in.

No landlord in their right mind is going to overlook the fact that he has been evicted from every place he has lived over the past decade because he refuses to pay rent.

I don't know what the supply and demand situation is with regards to accommodation in Arizona, but even if there is vastly more supply than demand, it makes no sense to give an apartment to someone who has a history of non-payment.

You will just be losing money for no reason - simply someone living in a place creates wear and tear.

In addition to that once they are in it is hard to get them out and you will end up spending money in having them removed (which anyone who sees their history will know is not a possibility but a guarantee).

As has been previously stated there must be some kind of tomfoolery going on where the Steinbergs are hiding their evictions (as well as all their previous financial judgements and bankruptcy) as they seem to keep getting new apartments and good ones at that.

 

Steinberg's story about his stay at the motel and saving up money for another apartment is so convoluted. If he truly has money set aside for an apartment, why not use it to pay his motel stay. He keeps saying that he is down to the final hours before eviction from the motel.

I don't really believe anything he says these days and you can't confront him in the Paracast chats. Anyone asking real questions is banned and then called a troll or a criminal.

Can you imagine Steinberg calling anyone a criminal? He has far more facetime with a sheriff than anyone I know.

 

Exactly but the same also applies to him being evicted from his apartments. He keeps saying he needs money from others to pay his apartment rent, yet somehow when he gets evicted he ends up in motels for weeks which would cost more.

None of what he says makes sense.

The only firm conclusion one can draw is that he is lying and he uses the imminent threat of eviction as a way to squeeze money and sympathy out of people.

One possibility is that when he is living in an apartment where you pay monthly, he wastes his money (all $2700 SS + Paracast income) on garbage he doesn't need (expensive luxuries, gambling, drugs, - there are many possibilities) leaving him with no money to pay the rent.

On the other hand when he is in a motel he has to pay upfront and so can't spend the money on other things - there is simply no opportunity because he would be straight out on the street.

This would also explain why he seems even more desperate to get handouts when he is in the motel (the begging frequency has gone up a lot)- he desperately wants more money to do whatever he does with it - be it spending on unnecessary items, gambling or drugs.

There definitely seems to be a compulsive element to it even if addiction is not involved.

Either way anyone who sends donations to him is merely enabling this kind of behaviour. They are not helping him and the situation will never change if he keeps getting "rescued".

 

I almost feel sorry for him,almost.If at some point in the past he had admitted his folly and asked for forgiveness he may have gained sympathy and support.However,due to his pathological behaviour and his refusal to countenance criticism he has ended up on a self made collision course towards disaster.

 

It seems as if the funds he gets from begging must be diminishing. Most of those posts come across as someone who is desperate, more than in the past. God only knows what he is blowing his money on. He should be able to get by on Social Security and Paracast money.

Also, someone who is living hand to mouth shouldn't be dining out for all his meals.

 

Steinberg must find himself between a rock and a very hard place. By all accounts he hasn't worked a real job in 35-40 years. Now in his seventies he can't contemplate doing manual labor. Thus he continues to try and make a hobby like the Paracast work for him. All the scamming has finally caught up with him in his old age.

Can you imagine trying to survive at this late date? It truly sucks to be him!

 

It does but it is truly self inflicted and he is unwilling to do anything to change it. His sense of entitlement is such that he believes it is everyone else's problem and he expects them to solve it for him.

The paradox is that if anyone does "help" him it just reinforces the pathological behaviours that got him here and so nothing changes.

Only he can solve his problems but so far he doesn't want to. If he truly did we would not be in the situation where he has been in perpetual "crisis" for more than a decade.

 

Yeah I just can't help it - the thought of anyone living in fear of losing their shelter just chills me to the bone; especially someone at that age.

I'm not condoning any of his behavior or lifestyle choices. But I've seen the homeless population skyrocketing over the last 20 years around here, while the rents in my neighborhood have quadrupled, and wages have been flat for like 20-30 years. So watching this play itself out feels like seeing a microcosm of the economic shitstorm that millions of people are struggling with here in the Corporate States of America.

Nobody should have to live in fear for shelter, food, or healthcare, no matter who they are, imo.

And honestly, in this case, it looks to me like some kind of psychological disorder. Yet another thing that millions of people suffer from, and can't afford to get treated.

 

I mean, I honestly don't think anyone, and I mean anyone, who's been following this debacle honestly WANTS him and his family on the street. I certainly don't.

 

None of us want him (or anyone to be in that situation) but I think we need to keep something in mind. He's been claiming to be hours away from being on the street for a decade, yet somehow he always ends up in a new apartment.

We also need to remember that if this is a psychological issue, then Gene can't be helped unless he admits to it and owns up to it. This is not on the level of something like schizophrenia where you can detain someone for their own safety.

You can't force an alcoholic or gambler into hospital for treatment. They have to come to the realisation themselves and ask for help.

If they stay in denial nothing can be done to help them, sometimes it takes a big shock - actually hitting "rock bottom" - in order for the denial to clear.

For some people even that is not enough.

That's why I keep saying anyone who legitimises what Gene is doing or bails him out is not actually helping him - they are just reinforcing the negative behaviours.

That is also likely the reason why close family like his son have distanced themselves from him - they realise that whatever they do just makes it worse.

 

Yes - I agree, though there are the occasional really hateful anonymous comments over at the UFO Trail blog; it seems remotely possible a few people there might want to see Gene in the gutter. Maybe. But, I don't think that is true of anyone here or most who I see commenting on Twitter.

For me there is a weird fascination with the mystery of it all. I first learned of Gene when I started listening to the Paracast in late 2007. He seemed to be part of an attempt to tell the truth and call out the frauds. It's amazing to me now to have learned all of these things about Gene and his history, to see how he operates. Amazing and frankly depressing.

Then what gets my goat about him is his dishonesty, particularly when employed to attack anyone who dares question him. He is flat out terrible, and will seemingly resort to almost anything to shut people up or "win the argument". (And to a lesser extent there's the way he runs his forum. I am barely active there and have still had multiple comments just vanish, because they were part of something he wanted to make go away.)

But for all of my dislike for and distrust of the man, disgust with him even, I don't want to see him, his wife and their dog actually reduced to living out of their car. Hell, when 'Paranormal Davey' said he was going to give him some of his inheritance, I actually felt a sense of relief, like, OK well, this should at least save him from the worst for awhile. And now I can stop paying attention to this....

I also agree it frequently seems like a psychological disorder is involved here. I am not a mental health professional but, it just would not surprise me. So I don't like the guy, don't trust him, but don't want to see him continue down the miserable path he appears to be on. (All that said, and I know, TL;DR already, I make regular donations - nothing extravagant or to brag about - to good causes, but I would not give Gene a dime. It would be enabling, not helping.)

 

Good points. It seems a tough situation. If his kid has distanced himself, I can't blame him.

 

I can see someone who really couldn't afford the loss, that believed his lies and "lent" him money which has never been repaid wishing him homeless.

 

Yeah, good point. I've imagined the people calling him a 'toupee wearing cockroach' in comments at the UFO Trail blog may be in that same boat.

(The toupee thing seemed a little out of left field to me but what do I know...)