Archive for June, 2007

I unexpectedly received a call from Incredible Discoveries.  They want to set up an appointment with me to discuss some “possibilities”.

It is strictly an initial first-contact, exploratory call.  The conversation went quickly where the purpose was to set up an appointment to discuss further with a “Senior Director of New Product Development”.

I am certainly intrigued with what they have in mind.  However, at this point, I am unclear.  The call was a bit of a blur and I think they mentioned something about “lease-options”.

I am guessing they noticed some of my lease-option books and they want to explore the idea of a new lease-options product and see if it is feasible for an infomercial.

I am not overwhelmingly optimistic because I think most infomercials don’t really tell it like it is and it is overwhelmingly salesy.  I really don’t want or need the “ick” factor attached to my name.

Update:  You can read my impression of the subsequent phone calls.  Basically, Incredible Discoveries wanted $75,000 from me to “get started”.  I got very suspicious and quickly said, “No thank you”.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.

 It appears persistence and momentum does pay off.  WRBL News 3 finally paid attention to the Cobra Collection scam story on June 14, 2007.  However, they called it the “Cobra Collection Controversy“.  Boy, is that an understatement.  I liked WTVM’s title much better because it was more bold but also accurate.  In their broadcasts, they titled it a “business scam” and “collection scam”.

I don’t really know how the process of getting a local story on-air at all.  I have managed to stumble my way through the process a few times but it has always been a chaotic process.  But I am happy Janice Park of WRBL finally caught wind of it and decided to move on it.

She said my email sounded like I was angry with them (WRBL).  Actually, I was more frustrated because I didn’t understand why I got a poor response.  I thought there was so much put together and the client accounts of $6 million would be large enough.

I was thinking to myself, does Cobra Collections have have to blow up a building or the client accounts to reach $10 million to make the news?  If it wasn’t going to be a good story, why not? I simply wanted to know.

Anyhow, after scrambling around making calls, I provided Janice Park a list of people who would appear on camera to talk.  Steve Klemetti of Central Print & Signs and Nancy Wilhite of Dr. Jay Brodwyn’s office were both willing to help the cause.  I was grateful and they did a fantastic job.

In my interview with WRBL, I attempted to be concise.  As always, it was interesting to see what they would choose to air.  I looked like hell after standing in the sun sweating while talking to the cameraman.  But we finally came into my air-conditioned private office and knocked out the interview.

The June 14, 6pm airing was nice clocking at nearly 3 minutes, however the 11pm airing was a bit more disappointing.  Nevertheless, it was far more than we were getting before.  You could see my website CobraCollectionScam.com in the news story.

I asked Janice Park to be straight with me after I thanked her.  I said if this piece was done and did not warrant an update, I would not supply her any new information.  I had said the same thing to Zaneta Lowe of WTVM.  Fortunately, both reporters were open to updates.  So, for now, I have a direct line and email to the two reporters if there are any significant developments.

If any of you want to see the WRBL news story, you can see the video on WRBL.com and CobraCollectionScam.com.

When I first became a publisher and author years ago, my thoughts centered around producing books, manuals, and audio programs.  As the publisher of Ascend Beyond Publishing, I would focus on real estate investing and entrepreneurship. 

For years, nearly no one new about my publishing endeavors as I did not feel they were relevant nor of interest to the local Columbus GA / Phenix City AL market.  As such, the majority of my sales are done online through Amazon, eBay, and my own online store.  Practically, no customers are from Columbus, GA.  If there are many customers in Georgia, they certainly don’t come to my online store often, they must go through Amazon.  But I don’t mind, a sale is a sale.  And if the order goes through them, I don’t have to deal with the hassles of book fulfillment.

However, the whole Cobra Collection Agency scam story has forced me as both a publisher and author into a direction I could never have expected.  I would be doing work normally associated with journalists such as investigative reporting, fact-checking, writing editorials, and consumer advocate.

Aside from a minor elective I took in high school 23 years ago, I have no formal training whatsoever in journalism.  However, I did remember a few basic rules and guidelines.  Aside from that, I have had to learn on the fly.

It is gratifying to hear compliments from my friend, Jerry Bolt, and others who regularly read CobraCollectionScam.com.  This whole thing is strictly a local community issue.  I have traditionally never focused my writings locally because I have, as a general rule, tried to stay anonymous.  All of that seems to have changed in the last couple of weeks.

Nearly every day, a few people are either leaving me phone messages, faxes, or emails.  They are either other businesses or debtors.  I get calls and interruptions to my business at inopportune moments but I do my best to accomodate people who are upset and need help.  Simultaneously, I am interviewing people, corroborating information, and organizing the mass in my mind.

I have worked for hours on this case with no financial compensation.  I have to admit, it gets mentally draining.

I am trying to be responsible and powerfully effective.  I have to decide what is the right thing to say publicly and things that I must keep to myself.  I second guess myself all the time because I am trying to anticipate the moves of someone who I now regard as a criminal and has very little moral fiber.  I am also trying to find out what crucial piece of the puzzle needs to be found to try to advance this case.

And so as the Publisher and head author for Ascend Beyond Publishing, I feel like I am now a member of the press except that I am simply covering a single story.  And I know there are a small but hard-core group of people following CobraCollectionScam.com daily.

The single blog post I wrote months ago became several blog posts.  Then it became an information webpage.  Then an information website.  Now, I regard CobraCollectionScam.com as the “go to” source and authority on this case.  It has become an online news source focused on one story, the Cobra Collection Agency scam.

With that revelation, I am more than a publisher.  I feel like I am now getting a taste of what it is like to be a member of the press and news media.  I have become a journalist-of-sorts, an investigative reporter-of-sorts, and editorial writer-of-sorts.  I have no formal credentials and yet here I am doing the job with no financial compensation whatseover.  In fact, it is actually costing me time, energy, and some money.

However, maybe when this is all over (hopefully very soon), I will have garnered some goodwill and  respect from a whole bunch of new friends and acquaintances.

I have most certainly had to live up to the namesake of my publishing company, Ascend Beyond Publishing.  Yeah, baby, that is certainly what had to happen to make CobraCollectionScam.com a powerful news tool.

Tony Calloway, a member of The Investors Roundtable, and I are sponsoring an experimental real estate portfolio-building session for the Primerica group he leads in Columbus, GA.  The session will be present to a small group on Monday, June 18, 2007.

The idea for this experimental session was born from a discussion Tony and I had after I had attended one of his Introductory meetings.  I found the session interesting and enlightening.  However, I also found that were opportunities to advance the level of information and opportunities for the Primerica representatives.  These Primerica “reps” already have some level of success and I thought it might be interesting to see how they responded to the portfolio-building ideas and concepts that Wes and I practice in real life which Tony is now learning.

Because Tony and I are big believers of collaboration and we believe that “small ventures lead to bigger ventures”, we both decided this might be fun to try. 

I have heard of Primerica for years and never really learned much about it.  However, my relationship with Tony has warmed me up to the company.  It appears to be a reputable organization unlike many network marketing organizations I have seen.  The fact Primerica appears to be tied to Citigroup is certainly not a bad thing.

The question of “How will Primerica representatives respond to the idea of real estate portfolio-building?” will soon be answered.  I am looking forward to presenting my material in my “direct and real” style to an entirely new audience.

Tony, the forward-thinking and optimistic fellow he is, is already priming me up for the possibility of a follow-up session!  I told him that we would see how it goes!

During the last 2 official session meetings, the group’s performance hovered above 50%.  What that means is that little more than half would do the homework or field assignments or simply have difficulties attending the meeting.  This greatly upset and irritated me as I was the organizer of this group.

Without getting into all the gory details, I announced there was a group cohesion and unity issue.  Two members of the Investors Roundtable were gently asked to leave as they did not seem to be able to meet the participation criteria to remain in that group.  However, the two ousted members decided to remain affiliated in a less commited role.  So we did not lose them entirely.

For the Investors Roundtable to exist powerfully as I had envisioned, it required changes in expectations.  Some rules were changed and the cost went up.  However, I also outlined what they would get in return.

Had an insufficient number of members agreed to the new terms, that group would have been disbanded within 15 minutes.  My business partner, Wes Weaver, was on standby and did not even come in at my request.  Fortunately, everyone in attendance agreed, I called Wes, and we continued on.

The vision for Phase II is to continue this until the end of the year.  I envision that to be around the Thanksgiving 2007 period.  We would take stock where the group is at.  It would either continue at Phase II level, if necessary, or we would disband.

Nothing is forever and everyone involved knows it.  If we can’t maintain excellence, there is no point doing it.  We have had visitors come and go but it is always about the committed and the people who stay, not the people who leave.  The fact of the matter is Wes and I simply have too many things to work on without staying involved with people who are lazy and uncommitted.

I am happy to report that after the administrative affairs were dispensed with, the Investors Roundtable roared forward with the showing of WTVM’s news stories of the Cobra Collection Agency scam with my behind the scenes involvement and telling of highlighted events covered on CobraCollectionScam.com.

This was a live case study and implementaton of many principles and concepts that we teach.  The issues within that scam were tied back to what investors can face if they lack leadership, intuition, ethics, and decision-making skills.

Following that, we resumed the critiquing of the group’s individual investor presentations.  It ended well.  Energy was up, excitement was up, participation was up, expectations were high.  Phase II was off to a good start.

Last week, the core members of The Investors Roundtable met for the first business Social event.  Basically, it was my idea to get everyone together to talk and discuss without the time constraints of a lecture or presentation.

The premise was, “What if we had a 2-hour break session?”  This came about because I noticed the flurry of activity and discussion during the breaks of our our bi-weekly meetings.

Unfortunately, the Social came at a time when the Investors Roundtable was at its lowest point.  However, April stepped up to organize the whole thing.  Further, Wes Weaver and I were treated to dinner.  This was a very nice gesture given that each of the 2 sessions before, I gave the group a stern tongue-lashing for a substandard performance and the possibility of disbanding the endeavor.

 I made some announcements and some proposals for the future.  More importantly, there was a great deal of information and ideas exchange without the constraint of the typical session.

The next one should be fun.

Zaneta Lowe has quickly followed up on the heels of her June 1, 2007 story on Janice Ledden and the Cobra Collections story by doing a revisit and expansion of the original story.

In today’s story, Zaneta Lowe interviewed a previous landlord of Cobra Collections.  Additionally, she recapped the previous story while introducing my newest website, CobraCollectionScam.com.  You can view the newsclip on that site.

CobraCollectionScam.com continues to grow with the surge of new reports and information coming in.  The stories has helped trigger 3 ex-employees to read the website and come forward.

Zaneta has once again done a great service to the local business community.

To break up the montony of my blog comments of late, I have some trivial news for you! 

 True to form, Casey Serin of IamFacingForeclosure.com is back again!  I knew he would come back in one way or another.  It is in his personality.  He cannot be kept down regardless of the consequences.  But he came back even sooner than I expected.  He is going to entertain us all once again!

As I had stated before, I have no plans to make any comments to him.  He does what he wants, how he wants.  I am here to watch Casey add entertainment value.  We can use him as a reverse role model.