New tour group: Stolen Photos

[Mike Hollingshead]

http://www.h1-intercept.com

I was sent that this evening. Some may want to check the pictures scrolling on there as some look rather familar(not to mention the ones of mine I know are stolen).

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Sweeeeet .... lots about the Hummer, but who are the guides? From what I can tell, the website is 99.85% Hummer-related, and .15% weather.

In addition to the stolen property, some of the photos look slightly doctored. But of course, anyone living in Maryland is an excellent candidate for storm chase guide.

(Do these people actually make money at this?)

 

[Dan Robinson]

Is it really that easy to start a tour company? I'm starting to wonder why I'm not doing it. $2300 per person for a week? Heck, I know I could find people to pay that to fill up 2 seats in my car. That would be a pretty sweet deal actually. Why am I not doing it? Who knows. Seems like easy money to pay for chasing all spring. If all these fly-by-night companies can do it why couldn't legit chasers. I mean look at them, even the shady photoshopping tour groups are selling out their seats every year.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

but who are the guides?

The domain is registered to Caleb Bailey.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

The domain is registered to Caleb Bailey.

You know it's a quality endeavor when you can Google "Caleb Bailey storm chaser" and come up with zero related hits.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

You know it's a quality endeavor when you can Google "Caleb Bailey storm chaser" and come up with zero related hits.

Posing as a potential customer looking for a chase tour group to ride with, I sent them an email with several questions. I'll be very surprised if I get a response back.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Only problem is they'll see this thread in their referrers and click over, since this is in W&C.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Mike -- Seems a DMCA takedown notice to their ISPs would erode them through attrition. Their current ISP is here.

Alternatively if you rename this thread subject line to include their tour group name then it will get indexed by Google... and we do rank pretty high... only one notch under Mr. Faidley.

Tim

 

[David Drummond]

Not only that, thread here are usually indexed within a day or two.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Only problem is they'll see this thread in their referrers and click over, since this is in W&C.

I thought of that, but hopefully they respond before seeing this

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Is it really that easy to start a tour company? I'm starting to wonder why I'm not doing it. $2300 per person for a week? Heck, I know I could find people to pay that to fill up 2 seats in my car. That would be a pretty sweet deal actually. Why am I not doing it? Who knows. Seems like easy money to pay for chasing all spring. If all these fly-by-night companies can do it why couldn't legit chasers. I mean look at them, even the shady photoshopping tour groups are selling out their seats every year.

Just make sure you carry insurance on all your passengers. It will only take one litigious individual to sue you and your life is essentially over.

It amazes me that this hasn't happened to more of the chase tours.

Those who do run chase tours, how do you prevent this?

 

[Dan Robinson]

(I'm getting off topic here, mods feel free to split this off)

The insurance and liability issues would be expensive but easy to take care of with good coverage and an ironclad waiver, just like whitewater rafters and skydivers do hundreds of times a day.

The main obstacle I know of is what Steve Marshall pointed out before - the Federal regulations on commercial for-hire transportation, which for a chase tour are very prohibitive in cost and logistics (IE, getting a CDL, the 12-hour restriction on driving, rigorous vehicle inspections, etc). Apparently most tour companies either have been exempt from these somehow or are 'flying under the radar' so to speak. I'd be interested to hear how tour companies are dealing with this!

I would never go out and run a 15-passenger 'rollover of death' van operation, but two storm-hungry people riding in my back seats while I and a chase partner enjoy an all-expense paid chase vacation - are you kidding? I'd do that in a heartbeat. Apparently there is enough demand that the competition issue is moot.

 

[Brian Stertz]

ewwww...that one photo-shopped one looks pretty sickly/crappy. Never fails that some copyrighted photos get hoodwinked without credits on this one. Kind of the state of this world these days. One thing that can't be done is faking tornadoes on the actual chase. I would also never start up a chase company without having years of seasoning under the belt. One wrong turn and its a tragedy...which undoubtedly would have severe domino effects on the chaser community and other established chase tour companies.

 

[Beau.Gjerdingen]

My personal favorite set of pictures are the banner of all dust devils when you go to the news section. I guess when you are done seeing all the tornadoes in the world in that sweet hummer, they go and chase dust swirls too! Awesome!

</sarcasm>

 

[Patrick Martin]

Posing as a potential customer looking for a chase tour group to ride with, I sent them an email with several questions. I'll be very surprised if I get a response back.

Would be very curious what you hear back. The fact there is absolutely no info about the guides is an obvious major red flag. Also noticed in the "the hummer" section that it says that each passenger has their own window and easy excess to the doppler radar. I wonder though if anyone has access?