212-920-8181

this post is for Itron! I hope that you're NOT the VP of sales or marketing for your company, because if you are then that's one scary thing. have you read all the post on this site? do you think people just come on here and make up stuff about this company? everything that is said on this site is the TRUTH! you are real stupid if you think that the ad you placed in their publication goes out to everyone they say, and you're even more stupid if you think that they deliver with the delegates they say would be down at the summit.

Do your research pal and stop being such a dumb ass!

This message has been forwarded to Itron for review.  There is reason to believe this was not written by an actual Itron employee.

Unfortunately my company is bombarded with calls from this out fit. We have seen some of our competitors advertising with them and at first I laughed.

Now however I will be contacting them all, to make sure this kind of organisation does not get the credibility added to it, by having sponsors of this nature paraded on their web site!

Who would you consider to be a worse human being;
1. Rob Davis
2. Spencer Green

hands down

look more people need to know about this company.. doing a search it is hard to locate lots of information to make people aware.. some people need to find more resources and ways to expose this company

It's going to be hard to do that when clearly whoever is doing there SEO is kind of brilliant.  Run a quick organic  search on "rip off" or "scam" + GDS and nothing appears.  They must be in touch with a third party who handles reputation management, though I'm surprised they've overlooked the phone number.

Someone should start a site, gdspublishingisascam.com

The way I get around this is by asking my editorial/propaganda team to publish stories of scams in other businesses... What this means is everytime anyone searches GDS scam, rip off etc etc, the first 20 pages only show stories relating to interviews/articles written by my employees

i think creating the website is a great idea, but i also think letting their clients know of their scams is a MUST! Anyone that know of the companies that they are working with should list them on here, and we should contact the companies to let them know about GDS's scams. The reason why they are still in business is because companies are still continuing to work with them, because they don't do enough research about GDS.

this made me laugh - GDS pitch

http://stanford.wellsphere.com/healthcare-ind ... magazine/749811

Can you share any more info on how these people operate? They have been calling me and my staff non stop with very aggressive sales pitches and pretending to be associated with CITIBANK. Does their 100thousand club magazine actually exist?
Thanks for any updates !
LES

Beware Executive Healthcare Management Magazine

I returned to the office the other day to find a message saying that an individual from GDS Healthcare had called for me. The message stated that she had been referred to me from various healthcare executives including people at one of the top academic medical center in the country (She mentioned the medical center by name – I’m not mentioning them here because I don’t want to link their exceptional brand with this story of deception). Purportedly she was interested in speaking to me about the hand hygiene programs my company has developed. I was recently interviewed about hand hygiene and the swine flu by USA Today, so the call didn’t seem that out of the ordinary. I did a Google search, learned that GDS International is some kind of publishing company, and wrongly assumed that she was a reporter contacting me about a story.

So, I called this individual back, expecting to be a source for an article on patient safety. Eventually we connected by phone. We spent 10 or 15 minutes talking about hand hygiene and patient safety, and she once again reiterated that she’d been given my name from a number of sources, including the folks at this major academic medical center. Things seemed to be going well.

Here Comes the Sales Pitch

Okay, I was wrong. Eventually this individual got around to the sales pitch. Once again she stated that she is working directly with a prominent physician at this world renowned academic medical center (I know the physician by reputation) and a top official at the CDC on an upcoming report in Executive Healthcare Management. According to this individual, the November issue will have a special focus on hand hygiene and infection control. Based on recommendations from industry leaders, GDS wanted Jennings (my firm) to participate in the November issue, to the tune of $17,000. We would be featured in Executive Healthcare Management along with other companies working to eliminate hospital acquired infections including Kimberly Clark Healthcare, Medline and Ecolab – all big names in the industry. For $17,000 we would have a full-page corporate profile in the magazine, have the opportunity to contribute editorial, and be included in both print and online versions. Yikes. I’m not buying editorial coverage in Executive Healthcare Management, even if I was recommended by various healthcare leaders (which seems dubious at this point).

How do you recognize one of these calls? The sales pitch is always the same. The sales person will tell you there are only a few spaces remaining and she is heading into an editorial meeting and would like to be able to tell them that you are participating. They always need an answer asap. There’s lots of urgency. If you don’t have an answer immediately, they will work to schedule a follow-up time to speak with you, so they can close the deal. And they will follow up. I promise. I’ve seen this work in the financial industry, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare.

I didn’t see it coming.

So I’ve seen this pitch more than a dozen times but didn’t see this one coming. The sales call came in the context of phone calls we receive periodically from reporters and hospitals around the county inquiring about our hand hygiene campaign. And the sales person used a “recommendation” from a leading academic medical center and an association with the CDC to give her call added credibility. I was hooked, like a novice, before I figured it out.

Do the CDC and the academic medical center know?

What I was left to wonder is whether or not these executives from this academic medical center and the CDC realize what these people from GDS Publications are doing in their name? I could not believe that these prominent physicians had authorized this salesperson from GDS to use their names to help them sell advertising in the publication. From my perspective, they are using an initially deceptive practice. They are using the medical center’s brand as a door opener without revealing up front that this is a sales call. I know that some of these publications go into organizations offering to do profiles at no charge, in exchange for a list of vendors that the magazine will approach for advertising. I’m not a fan of that breed of publishing because the vendors often feel pressured into advertising because they were recommended by a client. They feel obligated. Not good.

So, I emailed the physician at the academic medical center, as well as the executive at the CDC, to let them know about my experience with this publication and how they are being appropriated for this purpose. I have connected with the academic medical center. They are not happy! The physician and the public affairs staff had no idea that this was going on. They are not collaborating with the publication on a special issue, but the physician was interviewed for a story in the issue. And they did not give my company’s name to the publishing company as a potential advertiser or participant in the special issue. I have been assured that they are going to contact the leadership of the publishing company to register their displeasure! The folks at the CDC have also assured me that they are following up with Executive Healthcare Management. So this story may have a happy ending.

In the end my message is clear: Beware the cloaked sales pitch from Executive Healthcare Management magazine. My experience may be unique, but I doubt it. This felt like a very well honed sales program. You can check out Executive Healthcare Management at http://www.executivehm.com.

Post by Dan Dunlop, The Healthcare Marketer

they lie about everything. be careful if they try calling you for one of their events. they'll drop big CIOs name and say so and so recommended your company and tell you they have all these references. i wouldn't be surprised if you ask for a reference and they gave you some random name and # and say he or she is from this company and  it's really one of the GDS staffs pretending to be that person.

Yo yo...I'm a former employee who still has all their documentation they gave me the first day - i.e. first weeks training manual, pitches, employee manual...vote of responses who think I should mail it all in to D.As office???

make a copy and keep one for yourself - mail the rest to the CIA

well, thinking logically. Set up a blog account on google. Call it GDSInternationalScam or wprds tot that effect. Allow posts on the blog, google spiders pick it up and boom, more of the world knows.......whos going to do it?

ITS DONE.......POST DETAILS AND COMMENTS HERE, LETS TEAR THEM A NEW ONE!!!!

http://gdsinternationalscam.blogspot.com/

this is great. i'm a total supporter of this. this will let more people know about this company. i don't know why damien munro's name is not mentioned, because he is the also the person behind all their lies. i think he is the GM there and is the biggest follower and will do anything to keep his job. he is a horrible person. i was there for a little over 3 years and saw right through him. he pretends to be soft spoken and acts as though he cares about everyone and he doesn't. HE IS FAKE, A LIAR, AND A CHEAT! for companies that deal with him on sight at events please be careful. he'll most likely pull you into a room and try to smooth talk you into doing a rebook with him. you would think that someone who has a kid and wife would have a little bit of moral and standards, but if anything he is worse than all of them there. at least the other ones know they're scumbags and they don't try to hide it.