Let's Talk Confidentiality
When you applied to become a LuLaRoe rep, you filled out a form online and either read or didn't read the contract and the attached agreements and provisions that were a part of it. Chances are- if you did, many of you might not have actually understood what they meant- and even less of you might have been able to understand well enough to question some or all of it. I'm not going to spend time discussing the multiple attorneys I've spoken to, attorneys that question the overall enforceability of the LuLaRoe contract for their own various reasons. I won't dive too far into why they might challenge the overly-broad confidentiality clause included in the contract, but I'll start with my non-legal interpretation and one sentence summary of the clause: "Hi, everything you can see, discuss, read, share, etc. is all confidential and as such, sharing it can get you in trouble with us." Mhm. Just for good measure, I'll include the confidentiality excerpt from the 2016 contract here: (I found the contract on Google, shitbirds)
So let's break this down. -Unless they say so, all information LLR gives you is confidential. -Confidential information includes: customers, customer information, client lists, sales information, etc. I'm pausing here for a moment to make a few arguments that come to my own mind: -LuLaRoe does not procure clients for the reps. Reps procure their own clients- especially if you were not on the online rep map- you had to find your own clients. I'd argue that those customers are your own for several reasons- including but not limited to the facts that: -You found them. -You provided them a service. -You guaranteed their product, offering refunds, exchanges, returns, etc. Especially since LuLaRoe had that whole "we don't take back products but we can give you reps that will" debacle this last year. If they don't own the responsibility for replacing the product for the customer, then how can they own the customer? -If LuLaRoe isn't communicating with the customer, and you aren't using their platform to communicate with them, how can they tell you that your personal communications with the customer are confidential? -Reps generate their own emails. Example, Susie Snowflake could make a mailbox- SusiesnowflakeLLR@pickyourmailserver.com LuLaRoe has no control or interest in that address to tell Susie it's confidential. -Sales are often made on social media, by posting a "sold" comment on an item or in a live sale. Facebook, for example, is considered public domain. How is that confidential? Then they say sales reports, communications, etc, etc are also confidential. -Did LuLaRoe not publish a field report that essentially had all participants' sales figures in this report? How could my sales reports be confidential when 80k other reps can access it just by knowing my rep ID number? -Communications. All communications are confidential. SO confidential in fact, that when I polled my readers in a post, many, many former representatives claimed to still receive emails from home office- some even claiming to have resigned upward of 6 months earlier and being completely locked out of their back offices. Yet the "confidential" emails are still being sent to them. If they aren't in active contract, what is stopping the former reps from sharing the emails sent to them after their termination? And again, if it's confidential or proprietary, shouldn't LLR be safeguarding it better?
I had to physically remove myself from the LuLaRoe email list because despite my written notice that I was terminating my relationship with them, I continued to have back office access and get the emails. Almost a month after I formally ended my relationship with the company, I received compliance emails chastising me for a post (viewable by my Facebook friends only) I made on my own personal page. When I responded to them with an extremely aggressive tone, demanding they accept my contract termination and no further contact- it was then that they closed out my back office access. But I had to manually remove myself from their mailing list when I realized they didn't do that for me. But wait, there's more. After removing myself from several email lists, this past week, I got yet another email from LuLaRoe. This time, it was pertaining to a new program in place for filing support cases and checking their statuses. Fantastic! Except, I'm not a rep. So, I call the support number and I explain this to the very confused individual on the other end of the phone who assures me that I am not in the system, so the email must have been a mistake. Wait... you accidentally send a presumably confidential email (based on that bullshit mumbo-jumbo above) to me, Mommy-fucking-Gyver? The same MommyGyver you're suing in court for sources that have provided me confidential information? The same woman that has no less than three times, physically removed myself from LuLaRoe email lists, and yet- you dumb shits keep trying to send me your "confidential" information??? So, I explain to the woman even more aggressively that I can't accidentally get an email. I'm on some list. She transfers me a few times, I leave a message for someone. This is useless. Same old bullshit, different voice. She says- "Just block the email"... Lady, I block one, and a new list and new email comes up. Just stop sending me shit, k? So, knowing I got nowhere, I follow the link in the email, create a login, and I submit a case: "I am not a rep. I resigned over a year ago, and I consistently unsubscribe from your lists. Remove me from this one as well." Lo and behold, I get a response- same day. "We have taken you off the list and out of the system. You won't get anymore. Sorry." Or something like that. $5 says I get another "confidential" email from LuLaRoe next month. I'm sorry, but it feels like they are sending me this shit on purpose at this point. So I ask, how confidential are these emails if: A. There are no notations of confidentiality on the emails themselves. B. They take minimal care, if any, to ensure the emails are not being sent to former reps, or the devil-be-damned MommyGyver herself. Don't worry, LLR I promise you, I never published anything you sent me. Pinkie swearsies. C. A simple Google search will reveal the "assets" that LuLaRoe holds in the back office- including, but not limited to- wholesale costs, MAP pricing, and more. To quote my boy Bruno Mars: "Don't believe me? Just watch..."
Here's a Google search gallery of "LuLaRoe wholesale prices"
As you can see, the first image shows just the search results page. Without clicking on anything, there are several sources visible to find access to this information. Then, I clicked images, and I could take the search further to go by the name of each LuLaRoe piece. The third was an actual company document- and there were many of its friends in the images as well. Confidential? How can it be confidential if you've got it all over the internet? (Psssst, LuLaRoe- you're bugging me about access to confidential back office documents. Ahem.) How about a search for LuLaRoe checks? Because those are certainly confidential as well as forbidden to be shared by the FTC, but alas...
There were several more easily found, but I just wanted to make a point- all you need is one.
LuLaRoe field report? No problem! Here's a step-by-step tutorial on how to use it too.
Back office? No problem. Another LuLaRoe rep guided back office tutorial that has been up since 2015.
What's the point, MommyGyver? The point, my friends, is- this info is out there. And LuLaRoe up until now hasn't done anything to safeguard the information prior. These documents are published, accessible, and free to anyone who is looking. It's difficult for someone like me to know what, exactly IS confidential when I can find it all on Google- without ever having to reach out to any sources whatsoever. How can a rep know what's confidential when everything is published? And how much responsibility do they have to safeguard it if others aren't- and nothing is done about it? Bouncing back to the confidentiality clause, it clearly states that the reps can not share this information (any information) disclose, divulge, or "make known"... hmmm. Guess they weren't super serious about holding that confidentiality to the strictest standard before... like... today. But wait. Not too long ago, some documents were filed by baby lawyer, Christine Bass, in LuLaRoe's case against me. Christine took such care to file a copy of LuLaRoe's consultant contract (2016 edition) confidentially, that she did it under seal. But wait... Ohhhh Gooooooglleeeeee....
Wouldja look at that? A document on the web, clearly considered to be confidential, yet, there it is... Next, Facebook is rife with all manner of disgruntled or simply confused reps publishing everything and anything to either complain or gain some sort of understanding of what is going on in their own realm of LuLaLand. The company publishes its webinars on YouTube via links that are not password protected. The links are shared like wildfire throughout the internet, and information that LuLaRoe thinks shouldn't be shared IS. Once again, where is the safeguarding- if this is highly confidential information? Where are the efforts to remove the information that is all over the internet? The YouTube videos, the very illegal wage representation claims and checks? The documents ranging from contracts to webinars? You can't actually claim it's not to be shared... if you don't do anything to stop it. Oh wait... but they are doing something... They're suing ME. Because LuLaRoe is so far removed from the happenings of its own company, and so quick to disseminate information via all social media platforms, that I'm going to venture a guess that they literally can not keep up. My website is just a very well-sorted information hub for them. What do you want to bet they look for a copy of their most updated compensation plan on MY site instead of the shit show of a back office they have? Have they moved to shut down the channels where the information is being shared? The team leadership pages, the rep blogs, YouTube channels? No... But that didn't prevent them from filing a fraudulent copyright infringement notice against my Youtube page in effort to try to have ME shut down once or twice. Copyright notices that I challenged, by the way, and won. Even more amusing is there's an actual term for what they did to my page- Copyright Abuse. And it's illegal. Just add that to the mounting list of illegal shit they are trying to pull on me. Personally, I love the stolen emails they tried to slide into deposition this month. I'll be so thrilled when I can publish their attorney's near-hysterical written response to my attorney's very simple request for assurances that Schiff Hardin/DLA Piper were not knowingly participating in that type of behavior. Her simple- "Just tell me you didn't know the emails were stolen." was responded to with a two-page threat from them- while basically saying "So what if the emails are stolen?" and threatening both my attorney and me. Super, duper smart. Let's stop to catch our breath for a moment here. Because this copyright stuff IS funny. They shut down my Youtube a few months ago for sharing videos distributed by LuLaRoe in a non-confidential manner, with no safeguards in place. The videos are not copyrighted material, and therefore do not fall under copyright protection. Individuals then recorded the information, and redistributed it- either on their own pages, YouTube channels, so on. I grabbed it and published it as a part of my reporting on the subject- and they tried to shut me down instead... but not the parties that published the information that I CITE as my sources. Huh??? I'm now in court looking at demands for sources of items that are literally less egregious than the step by step tutorial on navigating the "proprietary" and "confidential" back office, but they have made absolutely zero publicly known effort to date to silence any of the countless other sources of this information. Just me. That's cute, really. Or the 50+ sources that are in the emails they stole from me... anything come of having that information? I mean aside from filing a frivolous lawsuit against me? I'm curious. Do you guys at LLR not know how the internet works? LuLaRoe can not possibly sue every single person that has published information they may or may not claim is confidential and I doubt they've delved past my website into Facebook, let alone Reddit. You guys are going to need a beer and a therapist once you tackle the Reddit channels. Good luck. With mentors like Meagan Parker making false statements of fact with regard to LuLaRoe's legal issues (specifically thinking back to her super cute and super wrong comment about how LuLaRoe was under "gag order" in the CMS case) it just tickles my funny bone that they still don't get that absolutely nothing they have claimed is confidential has ever been protected. Now I'm not telling you to go screen shot crazy and publish every last document you possess, but I am going to tell you that I think their idea of what's confidential isn't actually confidential. Maybe it SHOULD have been, but you can't really work backwards, can you? If it started confidentially, but was published, you can't get really big mad at people who find it and repeat it, can you? Chat groups exist on social media where without any reservation, documents ranging from the Disney contracts to the actual links to weekly calls are posted. People that had access when the calls weren't public were recording the videos and publishing anonymously through admins of groups like LuLaRoe Defective- or by way of their own fake social media profiles. You don't actually need to take note of the source that provides a video of a team call in a public forum. You don't need to investigate the validity of the video when it's very CLEARLY Mark and Deanne in the video blathering on and on about being blessed and rolling in the mud with pigs. And yet, while LuLaRoe is spending no less than $700 an hour to have John Scholnick- aka Old Spice- a seasoned veteran attorney and partner in the Chicago office of one of the largest law firms IN THE WORLD and his extra-sassy bitch faced associate, Christine Bass- whom needs a lesson in wrangling her cocky-as-fuck eyebrow during a deposition- they still owe countless people millions of dollars in refunds that have not come to them yet. I'm literally disgusted that over 3 hours of my day was spent in deposition with attorneys YOUR consultant refund money paid for- so they could attempt to muscle your names out of me so they can possibly turn around and try to fuck you all some more. Would you like lube with that, or are you cool with getting it hard and rough...prison-style? It's bullshit. What is the sense of asking me where I got a document from- when the fucking document is the first result in a Google search? Is there no Google in law school? Oh, and wait... about $26.50 of that $700 hourly bill was spent asking me why I, in a Facebook post on the MommyGyver facebook page- told DLA Piper to fuck off. This. This is why. Google- you assholes. But while we're talking about confidentiality, I'd really like an explanation about how YOU think it's ok to sue me over documents any asshole with a phone can find online in 2.3 seconds, yet you can attempt to have my stolen, hacked emails admitted as evidence in my deposition? How can you possibly allege you're a victim of anything, when you literally have stolen information? Did you find my confidential emails on Google, John? Bill? Christine? Surely graduating from your class summa cum laude, you must know this shit is a no-go? Look at me again disapprovingly with that fucking eyebrow cocked when my lack of a froofy law degree still tells me that I know better than to "just do what my boss told me to". The "know better" must be reserved for the attorneys that graduated magna cum laude instead. But no, not found on Google... you got them from the hacker who took them. The same hacker that claims to have hacked LuLaRoe's back office and "could have caused havoc" if he wanted to. THE SAME hacker I reported to LuLaRoe. So for my effort to help them, I get sued, emails stolen, AND they attempt to use them against me? What version of reality is this? Oh... right... I forgot. The version where criminals are attorneys and trailer trash becomes billionaires by stealing from housewives. Check, please. DLA Piper, Schiff Hardin, I expected much more from you. LuLaRoe, while you're tendering checks- there's a growing list of people contacting me about their checks missing since December. Maybe don't pay Bill, John, and Christine for like, a day- and get these people their money? Thanks.