There is lot of negativity related to that site that is no longer relevent or pertinent to me.  And since it was a volunteer “public service” project in the first place, I have decided I have done more than my part.  The ultimate resolution of that situation will be in the hands of the Columbus Police Department and the follow-through of the plaintiffs.

It was an accidental project that had its purpose earlier this year.  Now it’s time is at an end.  If an arrest or prosecution is made by law enforcement, then I will revisit updating the site.  For now, there is nothing more to be done.

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.

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.

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.

Zaneta Lowe

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.

The onslaught of information being submitted for CobraCollectionScam.com has taken a significant amount of my time this past week.

I obviously am not required to volunteer my time to sort, organize, and report the new Cobra Collection Agency and Janice Ledden information being submitted to me.  However, I also realize very few people have the flexibility of time, the skills, the means, and the internal fortitude to commit to this course of action.

For years, I have lived and worked in Columbus, GA relatively anonymously.  And now, I find myself in a more visible position in the local area.  Not to mislead anyone to think that I am “famous” locally, but I have met and interacted with more new local people this past week than I have in 3-4 years time!

I think (and hope) I will soon hit a stopping point where I do not have to continually update information.  I believe I have captured most of the important background information but new information and stories could be submitted.

The upside to all of this is that I do not think my time is being wasted.  This new website has shot to the first page within Google on various search names and phrases within a few days.  Obviously, this blog has gathered a lot more local interest than it ever has before.

Sure, I don’t mind being better known but for leading the charge on scam-busting?  That will be an interesting title to add to my resume.

All the content of Cobra Collection Information Page will be moved to CobraCollectionScam.com.

A new person, Jerry Bolt (with some strong feelings regarding this case), surfaced last night and contacted me by email with some startling and revealing information on this case.  I have also spoken to Jerry on the phone.  I can confidently say that based on Jerry’s information alone, the information content will double in size.  That necessitated the launch of the new website CobraCollectionScam.com.  However, I will not recklessly post the information without some degree of fact-checking and verification.

Zaneta Lowe left a message for me yesterday morning.  I returned her call around 1pm and she said she was doing a story that would appear at 5pm.  I thought to myself that was very quick but they were committed to doing it.  I informed Zaneta that she needed to be aware of the web page which had more complete information than any one person would know.

Initially, I did not plan to meet with her.  However, seeing as she was going to run the story, I thought I had to accomodate her.  They came over to my home and we sat discussing the situation and story.  While the cameraman was filming, the camera ran out of film which interrupted our flow.  Then, the camera ran low in battery power which caused another interruption.  I bring that up because I provided far more information than what was displayed on the aired story where I stumbled on my words.  I suppose you just never know what will make it on camera and what will be left behind.

In any case, the TV story meant that people are starting to take seriously the Cobra Collections situation I reported months ago.  Surprisingly, Janice Ledden volunteered to talk to Zaneta.  I suppose if she tried to avoid it, it would have made herself look worse.

In any case, the story was covered several times between Friday, June 1 and Saturday, June 2 on the various newscasts.  I was informed it also made it to the news FOX affiliate (and sister station) WXTX-54 broadcast at 10pm.  A good number of people I know saw the story.  I had no idea so many people watched the news.

The videos have been posted to the Cobra Collection Agency Scam website.