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Report: #1374977

Complaint Review: New England Meteoritical Services - Mendon Massachusetts

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  • Reported By: Bill — Colchester Connecticut USA
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  • New England Meteoritical Services P.O. Box 440 Mendon, Massachusetts USA

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Just read a review on this company whom I have been dealing with for years for authenticating services for meteorites.  It was uncanny how that complaint, and description of service provider responses, match all of mine.  The letters they return with each authentication service have to be form letters.

I have had my suspicions for a long time but, foolishly continued to utilize this companies services and pay them for each submittal.  I wondered how how they could do these authentications so cheaply.  At some point I researched how meteorites are properly tested.  The other review I mentionied reading was very thorough and informative, and I learned even more than I already knew, from it.  It is a painstaking and time consuming process to authenticate a meteorite.  Just cutting a thin cross section would cost considerably more than $20.00, for just one.  This company will process 3 for this one low price.  And, as the other review reveals, quickly send a "form-like" letter for each, telling you that "no, your sample is not meteoritical.  It contains no nickle or other meteoritical characteristics.  It is terrestrial.

You hunt, you cut stones, you polish stones, you send samples (fingernail size, not anywhere large enougn to be cut into a thin cross sections for legitimate analysis) and then you wait, hoping you have finally found a real meteorite.  Now, I finally learn, and have to accept, that no matter how many real ones I may have found over this years, I was never going to get a positive response.  So disappointing and characteristic of what people have become in their greed.  This is a perfect scam as very few potential finds will ever actually be meteorites.  And, who are youi going to find to support a challenge.  But, when you have studied diligently for 4-5 years and studied rights and wrongs, and searched intensely, how is it you never find one.  Then, they try to tell you that mateorites don't tend to fall in your area so they are rare where you are looking.  

In one instance I did challenge one of their findings with a university.  They had me to send material to a lab in Canada to be crushed and every element revealed.  Only then could a proper determination be made, and it cost around $150.00.  The university then reviewed the many pages of documentation of the elements and their concentrations and made a proper academic determination.

I really feel ripped off, diappointed, cheated and I hope this con shop gets what they deserve.  A former college proffessor on the subject (reportedly); how does anyone fall so far from so high.  

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 05/23/2017 04:53 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/new-england-meteoritical-services/mendon-massachusetts/new-england-meteoritical-services-years-of-wasted-time-in-searching-for-meteorites-mendon-1374977. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
1Author
1Consumer
1Employee/Owner

#3 General Comment

I'm curious.

AUTHOR: TheWinnerCantBeBeat - (United States)

POSTED: Saturday, October 09, 2021

 Good morning. I'm curious if the professor you speak of would be either Leonard Lesko, or Kenneth Barnett Tankersly? Mr. Lesko is a former professor at Brown University. Mr. Tankersly is currently a professor at the University of Cincinnati. I almost fell victim to both of these corrupt individuals. Mr. Lesko was attempting to involve me in dealings with this lab. Thanks.

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#2 REBUTTAL Owner of company

Response from New England Meteoritical

AUTHOR: New England Meteoritical - (USA)

POSTED: Friday, June 09, 2017

Bill, the writer of this complaint, has been sending us samples to test for a couple of year’s hoping to find a meteorite.

Testing showed that the samples were not meteorites but the frustration of not finding one can be disappointing and in not doing better in support of this, we failed.

The writer wrote eloquently and convincingly, conveying a kind of betrayal in his complaint.

After further discussion, the writer wrote an equally eloquent retraction to this complaint and would have withdrawn it if allowed by RipOff.com

Finding a meteorite is hard. Samples are sent with high hopes. After a series of negative results it is natural to look at the testing methods and to wonder if something is amiss.

We recognize this and try to supplement the results with additional information. For this writer, who in our opinion was trying very hard to find a meteorite, we sent several small samples of actual meteorites (at no charge) to help him better understand some of their visual characteristics.

We encouraged him to learn more and arranged for him to meet with a geology/meteorite Curator at Yale University.

The writer also sent samples to a chemical and elemental testing lab at considerable expense to himself and conversed with Washington University in St. Louis over his samples.

After this considerable effort, the writer was unable to show that our findings with his samples were wrong. They were not meteorites.

Still, we failed here. Not in the testing results but in moral way of not addressing this disappointment in a more helpful and instructive way.

There are multiple methods to determine if a sample is meteoritical, some inexpensive, others very costly. We have and operate a full petrographic lab to make this determination (verification) at low cost, and university backup as needed. The service offered is for verification and not for classification which is the next step towards registration.

We simply need to do better in communicating the various testing methods used in both the verification process and the classification of meteorites.

New England Meteoritical has been testing samples for over three decades and online since 1994. We understand how trying sending samples can be and know that we can’t please everyone. However, that said, we failed the writer in not morally supporting him more for his efforts.

Meteoritics is a well constrained, peer reviewed science. Finding a balance between what we do and conveying this to the public can sometimes be difficult.

As an act of Good Faith we refunded the testing charges for all the samples he sent over the past two years and appreciate him meeting us on middle ground. The writer did not request this refund but every customer is important to us and we take their concerns seriously.

New England Meteoritical

Lab@meteorlab.com

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#1 Author of original report

New England Meteoritical differences settled

AUTHOR: - ()

POSTED: Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Over the past several days I have been working with New England Meteoritical Services to, mutually, establish an understanding of what ultimately went wrong following a 4 year, excellent and mutually enjoyable, relationship but which led to a recent posting on Ripoff.com to which NEMS reacted as unwarranted and hurtful.  One which, I felt at the time, was warranted.  As is often the case with communications, and language, we each had our own interpretations of the website language.  Not everyone sees and understands words and sentence structure in exactly the same way, and with the exact same meaning.  It is an easy thing to come to incorrect conclusions, without dialog.  I had an interpretation of the website language that was not intended by the site, as they have since explained to my satisfaction.  I am not claiming any deception or carelessness on the part of anyone, only misunderstandings.  We have since resolved these misunderstandings, and the resulting minor temporary discourse, and now have a better appreciation of each others positions, including the intended meanings, as expressed, in New England Meteoritical Services (NEMS) website description and explanation of services.  This posting is intended to shed new and current light on the matter, as it now stands, and to show to anyone, who may have been influenced by the previous posting, that we have settled and put aside any differences with a renewed level of respect for one another.  This is a great example of a company putting its customers first and willing to work out solutions to problems.      

Bill - Colchester, CT

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