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| Brooks Cole, CEO of HoloCosmos William Brooks Cole, HoloGenesis, HoloCosmos REVIEW: Brooks Cole and HoloCosmos - Trusting Brooks Cole Cost Me Almost E |
| 22nd of Dec, 2011 by User791690 |
| It is with deep regret that I file this report. For two years I held out hope that Brooks Cole of HoloCosmos, who markets himself to transformational leaders and spiritual teachers would start fulfilling on his promises to me and my team. It has now been more than two years since I hired Brooks Cole and HoloCosmos for a project he said he could do in the two month time-frame I required. Over these last two years I have spent innumerable hours and exhausted numerous approaches to work with Brooks Cole, to get him to keep appointments, to keep his promises, to meet deadlines, and ultimately to settle things and obtain a refund and resolution. All to no avail. At the bottom of this report I list some suggestions for due diligence for those considering hiring Brooks or working for Brooks. In December 2009, Brooks Cole made promises to deliver a web site and related services to me within a two month time frame. I paid him US$20,000 ($10,000 up front and $10,000 about 2 months later) to deliver the services and material promised. A year and a half ago, I couldn't stomach filing a complaint on RipOffReport. Even though I felt I'd been ripped off, I just didn't think it would be fair to you to have the record online forever. I wanted to give Brooks every chance possible to make things right. I had big projects which depended on the timely launch of the web site, and after most of his missed appointments and deadlines, Brooks repeatedly promised and reassured me that he and his team would work diligently to meet deadlines and deliver beyond and above their promises, assuring me that I'd get more value than what I paid for. Week after week Brooks missed deadlines, missed appointments, gave excuses and in at least one case outright lied that his girlfriend had been in an accident, then later admitting the lie. When he sent the bill for the second $10,000 to complete the project, he sent a general statement of work done, almost all of which had not been done. At the time he was also saying that he was "preparing for the final push" of the site, and leading me to believe the project was nearly finished when it had barely been started. I sent the payment as I had no real way to verify what had been done other than his word, only to learn later he was repeatedly lying to buy time. After months went by, Brooks revealed that his company was having financial troubles and had been having them for a while. He had made no mention of this to me when he made his initial promises, but rather had acted as if everything with his organization was going great. On Brooks' recommendation for professional video for the site, I invested many thousands of dollars in video and other material to go with the web site Brooks had promised, and have been unable to capitalize in the money paid to Brooks and invested in the video due to Brooks failure to deliver on his promises. It was so difficult to deal with Brooks after a while that I hired a project manager. This made no difference, however, as Brooks continued to avoid contact, miss appointments, make excuses and empty promises. In May 2010, six months after the agreement and four months behind schedule, I bought a round-trip airline ticket on my own dime, and flew to California from Texas to meet Brooks in person and see what was going on. Reluctant to take him to court and cause him additional stress and financial loss, I had suggested that I could fly there and stay with him for several days to work on the site together, holding his hand if need be. He welcomed the idea. Once I arrived, Brooks continually had things come up, and asked to postpone working together to deal with crises and new, exciting opportunities for the growth of his business. I learned he was behind on other big projects, including Gary Zukav's Seat of the Soul web site. While there in good faith, I attempted to make his job easier, and reduce the stress he was facing--going so far as to cook him breakfast, make him coffee, listen to the problems he was facing, etc. He accomplished virtually nothing towards my project during my time there, but he managed to convince me that with renewed promises for quickly finishing the project "above and beyond" what he'd originally promised. Back in Texas, as Brooks continued to make promises, miss appointments and break promises, apologize, make excuses and new promises, I grew increasingly frustrated. I shared my frustration with Brooks, and tried everything I knew to resolve things. Eventually I decided I would try to ask other people, who knew us both, to help us broker a mutually honoring resolution. I informed Brooks of this in advance and he welcomed it, but then did not participate. As I spoke with people he was working with, I discovered that there were at least several others who were highly frustrated with Brooks, including a person who worked for him to whom Brooks allegedly owed $10,000, and was dealing with Brooks broken promises; and the people at Seat of the Soul who said they were months behind schedule, having many troubles with Brooks. At this point, I grew increasingly angry with Brooks and my own choice to continually trust him and give him more chances. I eventually became clear that I could no longer work with Brooks and insisted on his return of the money I paid him. Over these two years all that I have received from Brooks that I can use with my site is a one word logo, which I chose the font for. My choice to trust Brooks Cole and HoloCosmos/HoloGenesis has been the single most costly and painful experience of my nearly twenty years in business. Repeatedly trusting Brooks Cole to keep his word resulted in me losing far more than the $20,000 I paid him. The impact of my choice to trust Brooks Cole and HoloCosmos has been a loss of about $50,000 not including lost revenues, time trying to communicate with Brooks over two years, and great emotional stress. I would not be posting this review publicly if Brooks had made a serious effort towards resolving things with me, or gave me some sliver of hope that he is not still doing business in the same way. I have given Brooks over two years to take action towards making things right, but he continues to avoid any serious efforts towards resolving things. Having recently seen a video of Jack Canfield endorsing Brooks Cole and Brooks' slick HoloCosmos web site promoting even project(s) that he made messes of, I refuse to remain silent any longer; because many people may implicitly trust Jack and thus trust Brooks as I did when he dropped names of clients like Jack Canfield and Gary Zukav. I have good reason to believe that if I remain silent, well-intentioned people in the transformational leadership and teacher/author arena who are risking their their time, their energy and their money to make a difference could lose tens of thousands of dollars, lots of energy and years of time (as I have)—and whose businesses, employees, customers and reputations could be jeopardized (as mine was)—and who’s heart-centered and life-saving programs might have to be canceled (I had to cancel my retreat for soldiers who are defying military orders to stand for their conscience and for peace, which was absolutely heartbreaking for me and my team as these iStands have been known to save lives and Brooks knew we were counting on him to successfully launch this event.). Due Diligence Suggestions: 1 – See how Brooks highlights doing a major project for Gary Zukav and Seat of the Soul’s web project for Gary’s new book and course on Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power. Then go see how Brooks Cole of his company HoloCosmos are conspicuously absent from the site credits for Spiritual Partnership and Seat of the Soul. 2 – See if you can get in touch with people who worked with Brooks on the Seat of the Soul’ web site, especially those on the Seat of the Soul team. 3 – Notice how Brooks has had the time to create a compelling presentation and portfolio boasting his work with Gary Zukav, and to continually seek new business (perhaps yours), while continuing to offer excuses for not completing work he has been paid for or beginning to repay those whose money he’s taken in exchange for his promises–and while making no mention of how Gary and his team feel about working with him. And at the very least be careful about paying him in advance. 4 – Check out Jack Canfield’s testimonial for Brooks, and then take note that Jack is Brook’s most famous and high profile client. Brooks often told me his work with Jack Canfield and Gary Zukav meant he had no time for me. If you are not a well-known, high-profile name, then you may wish to take this into consideration. In closing I regret that it has come to this–posting publicly online, but I feel I had to do it. Resorting to initiating a criminal case against Brooks and engaging in a costly law suit has been held as my last resort, but one I am prepared to initiate when I return to the states after a year sabbatical in South America. I realize confronting Brooks on this publicly may result in an even greater cost to my time, energy, business and reputation, if Brooks attempts to have his attorney try to shut me up. What I have realized out of all of this, though, is I won’t remain silent to save my business or to avoid being sued or losing money or esteem of others. In these times of growing change and uncertainty, we need to be able to trust each other. I won't be silenced. |
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