Remember that thread we started back in October about trying to help those abandoned by lotusflow3r support? Well, I want you to know we tried and we tried a lot of people.

I apologize for not getting this up before now, with the 1 year mark only hours away. I hope some people might see this and still have time to change their credit card info if they so desire.

We started out with lotusflow3r support. We quickly found out that their phone was disconnected and e-mails to sales and support were going unread and of course, unanswered. This was 6 months into the 1 year subscription. We tried for a response for about 4 weeks at least twice a week.

It was decided then that sometimes the only thing that gets attention was a good old public shaming, we did not want to do this on the org yet, but we did reach out to several media outlets. Some were too big to care, others were getting scraps from Prince and did not want to jeopardize that. Some were CJ and she didn't even respond. The original Billy Jack Bitch wouldn't even go after Prince's poor business practices.

Then we turned to the developers personally. Scott Addison Clay never returned the message, but Anthony Malzone did send a few responses. To date he has been unable to provide any information that would prove helpful.

So...that's where we stand after 6 months of trying, we simply just didn't get anywhere. The last course of action as recommended to me by the Better Business Bureau is to start filing claims with both the Minnesota and California Better Business Bureaus and the Attorney General's offices for both states. We now know due to other court filings and terms on the site that the business address for lotusflow3r is located in the LA area and doing business as "lotusflow3r", but we haven't found more than that yet.

I wish I had more to report. At least current events have shown that Prince is not invincible and the courts are making him pay for the poor business practices he has employed as of late. At the minimum, a good number of people did not receive the minimum promised material from the site. At the worst, Prince and lotusflow3r employed false advertising to entice people to join the site.

That's where we are and it is sad. It seems so petty that a t-shirt would be a cause for something like this, but the heart of the matter is larger than that. It is about how an artist chooses to relate to fans, how that has changed, and taking responsibility for how a business is run. Feel free to go to town on us, tell us how YOU were satisfied and no-one understands Prince like you do, but that is an opinion, just as the feeling of being ripped off is an opinion. Fortunately for the fans and perhaps unfortunately for Prince the feeling ripped off opinion is one with evidence to back it up.

Remember, the site terms state you must send an e-mail to sales@lotusflow3r.com to cancel your membership. A futile gesture, but if they do try and charge you, you'll have that to dispute the charge.

Good luck to anyone still trying, let us know how it goes and of course we'll report any news that comes our way.

Great thanks a lot for this. I am canceling my subscription now. I've remained quiet for a while now, but I am truely pissed at how he has handled this whole thing. I become less of a fan everyday. And I have stuck by him through everything. Great way to shit on the people who have supported you and your lavish lifestyle.

Hopefully this means that something new will resurface and the broken promises will b healed by new 1s fulfilled. Whatever the case eye wish Prince were 2 go back 2 his NPGMC site...it had infinitely more while LotusFlow3r cms 2 b more of an xperimental effort...

I hate to say I told you so, but.....

and here I was just going to post 1st and leave it alone

well at least you tried. i'd just like to say thank you for taking out
the time and effort to try and get a response out of them.

of all the websites he's had so far, lotusflower is the worst one. all
the other sites had more music, more news, more info, more value for $.

with the end of year 1 so close, it seems unlikely that there will be
anything new under the 1st year membership. to me it seems unlikely we
will even see a second year.

you have to wonder tho, what happened there. it's impossible that the
man thought this was gonna be it for the whole year and charged us 77
bucks for it. he must have planned on a lot more but somehow it never
came into being.

but by now he has to be conscious of people's complaints and of how we
discuss the sites failure (in most people's eyes it is, altho there is
a small minority group who seem to be perfectly happy with it).

the most obvious negativity for me is:

* no tshirt for many, many people. even after the org poll and emails
on the subject, no word.

* no 'interactive' live concert, which they said would likely happen,
with people picking songs and prince playing them online.

* no '10 hours worth of unreleased material', that was mentioned. not
promoted, no, but mentioned all the same.

* no alternate/outtake pictures of vintage album artwork, which were
mentioned either in the press release or by prince in an interview.

* streaming vids and audio only.

* streaming vid and audio was almost impossible to watch for the first
few months until they finally installed a 'loading' vid player. but it
is still less than average even to this day.

* prince offering songs to websites, football teams, radiostations and
god knows who, yet not putting any of them on the official site, even
tho the material is being downloaded illegally by anyone with a modem.

* in the end, too little too late, we get "cause and effect", after it
has debuted on radio and is streaming on several sites. yet, we only
get it in streaming audio once again.

i'm aware that you can get those files in certain folders once you've
been listening to them etc etc. but is that the point? he gave us mp3
and wav files over the years so what's up now?

* no communication, at all. no news, no updates on what's going on or
why he's chosen to be so silent or so tight with releasing material to
the site.

* year 2 is on the doorstep and yet nobody knows what will happen. there
is no membership drive or hype, no news, no communication thru the sites
supposed support team. people don't know if they'll be charged again or
if the site will close, will have a second year run and how or why that
will come to be.

i kept on hoping stuff would start to trickle in but yesterday evening
even i gave up and changed by cc info so that they would at least not be
able to charge me again before we know exactly what we'll be getting for
another 'donation'.

despite all those negative points, i WILL sign up again, but only if he
decides to go with a new format in which we'll be told exactly what we
can expect. album names and tracklists, outtake details or whatever. but
unless i know 95% of the content and am 100% sure it will be released,
i'm walking away from it.

waiting for stuff and not being greedy and expecting 20 cds for 77,- i'm
completely in agreement with. but this site just went too far with what
little people did sign up in the end. talk about shooting yourself in the
foot.

unless they go for a completely new format with a store and lots of new
and old unreleased music, i think it's safe to say membership numbers are
gonna plummet about 80%.

and that will leave, what, 8.000 people?

i guess we'll be seeing the new prince album in stores only this year.
that is, unless, he's got some brilliant scheem cooking. but by now, i'm
not holding my breath anymore.

Come on fams, I know you're out there somewhere just ready to defend your lord and master at all cost. Let us hear from ya...

I'll even help get you started with some of the classics:
-Something big is brewing, we just have to be patient...
-Daddy Pop is too sexy to have time to deal with this...
-An artist has the right to change his mind when he sees fit...
-Why should he give you anything when you complain...
-Prince is love, and I love him...
-Prince doesn't owe us anything... (I always love that one. (c) Paul Allen KFAN)

7souls said:

yeah, those are bound to show up. and it's their oppinion, so they
should have the right to say what they feel.

however, all the reasoning about $ 77,- is beyond the point for me.
i don't care how people count and jump through hoops to defend what
we got and how much it is worth.

what i'm disgruntled about is the many broken promises and the many
dangling carrots (the eternally referenced outtakes, for one).

this site was promoted as the be all and end all in prince land but
it was launched and pretty much dead in the water from there.

i don't need a new album every year and i don't need 100 outtakes
in pristine quality. but if you're gonna act like that's what we
will be able to access through a website, please realise that the
majority of people will be disappointed when you fail to deliver.

it would have been fine with me if he'd offered albums or concerts
in a retail section for additional money. that'd be just fine.

i'd even be ok if he had no website at all and only set up shop on
the net if he had something to sell. something promoted to be just
what it is right here and right now. clear, transparant marketing
with a set product for a set price.

it's those games, those annoyingly enigmatic quotes and failure to
follow through or stay interested.

wether that's cost me 1 dollar of 700. the end result is the same.

I still want to be able to exchange my kiddies size Tshirt for an adult size Tshirt

After receiving it and trying it on and finding it's more "fitting" for an 8 year old child..... I put it back inside the original shipping package. It's collecting dust now

I was going to email to arrange for the above simple exchange and then the above shit happened of not having an email contact.

luv4u said:

for a while there i figured all the 'problems' were due to
an argument between prince and the web team but now that
they put up the "music" tab with caus and effect on the
site, it seems obvious that there is at least still some
stuff going on by means of communication between prince
and his team.

i wonder if prince knows about the gazillion complaints
about content.

Ensuring tickets to the Last Jam of 2009 made up for the $77.

Just my opinion.

lol

good to know i wasn't the only one that mailed CJ

she blanked me too.....

kinda over LetusFUover.con now

got 2 decent dvd's outta it

and 3 albums i liked

can't be arsed to moan anymore-its not worth any discussion

kinda glad 2 see the back of the place

IstenSzek said:

Well if I were Prince I would be royally purpled about the fans being ripped off under my nose.

If he does not give a rats ass then that's really sad. Maybe we'll get another P.F.U.N.K. song in response. Like that will make up for everything

though i am DISGUSTED some got no tee-and they have to be the shittest-most rude outta touch customer service since Basil Fawlty

silly ducks

Well, it's clear now, Prince knowz hiz muzic, but doesn't know squat about the internet or multimedia (aka Interactive CD form the '90s). He'z into eye candy, not content or substance. Look how simple u2.com is and you don't even have to be a member...

polkadotbliss said:

I love Fawlty Towers

ok back on topic

polkadotbliss said:

lol. i like to think that mani was like sybil fawlty, and kept prince
on a tight leash, telling him what to do.

poor bria is probably more like polly

lol

she wishes

k.....?

Thanks to Mars23 and any others involved in representing fans' interests.

I'm in Scotland and I did receve my t-shirt (can't remember when tho. I know it wasn't fast). Like many others, I have changed my cc info. I'm relectant to cancel completely purely because of the faint whiff of ticket offers. There have been a small number of these though there were none for the shows I attended in Paris and Montreux.

The other content isn't really worth anything to hard core fans. We had nearly all of it already and a casual fan isn't goin to pay that money so who is this site for really? Besides Prince's pockets that is.

Having said all that, I may sign up again for a hypothetical year 2 if the price isn't extortianate. Only for the possibility of tickets though.

My complaints - lack of content, slow on most computers, lack of member offers. It's hard to see where our money went. There isn't really anything exclusive about it.

IstenSzek said:

lol, not necessarily... they might have downloaded it from one of the other many sites that it was floating around on & uploaded it to Lotusflow3r to save face.

I signed up for a 1 year subscription and I don't think we should be hastily judging this site based on the first 364 days alone. Wait until it's been around for a full year and then you'll see the fantastic value that was offered over the lifetime of the subscription. You don't think Prince is gonna give you your full $77 worth this early into the year, do you?

Or something like that.

I had wanted to join.. really did.. but money was so tight then, still is now... so I didn't. VERY glad I didn't..
I loved the NPG Music Club. Remember all those Monthly down loads he gave us?
you could actually COPY them and play them elsewhere. awesome.....
and we got SOO many excellent tickets to his 2004 shows. 1st row, 2nd row TWICE 3rd Row TWICE and 5th row. awesome!!
But from the people I know that have belonged to this latest website.. its nothing but a rip off..
I know Prince does not "owe" us anything.. but where would he be with out us?? He has to have fans to buy his music? Sure maybe NOW he doesn't need our $10 for CD's any more.. but back in early 1980 he sure did!!!
and People like myself have been there.. by his side.. since he first
appeared..
its just sad.
I miss the days of the NPG with Tony, Damin, Kirk, Mike, Mayte etc...
Prince had FUN then.. and he seemed to care alot more about those around him.
Sorry, but I think the whole J.W thing turned him into a strange bitter person.
I still am a fan.. will always be one.
But I find myself shaking my head more and more these days..

Mars23 said:

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Anytime you do business over the internet this can happen. That being said your only recourse is to dispute the charges on your credit care and complain to the BBB. I still cannot figure out for the life of me why so many people came to this board to complain rather than do these things months ago.

I also think by this time it should be obvious that dude did not get enough people to sign up to make it financially worth continuing and just walked away from the business. Nothing crazy about this has businesses fail and close all the time. Some of you are just getting a grown up lesson

Mars23 said:

I hate to say this but must. I hope everyone took the time to read the Terms and Conditions BEFORE signing up. Am I the only one that takes the time to read these things? I wonder if this portion would pertain to those dang T-shirts:

3.11 - Lotusflow3r reserves the right to modify, suspend, or DISCONTUNUE Products or Memberships at any time with or without notice to you. Lotusflow3r will not be liable to you or to any third party should it exercise such rights.

Maybe it's just the way I read it, but it seems like there was never an absolute guarantee of any sort for anything!!. My guess is that almost none of the people that signed up read anything. As far as I know all websites have built in clauses to protect themselves in the event of certain issues. They all protect, or at least try to protect themselves from liablity. Lotusflower.com is no different, no better and no worse. Or is it,just a case of the rules not applying in this instance? As I was informed recently by a fellow Orger...the rules regarding THIS site don't apply to them, not that they read them. So why read them? Because they matter, if not to you, trust me thay matter to the site owner(s). That's why they're posted.

It all seems so familiar with this whole internet thing. It would be interesting if this (T-shirt?) issue is reported to the BBB and Attorneys General of various states. Is Lotusflow3r.com perfect? A better question is whether any website can be considered perfect. The truth is, nothing in life is perfect...such is life. By the way does anyone know how much it cost Prince or his company to gain access to videos that Warner Brothers owns? So much is assumed about who owns what and where the money went.

The angst is quite understandable, but it's also very ironic. Yes we all work hard for our money, that includes Prince. Everyone I know, including myself, works to produce something and they/we all expect to get paid for it. Every single one of them/us would be livid if what they/we produced was taken (ie: downloads) from them/us without payment. So I say this, ye without sin cast the first stone, go ahead and try to bite the hand that feeds you. I think it could be very interesting to say the least.

Time has shown Prince to be completely untrustworthy. The upside of this latest scam club is now most people know better.

Although I agree that LotusFlow3r has been a huge disappointment, I gotta say I got my money's worth. Through the website, I was able to snag tickets to all three LA shows last March - which is a night I'll never forget. That Conga Room show was one of his best. And if you factor what I would have paid in TicketMaster fees if I had been able to get tickets, I probably broke even. Those bastards charge upwards of $15 a ticket!!!

But if I wasn't able to go to those shows, I'd be pissed too. I guess now we know for next time.

toy4him said:

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Co-Sign Let's be honest people did not take the time to read before signing up.

funksterr said:

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Yes, they will know to read disclaimers before whipping out their credit cards.