teppaz
Angel Diva
A side note."Rob" may not even be a real person. He could be made up just to get the story going. It's possible.
As a regular NY Times contributor (though not in the business section, which had this story) I'll say it's very unlikely Rob was made up to get the story going. The Times gets a huge amount of mail, including this type of questions. Many people write hoping the paper's institutional clout will help expose problems and/or get some kind of resolution in conflicts such as this one with Vail Resorts. The letter itself did not raise any alarm bells to me.