Time for some proper due diligence/ independent auditing in our communities

[moshe25]

Welcome to DDF!

Are you affiliated with BB or BS?

Yes i am a friend of judah and know him to always be a honest open and nice guy. I'm honestly surprised at all the hate and just raising counterpoints I wasn't asked to do this and he doesn't know I'm posting

[ari3]

A lot of these "inconsistencies" are easily explainable to anyone interested in finding out and calling him instead of being hocker/know it all and needlessly destroying someones business if you didnt put in the effort to at least speak to him. there's no heter if you dont know it for a fact having questions is not knowing it for a fact
ps with all the uncalled for hate regarding his looks[seriously?!] and stuff like that i would also be negative.

I didn't see people on DDF giving hate about his looks, only pointing out all the inconsistencies.

I also see that you are brand new here on DDF, even newer than Blackbird is on twitter. Do you have any affiliation with any of the involved parties or are you just very worried about our LH.

[moshe25]

@moshe25

Like all of these akward shaylos, the two sides of the coin are LH on one side - But the equal azhara of Lo Sa'amod Al dam reiechah is the other side.
Back during the CW issue, I qouted a teshuva I heard (I think it was an Avnei Nezer, but I dont have the time or pateince to dig it up to check) who decried the minhag haolam to be makpid on LH at the expense of La saamod.

No one here said that JS is definitly doing something wrong. All they did was point out that there are some issues that you  should be careful of. Kiyum of Lo saamod - check, LH - NO, bec they never said that he's doing wrong
You're right there's nothing wrong with raising questions its a problem to call him a fraud and a ponzi because you have those questions especially considering that many of them are from lack of understanding and can be easily resolved if they spoke to him.
To put it another way: Why do you think halacha values JS's parnasa over the parnasa of the prospective investors???
I have a B-i-L who is being convinced to invest in a certain RE project in EY. I see some serious warning signs that the investment potential/risk is not as rosy as the prospectus is selling. Am I not allowed to say anything to him bec it may hurt the GP's parnasa???

You're right its ok to raise questions but i've seen a lot of people saying or insinuating it must be a fraud due to those questions the proper approach would be before making that determination would be to call and ask him

[liosac]

I didn't see people on DDF giving hate about his looks, only pointing out all the inconsistencies.

I also see that you are brand new here on DDF, even newer than Blackbird is on twitter. Do you have any affiliation with any of the involved parties or are you just very worried about our LH.

To be fair the original twitter post had comment that were definitely hateful and not litoeles. I do not see that here or on the since deleted LinkedIn post.

[ari3]

To be fair the original twitter post had comment that were definitely hateful and not litoeles. I do not see that here or on the since deleted LinkedIn post.

I am not on twitter only here and on linkedin. Most of the comments were fair questions and critiques of the the product whether about the inconsistencies, the vagueness, the marketing etc..
And yes commenting about an out of place picture of R' Elyashiv, comments about the influencer hired etc.. IMHO are relevant.

[liosac]

He names Berkower as his auditor in is form ADV filing with the SEC, yet Berkower denies ever auditing Blackbird.

Berkower is also listed as auditor on his 2021 fund statement. Who confirmed with Berkower that he is not a client?

[yfr bachur]

You're right its ok to raise questions but i've seen a lot of people saying or insinuating it must be a fraud due to those questions the proper approach would be before making that determination would be to call and ask him

Seriously??? 
I'm not accusing JS of running a BM style op, but what do you think he would have said?
I see something fishy in Enron, so i need to call them first and belive what they say?!?!?! before I can warn my friends and relations that theres smoke??

Honestly, if you can, do you not think that he brought the scrutiny upon himself? Advertising (for investments) in a way we've never seen before (targeting the frum kehilos) (which, as pointed out up thread, is at best on the extreme edge of legality), using influencers to drive investors in his direction (which BTW is in the news with TB and GB being sued for their involvement in FTX)...
HAVING FUNNY NUMBERS IN LEGALY REQUIRED DISCLOSURE DOCUMENTS!?!?!?

(BTW If JS is who I think he is, then our families have a long relationship going back decades - though I have zero personal connection)

[Fish Tank]

You're right its ok to raise questions but i've seen a lot of people saying or insinuating it must be a fraud due to those questions the proper approach would be before making that determination would be to call and ask him

If a business publishes an advertisement with red flags, I don't need to call them for an explanation of why I should not tell people to stay away from them. They need to call me and explain why I should still do business with them and promote them to my friends etc.

*Calling me means calling the public by issuing a public statement.

[aygart]

but i've seen a lot of people saying or insinuating it must be a fraud due to those questions

Where, here?

[Joel]

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/berelsolomon_an-update-on-my-relationship-with-blackbird-activity-7085381246561738753-xim6?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

[Moshe123]

Wow

[Onefishtwofish]

Time to give credit to where it is due.

I don't think BS was trying to do any harm or deceive ppl.
I assume this weeks publications will still have the advertisement but at least more ppl in our communities are more mindful.

[aygart]

Time to give credit to where it is due.

I don't think BS was trying to do any harm or deceive ppl.
I assume this weeks publications will still have the advertisement but at least more ppl in our communities are more mindful.

Maybe he will influence for more due diligence

[Alexsei]

Imagine this disclaimer coming with the first ad.
If a lesson was learned it should be the need for transparency.

[moshe25]

Seriously??? 
I'm not accusing JS of running a BM style op, but what do you think he would have said?
I see something fishy in Enron, so i need to call them first and belive what they say?!?!?! before I can warn my friends and relations that theres smoke??

Honestly, if you can, do you not think that he brought the scrutiny upon himself? Advertising (for investments) in a way we've never seen before (targeting the frum kehilos) (which, as pointed out up thread, is at best on the extreme edge of legality), using influencers to drive investors in his direction (which BTW is in the news with TB and GB being sued for their involvement in FTX)...
HAVING FUNNY NUMBERS IN LEGALY REQUIRED DISCLOSURE DOCUMENTS!?!?!?
(BTW If JS is who I think he is, then our families have a long relationship going back decades - though I have zero personal connection)

What i'm saying is a lot of the questions are easily explainable and are more questions from lack of knowledge than actually wrong for example he has run a investment firm since 2014 but its only been blackbird since 2019 pretty simple also the picture of reb elyashiv he thought would be a nice touch in a jewish office why he came from vegas he's originally from lakewood and due too personal reasons moved back also most incosistencies in the numbers are from the half year report or the full year or they're ytd numbers remember when you have a 3rd party admin its hard to fudge numbers thats the whole point

[moshe25]

I am not on twitter only here and on linkedin. Most of the comments were fair questions and critiques of the the product whether about the inconsistencies, the vagueness, the marketing etc..
And yes commenting about an out of place picture of R' Elyashiv, comments about the influencer hired etc.. IMHO are relevant.

I can't understand what would be wrong with putting a gadol picture in your office there's actually a significant reason why he put reb elyashiv about a paid influencer BS is someone he met became friends with actually invested by him and then he thought would be a good idea for a bold ad [look how that turned out ]

[Euclid]

Time to give credit to where it is due.

I don't think BS was trying to do any harm or deceive ppl.

His business model is deceiving people - he's been doing it for years. IMO BS is getting off way too easy here; people are focusing their ire on JS too much - I stated my opinion earlier: I think he's just someone who doesn't have the maturity yet. As opposed to BS who's been building sand castles for years.

[Alexsei]

Is it the same BS that tried to sell BS about HG? Was he a paid influencer there too?

[Yehudaa]

What i'm saying is a lot of the questions are easily explainable and are more questions from lack of knowledge than actually wrongin for example he has run a investment firm since 2014 but its only been blackbird since 2019 pretty simple also the picture of reb elyashiv he thought would be a nice touch in a jewish office why he came from vegas he's originally from lakewood and due too personal reasons moved back also most incosistencies in the numbers are from the half year report or the full year or they're ytd numbers remember when you have a 3rd party admin its hard to fudge numbers thats the whole point

@moshe25 I understand your point of view as a friend of his, and many of us would probably react the same way if we knew JS.

However, everyone else here doesn't know JS, so all they've seen is the information which has been shared publicly by BS and JS, which has not been very convincing. As many have said above, people here have seen far too many scams and bad investments come through our community (see 5k+ posts here for a few examples) to sit quietly when people may be falling unsuspectingly for something that's not in their best interest.

Is your friend a scammer? Nobody here is saying that. People here are simply saying that your friend is a young person who might not have enough experience to be doing what he's trying to do, and that there are definitely some red flags that what he's claiming might not be all it's hyped up to be. None of us have the years of context that you have from knowing him, so don't come on here and expect everyone to trust and believe the guy the same way you do as a friend of his. You're expecting the whole world to judge him the same way a trusting friend does, and that's just not reasonable.

I'll add that based on what I've seen, I'm sure your friend is an extremely ambitious, smart person- most people wouldn't have the ambition or intelligence to get as far as he has in this. He's probably a great guy, and almost certainly means well. (I say that 100% seriously.) That just doesn't mean it's a good place for people to put their hard-earned money though.

I hope this helps you step out of your own shoes and understand everyone else's perspective here.

[moshe25]

If a business publishes an advertisement with red flags, I don't need to call them for an explanation of why I should not tell people to stay away from them. They need to call me and explain why I should still do business with them and promote them to my friends etc.

*Calling me means calling the public by issuing a public statement.

Didn't mean call him specific more like verify that it's a real legit question and not just lack of knowledge or being knowledgeable in investing
Also you don't need to call him but instead of encouraging people not to do business encourage them to do due diligence with a open mind