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Hey Everyone,
I recieved this interesting e-mail from Brian (freesi) former member of the GPWA. It is very interesting reading.11.01.03 (4:04 pm EST) – “GPWA
Retreat” at the Mohegan Sun a fiasco?
Online 15 (Fifteen) attendees. That’s the lowest turnout for any gaming event EVER.
Cynthia Carley, the organizer of this event, reportedly couldn’t afford the banquet bill at the Mohegan Sun and bolted out of the hotel without paying the remainder of the bill. Rumors were that she called numerous affiliate managers who owed her money (for her account), begging them to Neteller funds to her so she can
pay the banquet bill. The hotel will go after her for payment and likely put a lien on any property or assets that she might have. She also took some of the hotel towels with her.Brian Good
Marketing Director
FreeSI INC/Sports-Gambling.com
Original Message
From: ALeon80624@aol.com
To: webmaster@freesi.com
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: helpHave some bad news for those affiliates who used their credit cards to secure incidentals at Mohegan. Just heard they may be charged for thier room costs and other expenses ..:crazy: :unhappy:
Hey Professor,
I have just recieved a e-mail of a post made by Cindy at the GPWA.First, before I tell you all this, I’m not pointing fingers at anyone.
I’m pretty disappointed with the low turnout we had, considering it was
free to our members. And I was disappointed that of the 20 that I made
reservations for (with spouses/SO’s), only 15 showed up; but I realize
shit happens, and a couple of confirmed members were prevented from
coming by circumstances beyond their control.
I didn’t want to tell anyone (except the TL’s) about this before the
Retreat started because I didn’t want any attendees worrying while they
were there, but had already planned on telling everyone when I got
back. Unfortunately, Dom got a “bit” of the info – most likely from an
Aff Mgr – and twisted it to make us look bad. Big surprise, huh??
I’ve never done anything like this before so I made some mistakes, and
unfortunately had a sales rep at the hotel who was incompetent and
didn’t bother explaining MANY things to me, even tho I told them all up
front I’d never done this before.
In the end we had 7 sponsors, 6 of whom attended. Justine from Sky
Affiliates sponsored, but couldn’t come, so please go out of your way
to be nice to her. I lost a couple of other late ones that were
interested – Vegas Partners & Tradal – because we lost so many
attendees.
1. I planned all this, and signed a contract, based on the headcounts I
got in June and July, which were 25 definites and 20+ “likelys”, plus
making room for the Aff Mgrs, and anyone else we picked up. Clearly, I
overestimated. But in August, I signed a modification dropping my
guarantee to just 60 rooms, which I was led to believe would drop my
performance penalty – not so.
2. Room costs were $252 per night, and food costs per person were about
$140. Hey, at this point you guys should all know I don’t do anything
“half-assed”. Below are pics of *just* our dessert tables at the final
dinner buffet, which featured salmon, prime rib, and stuffed chicken
breasts.
3. I didn’t get food menus and costs until mid-September, and *never*
got an itemized cost estimate. The Sunday night a week before the
Retreat, I got a group “resume” where they wanted a deposit of $49,000.
When I had a heart attack, they told me they were charging me a
“performance penalty” of $44,200. They wanted to me to sign this
thing, but I refused until I talked to my sales rep about the
performance penalty, which was based on the original contract. My sales
rep, Steve, either didn’t call or didn’t have the info he needed all
week, until Thursday night. I told him I’d cancel it, no prob (but I
couldn’t really do that), and he told me he’d call me back on Friday
morning which he did – around noon.
4. Noon on Friday, I told him we’d go ahead and do it, but then he sent
me a letter about 2 hours later telling me the total costs were around
$17-19,000. Up until that point, I thought I’d had it all covered – I’d
made a HUGE error in the rooms cost, and no one had caught it until
then. At that point, I had only collected $12K from our sponsors – 1
had wire transferred late and their money wasn’t in yet. I also had to
send him a deposit that day, for Saturday delivery. (when I asked the
fucker earlier in the week if I could wire transfer, he told me no;
then on Friday, told me he’d never asked accounting about that – did I
want to him to do it now? Cost for Saturday delivery – $40)
5. At 4:30 on Friday afternoon, after letting him know I’d sent the
deposit, he wrote back telling me they expected the actual costs of the
event to paid in full by Monday at noon, or they’d cancel it – and they
were fulling planning on charging me the performance penalty
afterwards. I went into a total panic; I make good money, but I’m not a
saver, so I didn’t have the extra cash we needed.
6. CPA worked with me nearly all night, helping me try to figure this
out and came up with a couple of good ideas. I called the Sales
Director on Saturday morning, who called me back and told me they had
already decided to *forgive* the performance penalty, and hadn’t Steve
told me that? No, he hadn’t. But he also agreed to drop the Monday
noon deadline, and let me settle at the end of it, which is what Steve
had always told me I would do.
7. I worked all weekend trying to find the extra cash, and Sunday
morning before I left, sent out $8400 in advance and sponsor requests.
Eddy from RTG kicked in $800 for BetMax for a breakfast brunch, and
Trish from CPS immediately advanced me the $1300 they owed me at that
point for my commission for October, but no one else came thru. I
believe it was one of these that told Dom we were short money. I left
here giving my Mom instructions for transferring money to my NETeller
debit card, so I could pull it out up there.
8. Total costs came to $17,110 – I actually lucked out a little with
the final no-shows, even tho I still got charged their food fees per
person, and room fees for the first night (except for Magic79, who
called me Monday afternoon to let me know he couldn’t get out of Calif.
because of the fires – thank you! – they dropped your fees entirely.)
I collected a total of $14,800 in sponsor money, and yes, I spent some
money while I was there. I borrowed about $500 from some members and
Jeff/WagerProfits at the last minute, and I still owe Mohegan $1500,
which I’ll pay in the next week or so.
I am NOT asking anyone for any money – these were my mistakes, and I
intend to be responsible for them; I always am. Last week and over the
weekend, I was so sick from stress over this that I literally was
physically sick and couldn’t even eat, and kept saying I would never do
it again.
BUT……. It turned out so great – much better than I expected – that
I’d it again in a heartbeat, just make some changes. I think all our
members *and* the sponsors really enjoyed themselves, and I *know*
Money Mechanic was extremely happy with it. Serah told me at dinner on
Thursday night that “all the GPWA members are sooooo nice!”. Knowing
all that, made all my problems worthwhile.
Next year, tho, if we keep it as a free event for the GPWA members,
people who say they’re coming will be charged any permanent costs up
front as a deposit – if they show up, they get their money back; if
they don’t, they lose it.
I had a GREAT time!! Thank you, all of you who came!!! And special
thanks to Bill, who handled a lot of things for me while we were
there!!
_________________
Liaison for SciFi, Palace of Chance, Portofino/Hampton, Alkemize
http://www.VideoPokerJunkie.com
http://www.GamblingGirl.com
http://www.VideoPoker4.usYou have to stand for something – or you’ll fall for anything.
Someone has posted about this over at WOL.
http://www.winneronline.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001003.htmlThanks Captain
Thats what I saw as well. But I have since been told there is even more to this sad story then is currently being released. 🙁Captain would you mind posting that email over to the other Thread so Simon and the others who are following this story can see it. Most people do not have access to the private area here…
Heres the thread
http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/bb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=827Thanx
Done!
EGADS – Looks like shes finally done it now! I’m glad I got out when I did, as it looks like the $hits about to hit the fan in a big way.
WTF didnt they cancel this event when they realized the turn-out was going to be so low. Even if those programs say they enjoyed it they surely see that the group has no real bargaining power as its numbers dont dictate it. And what about the programs she was practically begging for money from?
Can anything positive come from this event? How will it impact current members and/or others associated with members?
That WOL phrase guilty by association may hold some weight.
Truly right Brian.
I am concened that this will put us back to the level of porn webmasters reputation wise.
Damn, I worked in the hospitality industry for a number of years at the Hilton but never came across such a mess as that in some 400 major functions.
Methinks the initial enquiries might have been along the lines of….”hey we got 200 members coming and we want to book a floor”.
To which the sales guy would be smacking his lips…until he found out it was only a handful.
OK, we all make mistakes, but this will affect all of us. How much so remains to be seen.
Having reread Cappy’s post I am more than a little angry at overlooking the obvious here.
“I make good money, but I am not a saver”.
There should be like a 20k+ “fund” of the advertising money for the GPWA…some $150 per aff program since when…January? Some 20 aff programs? That is 27k since February…ok allow gradual increase in numbers, some perhaps dropping out, server costs.
I say there should be 20k “fund” somewhere, probably spread around a lot of online VP machines.
“I collected a total of $14,800 in sponsor money, and yes, I spent some money while I was there.”
Oh, did you now?
$34,800 approximately? Hell what is a few k here and there!
I told Cindy on the GPWA board sometime ago that she must be accountable for monies after insisting after my take over of the safari server that I would not be prepared to pay for it out of my pocket, on behalf of the GPWA as Deepthought ( a former member)had done for some 12 months previously.
The GPWA moved server and paid advertising by the aff programs and the payment of the $150 fee for their forums began.
Now, where is that money? Why was that not used to fund the event and why were sponsors even needed, let alone to have to call some and beg for money, let alone borrow from other members at the event?
Why is the hat now being passed around the GPWA?
Why do I get the feeling that a Steve Adkins is going on?
How long does it take for the penny to drop for some?
Perhaps it just takes a 10lb sledge hammer. 😡 😡 😡
Hey Dean,
You have hit the nail on the head on this one. Where is the money? I agree with Dean that it has been blown by Cindy playing video poker at many online casinos. Cindy has failed the GPWA members misserbly and it is a sad day to say the least. I should have left the GPWA along time ago. At least I am gone now.Deaning your are right! This is going to hurt us all – members or not!
So what can we do to limit the harm as much as possible?
Lets not rush out and totally pound the GPWA on public boards – lets FIRST formulate a plan as to how we can BEST handle this issue. We dont want to make things worse for ourselves just to get at her.)
Right now Im heavliy medicated (that knees really hurting) so I cant find a thought, but I think we need to come up with something.
I just wish ALL members would realize what kind of person she is. Id assume that a great deal of affiliate managers are realizing it and it wont be long before they all do.
WHAT are we going to do? Can we do anything at all?
Edited – No use tipping my hand.
The time for one sided discussion and sabre rattling is over. Action will speak louder then words…
:shooter:
Count me in, Professor. I want to join this. I want to be completely disassociated from GPWA.
I am just about done trying to inform the membership of what is really going on.
I want to distance myself and be done with it.
It was one thing when she was just libeling and slandering me, but now she is discrediting the entire business.
Professor, tell me where to send my money. I’m in.
