Talk:Cortes Wesley Randell

Untitled

 * Oppose the merge from the company--it is notable in its own right. DGG (talk) 14:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm in agreement with keeping the two pages separate. There is enough material out there on both the company as well as Randell himself that can be incorporated into these individual articles. --10stone5 (talk) 04:17, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

COI edits user 98.169.14.94
Please see your Talk page User talk:98.169.14.94. Thank you, WeatherFug (talk) 16:04, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Cleanup
I rolled the article all the way back to before all the anon edits. Now I'm trying to find out what, of the anon-added info, should go back in.

The anon added that Randell had "published three books", the first one being "Taking the Stand", about Oliver North. That book is available on Amazon.. It's listed as "The complete transcripts of his testimony before the select committee of the House and Senate.", with an introduction by Daniel Schorr, and published by Pocket Books. Randall is nowhere mentioned. John Nagle (talk) 20:58, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Looking up Cortes Randell in the Library of Congress catalog, there are 8 hits for a Cortes Randell, such as "Producing and merchandising sausage in small plants."(1954). They are all about meat processing. Searching Amazon provides some hits, but they're to text in books such as "The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street's Bullish 60s" []. Not finding anything he authored. John Nagle (talk) 21:11, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
 * He's in the Bureau of Prisons database for one of his convictions: CORTES W RANDELL Register Number: 11292-083. Age: 79. Released On: 08/24/1984. John Nagle (talk) 21:24, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

COI edit
The subject of the article appears to have edited the article. Wikipedia does not allow that, per WP:COI. But the subject can write here about any inaccuracies they wish to report. Also, adding uncited material is inappropriate.

One of the edit comments claims that "(There are some lies that need correcting Such as the fact that I was sued and had to pay $35 million. I never has a judgment for any amount of money from National Student Marketing)" He was definitely sued. See ''Mildred Lipsig, et al. v. National Student Marketing Corporation, et al.louis W. Biegler and Biegler Foundation, Appellants, v. Pomerantz, Haudek, Levy & Block, a Partnership, et al.(three Cases). Louis Garber, et al. v. Cortes W. Randell, et al. Domenick L. Natale v. National Student Marketing Corporation, et al, 663 F.2d 178 (1980)''. We do have a published source for the $35 million money judgement, but I'm going to take that out pending a cite to a specific case. (National Student Marketing generated "extensive litigation".) John Nagle (talk) 06:27, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Re the Federal News Service, see this decision of the Delaware Chancery Court.. John Nagle (talk) 06:41, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Recommended Improvement
Subject: [Ticket#2015032510026535] Balancing my Wikipedia listing with some truthful entries.

Dear Mr. Frosch,

Thank you so much for your kind edits, it definitely helps to balance the article, and make it more truthful to what actually happened.

There were two other items that would make the article much more truthful. As you suggested, I will post those items on the Talk Page as I feel they should be included in the text of the article. Please review them and insert if possible.

Thank you again for your help, as I know that you are a volunteer, and I am learning that this is very time consuming. My wife of 46 years and my family are very grateful.

First I will quote them, then I will give you the explanation for their importance.

1. National Student Marketing Corporation never went bankrupt. After the three loss quarters in 1970 it went on to make to make $10 million annually. Firemen’s insurance Company bought NMSC for $76 million in 1974.

2.The Assistant Attorney General for the State Of Florida stated, " After an extensive forensic review of the company as well as every complaint /affidavit filed with this office we were unable to find any substantial violation of Florida law therefore it is recommended that this investigation be closed.

These are the explanations for the two additions.

On NSMC:

I tried to find out where the information came from that NSMC went bankrupt, and looked at the references on my Wikipedia article and I could not find any references to it going bankrupt. I fact, according the Piped Piper article NSM got up to $68 million in sales in 1968 (which was truthful) and the went on to go up to $76 million sales in 1974 when it was sold to Fireman's Insurance company.

On eModels:

In my current article, Wikipedia uses a reference from a book, “Called to Account: Fourteen Financial Frauds that Shaped the American Accounting Profession”. Chapter 7, Clikeman, Paul M. I believe it would fair to include a reference to the book, "Under Investigation", by Les Hendersen reference which in the first page quotes the reference I used above, which says that "We were unable to find any substantial violation of Florida law therefore it is recommended that this investigation be closed"

Wikipedia says that if there is very important additional information, it should be included. Both books are on Amazon.

Thanks you again for your help as I am obviously a neophyte, and I appreciate any suggestions that you can give me.

Sincerely, Cortes Randell

P.S. In reading what is already on the TALK page there are two issues that I feel need to be clarified:

1.	I did publish those books three books. In the beginning pages of the “National Press Club Contemporary Speakers” is my picture and a statement that I did publish that book. On the Guide to Summer Employment, that is the book that wrote, printed and sold which started NSMC and we published it for nine years. On “Taking the Stand”, those were the transcripts of the Oliver North Iran Contra hearings which I had to transcribe anyway. I got a call from Simon and Shuster to put them in to a book form, I signed the contract, and for three weeks it was a best seller. 2.	Unfortunately, I got a lot of suits from NSMC, but I won them all and never had to pay any judgmentsOrlandosouth (talk) 01:44, 1 April 2015 (UTC.


 * Orlandosouth, thanks for writing on a talk page, at last. To be clear, you are claiming to be the subject of this article.  Is that correct? Jytdog (talk)

Yes, Jytdog, that is correct. I finally found out to use the Talk page. Orlandosouth (talk) 18:09, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

As stated above,NSMC never went bankrupt. Instead it grew in sales and earnings until it was sold to Travelers Insurance in 1974. So I removed the last two words in the heading "into bankruptcy" which was totally untrue.Orlandosouth (talk) 00:09, 23 April 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, not bankruptcy. I put in "led into financial collapse" instead, and cited the New York Times article "ARCHIVES OF BUSINESS: A ROGUES GALLERY; Cortes Randell: Student Market Hoax", which covers the stock's screaming dive. John Nagle (talk) 04:28, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

The stock splint for two one, so it was not a screaming dive. But more important even though you are expert on Wikipedia, and I am a beginning neophyte, one of the rules for Wikipedia is that if there is some IMPORTANT information to add then it needs to be shown be shown, otherwise the it is an unbalanced article. Therefore, in accordance with Wikipedia's rules I added the disposition of the Stock., Orlandosouth (talk) 17:08, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

that is a fake reference. please provide an actual link to the filing at edgar that you want to cite. i assume you know how to find edgar but if not it is here. Jytdog (talk) 17:22, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It won't be in the SEC's EDGAR system. Their online data only goes back to 1984, and these are events from the 1970s. John Nagle (talk) 20:25, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * well egg on my face. so the content he added with that source was "but the stock regained its value and was sold for $76 million.(ref)Edgars SEC Filings(/ref) so i guess it the same to Fireman's...So the NYT has a blurb on that here: "* National Student Marketing Corporation completed the sale, for $54 million in cash, of its interstate insurance group to an affiliate of Fireman's Fund Insurance Company." (not $76M...)  this piece from the Chicago Trib says that NSMC sold its insurance business to Fireman's for $54M and notes that the sale "will allow it to complete the liquidation program approved by shareholders in September."   this article from the NYT in 1982 talks about the final resolution of things, I believe. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * by the way some serious law about attorneys was made in cases relating to NSMC. see here for a long article and here for the bloomberg brief - basically if you are an attorney and you know your client is lying during the close of a deal and you say nothing.. you are in trouble. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Jytdog for your kindness doing the research that you did. The ability to be prolific in research is a gift, and I never was given that gift. With the dates and the amounts confirmed, we can show that National Marketing was started in 1963 and the last division was sold in 1981, meaning that the company was in business for 18 years. Unfortunately, the previous Wikipedia editors have only let stay up the only two years of the company's existence, or 1970 and 1971. That is very unfair as that is the two years when White and Case and Lord Bissel and Brooke made the decision to allow the merger of Interstate Insurance, Arthur Frommer $5 a day and two other companies to go ahead without resubmitting the new information to the shareholders. There was a book written about the decision, and it became a legal case that was studied by law students. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of it. The other 16 years the company ran its business very successfully. NSMC was started by myself with $700 in cash in 1963 by printing a Guide to Summer Employment which was successful. We added more products and the profits grew from $70K to $$250K to $1.7 million, to $3.4 million and got up to 2000 employees. During that time we added more companies. Then came some loss quarters but then it became very profitable again and that is why Firemen’s bought it for $54 million. Either all mentions of NSMC should stay up, or all of them should be deleted. Since some editors want to put up what happened to NSMC in the early seventies, and I have four very legitimate sources on what happened before and since then, I am putting them back up. If anyone wants to question those four articles from Forbes and tree others, concerning NSMC, I would be happy to copy and send them to anyone who requests them, at my expense. as I have the original articles in my scrapbook. The only reason for the difference from my $76 million and the $54 million is that there were 12 other divisions besides Interstate Insurance that were also sold. Lastly, since it is a untrue statement that that that NSMC went “into financial collapse” in the heading,  I have removed those three words as I know Wikipedia wants to be truthful. Thank you for trying to be fair and balanced in my Wikipedia article.Orlandosouth (talk) 17:36, 28 April 2015 (UTC)


 * well we don't do "fair and balanced" especially not like Fox News. We do WP:NPOV which means that we give weight, to what reliable sources give weight to.  The truth is that you did some bad stuff back then and went to jail for it, right?  and the article cannot hide from that. (it is true that an entrepreneur's life is a roller coaster and failure per se is nothing shameful in business. but the notoriety that attached to you from your time NSMC is from the bad stuff you did, not from the failure per se.  surely you can see that.)   at this point i don't know what i would say you are best known for today; i have to do yet more research for that. so i stubified the lead.   but please stop editing the article directly.  thanks. Jytdog (talk) 19:08, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

For the record: Cortes writes, I got a lot of suits from NSMC, but I won them all and never had to pay any judgments. Not exactly true. I sued NSMC in Small Claims Court in Manhattan in the late 1960s and won a judgment for $50 for unpaid commission, which they paid. (Of course Cortes may refer only to suits against him personally. On the other hand he knew about this lawsuit since he complained publicly about it.) Andygx (talk) 14:58, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Page protection
In light of 's inability to control himself and refrain from editing the article, I'm seeking to have this page protected for the next three months, to force discussion and consensus prior to edits being made. Jytdog (talk) 00:28, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

edit by orlandosouth
this edit is full of unsourced stuff and puffery. This is why we do not want editors with a COI directly editing the article. if you read WP:COI it says that you should not directly edit the article, and instead should put proposed content here on the Talk page for other editors to review and implement if it is well-sourced and neutral. Why are you not doing this? Jytdog (talk) 00:37, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog, your concern is well founded. White and Case, Lord Bissel and Brook, KMPG, Cort Randell and others made some bad mistakes in the early seventies, for which we all paid big price, in many ways.

Having said that, in the other 15 years, we started a company with $700 and grew it over the years to a company that had sales of $68 million, and it was sold for $76 million, or $54 million, whichever you one you want to choose. I provided well-paying jobs for thousands of employees for 18 years, even during the troubled times. Which meant that along with some big mistakes in the early seventies, we also made thousands of VERY GOOD decisions during that 18 year period.

For that reason, I would appreciate it if you would please include the amount of the company was sold for and at least or two of the references as to what the company was about. For instance the first one from the OTC Chronicle which describes what we did that was different, and the Investor Dealer digest, which describes the business.

I don’t feel that is puffery, those are just the cold hard facts which Wikipedia is all about, as I best I can understand it. As I have indicated, I am just a neophyte.

The only reason for the extensive publicity or “notoriety” is that case affected every attorney in the nation on what were the limits of the attorney client privilege. I am grateful for your finding the case that you did, Which shows that Stanley Sporkin, the SEC Commissioner at the time targeted companies to make new law. The first was the Texas Gulf Sulphur case, and the next was NSMC case. The new law that was made at the TGS case was that it became a crime to buy shares on good news before the public announcement was made. From The Duke Law Journal page 1253 "The National Student Marketing case was not a matter of chance. According to public statements of various commissioners, the action was deliberately brought by the SEC to enlarge the responsibilities of securities lawyers."

Again, thank you for your excellent research on this case. As I know that you are a volunteer, and doing research is very time consuming.98.169.5.216 (talk) 19:11, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I apologize, but I didn't answer your last question. I thought anyone could put up something that was truthful and well referenced as long it was explained on the Talk Page. From your last entries, I realize that was a mistake. Thank you for your help on this.98.169.5.216 (talk) 21:48, 1 May 2015 (UTC)