Dear Ed, Please know that heretofore we have never been given an opportunity to present the facts, circumstances and timing of what has transpired over the past three months leading up to our suspension and now termination as a CoolTrader Pro (CTP) Independent Associate (IA).
 

 

In the spirit of truth and justice, I respectfully request that you please thoroughly review the information below and in light of these compelling facts, some of which I strongly suspect you are unaware, that you reconsider your decision. 
 

 

A chronology of the events and clarifications/explanations follows below:
 

 

December 12th, 2012 - Referred by David (Spira) Jumper; Dale de Melo, Ben Jumper and Bob Graves (acting as a partnership) joined CoolTrader Pro (CTP) under the Username: "BeatTheStreet".

 

New IA Website:

 

As the new CTP MLM website(s) were not yet available, (and at the time we were unaware when or if any such websites would be forthcoming), Ben and Bob undertook to build our own IA CTP sales and marketing website. While doing so, Ben and Bob (seasoned MLM professionals) were fully aware of the need to maintain a mirroring and congruence with the materials and verbiage of the CTP company's official website. While building the new website, we (Dale, Ben) were engaged in regular ongoing email communications with Nick Rausch, who was acting as our CTP compliance guidance officer, as Ron Terrazas had not yet assumed that position. Consequently, upon completion of the website, all of the content on the www.automatedtrading.us website was approved by Nick and therefore in full compliance up to the point of March 11th, 2013 when Ron Terrazas first contacted us as the new CTP Manager of Regulatory and Policy Compliance. 

 

Note: From the very outset we have responsively complied with every directive that we have received from CTP corporate concerning our new website. The first demonstration of this fact being our relinquishing to CTP the URL www.cooltraderpro.us which we had originally acquired and used to build our new website. This happened because CTP corporate did not want any potential confusion concerning who we were as an IA versus CTP corporate, and the www.cooltraderpro.us website presented the potential for such confusion. Accordingly, following CTP's (Nick's) directive on this matter, we corrected the situation with our new replacement URL of www.automatedtrading.us which Nick approved for our use on 12/20/2012. (Please note that we can provide you with all of the back and forth email communications related to everything cited here and below.)

 

March 6, 2013 - Following Ron Terrazas' assuming the position of CTP's Manager of Regulatory and Policy Compliance, he notifies us that he is receiving numerous complaints, "trickling in", from the field about our website. Ben asks Ron to please explain to us the nature of the complaints to better understand where the problems reside so that he can address them. Despite repeated requests, Ron never offers any explanation of our supposed violations or infractions related to these claimed, "complaints from the field". 

 

Note: Ben is a master internet marketer and custom website designer/builder. As a result of his expertise, he manages to achieve a very high ranking for our new CTP website on several important search engines. (Ben's websites for our other business generates an average of $1 Million in annual sales per year and often as much as $1.4 Million per year because he always gets them on the first page of Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Bing and all other search engines as well). Given the fact that Ron never presented us with any details behind the "field complaints", we were left to wonder if these complaints were spurred and motivated by other IAs' envy and jealously given our superior search engine positionings?

 

Following Ron Terrazas' appointment as CTP's new Manager of Regulatory and Policy Compliance, an entirely new set of criteria is now established for what CTP considers a compliant IA (non CTP corporate) website. Consequently, Ron advises Ben that we must now sanitize our website of all CTP name references and make many other content changes in order to be re-compliant. Once again, Ben quickly and responsively begins to amend our website so as to comply with Ron's directives. While doing so, seeking a clearer understanding of the exact nature of Ron's directed changes (regarding specific content and illustrations etc), Ben and I engage in an ongoing email dialogue with Ron in a sincere and earnest effort to comply. However the process is difficult for Ben, as Ron's replies to his questions are sometimes cryptic and contradictory. This too contributes to the delayed remediation of our then non-compliant website. Ron perceives these requests from Ben and I (Dale) for further clarification and direction as being "annoying" and says so directly in his email Subject heading to Ben, and copied to me reading: "Your propensity to annoy". (See the screen shot of the email heading below. And further, we can provide you with the back and forth email examples of the challenges we encountered in the process of working with Ron while attempting to amend our website content)
 

 

 

Meanwhile, immediately following our suspension, Ben searches the internet and finds literally hundreds of other IA websites with the exact same "non-compliant violations" for which we are being singled out and punished. This again suggests to us that we are on Ron's "bad list" for some reason wholly unbeknownst to us.

 

Yet another corroborating indication of Ron's desire to seemingly (and selectively) exert his power over us unfairly, was his response to Ben's email inquiry concerning the commissions that we had earned while in our "suspended" status. With seeming total disregard for our time and hard work to promote and sell CTP, our earnest ongoing efforts to become compliant and the evolving shifting grounds of "compliance" by which we went from compliant to non-compliant, Ron advises Ben that we will not be entitled to any commissions earned. Based on the preponderance of events and exchanges with Ron, we began to feel that his actions are selectively enforced and exceedingly heavy-handed.

 

And again I must mention that there were many other non-compliant CTP websites on the Internet while we were being unfairly singled out and punished for nothing more than our inability to perform the necessary changes within the unreasonable frame that Ron had set forth. (We don't believe that Ron has any concept or appreciation for the number of hours - no days - that it takes to TOTALLY change a website and ALL of the pages, links, names, etc.)
 

 

Yet still, being professionals and team players, we did not complain about the seemingly unfair treatment that we felt we were being subjected to. Despite Ron's un-professionalism and seeming bias against us, we maintained a professional posture with him as we were only interested in becoming re-compliant and getting back to the business of selling CTP. I would hope that you can begin to empathize with how we were feeling at this point.

 

Ben soon completed all of the necessary changes as directed and our website was then "approved" as compliant per Ron, and our IA position was re-activated.

 

Note: This is vitally important because when Bob and Ed spoke on Tuesday (4/2), Ed was focusing primarily on our website content (and mentioning new changes for us to make - which Ben stayed up late that night to do). While Bob and Ed spoke, Bob was trying to explain to Ed that the cause of our termination was not website content related but rather involved other procedural issues (the money-back guarantee and "demo" of the software) of which we were wholly unaware were non-compliant, leading to Ron's termination our IA position. Again, without any pre-advise or warning of these infractions.

 

Demo/Free Trial:

 

Going back to late December/early January, during one of our business review and planning sessions, Ben and Bob are discussing the many requests that they are receiving from prospects for some kind of a "demo" or trial of the CTP software prior to their purchasing it. Once again, being proactive, Ben and Bob contact our up-line to see if we might broach this idea with CTP for a "demo" version of the software for marketing purposes. During the course of that conversation, our up-line informs us that many other IA's were already doing free "demos". Consequently, we naturally assume that this is an allowable practice currently ongoing by many IA's. The point being, that the "demo" practice was not our innovation or idea, rather we were simply performing a service for our prospects that we learned was being performed by many other IAs.

On the basis of this conversation, shortly thereafter, Ben and I begin to offer the same CTP software "demo" opportunity to our prospects. In one of our more recent email communications with Ron on the "demo" matter, Ron advises us that we are not allowed to "promote the demo offer" on our website. He further informs us that the "demo"/free trial issue is currently under discussion at CTP corporate and that a final disposition will be forth coming soon - but no final decision was ever given to us by Ron, just his termination email. Once again Ben compliantly removes all verbiage relating to a demonstration or trial offer from the website and does the same on our Facebook page as well. This is extremely significant for, as per Ron, this is one of the reason's supporting our termination.

 

Note: In the course of offering the free "demo", Ben and I are fully cognizant of not having any of our "demo" prospects call CTP so as to not bog down customer service/tech support. We're well aware that these services are intended for customers only. We successfully manage our prospects "demo" sessions via Ben's answering all of the installation questions and providing all the necessary technical support, along with any other assistance required to accomplish our prospects' "demo" trials. And this included many screen sharing sessions as well. As anticipated, the "demo" offer proves to be extremely effective in helping us to close several sales with our prospects. 

 

Money-Back Guarantee:

 

The other issue that has come up many times when speaking with prospects is the matter of a money-back guarantee. While we know that CTP corporate does not offer one, we undertook to do so in a very specific way that was clearly communicated to all with whom we spoke. We told our prospects that we (not CTP corporate) would give them a 30 day trial of the software, following which if they were not happy we would refund their purchase price. We informed them that we are selling about 1 system per week (actually more) and that if they were not satisfied with their CTP software purchase, that we would simply sell their system for them. Such was the arrangement for our own personal money-back guarantee. All of our prospects having become very comfortable with our veracity and integrity, were pleased with the conditions of our offer and had no problem when we told them that while we can't guarantee exactly when their funds would be returned, we would sell their system for them as quickly as possible if need be. This is another important point as Ron has also cited this "infraction" as justifiable grounds for our termination.

 

Note: In the termination email from Ron, the subject of our financial capacity to personally refund the CTP purchase price was brought up. Please know that we do have the financial capacity to effect refunds if necessary and would be happy to provide CTP corporate with the IRS returns to substantiate this. However, once again, we were never given the opportunity to address this issue, we were just terminated.

 

Note: While Bob was on the phone with Ed Barsano on Tuesday (4/2), there was a statement made by Cary, I believe, about some credit card charge back(s) related to our money-back guarantee? We have no idea why any such incidence is being associated with us as we never discussed credit card refunds with anyone. And, we would be happy to have you speak with all the prospects (some now customers) with whom we discussed the money-back guarantee offer in order to substantiate this.
 

 

Under our own FAQ on our website we addressed the question of refunds. We clearly stated:

Does corporate offer a Money-Back Guarantee?

No, corporate does not but if you purchase the software and are not happy with it, we will. Let's talk! What can be fairer than that?
 

 

And please note again, that we were never advised/informed by Ron/CTP of these latest compliance infractions until we received his email citing these issues and advising us that we have been terminated. We were nothing less than shocked.                                                   

 

How can we possibly know of all of the ever-changing rules? We were never given our "day-in-court" opportunity to state the facts and explain our actions in defense of Ron's allegations. And, until the call with Ed on Tuesday (4/2) we have never been able to personally talk with anyone.

 

There is much more evidence by way of email exchanges to support our claims and position above concerning Ron's interactions and, we feel, unjustified actions. We will be happy to catalog and forward this information if necessary to shed greater light and understanding on what has transpired over the past several weeks. 
 

Below is one example:

On 3/19/2013 12:40 PM, Ron wrote:
 

"You don’t get it, Ben. This appears on your website:"

Please go to Dale DeMelo's Opportunity Website:www.cooltraderpro.net/BeatTheStreet

Purchase at Dale DeMelo's Retail Website: www.cooltraderpro.com/BeatTheStreet

 

Ron wrote: "That fact alone ties your stuff to CTP, and makes it non-compliant.  I haven’t even taken the time to read all your other stuff.  If you keep this up you’re going to have to put me on your payroll."

Regarding the email from Ron above: In the course of our email exchanges, Ron first said that it was OK to include our CTP website links on our www.automatedtrading.us website. But then, in a subsequent email (above) he says it isn't? This is one example of the ambiguity we have encountered in attempting to comply with Ron's sometimes contradictory directives.

And this one:

 

On 3/19/2013 2:20 PM, Ron wrote:

Your e-mail address contains the words CoolTraderPro.

 

Our response:

My e-mail address DOES NOT contain anything of the sort, and never has.


 

 

Sincerely,

Dale, Ben and Bob

828-683-0025 (Ben)

267-444-0164 (Bob)