Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
Back in college, a friend of mine needed recommendation letters to get into grad school. He approached one of his favorite professors, whom he was sure would write the letter for him.
"Write it, bring it back to me, and I'll sign it," said the professor.
My friend was shocked. He looked up to this professor. Was he really being told to write his own recommendation letter, and the professor would simply rubber-stamp-sign anything he wrote?
I told him that this occurs fairly often. Professors (and high school teachers) get asked for these letters constantly, and get sick of writing them. Basically if they like the student enough, they'll sign any letter which looks credible and reasonable.
My buddy still had a problem. He couldn't bring himself to write his own letter. "Just feels weird recommending myself, I don't even know what to write," he said. I told him that I would do it.
So I sat down at my computer, fired up the early 1990s pre-Windows word processor, and hammered out a quick recommendation for him, written from the point of view of his professor, whom I had never met. I printed it, handed it to him, he brought it in, the prof signed it, and the deed was done.
I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. Bob Hesley is clearly a real customer of CM. He's also a lonely old man who fell for CM's "good Christian guy who will help you win money" routine, and probably believes CM is his friend. However, Bob is old and probably doesn't feel like writing these testimonials himself. It's likely that either CM is masquerading as Bob (with his permission), or Bob is being asked by CM to show up and post testimonials. It could be something like, "Bob, these haters won't let up. Can you show up, post a testimonial, and make sure to mention every place we've been and what we did? To remind you, we went to Bellagio and Cosmo, and we ate in X and Y restaurant, and you didn't come up to my rooms last time. It would really help because people have seen you on video. Thanks!"
Given the difference in writing styles, there's probably some of both going on.
It's unlikely that Bob is deciding on his own to write these, and as Shrink pointed out, they have a very unnatural look to them.