Recently, In-Charge.net has been looking to expand our marketing efforts. We decided to enlist the help of a professional marketing firm to assist with this strategy. To find a marketing company, we searched the XBiz business directory. Our plan was to hire a marketing company and have them first work on our partner site at RoganRichards.com and if things were successful, they would be hired to work on In-Charge.net as well. After contacting various companies, we ultimately went with the most expensive option which was a company called SweetRelease.
In November 2017, SweetRelease presented us with a 3 month marketing proposal for the RoganRichards site which would run from December until the end of February. We then scheduled a conference call for November 12th at 8:00pm EST with Braeden Rhys and Paul (no last name given) from SweetRelease and one of the admins from In-Charge to discuss our objectives. Once that date arrived, hours before the call, Lynette Irene from SweetRelease (Braeden’s mother) emailed us stating “we have had to re-schedule your consultation” due to “urgent unforeseen circumstances” and rescheduled for the following week.
Now comes time for the rescheduled conference call on November 19th at 8:00pm EST. I get an email at 8:05pm stating that they’ll have to reschedule this conference again due to “delays with a previous client”. I expressed my displeasure with their lack of professionalism and that I might want a refund if this is the quality of their service. Immediately, they email me back and say that they can now do the conference call and won’t have to reschedule. During the call, I let them know that Rogan Richards should join the next call because if he’s not on board, I would want them to do marketing for In-Charge instead. They replied back stating this would be “not a problem at all we will send you a confirmation letter to confirm”.
We have a conference on November 24th with myself, Rogan, and SweetRelease. Rogan isn’t on board since SweetRelease couldn’t answer his basic questions about their work experience. I email Braeden and Paul and tell they will be working on In-Charge for marketing since Rogan isn’t on board. After the first week of December, I email SweetRelease asking for an update. They reply back on December 12th and state that In-Charge is ” too complex” and they would spend all of December planning a strategy. On December 20th, they requested a conference with myself and Paul from SweetRelease. At the last minute, Paul cancels because he was “held up with a prior client”. I emailed them days later asking when Paul would update us which prompted Lynette to state all of them are on vacation until January 5th.
On January 9th and January 11th, I emailed them for an update about any work, a marketing plan, and my expected call with Paul but no replies to either email. Lynette replied back with a link to the “SweetRelease dashboard” for In-Charge which consisted of web traffic data I provided to them already through Google Analytics. I emailed Lynette back and asked how this would help us achieve our marketing goals. Lynette never responded, so I emailed her back the next day to no response and the next day to no response either. Finally Lynette replied back 4 days later stating that the project schedule would be Month 1 (Dec): Website review, Month 2 (Jan): Strategy development, and Month 3 (Feb): Implement strategy; even though, we were told that December would be “Strategy Development”.
I email Paul from SweetRelease on February 4th, asking for an update. The email comes back and says Paul’s email address doesn’t exist. I email Lynette and Braeden asking for updates and why Paul’s email isn’t working and remind them that the contract ends in 3 weeks and no work has been completed. After no one responds back, Lynette replies back 3 days later to state that Paul was fired 2 weeks ago due to “conflict of interest” and that my marketing plan would arrive on February 16th. Lynette then states that she’ll give us a 60-day extension on our contract for this poor service being provided.
February 16th comes and no marketing plan arrives. I email them again and leave voicemails nearly every day until February 26th, where I demand a full refund since I received no work. Finally, Braeden emails me to say that my work has been delayed because Paul was fired and now because he had a death in his family. Also, he states that supposedly the marketing plan is done and they’ve been emailing me but their replies are caught in a “loop” (even though I’m replying to them via Gmail and they have my phone number). Braeden adds that they’ll send my completed marketing plan in 4 days on March 2nd and not right now. I reply back that I just want a refund and that I’m done working with them. Braeden cites the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) law on refunds and that they can only issue a refund when a major problem arises. I still demand a refund and find that the ACCC states that a company cannot have a no refund policy and this warrants a refund. Braeden replies back and states that he never said “no refunds” but that they’ll give me a “refund” in the form of a 60-day extension – even though an extension is not a refund. I then ask the next day when I will get a refund to which Lynette replies that the matter was settled when I spoke to Braeden. March 2nd arrives and no marketing plan or any correspondence comes from Braeden Rhys or Lynette.
I researched more into Braeden Rhys and learned that he’s some bizarre and untalented drag queen named Kara Zmatiq that sings on gay cruises or whatever in Australia. Then I found his Linkedin profile where he claims that he did marketing for Rogan Richards website which is a blatant lie because In-Charge owns the Rogan Richards website and Braeden never worked on it. I then wondered if the rest of his Linkedin is false and misleading so I reached out to another company listed on there named MiaMaxx and the owner of that company told me Braeden took $3000 from him and failed to deliver on his promises. Braeden Rhys seems to love leading a double life – pretending to be female, pretending to do quality marketing work – when in fact, he’s nothing but a lying scam artist that refuses to give refunds even when he performed no work.
So I’m left with contacting Braeden Rhys’ local government to report him for fraud and shady business practices which I’ve already done. I’m also in talks with lawyers to level as much legal action as I can against him and Lynette to get our money back and for wasting our time. After more investigating, I seen from Braeden’s cross dressing persona’s Instagram that he’s been partying it up all through Australia instead of delivering the work we paid him to do. I’m assuming he’s using our money for his trips and appearances. I’ll probably even reach out to more businesses that Braeden Rhys is associated with and let all of them know about his fraudulent business practices. I look forward to seeing Braeden and Lynette fail in life and I’ll make sure I do whatever it takes to ensure they don’t scam others again.
So the moral of the story here is to never do business with cross dressing degenerate scam artists because they’ll steal your money and lie through their ugly teeth.
UPDATE: After this blog post, we went to Braeden Rhys / Kara Zmatiq’s Instagram and asked him why he still hasn’t delivered on his promises or refunded our money. Like a cowardly pussy, he deleted our comments and blocked us from all of his social media and from the Sweet Release social media without explaining himself. We are in touch with Australian authorities as this is being written
Wow, Im glad I came across this review I had an upcoming consult with this company. What company did you ultimately use for marketing?
Thanks. I’m glad you were able to find this review helpful. I had another guy reach out to us a few months ago stating that he found my review too late. He said that he paid them a lot and they did the same thing to him that they did to me. Unfortunately he said he couldn’t get his money back. In regards to your question, I didn’t go with any company for marketing. The whole situation turned me off to ad agencies. I’m sure there are some great ones out there though. You just need to ask around and do research on them. Always make sure to ask very specific questions, if they refuse to or can’t answer them, then move on.
Wow, …. We had reached out to them … so glad nothing ever came of this …
You’re lucky. They were a total ripoff and a scam with us and the others we reached out to. I just happen to check their website out again and it says they’ve won a series of “X Awards”. Then when you go to the X Awards website, it’s actually another one of their companies they run, so they’re giving themselves awards and claiming they won awards.
It’s terrible to be reading … Just something smelt you know off at the time? And concur, we were lucky.
Just hope people can re-coup losses.
His Axis company has Uber listed as a client.
HAHA I see that. Just because he maybe was an Uber driver does not mean Uber was a client, very misleading. I see he also lists his Sweet Release company as a client of his Axis company. How can someone be a client for themselves? Also misleading. I guess maybe if he thinks that by calling himself by different names on both sites no one will notice.
Sadly, I’ve fallen victim to this issue as well, and it’s been devastating, especially since I’m just a startup. This setback has not only cost me around $40,000 with virtually nothing to show for it, but it’s also drained my resources to the point where I can’t even continue marketing. It’s a crippling blow to my business that I’m still grappling with.
To these same people??? I would call your bank or credit card company and file disputes. Post negative reviews / threads on Xbiz.net. See if you can contact the police in their jurisdiction
Yes, I’ve been in talks with ‘Jett Black’ since November of last year. Due to delays in my app build, we didn’t actually start our engagement with them until around June/July. That’s when red flags started to appear. If you’re interested, I’d be open to discussing the possibility of joining forces to recoup our stolen funds. Feel free to contact me directly.
Have you found a new agency since?
No, we’ve sort of decided to just do our own Twitter postings for now and have steered clear of ad agencies because of this experience.
I found more links on Twitter of people who have been scammed by them:
https://twitter.com/brandycooklyn/status/1136909908060729345?lang=en
https://twitter.com/brandycooklyn/status/1076318829876133888
https://twitter.com/GroobySteven/status/1136378679045419008
They also list fake partnerships on their website for people they’ve never worked with. Also, the NYC office on their website isn’t even a real address of theirs.
If you are messaging these people, STOP! DON’T GIVE THEM ANY MONEY. CALL THE POLICE ON THEM!
They are back posting on Xbiz again as of this week …
yes they are well known in aus adult industry to be fronted by a conman. No one in aus who has ethical connections affiliates with them. The approach is sugarcoat, abuse and then threaten. So sad to see so many people being taken advantage of by Sweet Release Agency scam.
Hey there, thanks for sharing your thoughts on Sweet Release Agency. It’s interesting to hear about the negative reputation they have in the Australian adult industry. I’ve actually been working with them recently and I have to say, my experience has been nothing short of amazing. They have delivered the results I was seeking, and I was so impressed that I even extended my contract with them.
I’ve had the chance to speak to some of their existing customers who are really happy with the outcomes, and I’ve also connected with their partners listed on their website who have shared wonderful feedback. Your comment about them being associated with unethical practices and a conman is surprising, considering the positive interactions I’ve had with them.
I’m genuinely curious about the information you shared and would appreciate it if you could provide more details or evidence to support your claims. It’s crucial for me to have a clear understanding before moving forward with any further collaborations. Thanks for raising this issue, and I’m eager to delve deeper into this matter.
I, along with many others, have shown evidence of their scams. My main evidence is all in the blog above as seen by the screenshots and I have even more that I can go back and find. You can even Google them and find more on social media. What is the name of your business that they promoted? You can link it
Thanks for your reply. Interesting to read the blog article, my company has been working with Sweet Release for over three years now. They’ve consistently impressed us with their work and we truly appreciate the pivotal role they’ve played in our success, and for that reason we’re not looking to stir up any trouble there. Our experience with the agency and the information we received from their independent lawyers (not their in-house team) tell a different story than what’s being portrayed in your article. Interestingly our legal team discovered that you actually received a full refund around the same time that this blog article was written. My lawyers have investigated the claims in your blog post, as well as the rumors floating around on social media and we have come to the conclusion that relying on your article and a few negative reviews doesn’t paint the full picture. Some reviews are from customers who breached contracts, provided false financial information, or tried to do chargebacks after getting all the work they paid for, some customers who have written negative reviews damaged the work done by the agency and then tried to blame the agency so it’s all quite a mess! The evidence provided by the agency, their lawyers, and details we have been able to source make it very hard for our company to take your article and the comments seriously when it seems more like a targeted effort to harm the agency by a group of upset customers that did the wrong thing supporting each other. The agency has been exceptional in our experience, and while I believe everyone has a right to their opinion, myself, my legal team, and my colleagues see things differently. We won’t be disclosing our company’s name because we genuinely value the agency’s work and ongoing partnership.
That’s how I know you’re a fibber. Why not advertise your company if you had such a wonderful experience with them? Because you’re lying. You are most likely someone from their agency trying to fix your bad reputation or a friend of Braeden (or whatever bogus name he goes by now), in my opinion.
And if you are a client of Sweet Release, how would your “legal team” discover that I got a refund? Are you suggesting that Sweet Release violates their own privacy policy and discloses financial details of it’s past clients? You ARE admitting this because you said “the evidence provided by the agency, their lawyers” – beware folks – red flag on privacy, confidentiality and ethical behavior! For your information, I did not get a refund. I demanded one (as shown in my screenshots) due to them never providing ANY deliverables or product. I had to go through my bank and launch a lengthy investigation demanding a chargeback since Sweet Release would not admit their fault and just give me refund. After providing my bank with all of the email communications, their investigators agreed that I was scammed. If my bank didn’t believe me, their investigative team wouldn’t have done this.
I showed throughout my blog post with screenshot evidence proof to back up my experience and if you click the links you’ll see where they lied about working with people they never worked with. If they’re an honest company, why lie? I can produce all of the emails I have where I consistently emailed them and they never replied back (I may do an update to this blog post and do just that, thanks for the idea). It was always some new excuse why I never received a marketing plan on multiple missed occasions. First someone quit the company, then someone died, then there were “scheduling conflicts”, then they just stopped responding.
It’s laughable that you say my post can’t be taken seriously when I provided all of the visual evidence and you’ve simply provided conjecture from imaginary people.
If anything I said in this blog post is false, they can certainly take legal action. They have not because they know, as well as everyone else who reads this, that everything I said is true.
Hi Martin,
The legal defense you’ve provided raises several red flags, notably how you’ve obtained detailed, supposedly privileged information about the nature of complaints and the financial dealings of those who’ve raised concerns. It’s perplexing how such sensitive information, typically guarded by client-lawyer confidentiality, would be accessible to you. This not only questions the legitimacy of your claims but also the ethical boundaries that may have been crossed in acquiring this information.
Your insistence on the supposed actions of critics, coupled with a complete refusal to disclose your company’s identity despite claiming a positive relationship with Sweet Release Agency, significantly undermines the credibility of your defense. It adds a layer of suspicion, especially in a dialogue that benefits greatly from transparency and openness.
Moreover, the defense strategy you present, aligning so closely with the agency’s narratives and known legal arguments, intensifies suspicion that “Martin” might actually be Braeden Rhys Trotter or an associate aiming to discredit legitimate grievances. This maneuver, rather than offering clarity, further entangles Sweet Release Agency’s reputation with concerns over credibility and ethical practice.
Transparency in addressing these issues head-on, acknowledging the grievances of affected clients, and engaging in an open, verifiable dialogue would be crucial steps towards reconciling these discrepancies and restoring trust.
Best regards,