Rough draft of an e-mail to his supervisor (thanks to the help of some extremely well-spoken/written ATOT-ers
):
Dear Sir,
My name is [DEZIGN], and I was recently contacted by one of your students in a deceptive and emotionally distressful manner for "research purposes" and was told, at the end of the coercion:
"Congratulations. You have just made my Thesis on Ethical Judgment on the Electronic Super Highway."
The story in a nutshell: I obtained 2 tickets to the 2003 MTV Movie Awards, and offered them to an Internet community in a barter/swap section.
The following sequence of events then occurred:
1. David D. (d@ict.usc.edu) e-mails me offering me $3,000 for the tickets.
2. I was suspicious and asked what the catch was, and he informed me he'd pay me the full amount provided his female friend could join him.
3. I felt bad accepting so much, and after seeing his e-mail address ended in usc.edu, figured he was a student. I suggested if he and his friend could come up with $1,000, the tickets would be theirs.
4. He then wrote back and told me his friend wouldn't be able to make it... and would I accompany him to the Awards if he paid me $2500?
5. I told him no (as I'm planning on going to Vegas with some friends who recently returned from combat in the Middle East), but told him that one of my female friends might be able to go with him, as a favor to me. It would definitely be up to my girl friends whether or not they would go with David; a number of them, like myself, are always open to meeting new people, especially in a place like LA where none of us are originally from.
6. David then tells me he'll give me $1,000 for the tickets, and $400 for the "entertainment" of my friend.
7. I wrote back and firmly told him no, the $1,400 is for the tickets ONLY, but that one of my girl friends might be able to go with him and hopefully they'd have a good time together (I said that with innocent intentions in mind, and actually know a lot of girls who'd think such a blind date WOULD be fun and a "good time").
8. David was very insistent upon having a date, and I told him that yes, I could probably find one of my girlfriends interested in attending the Awards show with him... after all, I'm sure I can find a friend willing to go out on a blind date to the MTV movie awards.
9. Then, David drops "the bomb" on me: He is actually a student doing his thesis on "Morals on the Internet Superhighway" or something to that effect, implies he's going to use his correspondance with me as an example of one with few, and writes me the following e-mail:
From: "David D." <d@ict.usc.edu>
To: "'Dezign '"
Subject: RE: MTV movie Tickets
Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 17:25:16 -0700
You are absolutely correct. You never said they would sleep with me. So you are not a Pimp. But you are still willing to run an escort service for money. Except unlike real escort services you were not going to pay your employees. In fact you said "1400 is just for the tickets, my girl friend would be doing me a favor by going out and having a good time." And after all escorts do not necessarily have sex. But they take dates for money.
-----Original Message-------- "David D." <d@ict.usc.edu> wrote:
> Congratulations. You have just made my Thesis on
> Ethical Judgment on the Electronic Super Highway.
> You and your "Fun loving" friends. Makes me wonder
> what you would have offered me if say we had been
> talking about 40,000 dollars. I hope that give you
> something to think about.
In my opinion, David D.'s logic is extremely poor, and I am concerned how much of his conclusions are based upon groundless assumptions.
I believe David should be reported because he conned me into being a subject for his experiment and wasted my time, my energy, and others' time. He also caused me a significant amount of emotional distress, as his accusations do not even remotely begin to reflect my moral/ethical standing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this constitutes an ethical violation.
David coerced me into a position you would not have originally taken. In my opinion, this makes his "research" misleading and unsubstantiated.
I believe now may be a good time for David to learn about ethics in research, before he obtains funding to start having "fun" with larger numbers of subjects/unwilling participants/victims. He also needs to learn the difference between research and coercion.
I would be appalled if the "research" David has done is applied to his thesis and published - his means of collecting research are far from ethical/scientific/accurate, and science should not be based on assumptions and skewed methods of collecting data. This would be a disgrace to the academic community, and would reflect poorly on the name the instutition he represents, the University of Southern California.
A response would be appreciated, thank you.
Kind regards,
me
Thoughts?
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