Growthink unprofessional and petty conduct Mount Kisco New York

I’ve never filed a complaint against a company before, but I felt that the lack of professionalism displayed by Growthink warranted it. I joined Growthink’s Insider Circle on March 4, 2012 primarily because I was promised that any member would have direct access to Dave Lavinsky, and I had hoped that direct access would help me in my attempt to find a business partner(s) for my company (QuoteTech, Inc.) with a high degree of business acumen.

As a member of Growthink’s Insider Circle I was automatically subscribed to Dave Lavinsky’s private newsletter. After being a Growthink’s Insider Circle member for over one and half years, I informed Growthink in September 2013 that my Capital One credit card number was being changed in order to prevent any disruption to my membership, but after October 23, 2013, I suddenly stopped receiving any private newsletters but nonetheless Growthink did not contact me when my credit card had been denied due to a mistake on Growthink’s part in not updating my credit card info as I had previously notified them.

Finally in January of this year (2014), I contacted Growthink again, and Kate Perratore resolved the problem with the disruption of my Growthink’s Insider Circle membership, or so I thought. I just recently found out that Growthink only charged my credit card in January but then dropped the ball again by apparently letting my membership lapse, although the private newsletters continued to arrive in my mailbox, which gave me the impression that everything was hunky dory. I only just discovered this was not the case after what transpired below.

On October 1^st of this year, I received an email from Dave Lavinsky with a subject line of “Can I gift you a free consultation?” (since I had been “been subscribing to his newsletter for some time”) which I accepted, but I was a little leery that this was really nothing more than a sales pitch in disguise, and thus I attempted to preempt it by telling Phillippe Chau (Growthink's salesperson that subsequently contacted me) that I was primarily concerned with getting help in finding a business partner(s). Phillippe Chau said I could send him an email specifying my requirements for a business partner(s) and that he would forward it on to Dave Lavinsky. In that letter I described the software products as well as patent application QuoteTech has, and specifically asked Dave Lavinsky if he could “direct this email to any suitable individual(s) within his network of connections”. I was a little disappointed when Phillippe Chau came back with an email 10 days later which only had some generic, common sense tips from Dave Lavinsky on finding a business partner, such as “network like crazy in your area”, which was much less than I expected.

At any rate, on November 12^th I received a private newsletter from Dave Lavinsky with a subject of “Get my $10 million formula (for free)”, and I was particularly intrigued by the part that said “your initial call will be between 45 and 60 minutes and it will be with either Mr. Jay Turo, the co-Founder of Growthink (and a Stanford graduate and one of the smartest and most experienced people in the world when it comes to raising capital and growing businesses) or with Mr. Jeff Jones, Growthink’s Executive Vice President, who has been with Growthink for nine years and manages our entire team of consultants and analysts.”. The whole offer is available at this url: http://www.growthink.com/letter.

In that offer Dave Lavinsky asked anyone interested to provide a "real person" deposit of $100, which he would use “as a "filter" to keep the time-vampires at bay.”. I did a “real person” deposit of $100 and was anxiously awaiting a productive talk with either Jay Turo or Jeff Jones, but I was unpleasantly surprised when I subsequently received an email from Kate Perratore which stated the following: “I understand from our team that you've had gone through this exercise / the consultation process regarding QuoteTech a few times now and therefore this call with our team would be repetitive for you.”.

I responded to Ms. Perratore that first of all I thought this was an entirely different offer, and second of all I had only gone through one consultation with Phillippe Chau, as opposed to an alleged “few times”. I also explained that previously I honestly thought the previous offer (i.e., “Can I gift you a free consultation?”) was nothing more than a sales pitch in disguise, whereas in this latest offer, Dave Lavinsky had specifically said “This Is NOT A Sales Pitch In Disguise!”.

Ms. Perratore then came back with an “apologies for the confusion”, etc. and then provided me with Dave’s “Five Point Guidelines”. I then responded with a clarification of my expectations to Dave Lavinsky’s offer (i.e., “Get my $10 million formula (for free)”), where I basically said I would still very much like to take advantage of that offer and I quoted where the offer stated the following: “And if you want to outsource all the grunt work to us and have us implement and write the plan for you, great! We can talk about it.  And if you don’t want to do that - that’s OK too.”

The upshot in my last email (which she never responded to) to Ms. Perratore is that I wanted/expected Growthink to honor its commitment to provide me with a "A Complete Customized Breakdown Of Our Proprietary System ...Specifically Tailored To Your Business!”, since I had already provided a “real person” deposit of  $100.

I waited and waited for a subsequent reply from Ms. Perratore but she has yet to reply. Furthermore, the very next day I discovered that I was no longer receiving any of Dave Lavinsky’s private newsletters; obviously someone from Growthink removed me from that list. Prior to this I had been receiving daily private newsletters from Dave Lavinsky since March 4, 2012, except for the hiatus I described above. I had been a member of Growthink’s Insider Circle for at least a year and half until Growthink, due to its own incompetence, let my membership lapse, and now I provided a “real person” deposit of $100, and Growthink responds with this lack of professionalism and might I add even pettiness.

I am proud of QuoteTech’s commitment to make a fair profit for the great software products it produces and to really care about its customers, but I feel that Growthink is primarily concerned in getting money from serious entrepreneurs like myself, instead of  “really” helping entrepreneurs to succeed, which Growthink so proudly proclaims in its mission statement:

“Growthink's mission is to help all entrepreneurs succeed so they can create jobs, grow economies, offer customers better products and services, realize great personal satisfaction and wealth, and fund programs that make the world a better place.”.

From where I sit, those words “ring hollow”! I cannot speak for anyone else, but I for one do not plan to have any further business with Growthink.