Naish,

You asked why my wife and I are giving up our memberships. There are quite a few folks that have asked the same thing so here it is. There are a number of things and I could have probably put up with some of it but it just kept mounting and has gotten to the point that I can no longer deal with it. Here's a list...

Naish,... ya' know, it's kinda funny that I have never called you Naish when I was addressing you. I always called you Dr. Piazza. There was a time when I had as much respect for you as I did any man on earth. But, like so many things, it gradually degraded into something much less than respectful.

The first time I went to FS I thought I would never be able to return due to my financial condition at the time. Over time, that changed considerably. Not only was I able to return but I felt comfortable to start paying on a membership on my very next visit because I BELIEVED in you and what you professed to be. Of course, silly me, I always believed that I was the only one that my ex-wife was screwing too but that's another story. I started out with a Copper which eventually turned to Silver which finally evolved into a Diamond. All the classes that I have taken over the last few years all included in what is now the Legacy membership. I have paid in way more than what those were selling for before you so graciously jacked the prices up beyond reason. I honestly feel that you got your money's worth for the classes that I took and I got mine without anybody getting screwed. 

You deceived me when you led me to believe that you were not a scientologist and I vehemently believed in you. I argued with many people that I have since had to go back and apologize to. As you got more comfortable with your hold on the members of FS, you quit being as careful. When I got the very first mailing that had that term "exchange in abundance" in it, I knew I had been had. That term is right out of the Ron Hubbard handbook for the up-and-coming scientologist. After that I spoke with a  couple of folks and confirmed that you were indeed a scientologist. We have since seen the term many times in everything you send out. Hell, I wouldn't have give a damn if you were a scientologist or an atheist or anything else. What mattered to me is that you deceived me and I believed you and fought  for you and your "honor". When I did all that research for you on some popular forums, I did it because I believed in you. I was adequately compensated for my efforts and I appreciate that. However, I was very hurt that you were not truthful with me to begin with.

I was later encouraged by a couple of your instructors to go through ID and become an instructor there. Jeez!, What an honor! I was as excited with that prospect as I was with the first girl that I managed to coax into the sleeper of my truck. To think that I was going to be able to be a part, however small, of the most prestigious firearms training facility in the world was one of the most exciting prospects that I could imagine. I talked with Wes and Brad and they thought that it would be great idea and saw no problem at all with the fact that I have a very small training school of my own. But NO, you somehow saw me and my tiny school as some kind of a threat to you and your empire and you nixed the idea the same day even though you train as many people in one weekend as I did in 6 months. I even entertained notions of completely disbanding my little outfit just to be a part of yours. I'm glad I didn't. I will never be any threat to FS nor have I ever had any aspirations of competing with you. Yes, I was very disappointed but I just put on my big-boy panties and went on with life.

In spite of all this, I supported FS to the point that I played YOUR DVD at the beginning of all MY classes and strongly encouraged all MY students to join YOUR organization. Damn, am I sorry for that. I am directly responsible for at least 25 memberships and indirectly for probably 75 or more. We had a a few people here locally that attended FS and/or bought memberships strictly on our word without doing any research at all. Some have expressed regret for that and I'm sure others will follow suit. Everytime you send out one of your silly little "I love me and look at everything I have done, order before midnight tonight to get this exchange in abundance" mailings, I feel like crawling under a rock. Besides for all the "exchange in abundance" crap, it is downright embarrassing to face some of the folks that bought memberships because of us when you have a picture of yourself all tied up and gagged or dressed up in your little genie oufit. It's pretty hard to imagine that you are supposed to be representing a professional firearms training center. Oh yeah, there are a great many that feel just like I do whether they have written you about it or not. They have written me. So far, 13 people including a few of your instructors, have written or called me to wish us farewell and say they don't blame me. I wouldn't be too surprised to see a few follow suit.

Your student/coach program is not nearly as successful as you would like to make folks believe that it is. There are a hell of a lot of people that don't like it including me. If all students were at or near the same level of experience, it would be just fine but when you have someone that is in the middle of their first 2-day class trying to coach someone that have been there 20 times, it gets irritating. Oh yes, the standard response is that you are now turning out more DG's than ever. I certainly don't doubt that after seeing mistakes purposely "forgiven" or the coaches not paying enough attention to catch everything. Truth is, I think the student/coach program was instituted solely to make your student per instructor ratio more in line with what you claim since you are having such a hard time retaining good instructors. Which brings up another point. The few original instructors that you have left are some of the very best that on the planet but some of the new ones need to take the 4-day classes a few more times before they can even pretend to be as good as the older ones. They may suffice for new students but they are not ready for many of the students who have been there many times.

Your prices were pretty much the highest in the nation for a comparable class back in 2003 when I took my first class but, for the quality of the training, it was worth it. Then it jumped from $1200 to $1600, 33% in one year! Damn, but, the quality of the training made it all worth it. Then, in just one more year, another 25% to $2000. What did I care? After all, I had a membership so I could go as often as I wanted for the rest of my life. Then it hit me. This whole thing is not nearly as much about saving the 2nd Amendment as it is about memberships. Yeah, "exchange in abundance". Raise the prices ridiculously high and make those memberships look oh so much more affordable. I have since found out that there is a ton of good training around the country for a fraction of what you charge with no obligation. After you attend 15 or 20 classes, it gets to be a hobby or maybe an obsession. The DG, Master Prep, 4-gun Combat Master. It becomes nothing more than a game after a while to some of us. After all, how often are any of us realistically going to use an Uzi or a full-auto M-16 in an SD situation? But it's fun and appeals to most of us, at least for a time but there's only so much that you can do before you wake up one day and say, "Why in the hell do I keep going back?"  Oh believe me, you or rather your instructors, turn out some very good pistoleros and riflemen and I understand that. My point is, some people pay many thousands of dollars for a membership just to discover that the facility and training that they were so enamoured with in the beginning can't possibly go on for a lifetime. That all works out well for you. And the selling of "repossessed" or "abandoned" memberships for "pennies on the dollar?" Yeah, right, whatever. As Jon told me, you create these memberships. You make them up and print as many or as few as you want. It's not like you have a limited supply, EVER. You just continue to make up new gimmicks and push more memberships. Now we can even go to FS and not only shoot better than 99% of everyone on earth but, as you share your wisdome with us, we can be better businessmen than 99% of them too! Damn, it just keeps getting better.

Then there was the time when FS bought 50 of our Glock Dry Practice Kits and I trusted you enough to let you have them on credit. Up until then, I have never allowed anyone to do that before. I figured that if there were one person on earth that would promptly pay his bills, it would be you. Well, eleven of them sold in the first few weeks but after 3 months or so, I still couldn't get a check for them. The money that you owed us may seem like a pittance to you but it was actually quite a bit to us. Unless there was some reason why you couldn't pay.....  Eventually, Wes paid us out of his personal account for the ones that sold and he sent the remainder back to us. It taught me a valuable lesson.

Wes and Brad are the backbone of your operation and I think that they both have unrivaled honor and honesty. You could learn something from them as I have learned from you.

There are other issues too like how Jesus's death was handled, how Candi's separation was handled and how we wasted, not once but twice, 5 days of our time and 1200 miles of driving to find that the format of a class had been changed without notice and the goals that we had for those trips were now unattainable. Oh well. That's water under the bridge now.

There's also little issues like everytime someone says something that you don't like on your forums, you delete the thread instead of letting people hash it out on their own. I noticed that my last post got quickly swept under the rug before it gave anybody any ideas. You did the same thing with a thread entitled "What is the future of FS?", or something like that. You seem easily, albeit unnecessarily, threatened. It's your forum and you can certainly run it how ever you want, we just don't agree with it.

Suffice it to say that the whole FS experience just doesn't do anything for us anymore and we are moving on. Actually, I find it almost repulsive and it's a damn shame because I once thought that you walked on water. Believe me when I say that I truly hope, for the members' sake, that you will realize what has happened and make a concerted effort to fix it. Principles are worth more than money to some of us.

I am also well aware of how vindictive you are and how very willing you are to try to damage the smaller guy if you feel that you have somehow been wronged. All one has to do is perform a few searches at places like GlockTalk. 

Jon told me to send in everything that was related to the memberships and I will do that tomorrow. As instructed, I will send back the few dry-practice manuals that I have left and all of my certificates have long since been donated to local LEA's.

You can believe that I value the friends that I made out there and and the fun that I had. I have first-hand knowledge of everything that I have said here and I have made every effort to be truthful and accurate in the things that I have said. These are all things that I have wanted to say for a quite awhile and now I'm done.

Buena Suerte!

Sincerely,

Xxxxx Xxxx

P.S. I don't suppose that you would send this letter out in your never-ending flood of e-mail marketing messages would you? No, I didn't figure you would. Just thought I'd ask.