I looked down at my ringing phone. There were about 4 iterations of the iPhone out by now, but I was too poor to afford any of them. I had a wanna-be iPhone from some company that doesn’t exist anymore. It was embarrassing.
“Hello?” It was my friend Dave. He was asking me if I wanted to go out for dinner tonight.
“I can’t. I am too parsimonious to afford such a refined establishment as Applebee’s.” This was true. I could only afford to eat out about once a week. It was actually a treat to eat out, and my favorite places to eat were Applebee’s and TGI Friday’s. I couldn’t afford anything more extravagant, so anything better might as well not exist.
“I am too parsimonious to afford such a refined establishment as Applebee’s.”
Dave and I had been friends for a little under a year, since the end of 2009. He was just out of college and worked at a prestigious firm as an engineer. Dave and I met in the gym, where I was one of the very few people stronger than him, and he quickly became a client of mine. Dave enjoyed laughing, booze, drugs, steroids, and chasing women. Hence, obviously, we became the best of friends. Additionally, Dave had a massive intellect, and was very adept with computers technology.
“Hey, do you know how to create a website?” I asked, as an afterthought.
“Yeah.” He stated.
“How much would it cost?” I queried.
“Depending on what you want, I could probably build a website through GoDaddy, or another company like it, for a couple hundred a month, I guess. Why?”
“Hey, do you know how to create a website?”
The administrator from iSteroids had responded to my private message concerning the steps it would take to become an approved source on their forum. He stated that a new policy had just been implemented, stipulating that new sources had to have a website in order to become an approved source. By obtaining a website, new potential sources would prove they were willing to put forth the required work, effort, and optics that would be indicative of a legitimate operation. The administrator also indicated that it didn’t have to be an elaborate website, just the name of your business and an email would suffice. The idea was; if you were willing to put in the work and money to obtain a website, you were more likely to be a legitimate source and not a fraud. This was a preventative measure in response to the recent scam that had just been perpetrated on iSteroids. The administrator had connected me to a website designer who could create a website for me. Upon contacting this website creating extortionist, I was smacked in the face with an exorbitant figure of ten thousand dollars to create a simple e-commerce site. He justified this price because he would help set up the pictures and listings of illegal product; but most importantly, he would obtain a domain name outside the United States, and set up a hosting site outside the United States. This was imperative because, in theory, if the feds traced a server to a location outside the United States, they would have no jurisdiction to subpoena any evidence to build a case. But a figure of ten thousand dollars was so high that it didn’t even make sense to me. I have never had that much money at one time, and that figure was so out of sight, I couldn’t even consider it as an option.
Damn, if I would have done this a week earlier, I would have been grandfathered in and listed as a source without having to deal with this new impenetrable obstruction. I certainly could not afford ten thousand dollars, and I couldn’t even afford a couple hundred bucks a month for a website.
“I was trying to list on iSteroids, and they require a website in order to become a source.”
Dave had suggested in weeks prior that I list on a different, much smaller forum, where he used to buy steroids before he met me, called Phantom Gym. I was planning on listing on Phantom Gym as well, but I had my sites on the vastly larger and more trafficked iSteroids.
Since the idea of listing on a forum isn’t new to him, I guess I could tell him what I was trying to do, and why I needed a website. “I was trying to list on iSteroids, and they require a website in order to become a source. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, just something simple with a name and an email. I can’t afford a couple hundred dollars a month, so it doesn’t sound plausible anyway. There goes that idea. I will just list on Phantom Gym like you suggested.”
“Oh, shit!” He exclaimed. “You are trying to be listed as a source on the big one, huh? If you just need a website with some simple text, there is a way to turn your laptop into a server, so you can host your own website. That won’t cost you anything.”
“What?” I said, more than asked, in disbelief.
“I will stop by tomorrow before we go to the gym and set it up for you. See you tomorrow.” He hung up.
Holy shit. I sat there for a minute. This actually may happen.
Next >>: Episode 04 (Brand Ambassadors)
Memoirs of a Steroid Kingpin (Table of Contents)
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Ryan’s Root’s real-life autobiographical story is a must-read account of his rise and fall as one of the largest anabolic steroid dealers on the Internet.
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