Remember the group of ambulance chasers who followed California’s play with a class action law suit of their own just days after Jerry Brown made his bold attempt to topple what he called a “gigantic pyramid scheme”?

We all know by now how successful California was in shutting YTB down.

In June, the court ruled that the groups initial class action “failed to provide sufficient factual allegations” concerning those who were not Illinois residents. The group has re-filed once again and “corrected their deficiency” by amending the first filing to give it a go once more. The first filing did not have standing to sue because the plaintiffs brought their case under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. In addition, after spending over one hundred hours pleading and arguing, counsel for the ambulance chasers realized they had framed their clients relationship and argument with YTB incorrectly. The new suit now holds claim that the relationship between YTB and RTA’s are under consumer laws, (business-to-consumer) even though the RTA-YTB relationship would typically be viewed as business-to-business.

Do words like “failed”, “corrected”, “deficiency”, “amending”, “incorrectly”, and “realized after 100 hours of arguing”, give you a warm fuzzy concerning the counsel that is representing this group?

After admitting so many errors in the first filing, it appears that Counsel is just as clueless about the Network Marketing Industry as our critics who have been yammering about pyramids and scams for years. They may have even sought advise from the likes of Robert Fitzpatrick, Jon Taylor, and heaven forbid, John Frenaye. (After Wednesday’s post, you know what a huge mistake that would be.)

The suit filed back in August of last year went after the same four executives California did, Lloyd Tomer, Scott Tomer, Kim Sorensen and Andrew Cauthen. The new filing has added a smorgasbord of other names and companies to include two former board members, Timothy Kaiser and Clay Winfield, as well as their companies, Meridian Land Company and Winfield Development. The list also includes Beryl Martin, the printing company owned by Sorensen and Tomer, and while none of the defendants have been with YTB since October 2008, our new co-CEO who just joined back in April, Robert Van Patten has also been named in this new plea.

We’ll call it what it is: a shotgun approach.

Counsel certainly didn’t get any help from the plaintiffs in this action concerning YTB’s marketing model or opportunity. When we looked at the list of Plaintiffs in the filing we found an average of eight months worth of experience with the company. Two gave up in just four months, and decided playing the role of victim was a much easier option to make the millions they were after when they signed up.

• Courtney Speed – 4 months
• Kwame Thompson – 4 months
• Grace Perry – 5 months
• John Stull – 6 months
• Faye Morrison – 11 months
• Jeff and Polly Hartman – 18 months

Surprised? Not me.

I got a call yesterday afternoon from a client who debarked in the port of Miami with his family of three. He called to tell me that I was right, a five day was too short, and he’ll be booking a seven day with me just as soon as he can. Of course, I’ve been with YTB for four years, not four months. So it’s not surprising that this group who “dabbled as a travel agent” for an average of eight months were not as productive. I think back to my first year, and remember how slow bookings were. But I was also new to the industry, and spent a considerable amount of time learning, not selling. What I did sell was from pure passion about a product I loved.

I found a couple of humorous concepts in the filing which I’d like to share with you just to show how ridiculous this new suit is.

The claim states that BandBVacations.com is not a business that sells products or services. Since YTB strictly controls my actions, they are the ones who are selling the products and services. Therefore, the call I got from my client from Miami apparently was routed through the home office and not directly to me. According to the claim, everything goes through the home office in Wood River. I couldn’t get the call, couldn’t book the cruise, and won’t be seeing the commission since I’m an “agent of the travel agency”. I don’t offer a 100,000 ton cruise ship product, YTB does. The service of an excellent vacation to the Caribbean, also YTB’s.

Poppy cock! My clients don’t even know who YTB is, but they do know Doug and Ronda with BandBVacations.com, and Illinois will have a tough time finding anyone who has a better relationship with someone at the home office over any one of our RTA’s.

As an RTA I’ve made a net profit from travel sales, but the suit claims that this is impossible for most, if not all, RTA’s. I would agree that that it would be impossible for any RTA who spends less than six months in this business. But to say it’s impossible for the 25th Largest Seller of Travel in the Nation with $425 million in gross product and services sold, and a net of $27.9 million is a farce. I know the margins in the industry stink, but that’s not because it’s an illegal pyramid. Unless of course you want to call Carnival, Pleasant Holidays, Disney, Sandals, and Holiday Inn a scam. (I will agree however with a growing number about United and American Airlines.)

I’d would assert that a number of RTA’s have figured out how to make a profit, including yours truly. Instead of complaining about it, why not find someone who is making a profit and learning how to do what they do?

And finally in a very strange twist, while the suit claims that we don’t sell a product or service. (In order to make it sound like a “pyramid scheme”) The suit deducts and supports it claims that it’s impossible for RTA’s to make money selling travel in the following mannor.

(You’re going to LOVE this…)

YTB Defendants marketed and sold products to the travel purchaser market generally. As of 2007, YTB was considered the 26th largest travel agency in the United States, and their market share continued to grow. YTB Defendants directed their operations at the travel purchaser market generally by marketing and selling their products and services, such as airline tickets and cruise packages, to the public at large. Moreover, YTB Defendants’ illegal pyramid scheme injured both their travel agency competitors as well as travel consumers. YTB Defendants stole market share from brick-and-mortar travel agencies, putting many out of business. Moreover, by eliminating their competition, YTB Defendants increased the cost of travel for travel consumers at large. As such, Defendants’ illegal pyramid scheme was directed at the travel consumer market generally, effected the consumer market and otherwise implicated consumer protection concerns.

Give me a second here…I have to dry my eyes.

Do you see what they’ve done here? By taking the products and services away from us, (the RTA) the suit slaps YTB Corporate with not only defrauding consumers, (our clients) but Corporate is solely responsible for Cruise Value Center closing, Liberty Travel layoffs, and the Joystar bankruptcy. They all sold a product and service that YTB not only took away, but YTB is now increasing the cost of that product or service to these consumers.

Picture Ron Head or Coach here when I say “WOW!”

Come to think of it, this IS filed with the courts now, so this idea that YTB is putting Travel Agencies out of business has to be true right? (Nah…it doesn’t cut the mustard when John Frenaye pull that stunt, so why should it with me.)

The point here folks is to show you how absolutely absurd this new filing is, and this is a second swipe at it after the first attempt needed to be amended. If you want to buy into this crap, I’d have some serious reservations about how much common sense you actually have. This entire claim is nothing more than a fishing expedition to save face for those who wouldn’t take that time to learn a craft that frankly is very easy to talk about. And because it’s easy to talk about, simply opening your mouth and telling someone that you sell travel will give you the same shot as Travelocity when they see some Roaming Gnome on TV.

And to the Plaintiffs in this case, the quote is NOT “punt”, it’s “try, try, again”.

Idiots.

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

PPS - Subscribe to the Just Picture It Now RSS feed, (including e-mail) for all the latest posts and updates found right here!

Doug & Ronda Bauknight AKA: TravelPro Travel Agent / Networker Phone: 678.458.5812

Learn How To Become A Travel Agent

Book Your Travel & Vacations With

Do You ZamZuu?

TSO #588629

I realize there seems to be a tremendous amount of focus on YTB in past months. Being publically traded can be both a blessing and a curse for MLM companies. The blessing is that it’s a way to legitimize our model when we report to someone like the SEC and makes this notion of “illegal pyramid scheme” harder to promote. The curse is that it brings out the nut cases who want to ignore the Government is aware of who we are and what we do, but still try to push the issue of MLM being “illegal”.

I caught an interesting development on Monday that I wanted to pass on concerning a number of other publically traded MLM’s that are also getting some heat from some very deranged and shady characters. (“Shady” meaning he’s already a Convicted Felon.) What’s even more amusing to me is that two of the better known Anti-MLM Zealots, Robert FitzPatrick and Jon Taylor appear to have been caught in their own lies and MLM myths. Court probing may find that Robert Fitzpatrick and Jon Taylor were also involved in some way for shorting MLM company stocks.

In June of last year, Judd Bagley of “Deep Capture” (a hunter of illegal short sellers) concludes that convicted stock manipulator Sam Antar and securities class action litigator Howard Sirota were working in concert with convicted stock manipulator Barry Minkow’s Fraud Discovery Institute (FDI) to manipulate the share price of USANA, a public company. You may or may not know about several law suites filed last year concerning USANA, but it got so bad that even the SEC and Distributors themselves got in on the act in California. The SEC never found any wrong doing and closed its case nor did the Distributor suite go anywhere after cleaning off the mud that Minkow attempted to throw out in the press via his bogus report.

Now these same idiots seem to be after both Pre-Paid Legal and Herbalife. The Herbalife story has gotten so much attention in recent weeks that it even made CNBC’s Mad Money in which CEO Michael Johnson came on the show to assure investors that there is no lead found in their products.

There was never any health or safety issue with Herbalife products. Inaccurate and misleading information released to sensational media and online news coverage is nothing new to any of us in YTB. There is always an ulterior motive and it’s been found that FDI (Federal Discovery Institute) founder Barry Minkow admitted profiting from “puts” on Herbalife stock.

All these attacks on publically traded MLM companies have gotten so bad that USANA has already decided to take the company private after being public since 1996, and it was also suggested by Jim Cramer of Mad Money for CEO Michael Johnson to take Herbalife private. (My take is that Johnson doesn’t like the idea according to the video I watched.)

While it’s yet to be determined if FitzPatrick and Taylor will be convicted in all this mess, this investor would love to see these two idiots have “Convicted Felon” on their resume for all the lies and myths they promote about MLM. Having these two busted for illegal activity would certainly help those of us who know from experience that MLM is a viable business model and an excellent entry level for anyone looking to get into a business of their own.

While I can’t say the YTB has remained under the radar by any stretch of the imagination, at least our company stock has remained fairly clean compared to USANA, Pre-Paid, and Herbalife. Let’s just hope these nut cases are actually convicted for doing what they have done to these other MLM’s before they decide to set their sites on YTB.

It does make me wonder however just who was doing any “Pump and Dumping” with our stock. “Rumor” has it that Directors were doing all this “Pump and Dump” in an attempt to hurt the “little guys”, but after all the positive press released after our Annual Report back in April, me thinks the Pump and Dump was nothing more that Day Traders who knew how to take advantage of such positive press in a small stock like YTBLA.

If you don’t know Rod Cook’s MLM Watchdog site, you should. He’s one of the good guys in MLM. (Even if he has come out against YTB at times.) If you’re an investor like I am in YTBLA, you should keep an eye on this developing story, it could prove to be huge for us and put a stop to Zealots who promote nothing but myths and lies about MLM.

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

PPS - Subscribe to the Just Picture It Now RSS feed, (including e-mail) for all the latest posts and updates found right here!

Doug & Ronda Bauknight AKA: TravelPro Travel Agent / Networker Phone: 678.458.5812

Learn How To Become A Travel Agent

Book Your Travel & Vacations With

Do You ZamZuu?

TSO #588629