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RSS Applied - A Blogging Company With (Bad) Attitude
Today I was contacted by a guy name Eric Thom from RSS Applied (www.rssapplied.com). They are some kind of blogging company that sells “internet visibility systems,” whatever that means.
I wanted to share my experiences with this person from RSS Applied (www.rssapplied.com) so you will know what kind of company they are, should they contact you about their services.
It all started when Eric Thom from RSS Applied sent me an unsolicited email that was short to the point of being both cryptic and rude. I replied to ask what he meant, explaining that his short email was a bit confusing. He replied in an equally curt and abrasive way. So I politely recommended he get a book on business communications — I do what I can, after all.
That led to a series of insulting “attack” emails with content such as this:
“Those phrases you speak of are a joke to get ranked for number 1, your design is from th stone age number 2, and fiianlly Frankly graigslist would be a step from what content we see on your tiny site. Nice talking to you Farmer, must suit you, farmer.” [Sent from Eric Thom of RSS Applied]
> ——– Original Message ——–
> Subject: [SPAM] Re: [SPAM] Re: blogging
> From: “Eric Thom”
> Date: Thu, March 15, 2007 4:45 pm
All typos have been left intact as not to misrepresent Mr. Thom.
This kind of personal attack bothers me a great deal. Not because I’m the least bit intimidated by a 12-year-old posing as a business man, but because this company (RSS Applied) claims to be in the business of communications. They claim to be experts in blogging, blog content, etc.
I don’t know about you, but RSS Applied isn’t the kind of company I would want giving me communications advice … unless the name of the lesson was “Insults 101.”
I don’t like to bring negativity into this blog. But I realize that most of my readers are regular bloggers, so there’s a good chance this company (RSS Applied) will contact you about their services. I only want to share my brief but distasteful experience with RSS Applied so you’ll have an idea of who you’re dealing with, should they ever pitch their services to you.
Legal Disclaimer: I make no other assertions or claims about RSS Applied (www.rssapplied), aside from sharing the abusive emails I have received from them.
~Brandon
12 Comments so far
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I don’t know much about RSS Applied, but I have seen some good articles from them in the past. How confusing and distressing to hear about this - I hope the confusion gets cleared up soon. Hopefully it’s not as it seems.
I was very interested to see this. Last week, I called Eric about a position advertised in a school Newspaper. Eric immediately set me on tasks that I told him I could not commit to until the term was over. The entire time I was talking to him over the phone, he was very curt and pushy. He would say things like “Well, when you graduate, you will have to learn to multi-task” in regards to me wanting to wait to start until finals week. He assigned me ten “articles” to do in a weekend. I contacted Eric and told him that I did not think the agreement was going to work out, and that I am sorry for any inconvenience. He responded with this:
“This has put me in a very BAD position regarding the content you committed to, here is a tip DON’T commit to any business venture in the future unless you can keep it!!”
How rude and unprofessional is that? First off, if someone you’re “testing out” is going to shut down your whole operation by not being able to work for you, there are some SERIOUS problems involved. Secondly, this was not a “business venture” for me. It was a possible summer job.
Eric is a very unprofessional, touchy IT guy. The articles from RSS Applied are good, but he doesn’t write them. He hires people to do it for him. I am contacting the student newspaper that I saw the advertisement in and requesting that they pull it.
This guy just contacted me, and when I googled him I found this page. Thank goodness. I also asked him to “explain” what they offered, I wish I hadn’t done that!
Unfortunately I agreed to do some subcontract work for him. I got paid on the first couple of projects, but he stiffed me for the last $1700 and will not respond to my attempts to contact him at all. Several months have gone by. I even agreed to settle for 40 cents on the dollar if he would just pay me. I’m still waiting, with no explanation or contact at all. That’s no way to do business.
Don’t do business with him. He’s a jerk, he’s unreliable. I voluntarily went without pay for a few months to help him out. Then he didn’t pay me for and acted as if I now didn’t deserve to get paid.
He was disrespectful of my time and attacked me both personally and professionally.
He doesn’t trust anyone and is extremely arrogant and abusive. I referred clients to him and only one person at the company will talk to him.
He acts like he’s a big shop but it’s not true, you’ll have to deal with him. No matter if his product is good or not, it’s not worth it. TOXIC.
I got a phone call from Mr. Thom today because I responded to an ad he placed on socialmedia.com. I told him I didn’t remember the ad or the position, and asked what his company name was. Instead of answering, he demanded to know the URLs of any blogs or other web work I have. Not knowing who was calling me, I did not give that information and again tried to find out who he was and what company he represented, etc.
He told me that they do “social media marketing” - which he had already said, and asked me, “DO you have ANY experience in social media marketing AT ALL?” I explained duties I had in my last job which required me to deal with social media and marketing, but said I had not worked in a commercial setting.
Later, when I had a chance to look him up, I saw that he hires people to write web content, which I have experience with, but during the phone call I never had a chance to describe my writing career or publication history. Instead he said that it was clear to him that I did not have the experience necessary but they could use me for training. He described something I did not catch, and I asked him for clarification.
He said, with exasperation that clearly I could not just be handed a campaign and hit the ground running with it, now could I? I said I really had no idea because I still didn’t know what sort of position he was hiring for or what the company was or even what they did.
He said, “We do SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING!”
I said I heard that part, but that he was being a bit cagey about the details. He did not like that statement and told me he was insulted and that I obviously had no experience whatsoever and was wasting his time. He then hung up.
Surprised, I tried to call back so that I could clarify that I meant no disrepect, but merely wanted clarity. He did not take my call.
So unsettling was this experience, that I felt a need to research this most unusual gentleman. It was quite a relief, really, to find your post and the subsequent comments. I don’t usually have such unpleasant interactions with people, and I worried that I had completely misstepped.
I found some of his job postings during my research and he is paying $10-$12 for each 250-word blog post To my mind, that is on the low end of compensation for good writing. I know from other freelance boards, that people are offered less. I saw $7 offered by one company for “thoroughly researched, well written” 650 word articles which they were using to populate their website. Thom is paying more than that, but I still think it is sweatshop wages, or perhaps sweatkeyboard wages. Here is the link to those postings: http://www.ifreelance.com/buyer/projects.aspx?buyerid=113094
To the author of the comment stating that there are some good blog posts by his company: It is no surprise that he could hire good writers for his blogging business. He says in one of his ads that he employs over 60 writers. Certainly many or all of them are good at what they do. This gentleman himself just has a few limitations as far as social skills.
It is of my opinion that Eric is a classic sadist that takes pleasure in tormenting both his clients and his 1099s. However, having dealt with hundreds of clients such as him in the past, I can say he is one of the more extreme cases of sadism/masochism I have witnessed. If he wishes to employ you or to do business with you, one word of advice: run.
The $10-$12 per post offer is relatively good for a starting blogger, but you have to deal with constant communication with him that is mostly superfluous. I once billed him several hours of phone time that was merely him telling me how much his competitors “sucked” and “didn’t know what the eff they were talking about.” Each time I questioned if these were people who didn’t do business with him anymore due to his eccentricity. Now, I’m 100% positive he’s showing new bloggers my own site and going on similar rants.
Eric’s angst is unfounded due to his constant criticism of more intelligent and more productive people. He will deride the hell out of a client or worker for tardiness or a mistake, however he has little or no technical skill, terrible grammar and spelling (awful), and is so disorganized he sometimes forgets explicit instructions he gave you only hours before.
He spited 10% out of an invoice because a few charges “really pi**ed him off.” Besides that, the man did pay me on time and went out of his way to send checks via priority mail. That was his primary “good” point that kept me working with him.
The last straw was his final temper tantrum at my expense. He contracted me to do web design for a blog client. When I called the client, I explained that I was a subcontractor. The client, at that point, was within a hair split of canceling their relationship with Eric. They, too, were tired of his condescending attitude. I talked them down from the brink and assured them that a “few fixes” would optimize their site. I provided them a price quote, then relayed it to Eric immediately, saying twice that I had told the client the quote during our conversation. He actually verbally repeated the quote and said it was fair.
The next week, the same customer calls me and informs me Eric tacked on 40% to the quote. That’s right, 40%. Obviously, this infuriated the client and they canceled. Eric, angry that his poor organization and memory came back to haunt him, proceeded to repudiate me over Skype with harsh language fit for a 7th grader. According to him, my revelation that I did not work exclusively for RSS Applied was what caused the client to cancel…the 40% markup had nothing to do with it. After I told him our business relationship was over, he repeatedly tried to call me to unleash his frustration.
I sacrificed over $1,000 in revenue owed to me just to get away from this man. If you do business with him in any way, you’ll understand why I made this decision. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
Very interesting - I was recently contacted by ET a few days ago and was offered to blog, provide content for slide share, and a new Ning site all for $20 per post. This and I was told that I needed to do this everyday for a 30 day trial. I already had a bad feeling about this and I’m glad I did a little research. Thanks!
In the 8 years I have been programming I have never had such an awful experience as I did working with Eric. I was so stressed out that I too left over a 1000.00 on the table if he would just never contact me ever again. seriously, it was the best 1000.00 I’ve ever spent.
I did work for Eric in June and July of this year. I invoiced him via my LLC on the 28th of each month and was paid by the 1st. The checks were sent via priority mail. He is a bit off the wall — no doubt in that. But, I did not experience any of the negative comments described above.
Eric is very difficult to work for, and has scared off customers. He wants far too many posts daily, doesn’t listen, he can be belligerent, and promises just aren’t kept. Eric does seem to pay on time, but he wants more effort than he is paying for.
Don’t work with Eric Thom. He is an obnoxious liar! He wants you to work for free and doesn’t trust anyone. He’s a loud mouth and you can never get a word in, ever.