The last thing that Jeff Olberholtzer and his company, Mark-1 Plumbing, in Texas City, Texas expected were the phones to be ringing off the hook. They certainly didn’t expect the calls to be so unbelievably ugly and threatening that their employees are scared to death of reprisals. They even have pulled the batteries out of the phones. And all of this is because of what happened with one of their old Ford work trucks.
In 2013, the Ford F-250 was traded in by Olberholtzer to AutoNation Ford in Houston. From there the dealership sent the truck to auction, and after some amount of time the Ford, with the Mark-1 Plumbing logo and phone number clear as day on the side, ended up in Syria, where it had found a home with Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, a group involved with the Syrian Civil War composed mostly of Chechen and Russian fighters that the U.S. State Department has classified as a terrorist organization. The truck had been turned into a “technical”, essentially a non-military fighting vehicle. In this case the Super Duty got an anti-aircraft gun mounted in the bed and in the Twitter post that Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar put up, showed the system in full action.
As soon as the photo hit Twitter, the phone calls started pouring in from everywhere. Plenty were angry, and some were outright threatening, from people who honestly believed that the plumbing company was aiding and abetting a terrorist organization fighting a civil war half a world away. According to a KHOU (Houston) report:
To think something we would use to pull trailers, now is being used for terror, it’s crazy. Never in my lifetime would think something like that,” said Oberholtzer.But the small town business is now dealing with the fallout of angry, even threatening, phone calls from all over the country.
“We have a secretary here, she’s scared to death. We all have families. We don’t want no problems,” said Oberholtzer.
There is no way to know just how the Ford got over to Syria, and any and all accusations against the Olberholtzers or Mark-1 Plumbing are completely unfounded, since the only thing they did wrong was to not strip off the company logo and phone number off of the truck. However, that hasn’t stopped the phone calls from pouring in.
(Courtesy of BoldRide, YouTube video via USA Today)
Amazingly sad how many stupid people with phones there are.
Its amazing how many stupid people with no common sense use Twitter, I guess that makes them “Twitiots”.
We traded in a 2006 E350 van a couple of years ago and made sure all of the graphics were taken off before we handed the keys over. In this crazy world and 24/7 video coverage, you just never know where your old stuff might end up.
“Stupid is forever”-Ron White
This isn’t as bad as the recently botched air lift drop that handed ISIS a few skids of brand new weapons and ammo.
Worse, ISIS videos have showed its fighters driving U.S. tanks, MRAPs, Humvees. There are unconfirmed reports ISIS has stolen three fighter planes from Iraqi bases it conquered.
Think twice next time before you call a plumber, these guys might show up to unclog your drain.
That whole thing with the air drop was a sham,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/21/isis-video-america-s-air-dropped-weapons-now-in-our-hands.html
As well as I have served and can tell you from plane site, that those boxes do not fit with the air drop packaging.
This is a sad commentary on life right now. Idiots can be entertaining, but they can easily cross the line to dangerous.
People shouldn’t worry too much about this. If they keep that gun in the back of it, an A-10 Thunderbolt will be turning it into a smoking hole in the ground soon!
If you don’t want potenrial unwanted publicity take your dam name off stuff you sell or donate. Vehicals, coveralls donated to goodwill whatever!
Mabey those , those, umm terarest did it on purpose. They may be tring to send a message about a plumber from kansas and a deep sea horizion. Time for super man and a new phone booth number.
It would be foolish to believe this hasn’t happened before (vehicles bought from afar to be turned into WMD’s). Someone must have bought it with intent to send there for such purpose. If someone wanted to infiltrate the organization, one could easily track the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) through bills of sale and locate such individual responsible.
The company was merely negligent of removing it’s advertisement. And is unworthy of violent out lashing.
Kinda makes me want to call the dealer that he traded it in to and fuss, they should have kept their word and removed the decals as promised…