Franklin Goose - Stuffed, and Roasting in the Oven

So like I said in my last post, this blog is about more than just Autism. I think I'll take a moment to talk about what's been on my mind lately.

Franklin Effing Goose.

There is a lot of buzz going around the interwebs about this company and their shady dealings, lack of ethics, and outright abhorrent treatment of their customers. Well, I am one of those customers. As if I needed something else to go wrong right now. As if I am not already under enough stress. Let me tell you, when a mother is already at her wits end, it's generally a good idea NOT to piss in her Post Toasties. Well, I guess Franklin Goose was not aware of that little fact. It's actually not really a good idea to piss in ANY woman's Post Toasties, especially not a mother, and most of all, a SAHM with a lot of time to spend on bringing you down.

I'll give you the quick rundown, in case you aren't aware of the scam they were running.

1. A company called JSA Technologies starts a natural & organic baby product internet based store, called "Franklin Goose".
2. They put up an ad looking for someone to help them come up with a viral marketing strategy and offer to pay $25,000 for the winning idea.
3. The strategy is decided on, and a promotion begins. Franklin Goose asks people to write reviews for products on their website in exchange for $5 store credit per review with no limits.
4. Some people write crappy one liners for reviews, and Franklin Goose says they will have to manually approve all of the reviews, and it may take several days for credits to post. Around this time they also start asking for people to work for them, and thanking everyone for all of the good reviews, the ones that are approved and credited.
5. Franklin Goose encourages everyone to keep up the good work and keep telling friends to come write reviews and check out their store.
6. Credits start rolling into accounts.
   
7. Some people begin placing orders with credit right away, and a few people actually get their orders, which makes the rest of us feel pretty good about trusting Franklin Goose to keep their end of the deal.
8. As the orders start to come in full force, Franklin Goose offers the option to "bank" credits for 6 months - 1 year and gain interest on the credits at a rate of 10% on 6 months, and 20% on a year. We are also told credits will be good for 2 years.
   
9. Other people place orders, only to be told that just about everything in the store is backordered. Some of us wait several months, and some of us cancel our orders, deciding to place them later when they are restocked. Some continue to wait, and wait, and wait some more, until they no longer need the item ordered.
   
10. Franklin Goose assures everyone that their orders will eventually be fulfilled, but they are focusing on credit card orders first. Most of us understand, and are patient.
    
11. A lot of us decide that we want to be nice and help this company, and cancel our orders, and bank our credits, on the promise that they will be better suited to fill our orders after they have established themselves better. We don't want to run them out of business, we respect them, and want to help them get going in this awful economy. So they ask us to bank, and we bank.
12. Those who did not bank continue to wait on orders. Those who banked for 6 months are anxious to spend the credits on Christmas gifts with the upcoming Holiday shortly after the 6 month term matures.
    
13. Just before this 6 month period, those people that banked 6 months, and those who did not bank, or had pending orders were told remaining credits would be frozen, and banked, with interest, because they were overwhelmed with orders. Some were upset, but most were understanding.
14. Just before the one year mark rolled around, they emailed their "loyal customers" explaining that all credits were being taken away, reviews taken down, and the reason being that many of the paid reviews were not honest, even though at the time they said reviews were being approved. So we're called dishonest, and punished for trying to help this new company get off the ground. But they offered us a 40% off coupon to use on a single order that does not include any sale items, which is still lower than their markup for profit margin, and inflated pricing, so it's really not any kind of bargain, and is just adding insult to injury.
15. We boycott Franklin Goose and demand they make this right.
16. They release a letter stating there are only 40 of us, and we are all the ones who scammed them and abused the terms of their promotion. So many things wrong with that accusation, I'm not sure where to begin, but well, we didn't scam them because we were the ones being scammed. We got nothing, or very little if anything, for our time & efforts in writing reviews and driving traffic to their website, providing new content and higher google ratings, and essentially built their business for them, and we were not paid for our work. Sounds like they scammed us. And abusing the terms? What terms? There were NO LIMITS. NO TERMS. Oh, and there are more than 40 of us.
    

Okay, that was a really long breakdown. If you want more information, check out Franklin Goose - You Suck. It has a really thorough report of all the events in this scam and links and screenshots to back up everything we are upset about.

So please, do not ever give Franklin Goose your money. They are crooks. No better than common thieves. They stole from thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising, and written content. Countless hours of work, labor. And they think they can get away with this? They have another think coming! And I apologize if this post was disorganized, or I left something out. I am just highly angry over all of this. That's why I'm providing the link to a more thorough report of this scandal.

Franklin, your goose is getting cooked.