This used to be the website for the fruit and vegetable home delivery business Flemington Direct. If you are wondering why it’s not here anymore, read on…………
Flemington Direct was a new concept at the time: we delivered fruit and vegetables fresh from the markets to your door and serviced all suburbs in Sydney from 2001 to 2011. Flemington Fresh is yet to open. Here are their stories.
2001
Founded in Januray 17, 2001, Flemington Direct was an ill conceived idea by Mitchell Bourne and John McCann. Two guys at 22 years of age with no money or business experience. It should have failed and the story would have ended here.
John lived in Wollongong, so this is where they started their home delivered fruit and veg “empire”. Mitchell would commute from Manly where he was sleeping under his mums dining room table with the dog after another failed enterprise (group bargaining for mobile phones and electricity).
By day they would do flyers and plan their takeover of fruit deliveries in Sydney. Once a week they would go to the markets and buy fruit and veg, do back breaking labour from 3 in the morning to 11.30 at night, all for around $100 each. John’s house was converted into the shed at the beginning of the day and packed up at night.
6 months later, Flemington Direct moved into a real shed, they were a real business. The staff roster included a homeless guy, an old Italian man who couldn’t count potatoes, and a few part time uni students who worked for apples. Mitch had moved into a place in Wollongong and away from the dog and his mums dining room table.
After taking in a homeless character (who lived in the shed in exchange for work and a small salary), Mitchell and John realised he could make databases, so he was set to work building a customized CRM Lotus Database to help us take over the fruit and Veg industry.
If you want to avoid becoming homeless, don’t buy a luxury car you can’t afford, drink drive, and then crash into a tree.
John who was obviously a lot smarter than Mitchell, sick of quartering pumpkins and lugging sacks of potatoes around, decided that the gig was overrated and asked to be bought out. They agreed on a sum and John went travelling the world while Mitchell slaved away, excited about having something that finally worked (or wasn’t an immediate failure).
John after returning from overseas.
2002
Mitchell kept on building and building and expanded deliveries to 3 days a week, while trying to find potential business partners. Christian came along; young, Italian, from a good family – at 18, he had loads of common sense and was keen to make a go of Flemington Direct.
Christian worked out well and they both built the business into something that supported a few staff and delivered to over 250 households a week. At around this time, Christian, who was also smarter than Mitchell, realised what a crummy proposition the business was and moved on.
| Staff Member Wanted: Must be smart enough to deal with complex issues and problems,
|
Chris is about to eat half a kilo of chocolate for $20
2003
Flemington Direct failed to attract any one with the required skills. We’d been through rockmelon droughts, banana shortages, and now we couldn’t find people to work for us. A solution was required.
Free Franchises. Nathan along with Jeff, Josh and Matt signed on. Run your own Fruit and Veg business in your own area. Use the call center and shed and take a percentage of the profits.
All of a sudden Mitchell was managing 4 franchisees that couldn’t do everything well but were competent in some areas. Josh could work hard and was hungry, Matt was good with people, Jeff was an incredibly talented individual and Nath was, well, there.
The character living in the shed also found a home, set about making his fancy Lotus database sing and dance with a whopping 156 tables, weighing in at over 356mb in size. An overcomplicated solution for such an unprofessional outfit and the cracks were starting to show. Designed to prevent redundancy (his own) and to ensure that he would be able to live in a home for the foreseeable future.
Jeff had a lot of talent.
2004
The creator of the database, who was juggling a a growing number of personal problems, was slowly assuming more and more control of the business. The customer relationship manager kept growing in size and so did his demands.
He would turn up the hours he decided, any disputes were quickly solved in his favour with, “ok im quitting”, which wasn’t an option at the time. Never let anyone control your domain, your technology, or your bank accounts.
The database was creaking along with bugs and issues left right and centre.
Mitchell’s life started to go down hill, the work was becoming more than laborious; 2am starts and 8pm finishes doing 100 hours a week drove him to chain smoking and hard drinking as he entered the ripe old age of 25.
The debts were too high to fold the business (although this would have been a good idea in retropsect), franchisees were sucking the life and profits out of everything and the monthly commitments and staff were taking its toll. Mitchell was looking for a replacement, and was learning a very good lesson about having an exit plan.
Deliveries were up to 500 a week but the profit was next to nothing. Over this Christmas period Mitchell sat on the couch for 4 days, without moving too much while he smoke, drank and pondered the monster he had created. How could he defeat it? Was it worth another year of his life? Would anyone buy it?
Mitch searching for the edge
2005
Another year another, opportunity to change the course of the business. Mike turned up as a franchisee. He was awesome with people and Mitchell had him earmarked to take over the buying role. One of the most important parts of the business. Developing relationships, and buying skills at the Flemington Markets takes years of practice.
This period was very turbulent, and aspects of the business had to be trimmed back. Josh went out on his own, Jeff left for an overseas journey, and Matt decided to go back to managing a bar. Free franchises hadn’t turned out to be the silver bullet Flemington Direct was looking for.
The shed got out of control as Mitchell took his eye off the ball, drinking and smoking the middle of the days away. He also developed a system for betting on Grey hounds (profitable for 3 or 4 days), and almost started a business worm farming.
Meanwhile the 20 uni students packing fruit turned the shed into a veritable lord of the flies. A zuchinni took the place of the conch and a loosely organised union had been created. Wastage and inefficiency forced Mitchell back to work but the shed had gotten out of control, the only solution was to close it down.
All the uni students were sent packing and Mike, Nath and Mitchell took the business and a handful of staff to Sydney. They went from a shed with 550sqm to 100sqm of space in the parking lot of Sydney Markets so some efficiencies had to be introduced.
Mike playing basketball in the shed, this guy could play.
Matt and nath
The 3rd shed of flemington direct 550sqm
Space in Sydney Markets
2006
After supporting Mike and Nath as Flemington Direct Franchisees it was obvious they wouldn’t be able to fulfil all of the day to day tasks on their own, so Mitchell brought them in as business partners and gave them equity in the business.
Mike took over buying, Nath managed the packing and Mitchell was doing the rest – managing the call centre, organising delivery runs, call backs, marketing, etc. Mitchell also secretly working on a new online customer database with the help of an offshore worker and began correcting the live in developers path, firmly back on track to homelessness.
Mitchell was desperately researching Internet marketing and other technology related activities to try and find an alternate source of income as Flemington Direct was a lemon. He tried his hand at advertising arbitrage, marketing click bank products, poker and kept working on his betting system – all dead ends.
Mitch wishing he had listened to his mum and stayed at uni.
2007
Was the year Internet shopping and inbound marketing started making stronger inroads to all types of business, and Flemington Direct was no exception. For the first time in it’s short history, orders would come in without anyone doing any work. Increasing numbers of customers were placing orders online instead of the phone and things were improving. For the first time in 6 years Mitchell wasn’t having nightmares about fruit and vegetables.
Things were looking up for Mitchell and for Flemington Direct – he had a new girlfriend called Christine and he started to relax a little. Mike started to become disillusioned with the business and wanted to be bought out. Unfortunately Mitchell also wanted to be bought out. Eventually they agreed on a price and Mike went to make beer in Western Australia. Mitchell was still stuck in his nightmare which just seemed like normal life by now.
2008
The arrival of Christine (Mitchell’s new girlfriend at the time) heralded a new era for Flemington Direct. Christine had the smarts and drive that Mitchell could rely on to work with and improve the business. She was offered equity, a salary and they both got to work recreating the makeshift Flemington mess into a tangible home delivery business.
Nathan provided the trustworthy labour of packing boxes and managing the shed. He must have packed a 100k boxes in his time at Flemington Direct. If box packing was an Australian sport, he would be a legend!
Flemington Direct moved into a new shed in Padstow and started to dominate the fruit and veg box business in Sydney, offering a 2nd service as the “The Fruit Guys”. Prices were raised, the new database was almost complete, and all the staff were replaced again (with subsidised unskilled immigrants). All the fat was being trimmed.
One day, a regular outburst from the live in developer;
“Ill Quit!”
Was greeted with;
“OK”.
And the new online database was ushered in.
4 years of punishment at the hands of the homeless character, come shed dweller, and then business leech, had come to an end. All of a sudden work could be carried out from anywhere – Mitchell was no longer tied to a dirty shed office with fruit and dust getting into his nostrils.
Life felt good for the first time in 7 years.
Mitchell and Christine rewarded themselves by heading for an overseas journey: Living in Thailand, Argentina and Costa Rica while they operated the business remotely.
The only challenge left was finding office staff smart enough to do the work, but not smart enough to leave. Enter Romania.
After reading the 4-hour work week, with some outsourcing experience under his belt, Mitchell’s started applying some rules of thumb to the fruit and veg business.
By automation and process, he was able to eliminate massive amounts of work, save a fortune, and put in place scalable and measurable business practices.
The office was now remote, a Romanian superstar was employed with an IQ of 150 and customer service issues were solved. Technology had caught up to the requirements of the business, and Mitchell’s 100 hour week had turned into the 4 hour work week dream he’d spent years trying to create.
All cylinders were firing up.
Mitchell and Christine, Full moon party thailand.
2009
Mitchell and Christine could no longer, spend more than a few minutes together in the same airplane, which meant they couldn’t travel together. She returned back to Australia and Mitchell moved to Bali where he carried out his duties. Nathan and Christine worked at the coalface. Because they were on the ground, looking after the less desirable aspects of the business, Mitchell rewarded them with more equity in the business so he could surf, party and travel.
Monday 9am.
2010
Life and business continued. Profits were good for everyone and the business chugged along nicely. Mitchell had bigger and better projects in the oven so he agreed to give 100% of the Flemington Direct business to Nath and Christine as a reward for their efforts and helping Mitchell to achieve his goals. They became proud owners of Flemington Direct Pty. Ltd. and the 3 of them made an agreement to split the profits until Mitchell’s new projects started paying. The agreement was that Mitchell would decide to eventually, at his choosing, pass the business on, and be rid of the curse that robbed him of his twenties.
Just to be on the safe side Mitchell kept this domain name as an insurance policy. The only way Christine and Nath could cut Mitchell out would be to destroy the business.
2011
The flood price spikes were a major concern and Mitchell found a solution in facebook marketing. The results were phenomenal, within months they had thousands of fans and 80% of their business was being generated from facebook, it was another paradigm shift that the competition hadn’t noticed. Mitchell worked on business strategy and marketing, Christine managed the administration, and the business was pumping. Flemington Direct had a solid customer base of over 2000 active customers and delivering 600 orders a week. – it was all apples.
May 24 2011
Christine and Nathan executed a secret plan to close down the business, take the customers and restart under a new name Flemington Fresh business identity. Mitchell woke up to find all the business accounts changed and the Facebook page (his favourite new play thing) had been deleted, including the 3000 followers.
The website data had all been deleted and every other account had been closed. The phones were dead, and so were the bank accounts. All records of Mitchell’s achievements for his whole working life had suddenly been wiped out, along with his income. Mitchell kept $30, 000 in the business account to help with cash flow and there was $11,500 of unpaid work. He has had no communication regarding this money and doesn’t expect to receive it.
The following image is Mitchells fruitless attempts to contact the business partners;
This was the only bad day Mitchell had in this ordeal. Once accepted he moved on.
Offshore staff under Mitchell’s management were also left without payment and everyone was asking him what happened, of course he had no idea.
Mammat and his wife dewi found themselves out of pocket after working for flemington direct. It was only $80 but thats a lot of money in Indonesia, they have a small child and that was a big hole. Mitchell paid the bill and is awaiting a refund from Christine, he doesnt expect it.
After a week of asking himself “Why?” over and over, Mitchell rang Nathan who finally answered the phone – after knowing each other for 16 years Nathan’s good nature prevailed (to a point). He informed Mitchell that they went to lawyer, who told them that they were breaking the law by storing data and credit cards offshore. A tall story indeed. Christine freaked out, because the data was “worth nothing and can’t be used”. So the story goes. They closed the business down, drained the accounts, and started creating the imaginatively titled “Flemington Fresh”.
Mitchell didn’t believe the story, but accepted the situation and understood their gripe. Although he’d sacrificed his twenties building the business, dealing with customers, managing accounts, staff and franchises – he was having all the fun.
The party was over.
Good Riddance
As a parting joke Mitchell sent an email to Nathan and Christine pretending to set up a class action over incorrect data storage. He gave the impression this was sent to the list of customers which he had already deleted.
Two emails were sent out to 7000 people in quick succession, here is the first one:
An hour later another email was sent to 7000 customers; (Please note that the Flemington Direct data was never used or distributed and no unauthorized access had taken place. No one’s credit card details have ever been mishandled. No email or communication from Mitchell was ever taken place between anyone other than himself and the directors of Flemington Direct Pty Ltd.)
That’s what makes this email so hilarious (apologies to any customers that were caught up in this mess);
[EDIT: it appears since this was first published, there has been an unauthorised hacker that got into their (new) systems on the 10/6/2011 . On the 23/5/2011 The data was removed from Mitchells secure control by Christine so he accepts no responsibility for this security breach of private intellectual data. He does have sympathy for all those affected - for more information see the comments at the end of this article.]
A very official tone to a very unofficial message. The phone calls and emails this would attract would be formidable, for the first time in 2 weeks Mitchell was very happy not have his name on Flemington Direct. What a mess.
Mitchell informed Nathan of the joke prior to emails being sent but he wasn’t believed. Christine didn’t get the joke, poor Nathan has worked hard for years packing fruit boxes, and the customer database which was the only thing of value and was damaged (if not destroyed) in seconds.
The only value remaining from the business are the lessons learnt, which turned out to be worth the most.
That’s the complete history of Flemington Direct from 2001 to 2011, there may be more to add but lets hope not. Mitchell is glad that it is dead and buried.
Flemington Fresh
A footnote: Nathan is essentially a good character and deserves good things, which makes this story hard to tell. The idea to destroy Flemington Direct must have been a difficult plan to go along with. He now operates Flemington Fresh, Good luck Nathan!
Christine is more than likely dealing with angry customers. (and has changed her name to Chris)
I don’t know what the shed dweller is doing.
John took great pleasure in editing this story.
Mitchell is moving onto the next chapter of his life, by starting from scratch:
And a final note: Aki was left out of the story. Mitchell’s trusty girlfriend who was around from 2003 to 2007 and helped out with everything, Mitchell is forever in debt to her support through the most challenging years of the Flemington Direct story.
Disgruntled customers: All data integrity issues have arisen since Mitchells departure from flemington direct, please direct all enquiries to flemington-syd@gmail.com (yes that’s their official company email address)
PLEASE LINK AND SHARE SO THE HISTORY OF FLEMINGTON DIRECT WILL LIVE ON FOREVER.
And the story continues………… as this doesn’t look like ending anytime soon the rest of the story will be told in blog post format. Here is the Category, scroll down to the oldest post to read in chronological order.
I can only shake my head over what has transpired. I am not impressed that my details were not secure (and actually my husbands credit card has had numerous PIN blocks on it in the last month or so – even though he’s never used the PIN). I’m going to talk to a solicitor and also use the link on the email you sent. Thanks for the message and I’m sorry that you’ve lost so much over this.
Hi Jodie,
I havent emailed any customers
The email listed in the article was just a joke, there isnt a class action going on and it was just sent to the directors.
Thanks for your support though.
pretty clever viral campaign boys.. more pics of Mike with his top off though please!
hahaha,
I think ive got a few more pics of Mike, Ill see if I can dig them out.
Thanks for the support.
Mitch
Well, I have an email from someone who has hacked the Flemington Direct site and has emailed all of the customers – is that a joke too? I’ve already taken the emails advice and sent an email to the privacy@privacy.org.au over this. This isn’t a joke.
Im not sure about that Jodie, I just sent one email to the directors, all other emails have come from them as far as i know.
The email I received this evening, Mitchell:
Hello Flemington Direct Customers,
I am a disgruntled former customer that has had my data exposed due to flimsy security measures.
I decided to sniff around to see if there were any security measures in place and guess what I found.
Single name passwords, the directors first name, no encryption or even a number in the password. With a simple application I was able to get access to everyone’s contact details.
This is a company we have all trusted our personal data with !!!!!!!!
I am sending this message out to inform you of the situation and to inform you that I will be taking back control of our data and deleting everything I can.
Also a very interesting development on their home page which explains a few things, i suggest you go on over and take a look.
Take action, this shouldnt be allowed!!!!
Replies to this message will be sent to privacy@privacy.gov.au so please make a complaint.
Hactivist that just wanted fruit and vegetables delivered to my door.
OMG!
Thats big news, I dont know what to say.
I guess they upset a lot of people.
Well I guess they won’t have a lot of Flemington Direct customers join up at the new place after this. And yes, I’m one of those upset people. How many in the data base again? 2000 active customers, 3000 followers on facebook. That’s a lot of people to piss off! Reputation = in the crapper
All I want to know is this…are my credit card details protected and secure. Who currently holds my cc details – Mitchell, Nathan or Christine?
Hi Ingrid.
Ive only had one sentence off nathan since the 25th of may so i cant answer anything, you will have to contact flemington direct.
I have nothing to do with flemington direct and i dont have any data.
sorry about your situation.
7000 people were in the database.
Thats a lot of people. Its the samne size as the town i grew up in.
sorry to hear you were one of them.
Ingrid, no your credit card details aren’t safe. Cancel them asap and have new ones issued. My husbands cc has already had multiple attempts at trying his password (so much that every time he tried to use it he couldn’t due to a PIN stop).
Mitchell, maybe the homeless guy wasn’t as good as you thought.
the homeless guy was terrible, but that was a long time ago.
Maybe this will turn into a forum where flemington direct customers can vent their frustrations.
I’m sure when people open their emails and find what I did they’ll come for a look and maybe a vent. However Christine and Nathan might also find a lot of emails in their inbox at their new place. I hope they have adsl as 7000 emails might take a while to download!
“I’m sure when people open their emails and find what I did…..”
Are you the person who hacked into FD’s website and sent that email yesterday?
no I’m not. I received the email that I copied and pasted on Friday evening, from Hactavist.
Wow, I sure am glad I never ended up ordering..
What a pathetic and poorly run business.
I was a customer of Flemington Direct for over a year now and many times have recommended the business to friends and colleagues.
I am disgusted at the unprofessionalism of all 3 of you.
It goes without saying I will not be a customer of Fleminton Fresh and will be using a competitor for future business. Should my credit card become compromised Nathan, Christine AND Mitchell will all be liable as directors who stored my data at the time of dissolution of the business.
Grow up and act like the professionals that you all wanted to be.
Thank you for talking sense, Disgruntled. I too am appalled by the lack of professionalism of these people. I can’t believe I have recommended these guys to so many people. I’m embarrassed.
Seriously people…grow up, and recognise you may have a serious legal issue on your hands now. Businesses fold..partnerships break up…none of which should effect us, your former customers.
Rest assured, like Disgruntled above, if our data has indeed been hacked, I too will be taking action against the company directors who permitted this to happen with lax security measures.
Hi Guys,
Ive been a bit reluctant to reply as i just dont have the resources to answer 7000 digruntled people, and Im busy rebuilding my life.
Ill try and make this my last comment on the situation of the hacking;
The original email by christine regarding hacking was fabricated, not true, a lie, it didnt happen.
You will have to ask her why, if anyone has had a response to this question please post it here.
By the time the hacktivist got involved all data under my control had already been deleted. As far as i can ascertain Christine and Nathan only removed customer email addresses from the business, these were stored in their mailchimp account.
The hacktivist appears to have gotten into their mailchimp account and sent an email out to everyone. This has been the only breach of security.
I apologise if you took offence to my light hearted approach to the events that transpired but there had been no data security issues at the time it was posted.
If anyone has had a response from Christine regarding why she sent out the hacking email please post it.
I think it would be good for everyone if people started posting some replies to some of these questions.
Thank you.
I loved working for FlemingtonDirect, it’s sad that, for whatever reason, somebody has decided to stop a beautiful history of friendship, hard work and loyalty to customers.
Thanks Marlene,
You know you’re the girl with 150 IQ
No offence to anyone but this is captivating stuff…it’s like watching a car wreck. You want to unsubscribe to the emails but it is too juicy to turn your back on. Next time I have a falling out with my husband I am taking it viral!!!!!
Mitch!!!
This is unbelievable. I’m so sorry to hear this. Was this about money? Greed? I will never understand how people can value dollars over friendship, trust and decency. It makes me sad. Did you ever manage to get an explanation out of “the director”?
Stay strong dude. Little comfort, but I one was fleeced by a business partner, and although it took some time, I have since rebuilt, am happier than ever, and at night, I sleep like a baby. Not so sure about the other bloke.
assuming Mitch from Melbourne is the Mitch in the story, he must have sent out the ‘hacktivist’ mail that went out earlier as this page only went up around the time that email got sent out. good way to get publicity for this page.
there’s always two sides of the story, would like to hear Nathan and Christine’s version
Hi Mitchell,
So sorry to hear that this was done to you, I will defiantly not be going with Flemington Fresh and have already sent off a scathing email to them.
I was wondering what had happened as it simply closed down over night with no information (as it would appear happened to you too!).
Thanks for sharing the story with us, I am just sorry it did not have a better ending for you, so much time spent getting this business up and running and finally when it reaches a stage where you can sit back and enjoy all of your hard work this happens…it is just so unjust and I am so angry for you!
I truly wish you all the best and hope your next business takes off!
Tracey
Hi – So, I’m curious as to who Ada was in this process? Offshore worker? She was always very courteous… although seemed to work 24 hours a day!
Anyway, I’ll be following your new ventures with interest. I really don’t know whether to cancel my CC or not. Dilemmas….
I wanna know about Ada too. Could Ada be one name used by any number of people in Romania or Indonesia?! It drove me mad that I couldn’t call ‘her’ one day over a big stuff up with a special order. She just kept emailing me when we needed to talk.
I cancelled my CC this morning – highly inconvenient but I don’t want to be watching my account and worrying I’ll need to file disputes.
Hi, This is Ada. And I am a very real person! I have been working remotely for the company and I am afraid it was not my fault you could not call me. I had no incoming line at that point. I know it does not really count now but I think you are owed some explaining, at least on the parts I know about.
I can only hope the issue was solved back then.
All the best
Hi Pomo Lu, this is Ada. Thank you for your nice words about me. Feels good to know someone actually remembers me.
I am afraid that I was just collateral damage in this sad sad sad friendship-war-story. And yes, for the past 18 months I have been working my but off (from Romania, yes) trying to make things work. And they worked just fine. Up until May 25th!
Your’re a bunch of cowboys. I’m cancelling my credit card immediately and notifying the police.
What a fine mess you guys are in! Just came here from Fig and Cherry which also has this story
http://www.figandcherry.com/food-news/flemington-direct-hacked/
Mitchell,
Thanks for the story. Even though it’s only your side, it rings with the kind of honesty that makes me believe the bulk of it.
This is just a note to congratulate you for not sitting back and being a victim. It takes a courage to turn around and say “what the hell” and start again from scratch, so I wish you all the best in your new endeavors.
I won’t be ordering from Flemington Fresh.
Good luck Mitchell.
Hi Mitchell,
Sorry to hear what your nasty ex-business partners have done. Just rest assured that what goes around, comes around and the truth will come out.
I’ve asked Flemington Fresh to remove me from their “customer list” as I’m a little sick of receiving their emails – even more so now that I know how unprofessional and unethical they are.
I really hope it all works out for you and you recover all that was illegal and deceptively taken from you.
Kind regards
Kate.
This is a circus and out of control. I dropped Flemington direct when they kept filling up our box with Potatoes, that was a long time ago. I use Illawarra Fruit Direct now
This is Nasty crazy stuff….and probably KARMA.
I will wait for the next crazy email.
Hi Guys,
Sorry i havent been replying, im getting deluged with emails from family and friends wanting to know if im alright. Ill try and get to answering questions sometime when this settles down a bit.
Mitch
This is a great article. Thanks for taking the time to describe this all out for us. It truly is a great help!
This really is a awesome post. Thank you for taking a few minutes to summarize all of this out for folks. It truly is a great guide!
They have set up a new facebook page, for anyone who is interested
http://www.facebook.com/onceuponababy#!/pages/Flemington-Fresh/120239161393488?sk=info
I dropped Flemington Direct after they sent us an incorrect order, tried to charge us for it anyway- then when we refused, they gave it away for free to someone else! Which was sad, as we really enjoyed the fresh produce- but the service was horrible.
I want to know who Ada is too!!! (btw, I stopped using FD because the new site was so unreliable.)
TAKE IT DOWN!
Viral marketing, fake emails, hacktivists, bird seed and starving Balinese! Did this even happen or has Flemington Direct transformed into a Romanian marketing company?
If this is all true why dont you take these guys to court?
I was one of the first customers of flemington direct back in 2001.
Mitchell used to call me every week to take my fruit and veg order, I always thought he only had 1 customer as we used to chat so much.
Whatever you do next will be easy compared to flemington direct.
Good luck Mitchell
‘The customer that wants big oranges and small apples’.
I agree…way back at the start I had many a convo with Mitch about what to replace my eggplant with this week
This is the funniest thing I’ve ever read.
Stealing all the customers then emailing them about their credit cards being stolen when they hadn’t been, busted!
Clearly amateurs at work here.
Good luck with flemington fresh, I’ll be joining that mailing list for the entertainment value alone.
Amused.
Thanks a ton for bothering to line all this out for us. This write-up was in fact quite useful in my opinion.
Mitch,all power to you. Those 2 who stole your business should be in jail, unreal.
Anything I can do to help from London let me know…
Tom
Ps met at one of your London mentor events
Who has control of the flemingtondirect email if this is the domain?
Good question Chris,
All emails sent to customers has been from their mailchimp.com account, flemington direct has always had control of this.
Domains and email addresses are owned by Mitchell but no emails have come from this account except between mitchell and the ex business partners.
So does mailchimp.com have our credit cards?
no,
no credit cards have ever been compromised.
Mailchimp just stores email addresses.
The email stating that servers had been hacked and credit cards compromised was fabricated by the directors.
So where to from here, who is good in sydney, obviously not flemington fresh.
Great stuff, brother! This has made it to ninemsn.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8264348/parting-prank-prompts-online-privacy-scandal
what a fantastic read I to had business partner who stole my company but karma kicked in in the end
Hope all goes well in any new venture you decide to embark on
Hi mitch,,
From this page alone (I’ve never heard of your business before today) it sounds like you’ve been trying to get out for years, so you can’t honestly try and blame your “partners” for trying to cut you loose. You can’t have it both ways. I don’t want to be patronizing, but I think if you go into business again, you should keep your eye on the ball a little better. good luck.
Hi BRian,
I didnt want to be in the business as it was awful, i knew what i was risking and i would do the same again if faced with the same prospects. LIfe is more important than business
MItch
I’m disgusted that you would play a prank with those who have invested goodwill and money into your business by providing patronage and entrusting you with their confiedential cc details.
You should all be disgusted with yourselves for betraying the trust you are legally obliged to uphold and also for wasting our time with your rubbish.
I had my doubts when I ordered from you people, I should have listened to my gut. Never again!
thats a good read.
a bit dissappointed no word of brilliant salesman or nothing though.
Mitch, Ha Ha – now you owe me 30 minutes of my life back.
I did enjoy your story.
let me know when the movie comes out.
Does this mean that I cannot get any veggies delivered to Johannesburg South Africa?
Rob (waiting at my gate for fresh veggies!)
Now let me go back to internet marketing….
Hey Rob,
Thanks for reading the story.
I owe you half an hour
Im owed 10 years so ill see if i can pass the debt onto the old partners .
Have a free link with some text:
The most amazing garden outdoor patio furniture in the world http://designsmith.co.za/
lol
We deliver fruit and vegie mixed boxes, where you choose all the contents!
We offer three box sizes:
Singles box (with 6 selections)
Couples box (with 10 selections)
Family box (with 15 slections)
All produce is delivered directly from the market, with no lock in contract and simple, safe secure ordering online at http://www.andyandted.com.au
Why not give us a go?
Thanks
Ted
Good luck Andy And Ted
Wow, I was looking online for produce delivery, and came across this story… posting something this personal and detailed is a bit unprofessional & immature, no?
Possibly, i guess it’s a matter of opinion.
Hi Mitch, i feel bad about the way you were treated by the people you trusted, they will get what’s coming, those types always do. I was wondering if you could help me out, i have a small organic F/V delivery service in Sydney and, as you, want to expand. I do everything on my own but to expand i need a database of customers and a programme to print out a list of items that go into each box so that i can have a team of packers. Could you help me in this regard, do you have a copy of your old programme i could use? Any advice would be appreciated. Cheers, George.