Today… I was banned from the Warrior Forums.
A forum that houses some fantastic members who I will forever be grateful for their assistance and feedback, is overshadowed by the way the site is run and the members who seem to report any thread they don’t like.
What annoys me the most is I’ve been banned for something that people assumed, just days after handing over $20 to post my WSO thread. And you know what happens when you assume? You make an ass out of u before me. The reason given for my banning was “indirectly promoting a WSO”. This “indirectly” is code for “because I think you are”. I posted a thread asking if there was anyone who could help me with sale copy problems and my WSO was in my signature. The only thing I am grateful for is that I hesitated before handing over another $20 to bump my thread back to page one.
As each and every day passes, looking after your customers and treating them with respect disappears all around me.
Example #1 Civic Video
I’m not a violent person, but there is a lady that works at my local Civic Video that I would love to work in a new tire iron using her face. She serves at the counter and is THE most non-customer service person I have come across in a long time. Constantly looking like she just removed a lemon from her mouth, she flat out refuses to hand over DVD’s (after you’ve paid for them) unless you give her your undivided attention while she treats you like a moron and explains when the movies are to be returned.
Number one, I have a toddler who is always with me. A toddler who doesn’t understand stupid women who need to feel important and thinks it’s just way more fun to run out of the store. And two, all the movies have bloody stickers on them telling me how long I can hire them for!!
I want to return said videos via an opening in her lower half instead of the return shoot!
Example #2 McDonalds
The other morning I had no breakfast. No problem, I have three McDonalds all within 10 minutes drive so I popped up to get a couple of Hash Browns to tide me over. With above mentioned toddler in the back, I went through the drive through and asked for five hash browns (not all for me, don’t worry lol). I was told that would be $1.45
Um, huh?
I get to the window and mention to the girl that I wanted five hash browns, to which she replied “Oh you want six in total?” I took a deep breath. I asked how much five hash browns would cost me, to which she informed me $7.25
Yes, exactly. Here’s your money
I get to the next window and am told I have to wait in the waiting bay as they don’t have enough ready. No problem and I go park. The guy brings them out a few minutes later and I ask again “there’s five in there right?” to which he replies “yes, five hash brows.” HIS words!
Unfortunately I had people behind me, a ticked off toddler who didn’t want to sit in a waiting bay and I left assuming they knew how to count. I get home. I am proved wrong. There I sit looking at ONE hash brown and a sausage and egg McMuffin. What the?
By now though, I’m home, changed, and have a happy toddler who’s stripped off again. I’m not about to jump back in the car so instead I phone the store to complain. “yep.. yep.. yep… yep.. a huh… sorry” That’s all I got from the five year old manager who obviously had better things to do than listen to an upset customer.
Now, it’s been quite a few years since I worked in a customer service role, but I distinctly remember getting my ass chewed out because I didn’t SMILE at a customer once!! Apparently I was tired or having a bad day and “clearly it showed to the customer which is unacceptable”. Oh how times have changed!
I’m seriously reconsidering not having a forum attached to the Guru Guide!
Running forums and community sites is what I’ve done since the early 2000’s. I love doing it and I do it well! An excuse given to me that the Warrior forums is “just too big” to send out notifications when ever someone has a thread removed or their account banned doesn’t wash with me because when I was running a forum of 40,000 members plus, I still made the effort to notify people when ever something happened to their posts or account. And I ran that site completely ALONE for most of my time there!
I’m also a member of, and know other forums much larger than the Warrior forum who also make the effort to treat their members with respect and inform them when ever needed.
I don’t know if it’s just an “internet marketing” mind set, but it really does appear that so long as they are getting their money, they don’t care how they treat their members. Given it’s $20 to post a WSO AND $20 to bump it each time, and my thread ended up on page 5 with in three days, that’s a lot of money being handed over. You’d think with that much income they’d make the time or put on staff to run the forum a little better.
Don’t even get me started on the fact I couldn’t get my War Room post approved in which I was trying to give away membership packages. I’m not the only one either, not from the people who I also spoke to saying their threads never got approved and no reason was given.
Every time one of my threads get’s annihilated, every time I read yet another post from a frustrated Warrior or speak to someone who’s been treated the same as me, I seriously reconsider my decision to not add a forum to The Guru Guide. Ironically, I purposely didn’t add a forum because my site wasn’t about competing with the Warrior Forum. But now I’m starting to wonder if there’s a market out there for an Internet Marketing only forum where members are treated right!
I’ve even had a thread deleted because another member attacked me – they made claims that were untrue and even quoted parts of my sales page then completely posted the wrong info underneath. IE they posted I was claiming some six figure salary by quoting a section of my sales page that specifically said I didn’t! Yet I was the one that got reprimanded because I stood up for myself and called this moron a liar.
My most common issue it would appear however, is “self-promotion”. You can’t under any circumstances even appear to be promoting your own site or you will have your thread removed. This includes (but most likely isn’t limited to) asking for feedback on your new idea, asking if there’s anyone that could help test to see if things break even though you don’t specifically mention your site or link to it, ask for help writing sales copy in general, and asking what to do when you can’t even give away free accounts because the moderators won’t approve your War Room thread…
Of course The Guru Guide, my site (omg I mentioned my own site!) is the complete opposite of that and is designed to allow members to promote themselves. Getting help for yourself and making people aware of your site generally go hand in hand. You can’t ask for real assistance if you can’t provide all the details.
Then again, I see other threads that are titled “please review my landing page/sales page/website” and openly promote themselves which are allowed to stay. So perhaps someone just doesn’t like me… or I smell. Do I smell?
