You know, when I realized that something was wrong in this whole event, I kept my mouth shut and prayed it wasn’t what it seemed to be. But, slowly but surely, outsiders looking in could see the problems. Several people tried to convince me to get out of this group and event weeks before I actually did make a move. My genius husband being one of them.
Slowly though, pieces started to fall together and the truth became more and more apparent. No, no one was going to pay my way to fly to Blogher and it was even after the big mess on twitter that I found out that the other 2 ladies had received these phony pathetic vouchers.
Then, more things started to pour in and my husband kept insisting that I was doing too much work for TBTS and not enough of my own work. That was my choice. I thought it could only benefit he and I if I worked hard enough to get us the cruise and that it would all be alright.
And, then, then I sold my quota for having my cruise paid for and guess what, my credit card was still tried. It was declined because I had already contacted them realizing that this was not a good thing that was going on.
Then there was the hashtag party that I worked so hard on to get sponsors, only to have those sponsors tossed aside like ol’ dirty trash when it was over and never was the TBTS end of it upheld well, ok, they did make the winners post 4 weeks later. That was a big problem for me.
Then, the Wal-mart company had made their choices and the way in which they would give away their cruises that they purchased through TBTS. Again, this was my own naive self asking for these sponsors without checking out TBTS out of the gate. Lesson number 1 – learned.
So, as the tweets started showing up from the TBTS people that the #sigjeans party was a TBTS party when in reality, it was a Walmart party, I had already spoken to the Wal-art rep and the hashtag party. And, the message was sent to the party host that the cruises that were promoted would be honored but that TBTS was not to be metioned during the #sigjeans party. Lesson learned #2
And, the party rolled on without ever a mention from anyone about TBTS except TBTS people. The party host never once mentioned anything about TBTS.
All was quite for a few days and then a few days ago, the winners of the cruises started contacting me asking where and how that the TBTS lady got their home phone numbers. I started asking questions and gave the Wal-mart rep a call – the answer from him was that no one should be contacting these winners other than a specific person. I passed that informatin along, only to learn that the TBTS rep was asking for credit card numbers and social security numbers….WHOA WHAT? Lesson learned #3.
I did some listening and asking of questions and then today I receive an email asking me why the TBTS rep was allowed to put her full name and link on their website. And, she had emailed and asked them to remove it but at the time of this writing….the names were still there, without their permission. And, now, at least one winner says she won’t go because she doesn’t want to be anywhere near the TBTS rep who has proven herself to be a fraud over and over again. Lesson learned #4
I received an email from one of the TBTS reps asking me to remove her link from all of my talk about this because she has an online business and this was hurting her business. I refused to remove anything that was true. I repeatedly stated that this person was an innocent bystander and her thoughts on this hurting her business? What does she think it is doing to mine? Lesson learned #5
So, I asked her to go back and remove all the derogatory tweets she had put out about me. Her answer was no. And, with that, she got her answer to how I planned to handle it. What’s good for the goose has always been good for the gander. Lesson learned #6
Later I had the great fortune of meeting someone involved with TBTS who again, has been an innocent bystander in this and she was very classy and spoke to me in a great spirit.
Once I put up the skype conversation, that same person emailed me asking me to remove her name because, again, she said it was hurting her business. I ask you, (not her but you) what is the difference really. And, her initial conversation stated that she was googling her name and found my site with her name on it. I happen to feel real sure that this was not the case because the site is not even 2 weeks old, there is no way google has cached this site yet and her name was not linked to anything. However, she was nice about her request, again, very classy and understanding and so I changed her name to her initials. But, again, I know full well that someone else read the blog and told her about it because I have tried to get google to pull myself up in relation to this blog an cannot get it to come up. Lesson learned #7
Either way, that’s the way the ball is rolling right now and I just trying to wait it out but I want everyone to know that there is a huge issue going on with this right now and I am merely relaying information at this point.
I have an online business just as many people do, and if anyone thinks for one minute that I am gaining anything by writing this, they are wrong. The only thing I am getting out of this is the truth. And, I hope that some of the innocent bystanders don’t get caught in the crossfire much longer.
Do I want to keep re-hashing this? Absolutely not, however, I write about these problems so that surely, some of the very people who didn’t believe in the beginning (just as I woudn’t believe) will see that they are in a mess and need to find a way out.
