thegiftfirm.com / HKCmedia.com or Audra H. on upwork.com Audra Hamlin Hired Audra for PR services for the launch of our product and she took our money and disappeared Chicago Illinois
We also hired Audra to help assist our launch around our mobile startup with her PR services. She starts off very strong with her services at supposely 10 hours a week for a retainer fee at $2,500 per month. Not one interview was scheduled (through Audra directly) for our launch. We got ourselves on Forbes and other media outlets which proved that her reason of "slow interest" was false.
We followed up with her on a consistent basis to see why we had not one interview in the 5 markets we are currently in. She later ended up dissapearing on us with money in hand per her retainer. She was found and is still on upwork.com so beware as we had no idea that she was on a ripoff report this year prior to us hiring her, nor did upwork.com. We plan legal follow up due to the dollar amount at this point. Good luck and do your research.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Audra
Villa Park,Illinois,
United States
Hawque hired me numerous times over a year
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Wed, May 23, 2018
This claim is very unfortunate. I was hired for 40 hours per month. The first month I worked 63 hours becuase they needed help fine tuning messaging for the website as well as getting all of the PR collateral jump started due to tight deadlines. I jumped in and did everything I could to ensure that the company was ready for PR. This was stated in their claim (she starts out strong).
The direction changed 3 times. It started with local to Atlanta only. Then national media as the main focus. Then they included 5 other cities. Each time this changed, I had to start over with getting media lists created and vetted, changing or creating new messaging, and researching events and activities that may or may not align or effect the brand. This takes a lot of time.
For the second month of 40 hours, I was left with only 17 hours to do outreach and follow up.
I kept a record of everything I did and was working on on Google Docs where the entire team could see activities at any time. Most clients only require a once a month update call, but I did this so they could see everything at anytime to help alleviate the need to have constant updates.
I was hired for 40 hours per month, or 1 day per week, and was expected to be available instantly 24 hours per day/7 days a week. Including texts at 9pm on a Sunday night. I was sent an email for an update (which was on Google Docs) and when I did not respond immediately the emails became aggressive. I was unable to answer for 3 days and this claim was filed.
There is no reason for them to mention Upwork. This was a direct client of mine that I have worked with numerous times over the past year.