Ravi
Diamond Member
This is really funny, especially the outsourcing to India bit.
Almost as soon as it opened for business, the Exchange started to have some serious problems. Number one? It turns out Hutchinson outsourced building the program's homepage to a company in India. (That's a real tea party no-no, for those playing at home.) An Ohio blog, Ideatrash.net, sniffed out the story. Hutchinson fessed up in an interview with the Daily News:
"I designed the website myself. However my programmer is outsourced," he told the paper. "Local database programmers are welcome to talk to me."
Meanwhile, local blowback caused things to break down. Democratic Congressional candidate Joe Roberts threatened to lead a boycott of Exchange businesses, telling the Daily News, "Once those businesses decided to become political they need to deal with that."
Some dealt with it by backing out of the Exchange as quickly as they could. Patti Ballachino, owner of Reiber Cleaners, told the paper, "I've had probably 60 to 80 people come to me and say they aren't going to come to me anymore." She told the Daily News she never expected customer anger to be the result of joining the Exchange after what Hutchinson told her:
Anatomy Of A Fail: Rise And Fall Of The Tea Party Exchange | TPMMuckraker
Almost as soon as it opened for business, the Exchange started to have some serious problems. Number one? It turns out Hutchinson outsourced building the program's homepage to a company in India. (That's a real tea party no-no, for those playing at home.) An Ohio blog, Ideatrash.net, sniffed out the story. Hutchinson fessed up in an interview with the Daily News:
"I designed the website myself. However my programmer is outsourced," he told the paper. "Local database programmers are welcome to talk to me."
Meanwhile, local blowback caused things to break down. Democratic Congressional candidate Joe Roberts threatened to lead a boycott of Exchange businesses, telling the Daily News, "Once those businesses decided to become political they need to deal with that."
Some dealt with it by backing out of the Exchange as quickly as they could. Patti Ballachino, owner of Reiber Cleaners, told the paper, "I've had probably 60 to 80 people come to me and say they aren't going to come to me anymore." She told the Daily News she never expected customer anger to be the result of joining the Exchange after what Hutchinson told her:
"I'm not into politics a whole lot," said Ballachino, who said she was not familiar with the Tea Party when Hutchinson convinced her to participate. "He stated you could get more business, everybody in this group will come to you."
Ballachino told the paper that "since she paid Hutchinson $150 on July 1 she has had a customer use the TPX card just twice -- and both times it was Hutchinson." Anatomy Of A Fail: Rise And Fall Of The Tea Party Exchange | TPMMuckraker
