The International Speakers Network must have done another one of their emails. I can usually tell because I watch the hits to this blog rev up (see the numbers below) - and I begin to get comments from people they have burned. But there's a new twist - their new names - The Innovator's Group and Insight Publishing.
I got a heads up on this in a comment from Alex - in which he says, "ISN keeps re-branding and changing its' name, to avoid showing up in threads like this one, and the folks that work for them adjust their e-mail addresses for the same reason."
So I looked it up and sure enough: Insight Publishing, a division of the Innovators Group - fomerly ISN, the International Speaker's Network. In truth, they've used these names for years - but now they are trying to shed their ISN ripoff image.
I found several other new businesses and people's names, too, as follows:
ISNworks - that's their longest standing Twitter handle
InsightISN -- that's their new Twitter handle
TracynDalton - is the twitter handle for Tracy Dalton who has worked there for awhile
donamerritt -- is the twitter handle for Dona Merritt - she's been there since they scammed me in 2007!
Wendy Tapp, is signing those famous "we need a speaker" outreach things. Interestingly, I found her on a website that talks about speaker information and scams.
(I wonder if any of them ever worries about being carted off to jail for their participation with ISN?)
It also looks like they are still using BookaSpeaker (got that from Wendy Tapp).
And don't forget the henchman - David Wright - who runs speaker workshops in the East Tennessee / Knoxville / Gatlinburg / Sevierville area. He's the owner or CEO of this entire Insight Innovators ISN mess.
If you go to any of their many websites, don't let that Better Business Bureau Accredited Business logo fool you. They've run way from the names they've used to distance themselves from this blog, and from the people they have scammed. But they can't change their stripes.
Here's the link to their old F rating - now removed:
http://knoxville.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=57&bbb=0533&firm=11488
Here are a few more links - others who have had comments to make about ISN, Innovator's Group, BookaSpeaker or Insight Publishing - whatever their name is:
From Cynthia Brian: http://www.redroom.com/blog/cynthia-brian/scam-potential-warning-for-authors-and-speakers
From Chuck Gallagher: http://chuckgallagher.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/motivational-speaker-scam-insight-publishing-something-is-not-right-in-sevierville-tn/
From Ripoff Report: http://www.ripoffreport.com/directory/Insight-Publishing.aspx and http://www.ripoffreport.com/advertising-deceptive/insight-publishing-i/insight-publishing-innovators-c99ed.htm
And for anyone new to this blog, you are either:
1. Checking ahead of time to see whether your money is well-spent with ISN or Brenda Keefer. The answer is NO. Run, don't walk, from anything they tell you.
or
2. Checking after you have already been burned because ISN or Brenda made a promise to you, you gave them money, and they didn't follow through on their promises. I am so sorry. This blog won't make you feel any better about it.
Hope this has saved ANYONE some grief.
.
