Issues with GDATW

[TAG]

just to jump in, those worried about the signed things that she has been auctioning off, I was there when Billie signed the blue replica, along with a few other items

I know some other stuff was donated to her.... so i don't know much about that stuff

also she had sent me a photo of her with no more hair... i dont think she would have shaved her hair off herself [because she loved her hair lol]

theres just so much going on with everything i hope a lot of stuff gets figured out and that she betters herself somehow

[peanutgallery]

There wouldn't be a receipt for donations to the cystic fibrosis foundation at the costa Mesa show as she gave 200 to the doorman and said it came from gdatw. There should be a red cross receipt.

[Chris P FaFu]

It all boils down to credibility... We all "bought" into this... emotionally, physically, financially.... when you find out what someone was feeding you could possibly be shit... people are going to be pissed. period.

[drummerdude13]

Well, after reading all 11 pages of this thread, this is shocking and really sad. I myself got involved with GDATW after hearing Tony talk about it on the podcast. Even at my fairly young age, I became one of the team leaders for Phoenix, AZ and, even though I didn't invest in GDATW financially, I invested quite a bit of my free time into trying to set up an event (which, unfortunately, didn't end up happening due to a lack of people). I had even managed to get a few city park officials behind it (after many, many sent e-mails). I had set up a Facebook page for the possible Phoenix event, but the page didn't get any attention until May 27th (or so I remember, I know it was close enough to the 28th that trying to schedule an event would be extremely difficult), the day before the whole thing was supposed to happen, when I received a reply from Dawn. She had found my Facebook page and had wished me good luck with my event. When I told her that it had been cancelled, she replied, in all caps, that I should try to call every news station and radio station in my area and (this is almost word for word) give them a sob story about GDATW and how it was founded by a retired Afghanistan war veteran who was wounded in combat and was now in a wheelchair.

The whole idea was sort of forced on me and I didn't like the idea of giving a "sob story" to people to get their attention, so I didn't even attempt to do any of those things. Even when she sent me the message, it seemed sort of fake, and I didn't really know what to think.

I wasn't really wronged by all this in any way that affects my life, but I did have faith in GDATW, but now that has been shattered. I still think that holding a yearly event (under a different name, of course) is a really good idea and I would love to be a part of it. And to the people that are still waiting for their items, I hope that you get what you paid for or at least get your money back soon. It is very unfortunate that this all had to happen, but I hope that we can all move on as a community and organize some new kick ass events.

PS - I never got to thank you Tony for all of your help with event ideas and stuff like that during the event-planning process. So thank you! :good:

[Fuzz]

I'm currently on the phone with Dawn. Will update later once I'm done.

[captain peroxide]

I'm gonna be obsessively reloading for a while.

[Fuzz]

We talked for about 30 minutes, I asked her about many of the concerns people here had.

Very briefly, as I'm with my family at the moment and need to get over there. This is exactly what Dawn told me. I told her I would relay all to you guys, and will continue to do what I can to confirm what she's said.

She said she lied about the airline situation, she knows it was wrong, and she regrets everything that has come about from that. The reason for the lie was because she couldn't afford a ticket for the nurse who had to go with her. her doctor wouldn't allow her to fly, and if she did, it would be marked on her record unless she took a nurse with her both way. She lied to the airline about a family member dying so she could afford to fly her and her nurse to the show.

Anyone who ordered something and hasn't' received it should file a claim with Amazon or Paypal to get a refund. While she was in the hospital she had her son take care of as much as he could, but he didn't keep up with the things necessary. She apologized for anyone who didn't get their order.

She is sending everything she hads to Kat, and if anyone still wants to get the item they expected, they'll be able to get it from Kat. She is shipping everything to her on December 1st, so Kat will have an extensive list of what Dawn had. She said the items she was selling, she sold many of her own personal collection, then kept buying more items on eBay, which she then tried to re-sell to see if she could make any money for the charity.

She wrote a check to the cystic fibrosis charity at the Costa Mesa show for $200, and she can send proof of that check. She also donated money to the Red Cross as she told people about, and she would also send that receipt to me soon. She said there wasn't a lot of money left after all the prizes and the NYC party. The idea of the charities were to raise money for GDATW and the leftover would go to NRDC. She didn't mention anything about sending money to the NRDC.

She said she had multiple ebay accounts because she claimed when she signed up that it was a charity thing. She didn't have the paperwork to prove it was a non-profit, and eBay/PayPal froze the accounts. That's why she started the other account + the Amazon page.

She is currently in the hospital, but she said her daughter snuck in the phone for her to use. She went in for surgery as others have said, and because of the whole airline incident, she did try to commit suicide and they put her in the psych ward. She expects to be released tomorrow, and will be sending me a scan of her release papers on Friday so that I can confirm whatever I need to confirm with the hospital.

I asked her about the military service, and told her that people had found discrepancies about her service and the purple heart she gave to Billie Joe. She said she was a medic in the army until she got hurt, then she was a dentist which was a "desk job because of the injuries I had". After the surgeries she had for her injuries, she ended up in the wheelchair (I'm pretty sure that's what the story was). She said she has documents about her military service and would be happy to send them to me if it meant helping confirm her story. She said it would take a couple weeks to sort out, she'll send them to me, then i can do whatever I need to confirm it.

I still don't know everything about her military service, I'll do what I can to confirm whatever she sends me in a couple weeks. What's most important to me is as it concerns the members of this community. If you are still waiting for items, file for a refund. And also, Kat will be getting all of Dawn's stuff and she can help with whatever needs to be done. Like i said, she will send me confirmation about her hospital stay on Friday for me to confirm, and she'll get the charity receipts for me as well (hopefully on Friday too).

Dawn also said she has no intention of working anymore on GDATW. She's handing over all the items she had to Kat, then if she wants to continue GDATW or GDA have any part of it, she said we can do whatever we want with that stuff.

Like I said, I can't confirm the stuff she's told me yet. I hope I can confirm whatever documentation she does send me. But that's her side of the story and until I confirm it, I don't really know what else we can do besides encourage people to file a claim for a refund.

Edit: I also want to point out that the reason she called me in the first place was because I saw her name online anonymosly. I sent a message, told her we needed answers, we deserved them, and if she refused to get in touch I would let you guys know that she didn't reply. I got a reply and it said it was her daughter. She said Dawn heard that people were talking about this, she asked her daughter to read it and tell her what was happening. Her daughter told her I sent a message looking for answers, so she called as soon as she could.

[Daughter.of.Rage.and.Love]

Thanks for this, Andres. I'm not sure what to think, but I lean towards the believing Dawn-side.

The idea of the charities were to raise money for GDATW and the leftover would go to NRDC. She didn't mention anything about sending money to the NRDC.

This bothers me, though. "raise money for the charity" doesn't even make sense. The charity was raising money to donate to NRDC, that's what she told us. She also told us she paid for the site and the party from her own money. To hear now that people bought stuff thinking it was for a charity and a lot of that money went into a (to be frank) shit website and a party only a small amount of people could attend instead of to NRDC doesn't sit straight with me.

[Fuzz]

Thanks for this, Andres. I'm not sure what to think, but I lean towards the believing Dawn-side.

This bothers me, though. "raise money for the charity" doesn't even make sense. The charity was raising money to donate to NRDC, that's what she told us. She also told us she paid for the site and the party from her own money. To hear now that people bought stuff thinking it was for a charity and a lot of that money went into a (to be frank) shit website and a party only a small amount of people could attend instead of to NRDC doesn't sit straight with me.

She didn't say that she spent money raised from GDATW on the party. She said that came from herself. I think that was just terrible paraphrasing on my part. She did say straight up that she paid for the party, she didn't tell me what all the money raised from the charity auctions went to (aside from the two charities which she said she could show proof of). All she told me was that a lot of items sold in the charity was her own stuff (she said people did donate stuff, but it wasn't much), and she kept buying stuff on her own to try and sell.

I still don't know what to believe, because I don't believe I'll have the facts until I'm able to confirm parts of her story on my own. But like i said, I just think it's important for people who haven't gotten items to claim a refund. I think she does owe more of an explanation about all the money because people spent money thinking it was going to help the NRDC and she didn't give me any answers about that (I also didn't really dig into that as much as I should have). Basically all she told me was that there wasn't that much money to begin with, she put a lot in into it herself.

What she told me doesn't answer all the points raised by people, and that's fair. I just want to help get some answers to the people who gave money to this project, or ordered something and didn't get anything.If I can actually confirm the charity donations and that she has been it he hospital, and that's why she couldn't do stuff, I'll feel a little better. If I can't, well then, fuck.

[peanutgallery]

I told her about this thread and said people wanted answers but she does not have Internet so her daughter was starting to read through it.

I remember the gdatw tshirts had very little profit margin as they had to be purchased, shipped, etc... And I want to say the red cross got 2500 (which should have gone to the nrdc but since Billie tweeted about the devastation in Japan she decided to send the money there). I don't know how much money was raised total from auctions though... And the party was not paid for from any of those funds.

[ScatteredPictures]

And what about the alleged fake signatures?

[mallorymaloney]

Well, I'm sure I'm speaking for quite a few people when I say that I still don't believe a single word Dawn has uttered. The whole nurse thing, for example? Absolutely ridiculous. The media for certain would've reported this in their write ups, as it would've made the story of a poor old veteran being wronged by a popular airline that much juicer.

Proof in the form of paperwork may help with a couple of the issues, however. Since her daughter is so involved with this, why doesn't she just fax the papers over to Andres today ...? No need to wait several weeks, likely while hoping we'll forget about this. Because we won't.

[Fuzz]

I asked about the fake signatures, she said if any were fakes, she didn't know. She said she bought them assuming they were real, and that if anyone felt their item was a fake, they could get in touch with Kat to get something different.

Well, I'm sure I'm speaking for quite a few people when I say that I still don't believe a single word Dawn has uttered. The whole nurse thing, for example? Absolutely ridiculous. The media for certain would've reported this in their write ups, as it would've made the story of a poor old veteran being wronged by a popular airline that much juicer.

Proof in the form of paperwork may help with a couple of the issues, however. Since her daughter is so involved with this, why doesn't she just fax the papers over to Andres today ...? No need to wait several weeks, likely while hoping we'll forget about this. Because we won't.

I'm not home, and Dawn isn't home to get the papers neccessry. I don't know how much her daughter knew about any of it, and all Im actually trying to confirm right now is the charity donations and her hospital stay. She said she would send me the hospital papers when she got out tomorrow. I'm not telling people they need to expect anything she said is true just because she talked to me, and even I remain skeptical until I can verify some things on my own. But it remains the fact that I just want to help sort out GDATW stuff for anyone who was wronged. There may still be other issues that we don't get answers to, but I do think that's going to remain to other people to figure out.

[Tripe]

I am glad you spoke with her, Andres. I'm still pretty skeptical, however.

Happy Thanksgiving with the fam.

[Daughter.of.Rage.and.Love]

She didn't say that she spent money raised from GDATW on the party. She said that came from herself. I think that was just terrible paraphrasing on my part. She did say straight up that she paid for the party, she didn't tell me what all the money raised from the charity auctions went to (aside from the two charities which she said she could show proof of). All she told me was that a lot of items sold in the charity was her own stuff (she said people did donate stuff, but it wasn't much), and she kept buying stuff on her own to try and sell.

Oh, okay. I assumed because you said "raise money for GDATW" it would go into the party and website, since that's the only thing GDATW "needed" (because as I understood it from her many posts, the point of GDATW was to clean the environment and raise money for GDATW.... it's a bit odd then to say that they needed money for GDATW, which was just supposed to be the medium to collect money and organize, not something costing money. Oh well, her way of doing things have been discussed about more than enough in this thread).

Thanks for explaining, my bad.

Proof in the form of paperwork may help with a couple of the issues, however. Since her daughter is so involved with this, why doesn't she just fax the papers over to Andres today ...? No need to wait several weeks, likely while hoping we'll forget about this. Because we won't.

Well, I don't think Dawn has papers like that just lying around in plain sight, I suppose they're in some sort of box. I also think she'd rather go through her old military stuff on her own, and considering she's in the hospital and recovering, it's not exactly a number one priority. Maybe her daughter doesn't even know what papers they exactly are.

[Zelda]

I asked about the fake signatures, she said if any were fakes, she didn't know. She said she bought them assuming they were real, and that if anyone felt their item was a fake, they could get in touch with Kat to get something different.

What about the 'signatures' that were obviously drawn on the images on the computer? And the items that were just copied from other eBay accounts? I'm pretty sure that she should know about that.

I don't know...after going through 12 pages of accusations, I just can't believe anything that woman says. And it's a shame, because I thought that she was a great person for doing all of this.

[Fuzz]

What about the 'signatures' that were obviously drawn on the images on the computer? And the items that were just copied from other eBay accounts? I'm pretty sure that she should know about that.

I don't know...after going through 12 pages of accusations, I just can't believe anything that woman says. And it's a shame, because I thought that she was a great person for doing all of this.

I asked about the possibility of fake signatures and items being listed twice. She said if there were mistakes made, they weren't intentional. She said that she did have some items that she had more than one copy (like some of the early GD vinyl), though I don't believe that would be the case with why some autographed items were listed twice and I tried to cover as much as I could, but I didn't ask for specifics on each thing (like asking her why one of those items looked photoshopped). She did say that she bought stuff from other people on eBay and was re-selling it, which might explain why clothing and stuff made by others was listed, but I don't actually know.

She said that if anyone emailed her about any items that were missing before she was in the hospital, she made sure to try and send that person extra stuff along with their items to try and make up for oversights on her part. From what I can actually gauge right now, it doesn't seem like a lot of people didn't get things they wanted, so to me it feels more like she was disorganized with it all and over the last couple months there was stuff that fell between the cracks. Not that I think that's alright, but I also don't feel like she was trying to scam everyone with everything she was doing on GDATW.

There are still questions about lots of this, and like I said earlier I'm not trying to defend Dawn in anyway. I'm just sharing what she told me, and I hope I can confirm parts of her story about GDATW and the charity stuff. With everything that has happened, I'll remain skeptical until I can actually confirm the things she said about the charity donations, and once Kat gets all the items to see how much she actually had.

[Khaleesi.]

Did you ask her about the signatures that were drawn on in paint? She can't claim that to be unintentional...

[Fuzz]

Did you ask her about the signatures that were drawn on in paint? She can't claim that to be unintentional...

I edited my post while you reading, probably. I didn't ask her about that, I just said "people were concerned that some of the autographs were fake" and she told me what she said about not knowingly putting anything up that was fake.

[Khaleesi.]

I edited my post while you reading, probably. I didn't ask her about that, I just said "people were concerned that some of the autographs were fake" and she told me what she said about not knowingly putting anything up that was fake.

Ah, alright. Thanks.

I'm curious to see how she explains her way out of that one. Especially since she has an excuse for everything else she's done.

[Fuzz]

Yeah like I said, there are still things that don't have answers and because of the way everything has turned out, we all have a right to remain skeptical. I guess the only answer I have is that if people got something they feel wasn't real, they should file a claim as well.

[Dai.]

May I have your attention please?

May I have your attention please?

Will the real Dawn Wilcox please stand up?

I repeat, will the real Dawn Wilcox please stand up?

We're gonna have a problem here...

I just reread this and realized how mean it sounds if misinterpreted, given that Dawn is in a wheelchair, and I thought I'd clarify just in case because I don't want people thinking I am THAT cruel. I meant "stand up" as in show up here and own up to the mess you created.

Okay, that's about it. I don't really have anything to add to this thread.

[lastnightonGDA]

I just reread this and realized how mean it sounds if misinterpreted, given that Dawn is in a wheelchair, and I thought I'd clarify just in case because I don't want people thinking I am THAT cruel. I meant "stand up" as in show up here and own up to the mess you created. Okay, that's about it. I don't really have anything to add to this thread.

YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE.

[November's Storms]

I just reread this and realized how mean it sounds if misinterpreted, given that Dawn is in a wheelchair, and I thought I'd clarify just in case because I don't want people thinking I am THAT cruel. I meant "stand up" as in show up here and own up to the mess you created.

Okay, that's about it. I don't really have anything to add to this thread.

Well I never made that connection until now. When I saw it first I chuckled a little bit and then thought nothing of it.

[Hermione]

^Same here, I never thought of it that way at all.

I edited my post while you reading, probably. I didn't ask her about that, I just said "people were concerned that some of the autographs were fake" and she told me what she said about not knowingly putting anything up that was fake.

As well as the drawn on with paint autographs, some of the items that were also listed by another seller (which she was either reselling after buying them from them or had just taken the images from) she claimed she had handmade herself in the descriptions. I don't think there's any way to explain away either of these two things, be interesting to see if she tries.