KickstarterForum.org

[SomadesignLab]

We paid William, the director of Crowd PR, $4500 to run two separate campaigns we launched, and I was able to have a few calls with Willaim beforehand, he seemed quite responsive. After we paid the campaign fees, for the first 5 days he was engaged and sent us a couple updates as well as posted a few snap shots of reporter emails he, we assume, sent a pitch message to.

After the first week, he stopped replying as promised. I would need to send about 3 emails and a 3-4 messages on Wechat (an instant messenger app) along with one or two phone calls before he would reply, usually taking about 4-5 days to reply each time around, and his written replies would be very short, usually saying something about how his team was planning a outreach to new media the following week. This was the response for about 3 weeks ongoing, meantime there would be no other updates on the trello board or any notifications.

I wouldn’t go so far to say this company is a complete scam, but very borderline, as William did do some PR pitching, and we did get one campaign covered in The Verge, which is a decent tech blog. But overall, it was a very poor experience. The amount of money paid for the service offered was very far from what the company promised. I would never trust or agree to work with this company again, and now seeing other campaign creators have faced similar and worse issues doesn’t surprise me. I take time to write our experience for the purpose of helping others who might considering this company.

[hyperstarter]

Someone else on the forum with a similar experience:
http://kickstarterforum.org/viewtopic.p ... 54&p=36614

[punpantry]

Thank you for the heads up, that is truly a nightmare.

Him or his bots recently reached out about my campaign: http://kck.st/2znvk2R


Good luck with yours!!

- Vinny & Pun Pantry

[Nyte]

Yeah, most of them are scams. I suggest going out and sending PR's yourself.

[Cristina]

This post has been moved to the News + Fraud Watch + Popular Projects section.

[lightraylass]

Several threads and complaints about this scam all over Google and this forum.

crowd.pr is the latest crowdfunding agency scam behind a long list of them (some long time members might recall seeing the names Crowd PR Guru, crowdpr.co, CrowdChirp, First Wave PR, Top Level PR, Milton's Boost System, and on and on and on they go. Constantly rebranding after they get caught.

A quick Google search and the scams are piling up again as people catch on to their reputation.

crowd.pr is filled with fake and fraudulent claims throughout the website.Claim to be in business since 2015 when they only registered their domain / site in a few months ago here in 2017?

Claim to be based in San Francisco yet are actually based in Florida?

Avoid William and his "company" at all costs. crowdpr can't be trusted::

Domain: crowd.pr Created On: 2017-06-01 Expires On: 2018-06-01 Contact: Registrant Organization: Crowd PR LLC Name: Crowd PR Address: 1815 Purdy Avenue Address: City: Miami Beach State: Florida Zip: 33139 Country: United States Phone: 4157128099 Fax: E-mail: @crowd.pr Contact: Administrative Organization: Crowd PR LLC Name: Crowd PR Address: 1815 Purdy Avenue Address: City: Miami Beach State: Florida Zip: 33139 Country: United States Phone: 4157128099 Fax: E-mail: @crowd.pr Contact: Technical Organization: Crowd PR LLC Name: Crowd PR Address: 1815 Purdy Avenue Address: City: Miami Beach State: Florida Zip: 33139 Country: United States Phone: 4157128099 Fax: E-mail: @crowd.pr Contact: Billing Organization: Crowd PR LLC Name: Crowd PR Address: 1815 Purdy Avenue Address: City: Miami Beach State: Florida Zip: 33139 Country: United States Phone: 4157128099 Fax: E-mail: @crowd.pr DNS: freedns1.registrar-servers.com DNS: freedns2.registrar-servers.com DNS: freedns3.registrar-servers.com DNS: freedns4.registrar-servers.com DNS: freedns5.registrar-servers.com

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These guys have been at this for years so their sales pitch is slick. They will lay on the lies thick. Be careful or you will be out $3000 or more when nothing is delivered and they disappear. Stay safe.

[shenzhenmaker]

Yes I can concur Crowd.pr and William Henry are scammers.

1. I engaged Crowd PR for a publicity campaign and paid by bank deposit.

2. Crowd PR did not provide any publicity or proof that work was done

3. Crowd PR tried to take credit for work that was done not by them- work that was published before they were contracted.

4. Crowd PR promised a refund, then reneged

5. Crowd PR did not provide any deliverables stated in the contract

They don't answer the phone and take a long time to return emails. All empty promises! Stay away!

I understand the PR game well. We pay for best effort and hope for something/anything to happen. What's not ok is to:

1. Not show any proof of effort as stated in contract and not answer the phone (ever)

2. Taking credit for other people's work

3. Calling the client's product "junk" when you can't deliver

[Nouveau]

Looks like they have another agency too:
http://www.zocus.com/construction.html

We are looking into the matter, but as of right now we almost have unveiled the identity behind these scammers. This is the CEO of Crowd PR:

https://twitter.com/entrepreneurish

His name is James Sung. If anyone by that name approaches you (regardless of the brand name) then you need to stay away from him. They are all scammers, looks like Zocus is the newest name in the long name of scams he has created (formerly known as Crowd PR, Crowd PR Guru) the list goes on and on!

Yes I can concur Crowd.pr and William Henry are scammers.

1. I engaged Crowd PR for a publicity campaign and paid by bank deposit.

2. Crowd PR did not provide any publicity or proof that work was done

3. Crowd PR tried to take credit for work that was done not by them- work that was published before they were contracted.

4. Crowd PR promised a refund, then reneged

5. Crowd PR did not provide any deliverables stated in the contract

They don't answer the phone and take a long time to return emails. All empty promises! Stay away!

I understand the PR game well. We pay for best effort and hope for something/anything to happen. What's not ok is to:

1. Not show any proof of effort as stated in contract and not answer the phone (ever)

2. Taking credit for other people's work

3. Calling the client's product "junk" when you can't deliver

[SandraNYC]

Wait are you saying that you found out who is behind all of the scams on here?

Update: I found a new thread about them with more info about the connection:
my-review-of-zocus-t11507.html

OMG!

Looks like they have another agency too:
http://www.zocus.com/construction.html

We are looking into the matter, but as of right now we almost have unveiled the identity behind these scammers. This is the CEO of Crowd PR:

https://twitter.com/entrepreneurish

His name is James Sung. If anyone by that name approaches you (regardless of the brand name) then you need to stay away from him. They are all scammers, looks like Zocus is the newest name in the long name of scams he has created (formerly known as Crowd PR, Crowd PR Guru) the list goes on and on!

[Mightee]

I found him listed on a press release, here is the link to that
http://news.morningstar.com/all/access- ... shirt.aspx

He was listed as so

James Sung, PR for Lotushirt
732-587-5588
james@zocus.com
https://twitter.com/entrepreneurish