Andreas from Naughty America/Socalstreams fucked us over
 

We normally try to avoid any type of drama, but our situation with Andreas (the owner of Socalstreams & Naughty America) deserves to be brought to light in a public forum.

The members areas of Karupspc.com & Karupsha.com has offered their plugin service, Socalstreams, for several years. Since we paid a premium monthly fee for the service, our agreement with Andreas was that we never wanted any upsells or advertisments to his sites/services. He knew how strongly we felt about this and agreed that there would be no upsells. We know that upselling your members is a common practice for many sites owners, but it's something we've always tried to keep to an absolute minimum.

Upon visiting Socalstreams from our members area one day recently, we noticed that there were NUMEROUS upsells in NUMEROUS locations. These included new watermarks containing urls to his sites on the pictures (which early on he agreed he wouldn't do), a java applet running across the top of numerous picture pages linking to his paysites, etc...

When we contacted Andreas about this, his reaction was "I apologize for this single human mistake, it wasn't intentional, yada yada yada". Had there been just one mistake that would have been a logical excuse, but there were dozens of these mistakes on dozens of different model's pages.
At this point we wanted nothing more to do with him or his service, so when we offered the service for 3 free months & some exit traffic to makeup for backdooring us, we weren't interested. We simply requested a refund of the last 3 months we paid for his service and we would go our seperate ways.

After going back & forth via phone & e-mail for over a week, he suddenly stopped replying. We called him earlier today to ask why he was no longer replying and he said "you insulted me and I felt that it was a smack in the face, so go ahead and proceed accordingly and I'll react accordingly".

Andreas, you betrayed our trust on a personal & professional level.
Anybody dealing with you should be made aware of what kind of person they're dealing with. We've been in the business since 1997 and anybody who's ever dealt with us knows we're as straight up as they come. Fuck you and your 3 free months you offered us. That doesn't makeup for you backdooring us the way you did.

Lou / EENT
Karupspc.com & Karupsha.com

EENT is one of the best, most ethical companies in the business. Having them call someone out is... well, really very bad. This is the first time I've seen them publicly do so.

Bump for Lou.

drama....

dun dun dun

jo0 g0+ pw3nD

You think?

wow shitty thing to do... this is like... true drama

Anything for a quick buck in this industry. "Bros" will fuck you without thinking twice.

Always hate to hear of conflicts. Good luck.

Andreas is one of the most honest people I've ever dealt with in this business. I can see where you're coming from, but this will not change my opinion of Andreas. This is obviously only one side of the story.

PS. He runs the best retaining sites in the industry.

So it was like that for 3 months? I suppose you really don't know how long it was, could have been longer. Sorry to hear.

draaaaamamaaa

I don't know how long it was for, but I am guessing it was like that for much longer than 3 months.

Lou

Work it out.

Hi Rich,
I respect your opinion and I am happy to hear you have had great dealings with him, but as to the part about him running the best retaining sites in the industry, thats funny. His sites are a joke.

Louis

uh oh...

and you were paying for his plugin? I have a greek bridge to sell you, oh wait Andreas already did it.

damnnnnn

I strongly disagree and so do a lot of other people. His sites are a gold mine and retain well above the industry standard.

If they're such a joke, why did you need to lease his content?? Does he have to use your content to keep his members? hmm...

Rich, I am not gonna go there with you. Take care and good luck to you.

Louis

Have a sit down, work it out and do everything possible to keep it of the boards. Unless, this is an advance marketing ploy only used by top professionals in the biz.

Hopefully, you can work it out...

That's probably a good idea, pretty hard to argue with my last comment. I just don't think someone adding upsells to feeds leased by a number of sites is worthy of coming to GFY and saying a well respected person in the business "fucked you over". :2 cents:

Good luck to you as well.

hmm... interesting read!

This doesn't make sense. His sites are a Joke and you leased content from him?

I have known Andreas for nearly 5 years. He is as honest and forthright as they come.

This is like saying the Dali Lama is confrontational.

What was the point to posting this? Were you expecting everyone to go along with your sentiment?

If you did not expect to get push back you should have thought twice about posting.

Rich, Jeff from Karups here. Your comment is easy to address. Socalstreams was considered by us as filler content. It's one of the last things we need to help retain our members.

We had an agreement with Andreas. He broke that agreement. Who gives a shit if he retains well for you? That has nothing to do with what's going on here. Personally, I've never met him, but have talked to him on the phone a couple of times. Until recently I would have spoken highly of him, but when somebody backdoors us and tries to steal members like a snake, he deserves to be told he fucked us over.

Lou, just call Andreas and work things out. Everyone is human and people sometimes make mistakes... You both run great companies and there is no reason you should tarnish each other's reputation.

Ask yourself this question... Is this going to matter in a day? A month? A year? 5 years?

Whenever I get frustrated and angry I always try to reflect and think about things that way. Keep your eye on the big picture :)

DH

Is it within the realm of possibility it was an unintentional mistake? What was the intent? You imply it was malicious. Has one of your staff ever made a mistake?

Did he fix the problem when it was addressed?

What I am getting at is that I think the punishment you?re handing out doesn't fit the crime. GFY should be the last place you go to "hang" a company so publicly which, by your own admission, apologized for the mistake and attempted to make reparations.

You also failed to mention why Andreas thought you insulted him. That parts seems missing in your original post. It seems like it is a significant part of the complete story.

I have to agree. You're both too well respected for this to stick. I think most of us can understand how that mistake could have happened; it's highly unlikely it was some unscrupulous grab for your traffic. As I see it, he suggested terms to make-good on this and you turned them down, you in turn suggested terms to make good on this and he turned them down. Try again! :thumbsup

Thanks for the compliments, but I tried to do that and he hung up on me earlier today. I was being more than fair and therefore I just wanted other people to know of my experiences with him.

And there you have it, Rich.

I would not think that karups would need filler content.. their shit is mad good!

I don't like this kind of drama :(

andreas boy - every move you make brings you some troubles - you know what I am talking about right

This is quality drama

He thought I insulted him because he tried to say it was ONE human mistake and when I pointed out that it was dozens he tried to insult my intelligence and say he had no idea and that it was his employee, etc... So I flipped and told him bullshit this was not one fucking mistake this was flat out intended and thats how he has to do business.

Louis

Rich,

I have sent over 10k email hits to his site and not made one sale. When I tried to talk to him about it at a show, he told me he was busy but would get back to me. Nothing.

I will never do business with him, nor would I ever vouch for any of his products due to that.

This type of action frankly does not surprise me.

This sounds more like an intentional mistake, rather than a "by accident" mistake...but lets see what Andreas has to say.

Lou/Jeff good luck getting this sorted out. It's sad when people you thought you could trust as good business people turn around and screw you over.

It's also sad that some people prefer to be pussies and hide behind their computers instead of dealing with situations as if they were face to face with people. I'm going that with a photographer who isn't returning my calls or emails.

ohhhhhhhhh..... drama.. and it's friday afternoon
means I have to sit by the computer and check out the going on between the parties

YES!! I have plans for the weekend now. :thumbsup

Sorry, Shap. Your order is just SO DAMNED LARGE that I'm up to my eyeballs shooting to fulfill it. :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

They are great Co.
They pay my bills, nuf said..

Lou, I just got off the phone with Andreas. He won't respond to this thread because he honestly believes this is not the place to work out this kind of unfortunate situation.

He is more than happy to make some kind of restitution and would like to work things out. He respects you greatly as a peer and a person, he would just ask that you call him and be a little bit more civil and polite on the phone.

I hope I did not overstep my boundaries here Andreas, just hate to see more mud slinging here on GFY.

DH

hmm, that's extremely strange, I know you have good traffic. I've had the opposite experience with him and his sites.

i've never heard anything negative about andreas. i have dealt with him on occassion. who else in this business gets dressed and wears a suit in their office all day?

i think you guys can work it out.

Fair enough, but I still think calling his sites a joke is way out of line. I also find it hard to believe that he maliciously tried to fuck you over.

sig spot

Keep in mind I've never dealth with Karupspc.com and EENT, but I know people who have and I know that they're an honest company with top notch sites as well. As much of a drama whore as I am, I hate to see it when it's between two good people or companies. I hope this gets resolved amicably for both parties, and I'm sure it will. Good luck to both of you in getting this worked out.

There is quite a difference bettewn some mistakes and clear bad bussiness...I mean lets get real shall we..

Thanks for letting us know. All the best Lou :thumbsup

Well, considering the source is Rich . . . well . .