Once we filed our paperwork, Mr. O’Connor’s legal team requested and received a 20 day extension and at the end of that extension, they filed the following response.
After their filing, we were granted an additional 20 days to file a response to their response (confusing I know). Here it is.
To me (as a non lawyer, with zero facts supported and purely 100% opinion based) – my lawyers did an excellent job with this answer and it addresses several real and possibly false statements made in their filing against us.
For those needing a quick recap, read the various blog post on the topic but here’s my 100% opinion based timeline of events:
Nov 2015 – We notice almost 8k in over ordering by Kevin’s company The Offline Assistant. We double check our numbers (by pulling credit card statements, orders) and give Kevin several opportunities to settle with us for less money (5k at one point) but refuses to accept fault and eventually he stops answering my emails.
Dec 2015 – I send a legal demand letter asking for repayment.
Dec 2015 – Kevin’s first lawyer responds and instead of settling, he wants us to remove all of our content, write a public apology (that Kevin as to approve), and pay Kevin $315,000 in damages. This is less than a month after we discovered the error.
Mar 2016 – Kevin officially sues us (making all of this public record), but now he’s got a new lawyer, and wants up to a million dollars in damages.
Aug / Sept 2016 – Kevin begins having our content falsely (my opinion) blocked in Ireland and when I reach out his lawyer asking him to stop, he doesn’t. As a result, I have no other option but to repost the videos and provide updates on each one via various social channels.
Oct 2016 – We appeal the Anti-Slapp case to the Court of Appeals in Amarillo Texas.
Early Nov 2016 – Kevin’s lawyers file for an extension and push the appeal deadline to the 30th of November.
November 30, 2016 – Kevin’s lawyers submit their paperwork opposing our appeal.
December 19, 2016 – We file our response to their opposing paperwork and now await the appellate courts decision.
By the way, once we received notice of their failed attempt at a temporary restraining order, I personally reached out to Kevin and gave him one last chance to settle with us before allowing the courts to decide our fate.
How was this offer received by Kevin? His legal team sent over a second request for another temporary restraining order that as of today (1/9/17 @ 4:06pm) I have yet to receive any legal notification to stop posting these updates or contacting Kevin himself.
So now we wait for the courts to decide and all previous offers of settlement by me have been taken off the table.
Kevin O’Connor and The Offline Assistant requested a temporary restraining order and an injunction against me that would have prevented me from posting updates online about the case or contact Kevin or his lawyers.
This motion was DENIED by the courts.
That means I’m 100% free to contact him and his lawyers anytime I want AND I can continue to post updates about the case all over social media, my blog, etc.
Even though our Anti-Slapp case is currently under appeal, apparently Kevin and The Offline Assistant Company wants to have my blog post, videos, podcasts, and more removed from the internet.
For those needing a quick recap, read the various blog post on the topic but here’s my 100% opinion based timeline of events:
Nov 2015 – We notice almost 8k in over ordering by Kevin’s company The Offline Assistant. We double check our numbers (by pulling credit card statements, orders) and give Kevin several opportunities to settle with us for less money (5k at one point) but refuses to accept fault and eventually he stops answering my emails.
Dec 2015 – I send a legal demand letter asking for repayment.
Dec 2015 – Kevin’s first lawyer responds and instead of settling, he wants us to remove all of our content, write a public apology (that Kevin as to approve), and pay Kevin $315,000 in damages. This is less than a month after we discovered the error.
Mar 2016 – Kevin officially sues us (making all of this public record), but now he’s got a new lawyer, and wants up to a million dollars in damages.
Aug / Sept 2016 – Kevin begins having our content falsely (my opinion) blocked in Ireland and when I reach out his lawyer asking him to stop, he doesn’t. As a result, I have no other option but to repost the videos and provide updates on each one via various social channels.
Oct 2016 – We appeal the Anti-Slapp case to the Court of Appeals in Amarillo Texas.
Early Nov 2016 – Kevin’s lawyers file for an extension and push the appeal deadline to the 30th of November.
Nov 22,2016 – Kevin’s lawyers file for a TRO and permanent injunction against me contacting my friend along with posting updates on the case.
Dec 9th, 2016 – The court denies Kevin’s temporary restraining order and injunction attempt against me.
Even though our Anti-Slapp case is under appeal, apparently Kevin and The Offline Assistant Company wants to have my blog post, videos, podcasts, and more removed from the internet.
For those needing a quick recap, read the various blog post on the topic but here’s my 100% opinion based timeline of events:
Nov 2015 – We notice almost 8k in over ordering by Kevin’s company The Offline Assistant. We double check our numbers (by pulling credit card statements, orders) and give Kevin several opportunities to settle with us for less money (5k at one point) but refuses to accept fault and eventually he stops answering my emails.
Dec 2015 – I send a legal demand letter asking for repayment.
Dec 2015 – Kevin’s first lawyer responds and instead of settling, he wants us to remove all of our content, write a public apology (that Kevin as to approve), and pay Kevin $315,000 in damages. This is less than a month after we discovered the error.
Mar 2016 – Kevin officially sues us (making all of this public record), but now he’s got a new lawyer, and wants up to a million dollars in damages.
Aug / Sept 2016 – Kevin begins having our content falsely (my opinion) blocked in Ireland and when I reach out his lawyer asking him to stop, he doesn’t. As a result, I have no other option but to repost the videos and provide updates on each one via various social channels.
Oct 2016 – We appeal the Anti-Slapp case to the Court of Appeals in Amarillo Texas.
Early Nov 2016 – Kevin’s lawyers file for an extension and push the appeal deadline to the 30th of November.
Nov 22,2016 – Kevin’s lawyers file for a TRO and permanent injunction against me contacting my friend along with posting updates on the case.
What I find interesting is Kevin himself has never requested me not to contact him, his former lawyer asked unofficially, via email, and is no longer on the case and all of the things I’ve contacted Kevin about are just case updates and questions I have for him as a friend since we’re still connected via social media.
Did I mention that Kevin is still is my friend on Facebook and still apart of my private Facebook group? Also that he now lives in Ireland so we aren’t even on the same continent.
Proof of that here:
^^ Kevin’s Facebook Profile, notice how it still says we are friends and he has not blocked me or unfriended me.
^^ Kevin is still a member of my private Facebook group (it’s closed to the public and the only way he could join is by asking). He is still a member of this group and again hasn’t requested for us to remove him.
Since Kevin O’Connors company The Offline Assistant keeps trying to get my videos blocked in Ireland he has left me no choice but to share my personal experience and these legal documents between us including his request for us to pay up to a million dollars via his lawsuit against us.
Not only did he not repay us (even after I offered to settle for $5,000, half the amount my lawyer was requesting) his lawyer sent me a demand letter asking for me to pay $315,000 in damages, to remove all of my post, videos, podcasts and more that shared my experience with The Offline Assistant Company AND wanted me to write an apology (that had to be approved by Kevin prior to publishing) and post it here (and other locations) for an entire year.
I am only sharing this on my company blog here because Kevin and The Offline Assistant Company keep attempting to have me silenced and my videos blocked in Ireland.
My personal experience with The Offline Assistant company has been as follows:
– Hired them to fulfill our eCom store orders for our dropshipping store.
– During a monthly review of my books, my accountant and I noticed close to $8,000 in double orders by The Offline Assistant company on our behalf.
– When we confronted Kevin O’Connor, the CEO of the company about this he not only refused to accept responsibility, he stopped responding to my emails once I started demanding repayment.
– Left with no other options I retained a lawyer to ask for repayment via our legal demand letter.
– Kevin then hired not one, but two lawyers. The first one wanted me to pay him $315,000, give up my first amendment rights (my opinion) and issue a public apology (that had to be approved personally by Kevin) and his new lawyer now wants me to pay up to $1,000,000 to Kevin and The Offline Assistant company.
This is my experience as President of Castleman Consulting LLC and should only be considered my opinion until proven in a court of law. Do you own research and due diligence prior to making any decision on doing business with The Offline Assistant Company. I just wanted to share my experience with them.
These documents are a matter of public record and an ongoing legal case against me and I am within my rights to publish them here.
Here is the video Kevin and The Offline Assistant Company are blocking from Ireland viewers:
Tim Castleman ends the Two Drink Tim Podcast. Listen to his reasons why, what his plans are for the future, and more in the final episode of the Two Drink Tim Podcast …
Kevin appears to be intentionally trying to get all of my content blocked in Ireland instead of waiting for the million dollar lawsuit he brought against us to finish here in the US Court System.
So for anyone who is in Ireland, here is the video unedited (and there is nothing Kevin can do to block it)
All content contained inside this video is a matter of public record and cause #2016-519, 740 here in Lubbock Texas and does not violate any privacy or trademark issues.
All parties involved were in the United States at the time of this dispute and as such this content cannot and should not be removed or restricted (say in Ireland for example) without court paperwork per YouTube Policy.
All court paperwork should originate from the United States as that is where Kevin has sued my company.
All statements made in the video are the opinion of Tim Castleman, Castleman Consulting LLC President and should not be taken as factual without doing your own proper due diligence.
*** Update: Here is a video update of our on going dispute with Kevin O’Connor and The Offline Assistant Company ***
Spoiler Alert: They are suing US for 1 million dollars and trying to get all of our content removed from YouTube.
For those of you in Ireland (where Kevin is trying to block the content) here is the video:
On November 18th, 2015 during a routine review of our books, our accountant noticed a $7,897.68 error caused by Kevin O’Connor’s Offline Assistant Company.
We hired Kevin and his company to fulfill our physical product store orders and it turns out that they had been double ordering and shipping our most popular item to customers at our expense for no understandable reason.
Once the error was discovered, I immediately had the last 100 orders they had placed for us reviewed, and there was an 85% error rate in those orders so we started to dig deeper.
I immediately let Kevin know about this issue personally and told him I would get him a full report by the following Monday (this was Friday).
We pulled our financial records from the store, the supplier, and matched them to our credit card statements for them to get a full accounting of just how bad it was.
When all was said in done, Kevin’s employees had over ordered and shipped products to the tune of a $14,968.45 – almost DOUBLE what the orders should have cost and costing us $7,897.68 in profit.
Armed with this information I sent everything to Kevin and asked him to review everything and if the numbers were correct explain why none of the orders were checked by his project manager (as promised when we signed up) or anyone else on is staff for accuracy, how his employees could see us losing money on ever order and not say anything, and why they hadn’t followed the spreadsheet directions we gave them.
When he finally responded 3 days later, he blamed us for not catching the error and cited a training example order we included in the training materials (of a totally different product than the one they misordered above) as a reason why they had doubled ordered everything.
Except they hadn’t double ordered every item.
His team managed to order the correct quantities of other items we sold in different amounts (1, 2, 4 etc) with no problem.
When confronted with this, he went radio silent and refused to respond to any more of my emails.
It was only after I demanded repayment for the $7,897.68 error that he finally responded, and only to tell me that he considered the matter closed on his part and that he and his employees had done nothing wrong and that he wouldn’t be paying for his employee’s mistake.
So here’s where we stand
– Kevin’s company over ordered and shipped an additional $7,897.68 worth of products to my customers which I now have to pay out of my own pocket
– No one from his company (that we hired to manage this for us) reviewed any of the orders to ensure they were being done correctly despite his assurances they do quality control and project management on all jobs.
– There was an 85% error rate by his staff in ordering products for us
– When presented with facts (credit card statements, Shopify print outs, and AliExpress orders) Kevin still refused to accept any responsibility and to this day has refused to pay me back for his company and employee’s mistakes.
The money part stings, but here’s the worst part.
I first met Kevin when I and several others (Brad Gosse, Ron Douglas, E. Brian Rose, Ben Littlefield, Ben Adkins, Colin Theriot, Mark Helton, Brian Anderson, Ryan McKinney) were his mentor at the Marketers Mansion.
We all spent time with him trying to help him grow his business.
I personally promoted Kevin not only to my list via a webinar, but also through my podcast (free of charge), and told several business associates about him (who ended up signing up with him – right Los).
Just last month I dropped everything when he came into town and showed him around Lubbock and offered to help him even more with his company.
And this is how he repaid me and everyone else who helped him for doing so.
No apology, no acceptance of the facts, and most of all not a single offer to help us or compensate us these errors.
I gotta assume that whole personal responsibility thing Garret White preaches didn’t sink in with Kevin.
Now don’t worry about me. We’ll be seeing Kevin in court and we’ll get every cent (plus some) back from him.
I’m writing this post to warn others and share my personal experience with Kevin O’Connor and his company.
If you choose to use him after seeing that he doesn’t stand behind his employees work, has zero quality control or checks to ensure work is being done correctly, and no matter how much proof you have of their mistakes, he will never admit when his team has made a mistake or compensate you in any fashion for those mistakes – go ahead.
If you want to host a webinar, podcast, or invite him to speak on stage after reading this, that’s your choice and speaks more to your core values than mine.
I just refuse to have people who have helped him in the past have their name associated with him or his company without knowing the facts about what he did to our eCom business and his unwillingness to stand behind his word and his employees mistakes.
I’m just thankful that we have the cash reserves to not only absorb this temporary loss and but also pursue every legal recourse against him.
In closing I’ll share with you one last thought. Sometimes in life things like this happen. People disappoint you, friendships end, and true colors are revealed. While you can’t control when or why that stuff happens, you can control your response to those situations.
I tried to resolve this in private, I gave Kevin every opportunity to make this right. It was only after he refused to do so, and I saw how huge of a disaster this could be for people who don’t have the same resources I do, that I knew I had to go public with this issue.
Kevin is intentionally trying to get all of my content blocked in Ireland instead of waiting for the million dollar lawsuit he brought against us to finish.
So for anyone who is in Ireland, here is the video unedited (and there is nothing Kevin can do to block it)
All content contained inside this video is a matter of public record and cause #2016-519, 740 here in Lubbock Texas and does not violate any privacy or trademark issues.
All parties involved were in the United States at the time of this dispute and as such this content cannot and should not be removed or restricted (say in Ireland for example) without court paperwork per YouTube Policy.
All court paperwork should originate from the United States as that is where Kevin has sued my company.
All statements made in the video are the opinion of Tim Castleman, Castleman Consulting LLC President and should not be taken as factual without doing your own proper due diligence.
