Studio calico does it again

It really frustrates me when a company does not keep the agreements of a company that they purchase. Is there no legal recourse?

Another one who wants to know!  

I also find find it implausible that she didn't fully know the unhappiness with Studio Calico.  She is a smart woman with her pulse on the industry so it makes nonsense to me that she wouldn't know.

Wait...what? A marketing tool? They had no intention of making good on that? Sounds like false advertising to me!

I don't really feel like I have much of a voice in this as I checked and only have two paid classes at BPC - but thought I would add my two cents.. One of my classes is coming over and one is not. The one that isn't is May Flaum's class Kit-tastic. I decided to watch some videos today and at the end of one May talks about how access is forever and to not worry if you can't get to it now... I thought that was interesting. I have heard that forever access was really accentuated there so all of this does seem odd.

As far as SC goes, I am guessing they really didn't know how bad the technology was there when they bought it. Or maybe they thought it would be easier. As someone who has been involved with various companies as clients and family members who have bought or sold, there are always changes when companies are bought and there are always surprises when you are buying or selling. It just happens. However the part I am wondering is if SC really realized what a negative impact this would have - I really don't think they did and I really think a lot of people bought classes mainly bc of forever access and the fact that you can't buy them past a certain date - so basically bought bc of the hype, fear of missing out, etc. Now they feel cheated which makes sense. I know I have bought SC classes for some of these same reasons and am mostly glad I did. However I prefer Online Card Classes format where you can buy while live or buy later. Anyways, It would be tough to lose access now though especially the gallery and message board. As I was looking through kit-tastics message board I was thinking how much good content was there and it would feel really crappy to lose all that for 100 plus classes like some ladies have.

With all that said, my take on it is it does not really make financial sense to keep the forever access and BPC /SC had two choices- keep forever access and BPC potentially become the next two peas or let it go and try and create something that will last and make financial sense. Honestly at this point SC might have been better off becoming a competition for BPC as it doesn't seem that BPC had the sustainability to keep going - funds and the want to as the owners seemed beyond burned out.

Bottom line is it is a crappy situation. BPC made promises they could not keep but not really understanding that and now customers are rightfully upset and probably going to jump ship. If any competition is considering a class based business, I would say that the time is now - unfortunately for BPC and SC.

Yes, it also included comments along lines that the masses weren't capable of understanding what they were about- BPC operating at such an esoteric artistic level as they were...

RE: The 'so there' incident. From what I remember from posts at the time. Stacy was emailing Heidi her support ended the letter with the famous "so there". She accidentally hit reply all or somehow replied to all the the emails so everyone who complained got that letter. Of course this quickly got posted on 2Peas and the smack blog. This was close to the time the Hall of Fame accusations of cheating and the leaking of the Garden Girl forum posts were happening. It was like a big soap opera for quite a while.

TracieClaiborne - thanks for shedding some light and perspective on the situation.  I wasn't really familiar with how everything went down.  

As someone who actually took the fore mentioned Heidi Swapp class, I think that the "So there" added to the owl post and the military people are dying post(as veteran I found that offensive), was the finale straw for a lot of people. By March of a year long class, you could tell Heidi was already phoning it in. Green popcorn anyone? People were right to complain that they were not getting their money's worth. BPC and Stacy did not handle justified criticism well. They in my opinion took everything too personally and instead of trying to make things right tried to make the consumers look/feel bad. We were offered pro-rated refunds which I took, but never received. I took a 2-3 year break from BPC.

Do I hold a grudge against Stacy? No. I have taken more classes and to be honest, I have not been impressed with most of them. Part of that is as a long time scrapbooker, it is getting harder and harder to impress me. Maybe I've outgrown them. That said there will be very little I'll be downloading. I am not surprised and not upset by this development.

All of this reeks of typical SC business practices. I don't have a dog in the fight ie no BPC classes) but I feel bad for the people who do. April Foster has never done the right thing when it comes to these kinds of mishaps. The sad thing about it is that I'm sure that when the vast majority of people bought classes from BPC they never thought that it would end up in her clutches. Its like buying champagne then getting it home only to realize its cheap beer.

Forever access really doesn't seem like a reasonable promise.
Companies go out of business etc.
2 to 3 years maybe after the class you have access.
If you really like something at the time then down load it now. You really don't know if it will be there tomorrow.

Ok I didn't realize they said access would remain the same.
Yeah that's not cool.

Its funny, I GET the whole technology argument, and I can understand why forever access is not going to happen. I think that if SC and Stacy Julian had handled things a lot better, like detailed the reasons why and showed customers a little respect maybe the reaction wouldn't be as strong.

meganliane and scrappyesq I agree with you. I'm surprised how annoyed I am about this. It's partly due to seeing scrapbook companies make amateur-style decisions- again! A professional announcement and recognition of customer needs would have gone a long way!

I get it, most of these women found an unexpected career in scrapbooking, but it's as if they've never been customers anywhere. Surely they could imagine how we would react?

There's too much self absorption.

In what other industry would an owner tell customers she never intended to be in business? Where else would an owner use this to justify an action? She has taken our money for YEARS, it is a business.

I probably would have taken Stacy's blog post to heart except for when she said she wasn't a business person. Really? So what exactly do you call someone selling things and making a profit?