212-920-8181

Also a fair point you raise, however sometimes brand reputation is worth a bit of money to protect, especially when alleged endorsements can cause other companies to make a decision based on our
so-called endorsement and participation.

Believe it not, when we investigated the cost of proceeding it seemed like surprisingly good value, coupled with the ability to have costs ordered against GDS.

Besides, not everything is about ROI. Sometimes you have to spend money to make certain perceptions in the market clear. Consider it preventative treatment. The biggest benefit is making sure our name is never associated with GDS.

The guys from Gartner are currently doing the same thing because GDS claimed an association with them after Gartner caught on to them and ceased contributing. GDS continued to use their name in publications and in promotional packages to build credibility, and you'll even find a posting from them on here somewhere also saying that GDS is falsely using their name for credibility.

Either way, I think it would be an interesting exercise to see what happens.

I understand what GDS is like. I get the business model. Someone has to at some point decide that they cannot continue to operate. I believe that if they were operating legitimately and could quantify results and prove circulation and auditing, then there would be no issue, but the horror stories are everywhere and they can hardly be called isolated incidents.

I remember there being an issue with them in China doing NextGen events and then suddenly no longer being allowed to do so. It had something to do with falsely claiming to have access to the Ministry of Information Industry and the relevant minister.

It appears that the Chinese don't have an appetite for false representations on their behalf. I know that alleged access was an attractive hook for companies who wanted the access to Chinese business and government officials that GDS claimed they could provide.

I suppose it means essentially that if approached the right way, there is the possibility for success.

We will know soon enough and i'm looking forward to seeing what happens, although when one of our Regional Managers visited the UK office and announced who he was and where he was from and why he was there, people were decidedly panicked and he was confronted with people he said looked like they had just finished school. Certainly not high level executives! If their reaction was anything to go by, this should be interesting.

Well this is a bit of dilemma! I have an interview at the bristol office tomorrow for international sales executive and after reading this very long thread, have to say I am not looking forward to my interview at all. I'm now torn. I know morally, I cannot allow myself to work for a company based on false numbers and lies but I am also curious to see what it really is like. For me this is out of desperation. I need a job and money while I study to be a journalist. Very concerned.....

Hi Just want to say thanks , as if it was not for this site , i could of got stung , Down Here in Austraila they go by the company NGU ( next generation utilies) , they say they got my name from one of the CEO of Energy Austrialia , as one of only 3 companys he wants to deal with

Yeah right , well bussnness is a bit slow at the monemnt , so i thought ha i play along with this guy , any how had him trying to sell me a $49000.00 silver pacakge to summent at Versace Palazzo Gold Cosat Aust ,

He gave me acces to his list of the top CEOs that would be attending , lets just say i they were all the top names , he said they will sign contracts right there on the spot , wel that would be very good to any of you guys who have delt with goverment bodies

any how spread the word about these guys they are 90%  [***] and 10% fiction

Note GDS is now Going by the name NGU down under in Australia , dont be fooled by them they are a con and full of [***] 

NGU stands for Next Generation Utilites

Total scamers sell you tables to shows 'Summis" were the top utilities will sign contracts on the spot

yes big con

Is that wannabe tough guy greasy Ziggy still there talking lies and his usual crap about circulation? Glenn or is he finally playing football for Wales and selling porky pies? Baxy that caveman (good laugh he was) or have they send him back to the Army where he belongs? Is Ralphy (my top mate) still flirting with every girl (my old friend)? Jim still blackmailing everyone lying and harassing?? Frazier (that dude was cool all round honest is honest even at GDS he made the Events what they were half descent? Giggsy (poor guy) most deluded boy ever but when you get to know him he couldn't help himself really? Simmsy (top bloke)? Roscoe (top kid)? Ian HR that mini Spencer? ...Spence how can he fire his Welsh brothers one by one send them into the chopper, promote Ollie to some made up position when those are the guys who made him all his money, without them he would be just an ex-failed shrimp salesman trying to start his own fake publication!

Some guys were all right! Smarty stabbed a few in the back to get to where he is/was? that sell out mothf? snitch! That chappy was a true liar!

Why no one takes legal action?

I remember we did 3 deals with 3M on the basis that this dude was coming to speak from HSBC and talk about this and that well it ended up he didn't ever make nor gave any interviews- but no one came back for no leads and money wasted!
Or when they claimed they partner with Gartner! I guess companies have money to burn and throw away because when Ollie can get on the phone promise leads and circulation bring the deal down from 16 K to 2.5 K and then deliver on nothing and there will be no consequence something is wrong!

They must have a very good Legal team cos that Motley Crew got away with proper misrepresentation, breach of contracts, fraud etc etc etc....And even now al these people have to resort to this blog! That Company was build on lies and cheating...they got rid of the good guy's, the pitch is always designed to lie!

No one catches them and never will I wonder why?

Everyone knew this went on and did nothing....! Bristol Office was by far the worst! Cardiff was slightly better, New York not to far behind Bristol.  Senior Managers got away with 'A Lot' "muder' and now all this negative energy is coming right back at Spence cos he never gave a f..ck!

The Culture was screwed up...Managers would dial into your personal phone calls and re-dial to play pranks on your family. Seniors always trying to shag trainee's. Stealing leads! The best was a trainee geting a call back the manager firing him (by picking on him for sitting down) closing the deal at the end of the week to make his quota! I would love to give names but who cares?

You would have fun if you fit (ie was a [***] douche yourself or an easy attractive female)!

Pitching was straight scamming by pretending we did business with all of their competition! Get personal mobiles, fake accents, fake names, fake positions, fake voice tones, lines double cross (or someoneelse picks up your pitch! Say we got endorsements from EU, All the Banks HSBC, Deutsche, all of them! Gartner anything to close a cold deal (which lets be honest IS Hard and a lot of Work).

It got hard when Companies started blocking them.....but then new publications appeared out of thin air also with circulation more than the old ones!

They would pay for some suits and travel if you did well!
Drinking parties where the best.....go next day to work puke all over into the bin! No problem they would understand!

It was easy to become deluded..everything was designed for you to lose yourself and think this is normal! Those where the guys who watched boiler room and got the wrong lesson from it! In fact I think Spencer did too!

Humans were not Humans at GDS!
GDS is a Zoo with a lot of Animals !
Success was kinda short lived because they always wanted more money and promote you quickly so you keep bringing it, when you stop, hey we got another 10 23 year old just like you bye bye!

When I remember those Managers I think Why no one ever did [***] to them or about them?\\

I seen a lot of Dark stories there! Be very careful! Working at GDS is a Walk on the Dark side..OK if you can handle it, if you can't you're will get srewed!

The have recently opened their sales operation to Malaysia and keen to employ locals to push their web presence in Asia Pacific region.

Ask Questions?

If GDS was such a scam why would the company have  been in business for the past 17 years?

Why would they have consistent annual growth?

Why would Top Fortune 500 companies continue to do business with them?

Why would they partner with global leading analysts like IDC & Frost & Sullivan?

Whether you disgruntled ex-employees like it or not, GDS Events are leading the Industry.

The companies that participate see incredible ROI, and that's why they continue to work with them.

If everything was based off lies the company would have no repeat business...instead they have over 40% rebooks on all there summits!!!

So if it didn't workout for you because you didn't like standing up or making phone calls, then go be a social worker or a teacher. Either way, stop whining about how bad the company is, because whether you like it or not they are going to be around for a long time!!!!

Get Over It...and GROW UP!!! wah wah wah.. I had to make phone calls standing up!!! What a joke!!

You sold you soul to the Devil and you sound like it too! Good on ya! A model mindset!

You can start keeping your clients happy by telling them the truth about GDS their circulations and not all those objection responses you're brain washed with. We will find a cure for GDS or at least make it easier for others to in a short while, already I hear they got rid of Jim for harassment, well what about others!

Th fact is that to succeed there its not the standing or pitching you have to do very well its the [***] and the lying and that's how you make your money. Come here trying to display you are proud of [***] honest people out of their hard earned cash, talking like all that cheap sales crap they taught you what a loser!

Its obvious to obvious as far as hugs go just make sure you don;t end up getting too many of them yourself from a Lot of the Good Old boys down in the Dog Pound, which you may even enjoy from the sounds of it already...

Sell but don't Lie! don't prostitute the truth you ...well whatever!

THERE MUST BE A REAL STRONG EFFORT MADE TO STOP GDS PUBLISHING RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING IN UNIVERSITIES!

I'm sure there are plenty of people who would love that atmosphere and wouldn't mind pitching lies for money all day long, but a serious effort and awareness, even contacting appropriate authorities especially in Cardiff and Bristol educational campuses should be made and all GDS advertising should stop.  

No more brainwashing those Grads!

so shocked. GDS was at the Big East Career Fair last month and had a table set up with three men (one of which still smelled like alcohol from the night before) They played a nice video and showed us some dumb magazine and told us how "cool" it was to work for their company. I got a business card from Mike Deedigan (probably not even his real name?) and was told I could immediately get a job, and they hadn't even looked at my resume! When I got out the business card tonight and typed in GDS the following word was 'SCAM'. Thank god I did not get in contact with these crazy people, I'm definately telling all my other 50 friends who thought GDS sounded like a good place to start. Jeeeez!

Sounds about right.......not that you won't learn nothing there (you will learn the basic functions of business, words like ROI, corporate structures, the bare necessities of a pitch and how sales was done in the last century because GDS time stopped in late nineties when global economy was booming, money was everywhere and all you really had to do was get a made up mag made up publications and over zealous Grads to go pick it up for you, you can get millions, and they did). The way you will have to apply what GDS will teach is the problem. One lie after another your mental processing will evolve to treat sales like lies, start injecting lies everywhere (especially your self image) and getting away with [***] will become fun for you, you will get your leads stolen, treat poor secretaries as pure scum.....best is watching those managers operate when people call them tell them to tell them they never got leads (the standard objection response is 'we do not guarantee leads who told you oh well we fired him for promising leads to people' akin to the letter spence wrote Nick Mogull (some pure [***]).

Never understood the coke culture and never got the perks.......My own personal highlight was when their hot shot manager now Director promised to hire me a prostitute if I made my quota! And I've seen what happens to people who get into a little blip.....they soon find out the inhuman side of GDS very quickly. So far they have fired more people than perhaps any company in Bristol history.

Pitching wise it was hard to call and pitch an exec when others from your own team pitched him that same day. We double crossed territory, always clashed with other suckers from CXO or Cardiff Office and other campaigns from our own office, pitching in your territory and the embarrassing moments where when you hear them (execs) on the other line say 'somebody just pitched me for a round table from them, somebody just called from events, from CXO, or even Oil n GAS, or 'I can hear the sales manager shouting about the benefits'!

There is a reason why they look for Grads and its very cunning indeed. I feel to get youngsters in there and inject them with filth is the lowest of the low. Real world business is nothing like GDS culture. If they ever come close to anyone I care about and try to recruit them there will be consequences for those hyenas.  

Grads its always better with a real job which GDS isn't. Soon we will find the right people from Bristol and Cardiff Uni's to let them know about their advertising in Universities and about this blog.

Aren't you the worldwide sales director, ollie smart?

how come last week when I looked on here there were over 40 pages of complaints and blogs and now they are down to 31????

other fake names used:
Dave Kaplan
Valerie Goldstein
Robert Manning
Ben Halliday
Natalie Voss
Ryan Chase
although that smug little elf Rob Davis uses his real name, but I guess no need to use a fake one when your banging your employees

To the ex employees of GDS im sorry if [***] happened to you (thats if its true) maybe u hit a manager or director on a wrong day.. but to those secretaries commenting here (which i hope is your real identity) you are really cutting short of smartness when you dont handover the phone to your ceo's and md's or who ever you "assist", I have personally met some of the CIO's, CEO's MD's who literally had business leads generated from our summits events, of course we can guarantee that its going to be a success when they pitch each other in summits, but hey if GDS can guarantee 100% business returns, I should speak to SG to notch up the price for the events.

You may not know this, but you are not on the field either, if you think companies in general always followed the "right" way to bloom up in to a multimillion/billion dollar generator, you are so dead wrong, I run a business consulting firm that had actually been to events organised by GDS, I closed a 100,000 usd telecommunication deal with a telecoms giant. The client was pitched by another company who was pushing them for a 80,000usd solution (their product had no proper warranty coverage). I met the CIO he liked me, he liked the product and boom. Now of course I had problems getting through the CIO cause a secretary like you who dint have an idea on how to present my product pitched him in his office just a week earlier before i met him in the summit.

Now thats 1 story, I have 5 more leads that are amounting up to 2.5million in my pipeline, and from the looks of it, i can sit down for 2010, and cruise through out the year.

So too bad, GDS events are the best, and I know itll do better in the coming ones.

Ps. I just started work in my current company last year June.

Hi all,

I am probably going to piss you off but that's a chance I shall take, albeit anonymously. I am currently trying to apply for GDS and mostly it's because of this blog.

Seriously, getting to motorboat coke from some big secretaries tits [check].

Gaining a commission percentage that would be illegal anywhere else [check].

Getting management to buy drinks for you every Friday [check].

What do I have to do to deserve these unsavoury treats?

I have to rip off other businesses??? Wow that really puts me in a moral quandary and by that I, of course, mean [***] 'em!!

The main post here that made me definitely apply for GDS is the fact that one of you said that you can earn decent money here but you have to work like a dog. Kiddo, I have news for you - most jobs you have will have managers who expect you to work like a dog but none will reward you -you'll get minimum wage and I don't care how many degrees you have (I have three and that's my experience).

Ok so here's my actual point: Anyone here think it's possible to 'hit and run' GDS make a decent profit and bail out after six months? If I sound cynical it's because I am.

Probably  because 800notes checked the IP addresses and found that many of the posts came from the same IP address.

Scammers think they can post all they want under various names and not get caught - BUT THEY DO GET CAUGHT..

I might just have some really interesting call recordings that IT gave me if anyone is interested in buying them. Some great incriminating stuff from Mr G to a sales director and a hilarious catalogue of dirty calls from an SD to their partner. Everyone is fallible so don't be too hard on these guys. I have it on good authority that they are going straight now.