Since we went public with our experience with BBAS, Denise has realized we aren’t going away. So she’s had to respond to our story somehow — usually not directly or under her name, but either via anonymous postings or through mouthpieces (like the Atkinsons).
These responses have struck us (as, indeed, they may already have struck you, the reader) for their inevitable repetition of at least one of the arguments encapsulated below. After enough of them accumulated, we began to recognize them as motifs, possibly disseminated by Denise herself whenever people asked her about us.
They are such weak excuses that we have decided to catalog them here with our commentary. If you, too, have heard one of these lines from Denise Hubbard, take a look.
1. No agency can please everybody.
Variant: “No agency has a 100% success rate! You will always have some unhappy customers!" It's sometimes accompanied with the (perfectly valid) point that other, larger agencies also have vocal and unhappy clients as well.
This is really insulting to any potential customers. Basically, she’s saying that it’s not her fault if she and BBAS don’t deliver, it’s probability’s.
This is known and tacitly acknowledged in any transaction, in any business. Yet there is an accompanying understanding that a good-faith effort will be made to make sure that this particular transaction will be completed to the satisfaction of both parties.
Anyone who tells you this right off the bat is basically making an excuse for not trying to please you. You deserve better and you should take your money elsewhere.
2. Every adoption is different.
Well, yes. But Denise’s problem is that, due to her chronic neglect of customer service, too many of her adoptions are turning out the same.
(It puts one in mind of Tolstoy’s line from Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike, but unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way.” With Denise, all the unhappy members of her “family” are unhappy in the same way.)
Once again, that’s an excuse for not trying.
3. You got your child, so what do you have to complain about with us?
The fallback position to the above. Not really stated to us, but implied in some of her responses to the state when she learned that we had rebutted her version of the events surrounding Cyril’s death. And then later used by some anonymous commentators on FRUA.
All we can do is just shake our heads, really. This attitude betrays a complete refusal to even begin to understand the concept of “customer service.”
But at least it gives us the fun of imagining Denise Hubbard as a waitress: “OK, so I took two hours to bring you the wrong dish and I blew my nose in it ... but I did bring you some food, so why are you so upset? Oh, by the way, your 30 percent prepaid tip is non-refundable.”
4. It's just one person with a negative opinion. Get the facts. There are two sides to the story.
This is particular favorite of Teri Atkinson. You can almost hear the snippiness in her voice.
First off, it’s a lot more than one person. How many examples do you need?
Second, for those who do want to get Denise’s side, we have it right here on this website, along with our reply.
But finally, just because two sides to the story can be told does not automatically make some sort of Hegelian synthesis of “the cold, hard truth” the logical conclusion to draw (Just because some people persist, for reasons of their own, in denying that Nazi Germany systematically murdered six million Jews along with other assorted undesirables does not mean there’s “another side” to the story).
Either Denise lied to us, or she didn’t. Either Denise tried to emotionally isolate us, or she didn’t. If the former of those is true, it hardly matters what the other side is on almost anything else.
And that’s just the facts that could be disputed. Cyril died — she cannot deny that. It took longer than four to six months to complete Anguel’s adoption — she cannot deny that.
5. Emily had that and she’s OK.
Meet Emily, The Girl Who Had Everything.
She leans on this one so hard it almost deserves its own page. Anything your referral has on his or her medicals ... well, Emily had it too and just look at her now. She used this one on us, the Badys and several other clients.
Interestingly, she’s flexible on this one. When Alysha Towell was worried about the reports on her first referrals, Denise was perfectly willing to tell her how sick Emily was ... and (you know the rest of the story).
Is that the truth? We don’t know. But if all of it is, Emily’s a walking, talking medical miracle. We wouldn’t have been surprised now if she had tried to say that Emily died, too, but she came back to life with a little love and food.
6. You can’t believe most of what you read on the Internet. A lot of people are lying.
See here.
This actually may work on older, net.phobic PAPs. And it is, admittedly, true that much of what you read on the Internet can and should be taken with a grain of salt.
But the obvious rejoinder is: then why do you have such a big website, Denise? Why do you advertise on the Internet if it’s such a cesspool of deception?
The only reason for this is to keep people from finding out about the Eeeeevil Cases and their growing minions.
7. Things are different in other countries.
Once again, Denise takes that which no one would deny and turns it into an excuse for her own myriad failings.
It’s the foreign government’s fault! The reps’! The judges! Just don’t blame me for this no matter how often it happens!
It is no excuse for failing to adapt to those differences ... which Denise and BBAS have had ample opportunity to fail to do.
For example, what about the fact that the Bulgarian timeline turned out to be very different than what she was telling clients, even well into 2000 when the four-to-six-month period she promised others was obviously not reflective of the realities of the adoptions then pending?
8. Red tape and bureaucracy are a problem no matter where you are.
See above.