Open challenge to the Vadney

Mr Vadney, instead of worming around trying to discredit me with made-up laws, fanciful speculations and downright lies, why don’t you answer the following simple questions?

1(A): Did you, from at least 2000 until August 2007, on your website bmtconsult.home.att.net and on your TranslatorsCafe.com and ProZ.com profiles, as well as (for shorter periods) on your two campaign websites, claim to have an MA degree? (Clue: Archived and/or cached copies exist and can be subpoenaed.)

1(B): Do (or did) you in fact have an MA degree? (Clue: Starts with N.)

2(A): Did you, from at least 2000 until August 2007, on your website bmtconsult.home.att.net and on your TranslatorsCafe.com and ProZ.com profiles, as well as (for shorter periods) on your two campaign websites, claim to be a Member of the Institute of Linguists, and/ór use the corresponding abbreviation MIL? (Clue: Archived and/or cached copies exist and can be subpoenaed.)

2(B): Were you, at any relevant time, a Member (not Associate) of the Institute of Linguists? (Clue: Starts with N.)

3(A): Did you, from at least 2000 until August 2007, on your website bmtconsult.home.att.net and on your TranslatorsCafe.com and ProZ.com profiles, as well as (for shorter periods) on your two campaign websites, claim to be a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and/or use the corresponding abbreviation FRSA? (Clue: Archived and/or cached copies exist and can be subpoenaed.)

3(B): Were you, at any relevant time, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce? (Clue: Starts with N)

4(A): Did you, for a period of several years up to August 2007, on your ProZ.com profile, have selected, under the rubric “Translation degree”, the option “PHD”, and listed, under the associated rubric “School”, “UNY/UV/UL”? (Clue: Archived and/or cached copies exist and can be subpoenaed.)

4(B): Did you ever hold a PhD degree, in translation or any other subject, from any university with those initials, or indeed from any other university? (Clue: No.)

5(A): Did you, for a period of several years up to August 2007, display, among possibly other places, on your ProZ.com and TranslatorsCafe.com profiles, a photographic portrait of yourself wearing a white laboratory coat emblazoned with “Dr. H. W. Vadney”? (Clue: Yes, once again, archived and/or cached copies exist and can be subpoenaed.)

5(B): Were you ever a physician or otherwise entitled to use the title “Dr”? (Clue: No.)

6(A): Did you, in August 2007, progressively alter your website bmtconsult.home.att.net and your TranslatorsCafe.com profile to remove the statements referred to in 1(A), 2(A), 3(A) and 4(A) above, and modify the photograph in 5(A) above to obscure and then remove the name and title “Dr”? (Clue: Archival records exist and can be subpoenaed.)

6(B): Isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that you started to remove these statements within a few days of their falsity being exposed on the NIL discussion forum? (Clue: It’s not really a coincidence at all; just a reflection of what a shifty, gutless, ignominious little worm you are.)

Your failure to give a direct answer to these questions will clearly demonstrate that my accusations against you are true. Similarly, if you answer them truthfully, the result will be the same. On the other hand, if you tell yet another pack of lies, your dishonesty will be easily demonstrated: you and I both know I have ample documentary evidence and can get more....

So which is it to be? Do you want to be exposed as a liar, exposed as a liar or exposed as a liar?

Harold W. Vadney III is a professional liar!

Howard William Vadney III, of New Baltimore, New York, has recently started a blog devoted to defaming me (Richard D. Benham), my colleague P. Scott Horne, several of his neighbours and anyone else who displeases him. This man is a documented liar, and you should not believe any of his drivel.

At one point, Mr Vadney demands “at the very least Truth!” So let’s have a bit of truth.

The truth about Vadney

Mr Vadney accuses me of lying about him on the Network of Independent Linguists’ Discussion Forum, but doesn’t mention what I said there. So here’s a summary:

I accused Mr Vadney of falsely claiming to be a Member of the Institute of Linguists. This accusation is TRUE.

I accused Mr Vadney of falsely claiming to be a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce). This accusation is TRUE.

I accused Mr Vadney of falsely claiming to have the degrees of BA and MA from SUNY Albany. This accusation is TRUE.

[Revised information has been received from DegreeChk.com; see “Clarification” below.]

You want proof?

You may be thinking it’s his word against mine. So where’s my proof? Mr Vadney made his fraudulent claims on a number of websites: www.proz.com (from which he has since been kicked out), www.translatorscafe.com (which continues to protect him) and his own commercial website <http://bmtconsult.home.att.net>.
Of course, once the mainstream press starting taking an interest in Mr Vadney’s fraud, he changed his profiles on the translators’ websites and his own site to cover his arse, but it was too late.
Many people had been alerted to his game, and so numerous copies of the pages in which he makes his fraudulent claims were saved.



Of particular interest is the sample of the form used to certify translations.
In it, Mr Vadney signs himself “Harold W. Vadney III, Drt.Med., MA, MIL, FRSA (UK)”. “Drt.Med.” is an abbreviation invented by Mr Vadney, with no significance, except that, like his photograph in a lab-coat emblazoned “Dr. H. W. Vadney” (above), it is clearly intended to create the false impression that he has a medical degree. “MA”, on the other hand, is clear enough. “MIL” stands for “Member of the Institute of Linguists”, and “FRSA” for “Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts” (its full name is “Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce”).

Mr Vadney, I know you will read this. On that form, you acknowledge that telling lies on it constitutes perjury. So doesn’t it follow that, by lying about your qualifications on that very form, you have committed perjury? That was neither the first nor the last occasion when you committed perjury, either, was it?

While I am about it, here is one of his many CVs, this one downloaded from ProZ.com on 2 August, 2007. In it, he clearly claims to hold BA and MA degrees from SUNY Albany and to be a Member of the Institute of Linguists and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

You can easily check his claims to be a Member of the Institute of Linguists (now the Chartered Institute of Linguists, but still commonly known as the IoL) and the RSA. They may not be happy to receive a flood of enquiries, but they answered me civilly, and both gave me the same answer: Mr Vadney is not a member of this organization. As for the degrees, it is a bit harder. SUNY Albany has engaged a commercial organization, www.degreechk.com, to handle enquiries about its graduates and purported graduates. To check Mr Vadney’s credentials, I had to join and pay real money. This is what I got [I have since been sent a revised version; see “Clarification” below for more details]:

Degree Verification Results Your Ref:
Date: 08-01-2007 Time: 00:00:22

Your Degree Verification was assigned Confirmation I.D. 7G718396.
As per our Service Agreement, your credit card has been charged $7.50
for the processing of this verification request.
Section I. Summary of information provided for this verification:
________________________________________________________________________
| This Verification Requested By
| Your Name : Richard Davey Benham
| On Behalf of : SELF
| School Name : University at Albany State University of New York
|_______________________________________________________________________
| Candidate Information
| First Name : HAROLD
| Middle Name : WILLIAM
| Last Name : VADNEY
| Other First :
| Other Last :
| Social Sec. #:
| Birth Date : 10-27-1950
|_______________________________________________________________________
| Degrees & Dates:
| BA PHILOLOGY & PHYSIOLOGY - ATT 1977-1979
| MA PHILOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY - ATT 1977-1979
|_______________________________________________________________________


Section II. Results of our degree verification processing:
________________________________________________________________________
|Based upon the information you supplied (name/date of birth),
|we can confirm that this individual was awarded the following
|degree(s) by University at Albany State University of New York.
|Since name/date of birth are not necessarily unique, re-running
|with a social security no. would serve to increase your
|confidence in the results.
|_______________________________________________________________________
| Degree: BACHELOR OF SCIENCE
| Conferred: 12-23-1977
| Major(s): GERMAN
| Minor(s): PSYCHOLOGY
|_______________________________________________________________________
|Thank you for your business. If you have any questions regarding
|these search results or the charges for this verification, please call
|us at 1-800-646-1858.
|
|All services provided by us are subject to the terms and conditions of
|the CREDENTIALS INC SERVICE AGREEMENT which is available for viewing
|on our web site at www.degreechk.com
|_______________________________________________________________________

There is no surprise in finding that Mr Vadney lied about his BA and MA degrees; after all he lied about the IoL and RSA memberships. [Please ignore the rest of this paragraph; see below for explanation.] It is, however, slightly surprising to find he had a BS degree and didn’t mention it. He seems to be allergic to the truth, even when it is to his advantage.

So there you have it: proof that Mr Vadney claimed to be a Member of the IoL, proof that he claimed to be a Fellow of the RSA, and proof that he claimed to have an MA degree; and all this combined with proof that he had none of these credentials (just contact the organizations concerned).

What about Mr Vadney’s other claims?

Mr Vadney claims I “forged” my email address. This is another lie. After Mr Vadney sent me some harassing and abusive emails, I replied informing him that his emails to my normal email address would be filtered, and asking him to use another address. This address, although set up as a “disposable” address attached to my Yahoo! account, remains valid to this day, as Mr Vadney could easily have checked by sending me an email and waiting for my response.

Mr Vadney claims I breached Bravenet’s copyright. Yet another lie. What I did was to post, as a matter of historical record, the forum thread in which I exposed Mr Vadney for the fraud and the liar that he is. I think that comes under fair dealing. In any case, I have removed the tacky Bravenet graphics and left the content. It’s at <http://www.rbenham.com/NIL/682226>

There are also some mindless assertions and innuendos concerning the identity of the IoL forum moderator Dina. Dina has been contributing under that name to the IoL forum for over five years. Of course, Mr Vadney would have us believe that I created this identity to “defame” (read “expose”) him after the Network of Independent Linguists’ forum was closed down by Bravenet (on the basis of Mr Vadney’s unfounded complaint that he he had been “defamed” there; is it even possible to defame a worm like Vadney?). Pity it doesn’t tie in with the facts. Quite apart from this, Dina has not made any allegations about Mr Vadney or anyone else on that forum, but only reported objectively facts in the public domain. Dina has made it quite clear on several occasions that the name is a pseudonym to preserve anonymity. So I shall not engage in or fuel any speculation on that subject.

Lastly, and perhaps most bizarrely, Mr Vadney has used his alleged “discovery” that I am Dina and my friendship with Mr Horne to fuel all sorts of lurid homophobic innuendos about my sexuality. One wonders what he is trying to hide. As it happens, I am not gay, but I would like to reassure any gay friends, colleagues and others who might be reading that I do not judge them on the example of Mr Vadney.

Vadney and the IoL

I have had my own disagreements with the IoL over the years. However, Mr Vadney’s attack on the organization is totally unjustified.

Apparently, his problem is that they have not removed some posts referring to his having been exposed as lying about his credentials. But why would they?

When I was approached to publish an exposé of Vadney on the Network of Independent Linguists’ discussion forum, I of course independently verified the accusations against him for the obvious legal reasons. As one of Vadney’s lies was to claim membership of the IoL, I had of course to write to them. In her reply, the IoL officer who handled my enquiry asked where Vadney had been making these claims; so I told her. This means that, by the time Mr Vadney got to complaining to the IoL about the posts referring to his fraudulent activities, people there already knew at first hand that he was a liar and a fraud. So of course they ignored his complaints.

Clarification

Vadney has recently claimed that the information I got from DegreeChk.com was “inaccurate”. Obviously he has approached them about it, and they have sent me a corrected statement of Mr Vadney’s degree status. It turns out that the BS in German, with a minor in psychology, was actually a BA in German, with a minor in psychology. Still no mention of this alleged MA, which was always the real issue.

Vadney has tried to draw attention away from his blatant lies, fraud and perjury by scurrilous and irrelevant attacks on me and others. I hope I don’t need to point out that there was no wrongdoing on my part: I reported accurately the information I was given by DegreeChk.com. The question of whether Mr Vadney had a Bachelor of Arts degree or a Bachelor of Science degree is not the issue: the point is, as it always was, that despite his claims, the Vadney never had a master’s degree.

MAKE NO MISTAKE: Vadney lied about his qualifications.

By the way, if I really had got the information fraudulently, would DegreeChk.com have sent me an update?

Also note that, having found a mistake in the information I was given and relied upon in good faith, I have corrected it without trying to cover my tracks, unlike the Vadney, who told a pack of lies in very bad faith, and then, on being exposed, tried to cover his tracks by changing his résumés and profiles without admitting that the previous versions were fraudulent misrepresentations.
Harold Vadney. Harold W. Vadney. Harold William Vadney. translator Harold William Vadney III