Just a little more information on this subject, from my perspective, with as little bias as I can manage.
I attended Pat O'Bryan's Unseminar4. I was a loyal customer; I purchased & promoted many of his products.
Just before the election, Pat made some comments on Twitter disparaging Republicans and Conservatives. I reminded him that he had customers and friends who were both Republican and Conservative, and that to continue to make remarks in that vein would likely antagonize and alienate some of his customers who had money to spend with him. He did not stop, and I cut my ties with him.
I wrote about the experience in my blog: [
kleppin.blogspot.com] I did not mention his name, but I think it was obvious to whom I was referring, based on my history.
Ben Mack was a speaker at Unseminar 5, and I watched him on the streaming video; some of my friends from U4 were there. My interest in Ben was two-fold: 1) Prestidigitation & 2) Buckminster Fuller. Ben has a history with both.
When Ben announced that he was putting on a seminar he was calling ESP Bootcamp to celebrate his birthday, and the only admission was to purchase & bring a copy of a CD called "The Gentle Art of Cold Reading" - my husband made arrangements for us to attend so I could meet Ben and some of the other people I "knew" online. We drove from Austin to Boise in order to participate.
The night before the event was to officially begin, there was to be a meet up in the bar to watch something on TV. Ben was late, and when he finally arrived it was discovered that he had not made arrangements with the management of the bar to change the channel, and that permission was not going to be granted, so one of the people attending offered to allow everyone to come to her room. Bob and I declined, and went to our own room instead.
I guess in the interest of full disclosure, I should add that Bob and I are both interested in the mechanics and logistics of putting on seminars and workshops, so we were observing and learning from what we were seeing. We were disappointed in the level of professionalism being exhibited, and had no desire to be in a bedroom with strangers at what was supposed to have been a business event. It felt very odd to observe the group agreeing to do that, and we found it hard to believe that we were the only ones who opted to watch the broadcast in the comfort of our own room.
The next morning the event that I wrote about occurred. I believe Ben "culled us from the herd" and that it was a deliberate action in which Dave knowingly participated.
The Twitter notes in this thread from Dave to me were in response to my asking why I had been locked out, and whether or not Dave was aware of the locked door. My point was (and still is) that if he knew about the locked door and was a participant, then he lacked business ethics and professional courtesy, and if he honestly did not know about the locked door, then he had been manipulated by Ben Mack.
Dave called my cell phone and left a message, but we have a difference of opinion as to what an apology is. Saying "I'm sorry you chose to leave" is not "I'm sorry you were mistreated" and I told him that was the equivalent of stabbing someone with a knife and saying "I'm sorry you are choosing to bleed" - and I still feel the same way about it. He kept saying he had apologized, and I kept pointing out that what he had said was NOT the same as a real apology, and I think it angered him tremendously that he was unable to persuade me to do his bidding regarding the phone call. When I broke off all contact, he left an unprofessional and threatening comment on one of my husband's Squidoo lenses, which we saved in case we would need it in court. Interestingly enough, the very next day my CCGAL account at Twitter was mysteriously suspended, although it popped back up about 30 days later.
I suspect that he was shutting me up by registering a complaint with Twitter on top of leaving the nastygram on the Squidoo lens. The complaint I have no proof of, but I can produce the nastygram in court should I need to, and it's probably possible to obtain records from Twitter if the court ordered it.
A few months ago, I found BurnedByFire's Blog entitled Mr. Fire's Pyre, and I have commented a few times. I posted a comment in December, expressing my theory as to why bullies seem to abound in internet marketing circles. You can read it here, if you're interested: [
mrfirespyre.blogspot.com] My comments are at numbers 8 and 11, but to really get the entire conversation, I'd recommend reading the post and all of the comments, not just mine.