The Facts Half-Truths About YTB

Last week, YTB released yet another website, www.TheFactsAboutYTB.com which purports to explain the truth about YTB. Sort of. As the title of this post suggests, it is full of half-truths and over the next few posts we will point them out--tab by tab. We will not even get into the discussion about why YTB needs a site such as this to justify their scam--that's a whole different topic. So let's start at the very beginning:

The Home Page
Well, considering that YTB has been touting that they are "all" about travel, apparently their founder did not get the message. Direct from Scott Tomer, "The purpose of the information in this site is to recruit you into the YTB business." Of course being the reactionary company that they are, this has been changed already to something more benign.

Scott proposed you ask the following questions of any travel company...as if these have anything to do with any type of legitimacy:

1. How long has the company been in business? (Valid question)
   
2. Is the company publicly traded? If not, do they have audited financial statements available for review? (Irrelevant. YTB was reverse merged and did not undergo any SEC scrutiny. Most successful travel companies are indeed private.)
   
3. How much travel have they sold in the last year? (Legitimate question. It is unfortunate that YTB cannot answer this themselves. Was it $414M, or $211M, or is their President still "gleaning" the numbers?)
   
4. Is the company a member of the Direct Sellers Association? (Who cares. The DSA is merely a lobbying organization for MLM companies and has NOTHING to do with travel.)
   
5. Do they have a protected compensation plan? (Again, irrelevant. And it is ironic that the "copyrighted" compensation plan that can "never be changed" and is on "file" with all of the "Attorneys General in all states" has indeed been changed numerous times--most recently when they eliminated the Rep override commission on travel sales.
   
6. Do they have online travel training available? (Perhaps legitimate. The question to ask is how valid is the training and what do you REQUIRE of your employees and to what level of achievement do you hold them.)
   
7. How large is their operation (corporate office and support staff size)? (This is irrelevant. 99% of the travel agencies and travel suppliers in the industry are smaller than YTB amd are 100 times more reputable.)
   
8. Is their corporate office open to the public? (Again, irrelevant. As a matter of security, most offices (excepting retail locations) are not open to the public. And YTB promotes working from home, so this is sort of a dichotomy isn't it?)
   
9. Does the company provide an income disclosure statement? (This is irrelevant. To be honest, what an agent makes is not really anyone's business. But since YTB is public and they are operating a MLM company they are required to provide this. It is a shame that more people will not read it and realize that the average Rep in YTB earned $97 in 2007 and that only 163 people out of 305,055 earned more than $20,000 last year.)
   
10. Has the company won any travel-related awards or recognition? (Perhaps a legitimate question.)

But, what about a few more questions:

1. What is your litigation history?
2. Have you ever been charged with a crime?
3. Do you vet any of your agents?
4. How much of your money comes from travel versus recruiting?
5. How much travel industry experience does your Executive Team and Board have?
6. How do you control the information that is passed out by all of yor Reps and RTAs?
7. Can you give me the phone number of Dr. Seligman?
8. Can you explain the "irregular accounting practices" that caused you to be delisted from the OTC?
9. Can you substantiate any of Candi May's industry awards?
10. Why has your stock fallen from $9 to almost a quarter in little more than a year?
11. Do you believe in insider deals and to what extent do you enter into them?

Stay tuned for more after Thanksgiving!

It should be noted that these "facts" are all "factual" as of November 19th as it states at the bottom of the page. I wonder how long until the "facts" change?

Candi Doug Comes Forward

Well, not Candi herself, but a YTB Blog (which has seemingly become the defacto defender of the women of YTB) has linked to documentation that supports the claims that Candi was indeed in the travel industry prior to joining YTB.

I accept the documents at their face value. I still find it strange that "proof" took a month to acquire and nothing about the "awards" was to be found anywhere on the net. It also does not address some of the possible exaggerations; but as I said I accept the documents and I stand corrected that Candi May was indeed in the industry in some capacity back in 2001.

So sit tight folks. Here is the post that Doug has been waiting for for 7 months

Doug was right!

Now that you got one, I want to address the "termination". I did address it in a comment on this blog and on Doug's but that partial list is for terminations for "any reason" and as I had stated, after 9-11, I closed my Annapolis location (Universal Travel) and consolidated it to my Arnold, MD location. If you look at the list carefully, you will see many names of much larger agencies that did the same thing. Charlie MacGilvray consolidated, Dean McWilliams consolidated, I consolidated, Kathy Hewins consolidated--BTW they own essentially ALL travel agencies in the state of Maine, Chris Conlin consolidated, Tom McIntyre also consolidated, Sandra Lovick consolidated, Carol Anderson consolidated, Barb Thompson and BarbMuelken also consolidated. You get the picture.

So there you have it. I stand corrected. Now if you can only get Candi to impart some travel wisdom it might be a good thing.

Ole..no need to chime in:

Doug 1
John 0

Does Dr. Seligman Have A Sister?

I learned my lesson about posting baby pictures a few weeks ago, so I am not going to go there again while addressing another inconsistency in the rhetoric from YTB.

Recently, there has been a flurry of comments about how many TTAs are flocking to YTB because they have all "seen the light" and understand what a great program it is. I cannot dispute that they have some TTAs in their mix--they probably do; but I think I can call into question the curriculum vitae (that Latin phrase was for Dr. Bob) of the agents they claim to have. Last week, on the blog called Just Picture It Now, there was an entire post devoted to Candi May, who was a hot shot travel agent in Kentucky for decades before joining YTB.

Some of the claims made by this blog include the "fact(s) that Candi May:

• owned several Brick and Mortar Agencies back in the day
• she was the one who was winning all the awards
• isn’t some rookie off the street who knew nothing about Travel

I am very friendly with the owner of the largest travel agency in Kentucky (actually they are also the largest in Tennessee and Southern Ohio as well) and as hard to believe as it is--they have never heard of someone named Candi May owning agencies in Kentucky. No one seems to be aware of all these awards she won.

And while we are dealing with the "unbelievable", there is this excerpt from the blog touting her credentials:

A former client then asked her to take a look at a business, not for her, but for him.

What she did do was look at the public numbers, she looked at our Founders, and she looked at what other successful people were doing in this business. She also went up to meet the Founders personally.

YTB was a company that was actually capitalizing on the very same market shift that was causing her Brick & Mortar business to loose all this business.

OK, so let me get this straight to be sure I understand....a client comes into her office and says, "Candi, I am looking at buying an internet agency to compete with you--do you have an opinion?" Well, my opinion would likely have been "Get the hell out of my office." But apparently, Candi's answer was to say, "Let me check it out and get back to you," as she purchased tickets to fly up to meet Coach and Scott herself just to offer an opinion to a client who was looking to compete with her. Yeah---right!

This blog entry really raised some flags for me--as so many of the other blog entries do--ADI acquisition, Dr. Bob, etc. So I sent Candi an email asking about her agency. While I will not repost her email here, her response did not confirm anything about her experience. She referenced an agency owned by a relative, and then included several links to companies that are no longer in business. Nothing about her and her awards, nothing about her agency awards.

On a follow up, she indicated that a major travel company (I am choosing to not name them) paid for her to fly to their headquarters and she spent many days having them wine and dine her in an attempt to get her to join their ranks--which she declined. This too sat funny with me since I could not picture this agency being a major player in the Kentucky market. Well, after a quick email, I can confirm that this major travel company (I know the CEO) indeed did not pay for anyone named Candi May to come to their headquarters. As a matter of fact, the only "Candi" they have in their system of prospects, was a "Candy" from Michigan.

So, do we have a long lost reunion coming up pretty soon. Is Candi May, the good Dr. Seligman's long lost sister? So now do we have the trifecta of wrong information? Seligman, ADI and now Candi May! Can anyone add some shred of truth to the claims? Candi may have been all that; but it seems like maybe not!