Friday, February 14, 2014

Don't Be So Quick To Praise

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UPDATE: Ms. Frank has posted a reply to this post on her FaceBook page.  I have put a screen shot at the bottom of the post.  Apparently she purchased & resold stolen goods because *I* am old & divorced!  LOL!  I kid you not!
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Yahoo is highlighting lovey-dovey stories on their front page in honor of Valentine's Day.

One in particular is about a New Jersey photographer, Kristen Frank.  Ms. Frank is in possession of wedding photos and she is purportedly looking to find the bride in the pics.  Yahoo is assisting in her efforts to use social media to accomplish her goal.  Here's a link to the story,
In the story there is a link to Ms. Frank's business page on FaceBook.  I followed the link to see if she had found the bride.  Imagine my surprise when I saw this exchange!

  • Eddie Brinkley Kristen ! $5 bucks for a 220 Hasselblad back ?. Gee I remember what the 220 backs for my RB 67 use to cost.Good luck on your search.
    Like · Reply · 2 · 14 hours ago
    • Kristen Frank Photography Hahaha Eddie! And u better believe I knew just what I was doing! Lol! I sold that puppy on EBAY for $200! I really had no use for it.
      Like · 1 · 14 hours ago
    • Jessica Robbins It's too bad that you sold the camera because when you find the couple they probably could have given you the name of the photographer & I'm sure that he or she would have LOVED getting their camera back.
      Unlike · 5 · 6 hours ago

So, before you buy her  “I just died. I was like, ‘This is horrible that somebody is not going to get to see their pictures of their grandmother and of them walking down the aisle during the ceremony,”....  Remember this - Kristen Frank purchased stolen property; made no effort to find the rightful owner; bragged on her FB page that she knew exactly what she was doing; made a huge profit on the stolen property and now has received tons of free publicity from Yahoo.

Ms. Frank is accepting praise on her FaceBook page for reuniting the family and the photos.  When in reality, they likely would have been returned much sooner had Ms. Frank turned her $5 purchase into the police.  The camera was reported stolen.  Instead, she made her profit and now ten years later reaped another reward.

Yeah, my heart is not so warm.
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Here is Kristen Frank's reply -
Kristen Frank Photography Hello "BOSTONMAGGIE". I would love to hear what YOU would have done in this situation. 
Maybe you are not familiar with how NYC police do their jobs, but I am. There is no way they would have found these people at that time,10yrs ago, as there was no such thing as "social media", nor would they have cared as much as I did for they had to many murders, rapes and other crimes to investigate. I held onto that camera back for a whole year and I had NO IDEA it was stolen, because, as the article reports if you had paid attention to what you were reading, the woman told me she found it on the subway train! After deciding what to do with it and having had zero leads, finally, I made the decision to sell it. A choice I do not feel one ounce of regret for making. That money helped me pay my rent that month because I was only making a measly $8.50 an hour at that photo lab. I was almost homeless back in 2004 when I lived in Queens, NY. I had absolutely NO IDEA I would ever find the couple. NEVER did I expect any compensation, or financial gain by doing what I did. I AM a professional photographer. I would lose my credibility as an honest business person!! Maybe no one has ever done anything nice for you out of the goodness of their heart. Maybe you could never see yourself doing the same for anyone else. Maybe you are jealous, just want to steal the spotlight from a good Samaritan, and are just trying to drive more traffic to your lame blog that no one has even heard of. I don't know. 
Next time GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT before you judge someone on doing a good deed. You should be ashamed of yourself. A woman of your age should know better. You are no better than the trash you write. I'm not surprised by your cynicism , there are always going to be a few haters. Bitter, old divorcees who have been beaten down by life. God bless you with a chance to stop your bitchy ways.
Like · 

6 comments:

  1. Wow is all I have to say about Kristen's reply to you! I agree with you. There were many things she could have done to fix the situation 10 years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Had been following this saga on FB and saw your "interaction" -- was looking back now at my FB history and seems Kristen has removed her FB acct because there is no longer any links to it...Interesting!
    Story was picked up by my local Tampa Bay TV stations as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, I was surprised that it took her so long to figure out how to delete & block me. That's why I took screen shots. Strangely enough, she didn't delete her own damning comments. LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Totally agree with you. I run a website that helps reunite people with stolen cameras and thankfully, most people that come across lost or stolen cameras are good and just want to see them back in the hands of the rightful owner.

    If the camera has wedding photos on, I don't know anyone that wouldn't!

    Also, she "held on to it for a year" with no leads. Sounds a bit like, "waited for the dust to settle before selling"...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I sent Ms. Frank a nice e-mail, complimenting her on her chutzpah, and asking if she would not mind terribly if I got a nice camera of hers pretty much the same way she got that 220 back for a Hasselblad.

    I hope that she has a Canon 5D Mk. III with an ƒ1.4 50-mm objective.


    Before anyone tells me that I am a terrible person or even calls me a thief, I can say, hand on heart, that I don't even earn $8.50 per hour right now, the wage level she cited as justifying her own participation in a theft. No, I am unemployed, so that I think I really deserve her, or perhaps my, Canon 5D Mk. III with an ƒ1.4 50-mm. objective.

    I am not greedy or anything like that; I have a data card of my own, so that I would be careful to send that back to her if I find one in my new Canon 5D Mk. III with an ƒ1.4 50-mm objective.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Haha! I have to install a "Like" button or a way to "upvote" comments like yours.

    ReplyDelete