Complaint Review: Scrap In A Snap

I am not an SAIS consultant, though I do have a very very limited amount of their products.

I cannot possibly believe that this many terrible things beyond the companies control can happen if they are completely legal and honest. Not one other direct sales company has these problems. The whiny tone of the responses and the "whoa is me" attitude
does not do anything to add to their credibility.

I for one am interested to see how this all turns out. I work in the scrapbook industry and do not want this to take any of the legitimate businesses down with them.

As for the consultants affected by this I wish you luck and my sympathy is with you. This is not what you signed up for. After all is out in the open I hope you file a class action lawsuit for unpaid commissions, wrongful termination and whatever tax burden you are forced to shoulder. If you wish to stay as a scrapbook consultant I wish you the power to move on with another company such as Creative Memories, Leaving Prints, c**k-a-Doodle Designs or with an independant group such as Scrapbiz.com Don't let this stop your dreams.

I'm not sure why she is blaming this on one ex-consultant that left SIAS, there are tons of current and former consultants that are coming forward with the horror stories of SIAS. There IS proof - Tamme Henry states that they are "current with their taxes in all states" and that their "books and taxes are in order". This is a complete lie. They are not. Just check with your state to see if they are listed as paying any taxes to your state in the several years they have been in business. The most incriminating part of this letter is the fact that she admits that they have know that they have to pay the state taxes that they have been collecting from every customer and consultant on every single order that has been placed with them for years BUT THEY STILL ARE NOT PAYING THIS MONEY BACK TO THE STATES. If you need any proof of this, I urge you to contact your state Department of Revenue to see if Scap In A Snap is listed. It will not be because they haven't paid the sales tax back that they have collected from everyone. They are just keeping this money. It makes me ill that they can lie and threat even publicly and still get away with this.

Also, Carol Meyer, who is mentioned at the bottom of this letter, is the person who is in charge of spying on all the scrapbook-related message boards. Her job is to read all messages that are posted and if any consultant comments or even questions any of the problems about SIAS they are banned from the message board - if it a message board that is moderated by someone involved with SIAS or if not, then they send out a very threatening letter stating that the consultant will be terminated or sued for saying something "negative". They will even do this if someone innocently asks a question like "Why hasn't my order arrived that I ordered a month ago". They do this because they continue to recruit unsuspecting women into this mess and they have to keep the truth from reaching as many people as possible so they can continue to get their money. Somehow it had been working for them, because they are still recruiting women into this company who have no idea what they are getting into.

She did issue a statement. I will post it below. Note that she states "As of today, are books and taxes are in order...". This is not true, they are NOT paying taxes to the states and they have known about this for three years and still not done anything about it. All they do is lie and try to blame anyone else they can about it.

Here is Tamme Henry's e-mail regarding this situation:


Wed Jul 30 2003 12:53 AM


Hello SIAS family,

I'm heartsick that once again I'm forced into confronting nasty allegations and downright lies. It seems whenever we make significant inroads (i.e. our most successful convention ever, a new revamped product line, a beautiful new catalog, all catalog orders--35,000--sent out, larger stock levels than ever, etc.) that this infuriates our enemies and drives them to even more extreme measures. This latest attack comes from a former top ranking consultant who was terminated for recruiting from within her own SIAS ranks for another direct sales company. It is simply a matter of sour grapes taken to the extreme. Rather than exhaust you with drama, I won't address every nuance of her libelous letter, but will address the most significant of the allegations.

A very wise man who is my foremost mentor in the industry was once describing a former employee of mine. He only met her once but he described her as being the type of person who "used the truth with the intent to deceive." Over the past year, I've seen examples of this repeatedly with former or rival consultants. This latest post is a recirculation of old gossip and problems already addressed and resolved. Still, this unhappy person or group of people won't quit. . . especially when we have learned from our mistakes and are on our way up. This merely fuels their dissatisfaction and anger that they've yet to vanquish us.

Regardless, here is the truth behind the tall tales . . .

Scrap in a Snap made some serious initial mistakes. Mainly, we hired people we trusted to do their jobs who didn't do so and weren't trustworthy. Our first VP was in charge of all state and IRS issues and her husband (at that time made a partner) was an accountant who promised to help her handle all these various issues as their expertise was what earned them their SIAS stock. It was a year later when we realized that they'd never filed as promised. At that time we hired another accountant (going from bad to worse, in retrospect.) This accountant became a founding partner of a spin off rival company who was paid by us while he spent his time building this rival company. He assured us each state had been handled and all was well. When the rival company was discovered, it was a good six months before all the legal dust settled. At that time, the INSTANT we became aware there were outstanding tax issues, we hired an independent tax authority and CPA.

We did this for numerous reasons. We didn't want to hire an internal employee based on former bad experiences. Secondly, we wanted someone with expertise in this area as this needed to be handled properly and promptly. Third, if we ever were subjected to an audit, we knew an independent CPA would carry more weight than an internal employee as they are required to represent both parties. It was much more costly but we wanted to err on the side of caution.

The important thing is that we took action the moment we knew there was a problem. AND, just as importantly, we've met and complied with the IRS, the Utah payroll tax commission, and are currenly working with all state tax agencies. Not ONE agency came to us before we came to them. Our software automatically calculates how much tax is owed and this CPA is merely verifying these numbers and doing the necessary paperwork to keep us on track from hence foreward (this is much more complicated than it sounds as some states require monthly filing, quarterly filing or annual filing so each state differs in their requirements.)

Another thing that slowed us down, which I've never made public before, is that my former trusted partner who started this rival company, stole two years of financial data on his less than graceful exit from SIAS. He had two ulterior motives; One, we'd been approached by a major scrapbook company to partner and he knew we'd be invincible if this move happened. Two, his lawyer advised him that if he could find any criminal wrong doing, he could go after all SIAS sales. Consequently, he turned all of our records into the DA's office with the hopes that we'd be found guilty. The DA determined that we were above board and weren't guilty of any criminal activity but while this was being determined, we spent literally tens of thousands of dollars to have every check reissued and all financial data reverified so that we could rebuild and verify our financial history.

As of today, are books and taxes are in order, no thanks to enemies such as the one that wrote this nasty post. SIAS stands behinds its ethics and plans on being around for dozens of years to come . . . a goal only realized if we always err on the right side of the law.

I apologize for the forthright tone of this post and for possibly giving you more information than you need to know, but I can't stand by in good conscience and see our name dragged through the mud by someone who is trying to recruit for another company by tearing down ours.

Thanks for listening!

P.S. A special thanks to Carol Meyer who fielding numerous nasty emails written mostly by fictitious consultants demanding "honesty". HA! Isn't it ironic that these consultants who want to tell the truth do so under fake names such as Kris from LA? And yes, my conscience is clear and my personal taxes are current as well. In fact, the only benefit from the upheaval from last year was a company loss that resulted in a "refund" for Bill and me which went right toward our baby savings account!