When Feinberg posted the GCCF’s methodology, he opened up a two-week public comment period and requested claimants in the Gulf Coast post their thoughts directly to the website. He pledged to monitor the public feedback and make adjustments to his methodology as necessary, taking into account the concerns of the people most affected by the oil spill and the claims process.

A perusal of the e-mails he has received thus far, publicly posted, would seem to indicate the best place Feinberg can start in changing his methodology, would be to start over.

From an individual in Florida:

“The GCCF leadership has displayed blatant incompetence in its attempt find a proper claim payment methodology and has failed to effectively oversee this process. Many claimants, including myself, have repeatedly been slapped in the face first by BP and now by the GCCF. Now, after reading the new Payment Methodology Guidelines, it is clear the jabs will keep coming…First of all, to expect us to accept at face value the 2 year payment timeline you determined based on the “opinion” of the so-called “expert” is ridiculous in itself. The 2 year recovery “opinion” of your “experts” seems to be quite convenient for BP and the GCCF to greatly limit its financial responsibility to the people of the Gulf Coast region. This “expert opinion” means very little in reality and can easily be disputed by other “experts” who are just as qualified…”

From an individual in Alabama:

“We have reviewed your Methodology and found your formulas very disappointing. It makes no mention of future losses beyond 2012. This is unacceptable. The Gulf of Mexico will never be the same. The Public still does not believe the Gulf Seafoood is safe to eat and we as Commercial Fisherman are seeing that. The prices we are getting will cause us to go Bankrupt. If your Methodology is FAIR, we might as well go ahead and file for Bankruptcy…The monies paid out to date have been a drop in the bucket to our potential income had we been able to fish as we were before the Deepwater Horizon Disaster…As administrator you have stated over and over that your program will be far more generous that a Court would be, but this is not what your Methodology reflects…We urge to take all of these comments to heart and remember we DID NOT DO THIS BP DID AND WE ARE THE ONES SUFFERING!!!”

From a business owner in Mississippi:

“Almost 30% to 40% of any payment received will go away in form of taxes, no one has discussed this in the commentary…all 12 months for 2007, 2008 and 2009 should be included to arrive at a fair average income, also because I was asked to provide them in the first stage before advance payment was issued. 8 months formula is inadequate and unfair and moreover will only make matters complicated and more delay in processing, Now everyone has to run around arranging for monthly sales reports from the tax commission or CPA’s office, whereas a yearly tax document is much easier to obtain from IRS and makes sense also because post spill businesses run for 12 months of the year.

…I agree that the multiplying factor should be at least 3.0 and not 2.0 as suggested since the recovery is not guaranteed and lots of uncertainty prevails, like someone mentioned what if a tropical storm bring more oil back to the shore? Everyone should understand that it’s not easy and no set methodology is going to be 100% accurate, no matter which expert or scientist approves it , but there has to be a common ground for the MASSES. We all know that it’s not an easy task for BP or GCCF, but the effort put behind such methodology should be appreciated.”

From a commercial fisherman in Louisiana:

“I think the formula that is being used is absolutely ridiculous and completely unfair…we know we are losing money everyday we go out fishing because people around the world relate gulf seafood to “oil spill”. We know this because of how difficult our seafood is to sell and how low the prices are that we are getting for it. But that’s not the real problem, the real problem is that we don’t know how long people are going to continue to relate our seafood with oil and how long our prices are going to be low, and yet you people, who most have probably not even been in a boat before seem to be able to tell us how long these things will occur in your “magical formula” that is obviously not right…we have to waive our rights in order to get any kind of settlement, not knowing if any of the oil that was dispersed and sank to the bottom of the gulf, is ever going to float back up to the top and destroy our livelihoods forever. I think that the GCCF needs to seriously consider these things before trying to low ball commercial fisherman for their final settlement offer.”

Hundreds of comments have been posted thus far to the GCCF website, and the vast majority are negative…

Care to add yours?

GCCF Methodology – Public Comment Section

Have a nice day.