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‘I own RUSS (the stock, that is)’ by John T. Reed

On April 7, 2003 I bought five shares of Whitney Information Network, Inc. (Stock symbol RUSS) at $4.25 per share.
I instructed Ameritrade that I wanted to “receive corporate communications.” That means Whitney Information Network, Inc. is supposed to send me a copy of each of the things they mail to shareholders and invite me to the annual meeting. I am now entitled by law to attend that meeting.
In fact, I have only received one document from WIN. They are supposed to send me all the others, but apparently “forgot” to comply with that contractual provision or rule. That is childish at best and illegal at worst.
My share of the company is small, like those folks in the TV commercial who say they own a particular company, then get treated like big shots by people who incorrectly assume they own the whole company. In one, a woman at a restaurant tells her mother she owns EMI. When her mother loudly repeats that, her actual tiny percentage ownership appears at the bottom of the screen, unseen by the waiter who suddenly breaks into an unsolicited audition of his singing talents.
Five shares of RUSS is .000001 of the 8,096,624 total shares.
I will not be outvoting Russ at the annual meeting. He owned 81.9% last time I checked.
But corporate managers owe each and every shareholder, regardless of the size of his stake, a fiduciary duty always to act in the best interest of the corporation and never to place their own individual interests above those of the shareholders. To state it in personal terms, Russ Whitney has a duty never to place his own personal interest above the interest of John T. Reed and the other Whitney Information Network, Inc. shareholders.
Would he ever do such a thing? Elsewhere at this Web site, I have written two articles about the corporation and how it is being operated and its results reported to the S.E.C. and the public.
• ReedonWINinc.html
• Whitneyoffering.html
In the 1980’s, I was often asked how the various gurus that I do not recommend managed to keep on doing what they do. My explanation was that they cleverly stayed in First Amendment Land, restricting their activities to selling books and cassettes and seminars. Regulation is prohibited in First Amendment Land. In particular, I noted, they stayed away from regulated activties like insurance and securities.
Then, in the nineties, I was astonished to see many gurus branch into precisely those industries. Charles Givens, for example, got involved with insurance. Wade Cook and Russ Whitney operated using public companies, like the one I just bought stock in.
The reason to use such companies is the potential to make bigger bucks than selling books and tapes and seminars and “mentoring” services. But insurance and securities are highly regulated and the regulators are nowhere near as dumb or as passive as the typical get-rich-quick seminar attendee. Regulated companies are required to disclose great detail about their companies periodically—quarterly in the case of public companies.
I am surprised that guys like Cook and Whitney would go down that road.
Copyright 2003, 2004 by John T. Reed
Last update 4/17/04
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John T. Reed, a.k.a. John Reed, Jack Reed, 342 Bryan Drive, Alamo, CA 94507, Voice: 925-820-7262, Fax: 925-820-1259, Email: johnreed@johntreed.com

CONSUMER WARNING NOTICE: I recently saw Russ Whitney on a late night TV infomercial and then attended one of his "free" seminars. Unfortunately I believed all of their LIES and FRAUDULENT CLAIMS and I paid thousands of dollars to go to his "training camps". Needless to say I was clearly ripped off, cheated and lied to by Russ Whitney and his employees (band of thieves). My mistake was not searching the Internet to find out more about Russ Whitney and his company's HORRIBLE reputation for fraud, deception and illegal activities. Had I searched online I would have found out about THOUSANDS of customers being cheated, HUNDREDS of investigations by the Attorney General into the fraud of Russ Whitney and his company's, and that Russ Whitney himself is a CONVICTED VIOLENT FELON and spent years in PRISON. I saved the cached pages from the major search engines of the John Reed lawsuit with Russell Whitney and the TRUTH and FACTS that Reed discovered during his investigation of Whitney. I am posting this information on real estate discussion boards so other people do NOT get cheated and ripped off like I did.