OYYYYYYYYY, Im sorry I made that first post to this thread. When I start to see this crap my stomach turns. So, after this point I go to PPO (Positive Posting Only - almost only :-). Here's my stream of thought in no particular order - I'm just trying to cover some of crap this thread has brought up in my mind.
To begin with I can list names of people who have REALLY screwed me in this business, beginning in 1996 and continuing through the Aug 6th, 2005 bus hijacking. Some of these slugs are really well known characters in this business and I have the contracts and coresspondence to prove it - and Squirt, I'm certain you know all the recent ones very well. I use my business experience to try and protect myself, but at some point there has to be a little trust and that's when they cut your balls off. I was instrumental, along with YNOT of ridding this community of one very well known fraud who used to write prolific "how to" generate traffic articles - most of you know who that was. Here's a guy who always had something to say on the boards, he was even invited to seminars at Internext to let everyone share his knowlege. And when those of us who use outside services were getting ripped off by him for thousands, all these "popular posters" who virtually never made or spent a dime in this biz and who never met the guy or did business with him, were continuing to sing his praises. And it's not yet over as we're stuck with what seems is the bitter end of this creep's nasty biz partner who has been holding on in this business by a hair. The only way to protect yourself in this business is to try and verify who you're doing business with (and believe me, that isn't of much help in adult) and to NOT ever pay upfront unless on credit card. So Lee did just the right thing by not paying those designers (if that is true) and he should've posted the crap those guys did for him so we could all "live and learn" along with him. Squirt, "live and learn" might be a fine philosophy (in part) when it comes to relationships, restaurants and hotel rooms, but not for business. If you actually ever ran a business with that philosophy you'd be on this board like "Brandon" with lots of free time and mourning your business while really "living and learning". About three years ago I designed a website called "ShittyDeal.com" to allow us to share these bad experiences in adult, luckily a very good friend in the biz advised me not to do it and he knows I'm forever thankful. He told me it would turn into an attack on me from the type of guys I'm talking about in this post (like Brandon or whatever the fuck he is) without helping enough people. He said to keep this shit in the inner circle and that's just what I did and I suppose that's just what Lee tries to do now, because the attacks almost always come from the troublemakers just looking to smack someone down because of their own low post in life. It further amuses me that those who have the most to say (I'm not finger pointing) are the ones who never paid a nickle to an outside contractor, never bought traffic, never purchased a software license, never produced a photo or anything useful or interesting in this business and who say things like "had a great month" because they did 25 memberships instead of 19 for that period (I think those numbers read more like 9 and 7) and all from their website of newsgroup photos and stolen pics from sites like mine. Or the ones who say "I don't see a summer slowdown" - when they're billing 100 memberships including recurring for the month and in August they did 101. The only summer slowdown they didn't experience were their cancelations, refunds and chargebacks. And what I suspect is that the most verbal guys/girls, men/women on these boards aren't doing much with themselves anyway. I just started posting after many years of reading the boards and communicating within my own personal network of contacts and man is this board time consuming. I try to put some thought into my posts, because I find it insulting when I see all those "one word, one line" posts from the same people all the time. If they think this is good marketing - they are nuts. It's annoying, shallow, desperate and to tell you the truth I'm embarassed for them. Maybe they think this business is a popularity contest like highschool (I laugh at the popular guys in highschool who received all the adoration (and sex), got the girls, and are now busy working 4 jobs with 6 kids or are on their third trip to rehab (although I know too many people in this biz who need their first trip), these posters are not much different. I know I've rubbed a number of people in this business the wrong way over the years - they deserved it. I'm straight forward, I say what's on my mind (sometimes to my detriment), I don't cheat people, and I certainly never pulled any crap I'd be embarassed about (except that college porn movie - can you imagine, NO video cameras). I ran more than one successful mainstream business for over 20 years prior to entering the adult entertainment "funhouse" (you guys under 40 probably never visited one - so Google it) including a small public company. I made my mark and my money, and now I just want to enjoy myself (I guess I find an 80 hr work week fun) and I'm really tired of those who never did anything with their lives and who find themselves in this business doing whatever they can, without any forethought, just to make a quick buck. That's why the adult web is floating in tons of free crap, stolen passwords, con artists and shady people which resulted in most of the problems we as legitmate businessmen suffer from ie. credit card problems, tons of fraud, hijacked websites and domains and extensive chargebacks - all excuses for more government intervention, regulation,taxes,etc. So, why don't you guys (like Brandon) go back to Dungeons & Dragons, hanging out at bars every night, borrowing money from family and friends and sleeping all day. I'll go back to enoying my business and great associates and friends and family and the fruits of my labor and TOTALLY ignore these negative posts which are conjured up from what appears to be the only correctly functioning body part these shitheads have - their asshole. I think the best thing to do is just post a smiley or some cartoon in response to these posts. Don't waste a single precious word or thought on these bottom feeders. It'll fustrate them and give us a good laugh. Have a nice day :D
P.S. If you're not one of the people I'm describing above, just leave this thread alone and post a cartoon or something. And for those who seem to spend their life defending these creeps and trying to explain their actions - don't bother, it's a waste of your time .... UNLESS YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO :gossip:
Shit, now my keyboard is all sticky.........don't eat fruit and post at the same tmie --- yeach.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KURT !!!!!!!!!!!!! :woof:
