Originally posted on Wednesday, 9 January 2013, by Anne O'Loughlin,
here.
One very loyal client of ABBBC prepared her own work and template only to have it stolen by ABBBC Pty Ltd or I should say their new name Clean Eating Enterprises.
When she complained Michelle's post was removed and then she was removed from the forum which she contributed to and paid to be a member of.
To add insult to injury Ashy Bines and Stephen Evans are both making vexatious DMCA complaints to drop box and facebook to have drop boxes removed and facebook pages removed which points out the flaws in their businesses, whilst they are in breach themselves of copyright law and Terms and Conditions of Facebook.
Let us start with the documents which have been contributed by members of the public and other authors which Ashy Bines and Steven Evans are claiming as their copyright material.
They are all listed in the
files section on the Ashy Bines Clean Eating Facebook Group - which is free to anyone who applies to get into the group so are hundreds of women who simply apply and are accepted after all facebook groups are free, you do not have to pay to access them and let's face it not many people are using the online forum and we have demonstrated that.
Michelle who contributed information she prepared herself and shared with the forum was reported as copyright of Clean Eating Enterprises when she is the author, further they claimed ownership of ebooks which are authored by other people as their own.
When Michelle raised the issue in the forum her post was deleted.
And she was removed from the forum after paying for the Ashy Bines Clean Eating program.
Why does Clean Eating International claim ownership of ebooks and information prepared by their own clients which they share with each other, there could only be one reason, vexatious dishonesty and the incapacity of being able to produce their own work in their words, including inspirational guides and information or additional assistance to their client base. Rather relying on the paying customers to do it for them, and then when they want to share their own information or ebooks which are available on the web free, that is when CAI or ABBBC try to shut it down with dishonest and false DMCA notices to a service provider and facebook.
We already know that Ashy Bines Clients are the heroes of the forum as they do all the work themselves, we also know that the Bootcamps - who are managed by sub contracted PT's or employed PT's are good value so why are they being so deceptive and or willing to plagiarise and claim as their own, authored information which does not belong to them. In my view it is because they behaving with dishonesty.
Inserted by Anne:-
On 10/01/2013 Mr Evans and Ms Bines from Clean Eating Enterprises claimed copyright over material belonging to me, (How to upload ebooks) and from Clean Eaters Group (unrelated to our page and free) Christmas Recipes via DMCA Notice. This disabled the drop box of Clean Eaters a group of women who work for free to motivate and help each other share recipes and support each other. Nobody at ABBBC nor CEE had a lawful reason to issue the DMCA Notice or interfere with the rights of this group. This is corporate theft, thuggery and even loyal customers of ABBBC are outraged by what has happened to a group of humble dedicated women on this free forum. This company already has been denounced for and proven to have plagiarised work belonging to others, claiming copyright over work and ebooks written by third parties which do not belong the company but to try and cripple a group of 3,800 women and men who are simply working quietly as a community is reprehensible. This conduct outclasses the conduct of Peter Foster the 1990's fitness industry crook.
So I asked Mr Evans personally why he would engage in such conduct and yes I was very terse in my inbox this was his answer:-
This response was the most touching one given that this credible and honest women is an Ashy Bines Brand Supporter, and even to the most loyal of supporters this conduct has in fact made them cringe. Her answer is honest, humbling to Sarah, and Clean Eaters Group and is as fair as you can be especially given she is an ABBBC supporter. (In response to our post on the page which supported this group and outed the conduct of Evans and Bines.
Moreover they further abuse the facebook complaints system to have pages removed they do not like for example they complained and had suspended the following page based on accusations of nudity and sexual deviancy.
This page was called
Ashy Bines Offers No Customer Support and Her Diet Plan is a Fraud, and was suspended by Facebook albeit it is being appealed however all this page carried was our blogs and information which demonstrated the lack of customer service which ABBBC are well versed in removing so as to cull and mislead as many consumers as possible on their fan page and in their forums.
Consider these posts in today's forum which were removed quite promptly I might add.
We have already demonstrated how the new guidelines are flawed and how Ashy Bines Director gives advice which is negligent. What is astounding is for a Clean Eating Forum, the debate within the group is not facilitated by staff who are qualified but used as an advertisement board for Ashy Bines Brand product which are incongruent with Clean Eating.
Curious how the online dietitian who is sub contracted Ashy Bines Guidelines and was hotly debated by the members was removed because it may make Ashy Bines Brand look bad.
What is allowed however is ASN Jaime to promote Cleanse an Ashy Bines Brand Product but as for Accredited Dieticians with Honours Degrees, well they prefer to delete that. Which means when Ashy Bines says she cares about her 'girls' what she really means is as long as you follow my guidelines, do not question me, adore me, adulate me, buy and support my products, then it is all "great babe", otherwise it is deleted and or at worst you are removed from the forum if the question is too hard.
The fighting continues:-
Today ABBBC featured in the Mackay Newspaper the Mercury, not only was the article demonstrably wrong, it was misleading. Not in so far as the bootcamps are concerned but there was a lot of hype and not a lot of truth in what was said. For example, she does not have 500K fans you only have to check right now.
Anne's response to the article, found
here.
Perhaps since your company seems to have got the bootcamps right, you might concentrate your efforts on getting your Clean Eating Guidelines Business Right, after all OFT has been issuing compliance notices, you have had thousands of complaints and refused refunds even when OFT has directed you to provide them, forcing people to have to opt for the Small Claims Tribunal and all the while knowing that people, customers, ordinary Australians some who are battlers, have paid their money, not received the product or service and they are going to walk away because you make it too hard.
What you do not like however is the fact that your being called out on your unlawful and poor behaviour so you engage in tactics which are so reprehensible and dishonest you abuse social network not only to sell your product and mislead women, but to freeze accounts of genuine customers who complain, or who have a page to illustrate your poor behaviour, then you act, you stalk the person like Bernadette who has her own blog, you try and subscribe to her account and try to find where she lives? That is not normal behaviour for business owners. Normally one works on how to create a customer service model, and improve it then this blog and this page is no longer needed. Have you not understood this? Do you think engaging in sabotage and vexatious dishonesty makes you look even worse?
Trying to hack accounts?
Meanwhile this is the type of behaviour your staff engage in on a public forum which shows lack of discipline and is vulgar and unprofessional, especially from an Admin Member such as Trudie Teitz whom Anne has a great deal of respect?
Now it is commendable that Ashy Bines Brand wants to donate money to charity, we would suggest she assists Beyond Blue or Mental Health Services Organisations because a lot of the women on the forum suffer from depression associated with weight loss including anxiety, but whilst I applaud her public offer, I have to say that it is very similar to what Sweat2Shred did prior to her decision to make this announcement as they donate money to an
Abused Children Charity. Of course anyone who contributes to charity ought to be commended but it seems strikingly similar to the model of the new business of Sweat2Shred, lest we forget ABBBC used their post to promote on their page, trying to pass off the photo as their own without disclosure.
In my view the google search engines are so tainted with poor reviews and information that I am somewhat cynical, I think it is being done in an attempt to restore some sort of creditability, it is like mitigation prior to sentencing in a court case. So yes Trudie, she may want to help people out, but what about helping the thousands of clients who have made her millions of dollars which she walked away from, abandoned, and refused to provide the service and advice? Do you not think they ought to be helped out too?
It is easy to say I just want to help people, doing it with integrity and candour is another.
Lastly, I think we are all sick of the people who visit the page and make the most atrocious comments and dare to call us unreasonable. Here is an example of what we put up with everyday.
We will not address the first post as what we explained to her was that this page was not about the bootcamps, that they were generally well received, the issue was the Clean Eating Guideline and Forums.
We are being fair, we do this pro bono, we work full time, we have families, we are certainly not bored, nor sad and not in the least bit angry. We get annoyed when our accounts are frozen and or attempts are made to hack them or when our pages get suspended by deceitful means but we certainly are motivated. It takes guts, hard work to balance the facts and information without emotion. To spend our own money to promote posts to make sure people make AN INFORMED DECISION - why? because we do not want them on our page wanting help - having to rehouse them and help them with refunds. We want ABBBC to provide the service and advice that comes with the product they sell to everyday women who do not attend bootcamp.
No need to pity us Cassie Mather we are a proud team of advocates who give a voice to so many women we wish we did not have to do, which is why we implore Brand Ashy Bines to address it. Activism is a tough job and not always popular however we do it with quiet dignity, and respect.
We acknowledge the dedication of so many members of our community who help selflessly to assist each other and the admin team.
We as a collective to not blame anyone, however we demand that Brand Ashy Bines complies with ACL and OFT / Consumer Legislation just like everyone else has to. We concede that there is always going to be an attrition rate of 5% in every business. However we represent almost half of the paying customer base of 50,000 or if you read the facebook forum numbers is only 40,000.
However make the distinction please and read the information. Again for those who are confused, we support clean eating, and in particular we support the women who were former clients of ABBBC and who opened their own group with 3,500+ members for the excellent work they do everyday, free of charge providing advice and service, recipes and information to women who need it.
FREE.
We do not believe that the guidelines prepared by Ashy Bines are sustainable in the long term and it is "not clean eating" to be selling artificial products such as proteins or cleanse. Clean Eating has the answers to those solutions. We also do not believe in the way ABBBC permitted and continue to permit women to buy and sell and or advise each other over banned substances, or other substances that is not clean eating and it could be dangerous.
If Ashy Bines was serious about this business she would work hard and continue to educate herself in Nutrition, she would have staff on the facebook forum answering questions, and the online forum would be properly managed. In my view however ABBBC cannot afford to do that - why because the price factor does not permit lifetime support and payment of professionals for prolonged periods therefore that is why we say the clients are the heroes because they do all the work themselves and in so doing they let ABBBC off the hook.
Now I could put example after example of the documents and information created free by customers to help one another, but it would make this blog ten pages. I have the screenshots however in the event I am asked to prove it. One only needs to look in the file section of the Ashy Bines Clean Eating Facebook Group. It should be noted that Ashy Bines and Steven Evans Claim them as their own and continue to make copyright claims from the work created by others.
Written by Cathy Brophy.
Updated by Anne 11/1/2013
