Update 7/9/12: Well, it’s been almost four years and I’ve heard nary a peep from the folks at LCM. They’ve kept their end of the bargain and I’ve been left blessedly alone. The reason I’m writing now is that today it was announced that Flocknote is joining forces with LCM. Now, I know the guys behind Flocknote and think the world of them. I also think their product and their business are top notch and provide a great service to the Church. So, it makes me pause and think: If they’re okay with LCM, maybe LCM has changed. I’ve also been noticing them here doing good work, like their apostolate to Catholics serving in the military, providing them with free stuff, or their work with Brandon Vogt on his efforts to get good materials in the hands of impoverished African seminarians. I also had a conversation today with Matt Warner, the founder of Flocknote, and he reassured me that the LCM he’s doing business today really doesn’t look like the LCM I describe in this post. Therefore, I’m willing to lift my warning and to say that I’m okay with LCM today. Now I feel bad that this post is the top result on Google for LCM apart from their own site.
Update 12/9/08: At the request of LCM’s president I am updating this post to inform any interested person that following the posting of this entry (and only after) I was contacted by LCM and assured that my emails were purged from every database and that they were sending me a check for my affiliate earnings. Of course, to add insult to injury I received yet another email after that fact from a regional sales manager who was keeping a separate database, which I told them is part of the flaw in their business model. I have not received another unsolicited email from them in about 4 months.
Some time ago I responded to an email offer to bloggers from a group called Lighthouse Catholic Media. They sell CDs containing talks from noted Catholic speakers and to expand their business they were offering a portion of sales to bloggers who placed LCM ads on their blogs. I did so because I thought it would be a win-win: readers get good Catholic content and I get financial support for the blog. Unfortunately, that financial support never materialized—I don’t think I got a single affiliate payment—and then the other side of LCM became apparent.
Lighthouse Catholic Media operates like a multi-level marketing scheme that just won’t let go. They send a constant stream of emails with strategies for selling and how to increase sales and how to market to all your friends and neighbors and fellow parishioners and pastor, etc. There are constant invitations to regional call-in sales meetings and state call-in sales meetings and local call-in sales meetings. It’s like “Glen Garry Glen Ross” with the cursing.
And no matter how many times I’ve asked them to stop emailing me, how many times I’ve politely informed them that I no longer wish to take part, no matter how many times I’ve firmly ordered them to stop or I will report them to their Internet Service Provider as a spammer, they. Won’t. Stop. Emailing. Me!
So they’ve asked for it. I’m now exposing them as the slimy Internet spammers they are who seem to be more interested in the number of sales they can make and how much money they can earn over the content of their “Catholic” CDs. Their attitude clearly shows they could just as easily be peddling real estate CDs or little cans of SPAM for all their attention they give to, you know, the Gospel.
My advice: Stay away from Lighthouse “Catholic” Media. they are a sleazy outfit I would trust with my credit card and would not enrich in any way.
