(no subject)

[amber-green.livejournal.com]

I'm hearing a lot of bad things about craftpromo. The things she's doing sound really sketchy!

her myspace: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=87221220
her website: http://craftpromo.net/

I'm going to paste what my friend (I'm not naming anyone b/c I don't want to start some internet drama) wrote, because it explains a lot about the girl behind "Craft Promo."

This is what my friend wrote:

"has anyone of you been contacted numerous times by craftpromo?? i'm sure you've all seen her advertisements.

Its a girl running a "business" very similar to the Sampler. in fact, i believe that's where she got the idea from.

PLEASE-no one take this as me talking shit. i think i have some valid points...

but first... here's the 411 of what craftpromo.net is...
its a girl whom stated that she will have a booth at the San Diego Punk Rock Craft Fair.. she was to take in about 50 samples from various DiY vendors.. and sell them for $3-5 at the fair, giving diy artists a chance to "be there" at the fair with out actually being there and having their promo materials.. at first, i was like "YEAH!" i wanted to be apart of that fair but i'm up north about 8 hours away..

and here are the reason why i will NOT have anything to do with her "business":

1. she stated in her protocol that we must be okay with her selling the samples at $3-$5 each and that the proceeds would go to making the flyers that would have our advertisements in. she later sent an email out saying she'll be selling them for $10, not even mentioning the fact that on her site it originally stated 3-5 dollars, and that the proceeds (90%) would go to charity. (which one is it? are you going to change it again later AFTER i've sent in my samples? what if i don't agree, and you have my samples!)

2. she then stated that she wasn't going to do the craft fair b/c she found out she would have to pay $300 to get a dba, business license, and a seller's permit. and the whole reason why i'd even want to contribute to her cause was to have my stuff at that particular craft fair, otherwise i don't really agree with what she's trying to do with mailing out samplers.

3. after telling her that she DOES NOT have to pay all that and that she doesn't actually need those things, she wouldn't answer me when i asked her if that's what the people running the fair told her to do.

4. then i asked her again to tell me where she got that info from, and she gave me the url to some no-name company on the internet that charges you to use them to start a business. as in, they get all that licensing stuff for you but they charge you an obscene price.

5. after telling her 3x+ that you DON'T need all of that stuff, ONLY a temporary business license, SHE STILL DIDN'T GET IT. and said to me lastly "so all i need to get is a business license and seller's permit?" after i told her how many times, that NO all you need is a temp. seller's permit! which they don't even check, but you SHOULD do because that's the legal thing to do and just in case.

6. she's advertising that she's going to have a booth at the fair, even though she's not even approved yet. to me, that is misleading DiY businesses, which misled me.

7. and then even after i told her she doesn't need all those licensing, since i did a fair and talked to California's bureau of equalization, and telling her that i seriously doubt that the protocols for nor cal is that much different then so cal, and telling her that all she has to pay is the tax return, she still didn't understand.

8. she also said that she thought she could get away without the DBA but said that it would still cost her $150 instead of $300."

And another friend of mine replied to that same entry with,

"a while back there was this girl who was bashing the sampler . . . i wonder if this is the same person. she had started her own thing but it was on livejournal. i'll look it up...

yes! it is the same girl! she posted this very long entry (she has some community) about how marie sucked and was taking all the money for herself (yeah, right) and how it was awful that the ebay sampler auctions get very expensive and how DISAPPOINTING the sampler always is when you get it in the mail . . . she deleted that entry so unfortunately i can't show it to you.

also this girl at one point had her site set up so it looked like she was affiliated with craftster - and the craftster lady asked her to remove it.

here:

http://community.livejournal.com/samplersampler/342989.html

so i guess what i'm saying is to exercise caution . . ."

On myspace she sends everyone on her friends list comments trying to get them to send her samples for her scheme. I checked it out. On one of her blogs she was going on about getting 50 friend requests a day, even though she only has 400 some friends. (So it does not add up.) I think she is trying to make herself look legit or something. And I think she is also a liar.

She's sent me multiple comments on myspace asking me to contribute to her. After finding all this out, I'm just glad I didn't send any of my own work to her!

I'm sorry if this is off-topic. I thought this would be a good place to post about it because you all are crafty people, and you should know if someone is doing something fishy. That's just what I think. If this post is a bother to the community, please delete it!