And now Helen Weighs In... Another Speaker Burned by ISN

Received yesterday from Helen (no, not her real name)....

Hi-I have also been burned (and am still until I get my money back…well that probably won’t happen) by ISN.

I joined ISN early this year and since then nothing....of course the bogus monthly updates "we have booked all these fabulous events for our people" and "come to our events" - so I called them and asked who are you booking?

They gave me 4 names of people they book (all of whom are graduates of their "events") and we contacted all of them, no response. So I asked ISN "do we have to attend your events to get gigs?" response "it helps, but no."

It is always some excuse. I speak about 10 times a month and frankly it is not difficult to get me gigs. The promo they did for me was a mess, they claimed their computers went down and they lost all materials (I guess calling me to ask for them again was not an option).

I am frankly pissed, and at this point am deciding whether or not to have a lawyer write a letter to them asking for my money back and then also speaking to someone to have them investigated.

I didn't pay for the extra stuff, just the $500-ish initial amount since I thought it would be easy to book me. Thus far 100% of my bookings are word-of-mouth and I thought it couldn't hurt having someone else "help" me. 99% of the e-mails I get are to help us with videos, cards, brochures - things I (and any seasoned speaker) already have.

It is pretty genius, $500 - $1000 is not worth fighting for with lawyers, and most of us would write it off with "burned and move on" so they were thinking when they choose that amount. It was only a matter or time before they get "caught."

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Thanks for letting us know, Helen. I'm sorry you have been caught in this bogus International Speaker's Network scam, too.