Got some sad news to share. Claude Greiner died yesterday

[dishstaller]

I don't post much here so I wasn't sure exactly where this would get the most eyes and the view count was higher on this section. Got an email from Claude's brother Mike this morning telling me that Claude died yesterday. He died of kidney failure. I know that Claude and Scott had their differences but Mike wanted me to reach out to as many friends of Claude's as I could because he can't get into his phone.
This is Mike's email in case you wanted to extend your condolences
Michael.G.Greiner@gmail.com

 

[navychop]

I remember meeting Claude at Bob Haller's funeral. There were three of us from SG there.

Claude was quiet, polite and respectful. Certainly no bitterness made known.

Yes, lotsa difficulties later.

But, best not to speak ill of the dead.


Who's gonna tell Charlie?



Actually, Dish/Echostar should know, especially if he does in fact have an action pending or planned against them. Yes, if so, there are other means of them being informed.

Not to be mean, but I feel some relief.

 

[navychop]

Perhaps this can be made a sticky.

Or Home Page banner.

Because this is real NEWS that matters to a lot of us. And some might otherwise miss it. Claude was an active member for some time.

 

[cpalmer2k]

I always enjoyed his posts and photos of the commercial setups he was building. Best wishes to his family & friends during this difficult time.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Wow got to say I am in shock. I know he has had some bad health issues and almost died a few years ago, but I thought he was on the mend.

I was talking to a friend from DIRECTV who told me Claude was going to be headed to Las Vegas for their Revolution show and that he said Claude was excited to go.

I didn't like that I had to ban him from the site, I gave him many chances and even took him back a few times hoping he would have changed. But all he was doing here was posting tons of posts just bashing DISH. Now what happened between him and DISH he may have had reason for being mad at them, but he didn't understand that we were not DISH and his posting were driving people away from the site. The site was and is here to HELP people. If Claude has a legitimate claim against DISH like he told me had I always wonder why he didn't sue them.

Instead of suing DISH however he kept threatening to sue me for banning him here from SatelliteGuys.saying I was violating his first amendment rights. He didn't get that this is a privately owned site and as such there is no first amendment here. We run the site according to our rules... and if you don't like the rules you can go somewhere else and start your own site. Everytime he made his threats I would take them print them out and bring them upstairs to my lawyers. If people don't know it I am the head of the IT department for a very large law firm. Whenever he posted he was going to sue me and make me stand trial in Michigan the attorneys upstairs would laugh and would tell me to reply back to him to do it and sh!t and get off the pot... and then they were going to go after him for everything he was worth.

As many know Claude and I ran DishStore.NET together. Many people got their DISH equipment from us. When I shut down DishStore.NET Claude owed me over $20,000. But I never got angry about that, and remained friendly with him, and I never bugged him about the money. I also ran his DishRetailer website for him until about that time. He refused to update his software and the version of his software had some big security holes in it and you guys know me and security of things on our server. I had to finally make him move off of our servers and on to his own.

Even after DISH supposedly caught him doing things that got his terminated as a DISH dealer I kept in touch with him. It wasn't until all his posts were the same negative DISH posts over and over again and those posts were affecting this site that I had to put my foot down. I even told him after he was banned to make a fake name and continue reading things. I don't know if he ever did that but I do know he created about 30 different Dish Sucks, Scott sucks and so on accounts just coming here to post anti Dish stuff. It was after that is when I cut ties with him and the threats of lawsuits starting coming.

I have some fond memories of Claude I remember taking him for his first drink of alcohol in Las Vegas and took him to the Star Trek cafe at the MGM. Where me and him shared a Captain James T Kirk long island ice tea which came in this huge bowl. Claude didn't drink too much of it but he was wasted and it was hilarious! I don't know if he ever had a drink after that again. I remember him licking the screen on his telephone and then stick it to the side of his head so he could talk on the phone without using his hands. We had a lot of good times together and that's what I want to remember about him the most. When we were together we were two peas in a pod.

So I am very sad to hear the news. I just let me wife know and she too is upset. I guess her and Claude were still friends on Facebook and she told me that he kept posting on Facebook looking for lawyers in Connecticut to file stuff against me. But she never told me that until now. Oh well.

I am sorry I had to ban you Claude, but this is my site and we are here to help people. As I mentioned before I gave you a number of chances to come back and you did the same thing. SatelliteGuys is my baby and I must take care of it.

Claude was one of a kind, there is no doubt about it. He will be missed. And honestly I do think about him often and the good times we had in the past.

Rest in Peace my friend.

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[Scott Greczkowski]

Perhaps this can be made a sticky.

Or Home Page banner.

Because this is real NEWS that matters to a lot of us. And some might otherwise miss it. Claude was an active member for some time.

This is done now. I am actually very saddened by the news.

 

[Ronnie-]

Prayers for the family in their time of loss.

 

[dishstaller]

Claude was one of a kind, there is no doubt about it

That is the understatement of the year. I remember some of the stuff he would post after I joined the board in 1999, only to find out later how YOUNG he was. I think he was still in high school when he first started his board. Other dealers and I saved/made a LOT of money because of that board. My rep HATED it because he couldn't tell me I was the only one having a particular issue or problem....I could come back with "well there are a lot of dealers all over the country who are having the exact same problem I am".
I'm still a Dish retailer....the only one within 150 miles of me, but it is certainly a different business now than it was then.
Scott, I'm an admin, on Claude's board. If you need anything or want access just let me know. I actually didn't do much admin-ing but I should be able to help.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I have passed the work on to Charlie.

 

[AZ.]

I will miss his sarcasm, and he was always entertaining in a odd way. Boy his dislike of Dish was epic. I hope he is at peace now, and blessings to his loved ones.

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[Scott Greczkowski]

Scott, I'm an admin, on Claude's board. If you need anything or want access just let me know. I actually didn't do much admin-ing but I should be able to help.

Thanks, I have not been on there since he locked me out. I am concerned about the future of it as II don' know who is hosting it or hows hes paying for it. I fear it may just get turned off.

With that said I am also concerned about bring it and putting it here on my servers just for the reasons I mentioned above that his software is so far out of date that it would be a security nightmare.

Give me a few days to think on how we can save DishRetailer after all it IS the longest running Satellite Discussion website in the USA on the Internet. Claude was there even before DBSforums. And yeah he started it as a teenager! He just turned 21 when I took him to Star Trek in Vegas.

BTW I forgot to say thank you for passing this info along. I will contact Mike as well.

 

[dishstaller]

I am concerned about the future of it as II don' know who is hosting it or hows hes paying for it. I fear it may just get turned off.

That is my concern as well. Back in March Claude messaged me the contact email for the guy who could help in case the server did something goofy....said he could get it back up and going. I just emailed him and explained the situation and expressed my desire to keep the board up and running.

 

[navychop]

All things considered, might be best to stay away from his site.

LOTS of aspects to consider. Charlie might prefer it to be gone. Members, views and posts may be declining. Estate may want Coin Of The Realm to hand it over. Past baggage. And as noted, security concerns and a major drain on your time for work, family and other projects.

On Edit: Might be good for Dishstaller to take it on.

 

[navychop]

That is my concern as well. Back in March Claude messaged me the contact email for the guy who could help in case the server did something goofy....said he could get it back up and going. I just emailed him and explained the situation and expressed my desire to keep the board up and running.

Be nice to hear how this goes.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

That is my concern as well. Back in March Claude messaged me the contact email for the guy who could help in case the server did something goofy....said he could get it back up and going. I just emailed him and explained the situation and expressed my desire to keep the board up and running.

Good to hear. The first thing I would like if he could do, is make a backup of it and send the backup to you... for just in case. If something happens I can help there, even if its find it a different server. (this way I wouldn't worry about putting here since his software is so out of date)

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[FTA4PA]

R.I.P.

 

[dishstaller]

Scott. I just spent some time looking through the admin section of Claude's board and it looks like your ban was retracted, that is IF you were banned in the first place. From your post I kinda figured you were. Not much action over there these days. Most of the retailers who posted there have died or quit.
It's amazing to go back to a thread from something like 10 or 15 yrs ago and see all the folks who used to post there. Now it's mostly political stuff. I'll post on the Dish Network forum once in a while but that is about it. A lot of us got into selling internet so that forum was about the only one that saw action.

 

[telstar_1]

I was still able to get onto his board fairly recently but last I tried I couldn't. I first found out about Claude (& his board) when he called in to a Charlie Chat and gave a shoutout to his URL. I was also somewhat taken aback at his youth, but satellite was a youth industry. He quickly became a darling of DiSH, doing just what they had prescribed, which was to sell a bunch of gear and activate a bunch of subs, all over the country. I was much more in favor of a local full-service approach, but they structured their rewards to go to mass-sellers. We had it out a lot on his board (which was for both mass "retailers" and local dealers) over those issues, but Claude always kept a positivity about him. Super ambitious- like maybe one of those cases where someone somehow knows they may not have a lot of time. The board was another story- very toxic.

Met in person once, at TS '09 in Denver, and hit it off well as we worked the echelons of DiSH. It was near the end for me, from their disregarding of local servicing dealers. I saw the problem between DiSH and Claude as simply that Claude was too successful at producing those mass activations that DiSH had promised big lifetime residuals on. It was never a sustainable structure to pay out bigly to activators and piddlingly to customer servicers, and so they reneged on their resids, which resulted in a successful class action, which I myself got a few thousand out of.

 

[dfergie]

R.I.P. Claude…

 

[satjay]

I was one of the folks that used Dishnet.net to switch to Dish all those years ago seeing the promotion on the satelliteguys website, and have been with Dish since. I remember some great promotions for that time - I am sure it also helped for the install that I live in the metro Detroit area.

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