Hello. I received both of your emails about this situation and elected not to respond because engaging with you seemed counterproductive. Now that you've posted here, I feel that I have no choice.
As someone else has already noted, this is "unusually ham-fisted" for Andy. He certainly has fished for people's personal information before, but never for SSNs. And while he's done a number of truly terrible things, I have never heard of Andy trying to coerce anyone into making him the beneficiary of their life insurance. So I was a little suspicious of your story.
When you first contacted me, in October, I ended up corresponding with some people in an effort to confirm your version of events. I learned that Andy really was involved in online coordination of rescue efforts during Irma because of his father's work. He arranged transportation, food, and board for all of your dogs, and clean-up assistance and support for you--and he gave you the information necessary to use it. He questioned you about things like how many dogs you had, their sexes, etc. in order to make these arrangements, but he did not try to extract the kind of personal information you claim. One of my contacts said that Andy "moved heaven and earth" to help you when you asked for assistance right before landfall, but they were unsure whether you'd used the resources he assembled or not.
I am not commenting on the validity of your stories of Andy's posting about being cis or the way he talks/writes about military service. From what I've heard from other former friends of his, your comments on both of those issues ring true.
Let me be perfectly clear: I do not believe that you are being truthful when you say that Andy tried to use your concern for your dogs to coerce personal information and life insurance money out of you during Hurricane Irma. This is the first time I've ever felt compelled to defend Andy at all, let alone in a public forum, but I am confident that he did not do this. I do not appreciate that you tried to use my blog, and are now using this community, to disseminate false information. That makes you look bad, not Andy.
Re: My Andy experience
As someone else has already noted, this is "unusually ham-fisted" for Andy. He certainly has fished for people's personal information before, but never for SSNs. And while he's done a number of truly terrible things, I have never heard of Andy trying to coerce anyone into making him the beneficiary of their life insurance. So I was a little suspicious of your story.
When you first contacted me, in October, I ended up corresponding with some people in an effort to confirm your version of events. I learned that Andy really was involved in online coordination of rescue efforts during Irma because of his father's work. He arranged transportation, food, and board for all of your dogs, and clean-up assistance and support for you--and he gave you the information necessary to use it. He questioned you about things like how many dogs you had, their sexes, etc. in order to make these arrangements, but he did not try to extract the kind of personal information you claim. One of my contacts said that Andy "moved heaven and earth" to help you when you asked for assistance right before landfall, but they were unsure whether you'd used the resources he assembled or not.
I am not commenting on the validity of your stories of Andy's posting about being cis or the way he talks/writes about military service. From what I've heard from other former friends of his, your comments on both of those issues ring true.
Let me be perfectly clear: I do not believe that you are being truthful when you say that Andy tried to use your concern for your dogs to coerce personal information and life insurance money out of you during Hurricane Irma. This is the first time I've ever felt compelled to defend Andy at all, let alone in a public forum, but I am confident that he did not do this. I do not appreciate that you tried to use my blog, and are now using this community, to disseminate false information. That makes you look bad, not Andy.
TB