The latest on Sally Blanchard and CPQ magazine.

[tielfan]

A few months ago Sally announced that she was going to resume publishing the Companion Parrot Quarterly as an online publication in association with another group. I was happy to hear it, since I bought a 3-year subscription in 2006 and received exactly one issue before she got too busy with other things to bother with the magazine any more.

Today I received an email saying that the online deal has fallen apart, and the group that was working with Sally plans to initiate legal proceedings to get some of their money back. Here's the full text for anyone who's interested - it's VERY long, and due to limitations on post length it will take several posts to print it all

Part one of the email (this post) is background information. Part 2 (the next post) is where they start talking about what went wrong. Here's the beginning of the email:

The following communication is meant to provide you with an accurate and most up to date status of the Companion Parrot Connection Web site and the Companion Parrot Endeavor, the Non-Profit Organization behind it.

Please Note:
This information is being sent to you as you were either invited to a membership to the Companion Parrot Connection (CPC) Web site per the information provided by Sally Blanchard and/or registered to be a member at the CPC Web site . If you believe you received this in error, then please delete the communication and send a notice to contact@companionparrotendeavor.org and we will be sure to remove you from any lists related to the CPC Web site.

We thank you in advance for taking the time to read this information.

HISTORY OF THE COMPANION PARROT CONNECTION
First and foremost it is important to explain that the Companion Parrot Connection is NOT owned and/or operated by the Nationwide Parrot Place Organization (NPPO) or Sally Blanchard and her private business. The Companion Parrot Connection is operated and ran under the Companion Parrot Endeavor a Non-Profit Organization maintaining legally filed status both with the State of Colorado and the Federal Government. The NPPO and John Fisher (the Individual) specifically have been key supporters and donors that have helped to get the CPE/CPC projects off the ground and made available to the public.

While the NPPO helps to provide support for hosting the site and provides free support to End Users, it has also donated over $2,000 to help get the project off the ground. John Fisher (the Individual) envisioned the CPE and created, developed and has ensured full operation of the CPC site including assisting Sally Blanchard with her efforts to be able to establish a Digital Version of her Magazine (then known as the Companion Parrot Quarterly). John Fisher has donated a little over $12,000 to date to the CPE and CPC site directly and spent almost 15 months building it and getting all the legal activities tended to. In the course of this, John Fisher provided a new Computer, fixed and recovered data on a "broken PC", provided to Sally funds to pay her personal bills and Technical support along with other gestures to assist Sally Blanchard in bringing her business activities back to operation, and in support of her subscribers.

John Fisher (the Individual established the idea for the CPE/CPC in 2006, but in 2007 was keenly impressed with the change in Ownership of the Parrot Place, that new owner being Vicki Pierce and what she envisioned around the creation of a new organization. John Fisher assisted Vicki Pierce and Emily Copas in establishing the Nationwide Parrot Place Organization, and setting training standards, certification programs and testing capabilities to ensure that there were significant changes in the way baby parrots were raised and developed as Companion Parrots here in the United States. Many of the methods and ideas were leveraged from the knowledge that was provided by Sally Blanchard's book, the Companion Parrot Handbook, which the NPPO encouraged anyone getting a bird or having a bird should have in their inventory of written knowledge.

During the course of these activities John Fisher, Emily Copas and Vicki Pierce engaged Sally Blanchard both in establishing support from all of the Parrot Place Locations to buy Sally's books, etc., but also put in place with the support of Sally Blanchard "live chat" sessions that were provided to the NPPO and its members to provide additional development of their nurturing guidance and parrot behavioral skills. This took place over time and has been ongoing throughout 2008 and into 2009, in which Sally has met and been involved with many people from the NPPO and began to realize what a solid and squared away organization the NPPO is and was continuously working to be. This included, Sally taking time to inform people of her new found belief in the NPPO and what it stood for and her helping to communicate to anyone who would listen, why she supports the organization. Many great and wonderful new friendships were developed and some old ones were rekindled over the course of the time and energy being spent together. Much of this was taken place during the challenging and rough times that Sally Blanchard was having in her personal, professional and financial life. Vicki, Emily and John, along with the members of the NPPO did what they could to support Sally by either buying product from her, recommending her to others, or with personal levels of support on all levels that could be offered. It was a beautiful family of like-minded peoples all wanting to do good for People and Parrots.

While all this was going on, and in addition to these activities, John Fisher (in 2008) jumped back in, with full force, working on the Companion Parrot Connection Web site and organizing the information and requirements to establish a non-profit information, education and support Web site for People and Parrots. John Fisher had a strong vision about establishing a location on the Internet that was professional, supportive, full of information and knowledge, and most importantly would have NO ADVERTISING and/or agendas being pushed on the site. John Fisher wanted to work to bring knowledgeable people in from all walks of the Companion Parrot world, from authors, behaviorists, veterinarians, and specialty peoples that could help to enhance the experience for all of the End-Users that participated. Educating, Developing, and Nurturing, People and Parrots was key to this theme. This concept was something that John Fisher developed over his 35 years in working with birds, being trained by Avian Vets, Vet Techs, behaviorists, breeders, his own breeding efforts (back in the day), and from the massive volumes of reading and studying around avian knowledge and companion parrots in particular. One of John's greatest heroes and a person he quite idolized is Sally Blanchard, and he as read everything she has done and worked with her directly. John Fisher was the biggest proponent and supporter of Sally Blanchard over anyone else and to this day still holds her professional works in highest of regards.

With the CPC site on the edge of completion and volunteers from the NPPO and others helping to get information written and put together in the form of articles and documents for downloading by members, John Fisher approached Vicki Pierce and Emily Copas, and said that he had a great idea on how to help Sally in her situation. He believed that he could help Sally setup a system/method to make the CPQ Digital (eBook like) due to her not being able to publish her magazine, and hopefully reduce much of the "heat" she was taking from her unfulfilled subscribers.

To launch however, had another huge chore associated with it. All of Sally's past subscribers had to be communicated to and informed of the new site and how they were going to get their subscriptions and get a full complimentary Parrot Advocate Membership to help offset and ease the pain of not having gotten the Companion Parrot Quarterly (CPQ) for all that time, and that the new magazine would be the Companion Parrot Magazine and it would come out every two months, and could be accessed from the Companion Parrot Connection Web site. As you could imagine this type of E-Mail campaign has to be well thought out, has to include a professional E-Mail solution and costs and time and money to do. Here is where Vicki and NPPO stepped in and offered to take on all the cost and the work for Sally to get this done. Sally Blanchard worked with diligence and effort to assemble the best list of names, E-Mail addresses, and number of subscriptions owed to her subscribers and provided it in raw format. Vicki then work aggressively to get these names and E-Mail addresses entered into a professional service that she paid for so that large scale E-Mail communications could be sent out and tracked for validity to Sally's subscriber base. In conjunction with this, we had to organize a process that allowed Sally Blanchard's subscribers the ability to sign up as Guest members so that they did not have to purchase a membership, and then inform us of their registration, so that John Fisher and Vicki Pierce could reference the data provided by Sally Blanchard, verify their subscription and then have John manually update and set them up as Parrot Advocates with complimentary subscriptions to the CPC Web site. This process not only took numerous hours by Sally, and well over 100 hours of effort between Vicki (40) and John (60) to complete the original efforts to do this. In was a night and day affair, not to mention Sally working to help create communications to her subscribers that we were working as fast as we could to convert them onto the CPC Web site. It was a busy and stressful time for all and we did our best to keep patient with the process and each other to make it all happen. Plus, we now had to ensure we were working on content and supporting NEW members to the CPC site.

[tielfan]

It never occurred to us that Sally Blanchard had still been selling subscriptions even though she was not able to produce a magazine for her customers. We started doing the math, and already we began to realize that the CPE would be taking a hit well over $8-10,000 to cover the cost of maintaining the site, infrastructure, software and content efforts just to ensure that Sally's past subscriber's could get their magazines and receive special value as dispensation for their lack of receiving the magazine issues they had paid for. And, what was even more frightening was that we hadn't even converted all of her subscribers at this time. It became very clear that the CPE as a non-profit could not fund this for Sally, and that it would have to be paid for by personal contributions of John Fisher, Vicki Pierce and the NPPO Membership, which quite frankly had paid out so much already, that the prospects of this were quite disturbing for us, especially during these economic times.

So we brought this up with Sally, who was very quiet with the exception of saying, "You knew I owed subscriptions, you should have checked closer as to how much was owed". So we requested that Sally please consider working with us to find another approach to help us offset the costs that she was now bringing on the organization and all of us. Remember we are committed to a no advertising site, so we even suggested that maybe she could run advertising in her magazine, as she was also taking all the revenue from that, and could put some back into paying for some of this. She was not willing to have anything to do with that, as that was also to be her money only. Again, we chose to endeavor the circumstances and John Fisher, realizing he had gotten the organization into this situation with Sally, based on his over commitment and desire to help her, explained to others that he would try and find a way to make up the money over time himself.

Lastly, in the process of all this, there were debates and discussions from Emily Copas, Vicki Pierce to John Fisher, including some concerns from outside parties that this project was turning far too much into Sally Blanchard's site and not the project it was meant to be. John took much criticism for this, and while he continued to make exceptions for Sally's requests, was forced to start pushing back to what Sally began to refer to as her demands, which began a downward spiral in the relationship between Sally and the others involved in the CPE/CPC project. Sally made it clear to John and Vicki that she was the talent and the most famous person in the world of Companion Parrots, and that the only reason that people were going to come to the site was because of her and nothing else. She insisted that her name be on the Home Page (which created issues, as we wanted a non-ego centric site) that only promoted the organization and had no names listed, not even John Fisher's name, even as him being the benevolent visionary and creator of this whole thing. But Sally was insistent. Her name would be at the top and she would be promoted in all ways on the site and within it. She also began to insist that there would be no other contributors or professional talent to be allowed on the site that she did not personally approve of, as she did not want anyone contradicting her ideas and thoughts. She then was insistent that many of the areas such as the Digest Articles and key forum areas in the community give her Membership "moderator status", so that if she did not like anything that was being said, that she could delete it or change it before the posts could be made visible. And the list of demands for special requests that did not fall into either the vision, the mission or the concept of what the site was about began to increasingly unfold.

We had to finally put a stop to it and explain that the site was not going to be used just by Sally to promote herself and those people and friends whose sites and services she wanted to promote in ways that were against our policies approach to the CPC Project. Things were beginning to get difficult. In addition, Sally wanted all of the funds from the newly signed up Parrot Advocates to the site, and she was not willing to provide support for any of the costs of the organization that she said she was going to support and be a part of. We sent her the money owed to her immediately, and once she had it, things went downhill even further. She would not take calls, answer E-Mails and every communication received from her was a list of demands about how we were going to run this site as a business the way she wanted and that if we did not she would pull anything she has been a part of from the site. She also began to threaten that she had other people that would pay her to do this type of project and that she could take these ideas and go do it herself.

He also believed that and this could benefit the Companion Parrot Connection project, by helping to expose more people to Sally's magazine and the great information she typically provided within it. We approached Sally and began the discussion of the CPC Project and the establishment of the Companion Parrot Endeavor as a non-profit. John Fisher already had the majority of the work done, owned the relevant domain names and other domain names from his earlier planning efforts, and the CPC Web site project was already in beta release and being checked out and tested by internal folks. Sally Blanchard very much liked the idea and the approach and seemed quite excited to have an outlet for her magazine once again.

Sally, Vicki and John met and discussed all the various final names that John had already in place, and selected Companion Parrot Endeavor to be the name of the Non-Profit Organization behind the Companion Parrot Connection project. At this time Sally and NPPO Members went through training and overviews of the CPC Web site project and a small group was given access to check out the site even further and give final feedback, while the final throws of the Membership System were being developed and John Fisher was completing the Non-Profit filings and paperwork, and 501(c)(3) application processes. Things looked to be getting very exciting, as we had been working hard to get various professional talent and supporters involved, and now our favorite, Sally Blanchard, was not only going to be involved, but the site was going to offer her magazine (now to be called Companion Parrot Magazine) online through the Companion Parrot Connection.

We then ran into a few hiccups due to how to offer memberships. We originally had two (tax deductable) membership offers for the site and one Guest membership. One was to be $12.00 per year (Parrot Enthusiast) and the other $24.00 a year (Parrot Advocate), which gave members access to various levels of information, documents, and special features within the Companion Parrot Connection. However, Sally was very concerned about the promotion of her magazine and getting new subscribers, so we decided that as an organization it was more important to get as much information out there as possible, plus we really wanted to help Sally get back into her writing and publishing groove, so we agreed to incorporate the Magazine (CPM) into the Parrot Advocate membership and increase the price to $36.00 per year, where Sally wanted to get $28.00 for the magazine. We discussed this and explained that cost per year to provide the site to users was already significant and that we had a critical requirement to be able to take in membership funds to be able to pay for support of rescue programs, emergency relief programs, conservation program support, and for funds to build out what we plan to launch as the Companion Parrot University (CPU) over time. So we agreed to only take $12.00 into the organization (the equivalent of a Parrot Enthusiast membership), and pay Sally $24.00 for each subscription (which she would deliver 6 issues a year - and issue very two months), and we would provide all of the extra access, features and downloadable documents and the one-to-one parrot support area as just extra added value to people for being Parrot Advocates and supporting Sally Blanchard's magazine.

Then we ran into another snag in the process and this was the fact that Sally was concerned how she would get her subscribers onto the site to get the new magazine, as she owed her subscriber base past issues. She said there was no way that people would pay to come on the site to get the magazine, as they had already paid her for it. Well this is where John Fisher, in an attempt to really support Sally and this effort, pushed to have the CPE/CPC agree to give free Parrot Advocate subscriptions to Sally Blanchard's subscribers based on how many issues that were owed to them. The belief was that the worst-case scenario is that we might have to cover the cost per month (out of the pockets of the Supporting Entities of the NPPO and John Fisher's personal donations) for up to six months to a year for each subscriber. It was a risk, but John Fisher really believed in Sally and what this whole endeavor could do to change things in the world of Companion Parrots. So we agreed to do it and we estimated the cost and John and the NPPO said they would pitch in to cover the expenses associated to getting things back on track with Sally's subscribers.

[tielfan]

At this point Vicki and John were very concerned because Sally had wanted us to collect the money and then pay her directly, so that the process was not tied to her and her finances. We did this, but we explained to her that we were and are going to have to run an audit, because her portion of the funds collected on the Membership are going to pay for a commercial product (her magazine) and that the only tax deductible portion that can be provided to and claimed by the Members who join the site is the $12.00 from each of the paid memberships, as this is both required practice and was outlined by the law firm that we used to set all of this up. So now we were concerned about bringing on any new Parrot Advocate subscribers and removed that membership option from the site, until we could get a realistic and honest resolution with Sally Blanchard put in place. Well as the facts would have it, she became even more disconnected, we told her we wanted to take the magazine off and consider alternatives and that she needed to provide the money she had taken, back to the CPC site, so that we could use it to reimburse members for a membership that included a magazine that was clearly not going to be fulfilled once again.

Sally Blanchard said that she would not return the money, and insisted instead that we send her the names and E-Mail addresses of the members and that she would figure out a way to get them their subscriptions they paid for. In addition, we found out that Sally was, and still is selling magazine subscriptions for a different price on her Web site and that she was then sending us the names of these people with the implication that they were past paid subscribers and that we needed to let them on the CPC site and give them full credit for a membership. This was just too much and Vicki contacted Sally directly and asked her to take this off her web site, even though she had previously told Vicki and John that it was just an "oversight" and that she would take it down. It never came down.

While this does not include everything that went on point by point, we believe that this communication should explain what was and is taking place, and why both the Companion Parrot Endeavor and the CPC Web site must disassociate with this type of business practices and behaviors and go back to letting other talent on (vets and authors, etc. that we have lined up) the CPC Web site and provide a safe and objective location for people to get the best information relevant to People and Parrots.

The CPE and John Fisher and Vicki Pierce will continue to pursue appropriate legal action with regards to Sally and monies she received, but as we cannot guarantee any type of cooperation from Sally Blanchard, we can only do what we can do. And that is to do the right thing. So we are going to find a way to personally reimburse every NEWLY paid Parrot Advocate Membership that signed up during this time. It may take us a little time but we will do it. Please read the section in the document that we have created explaining what we plan to do to make this right to the best of our abilities. We also pray your forgiveness for letting something such as this take place. We will fix it and we will endure and succeed.




ABOUT THE COMPANION PARROT CONNECTION PROJECT
Companion Parrot Connection (The CPE Operated Project)

Companion Parrot Connection, is a Non-Profit Educational Site brought to you by the Companion Parrot Endeavor and financially supported and sponsored by the Nationwide Parrot Place Organization (NPPO) and John Fisher (the Individual).

The Companion Parrot Connection is dedicated to the Educating, Developing, and Nurturing of People and Parrots. We are and will continue to be the premier educational and informational leader on the Internet for support for people and companion birds.

Mission Statement
The Companion Parrot Connection is a joint non-profit effort provided by the Companion Parrot Endeavor, a Non-Profit 501(c)(3) Organization, and supported by the Nationwide Parrot Place Organization, and organization dedicated to the Educating, Developing, and Nurturing of People and Parrots. Under the supervision and audit efforts of the Companion Parrot Endeavor, the Companion Parrot Connection and its supporting entities hope to change the lives of people and parrots in the most positive and uplifting way possible.

The Mission of the Companion Parrot Connection shall be to:
Ensure that exotic birds are housed in an environment, which provides proper care and attention.
Help parrot caregivers experience the joy of relating to their parrots in a nurturing manner.
Educate all caregivers about the responsibilities of caring for and maintaining companion parrots.
Help parrot caregivers understand the prevention of and solution to problem behaviors in their parrots.
Provide access to the best resources of experts in the field of avian specialties to all of our Companion Parrot Connection members.
Provide parrot caregivers with timely and accurate information that they need to have in an emergency situation or in regards to legislative issues involving the keeping of parrots.
Provide initial and ongoing educational training through the use of our CPC University.

Help reduce the need of rescue by educating all bird caregivers and providing continuing support for a positive life with their companion parrots.

This mission was reviewed, coordinated and agreed upon with all people that were to be keenly involved in the site, including Sally Blanchard. This mission is not and has not changed and is still the focus of the Web site and Companion Parrot Endeavor and any of the projects it is working to support.

WHO IS THE NATIONWIDE PARROT PLACE ORGANIZATION AND SALLY BLANCHARD?

Nationwide Parrot Place Organization:
Through the power of informed and talented people operating Parrot Place Locations, we are able to provide customers with the highest quality Companion Parrots at a superb value; offering superior service and support; providing tailored educational and nurturing guidance training programs; delivering specialty products and services made easy to buy and use; all while raising the quality and ethics of the companion bird industry.

The Mission and Purpose of the Nationwide Parrot Place Organization shall be to:
Ensure exotic birds are raised in an environment, which provide proper care and training.
Educate Parrot Place Locations and their customers on the responsibilities of caring for and maintaining companion parrots.
Provide access to the best resources of private breeders, vendors and experts in the field of avian specialties to all of our Parrot Place Locations.
Provide initial and ongoing educational training to all individuals who wish to establish a Parrot Place Location.
Reduce the need of rescue by educating our customers and providing continuing support to our customers for the life they own their companion parrots.

Sally Blanchard:
Sally Blanchard is the owner and operator of PBIC, Inc. PBIC, Inc. is the Parrot Behavior Information Council, an organization later incorporated by Sally Blanchard to publish the Companion Parrot Quarterly magazine (formerly the Pet Bird Report) and pursue other companion parrot education endeavors. PBIC, Inc. also maintains this educational web site (the Companion Parrot, Companion Parrot Home), sponsors behavioral seminars, and publishes avian-related books and videos.

CURRENT SITUATION AND THE POSSIBLE EFFECTS THIS MAY HAVE ON YOU.
Please Note: This is a Summary of the Events that took place and concerns vetted out.

You recently received a newsletter stating that Sally Blanchard will now be part of the Companion Parrot Connection. We want to thank everyone for their feedback in regards to this endeavor. Thanks to all of you sharing with us your experiences with Sally, we now understand the frustration you have undergone.

We have always held Sally in high regard and promoted her books and magazines. We enjoyed and missed her magazine so much that we thought we would help her to get back on her feet and get the magazine on-line despite all the warnings we received from people whom have tried to work with Sally in the past only to discover that working with Sally can be difficult.
We were all very excited to be working with "like-minded" people to accomplish the mission of the Companion Parrot Connection. Providing access to many "bird experts" and to provide correct and up-to-date information in the caring of companion parrots. Sally was just the beginning of what we are doing on the CPC site.

We were quite shocked and disappointed once it was uncovered as to how much money Sally took in knowing she could not afford to provide the product and continued to do so over the past couple years thus adding to her list of un-fulfilled subscriptions.

The CPC site did bring in some new subscribers for Sally. Once Sally received her first check, she disappeared and became very un-cooperative and demanding. We made several attempts to work with Sally including attempts at phone calls, E-Mail communications and conference calls to which she did not show up for.

We are left with no other alternative than to request her departure from this project. We are very disappointed and hurt by this forced decision.

There has been a great financial loss due to working with Ms. Blanchard. Not to mention the loss of someone whom we have respected and promoted so strongly.

[tielfan]

WHO DOES THIS AFFECT IN THE COMPANION PARROT CONNECTION (CPC) MEMBERSHIP and WHAT WE WILL BE DOING ON BEHALF OF THE PARROT ADVOCATE MEMBERS THAT WILL BE AFFECTED BY THIS?
There are two types of Parrot Advocate Members on the site currently. People that have signed up through the site for a Parrot Advocate Membership and paid the Annual Membership fee. Second are the CPQ Subscribers that have long since been owed magazine subscription issues by Sally Blanchard that were being given complimentary Memberships to assist in getting Sally back into a better place with her subscribers and in getting her writing and publishing business back on track.
Ms. Blanchard's previous subscribers that were owed back issues of CPQ will still have their Parrot Advocate Memberships honored for 12 months, and they will benefit from the already existing features and benefits of the site, plus the new content and specialty knowledge that we will be bringing onto the site. These same subscribers will need to contact Sally Blanchard directly and discuss what options they have to get your past owed subscriptions fulfilled by her and her business.

Parrot Advocate Members who purchased an Annual CPC Subscription including what was to be the new Companion Parrot Magazine (Online), will be given a refund and given 12 months free access (from the time you signed up) as a Parrot Advocate member, in return for any discomfort or concern this situation may have caused you. If you still wish to get Sally's magazine it is our understanding that she has already been working with someone during the past while to establish her own project and area to provide access to her magazine. You should be able to buy a subscription directly from her and her business operations.

IN CONCLUSION.
Anyone involved with the project can honestly say we are both hurt and disturbed by all that has happened and the pain will not be going away anytime soon. We shall continue with our vision and dream, and endeavor to move forward with the original plans and mission of the Companion Parrot Endeavor to make the CPC (just one of it's projects) an open, objective, ad free, protected members Web site whose primary purpose will be to serve our feathered friends and those that have taken on the responsibility to have them in their lives.

The Companion Parrot Endeavor, the CPC Project Team, the NPPO and its Members continue to believe in Sally Blanchard's work, input and impact in the World of Companion Parrots. Her gifts for understanding the various avian species are on par if not greater than most anyone we know. The knowledge she has provided to anyone that has read her work can only be seen as a blessing to us all. We want to wish Sally Blanchard the best of fortune with her new activities and hope and pray that things will take a turn for the positive for her and her subscribers, as almost all of us here, are also subscribers owed issues, and continue to purchase her books and materials from her. Blessings to you and yours Sally, from all of us at the CPE/CPC and the Membership and your Fans at the NPPO, we will miss your presence.

Board of Directors
Companion Parrot Endeavor
(Provider of the Companion Parrot Connection)

[tielfan]

That's the end of the email. Sally's rebuttal is on the CPQ website at Companion Parrot Home She also has a copy of the above email, intercut with her own comments, at http://www.companionparrot.com/CPC%20Response.htm

She includes this statement (very relevant for subscribers) in her 7/29 blog post: "I will be placing both issue #72 and #73 on-line, most likely in this site [meaning her own website]. Companion Parrot On-line Issue #73 is almost finished and I WILL find a way to get it to you on-line. "

[jenseits]

You know, I don't know the people involved and don't care to take sides, but my impression is that it does damage to everyone in the industry when folks take their squabbles public. Between this and a few other parrot-related providers/vendors (see: Wayne's parrot stands), it seems like there's an awful lot of excuse-making and blame-laying going on.

I really wish people in the industry would just pull it together and deliver what they said they would. If they can't, then figure it out, make it right or close up shop.

But these page-long diatribes about how hard everything is and this excuse or that excuse about why it's not working and who did what to whom -- regardless of whether it's all true -- really doesn't earn my sympathy or understanding. It's unprofessional, IMHO.

Sorry to sound crabby or unsympathetic, but there's no way I could get away with all this drama in the way I handle my job/business. As a customer, what I want to know is when do I get what I paid for, when do I get my money back and/or how will you ensure this screw-up wont' happen again. I don't care who hurt whose feelings first.

*grumble, grumble*
[/rant]

[Bellco]

After reading this I agree with Jenseits why make this all public. In the end they failed to provide what they were selling no matter whose fault it is.

[r2rusmc]

~sigh

Squabbles gone public.

After reading the communique in the first few posts my opinion was "darn, if half of this is true Sally is not a very dependable person". I said this as a non-entity because I have no opinion/relationship with either party.

Then I followed links to Sallys response and started to read it when I realized something. Every time someone is wrong they pick apart a statement and interject their own explanation. This is what Sally is doing.

If Sally is the one being wronged she should have run to her attorney with the mass email info and begun legal proceedings. Responding back the way she did makes her look like she's running to catch up instead of being the one wronged.

Sorry but that is the way I see it.

I know a lot of people love Sally. I'm not one of them. I don't hate her but I perused her website a long time ago and something about her just doesn't set well with me. She's a null in my books for what that is worth, I don't care one way or another but she definitely will not be getting money from me.

I just love reading a good gossip when I have nothing to do with it. lol

[macawman]

I used to subscribe to companion parrot quarterly back when it was actually being published, as I have always enjoyed her magazine. Awhile back I renewed and I received 1 issue then her magazine folded or whatever.I never did get my money back. I tried many times to contact her by phone and e-mail and she would not return either.

So when this went online I received an online copy. I had a friend of mine sign up for it too, only to have it fold again. The thing that impressed me though is that she already has gotten a refund from the site that was publishing Sally's magazine. It is good to know there are still honest people in this industry

[expressmailtome]

Too bad. I like her DVDs.

Matt