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Report: #1370544

Complaint Review: GDS Group - New York New York

  • Submitted:
  • Updated:
  • Reported By: Mike Storer — NEW YORK New York USA
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  • GDS Group 55 Water Street New York, New York USA

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Stay away from this disgusting organization!! I sent my VP on my behalf to one of their events. My VP was put in a room full of vendors to be tossed around like fresh meat in a lion pit! Countless cold calls from vendors post event, exhausting 3 days of hell at their event! This was a complete waste of our time.

They try to rope you in by saying your flights, hotels are free and that it is covered through budget for a handfull of executives, later to find out they cover EVERYONES flights and hotels..Why? Because Vendors pay THOUSANDS of dollars to be at one event!!!

I was told this was one of their "flagship summit's" and we were lied to by the GDS rep. We were told specific c-level executives were going to be in attendance, and specific fortune 500 companies, guess what NONE of them were at the event. This company puts pictures of executives on their websites who aren't even attending their summit.

They even had the balls to call us after the event to try to get us to another event of theirs! Their rep was blaring music in the background, people were using profanities in the background, and the rep had to nerve to mention an executive who would be on site, turns out that executive is a former colleague of mine who hadn't even spoken to GDS before!

After discussing this companies name in meetings within my Fortune-500 company I quickly learned that GDS has been scamming executives for 20 years! They find these vendors, lie to them about who will be in attendance, most likely the person they claim is in attendance hasn't even been spoken to by GDS, the vendors pay large cash amounts 35k, 45k, 65k, and more to come to these events hoping to do business with companies who really aren't in attendance, this is ILLEGAL!

A member of my team has a good relationship with a former GDS employee who left after 2 weeks with that company. She was appauled by the deceptive behavior, unprofessional reps, and the training which promotes this deceptive behavior! ONE WORD OF ADVICE TO ANY EXECUTIVE WHO GETS IN CONTACT WITH THIS COMPANY, STAY AWAY!!!!!

http://gdsinternationalscam.blogspot.com/2009/10/gds-is-scam.html

http://nypost.com/2009/11/24/publishing-firms-sexist-environment-unfathomable-lawsuit/

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 04/30/2017 06:13 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/gds-group/new-york-new-york-10041/gds-group-l-gds-publishing-l-gds-international-gds-group-is-a-scam-stay-away-new-1370544. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
2Author
6Consumer
0Employee/Owner

#8 Consumer Comment

Marketer Happy GDS Customer

AUTHOR: Bonnie - (United States)

POSTED: Friday, March 02, 2018

I am a field marketer working for a software company. One of the biggest challenges we have is getting in front of the C-Suite, executive decision makers. I am always looking for ways to get our sales teams engaged at a higher level. GDS reached out to me regarding an event in SoCal last fall. I did my due diligence, asked for attendee lists from past events as well as references. They provided both, so we signed up as a vendor/sponsor. Nothing is a sure thing, but even with the hefty price tag, it only takes one good deal for it to pay for itself. I try to hedge my bets with tactics that I know work, but sometimes you have to go out on a limb and try something new. I am very glad that we did. 

I and my team had a great experience. First of all--our meetings were all based on open projects that mapped to our solutions. Of course there were a couple of misses, but most of our meetings were productive. We had meaningful conversations with VP+ attendees from JP Morgan, Citi Group & Morgan Stanley, Dept. of Commerce and several smaller companies. Not only did we get new business, but these meetings led to additional introductions that furthered existing deals. 

GDS requested that I be a reference for them and speak with another potential customer and I was happy to say yes, as their summit was one of the most productive events that I have participated in. The person I spoke with mentioned all of the negative reviews, which I how I found this thread. I dont often write reviews, but given that my experience with GDS was so different from what was expressed here I wanted to submit this rebuttal. There are alot of similar vendors out there and I have done events with many of them with mixed results. Even the same vendor in a different market can have different results. I understand the disappointment with executives who were registered dont attend, but in my experience this is ALWAYS the case. In fact, we usually assume 50% attritiion, so I am not sure how anyone could accuse them of being a bait and switch. 

Lastly I would like to say that everyone who I have worked with and spoken to at GDS has been extremely professional. Do they "follow-up" and try to sell you on other events? YES. Of course they do. I don't find anything surprising or unusal about that. I can't deny anyone elses experience, but wanted to weigh in, as mine has been so very different and quite positive. 

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#7 Consumer Comment

Similar Experience

AUTHOR: Taken2X - (United States)

POSTED: Thursday, November 30, 2017

I participated as a vendor in two GDS Summits. The events were generally well run, however, my experience regarding things like the bait and switch of senior decision-making executives for lower level staff is very similar. In my first GDS Summit experience I was very excited about the "speed dating" meetings. We were promised meetings with real decision makers who had real projects and were looking for vendors. Several of the potential clients we were paired with had no interest in the agency at all. Another wanted us to do work for free and and yet another admitted they had already selected a vendor for the project we were interested in.  Still, there were a number of leads that seemed promising by the end of the event. We complained about the circumstances above and were offered a small discount if we signed up for the next Summit and so we did.

Like clock work, the leads from the first Summit disappeared after two calls and some substantial work on our part in preparation for the face to face meetings that never happened. This made me a little suspicious because they all seemed to disappear after two calls and all of them ended the calls positivley, promising a face to face meeting. So when I went to the next Summit, I started off at the cocktail mixer asking potential clients why they were at the Summit. Virtually every one said one of the same the same things. They said either 1) That they were there for the guest speakers and to network with other client-side marketing people 2) that it was a free trip to XX destination (the vendors pay but the clients travel and accommodations are free) or 3) that they had no idea why they were there but that their boss had told them a week (or three days or five days ago) that they needed to go. The latter were generally the low-level, non-decision-making people that were the last minute replacements for the senior executives we were promised. In general I got the impression that the client-side attendees did not know what to expect from the vendor meetings nor what our expectations were as the people paying thousands to attend.

The leads in general performed exactly the same the second time around as they did the first. I'm not willing to say that this is a "scam" because that implies that these people are doing something criminal. What I would say is that 1) their pitch is slick and I believe very misleading at best and 2) with $100,000 spent on these summits, no leads have turned into a penny of new business. If you are considering spending valuable marketing resources and time on GDS Summits, I would strongly suggest that you look for a better place to spend your money. The implied promise of GDS is that it offers a short cut to new business. While I'm sure there are a few exceptions, in general I believe that this is not true. In speaking to a number of two-time attendees, not one that I spoke to had landed any business from the summits. There are no short cuts and I should have known better. Spend your money elsewhere. Caveat emptor.

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#6 Author of original report

Pitched by GDS aka GDS

AUTHOR: - ()

POSTED: Thursday, May 25, 2017

 Listen, You guys can hire people to write on this blog, or post on here as if you are "vendors" looking to do business with GDS. I own a tech company, you can't pull this "poser" crap on me. It is all a part of your major scam. The mere fact here is that you've scammed many many people, your team continues to do so. There's tons of evidence against you. And you guys INCLUDING Lindsay Kats and Thomas Wiggans will be brought to justice. THE END.

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#5 Consumer Suggestion

Rob Goldberg Tommy Bahama working with GDS

AUTHOR: Pitched by GDS - (USA)

POSTED: Thursday, May 25, 2017

GDS does have real projects, they do work with legitamite companies.   My team received this email from the GDS Summits Group, they said they own the vendor selection for this project with Rob Goldberg.  My team sat in on a thirty minute clearslide presentation focused on three projects with Tommy Bahama.  Will give the poster below a copy of the original email if it helps their case?  We copied the slides to our desktop for future viewing and my team was reviewing them yesterday.  I personally spoke to two senior level managers I think it was Lindsay Salomon and a gentleman by the name of Thomas Wigan both of them were genuine and they comfirmend this project was open with budget.  We unfortunately did not have the budget to work with them but in the future we may.

 

Feel free to reach out to Rob Goldberg yourself.  GDS has several projects with Rob Goldberg.

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#4 UPDATE Employee ..inside information

GDS - Documents to be released.

AUTHOR: WikiBizLeaks - (USA)

POSTED: Wednesday, May 24, 2017

WikiBizLeaks will be releasing a collection of documents that implicate GDS (AKA. - GDS Group | GDS Summits | GDS International | CMO | CMO Insights | CMO Digital | CMO Digital Insights | NG Omni Channel | NG Omni Channel Insights | CMO Data | CMO Data Insights | Mobile Innovations | NG Oil and Gas | NG Telecom | NG Securities | NG Retail | NG Retail Insights) in a number of consumer and employee complaints related to identity theft, data theft, general harassment, racial and religious harassment, sexual harassment, fraud, and employee retaliation.

Our team has received several submissions from users associated with GDS.  Attached to these submissions was a library of miscellaneous documents (in various formats) supporting the above claims.  In the weeks ahead, we will be publishing a series of articles based on these documents which will be made available for download via hosting providers.

AS EMPLOYEE ADVOCATES, WE AT WIKIBIZLEAKS, VIEW EMPLOYEE AND CUSTOMER RIGHTS ABOVE ALL.  WE EXIST TO ENSURE THAT INDIVIDUALS NEGATIVELY IMPACTED BY CORPORATIONS HAVE A PLATFORM TO TELL THE FACTS OF THEIR STORY ANONYMOUSLY WITHOUT FEAR OF FURTHER EMPLOYER RETALIATION.  ALL SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS ARE HOSTED ON ENCRYPTED FOREIGN SERVERS, ALL SUBMISSIONS MADE THROUGH WIKIBIZLEAKS@PROTONMAIL. COM UTILIZE PROTONMAIL ENCRYPTION AND ARE COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS.

If you or someone you know has been negatively impacted by GDS have them reach us at WikiBizLeaks@protonmail . com and we will help them anonymously tell their story.

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#3 Author of original report

Dear GDS Representative

AUTHOR: - ()

POSTED: Wednesday, May 24, 2017

 Based off of the verbage that you are using, I 100% know that this us a GDS representative. The same manipulative language that you are using here, is the same language that your company has used to scam MANY Vendors into paying money to come to your events. You want to compare Gartner events?! Their events are the best in the industry. We trust them and would rather do business with them over your scamming uncredited company any day. And by the way I will be submitting my formal complaint with the New York District Attorneys Office who is investigating your crap of a company.

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#2 Consumer Comment

A note to add

AUTHOR: AnonCEO - (USA)

POSTED: Tuesday, May 23, 2017

I can start off with saying this original post is very intruiging, in fact i'd love to speak with the person responsible for writing it. Secondly I have no other reason but to believe that GDS Group is truly a scam. We have dealt with this company twice, first time we were provided with a list of senior level executives whom which we were told were going to be at the summit,. We were also told we would be guaranteed a set number of meetings with these executives. Great, seems like we could pitch some great execs, we paid top dollar. My wife works in retail, very senior, we were able to verify that many of the executives on the list were not even contacted by GDS Group. THIS IS ILLEGAL. You tookout money promised us his makeshift lie and scammed us. We then gave you a second chance, sent you a wishlist and your reps confirmed 50% of the executives from the wishlist would be there! NONE of them were at the summit! 100k scammed out of our pockets. The person commenting is NOT an outsider looking in, you're insane. Testimonials from this company are crap and lack the truth about their scamming system. Of course you'll write paragraphs as a THIRD party trying to implement all these "positive" attribution about this crap of a company. GDS is a scam. They lie, lie, lie and nothing they say is true. Big retailers go to their summits, ONCE until they figure out the scamming system, or because their too vulnerable to get online and do their research. Word of advice to other companies, DO NOT GO NEAR THIS COMPANY!

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#1 General Comment

So how did you get ripped off if it was free?

AUTHOR: Neutral Onlooker - (USA)

POSTED: Monday, May 22, 2017

As an outsider looking in, I am wondering how you, or your VP, were ripped off? You said it was free, and apparantly people who are not vendors attend for free as well. I don't see a problem there. I also doubt you were "ropped in" because someone said they had a "free giveaway". Unless you are that naive. It sounds like what they offered was appealing to you. Perhaps the aspect of networking with industry peers or seeing what innovative technologies are out there. I am looking at several video testimonials from very senior executives who sound very happy to have met with a vendor they never would have heard of, to find that they can solve their business challenge. I did some research and there are tons of them ...youtube.com/watch?v=voSTOnN3jHU&list=PLWrSH-D08WW_ifvecOumtsCWGu9janSit&index=26

I see senior execs from Nike, Mondelez, Under Armour, Razorfish, Dell, Ripley Entertainment. and from like every vertical you can mention. So I will have to discredit that there are not relevant people in attendance.

So you sent your VP. Did you not communicate the point of the program? It seems they connect vendors and enterprises on the premise of projects. Did you not have a project? Did you not communicate that project to your VP? Perhaps it just wasn't relevant for you both if you didn't have a project, or if you just didn't communicate the project to your VP. Maybe that would make sense about your comment of a 'lions den', but then again, how can someone be a VP without networking ability? Maybe your VP was unprepared, but nonetheless, they couldn't have productive conversations? They couldn't take anything back to the enterprise from other industry peers? I doesn't seem fair that because you sent someone that wasn't relevant, that GDS as a whole should be discredited and labeled as a ripoff. Certainly these testimonials and case studies don't implicate it was a total waste of time. It sounds like the attendees went with a game plan and came out successful. 

They called you after the event. Sounds pretty standard. Hopefully your feedback was useful. As to the music, who knows- maybe it was a Friday. Maybe it was someone's birthday. Nothing wrong with a little corporate fun. Profanities, well, we're all adults here. Doubt it was anything malitious. 

From the vendor side, and going off testimonials- it looks like a lot of companies in fact save money. Instead of hiring one sales exec, for less, they get private meetings, they get to network with great brands, and it looks like they are getting business. $35k, $65k- thats not that much money in the business world, unless they are Blockbuster. I heard Gartner events charge $250k for a booth, a sign and some speed dating... I'm not good at math but seems that GDS has more value for less money..

I can't verify the lying.. but it looks like they run many campaigns so maybe your employee knew of them by the event's name and not GDS? Oh and a member of your team has a friend who said something. Sounds like he said she said, and you didn't even talk to that person. Sounds like a solid case!  I can't hold too much weight on the person who was there for 2 weeks. Sales is sales and maybe they just couldn't handle it. Who knows. They were there 2 weeks. What could they actually find in 2 weeks? 

There are a lot of holes in your post, and it just doesn't seem right to say you were ripped off, when you spent nothing and missed what seems to be a great opportunity to take advantage of, per these real live testimonials. I think your company is getting ripped off by having a VP and an SVP? who can't communicate, network or do a little more due dilligence before signing a contract. I always wonder how people like that gain such senior roles. Welp, that's my view and on to the next post!

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