Creative Compulsion

I’m a pretty friendly, easy-going person. I give people the benefit of the doubt and while I may disagree with viewpoints or ideas, I don’t attack people. That said, I am utterly disgusted by the latest events I have seen at Wagglepop and by its owner, Ray Romeo and his CS Rep (or perhaps, alter ego) Karen.

1.) Wagglepop condones spamming and breaking rules on other sites

• Poppers don’t just condone spamming and breaking rules on sites like Craigslist, MySpace, and even eBay, they outright slap each other on the back and have posts on the forums dedicated to how to do this without getting caught. One member just posted how he placed his eBay store on vacation hold in order to place links to his WP store. He changed his board siggy on eBay to link to WP. Outright rule violation - BUT acceptable if you’re a Popper. He even had the audacity to say he would NEVER exhibit that behavior on WP. Lol - ok.

  Excerpt from WP Rules: Signatures may not link or appear to link to destinations off Wagglepop

  Hypocrites? NO, not in Wagglepop World.

• This type of violation is NOT allowed on WP. Members, in fact, were chastised for having banners to LINK REFERRAL websites in their stores No, no, no… not acceptable - no links to outside sites. Customer Service has since revised that policy after some of the pets whined and complained. I guess good ole Ray/Karen realized that if they weren’t going to advertise, someone had to.

2.) Wagglepop lies to their sellers

WP Customer Service is always ‘updating’ the delighted Wagglers about how great things are, when in fact, all is not well in KoolAid land (read TT for more info on the KoolAid Syndrome)

• WP reports on how traffic & sales are up

• FACT: Page Views are down by 44% over 3 months per Alexa. People are not browsing. They pop in & pop out. Not browsing = not shopping. Who cares if they visit your front page if they don’t stay?

• FACT: Sales are down, not up. Karen says don’t worry about weekly trend, look at monthly trends or quarterly. Well, if your current downward weekly trend continues, your monthly trend will soon follow suit. Unless more Billy Math comes into play here.

3.) Wagglepop exercises extreme censorship - even though RR is a known forum hothead

• Wagglepop’s excerpted forum rules: Regarding profanity and/or vulgarity, please post in ways and with terms that would be comfortable and respectful to everyone ….. not just yourself. The sensibilities of another member, though different than your own, need to be considered and respected, without exception. If you wouldn’t say it to your grandma, don’t say it here.

• A QUOTE from Ray Romeo on the OTWA Forum: hell-Since I own the business, I’ll do any damned thing I please.If you can’t handle that, then hit the bricks.Ray

• OK Ray - so its ok to be an obnoxious, hot-headed ass on someone else’s boards, but not your own? There are many, many, many beautiful gems like this one on the OTWA forum. Don’t believe me Poppers? Go read for yourself how courteous and considerate your fearless leader is. I wasn’t around for WP1, had no idea about this guy. Now I do.

4.) More on forum behavior…

• CS posted actual details on a Popper’s AdSmart account..

  AdSmart funding via PayPal can take up to 6 business hours to be applied and for your ad campaigns to begin running.

  We have applied your initial funding of $XX.XX, and added $X.XX additional in AdSmart Cooperative Free Bonus Funds.

  To create an ad campaign, click the Create an Ad link, and select the type and location of ad you would like to create.

  Once completed, your ad will begin rotating in the appropriate location Smiley

  Karen - WP Customer Care

  When a member responded to the affect that account details should not be posted on forums, not only was the member given a suspension warning, the post was edited to take out the details.

  Your recent post on the Community Help & Discussion Boards has me concerned.

  The following were posted:

  ———-

  1. Hello: I posted a question on the adsmart board, but thought I would do it here also, someone here can maybe answer my question. I funded adsmart from Paypal, but it is not showing on my account, everything looks okay on the Paypal end. Also, how do I get the ad to specific categories under Collectibles. Thanks for your help. ***** http://www.wagglepop.com/stores/**** -******-***

  2. *********,

  AdSmart funding via PayPal can take up to 6 business hours to be applied and for your ad campaigns to begin running.

  We have applied your initial funding of $XX.XX, and added $X.XX additional in AdSmart Cooperative Free Bonus Funds.

  To create an ad campaign, click the Create an Ad link, and select the type and location of ad you would like to create.

  Once completed, your ad will begin rotating in the appropriate location Smiley

  Karen - WP Customer Care

  3. Thanks, Karen. Have a great day. ***** http://www.wagglepop.com/stores/*****-****-***

  ———-

  The only thing I can think of that would be “personal information” is my acknowledgement of the $XX.XX being applied, so for expediency I have changed that to a more common nomenclature.

  Read the “Clarification - Board Participation Policy” thread at the top of the forum.

  Read it and understand it clearly.

  Post that are intended to cause trouble will no longer be tolerated.

  We have allowed you enough. One more, and your account will be suspended or terminated.

  There are lots of other communties where you can behave that way, but NOT here.

  Please email me back and acknowledge that you understand and can comply, and then we can all spend Thanksgiving day with our families.

  Karen - WP Customer Care

  Great customer service over there! Screw up and ’slap’ the member who called you on it then quickly cover your ass so the faithful don’t see your blunder.

  So Poppers - if your account info can be posted on your forums, how safe do you think your sensitive personal information is??

  And another example of posting customer’s account information (edited to protect seller’s privacy - something Karen didn’t consider):

  XXXXXXX,

  Your current balance of $X.XX is due and payable at this time as it exceeds $2.00, the minimum standard for payment.

  According to our records, that will be the first payment you’ve ever made on the account, as you have been below the threshold until this invoicing period.

  The bulk of your changes are $X.XX each, for Insertion Fees, Additional Image Fees, and Thumbnail Gallery Fees. You can view all of your fees by clicking the Transactions link in My Wagglepop.

  You can make payment by clicking the same Transactions link

  Karen - WP Customer Care

Ray’s right - he can run his business any damn way he wants to. But don’t preach about courteous, respectful behavior when you have never exercised it yourself. And SHAME ON YOU for posting member information that should should have been dealt with in a PM or email to the seller. It doesn’t matter that she posted the question - YOU should have answered off the forums.

I am going to add to this as I have time. Why am I writing this? Therapy, lol. I also feel that the Poppers deserve to know the TRUTH about Wagglepop. There are a lot of nice people there being sucked in to what amounts to a scam. The only person making money there is RR himself. Posts are being deleted right and left to protect the ‘precious few’ who are blindly following this guy. There IS information out there - use it! Find out who you’re really dealing with.