@ColoKate63 wrote:

@johnb974 wrote:

If anyone wants to do this, open up an account at another bank and keep the bare minimum in the account.

I think you’d have to completely lose your last shred of brain activity if you entrusted ANY bank login to these folks. Dwolla is small developer located in Des Moines, Iowa. They have already been subjected to some serious fraud investigations, nonetheless. That is not a track record to be proud of... or to trust.


I feel very, very sorry for the 3,000 Sentry Marketing shoppers who, according to the owner’s posts, have blindly entrusted their confidential financial information to the Dwolla-Plaid IAV. Not all of us have the luxury of an involuntary snow day to sit at home, make a phone call, and research before we click “Accept.”

I've had my own debit account hacked. I never gave anyone my information. But it interesting it's was hacked shortly after I used the card for a gas station audit. In an area that was run down. Now I keep very little money in it.

@ColoKate63

It's funny that you accuse me of gaslighting this community when that is exactly what you are doing. You've taken information out of context, ignored information that doesn't support your conclusion and ignored direct questions that challenge your motivations. Moreover, there are dubious claims about conversations with your bank and colleagues.

It's clear that you came here to stir the pot and nothing more.

Regardless of what you claim, the Sentry team respects shoppers and we demonstrate it with our actions each and every day. We take our data privacy seriously and this is clearly identifiable in the Sentry Payment Application (SePA) (SSL, Two Factor Authorization login, tokenization of sensitive information, etc.)

If any member of this forum has questions about SePA or our company, please feel free to reach out to me directly at dave@sentrymarketing.com or by emailing help@sentrymarketing.com. Otherwise, this thread has run its course and should be closed by the mods.

LOL, not your thread, dude. Not your forum. Not your call to close threads.

If you didn’t want to go one-on-one with shoppers who know their way around some pretty basic internet searches- you shouldn’t have asked. Your mistake.

Don’t think I called my bank this afternoon?
Didn’t think I’d write a couple of emails?
Wrong.
That’s how I found out how deeply untrustworthy the Dwolla firm, based out of Des Moines, is.
Face it: you jumped in, underestimating us, and got scorched. Owned. Pelosi’d.

I made one mistake, based on how Dwolla was spoken about by my bank - I called it a “Federal prosecution.” It was an INVESTIGATION. I stand corrected.

Now, I’m becoming VERY interested in what the ties are between Dwolla and Sentry Marketing. Why the stubborn insistence to use their IAV? Why does the Sentry ICA specifically note Dwolla as the only method of payment transfer? Most companies would choose another, more trustworthy, firm; there are multiple options.

I hope I have another snow day.

@ColoKate63

Let's be clear about a few things:

There is no "stubborn insistence" for shoppers to use IAV to verify their bank account. In fact, here is the exact text from the web page of our application:

Begin Text:
If you use IAV to add your bank account, your bank account login information is not stored in any place. The login information is only used to verify your bank account instantly than waiting 2 - 4 days for the micro-deposit verification to process.

If you prefer not to use IAV or do not use online banking, click the Add A Bank-Micro Deposits link to add your bank account. Micro-Deposit is a process where two small deposits (less than $1.00) are made into your bank account you use to make your initial deposit and you verify the two small deposits with us once they have been made into your account.
End Text

This is yet another example of you asserting your opinion as fact to make us look bad.

Nothing you found on the internet about Dwolla hasn't already been discussed in previous threads. In fact, we've been using Dwolla to process payment since January 2018.

There is no relationship between Sentry and Dwolla other than a contractual relationship for Sentry to use the Dwolla software to process direct deposit payments. You can continue with the innuendo and slander all you want but facts are stubborn things. You can also go on with the delusion that you speak for all shoppers. In reality, you don't.

You can claim that Dwolla is untrustworthy, however, this is nothing more than your opinion and you don't have much in the way of FACTS to back up the statement.

I think your motives on this thread are very transparent and not very noble. It's a disservice to members of this forum to spread misinformation for your own reasons.

I just want to state that the owner of @Sentry Marketing has doxxed me, gone onto my private Facebook page, and sent me messages tonight. I just saw them as I closed my browser for the night.

I have screenshot those messages and have blocked the owner of Sentry Marketing on Facebook.

I will be sending these screenshots to appropriate recipients. This is a clear violation of professional boundaries.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2019 05:40AM by ColoKate63.

If you didn't want to communicate with me on Facebook, why did you send me a friend request?

When will you stop misleading the members of this community?

@ColoKate63 wrote:

I just want to state that the owner of @Sentry Marketing has doxxed me, gone onto my private Facebook page, and sent me messages tonight. I just saw them as I closed my browser for the night.

I have screenshot those messages and have blocked the owner of Sentry Marketing on Facebook.

I will be sending these screenshots to appropriate recipients. This is a clear violation of professional boundaries.

Re: friend requests - There was a point, after my very first shopper conference, when I literally Facebook friend-requested every single person I met. At one point, I had roughly one hundred mystery shoppers, schedulers and company owners on my page. (I’ve learned my lesson, and cut WAY back. Not everyone you meet is your friend.) If I made a friend request, it was using my real first/last name.

A company owner should not use their database to “out” a shopper using an anonymous handle on a forum, and then proceed to send Facebook messages. Period. And just because, at a point in the past, I sent a friend request using my REAL identity- doesn’t justify doxxing. Even though I know the identity of Sentry Marketing’s owner, I wouldn’t “out” him. Not once in this thread have I used a first or last name.
It’s unprofessional.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2019 06:21AM by ColoKate63.

@ColoKate63 You sent me the friend request last August after a conversation about an issue that appeared in a shopper's Facebook group. Again, you are attempting to mislead members of this community.

I didn't out you in any way, shape or form. That statement is demonstrably false.

I reached out to you directly because your comments in this thread are completely out of line as are your efforts to discredit Sentry. I have no idea what you are referring to with your claim of "doxxing". This would seem to be yet another example of you misleading this community.

We have widely differing accounts of virtually everything. I recall making your acquaintance at the first conference that I attended, and making the request then. Whatever.

The bottom line:

Sentry Marketing does not treat shoppers with the same professionalism that other mystery shopping companies do. Over and over, the evidence is there: over a decade of bad behavior towards shoppers. Frankly stated, I don’t like your company and the way you operate. I briefly did a handful of shops for Sentry, didn’t like it, won’t ever do it again. I don’t like my work enriching companies that I don’t align values with.

Yes, I get emotional when I see shoppers treated poorly. Yes, my sympathies are with shoppers and not with company owners. Absolutely. Not going to deny it. After a decade in the industry, I’ve both experienced first-hand fraud at the hands of companies and read/heard some pretty awful things.

And yes, reading here today that Sentry was asking shoppers to submit bank account/passwords alerted me to the possibility that shoppers were, once again, being set up for mistreatment.

I stand by my original research into Dwolla, the security of IAV, and my recommendation that shoppers NOT choose this.

This thread, like so many others online, is part of a body of evidence that you constantly view your shoppers as somehow significantly inferior to yourself. Here’s some news: we aren’t inferior. We are highly attuned to B.S., gaslighting and power plays. Observing behavior and objectively reporting on it is literally what we DO. We observe your behavior towards our colleagues, make observations, and you go ballistic, time and again.

Words are cheap, @Sentry Marketing. You can use all the language that you can muster to describe how you value shoppers (without whom your company would not exist, and whose efforts in the field make you your money), but your actions speak much louder.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2019 07:33AM by ColoKate63.

@ColoKate63

I've never attended a conference so it would have been possible for you to meet me at a conference.

You are entitled to your opinion of Sentry, however, that doesn't make anything you say about our company true. Similarly, you can stand by your research of Dwolla and all of the slanderous things you've said about the company, but that doesn't make anything you've claimed true.

In my opinion, you saw an opportunity to denigrate Sentry and jumped into this thread to do just that.

I'm sorry, but you have zero room to talk about gaslighting, misleading and power plays. Throughout this thread, you've selectively quoted text, misinterpreted information, claimed to have dubious conversations and employed other techniques to back into your claims.

We've done NOTHING wrong by offering shoppers the OPTION of Instant Account Verification to verify their bank account in lieu of microdeposits. It's telling that of the 3,000+ shoppers that have registered accounts, we've received only a few inquiries about IAV and even fewer objections. Nothing you've claimed about IAV being highly risky is true and in fact, none of it makes sense. Banks would never allow a software to connect to their platform if the software did not meet the bank's security and data protection requirements.

We do agree that words are cheap and actions are meaningful. Where it comes to respecting shoppers, I'll stand by my actions and the actions of my team. As I said earlier, you are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts. Your claims that Sentry is benefiting from IAV and that we are mistreating shoppers are nothing more than baseless slander based on your bias against our company.

Is David still working at Sentry?

Do you even know what "dox" means? Where did he post your contact info? I don't see it here.

I haven't worked for Sentry in several years. When I lived in Tampa, they offered my favorite shops and were consistently helpful. I hope to do more work for them now that I am back in the game.

Even now, you're getting calm, sensible responses to kinda outlandish claims. More than kinda. I can see why you think you've been treated as inferior. Your behavior is low.

@1cent wrote:

Do you even know what "dox" means? Where did he post your contact info? I don't see it here.

Doxxing is the “outing” of a private individual, often at the hands of an internet-based group such as 4chan, Anonymous or a Reddit sub that works to identify a person based on clues found online.

It can also involve using proprietary information - in this case, a shopper database with locations, names, and other identifying information - in order to identify and retaliate against a poster in an anonymous forum.

Before the boot licking goes full-force, 1Cent, I’d encourage you to take a look at Sentry’s posting history here. He’s got quite the record in this forum...

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2019 08:31AM by ColoKate63.

Yeah, I know what doxxing is.

So how were you outed? It seems you received a private message?

@ColoKate63 wrote:

@1cent wrote:

Do you even know what "dox" means? Where did he post your contact info? I don't see it here.

Doxxing is the “outing” of a private individual, often at the hands of an internet-based group such as 4chan, Anonymous or a Reddit sub that works to identify a person based on clues found online.

It can also involve using proprietary information - in this case, a shopper database with locations, names, and other identifying information - in order to identify and retaliate against a poster in an anonymous forum.

Before the boot licking goes full-force, 1Cent, I’d encourage you to take a look at Sentry’s posting history here. He’s got quite the record in this forum...

Yes, I received private messages on my Facebook page, which is in no way linked to my anonymous handle here.

This has happened before, to other shoppers. It is quite unnerving, as it is no doubt intended to be.

You know, that’s enough to say. Someone contacting you outside the forum bothers you. The forum has a private message option. There was no reason to move the conversation to Facebook.

Totally fair.

The reality is that @ColoKate63's claim that she was "doxxed" is not true.

Yeah, that was sorted out.

@Sentry Marketing wrote:

The reality is that @ColoKate63's claim that she was "doxxed" is not true.

This is confusing. if Sentry has never been to a conference and Colo is convinced she met him there, maybe she has trouble getting all of the facts straight with other things too? I just read this whole thing and I trust what MF says about this IAV and they offer other options. The confusing thing to me is why if there are other options is there a reason to go on and on about the one option?

@1cent wrote:

You know, that’s enough to say. Someone contacting you outside the forum bothers you. The forum has a private message option. There was no reason to move the conversation to Facebook.

Totally fair.

I agree with that. All conversations on here should stay on here. That being said, I would NEVER give out my bank log in information to ANYONE.

@ColoKate63 wrote:

We have widely differing accounts of virtually everything. I recall making your acquaintance at the first conference that I attended, and making the request then.

@Sentry Marketing wrote:

@ColoKate63 I've never attended a conference so it would have been possible for you to meet me at a conference.

This whole thing seems Much Ado About Nothing. But I'm curious what conference ColoKate is talking about? IMSC? MSPA? Has Sentry never attended the IMSC conferences?

Dave at Sentry did this to me, too. Outed my identity after I had the audacity to be critical of dwilla, even taking it to another level by posting my real identity and complaint on the IMSC board.
I would like to know how Dave knew my real identity, when only 2 other posters here knew who SS4U was.
Dave thought that the IMSC would intervene, and they did not. Then came the private messages he sent me via Facebook when we were never friends on FB in the first place. Outrageous and unprofessional behavior, to say the least, so, yes, Dave at Sentry doxxed me, but he had help.

Your claim that I "outed" you is misleading. I posted a comment on a private group to express my feelings about the content of your post here. I did not mention you by screen name or real name.

You chose to join that discussion without revealing that you were the OP here. I felt that was a bit deceptive, so I commented in a reply to you that were indeed the OP here. Moreover, you've stated that you stand behind your post and have nothing to hide, so I don't understand why you are claiming that I "outed".

After you asked me to take it off-line in the group, I sent you three messages on Sunday in reply to your post reminding you of your obligations under the ICA. These are the first and only messages I sent you via Facebook messenger. You chose to reply here, in public, instead of via Facebook

@SS4U wrote:

Dave at Sentry did this to me, too. Outed my identity after I had the audacity to be critical of dwilla, even taking it to another level by posting my real identity and complaint on the IMSC board.
I would like to know how Dave knew my real identity, when only 2 other posters here knew who SS4U was.
Dave thought that the IMSC would intervene, and they did not. Then came the private messages he sent me via Facebook when we were never friends on FB in the first place. Outrageous and unprofessional behavior, to say the least, so, yes, Dave at Sentry doxxed me, but he had help.

Dave, just stop it already ! I deactivated with Sentry over this dwilla payment method. Sentry lost an excellent 9.5+ rated shopper over dwilla and your shocking unprofessional response, and who knows how many others deactivated, as well. In addition, I do not need you to school me in what it is to be an independent contractor. I have been an IC for 30+ years, thank you very much. You were wrong in how you chose to handle this.

@SS4U You posted information on this site about me that was misleading and inaccurate. The members of this community deserve better. Therefore, I copied and pasted the exact response I posted when you made this false claim last August.

I made no false claims, and you know it. You do doxxx posters here, and you know you do, because you did it to me. We both know you had help in getting my real name, right ? So how did that work out for you ? As for me, business gets better and better.

I had no help in determining who you were. It was quite clear based on the comments you made to our staff and the comments you made in your post on this forum.

Your claim that I "doxxed" you is demonstrably false.

@SS4U wrote:

I made no false claims, and you know it. You do doxxx posters here, and you know you do, because you did it to me. We both know you had help in getting my real name, right ? So how did that work out for you ? As for me, business gets better and better.

Dave, you had no business whatsoever taking this to the IMSC board in the first place, and you used my real same, too. This thread discussion should have remained here on this forum only. We both know why you did that, and that was to shut me down by embarrassing me. You do doxxx posters here, which is counter-productive and childish. I had a great year last year as a shopper and plan to have an even better year in 2019.

@SS4U The last time I checked, this is a free country and people are free to express their opinions. I vented in a PRIVATE group ABOUT your post without mentioning your screen name. You are the one who chose to comment about that post while failing to acknowledge that you were the author of the original post. Moreover, you repeatedly stated that you stood behind what you posted and had nothing to hid.

Your faux outrage is nothing more than a reason to come on here and trash Sentry.