Jumpdude

No offence, but this reeks of collusion. I know, that's why I said, if it were the perfect world, so to speak Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

Douglas, thank you for the very honest and straightforward observation. I agree completely. Now, to all of those reading, what can we do or encourage our DZOs to do to prevent this, or to help the sport become more profitable and therefore, safer, due to the increased profit margin allowing for better gear, maintenance, aircraft, etc.? In the perfect world (so to speak) all DZO's would quit using all middlemen, and form an alliance between all DZO's to boycott any and all tickets sold by middle men, and form a "Gentleman's agreement" to compete cleanly. Also, surely most DZ's have at least one jumper who does websites and knows something about SEO, put those people to use to benefit the DZ. Hook them up with a couple of jumps (or more) to do your sites, and SEO, and get your jumpers to post links on their Facebooks, post pictures, and videos of their jumps, and talk about it, do blogs, on other sites that they can access! Links are like votes for your site, the more links you have, the more votes that the search engines see and that pushes your site up the list. And the higher quality the link, the more it pushes your site up. There's all kind of ways to grow your DZ's customer base without using middle men. Well, like I said, I guess that would be the perfect world. Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

As bad as I hate the middle men and of course, sLyride and their aliases being the top of the list, I do agree with you about business being business, so, yeah, if they can make the numbers work, more power to them. I just hate to see our sport getting fleeced by the middle men, no matter who they are. As for the thing about Perris having the flyer in Phoenix, you made a very good point about raising awareness of our sport, but, Well, they accept sLyride/Sportations/Spot Reservation, so, well, I guess the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

The video says it all! https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4430838123929

you do realize that the dropzones approach living social and groupon to sell tandems for their DZ right? Living social and groupon are nothing like skyride was. You may be right, but as a lot of DZ.com peeps here as well as myself have been preaching for years, if the DZO's would do their SEO, and do some marketing of their own, there would be no need for middle men sites,,, ANY of them! How can it be profitable if they have to cut their prices so deeply to offer a 70% discount on Tandems as advertised in the ad I posted the link for? That would mean that if a DZ's regular price per tandem is $200, the discounted rate would put it at $60, or less to figure in the cut for the middle man, so, it almost looks like a load of up jumpers would be more profitable! Do the math DZO's! Is it really worth it? Also, Even though they have essentially turned off the 1 800 Skyride business name, the same company, in other names is still very much alive and well. The latest known names are Bilateral, and Spot Reservation and what used to be 1 800 Skyride, is now weaty.com!

By now, I feel pretty certain that most of us who have Facebook have seen the ads by Living Social, and more specific, the ones for Skydiving. I want to encourage everyone to post the link to their own REAL DZ's in the comments sections of those ads! Even if you don't care to elaborate about how the middle men ticket scalper sites are damaging our sport, at least post the link so anyone who sees the ads will get a little knowledge and be able to deal directly with the DZ so they don't get screwed! https://www.facebook.com/LivingSocial/posts/490636617682383

I'm thinking the all time best Skymama quote has to be "Fuck you Billy Vance!!"

"a bit hokey" is being kind. ***From web site: 1. Go to www.nobego.com and Claim your dropzone; Do you all think I should claim one of the DZs listed that closed last year or the one that closed 3 years ago? (Of course, no sign of any of the DZs that started up in the last few years.) Lmao! I didn't get that far to check to see if the DZ's that are listed are open, or not, or even real! I did notice however, that they have Skydive Fitzgerald listed, so I guess Chris's Boogie is a full time DZ now!

Just wonder if that person knows it's being used? You know we've seen images used without permission in the past. Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

Not sure about this one, but it's still a middle man, and seems a bit hokey! *Note to DZO's, Just remember, if you use a middle man, ANY middle man, you are giving away business that was rightfully yours in the first place and your hard earned cash! I received an email that came to my @1800skyrideripoff.com email address that reads as follows: ***Camera guys, Heads up! The attachment is the pic that was included in the email. I have no idea who's pic it is or what DZ it's from, but these people are using to market their website! _________________________________________________________________________________________ Fly with Nobego.com We're serious about bringing skydivers to your dropzone! Now that summer is here and I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and our company. My name is Cristian Agafi and I am one of the co-founders of Nobego.com. Nobego is a deals platform startup that caters to the outdoor sports industry. Our goal is to turn our users into your customers and have them coming back repeatedly. Our business model is unique to the outdoor industry. It works in two very simple steps: 1. You offer a discount to your service by creating a voucher on our website; 2. We sell the voucher for a very small fee to our users and ancillary businesses. For example, if your service or product costs $100 and you decide to attract customers by offering a 25% discount through a voucher, we sell that voucher for $1 to our users and turn them into your customers. The $1 is our operation fee. Why do I say this model is unique to the outdoor industry? Unlike Groupon, Livingsocial and all the other “deal sites”, we don’t charge you, the dropzone, anything! It is completely free! Since it’s cost-free it’s also risk-free. The second element that makes us unique is our low fee to the user. This allows us to sell bulk vouchers to ancillary businesses (such as nearby restaurants and motels, travel agencies, gearhead stores, etc.) and they will in turn give away the vouchers, for free, as an added value to their products and services. For example, a travel agency will buy a large number of discounted vouchers and give the 25% discount to every skydiver that travels through them, as an added value to their own service. This will benefit both you and the travel agency, as well as the skydiver. At this point you are probably wondering how to get started. It could not be easier! 1. Go to www.nobego.com and Claim your dropzone; 2. Under Deals, create a discounted voucher and publish it; 3. We’ll do the rest!!! If you are interested in getting more skydivers to your dropzone, email us and we’ll help you set up an account. It would be our pleasure to help you set up your first Nobego deal and our marketing elves will fly with it. Cristian Agafi Co-founder Nobego.com cristian@nobego.com Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

I wonder if they accept sLyride/Sportations, or their new names, Bilateral, or Spot Reservation? You could contact them and ask. Or go ahead and make assumptions (not you, necessarily, but the OP) and slam them online. No worries, I will verify with my insider at SR/Bilateral/Spot Reservation before I slam anyone. Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

I wonder if they accept sLyride/Sportations, or their new names, Bilateral, or Spot Reservation?

Nope! 2 different sites, same location! At least 2, maybe more out there! http://jumpfloridaskydiving.com http://www.skydiveorlanpa.com Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

That's right!! And bring all of your middle Tennessee Tandem business to Tullahoma!! Keep them away from that POS, scamming, ripoff place over in Waverly! Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

I didn't know that! He was a lot of fun. Not nearly so obnoxious as one that remains. Must be one of those "who you know" deals. Me? Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

WOW!!! It took 11 years for the last two responses before mine to get entered in to this thread! Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

Affiliation with sLyride, and owner of PROskydiving.com, He said it himself in the thread about PRO that he intended to get in between the customer and the DZ! Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

No, but I just got another friend request from this one Janine Bowden Damn look at the pictures. Maybe you should friend her!! LMAO! Not my type... But you could... See if she wants to try a tandem naked. Maybe she could sub for an inflatable to jump with!!! Them things would surely cushion the fall!!!!

No, but I just got another friend request from this one Janine Bowden Damn look at the pictures. Maybe you should friend her!! LMAO! Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org

Maybe you should have accepted her friend request! We can NEVER have too many friends!!! Especially of the female persuasion!!

There's a reason why I referred you to SDC over CSC, SDC don't participate in shady, and/or unethical business practices to steal customers from other DZ's! CSC does all of the above!!!

It's fairly easy to find! Here's the directions! Leave the airport and merge onto I-190 East. • Take I-294 South (Exit #1D toward Indiana). • Merge onto I-55 South (toward Joliet) to I-80. • Take I-80 West to (the first Ottawa exit) Route 71 (Exit #93). • At Exit #93, turn right on Route 71 (north) go 1/4 mile to Dayton Road (31st Rd). • At Dayton Road (31st Rd), turn left (west). Dayton Road will cross the Fox River. • Travel to first stop sign (1961st Rd.), turn right. • Please drive slowly past the homes. • Stay left at the "Y" and go straight up the hill at the stop sign, this is the entrance. • Our airport is less than 2 miles from exit #93. (Approx. 1hr. from Midway Airport) • Pull into parking lot and prepare to have the time of your life! skydivechicago.com

I've been pretty covered up in the last year or so with getting my life back together. I've had some nice changes in my life, no wife to stop me from skydiving, and racing, kids are almost grown, son and possibly daughter making their first jumps in a couple of weeks, been making it to Boogies, life is getting better overall! I am aware of a lot of the changes in the sLyride scam, most of their new names, and I have just in the last month or so, started updating some of the sites to make them more effective and hopefully be more straight and to the point, which includes screenshots of the sLyride sites that effect certain areas, and since my area has been negatively effected by that nuisance so called DZ over in Waverly, I started with the site for them! astskydiving.net and another one for Chicago is beloitskydiving.com The answer for how current the list is, only about 30%, but I've made a few calls already and more coming soon, so hopefully, we will have it up to 100% soon and find less that are taking the tickets than in the past. If anyone wants to get their DZ listed, feel free to PM me or Billy and we will get your DZ listed. It's totally free and it's a PR-3 link to your site, and we ARE NOT a middle man, but we do intend to get between the customer and the sLyride sites and direct those customers back to the REAL DZ's!

The Google adwords program and other paid advertisement is not even that big of an issue! I mean yes, it is the ad at the top of the list and is as crooked and the rest, it's the organic search results that are fucking up the market! Page after page of fake, scalper sites before a REAL DZ site shows up! THAT'S the issue! If it were not for the middle man sites, it would be a no brainer for the customer! They would find their local DZ and everybody would be happy!

100% agreed!!! If the ticket scalpers didn't have their sites in the way of the REAL DZ's, just think of how much more money the DZO's would have in their bank acct!! I've heard jumpers make negative comments about this DZ or that DZ only has a Cessna, I can't make any predictions for any certain market area or DZ, but if there were no middle man sites stealing the sales from the REAL DZ sites, I would bet that there would be at least a few more turbine DZ's! Refuse to Lose!!! Failure is NOT an option! 1800skyrideripoff.com Nashvilleskydiving.org