Solais Photo

Since I seriously doubt the jump in the numbers around here are due entirely to people's desire to find out if I really did end up owning a velvet last supper painting or to see the Webkinz recipes I post for my crazy and completely adorable neighbor kid; I'll go ahead and pull a draft of a post I've been holding on to for a couple of months.

I will add these two additional notes:

Karen Simmons has not updated Soliasphoto since she has been outted as the real identity behind the name Kara Hudson.

And I'm truly sorry for the photographer who hired Kara Hudson as a second shooter for a wedding that Kara/Karen did not show up to work. I hope you have an understanding bridal couple as you work this out.

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So, not only is Kara Hudson, photographer, actually Karen Simmons (see post). She also did a bit of back dating on her new website. The WHOIS look up for Solaisphoto.net shows that the domain was registered on April 7, 2008. (Click image to enlarge)


Oddly enough, the first post on that site is dated April 2, 2008. (Click to enlarge)


The second blog post is dated April 6, 2008. (Click)


Small details, I know, to back date posting on a website. It's just another another little lie to add to all the others.

Devil's in the details.

Karen Simmons cult of personality

If you looked closely at the DNS Locator record from my previous post about Karen Simmons, you'll have noticed there were a few more sites out there that I didn't discuss. Here's two of interest. Of interest only because she appears to be gearing up for a few more false identities.

Identity lurking in hiding number one: Sandy Simmons at HearsMusic.org (Click image to enlarge)


Identity lurking in hiding number two: Lois Irene, photographer at LoisIrene.com (Click image to enlarge)



Let's count all the names thus far, shall we?

1.) Karen Simmons
2.) Claire Dancy
3.) Kia McAuliffe
4.) Kara (Karen) Hudson
5.) Sandy Simmons
6.) Lois Irene

Looks like someone is giving Sybil a run for the money.

Kara Hudson is Karen Simmons

Karen Simmons is at it again. Creating fake identities and breaking into places she's not wanted nor allowed.

Kara Hudson is the name Karen Simmons is currently using. Sometimes it shows up as Karen Hudson. You'll find it at her new photography blog (website coming soon!) at: http://www.solaisphoto.net/

Here's a screen shot of the contact page. (Click to enlarge.)


Notice the phone number? 404-429-9441. It traces back to Karen Simmons. And I wouldn't be worth my salt if I didn't show you proof. (Again, click to enlarge.)


For $10, you can run the same search with the same company.


There is a second phone number listed for Solias. It's listed on the Atlanta Bridal website: (Click for size)


The number listed is 404-806-0216. Oddly enough, that's the exact same phone number listed on the Karen and Co contact page: (Clickty click)


And yet a third phone number for Solais can be found on the Solais Facebook page (which has currently been pulled by Facebook though it may be reinstated anytime.) Check it out: (Clickable)


That phone number is listed as 404-667-1029. Since paying for searches was getting expensive, calling the number seemed more prudent. You can listen to the outgoing message. Sounds just like Karen Simmons voice claiming to be Kara Hudson. Give a listen:

404-667-1029 Recording

Just for grins and giggles this is the outgoing message of the Karen and Co phone number shown above as 404-806-0216.

404-806-0216 Recording


What we have here are three phone numbers, all showing up on different websites as belonging to Solais, a photography business purportedly owned by Kara Hudson. And all three phone numbers tie back to Karen Simmons.


But those are just names and phone numbers. Who owns the domain? Not a photographer named Kara Hudson. Karen Simmons owns that domain. She owns several domains, matter of fact. (More clicking)


For $3 you can run the same search. Her server is named after her cat, Domino. And if anyone paid attention back when she owned the PWP Forums domain, dominoblue was our nameserver.

And before you ask: no, I wasn't aware she was planning on selling PWP's domain. Nor did I receive any proceeds from the sale. Whatever.

To sum up, Karen Simmons appears to be running a photography business under a name that is not legally her own. If she hasn't legally changed her name to Kara Hudson... I imagine she could get into a lot of trouble for misrepresenting herself to clients.

DWF might have something to say about Karen misrepresenting herself as well. They traced a user ID of Kara Hudson to Karen Simmons. They locked Kare Hudson out, as they did when she used the name Claire Dancy, as they did when she was Karen Simmons. But I suppose that's for DWF to comment on.

Transcripts for everyone!

In the meanwhile Kiki was emailing me and IMing me as though nothing had happened, asking why I wouldn’t talk to her.

Huh. Funny thing about "Truth" - it doesn't look like a damn thing I have on record. Let's just review what I've got on file. In. It's. Entirety. No editing, no out-takes.

A couple of dates to keep in mind:

• September 22 is when I talked with Karen face to face and the accounting for PWP.
• September 28 is the deadline my lawyer set to getting the accounting to us.

(And most lawyers will ask for extension after extension on time lines. But good ones don't let them blow past without speaking to the requesting lawyer. Makes them look bad once they get in front of a judge. Something Karen may want to take up with her lawyer, as a matter of fact.)

That said, each e-mail I've sent her since the 22nd follows. As do the chat transcripts.

(Click on the screenshots to enlarge to read. Then you can zoom in all you like.)

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September 25 - When I noticed she had started changing a few of my board permissions and I wasn't receiving all the PWP e-mails like I had been.



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September 26 - 1:57 PM - When I realized that it might be difficult to put together a full accounting put together going back from January in just 3 days. Also? I was sincere in my hope we could be reasonable about all this.


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September 26 - 6:31 PM - This is the e-mail Karen only partially quoted. (She dated it October 27th - learn to check your dates sweetheart.) I'm still trying to keep expensive lawyers as far away from everything as possible. I'm still naively hoping we can work this out.


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September 27 - One day before the cut-off date that my lawyer had given for accounting to be sent to us, she contacted me saying she couldn't meet with her lawyer until the following Monday (October 1st). Karen has this to say about it:

I did respond to her on Thursday with a brief, one line email saying that the earliest I could meet with my lawyers was on the following Monday, October 1st. She responded that she would wait to hear from them.

Here's the actual e-mail exchange:


My lawyers expected a call within a day or two of having met with Karen to ask for an extension on the time line. Especially considering they were already three days past the deadline. We never received anything from them until October 15th - a full 17 days past the initial deadline. So, yeah, by October 8th, I started a bit of posting.

Notice. I never said I'd wait in that e-mail. But I did. For awhile, at least.

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September 27 - In the interest of sharing all communications, I'm gonna include a rather boring, run of the mill, business e-mail. I've blocked the advertisers name, of course.


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October 5 - This is my last e-mail to Karen. At this point, she'd met with her lawyer on the 1st and was a total of 8 days past the deadline of getting my lawyers the accounting. We still hadn't heard from her or her lawyers. (shrug) It isn't a friendly e-mail. But then, why should it be? She wasn't responding, her lawyers weren't responding, and I was quickly coming to the realization that I'm about to spend several more thousands in lawyer bills because she can't or won't hand over the damn accounting.

I do find it amusing that once again, she only published part of the email. I love how she just picks and chooses what she'll publish, as if I also don't have copies of everything.


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And for one final clickable picture (seriously, if you can't read the print just click on the images, it'll take you to a larger version that you can drill down on) I'm gonna include all the chat logs from this time frame as well. What ya gotta know is this. As soon as she got back to Atlanta, she blocked me on IM. And then one day? Out of the blue? There she was again. It ain't much, but here it is.


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As a final note, this...

In the meanwhile Kiki was emailing me and IMing me as though nothing had happened, asking why I wouldn’t talk to her

....is total bullshit. I never asked why she wouldn't talk to me. And business is business - something I thought she knew. As long as we're still in business together, we should be able to talk shop. Even if we can't talk about the crap between us.

So there ya go. All e-mails and chats accounted for.

My lawyers expected to hear something by September 28th.
My last e-mail to Karen is dated October 5th.
My last chat is dated October 8th.
My first blog post is October 8th.
We finally heard from her lawyers October 15th.

Premeditated? Hardly. Refusing to be ignored? Absolutely.

Laughable

What you may not know about my family is that my husband flies out of town at 5:30 AM on Monday mornings and returns around 11:30 PM on Thursday nights. This means that from Friday morning until Monday morning - I'm all his. Sorry. Damn little posting when I can snuggle with the one I love.

I've spent the better part of this weekend trying to decide how to respond to Karen's "Truth" blog: http://pwptruth.blogspot.com/ . But my truth is, that's a helluva long read for one sitting. And I don't really care to write such a long freaking diatribe response all in one night.

So I think I'll just take it post by post. Though I doubt it'll be as fun to read cause I'm not going into boring blow by blows. Know why? Can't be proved. Boring shit, really. Poo flinging only works if ya got it stuffed with rocks. I do, however, come armed with rocks.

So let's take a look at post, excuse me, Part 1:
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At this point I realized that I had not put my wallet into my camera bag as I thought, but a different card folio - so I had no ID, no cash, and no credit cards with me.

...snip...

She threw a $20 bill at me from her wallet and said “call a cab”. I protested and said that she knew this wouldn’t get me home (and she knew I meant home to Atlanta, not to her house) but she intentionally misinterpreted me and told me that it would get me back – she’d taken a cab from that location many times.

Someone please explain to me why a nearly 40 year old woman, who had come to Virginia for a paying job, would expect an outside party to pay her way back home to Atlanta?

Yes, I gave her money to take a cab back to her rental car at my house. But never would it cross my mind, with her wallet soon to be waiting for her next to her car, to give her money to drive home to Atlanta. My 29 year old brother doesn't expect me to pay his way home. Why would anyone else?

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And with that, today's posting is done. I have no video or tape recording of that night. And unless you buy me a drink, I doubt you'll hear my version of how things went down. Cause it's all hearsay, folks. And the ridiculous crap we can point out (ahem, see above) or prove is ever so much more interesting. Dontcha think?

Aerosmith - Back In The Saddle

That's right, folks. I have owner rights on PWP once again. That's really me posting.

Now will someone explain why Tyler is always showing off his bony chest like it's sexy?

Seether - Fake It

For the chick sending nasty e-mails and leaving nasty phone messages. Feel free to leave those people alone and say it to me.

The names have all changed but the song remains the same

The question has been asked time and again. Why go public?

The simple answer is to get a response. The more in depth answer follows.



On December 19th, Karen introduced me on the forum as an investor and owner of PWP.


As an owner, I expect to have full access to the accounting. The last entry in the accounting of PWP finances, as provided to me by Karen Simmons, is dated January 7th. However many times I've asked for the accounts to be updated, and however many times as Karen promised to update those records, it never happened.

As explained in a previous post, eventually I was able to download PWP's income from the back end of the board. I put together a spreadsheet and came to the conclusion PWP should have $15,ooo in funds available when Karen was telling me we had nothing.

I waited to speak with Karen face to face. I wanted my message to be clear. We can talk about this. We can work this out.

We spoke on Saturday, September 22nd. She promised me a full accounting by Wednesday, Sept 26th.

The speaking? It didn't go so well. It never moved much beyond "We need to talk. We can work this out." So I handed her the letter from my lawyer which demanded a full accounting of all revenues and expenses of PWP by Friday, September 28th.

On Monday, October 8th - A full 10 days past the deadline my lawyer set, 12 days past the date Karen said she'd have the accounting to me, we hadn't heard a word from anyone. So I tracked down the lawyer she is using.

Her lawyer asked for two days to respond, until Wednesday the 10th. After blowing past the initial deadline, they didn't call. They didn't fax. They didn't overnight. They sent a letter regular mail. We finally received our first contact On Monday, October 15th. At that point, we were 17 days past the date set by my lawyer.

And what was enclosed in the letter? A bunch of photocopied receipts. Not a full accounting of INCOME and expenses. And the letter? Barely touched on the issues we brought up.

A simple Google search taught me the best way to get Karen to respond is to make the issue public. And it was becoming increasingly clear that Karen was not inclined to respond. My attorneys were getting nowhere, and I was getting nowhere with the communication efforts we'd tried over the weeks that led up to my blogging. As a last ditch effort, I blogged. And as I suspected, it elicited a response.

Going public is a nasty business. One I had hoped to avoid. But I will do what I can to recoup my investment. It doesn't hurt that I may be able to help a few others by sharing my experiences.

Oh. And while we're at it.

My lawyers aren't telling me not to talk. They are telling me to make damn certain anything I say can be proven in a court of law.

Claire Dancy can be proven in a court of law.

And I believe the finances can be proven in a court of law. So do my lawyers.

All the noise on PWP

I have invested over $16K in PWP.

As an owner, acknowledge on PWP and in the letter from Karen's lawyer, I fully expect all my owner rights and privileges to be reinstated. At this time I can read threads, but not post and I can no longer receive or send PM's.

With regard to the funding issues, Karen has not provided documentation as to where $15K in missing revenue revenue from PWP advertising, membership fees, and seminars fees has disappeared to. The receipts my lawyer received from Karen's lawyer are receipts that are, for the most part, already included in PWP's expenses. What this means is that there is an accounting of all legitimate expenditures from the PWP, totalling over $15,000 less than the total PWP revenue; however the bank accounts are empty according to Karen.

When I asked Karen about the missing money, I did it when we could be face to face. I provided her with a detailed spreadsheet of the revenue, all of the membership dues, seminar registrations, advertising income, and other miscellaneous income to the board - numbers I got from the back end of the board's software. My spreadsheet also included the expenses she provided me over the last year - legitimate expenditures that totaled more than $15,000 LESS than the actual revenue of the PWP. I asked to talk about this. She refused. I gave her the letter from my lawyer. I tried explaining we didn't have to go through lawyers. She went home to Atlanta and hasn't spoken to me since.

My lawyers have received one letter from Karen's. The deadline for response was September 28th, her lawyers response was dated October 9th, sent regular mail and received October 15th. We have received no further communication from her or her lawyers since then.

I didn't want to make things public. It's bad for business. And I came into this as a business - not as a way to support her personal baby.

One thing has been made clear from history. People come up against Karen and then back down for fear of the havoc she will wreck on their personal lives and their photography careers. I have nothing to lose. I am not a photographer, so I don't fear what she can do to my career. I am trying to recoup everything I can from my investment. At $16K and counting, wouldn't you?

I want nothing more then to keep PWP alive and kicking. One thing the numbers proved was this forum is profitable - when we had our membership base. A base that is willing to return if Karen is not here.

I'm gonna keep fighting for my investment. Because I believe in PWP. Because it was my money I invested. Because there are so many people who have tried to work with Karen and failed. Because I can.

-Kiki

KAREN SIMMONS

REINSTATE MY OWNER RIGHTS ON THE BACK END OF THE BOARD RIGHT NOW.

Will the real Claire Dancy please stand up?

Enough dicking around. Hold on to your asses, folks. Cause here's the breaking news.

Claire Dancy is a fake name, website, and identity create by Karen Simmons to gain entrance into DWF.

How do I know this, you ask? Cause she told me she was doing it. She told several others, as well. I was very adamant and vocal (those of you who know me, exactly HOW vocal can I get?) it was beyond being a bad idea.

#1 - DWF was BOUND to find out. (Which they did. I'm certain they'd be willing to share with you THEIR experience of Claire Dancy.)

#2 - A forum owner simply CAN NOT break into other forums. (For a second time, may I add) Makes it very difficult to enforce on your own forum rules. It's bad business. And I'm always against bad business.

She went on and signed up for DWF anyway. I found out about it shortly after she was booted when I verified with DWF. (We may be separate forums, but there are professional courtesies we extend one another.) I will say it didn't take them long, smart bunch that they are. But that's their story to tell.

Want even more proof? Here ya go. I've got it. Just because I love ya like that.

WHOIS%20Claire.pdf

This file is everything we downloaded to Word (then saved in PDF) in regards to domains, server names, and Karen Simmons. Everything highlighted in turquoise is from me. I could go into page breakdowns - but that would ruin your fun. Notice, though, that the info on the Claire site was in the process of being overwritten. 20 minutes later and all it showed was godaddy information.

So. Who knows Clair Dancy? No one. Every one. DWF knows Claire. Like I said, I'm certain they'll be more then happy to share their information on Claire with ya. All you have to do is ask nicely.



I'd like to end this post with a personal note to Karen.

1.) I am not a client taking you to small claims court. I am your business partner. And I have more money for lawsuits then you.

I'm in this for the long haul.

2.) I am not a photographer. So I have no fear of you hurting my business name. I work in the IT field. Even if you manage to get them to listen to you - and with all due respect to wedding photographers everywhere - all I have to do is walk into a room of IT geeks and say "she's a fucking wedding photographer for Christ sake." The only way they'd laugh harder? If you were the wedding singer.*

I'm not going to back down.

3.) You, however, are a photographer. It isn't slander if it can be proven true.

How far this goes is entirely up to you.

4.) Even THINK of locking me out of the forum... and you'll make my job a heckuva lot easier.

Game on, honey.

__________________________________

* Disclaimer: I believe that the general public hasn't the proper appreciation for the skills necessary to be a photographer. If they lack the appreciation of these honed skills, chances are, they would not take seriously the claims of a member from the industry compared to a proven member from their own industry - IT geek or not.

Claire Dancy sighting in Chicago

If you happen to visit Chicago and eat at Gino's East off Michigan Ave... Go up to the bathroom on the second floor. The wall on the right, under the chair rail, about dead center you'll see this:



Now, from the way I heard it, this was written about a month or two ago. By Claire herself? I wouldn't know. But evidently, she doesn't stay put in the Atlanta area.

Many photographers fear Bella encroachment in their local markets. I would suggest that photographers consider the encroachment of Claire. What, with the demise of her recently published website (feel free to Google the cached pages) and her odd interactions on DWF (both in the forums and behind the scenes), she doesn't appear to be a very stable personality.

I'm just saying.

Land of the blistery lake wind

Mr. Kiki and I just returned from Chicago. He had work to do and I had mischievous things to keep me entertained. We both had our 5 year wedding anniversary to celebrate.

I did manage to get a little Chicago PWeeP action going. We gathered at Gino's East off Michigan Ave. - where anyone who's been there can tell you there is MUCH writing on the wall. (More on that in a later post.) Here's a parting shot as we're heading out the door...


Also managed to meet up with a girlfriend I've known since middle school - my oldest girlfriend. We haven't seen each other in over 13 years. Elizabeth may very well kill me for posting this picture but I would point out, I have not edited out my devil eyes.



* DISCLAIMER. I am not a photographer. I do not pretend to be a photographer. I merely support photographers on PWP.

Do YOU know Claire Dancy?

OK Go - Get Over It

For your consideration...

Who is...

Claire Dancy?