This page devoted to a company we felt it was our duty to alert the public to. A sample was sent to us without the required Sample Submission Form, and without any identifying information other than a label that said “Nomad Botanicals” and “Kava Juice.”  After picking up the package from the Post Office on a Thursday, I received a personal phone call on a Sunday afternoon regarding the package. I informed him that we had just received it 3 days prior, and he told me to ignore his angry email. But when I saw the content of the email, things escalated into something very different very quickly…

NOMAD BOTANICALS

Website: www.nomad-botanicals.com
Website: https://nomad.ecrater.com/
Email: nomadherbs@gmail.com
Registrant Name: Matthew Dailey

Here is the first email he sent just before his rude Sunday phone call:

Okay Keith,
I assume since you have not replied you’ve just taken my check and scammed me.
So we will follow up with some online reports of this if you’re not serious.
If you cannot do what you promised for 89 then refund us. If you made a mistake with the quote I could have paid a bit more, but it doesn’t seem like you operate a real business.
So we’ll to to step 2.

I tried to alert this nameless person (there was no name in the email he sent) that we had only received the USPS Priority Package a few days previous, with NO payment enclosed and NO required Sample Submission Form. I then suggested that if he was in such dire need of a quick turnaround time, that he should have sent the package via Overnight Express, filled out and included appropriate payment, as well as the required Sample Submission Form, also checking the “RUSH” box on the form. He could have also provided us with the Tracking Number so we could look out for the package.

This was the next series of responses:

NO you didn’t reply for a month bro!
Send me the funds if you don’t take this seriously.
If you want to get pissed about not doing your job, that’s fine, this is what it took to get a simple reply.
Why lie? I saw the tracking you got it a month ago!

I again tried to inform him that he didn’t send any payment, and that he failed to include the required Sample Submission Form that would establish the necessary chain of custody for any sample we accept into our lab. He had already threatened to file “online reports” about us, and I asked him to please send me the links to those reports so I could properly respond.

Yes, I was being a bit of a jerk by telling him that we could just as easily file our own reports or to call the authorities to come visit his facility, but that was mostly to illustrate how he went from 0 to 60 so quickly. Still expecting a rational person on the other end of the communication, I thought he might simply take a step back for a second.

Well, instead, these next emails showed up in rapid succession:

FUCK you snitch, I’ll be sure to post you’re a lame snitch.
Go cry to your bosses at the FDA.
fuck off and return my goods you snitch!

~ ~ ~

You’re too shitty as a businessman and cry since you’re too slow?
Go hit your meth pipe and return my shit….

~ ~ ~

return my shit you pussy bitch.

~ ~ ~

Or let shit get real for you and your fake ass company. =0

~ ~ ~

We will be sure to file some reports if I don’t get it returned in 7 business days.

~ ~ ~

YOu’re so full of shit man. Your breath smells like dogshit.
I have the tracking here, you can toke all the meth you want, you act like a fucking tweaking bitch.
Go snitch to your buddies at all the agencies and suck their cocks =p YUm!

By stating “Or let shit get real for you and your fake ass company” – I immediately felt UNSAFE, feeling that this was a personal threat against my person. At this point I decided to forward all previous communication, and to BCC all future communication to my attorney. 

Again, how this all began: This person sent a sample to our lab, with NO payment and NO required Sample Submission Form. We test a wide range of products, some with pathogens in them, so establishing a clear chain of custody for any sample is not only imperative, it’s required by law. When the sample arrived, it immediately went into quarantine, as was required.

SIDE NOTE: There was only a 30g sample in an envelope labeled “Kava Juice”. There was no written contract, there was NO  required Sample Submission Form, and there was NO payment of any kind sent with the single 30g product. Here is more from Nomad Botanicals:

So you take my confidential check, avoid all communication after taking a job?
Fuck you ~!
Send it back in 1 weeks or it will get real for you and your FAKE bullshit firm. Everyone already knows we are good – so you bring whatever you got.
You took a JOB and LIED. The fucking tracking shows you lied.  Do you think anyone is going to feel sorry for you since you take a confidential check and a serious job as scientist and then just go on a fucking bender or a vacation for a month?  Fuck you!

I then sent a notice to this person as a last communication:

Keep it up, Matthew. Any further communication from me will be through our company attorney, who has been BCC’d on every email you’ve sent. You don’t get to behave the way you have been without consequences.

And his response:

You have my confidential info and you violated a written contract you promised a 3 day backlog and that you’d take care of it so disappear for a fucking month. Fuck you your attorney and your weak attempt at extortion, You obviously suck as a human and as a ‘professional’ fuck you and your bitch ass work ethics. You can go snitch to all your colleagues at every alphabet agency and they will laugh at you for being a coward!

The obvious question is why I’m even engaging with this person. My response is that one never expects someone so utterly unreasonable and angry to be at the other end of a sample sent in for testing. I asked for a copy of the cancelled check, any written contract, or a copy of the Submission Form he sent, but there was none.

I also mistakenly thought that when he knew his threats against my safety and the safety of my business moved us into legal territory with our attorney, that he would simply back off. Alerting him that our attorney now needed to get involved only seemed to anger him further.

My attorney almost immediately informed me these were indeed personal threats, and that we needed to take them with the utmost seriousness. I was told that I couldn’t have any more interaction with this person, other than to inform this (still nameless) person that any further correspondence would be from my attorney. Once I informed Matthew that my attorney would need to take it from here because of his personal threats on my safety, this was his response:

I’m not scared of you, your attorneys or any of your pussy friends at any agency.  They are all pussies just like you =)

I spoke to a dear friend who’s a psychiatrist with a specialty in substance abuse. From a cursory look at the correspondence from Matthew, in her professional opinion, she said that the excessive aggression, paranoia, projection, childish name-calling, accompanied by personal insults and personal threats, were classic signs of an adolescent, someone with anger issues, or someone with a substance abuse problem. She also thought it was interesting that Matthew had accused me of being someone who used meth (short for methamphetamines).

I know I sound like a broken record, but we do our best to make it clear that testing typically takes 2 weeks, and that any sample submitted, must be accompanied by a Sample Submission Form. There was no identifying information on the sample (which could have been anything) other than “Kava Juice” and “Nomad Botanicals”. Even if we wanted to send the sample back, there was no place to send it to. Our attorney advised us that our best response would be no response.

No response, so far, has resulted in this response from Matt:

Keith,
Okay since I do not see my property returned, I will leave you a new review on a new site each day.
Keep ignoring. We have screenshots of your threats to snitch on your clients for things that never happened, to try to extort us illegally.
Keep up your lies you bitch, or you can help yourself by returning my property you now have illegally.
Matt

Note how he used his name for the very first time. I was told that this typically happens when a person has convinced themselves that they’re on the side of justice, and no longer afraid to actually reveal who they are, as they gear up for whatever they’re gearing up to do. It will certainly be interesting to see what Matt chooses to do as he posts on whatever websites he chooses to post on. Note how he still has not provided an address to return the product to, and notice how his threats have now turned into assertions that continue to be projections of his own anger.

Also, note how we’re deemed “snitches” for simply asking the Board of Health or the FDA to visit his facility to ensure it’s a GMP facility, but when he states that he’ll reveal our snitchy nature publicly, that it’s him actually performing a public service.

Something else equally as fascinating is that it appears Matt has convinced himself that we are somehow trying to “extort him illegally.” We’ve all tried to figure out how he arrived at this conclusion, but this is likely one of those details that will only exist in Matthew’s mind, or perhaps be revealed on the posts he makes against us.

I’m actually looking forward to a public discussion with Matt, even though I’ve been advised to simply leave someone who appears this unstable alone. No, I don’t really have time for these kinds of things, but when someone makes as blatant a threat against my personal safety as Matt has, I don’t think that anyone has a right to issue those kinds of threats without consequence.

Sure, bullies often get their way, and I’ve been advised that I should never engage someone as clearly as unstable as Matt appears to be, but why is that so? Why do I have to be the “bigger” person and simply keep my mouth shut? Why do we all have to cower when a bully threatens our safety, the safety of our family, or the safety of a business we’ve devoted a large part of our lives to? Why is it wrong to simply fight back when someone is being as irrational as Matt continues to be? Why am I being the “bigger” person by not engaging him at all, and simply letting him continue his virtual rampage of anger, violence, and projection?

What if more people weren’t so afraid to confront bullies as I have decided to do with Matt in this instance? What if people like Matt weren’t so free to be as irrational and threatening as he continues to be? What if more people gave people like Matt a taste of their own irrationality or anger?

Our response is always to use “sugar”, no matter how angry a client or customer is. It’s incredible how effective a tactic this can be, even when a customer is making all kinds of angry threats about turning us in to the DEA or the FDA or the States Attorney or whomever (we’re a fully licensed, Federally registered facility that has been inspected by the FDA twice, and has passed). Injecting some sugar into a situation, even when it seems impossible volatile, can turn angry bulls into teddy bears.

We all expect people to act and react somewhat rationally. We can get angry, but as long as that anger doesn’t become personal or personally threatening, anger can be a healthy part of any dispute. Everything changes when one of the two parties decides to get personal or personally threatening. Matt accomplished both in quite rapid succession.

This is one of the dangers of emotional interactions via the internet. Both parties in a dispute often feel the safety of anonymity. One look at Matt’s website shows that he’s likely not interested in providing contact information. It took an intensive search, eventually leading me to a Michigan business called “NOMAD BOTANICAL, LLC” with a “Registered Agent” of Matthew Dailey and an address of “1220 BAUMAN ROYAL OAK MI 48073” to find any address for him at all, but I’m still not sure if that’s a valid address.