You Know Whats Unfortunate About This Pulz Stuff?

It could have been prevented months ago :(

If several of the individuals who were scammed by this guy back in April of this year had only made a small post detailing their experiences that might have stopped him from ripping off some of his other victims for almost $100,000 :(

Instead, we have people now emailing, icq'ing and PM'ing each other about this guy saying how they were ripped off not only by him, but some of his 'associates' and that they didnt want to post anything in case it made them look bad.

Ive also been told that several people 'knew' this guys previous history of scamming (dating back YEARS) and kept that information to themselves because they didnt think it was 'their place' to inform anyone in the industry about this.. Crazy.

Ive had contact with 3 companies so far today that have told me this and im pretty sure that list is going to keep growing over the next few days :(

As one of our community members said in another thread, only by telling each other when we have a bad experience with an individual or company can we make a choice about whether or not we do business with them in the future.

Just think, a single post could have saved a lot of people, a lot of wasted time and money but that single post never materialized :(

Basically, if you have reason to think that someone is a scammer or cant be trusted, you dont have to accuse them of doing anything wrong, but, at least get their name out there so others who might have reason to do business with them know about your doubts, you dont have to post on the boards, you can contact people via PM or ICQ then, once you have enough information about wrong-doing, please post it, collectively. You might end up saving someone from a $40,000 chargeback.

It isnt about whether or not YOU look bad by outing a scammer operating in the industry, or about 'drama' (as it is so often called by those that want the information kept quiet) it is about YOU making sure that others dont make the same mistakes in trusting an unscrupulous individual or company.

After all, that is what being part of a community is about, helping and looking out for one another, through the good and the bad.

Hopefully the incidents we have all been made aware of over the last 48 hours will drum the message home that these scammers need to be named publicly and not left to continue festering behind the scenes finding more and more victims to swindle.

If you have documented evidence from elsewhere that someone on the GWW Community or, the industry at large might be a scammer, post it and help people to avoid being victimized like what has happened over the last few months with Pulz, Reece Dylan, and his associates.

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

You might end up saving someone from a $40,000 chargeback.

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It's odd that some people are defending a chargeback as if it were a "bounced" payment. A chargeback is when you receive goods and charge back the purchase when actual goods are exchanged.

Sounds like someone got something for nothing to me.

And let's not forget Samebb who works with Pulz and STOLE THE DESIGN of Gaydemon. Another case of someone getting something for nothing with them.

Yet Matt26z states "I've seen the thread. Go over each instance of potential fraud you can find and ask yourself how Pulz benefited from it. Basically everything I can find (and I'm not saying there isn't more) is for bounced / canceled payments for goods he hadn't yet taken possession of or for services not yet rendered."

Either he's the king of denial or he's in bed with these guys. There is no excuse for ignoring the obvious and there's no room for that in doing business with others, it's a liability.

What if:

These guys do somehow come out of the park with some cash and buy off their debt as well as pick up the sites named in negations of 1mil +.

Do I:

Save Face so I can toss my site and “show of support” into a random “Hooray for you and your ability to recover.”




(not for real btw)

Lee, with qualification, I agree with what you've stated.

I think (for me at least) the right answer is somewhere in the middle. I think we owe it to the people we work in this industry with to make an honest attempt to resolve a situation privately, wait a reasonable amount of time for them to respond and make things right, and then, if that doesn't happen, post a neutral (or, as neutral as possible) statement about the negative experience (as in, "I'm hoping they're just busy, but so-and-so hasn't done the galleries I paid them for" or "Perhaps there was a bank problem, but so-and-so's check was returned").

Even if it's a little disingenuous -- if CCBill gets an $11,000 chargeback on a sponsorship for Gay Phoenix Forum, for example, that's most likely NOT a "minor bank problem" -- it still leaves an opportunity for the other side to save face and, if there genuinely was an intent to make good, they can do so, but at the same time, there's a public record of what went wrong, so that people can be aware and judge for themselves if they want to do business.

I would be horrified if, for example, we screwed up and issued a check for the wrong amount, and the affiliate emailed us on a day we were out of town, then, getting no response, made a bunch of big, ugly postings accusing us of scamming them. I've seen it happen with others.

And, of course, I've also seen people caught with their pants down on GFY, falling all over themselves to act totally innocent when they were clearly not. But I think most webmasters are smart enough to read the situation and judge for themselves.

The situation with Pulz wasn't that unpredictable to me. Several individuals from that organization had posted for quite a while with some very argumentative, non-conciliatory statements about various things, sometimes with little or no provocation. Rarely was there a genuine tone to the messages indicating a desire to work together in a friendly and cooperative manner.

Even if everything Reese has said is true (and that seems unlikely), he could immediately have addressed the issues with the individuals and companies first. If I knew that checks were bouncing or charges being denied to my vendors/employees, the very first thing that would be happening is I'd be calling them BEFORE their banks called them, letting them know what was happening, and getting a quick resolution. If that had happened, NONE of this would have come about. The fact that it didn't speaks volumes not just about the situation, but about the people behind it.

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Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip

Lee, with qualification, I agree with what you've stated.

I think (for me at least) the right answer is somewhere in the middle. I think we owe it to the people we work in this industry with to make an honest attempt to resolve a situation privately, wait a reasonable amount of time for them to respond and make things right, and then, if that doesn't happen, post a neutral (or, as neutral as possible) statement about the negative experience (as in, "I'm hoping they're just busy, but so-and-so hasn't done the galleries I paid them for" or "Perhaps there was a bank problem, but so-and-so's check was returned").

Even if it's a little disingenuous -- if CCBill gets an $11,000 chargeback on a sponsorship for Gay Phoenix Forum, for example, that's most likely NOT a "minor bank problem" -- it still leaves an opportunity for the other side to save face and, if there genuinely was an intent to make good, they can do so, but at the same time, there's a public record of what went wrong, so that people can be aware and judge for themselves if they want to do business.

I would be horrified if, for example, we screwed up and issued a check for the wrong amount, and the affiliate emailed us on a day we were out of town, then, getting no response, made a bunch of big, ugly postings accusing us of scamming them. I've seen it happen with others.

And, of course, I've also seen people caught with their pants down on GFY, falling all over themselves to act totally innocent when they were clearly not. But I think most webmasters are smart enough to read the situation and judge for themselves.

The situation with Pulz wasn't that unpredictable to me. Several individuals from that organization had posted for quite a while with some very argumentative, non-conciliatory statements about various things, sometimes with little or no provocation. Rarely was there a genuine tone to the messages indicating a desire to work together in a friendly and cooperative manner.

Even if everything Reese has said is true (and that seems unlikely), he could immediately have addressed the issues with the individuals and companies first. If I knew that checks were bouncing or charges being denied to my vendors/employees, the very first thing that would be happening is I'd be calling them BEFORE their banks called them, letting them know what was happening, and getting a quick resolution. If that had happened, NONE of this would have come about. The fact that it didn't speaks volumes not just about the situation, but about the people behind it.

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Very well said Chip and again I agree with you!

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Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip

I think we owe it to the people we work in this industry with to make an honest attempt to resolve a situation privately, wait a reasonable amount of time for them to respond and make things right, and then, if that doesn't happen...

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Agreed however, im sure you'll agree waiting since April of this year and, even now still not posting anything about what has transpired is just taking the piss.

I really do think that fear is playing an important role in why people arent speaking out, fear that they might somehow damage their business and, more importantly i think, fear that they will somehow be laughed at for being scammed in the first place.

With so many people in the industry (especially the gay side of the industry) being so quick to shout 'drama' whenever a confrontation arises between two or more parties things like this unfortunately, will continue to happen.

The 'drama' label has been thrown around and used as a weapon with negative connotations by many, against many in the industry, in order to gain advantages in business and, because of this, people dont want to be seen as being potentially confrontational, or, creating 'drama'.

In my opinion, that is why what we have found out about over the last 48 hours managed to escalate from 1 chargeback over a small amount of money to over $100,000 in chargebacks, because people were afraid to speak out about being scammed, or were afraid that others would think less of them because they got scammed and should have known better... Even though mentioning the initial problem could have saved a lot of companies a lot of time and money.

The mind just boggles that even now, many of the people and companies we have all been told have been scammed by these guys, STILL havent told anyone what the 'facts' are other than in private conversations, even though they know multiple threads, like this one exist, and they have read the threads regularly over the last 48 hours.

THAT speaks volumes to me about how much these companies actually care about the webmaster community, despite what they would have us all beleive.

Regards,

Lee

[edited by Lee]

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Originally Posted by PutzProductions

[edited by Lee]

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Lets keep this one thread on track without any 'anon' posting in it please, ive given you leeway as it is to post elsewhere on the GWW Community, please follow my wishes by keeping out of this single thread so we can discuss what went wrong with this situation in a professional manner :)

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

THAT speaks volumes to me about how much these companies actually care about the webmaster community, despite what they would have us all beleive.

Regards,

Lee

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Well, what I think it really speaks volumes about is that, with a small handful of exceptions, these companies care about two things:

1. Money
2. Themselves.

and maybe a distant third:

3. Their reputation among others in the industry.

I absolutely agree with your point, but I'm not at all surprised. We can't get people in this industry to agree on *anything* because they're nearly all self-centered renegades.

I don't want to start the argument about barebacking again, but if everyone cared about the models and the image portrayed, and didn't care about the money, there would be no barebacking. Shaving is rampant in the industry. Nearly everyone in the industry is slow paying (other than to affiliates), and major companies are widely known for being slow or no-pay. People steal each other's reviews/templates/content all the time.

In short, while I totally agree that it would be to everyone's benefit for companies to come forward when they feel they've been scammed, I wouldn't really expect it to happen UNLESS there were a distinct benefit that fit into one of the 3 items listed above.

And I doubt that will ever happen unless there is a fundamental change in attitude and personal beliefs by major industry players.

One clarification:

April to September is not a "reasonable" amount of time. A week or, in exceptional circumstances, a month would be more than reasonable to resolve almost any issue. If there's little or no response after that, in my book at least, it's fair game to go public with the problems.

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Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip

In short, while I totally agree that it would be to everyone's benefit for companies to come forward when they feel they've been scammed, I wouldn't really expect it to happen UNLESS there were a distinct benefit that fit into one of the 3 items listed above.

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See, i would expect the info to come forward even if there was nothing to be gained by it from the companies that got scammed. Again, thats what being part of a community is about, not just on GWW but the industry as whole, we need to help each other.

I cant help thinking that CCBill wouldnt have even been aware of this whole situation if i hadnt contacted them early yesterday morning warning them about Pulz and telling them that they needed to investigate their payment.

Knowing what we now know, if you were in my position yesterday, would you have mentioned it to CCBill?

Im pretty sure you would have done, as would most of our other GWW Community members yet, the ones who didnt, had prior knowledge about these scammers 6 MONTHS before what transpired yesterday.

Regards,

Lee

Interesting perspective

Even if they did sort this out over time their posts have shown how callous they are toward the adult webmaster community in general.

The Pulz employee Samebb stealing Gaydemons design, the financial issues with Pulz, etc. etc.

I think the victims of the latest financial woes of Reece Dylan aka Scott Wiginton have probably been promised payment and are waiting for follow through. I think after they are certain they wont get paid, then they'll speak publicly.

After all if you have a chance at making a few thousand bucks you don't want to blow it to early right?

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Originally Posted by Squirt

I think the victims of the latest financial woes of Reece Dylan aka Scott Wiginton have probably been promised payment and are waiting for follow through. I think after they are certain they wont get paid, then they'll speak publicly.

After all if you have a chance at making a few thousand bucks you don't want to blow it to early right?

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That totally makes sense.

It's also possible that a promise of payment was made on written condition of being silent about what went on. If I were a scammer and wanted to attempt to preserve my reputation, that's what I'd do.

Exactly

One blessing in disguise here; as long as these guys keep up the way they're going, attacking even more people now, it will show others how important it is to speak up. Let's hope others learn from this.

Do you guys think people will speak up next week?

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Originally Posted by Squirt

Do you guys think people will speak up next week?

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I would certainly hope so, i know i wouldnt want to wait to much longer if i as owed money by these scammers before telling my side of things in public.

If the companies who are owed monies didnt speak, i would certainly question their motives for not doing so after all of this has gone down.

Regards,

Lee

Hopefully, later today we'll start hearing from people that they have been paid.

If not, i have a feeling they probably never will be :(

Regards,

Lee

Bump to see if anything has been solved, paid, or otherwise explained.

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Originally Posted by chadknowslaw

Bump to see if anything has been solved, paid, or otherwise explained.

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I would have thought, if people had been paid, Pulz or the individuals involved would have said so by now, unfortunately, it does look like all those companies were scammed at this moment in time :(

Regards,

Lee

I noticed a few things that were explained -- like the "hold" on the paypal transfer but that wasn't confirmed as finally settling.

There was some whispers at the show in Amsterdam so I wanted to follow up.