Remember the rumor late last year that a MAJOR supplier was going to send notice to a MAJOR MLM/Card Mill that they will be parting ways January 1?.

While a name was not mentioned, you certainly know the drill.

Who could it be?

Is the cookie starting to crumble?

Are suppliers beginning to see the light?

The same unsubstantiated and bogus claims and speculation that’s simply thrown out there to cast doubt. You would think a former journalist would know how to confirm information with a “reputable source“, but that’s not important when you need to squash a company and a business model you don’t agree with.

Turns out the rumor of a major supplier cutting someone in this industry off was true. But it wasn’t YTB.

Sorry.

If there’s any rumor or bad news going around the Travel Industry, YTB seems to always pop up as the one who it’s got to be about. If someone hears about downsizing, it’s got to be YTB, not Liberty Travel. If a company is rumored to disappear in the middle of the night without warning, it’s got to be YTB, not Cruise Value Center. If someones not paying their Agents, it’s got to be YTB, not Joystar.

While all three of these agencies have lawsuits pending in court, who is everyone is talking about?

YTB.

I guess it’s true that dogs don’t bark at parked cars.

Most recently the hope was that if a supplier is going to cut anyone off, it had to be YTB. o supplier was named a few days ago after a dot was left missing, (Omitted from a list along with dozens of other suppliers we do business with) which conveniently justified pinning the supplier where they wanted, on YTB. Even after myself and others questioned the validity, the rumor persisted, until it was finally squashed by the supplier themselves.

Now there’s a novel idea, instead of guessing, ask the source. Who knew?

News confirming the supplier/agent rumor came late afternoon first by phone, and then confirmed by a trade publication that Carnival has cut off Joystar in this absolutely hideous and embarrassing chain of events.

Because Bill Alverson has a ties to a failed MLM back in the 1990′s, you can bet your bottom dollar that this will somehow give MLM a black eye. For the record, I never considered Joystar an MLM, it’s just not the same structure, and I don’t know if anyone would be able to accept that it management that runs a company into the ground, (think Enron here) not a model.

For the record, Carnival is not terminating Joystar because it’s a “card mill”, Carnival is doing what right for the Agents who booked their clients with the cruise line. Joystar has not and is not paying it’s agents their commissions owed them. Those who were with Joystar and now with another host can move future bookings, if they have not been paid in full, to the other host “upon written authorization of the traveler”.

I’m still attempting to put together a legal liability due to an involuntary bankruptcy petition that was filed on January 2nd. From what I understand the liability in this “involuntary bankruptcy” could land on Carnival if they continued to accept bookings from Joystar. If true, (and I’m still attempting to verify at the time of this writing) we could see other suppliers follow Carnivals lead terminating Joystar from future bookings. “Involuntary Bankruptcy” is not all that common and I’m sure there are links out there, but I don’t have the patience to understand “legal talk” right now.

Just don’t be surprised if you see more suppliers make this move.

Because I’ve written about Liberty, Cruise Value Center, and now Joystar issues in our industry, I’ve received both e-mails and phone calls from former Liberty Travel employees, Cruise Value Center clients, and now Joystar Agents who simply don’t know what to do. Clients with Cruise Value Center are the easiest to direct, as long as they have a booking number, but Liberty Travel and Joystar appear to be in a real quandary right now. What’s frustrating for me is that very few seem to care. These Agents, especially Joystar, have had income suddenly cut off.

Agents with Joystar have been without commissions since September and are struggling right now to come up with the money to fight for what’s owed them. If you’d like to help or if you are one of the Joystar agents that are owed commissions, you can find information here.

Maybe it’s time to start looking at and taking care of some of your own?

Author’s Edit: It appears that Norwegian Cruise Line has also ceased doing business with Joystar as just reported in TravelPulse. Effective immediately, “The company will no longer accept new reservations from Joystar or any of its affiliated agents,” an NCL spokesperson said. “NCL will continue to service existing Joystar reservations booked prior to Jan. 5, 2009.”

In another developing story, Wheel of Fortune has also gotten into the mix after a sister company of Joystar, VacationCompare.com, failed to provide the prizes to Promotion Consideration, who arranges prizes for game shows like Wheel of Fortune.

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I’ve been amazed; surprised actually over the amount of traffic I’ve been getting over both the Liberty Travel layoffs and Cruise Value Center shutting down without notice. For weeks I’ve seen both these searches add up to what are now top search terms for traffic to this site. The buzz on the internet from various boards and forums has been surprising to say the least.

The Cruise Value Center abrupt closing has more clients searching for answers which shouldn’t be a shock, since there were only some 65 employees affected in this closure. The majority of people who are in panic mode right now are the thousands of clients who have booked cruises through CVC who are wondering if they’ve just been scammed.

Unfortunately, for those who recently booked a cruise with Cruise Value Center they may not have a boarding documents coming to them. A report I found said that CVC never paid $2 million to $3 million in cruise fares to the cruise lines. That’s a hefty amount of money to be…well, sunk.

Liberty Travel on the other hand is more concerned with “their own” and I can’t even begin to count the number of people who feel they’ve been wronged in this whole ordeal.

Which begs the question, what do you do when your company cuts your pay or lays you off? You file a lawsuit of course! Yep, looks like Liberty Travel has gotten themselves in more hot water. This isn’t the first time Liberty has faced charges of unfair labor standards. They’ve already settled for $2.76 million, with $413,571 awarded to 245 travel agents from Liberty Travel offices across Pennsylvania. Another Class Action suit filed on behalf of 564 Liberty Travel agents, who will receive $42,500 each as compensation for their efforts.

Now I’ve been told that the traditional arena doesn’t have these kinds of problems. Suits because you feel you’ve been ripped off or scammed don’t happen to “legitimate agencies”. (Liberty is a Top 10 Agency according to Travel Weekly by the way.) Nope, lawsuits of this nature are strictly reserved for the likes of Travel MLM’s. The Traditional arena would NEVER have someone call them a scam, or even worse, actually file a lawsuit against them.

It doesn’t take much for anyone in this country to go out and file a lawsuit. While I realize all the focus and attention for some is how the Network Marketing industry leaves people high and dry. For the “average Joe”, they want something more stable, more secure. I have to wonder how the people caught up in the following list now feel about how “secure” their jobs were.

I’d try to call them to find out and report on it, but the problem is…I just don’t know where to start.

• CitiGroup 53,000
• Whirlpool 5,000
• Pepsi 3,300
• Xerox 3,000
• HP 25,000
• Goldman Sachs 3,260
• Chrysler 1,825
• Merck 7,200
• Sun Microsystems 6,000
• Yahoo 1,500
• Ebay 1,600
• Lehman Bros. Thousands
• Bear Sterns Thousands
• Enterprise 200
• American Express 7,000
• Circuit City Thousands Bankrupt
• DHL Express 9,500 Bankrupt
• Delta Airlines Thousands
• General Motors Thousands
• Ford Motor Co 2,260
• Starbucks 13,000
• Motorola 5,600
• Fidelity 1,300
• Mattel 11%
• Atlantis 800
• Morgan Stanley 19%
• B T Group 10,000 (Britain’s largest phone company)
• YUM Brands: (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell) Hundreds
• Las Vegas Sands Casino 11,000

I’ve got to ask, does it look to you like this myth of getting a good education and finding a job to go work for look all that secure to you?

For some, this might be the first time that they’ve been cut back or laid off. They’re the lucky ones. I’ve been involved with two companies in my career that have either been shut down or gone bankrupt in the past. I’ve also seen dozens of my co-workers laid off due to downsizing or cutbacks.

And some have the gall to tell me that Network Marketing is flawed. Doomed to collapse. I’m sorry, but going back to work for someone else who can hand me a pink slip whenever they feel they need to just doesn’t feel all that secure to me. My future and my income shouldn’t be determined by someone else.

I’ll be very happy to take that responsibility on thank you.

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I hate this kind of news, I really do. Yet another Travel Retailer has bitten the dust. What’s even worse is how this all came down. I’m applaud at how cold and callus this was handled and honestly, this story sounds like something Anti-MLM critics would come up with to attack an MLM as just another example makeing a HUGE fuss about how shabby, crooked, and flawed the MLM model is all over the Internet.

But alas, since this is a “traditional business model” and not an MLM, mums the word and nobody seems to be all that concerned. Even if it was brought up, the bad economy would certainly be a leading excuse to defend such deplorable behavior in the traditional business world.

Cruise Value Center, a cruise seller in East Brunswick, N.J., suddenly closed its doors on Monday after 14 years in business. Employees were sent an email on Sunday night, informing them that they don’t have a place to come to work Monday morning.

An agent, who spoke with Travel Weekly on the condition of anonymity, said it wasn’t clear whether they would be paid commissions on sales they had already closed, or if the cruise lines were going to be paid for cruises clients had booked.

“They left us all hanging,” the anonymous agent said.

Yep, sounds like something straight out of the pages of “MLM Myths and Legends”.

Too bad it’s not an MLM company huh?

Jeff Kavit handed over the reigns to a company called Travel Holding Entity out of Michigan last year, and of course couldn’t be reached. While the Cruise Value Center web site is still up, the 800 number no longer works. What’s surprising to me at least is that Cruise Value Center did an annual sales volume of $70 million and combined with Cruises of Distinction, also owned by Travel Holding Entity, was expected to produce $100 million in sales.

Ross Spalding, general manager of Cruise Value Center also resigned from his position (although it’s not specified when) “due to the unfortunate situation at Cruise Value Center.”

Back in June we were informed that Magic Johnson Travel folded abruptly, although not like this. Late last week, Liberty Travel consolidates and lays off a segment of its offices. Now with Cruise Value Center, I’d say the traditional travel industry is a real mess.

Too bad they don’t have the Government to bail them out like American Express does.

But as usual, the focus isn’t on any of this, it’s on little ol’ YTB and our critics seem to be in a tizzy about selling off an old office building for $1.5 million that we no longer need due to a 430,000 square-foot home office. (For the record, and to clarify the St. Louis Business Journal report, the Home Office is 130,000 square-feet on a 59 acre spread to expand even more.)

But hey, what do I know about what’s really important or relevant and what isn’t right?

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