To Whom It May Concern,
Thank you for interest in my attempt to report a bad experience that I had with Poetry.com which happens to be an affiliate of or is supported by ILP. I was going to let the experience serve as a lesson to me and move on. After reading your information, I changed my mind because no one should be taken advantage of and exploited especially children and teenagers.
My bad experience did not result in monetary loss but I was hurt because many of my friends and associates supported me in a Poetry Bash Competition and wasted their valuable time in a worthless pursuit.
I was a contestant in the Poetry Bash Competition. I wrote a poem and submitted the poem to the competition. During the "semifinal" phase of the competition, my poem received the most votes. My poem advanced through the several phases of the 64 contestants, to the 16 contestants, to the 4 four contestants and then to the final two contestants.
When my competitor and I reached the final stage of the tournament, my poem was in the lead most of the day as it had been during the preceding week of the tournament.
At the very last minute of the tournament and after having had a substantial lead during the contestant, I knew something was awry when I came in second. It just did not make sense for my poem to lose after having a substantial lead for a considerable amount of time.in addition, many of my friends told me
that they were unable to hear the poem or vote for it because the the tournament would not allow them to vote due to some type of computer glitch.
After the contest was over I emailed a letter of inquiry to Poetry.com. The next day I noticed that my poems had been removed from the website without my permission. That removal prompted me to investigate Poetry.com on the website. I was surprised by the information I found.
After my research, I emailed a another letter to Poetry.com and asked them to remove my poetry from their website, mailing lists, emailing lists, poetry competition, newsletter and I told them not to publish my poetry in their anthology.
They responded to my request by putting all of my poems on their website, including the 4 poems that they had removed without my permission. I was very angry because in my opinion, they were being very arrogant. They removed the poems without my permission after I wrote an inquiry, but after I emailed a
formal withdrawal request to them they refused to do the very thing that I had asked them to do, remove my poems.
They emailed a response to me requesting an "Artist Release Form". I emailed another withdrawal letter to them asking them to remove my poetry.
I received another letter from them requesting the VIP number that had been assigned to me. I took exception to that because they should not have had to ask me for a registration (VIP) number that they had assigned to me.
They assigned the number so the number should have been easy for them to research, especially so in this day and age of computer technology. I responded to their requests and provided the VIP number. Well, lo and behold, I logged on to the website and what did I find?
All of my poetry was still on their website. I received some legal counseling and their advice to me was to write Poetry.com and order them to "cease and desist" using my name and
poetry at their website. I informed them that after my third response to them, I was not going to respond to them personally.
I made it very clear to them that from then on my legal representative would intercede on my behalf.
They removed my poetry from their website but they did not remove my name. I contacted them by email again and asked them to remove my name from their website and emphatically admonished them to remove my name and make a clear distinction to any viewers of the website that Elaine Denise McMahan was no
longer on the website.
Their is another person on the website named Elaine McMahan, however, her middle name is Carol. Because of this coincidence, I strongly and definitely ordered them to make the removal of my name and distinguish Elaine Carol McMahan from Elaine Denise McMahan. I received a terse reply stating that it would take 3 to 5 weeks to remove my name. I don't believe that for one second. I know that they are not a huge conglomerate where intense research would be necessary. I believe that they
are being difficult and mean spirited.
If you are able to offer any constructive suggestions, I am more than willing to take them under advisement. I didn't buy any of their anthologies and I didn't attend any of their conferences, workshops or conventions in Washington, D.C. I was very fortunate from that aspect. However, I am very supportive of any organizations and groups of concerned individuals who want
to protect innocent people from being taken advantage of.
If this correspondence can help someone else, then I will be very satisfied.
Thank you for your assistance and please keep up the good work. Bless your hearts. Best wishes for continued success.
Best Regards,
[email protected]
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