Last week I commented on the fact that I and many other people had been banned from commenting on the TEAM forums at forums.freetheibo.info. Initially I was just banned from my particular internet address, so I simply used another one to log in and ask why I’d been banned. I’d posted nothing inflammatory. The reply? My account and all the posts I’d made were deleted! Other folk have reported the exact same thing.

So much for "freedom".

I still read the website occasionally, and find gems like this where a poster quotes a website claiming to show how much better a deal the Aquasana water filter is than eSpring. It’s not really a surprise the site would say that – since it’s hosted by Aquasana! More recently there’s a nice post by "Orrin Woodward’s Pastor, Robert Dickie". Which loses only a little credibility when you discover that Orrin Woodward’s Pastor, Robert Dickie II is also known as the father of TEAM CEO, Robert Dickie III.

But can we mere IBOs go on the site and point out these issues to TEAM IBOs? Nope – they don’t want us there.

And now it’s obvious why – the whole setup is simply a PR stunt. I quote from today’s article in PR Week om the TEAM vs Quixtar PR war –

Ashton Partners has been hired to represent a group of 15 distributors in a lawsuit against Quixtar, the American Amway operations. Ashton Partners, which has a practice dedicated to litigation support, has been brought on board to provide strategic communications counsel, drive media relations and outreach, and manage the plaintiff’s Web site, www.freetheibo.com.

Unlike this site, which is run by a real live Independent Business Owner (me) – the freetheibo websites are managed by a PR firm. Those sites are not there to help TEAM IBOs understand the issues and get the facts – they are simply there to make TEAM look as good as possible.

That’s not freeing IBOs – that’s using IBOs.

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Updated to correct the Pastor Robert Dickie relationship

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