Jump to content

An Apology From Sahara Smoke (what You Don’t Know)


Recommended Posts

It came to my attention almost 2 weeks ago that moderators and members of hookahforum.com think that we have our employees purposely post on the forum. Whether you believe me or not that is not the truth.

We have only instructed 2 employees to post on the forum and they were hookah hottie and hookahhookah_com. When they did post they only posted coupon codes. Both times SSC was aware that they would be posting on the forum. These are the only two names we have ever used. I’m not writing this statement so members of the forum will like us or buy from us, I’m writing this statement because members think we are a dishonest company and that makes me angry. If you only knew us or knew SSC you would know how much we love hookahs and what we have to go through to import hookahs from other countries so hookah lovers like us can enjoy their passion everyday. We are not a bad company, we have a large base of customers who love us and only buy from us, we take care of our customers.

What you don’t know is that we are based in Statesboro; GA. Statesboro is a college town. When I say college town, I mean over 85% of the population are college students. Our entire staff, excluding the owners and a couple of mangers, are college students. The owners and managers have all graduated and choose to live in this small town (for now). Our employees love us, they love that during their college career they get to work with hookahs every day; the college students at GSU love us. We own a Tapas & Hookah Lounge in Statesboro, GA where students come and hang out with their friends and smoke hookah all day. We host Hookah Pool Parties all summer for the local students. The students are proud to know they live in a town that is home to one of the largest hookah distributors in the United States. Yes, we don’t only sell online, we supply to stores/lounges across the world, and still growing.

Here lies the problem, our employees and the college students sometimes get overly excited about us and decide to tell others online to buy from us. We in no way tell them to do so. Here is the conclusion I came up with after looking into this matter. Since all of our employees are in college they have strange schedules where they leave and come back a couple of times a day, when they do this they have their girlfriends or boyfriends drop them off, We have extra computers sitting around and we allow the employees girlfriends/boyfriends to use the computers for their school work to fill the time why they wait for their significant other to finish their shift. It only happens a couple of days a week where they need to stay and wait, we don’t mind them hanging out in the office as long as they don’t interrupt our employees while still on the clock. I never thought that this would ever be a problem until (after reading the forum) I did some research and realized who was posting on the forum.

I personally wasn’t aware of what was being said about us on the hookah forum until a friend of mine’s girlfriend approached me at the Hookah bar and asked me why she was just kicked off of the forum for posting to buy from us. As soon as I heard this I visited the hookah forum and read the posts from the last couple of months about us. (By the way, Thank you to the members who posted great remarks about us, some of the posts made me feel proud and put a smile on my face) (To the ones, who will never buy from us again, if we made a mistake, we apologize but we are only human.)

I then created us a company account, which was then suspended until Jan. 8th. A message was sent to our e-mail account from our biggest fan, mushrat (just kidding, he/she is not really a fan) the title of the message was “Employee Issues”. I wasn’t able to read what mushrat had to say because since I was suspended the site would not let me read any new messages.

So I decided to e-mail the admins at hookahforum.com (twice), I did not receive a response so I had to wait until our suspension was lifted. On Jan. 9th I was able to read mushrat’s message. Of course the message made me angry, not by what he said, but that everyone on hookahforum.com has the wrong idea about us. I sent mushrat a message explaining our side and asked permission to post a statement to the members of the forum. Mushrat sent me a list of login names that came from our location, I was able to figure out who 2 of them were, the other 2 or 3 I still have no idea who they were or are. Only 1 of them still comes to the building and she is banned from the computers from now on, apparently while she was playing on the computer she found our bookmarks of hookah sites and decided to browse through them

One thing you better believe is that we would not pay someone to post on the forum and if we did we would have them say something better than come buy from ssc.com and hh.com, we would more thought into it.

We don’t apologize that students posted remarks on the hookah forum about us, we can’t control them. We do apologize for any employees (employee girlfriends) that may have posted a remark on the forum. We should have been aware of what was happening on the forum and we should have instructed our employees not to post or to conduct their selves in a fair and non biased manner. All employees of SSC have been warned to not post on the hookah forum unless they have read all the guidelines and even then they cant unless I say it is ok to do so. Their girlfriends have been warned as well, I don’t think you will see anyone from SSC on the forums again, unless they want to have a conversation with other hookah lovers.

We would like to be apart of the hookah forum, but it is not up to us, it is up to the moderators. I have asked the admins for the guidelines that we must follow on the forum since we are a hookah retailer. If accepted, we will post monthly coupons for forum members to use if they want. Also, just so you know, we here at SSC don’t think HookaH-HookaH tobacco is the greatest shisha on the market, Now there are certain flavors that are untouchable by any other brand but we are shisha smokers and we have tried all kinds of brands, just like you we have favorite flavors in all sorts of brands. Everyone prefers different flavors, or has their own opinion as to what tastes good and what doesn’t. We want people smoking shisha no matter which brand or flavor. We don’t tell people to use our hookah products. We only tell people to smoke hookah! We want to see a hookah lounge on every corner just like other countries.

I promise you that we (our employees) will never tell you our products are better than anyone else’s or to buy from us.

You don’t have to believe anything that I have just said. You’re more than welcome to disagree. But this is our side of the story. We are not asking you to like us, we are not asking you to buy from us.

But we (SSC) are hookah smokers for LIFE. As long as people enjoy the art of hookah smoking we will continue to provide a service to them. We would love to see a hookah in every household, even your grandma’s. Whenever current hookah smokers move on and decide to put down their hose, we will still be around. SSC owners and

Managers will continue to smoke hookah until we live no more. It’s just what we do. We live and breathe hookahs everyday all day. It is not just a business to us; it’s not just a fad that we are trying to exploit. Hookahs are our love. I like to think I have one the greatest jobs in the world, I get to design, talk about, smoke hookahs everyday and they pay me for it!

Enjoy your hookah from whomever you bought it from,

Jonathan C.
Sahara Smoke Co.
1.866.208.1339
service@saharasmoke.com Edited by EvansLight
Cleaned up the post to make it easier to read
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very long post. I can probably speak on behalf of most of the members that it was horrible that such encouragement was posted by employees to buy your products, but I am glad that you told them to stop. I think that the rules that apply to everyone apply to you guys, so the hookahforum.com constitution is the same one that you and everyone else should follow. I am pretty sure that the mods don't mind if you post your coupons, just as long as you are active members, talking about hookahs and not just your products. Sorry if I come off sounding mean, because I am not angry or bitter, just trying to express your opinion. Also what your employees do, effects how your company does, so it was a good idea to "lay down the law" with them. smile.gif . Glad to see you guys care enough to post a apology cool.gif .
Link to comment
Share on other sites

interesting. Thanks for coming out about the issue. I was never aware of employees or friends making posts but then again, the mods here seem to pull the trigger faster than a computer can refresh the post list.

I think the biggest issue is people do not understand how to post properly. There is a difference between stating your opinion and selling a product. When people are employees they tend to only sell instead of pushing their opinion.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was opposed to giving these guys another chance. The moderators have more or less agreed to wait and see, I will join them.

Many aspects of your story don't ring true, sound a little hokey maybe even self-promotional. Tangiers Tobacco has many loyal fans, but nobody goes on about it the way your people went on about Hookah Hookah. I did talk my friends, Chase and Kevin into saying nice things a long time ago, but they didn't go on and on and they did post on other things. There was at least one instance where we know that a "girl" magically turned into a guy...that was Sahara, wasn't it, Mushy, Yash? How can you explain a guy pretending to be a girl?

I seem to remember something about saying we are only 3% of the market here (in some other message behind the scenes) at the Forum? Why worry about it then?

We asked those people to stop, whether they were under your employ or not, but they persisted. They did it with malice and they did it incessantly. It means you have some bad people hanging around your company...what do you think that says to us? It doesn't matter whether they were paid or whether you knew about it. You keep blaming it on other people, things that were happening at your company, you didn't know about. If those enthusiastic youth start jacking credit card numbers and selling them? How about if the girlfriend of the employee is selling people's info to telemarketers? This conversation could have been "No, officer, I didn't know my employees were receiving stolen merchandise. It was my employees' girlfriends, not me." I'm sure those things haven't happened, still I think your apology would fly better if you said "I fucked up, I will do my best to make sure it doesn't happen again."

I'm sure you run a fine company, my biggest point remains, too many vendors come along, be disrespectful and then blame other people and apologize and then do it all over again.

That being said, welcome to the Forum. All things that have passed have been forgiven, but not necessarily forgotten. I don't have the appropriate emoticons to offer my hand sincerely, to shake yours and say "Welcome to your do-over". So, a simple happy face will have to do. smile.gif

Edit: I looked it up you stated it was 2%.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Geeze guys...

As one of the people who has had to deal the most with "plants" all I can say is you all MIGHT want to cut him some slack. Heck, I've seen you guys treat people who have done far worse personally better after they have explained or appologised.
Belive me, if anyone has a right to be pissed, it's me.

But look, he's appologised for the actions of his employee's AND their SO's, he's explained how the situation came to be, including saying he was wrong to allow them access to the computers, what steps he's taken to remedy the problem so it won't happen again, asked the mods to ban anyone else claiming to be from either HH or SSC or posting from their IP. He's taken my advice and posts using a personal account as well that isn't associated with HH or SSC and the posts have NOT been company related. Remember, Hookahhottie DID say she was with a hookah company when she first came on and she was one of the people he DID say he sent. There's not much else he can do and he's done more than a lot of other vendors who we've had to deal with, including one on now that doesn't seem to get the messege entirely but many of you are falling over yourselves to buy from...

Those who know me on this forum know I can hold a GRUDGE when i feel its right, but I'd say lets give the guy a chance..eh? He's right, I'm not one of his COMPANY'S biggest fans, but I respect him and his company a lot more now than I ever have.

Besides, college students have never been known to be sneaky or anything like that...have you? wink.gif
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course not mushy, we're completely trustworthy, unclever and overly loyal to proper character. wink.gif

All jokes aside, however, I'd like to welcome SSC/HH/personal-account-incarnation-of-the-preceding. Everyone makes mistakes (albeit those made in the business world are justly punished to a greater extent). Hopefully we here on the forum can coexist peacefully with your company in the future. I do appreciate the apology, and I may try you guys out when those coupon codes are posted. Expect the folks here to keep a CLOSE eye on you for a while; nobody likes being lied to, and nobody likes being screwed. Take care to avoid these, and I predict that good things are to come.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

SSC, as long as you have a company account and dont overly push your products youll have no problems here.
posting coupon codes and everythign is great and we love it. heck, even if you make a professional looking post to tell us aboutnew products, thats great too. mya does it, and we all eat it up.

its all about how it is presented.

short version: i personally am not a fan of the HH product, but i hope to see you guys posting here often. the more competition and opinions to read, the more we ALL learn. so with that said, post away! just keep it professional when talking about your own products. take some examples from MNhookah, hookahetc, sonthert(tangiers), etc. we may not all like their products and/or services, but we appreciate their posting. smile.gif

so welcome! and happy posting. smile.gif

fakeedit: since you have a company account, just make sure anyone from your company clearly states that they are with SSC or uses the SSC account... all others posting weird stuff will be ignored and we'll know isnt you wink.gif
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, as I said before, we've been asked to BAN anyone who is posting like Hookahprincess and the others by SSH.
Johnathan has said HE will be the company representative, anyone claiming otherwise will be delt with by our rules and with his blessing.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (Sonthert @ Jan 17 2007, 07:02 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I was opposed to giving these guys another chance. The moderators have more or less agreed to wait and see, I will join them.

Many aspects of your story don't ring true, sound a little hokey maybe even self-promotional. Tangiers Tobacco has many loyal fans, but nobody goes on about it the way your people went on about Hookah Hookah. I did talk my friends, Chase and Kevin into saying nice things a long time ago, but they didn't go on and on and they did post on other things. There was at least one instance where we know that a "girl" magically turned into a guy...that was Sahara, wasn't it, Mushy, Yash? How can you explain a guy pretending to be a girl?

I seem to remember something about saying we are only 3% of the market here (in some other message behind the scenes) at the Forum? Why worry about it then?

We asked those people to stop, whether they were under your employ or not, but they persisted. They did it with malice and they did it incessantly. It means you have some bad people hanging around your company...what do you think that says to us? It doesn't matter whether they were paid or whether you knew about it. You keep blaming it on other people, things that were happening at your company, you didn't know about. If those enthusiastic youth start jacking credit card numbers and selling them? How about if the girlfriend of the employee is selling people's info to telemarketers? This conversation could have been "No, officer, I didn't know my employees were receiving stolen merchandise. It was my employees' girlfriends, not me." I'm sure those things haven't happened, still I think your apology would fly better if you said "I fucked up, I will do my best to make sure it doesn't happen again."

I'm sure you run a fine company, my biggest point remains, too many vendors come along, be disrespectful and then blame other people and apologize and then do it all over again.

That being said, welcome to the Forum. All things that have passed have been forgiven, but not necessarily forgotten. I don't have the appropriate emoticons to offer my hand sincerely, to shake yours and say "Welcome to your do-over". So, a simple happy face will have to do. smile.gif

Edit: I looked it up you stated it was 2%.


Thanks for the kind welcome.
Im not sure why people act the way they do, I wasnt aware that they were constantly posting after they were told not to. We dont have bad people hanging around our company, we just have college students. College students just moved away from their parents and now they feel they can do whatever they want because there is no one to tell them not to. It never crossed my mind that they would log into forums and post about us, that definately was my fault for being ignorant.
The only reason why I worry about what the hookah forum thinks is because you guys think we are dishonest. We are hookah smokers and so are the members of the forum, we dont want people who are just like us to hate us especially when its something we didnt intentionally do.
You dont have worry about anyone stealing credit cards or selling customer info to telemarketers, the only people who can gain access to customer info are sales reps and all of our sales reps are "legally bonded". There are only 2 people here(SSC) that have access to customers credit cards, me (manager) and 1 of the owners. All credit card numbers are not visible to sales reps. When it comes to peoples money and info we are definately not ignorant.

The only posts you will see from this compnay are going to be by SaharaSmokeCompany, and it will only be coupon codes.

Thanks again for your input, it is greatly appreciated.

Jonathan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry, Im not sure why it posted so many times, I clicked it twice and then my page got hung up.

Thanks for all the members who posted.
Also to the moderators who are allowing us to post discounts on the forum.
You will only see SaharaSmokeCompany on the forum, no one else from here is allowed to post.

I am really busy here everyday so it takes me awhile to get a chance to log onto the forum to read psots and to post coupon codes. I wil posting a code tomorrow.
Also I will logging on with my own personal account, (I will be at my house and not at work when i post) I wont mention a thing about SSC or HHT.
My login name is the Hookah-Freak, feel free to send me a message anytime.

Regards,

Jonathan
SSC
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (art_official @ Jan 24 2007, 12:25 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
whats up with the copies?


Fixed. Probably having connection slow-downs, and tried to turbo-poke the reply button happy.gif

And thanks to you SSC for coming out. So long as your story checks out, I'm sorry you had to go through all this just because of some miscommunication between some employees. It happens, but it seems as if everything should be straight here on out. Looking forward to hearing from you in the future.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...