It has been some time since I have left a comment on any of the discussion forums that international hunters frequent. Staying silent just seemed the right course of action after I sold The Hunting Report to Barbara Crown in 2008. I’m weighing in now because I am receiving a number of calls and e-mails from subscribers to The Hunting Report wondering how it is possible that a single advertiser has become so prominent in the pages of the newsletter and in the bulletins that go out in between monthly issues of the newsletter. That advertiser is Ripcord, a provider of medical and security evacuation service. Here is what I know about the issue:
When I sold The Hunting Report to Barbara Crown, she paid me a sum of money and issued me a $100,000 promissory note payable in full the first day of September 2018. In the interim, monthly interest payments were to be paid. And, indeed, those payments were made until last December when they abruptly stopped coming. At that point, I reached out to Barbara Crown to see what was happening. She declined to speak to me and referred me to Adam Gleason, a gentleman she referred to as her “debt negotiator.”
On calling Gleason, I was surprised to hear from him that the newsletter was experiencing financial difficulties. I expressed concern and alarm, and I told him I would try to find an investor to save the publication. It quickly became clear, however, that my assistance was not wanted. Instead, Barbara Crown and Ripcord implemented what Gleason called an asset transfer that moved The Hunting Report as an asset out of Barbara Crown’s company, Dagga Boy Enterprises, into Univops, the parent company of Ripcord. I learned of Univops’ “acquisition” of The Hunting Report in the following press release dated March 22nd.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/...03/prweb13279348.htm

The unfortunate downside of this transaction, for me personally, is it left Dagga Boy with no capacity to generate income and therefore presumably defunct. It is Dagga Boy Enterprises that owes me $100,000 in 2018, plus current interest dating back to December 2015. Barbara Crown also owes me those amounts personally.
The advantages of this transaction to Barbara Crown are apparent, but it does appear to make her extensive and very positive reporting about Ripcord a conflict of interest that needs to be acknowledged each and every time she reports about Ripcord. When NBC was owned by General Electric, for example, correspondents and anchors alike always divulged their conflict of interest when they were reporting about General Electric, whether they were reporting something positive or negative. That seems to me a good model for Barbara Crown to follow instead of maintaining an almost complete silence about her takeover by an advertiser. The only public acknowledgment of Ripcord’s takeover of Hunting Report that I have seen (other than the aforementioned press release, which appears to have had no distribution in the hunting community) is a small note at the bottom of a recent Hunting Report bulletin indicating it was copyrighted by Univops, an entity most readers do not realize is a Ripcord holding company. Anyone with additional questions can reach me at: doncausey@msn.com.

Very sad turn of events.

But as consumers, we can and should vote with our wallets. There are much better choices when it comes to evac insurance.

Thank you for sharing your painful story. I wish you and your legal advisers great success. Happy hunting.

FYI - If there was intent to defraud, punitive damages can be awarded and that would include third parties who knowingly participated.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
Very sad turn of events.

But as consumers, we can and should vote with our wallets. There are much better choices when it comes to evac insurance.

Thank you for sharing your painful story. I wish you and your legal advisers great success. Happy hunting.

+1

A real shame.. I'll stay with Global Rescue and will not renew my subscription...

Don,
I appreciate your comments and sympathize with your financial pain. I have used Ripcord but have not been a subscriber to the report. I must admit the evac service was reasonably priced and easy to schedule.
That being said. Your issue is with the woman who owes you money. Not paying is simply a breach of contract. I hope your litigation is successful against her. All other parties are spectators.

Ski+3

That's a real shame Mr Causey. I have zero respect for people who don't pay their bills. I wish you good luck in collecting.

I had heard the subscriber numbers were dwindling. I am not sure where that information came from or how these people knew.

I am not sure airing this situation will help Mr. Causey get paid. In fact, it might be detrimental.

I had wondered about the shift away from Global Rescue. Now we know why.

Good luck sir.

quote:

Originally posted by Don Causey:
It has been some time since I have left a comment on any of the discussion forums that international hunters frequent. Staying silent just seemed the right course of action after I sold The Hunting Report to Barbara Crown in 2008. I’m weighing in now because I am receiving a number of calls and e-mails from subscribers to The Hunting Report wondering how it is possible that a single advertiser has become so prominent in the pages of the newsletter and in the bulletins that go out in between monthly issues of the newsletter. That advertiser is Ripcord, a provider of medical and security evacuation service. Here is what I know about the issue:
When I sold The Hunting Report to Barbara Crown, she paid me a sum of money and issued me a $100,000 promissory note payable in full the first day of September 2018. In the interim, monthly interest payments were to be paid. And, indeed, those payments were made until last December when they abruptly stopped coming. At that point, I reached out to Barbara Crown to see what was happening. She declined to speak to me and referred me to Adam Gleason, a gentleman she referred to as her “debt negotiator.”
On calling Gleason, I was surprised to hear from him that the newsletter was experiencing financial difficulties. I expressed concern and alarm, and I told him I would try to find an investor to save the publication. It quickly became clear, however, that my assistance was not wanted. Instead, Barbara Crown and Ripcord implemented what Gleason called an asset transfer that moved The Hunting Report as an asset out of Barbara Crown’s company, Dagga Boy Enterprises, into Univops, the parent company of Ripcord. I learned of Univops’ “acquisition” of The Hunting Report in the following press release dated March 22nd.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/...03/prweb13279348.htm

The unfortunate downside of this transaction, for me personally, is it left Dagga Boy with no capacity to generate income and therefore presumably defunct. It is Dagga Boy Enterprises that owes me $100,000 in 2018, plus current interest dating back to December 2015. Barbara Crown also owes me those amounts personally.
The advantages of this transaction to Barbara Crown are apparent, but it does appear to make her extensive and very positive reporting about Ripcord a conflict of interest that needs to be acknowledged each and every time she reports about Ripcord. When NBC was owned by General Electric, for example, correspondents and anchors alike always divulged their conflict of interest when they were reporting about General Electric, whether they were reporting something positive or negative. That seems to me a good model for Barbara Crown to follow instead of maintaining an almost complete silence about her takeover by an advertiser. The only public acknowledgment of Ripcord’s takeover of Hunting Report that I have seen (other than the aforementioned press release, which appears to have had no distribution in the hunting community) is a small note at the bottom of a recent Hunting Report bulletin indicating it was copyrighted by Univops, an entity most readers do not realize is a Ripcord holding company. Anyone with additional questions can reach me at: doncausey@msn.com.

Thank you for posting this here.

This is very sad to hear.

I wish you the best in getting your money.

With the internet, and sites like Accurate Reloading so kindly sponsored by our generous host, The Hunting Report has become far less useful than it used to be.

I allowed my subscription to lapse several months ago, after having been a member for many years.

I would wager that dwindling subscriptions must be adversely affecting the business. I wish you luck, Don, in collecting what you are owed.

And your comments regarding conflict of interest and full disclosure strike me as entirely appropriate.

Interesting, I'm not an expert by any means but I've never heard of an "Asset Transfer" without a corresponding transfer of debt.

I would be talking to my lawyer before I ever talked on the internet.

I quit the hunting report when Causey was in control because he refused to report accurately the likes of Usangu Safaris. What comes around goes around.

Jeff

Selling business is a tough deal
Good luck there

Sorry to hear Don. If it's any consolation she stiffed me on payment for some writing I did for her but it's hardly in the same league of the money you are owed. I always enjoyed working with you when you owned the Report!Can't say the same about her.

Sorry to hear about this....... guess that explains why I thought the Hunt report sucked for some time now.

I guess it is just me, but if someone else came on here that subscribed and said what was going on it would sit better with me than the parties involved. This makes it seem like a witch hunt and sticking it in when you can, because it assumes that things were AOK prior to this.

No offence intended, just some thoughts which many will not agree with. Oh well.

quote:

I quit the hunting report when Causey was in control because he refused to report accurately the likes of Usangu Safaris. What comes around goes around.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwana Bunduki:
I quit the hunting report when Causey was in control because he refused to report accurately the likes of Usangu Safaris. What comes around goes around.

Jeff

Usangu Safaris were not too impressed with AR, as we let everyone speaks his mind.

I did subscribe to the Hunt Report for a number of years.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwana Bunduki:
I quit the hunting report when Causey was in control because he refused to report accurately the likes of Usangu Safaris. What comes around goes around.

Jeff

It took them a very long time to print a negative report about a company in TZ in 2006. Over a year a I recall. That was after some prodding.

I am disappointed to see Mr. Causey choose to out my personal travails on a public forum, and I am surprised that as a former journalist he would set about misrepresenting facts on record. These are in fact slanderous and libelous statements.

Therefore, I would like to set the record straight:

In 2008 when Mr. Causey sold The Hunting Report to me and my husband, the “sum of money” he so casually refers to was $600,000 that the Small Business Administration paid him.

At that time he also signed a standby agreement with the bank holding the SBA loan, in which he agreed that they must be paid in full and that should I default they would have rights to collect on all collateral, including assets before him. He was fully aware of what that standby agreement meant and it was recently explained to his attorneys as well when they tried to sue me for fraud.

Also, he could not have been surprised about the difficulties I was having. He was aware of them when I secured a deferment on the loan from the bank and he was told that I could not pay him anything during the deferment period.

When he approached my “debt negotiator” with claims that he had an investor for me, he was told to have his investor submit an offer in writing. He never did so.

My concern was that I keep The Hunting Report operational for the benefit of my subscribers and advertisers. I did not want to be forced to cease operations while the bank seized all the assets, which they were entitled to do immediately. They were going to liquidate me anyway. I had to liquidate in a manner that would not affect our readers. Only I would be affected.

The sale of the assets of my company is not going into my pocket, as Mr. Causey implies. It goes to the bank towards settling my debt. Likewise the sale of all my collateral. This was also explained to his attorneys. I can only assume that they explained this to him in turn.

He refers to “advantages of this transaction” for me. What advantages? I have lost everything I own.

As for his misstatements regarding Ripcord: I switched to Ripcord two years ago in 2014 because I saw Ripcord was offering more and better benefits that would add value for my subscribers. I knew the senior people involved and had always been impressed with the efficient and straightforward manner in which they operated. It was an easy choice. You can read the details here.

When I needed quick action to keep the newsletter in operations, Ripcord’s parent company immediately stepped forward with money in hand. No one else did.
We announced the sale in a press release Mr. Causey saw the same day it was distributed. And I devoted a page about it in the very next issue of the newsletter. Those who are interested can read it here: Article 3757. I hid nothing about who had purchased the assets of The Hunting Report.

I also announced how the relationship was providing readers with free access to 24/7 travel advice (security info and medical info) from Ripcord, our sister company. I regularly remind readers about that benefit and refer to Ripcord as a sister company. That is sufficient disclosure by any standards.

The “coverage” Ripcord gets in the newsletter has been security reports they provide on destinations that hunters travel to. For example this next issue will include information on Lord’s Resistance Army activity in CAR, security in Turkey, and whether hunters should be concerned about RENAMO rebel activities in Mozambique. All of this is highly important need-to-have information for hunters booked or considering a hunt in those destinations. Hardly what I would call promotional stories about Ripcord.

But this is all a bit of the pot calling the kettle black on Mr. Causey’s part. When he owned The Hunting Report he sold Global Rescue memberships and received a commission for every one he sold. He still sells Global Rescue memberships. And he is still the editor of The Angling Report, where he regularly covers Global Rescue.

For those of you who do not know me, I worked for Mr. Causey for close to 10 years as his editor. When he wanted to retire my husband and I approached him about buying the newsletter. My husband was the business operations man. On his lead I agreed to leverage everything we owned to do the deal. Two years into it, he realized what a vice we were in. He committed suicide and left me to do it all. This October will be 7 years since that event. The way the loan and sale agreement were structured, any investor or partner would be forced to sign onto both the SBA loan and the note to Mr. Causey. No one would do it. I know because I tried. I did the best I could for my readers, but the deal was simply unsustainable.

Anyone with further questions about The Hunting Report’s relationship with Ripcord is welcome to contact me directly at barbara@huntingreport.com. - Barbara Crown

Very sad to see this played out this way. Regrettable that people feel that they need to take their personal issues to the Internet intelligentsia for resolution (an intelligentsia that is frankly more interested in watching the train wreck than anything else). As we can see from this thread, people hear one side of the story and immediately accept it as gospel apparently never thinking that there may be another side to the story too. These threads are rarely done to educate and inform . . . more to threaten and malign. Seems like this is becoming more and more popular these days, had it happen recently on another contractual matter as well.

Seems the lawyers will end up with this mess.

I have been a subscriber to the Hunting Report for many years and have also been advertising some of my hunts in it recently. For those of you who have not heard about it, it is well worth buying as it gives a fair and balanced view of whats going on in the hunting world. Maybe they don't always get everything right but who does? As one can see it's a struggling small business with limited resources not a mega news organisation who still cock things up despite all their clout! There will always be two sides to any story and someone is bound to be upset by the other view point. This is just the way it is.

So rather than come out and damn them, it would be better to support them and subscribe to their newsletters. We need to support people in our world we have plenty of enemies on the outside.

Whatever the issues are, it should have been settled privately. Airing it here will not help Mr. Causey recover any of his money, so I don't see what his gain is other than venting his frustrations!



Arjun Reddy
www.huntersnetworks.com
30 Ivy Hill Road
Brewster, NY 10509
Tel: +1 845 259 3628

As both a Hunting Report subscriber, and someone who thinks of Barbara as a friend, I am very sad to see this situation unfold where it seems no one is coming out whole. I hope, before all this shakes out, that everyone involved can come out in good shape, including those of us who look to The Hunting Report as one of the best sources of information for the traveling hunter.
Very sad to read all this.

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
Very sad to see this played out this way. Regrettable that people feel that they need to take their personal issues to the Internet intelligentsia for resolution (an intelligentsia that is frankly more interested in watching the train wreck than anything else). As we can see from this thread, people hear one side of the story and immediately accept it as gospel apparently never thinking that there may be another side to the story too. These threads are rarely done to educate and inform . . . more to threaten and malign. Seems like this is becoming more and more popular these days, had it happen recently on another contractual matter as well.

I couldn't agree more.

Plenty of example in the linked thread.

quote:

Whatever the issues are, it should have been settled privately. Airing it here will not help Mr. Causey recover any of his money, so I don't see what his gain is other than venting his frustrations!

So, what's wrong with venting his frustrations?

Apparently some in here would prefer to have nothing done in public. World doesn't work that way any more. Send someone a totally unfair contract it will likely be exposed. All to the good as far as I'm concerned.

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
Very sad to see this played out this way. Regrettable that people feel that they need to take their personal issues to the Internet intelligentsia for resolution (an intelligentsia that is frankly more interested in watching the train wreck than anything else). As we can see from this thread, people hear one side of the story and immediately accept it as gospel apparently never thinking that there may be another side to the story too. These threads are rarely done to educate and inform . . . more to threaten and malign. Seems like this is becoming more and more popular these days, had it happen recently on another contractual matter as well.

Agree, especially when the conductor of said train wreck is a self righteous, lawyer.

Thank you Barbara for posting your side of the story. Appreciated.

Ski+3

The website litigators simply love to kick folks when they are down without actually knowing the TRUE FACTS!

This belongs in the courts not here!
......................................................................

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
The website litigators simply love to kick folks when they are down without actually knowing the TRUE FACTS!

This belongs in the courts not here!
......................................................................

Sounds like it already ran its course in the courts if I read it correctly.

I'm telling you. We need a special AR "No Holds Barred" cage so we can work this stuff out the right way. with good old fashioned, well regulated and televised violence.

(Count....3....2....1 for one of our lawyers to make a disclaimer against this post.) Those dudes have no sense of humor, or fighting skills apparently.

Unfortunately, business transactions sometimes pull in an unwarranted emotional element that really has no place in the facts. While you can feel empathy for both sides, the facts at the end of the day are facts. Fortunately, courts decide matters based upon contracts and facts.

Given what I do for a living, I have seen the sale or purchase of many businesses over the years. Many work out exactly as planned. Many do not.

For those that do not, the person who did not get paid inevitably thinks they were defrauded. Sometimes, that is true. However, often, the the party defaulting ends up bankrupt losing everything. That never seems to make any difference to the person who did not get paid.

What happened here? I have no idea. I don't care. I will continue my subscription.

I wish both parties the best. Both have undergone traumatic events that I would wish on no one.

I do not subscribe to this report nor know much about it, but it really seems odd that either party would air it out here.....

What is to be gained?

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:
I'm telling you. We need a special AR "No Holds Barred" cage so we can work this stuff out the right way. with good old fashioned, well regulated and televised violence.

(Count....3....2....1 for one of our lawyers to make a disclaimer against this post.) Those dudes have no sense of humor, or fighting skills apparently.

AR IS a no holds barred forum.

It is an open public forum, with hardly any moderation.

Every one is free to state their case.

quote:

Originally posted by dogcat:
I do not subscribe to this report nor know much about it, but it really seems odd that either party would air it out here.....

What is to be gained?

My guess :
HR was sold
New owners got into difficulty and missed payments and interest.
New owner was scrambling to make the best of a bad situation. Assets were transferred out to another company, leaving shell of the former company and a personal guarantee on the hook for the loan.
No more blood in the turnip, so now a pound of flesh is the price.

Sad all the way around.

Yup.

Sad situation. I have had positive dealings with both Don Causey and Barbara Crown. Though not perfect, it seemed to me that the Hunt Report was the best ~independent source/recourse in the hunting world.

It seems pretty simple to me; there are two courses of action; The two parties sit down and work out a private agreement and then move on and make this bad situation old news and a distant memory.

Or everybody start paying lawyers $350 bucks an hour and total destroy the Hunt Report and one another financially. When the dust settles the lawyers make money and there is nothing left to salvage.

Hopefully it's not too late. Choose wisely.

I don't give a damn either way but the suicide is especially troubling. None of this could be worth a man's life.

Jeff

Sad to read this.

She has lost her husband and all her assets.

What more can you take from her?

And that is exactly why one removes emotion from business dealings...

Barbra my deepest condolences on the death of your husband. Having a business fail with all of the ramifications, including the mental depression and the loss of your reputation as well as of loosing everything in bankruptcy Is indeed a heavy load . I have been a scribbler to HR for many years and plan on continuing my subscription . I have submitted several reports and find Barbra to thorough and professional . I read the report summary every month and find it very informative. Barbra presents both sides and lets the reader make up his or her own mind.