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Founder of OnlineDivas.com.au, Hollie Turner, is currently ducking creditors and a long line of dissatisfied members who are demanding their money back from the women’s networking site.
Australian Women Online has spoken to several women who say they have been let down, ripped off and in some cases, verbally abused by Hollie Turner, who is reportedly in the United States at present and can’t be reached. When reports surfaced last week that the TV program A Current Affair, were interested in doing a story on the Online Diva, Hollie Turner silenced her critics by promising to pay what she owed. But more than a week later, creditors say they are still waiting and that all their most recent attempts to contact Turner have failed.
I have to admit I never really liked the ‘Online Divas’ concept. Firstly, I think the name “divas” sends the wrong message. How many times have we heard an over-demanding, tantrum-throwing celebrity described in the media as a Diva? As a business woman, this is certainly not the message I would want to send to the business community.
Secondly, women’s business networks such as Online Divas, encourage women to network amongst themselves, instead of getting out there and mixing with the wider business community. Although it’s nice to see women supporting each other, the reality is that men still hold the majority of senior positions in business and therefore, it makes absolutely no sense for women to network only with other women.
Thirdly, I don’t think it’s fair to charge people for advice they could just as easily find online for free. I also didn’t appreciate being screamed at by Hollie Turner after I told her that I wouldn’t be promoting the launch of her website on Australian Women Online.
But despite my personal feelings, it really doesn’t give me any pleasure to have to report on the problems that have arisen in the Online Divas network.
Web designer, Lisa Taliana (www.talianadesign.com.au), says she is still owed $1,200 by Hollie Turner for services she completed for the Online Divas website back in July this year.
Lisa told Australian Women Online, “I took over from her previous web designer and she paid me very quickly for the first job. But she never paid me for the second job – where I basically designed her email template for her and also got her Drupal content management system back up and running.”
Although Hollie Turner has denied owing her the money, Lisa says she can prove she is owed the $1,200.
“I have saved all the emails where she agreed to pay me and I’ve also saved all the transcripts of our chats on Skype,” said Lisa.
In addition to the money she is owed for work performed for the Online Divas website, Lisa Taliana has joined the long list of Australian women who are demanding a refund of the $75 membership fee they were charged by Online Divas.
“I actually went to one of the first events they had and I wasn’t impressed. It’s just really bad advice that they give to people. I was actually a panelist at one of the events and the other girls who were there were just basically encouraging women to go off and do it themselves. A shopping cart isn’t actually easy to do on your own and a blog isn’t going to make you an entrepreneur,” said Lisa.
“There’s nothing happening with the website at the moment and she’s offering nothing to people as an incentive. She offers discounts to events but they get cancelled and she doesn’t return the money.”
The winner of the ‘I wanna be an Online Diva’ competition in 2008, Penny Flanders from www.missmoneypenny.net.au, says although she received free web design, she hasn’t received much else from Online Divas.
“I was also promised a laptop computer, Peep Toe Shoes, an Online Divas membership, mentoring and a Blackberry. Although I did receive the web design and the Blackberry, I had to sign up to a plan for the Blackberry so I was never able to use it,” said Penny.
“I’m still not listed as an Online Diva on the website and I am yet to receive the laptop, the shoes and the business mentoring. These promises are why I launched my business and now I’m left without knowing what to do.”
After the producers of A Current Affair were contacted, Hollie Turner did promise Penny she would deliver the laptop computer. But then in a strange twist to this story, the person Turner had been staying with in San Francisco, reportedly said their laptop had been stolen.
Like Lisa Taliana, Penny says she is fed up with Hollie Turner’s empty promises and wants her experiences to serve as a warning to others.
Sam Winter from www.sassisam.com, says she too is waiting for a refund of her $75 membership fee.
“Hollie has agreed to give me back my money but I haven’t seen it yet, so it could be just another empty promise. I also want to know from her why she charged some girls and not others to join Online Divas.”
Although only Hollie Turner knows her reasons for charging some the membership fee and not others, I would say the most likely explanation is that she wants to encourage women who have a high public profile to join the community – a strategy that has worked well, with Samantha Brett from AskSam, Lauren Smelcher from Cosmopolitan, Kylie Little from Essential Baby, Melanie Silva from Google and many others who can lend credibility to the site, featured on the home page of Online Divas.
We have been told there are many more women who are dissatisfied with the treatment they’ve received, but for one reason or another, they are afraid to come forward and talk about their experiences publicly. All three of the women I spoke to said that whenever they complained to Hollie Turner, they would often receive an abusive email from her.
“I do know many girls are unhappy with Online Divas and Hollie Turner. The difficult thing is getting people to talk about it,” said Penny Flanders. “Hollie knows this and she relies on it.”
UPDATE:
12:30pm, 4 December 2009
Hollie Turner from Online Divas has contacted myself and the three women mentioned in this article. Hollie has refunded the membership fee owed to Sam and is currently making arrangements with Lisa to repay the money she owes for web design services. Hollie is also negotiating with Penny to deliver on her promise of a laptop computer.
Hollie has also asked that we remove the article from the website which we will not do.
Ah yes Holly – I have to say I am not surprised by this. I dont know everything about all her affairs but I can tell you with no ounce of exaggeration or vindictiveness that she has left a trail of very unhappy people in her wake. She has been known to outright lie to people and accuse people of awful things, and her strata is seeking to make her bankrupt as she hasnt paid bills in around 3 years – she is currently in the US dodging creditors.
Im actually not one of them – I dont actually have anything personally against her but she has stuffed person after person after person after person over – I really hope this insidious lowlife gets hers one day.
I ran into Hollie at an event here in SF. She lied straight to my face and ran away…
She is the most dreadful, repulsive, pathological lying…
Hollie…You’ll get whats coming to you one way or another…
Just don’t expect me to be as polite next time I see you around San Francisco…You can’t hide from this…
Hana
Given this article is now ranked about 4th on Google for searches on “Hollie Turner” and “Online Divas” respectively, then anyone doing a cursory background check has a very good chance of finding out the truth about her business dealings.
The best thing to do is encourage people affected by her to link to this article from Facebook, Twitter, Digg, blogs, other news sites etc and it’ll likely get a number 1 search result within a few weeks. It would be quite ironic that good SEO became Hollie’s worst enemy in the end.
If no one’s done it already, it would also be worth making sure that the people and businesses listed on http://www.onlinedivas.com.au are aware of what’s unfolded, lest their own reputations be damaged by association with Hollie and OD.
It gets better. Google “Hollie Turner” and “Online Divas” at the same time and this article is #1, while there are also now more searches for “Hollie Turner scam” than for Hollie’s “Pearl PR” agency (which is admittedly now defunct, but still, a nice situation none the less).
Let’s keep up the linking, and keep adding comments and updates…
Still no sign of the laptop or other various ‘prizes’. Unsurprising. Website rip-off is still up! Audacious – I think so.
thank you for writing this article. it’s about time someone got hip to this freak show. i hope that the press will continue to pursue their investigations of hollie, and that she is exposed in the united states as well.
i have to say i find it very difficult to feel any sort of pity for hollie, especially since she seems to feel absolutely no shame. she maintains her silence, even though everyone is talking about her, as if she has nothing to feel badly about!
she owes her adoring fans an explanation…
You dig a little deeper and it looks like ASIC is worth it’s dues after all. Pearl PR Pty Ltd is currently in “Strike-Off Action In Progress” status, which was initiated as part of an enforced de-registration process. “Online Divas” is not a registered business name in Australia, but the trademark of the name is owned by Pearl PR, so it would seem that Hollie was possibly trading illegally all along.
I am so sorry to hear you have all been swindled by Hollie. she has done these same to the poor interns that worked for her too. Frist off they were accused of stealing when it was actually her staff member and she used to send her itnerns out on the weekends to work with people she owed favours to (still with no pay). Then she has the gall to not pay these poor girls who were always from overseas and probably didnt know any better. They worked hard for her to. They have mentioned the amount of time the sheriff came to the office looking for her. She is a shocking women and i hope these messages save a few people from this happening to in the future.
Kelly wake up she is a scammer! Would this many people have bad stories to tell if she was a nice person or good business woman. She has brought all this negativity on herself.
Boy, is she a piece of work! I only worked there for a few weeks, and it was nothing but constant phone calls from utilities companies, her tenants, the workplace ombudsman, unpaid contractors and angry clients. I’m so glad I got out as quickly as I did. But if you’re owed money, don’t give up – I eventually got a portion of what I was owed through the ombudsman (cheers Nick!), but it took lots of emails and letters of demand. Thanks AWO for bringing this to light – I’ll be forwarding it to as many people as I can.
I just wanted to add that Hollie’s behaviour has not only been limited to her professional life. I met her socially and have been used lied to and manipulated in the ways described on this site. It’s great to see the power of the web being used to hold these types to account.
I too signed up for one of the online diva’s sessions in June in surry hills this year and paid the $29 or so fee. This creative networking session was subsequently cancelled, and i only found out via twitter which was unprofessional in itself. I emailed Hollie on numerous occasions for a refund, but gave up trying after no response whatsoever.
I’m glad this was aired as there are alot of people in the creative community that have had the same feelings towards her unprofessionalism and its only now that we can speak out and shame the business.
Sigh – Still no sign of Laptop as promised was on its way. Copy website still up! No mentoring connection as promised. Expected nothing less.
I have noticed that Hollie is on twitter under @hollie-turner and promoting Online Divas from San Francisco. I wasn’t personally affected by her (just – as I was going to join, before I saw this article), but it makes me angry to think that she has just moved locations and will potentially rip off other people. I almost wanted to contact all the people on her Twitter list, but that doesn’t sit right. I hope this article continues to make people aware of her – heartening that her name returns this article as number 1 in a google search.
Hollie Turner’s facebook fan page (Online Divas) still has 707 fans! I have reported her via facebook and removed myself from the fan page. Let’s band together and click “report” on her facebook page and alert Facebook about her (which is anonymous). Funny how Facebook removed the group formed by her victims, yet she is still allowed to attract business on FB with her group. This woman must be stopped.
Gaynor why don’t you send a link to this article to all her US twitter followers so they can read about her for themselves.
she is now bakc in Australlia claiming she can’t pay me as the ATO has sent her bankrupt. As if it’s all the ATO’s fault. You only get sent bankrupt if you have run a shoddy business.
Bizarrely, I notice onlinedivas.com.au is actually registered to one of Hollie’s former employers, Pulse Communications — part of the Ogilvy group of companies, one Australia’s largest advertising and PR conglomerates. I must admit I’m kinda curious to know what Pulse has to do with Online Divas and how they came to own the domain name (or indeed if they even know that they registered the domain.)
Registrant: PULSE COMMUNICATIONS PTY LIMITED
Registrant ID: ABN 26096908315
Eligibility Type: Company
Registrant Contact ID: C37742-DC
Registrant Contact Name: Hollie Turner
Registrant Contact Email: Visit whois.ausregistry.com.au for Web based WhoIs
Hollie’s former employer – the one she left to start Pearl PR, and then Online Divas – is in fact the registered owner of the onlinedivas.com.au domain name?
That’s VERY strange! I wonder how a high-profile agency like Ogilvy feels about being directly (albeit inadvertently) associated with what has turned out to be a VERY shonky operation? This is surely not good for their reputation. With a word in the right ear they might even be motivated to de-register the domain or is there some way they could ‘recover’ control of the domain (after all, they own the thing!) and have the content on onlinedivas.com.au removed, effectively shutting down the site?
Ah Hollie it looks like you finally got what you deserve!
Why are you even bothering over there in the states? they will eat you for breakfast
Be warned: Hollie is now chasing potential investors to bankroll one of her other online ventures, I think it’s the same one based on the concept which she ‘stole’ from Penny Flanders.
I discovered this accidentally through a friend. Hollie’s line is that Online Divas took her time away from other projects like this one and Pearl PR, and that she ploughed all her energy and money into Online Divas because she believed in the concept and that is why she is now bankrupt (yeah, right!). So now she is recalibrating her sights on “projects with a more solid commercial potential”.
Fortunately, my mate says his boss was smart enough to do a quick Google search for Hollie Turner and Online Divas, and guess which article popped up at the top of the list? Yes, this one! 🙂
Obviously she got no money from HIM but she is undoubtedly hitting every angle she knows to try and rake up some more money. And I have do doubt that she will treat any money she gets with the same poor practice as before.
Thanks for the update Andy. A warning to all other ‘I Wanna be an Online Diva’ competition entrants – Hollie obviously created this compeition to gather a pool of well researched business ideas to choose from. She could be scoping out yours too.
To re-interate, I entered the competition and ‘won’ a series of prizes (most of which I never received) and Hollie took the idea and replicated it immediately after the competition using a booklet of research I had put together. I had expressly emailed Hollie prior to the comp to gain her assurance that my IP would be safe. I was naieve enough to believe her when she emailed back saying I was protected by the ‘Divas code of ethics’ – some code.
Her Second-hand Desifner Clothing re-seller website (launched in Feb 2009 – I ‘won’ the comp in Nov 09) is still live in all its glory with her Sydney contact details still there).
What amazes me is that 7 people on the competition judging panel were from some very large corporate business and the 150 people at the launch where the ‘prize’ was awarded came from top businesses such as Google, Paypal, Fairfax digital. The audacity of this person never ceases to amaze.
Unfortunately you cannot copyright an ‘idea’ so beware to others – no matter what big name corporations are involved – NEVER hand over your IP without a contract / confidentiality agreement in place first.
I await the next installment with dread!
We were last night made aware of your article about Holly and Online Divas, and the comments that Holly had registered the website under Pulse Communications.
I can confirm that Pulse was not aware that Holly had used its company credentials to purchase the domain, which as we know, is fraudulent. We’ve now alerted the web registry company to get that fixed.
Graham White
Managing Director, Howorth
Ogilvy PR group
Found out Hollie has another domain name http://www.mediaoffice.com.au, although her official launch date is a bit behind.
She also has another domain name registered http://www.row-a.com
People keep an eye out, in case these websites appear in full working order, ready to con others.
I also joined Online Divas and paid $75. I was never included on her website and chased them several times over this as I had provided a photo and information which I understood would be included in a profile on her site.
In the early stages Hollie also asked me to be a guest speaker on one of her panels. She charged people to attend these events yet offered me no fee. We agreed on a date and venue. Several days before the event when I was preparing my notes, I looked at her website and there was no mention of the event for which I was supposedly the guests speaker. I was not informed it was cancelled.
I also paid $150 to attend another Hollie organised event. She later said the event had to be postponed to another date. I had a another engagement on that date so asked for my money back. She asked for my credit card details to reimburse the amount but of course I never saw the money.
I feel a little silly now as I had warning bells about Hollie but chose to ignore them in the face of her confidence and the way so many women gravitated towards her. Shame on me. I should have known better.
Graham White
Can you please remove all the content from the onlinedivas website?
WOW! I so knew I was onto something with her. I don’t know if anyone is still reading this thread some two & a half years later, but I found it by googling: Hollie Turner Australia San Francisco.
I met Hollie when I posted a room available for rent in San Francisco in late 2009/early 2010 (in fact, I think I have photos of her partying with my friends over the new year). We were roughly the same age, she seemed nice enough and I enjoyed her positive attitude. Aside from the age part, that all quickly changed.
I soon discovered that she was a complete fraud and that the only time she wasn’t lying was when her mouth was shut — which wasn’t all that often. The weird thing is that she would lie about dumb stuff, like making her relationship with her boyfriend (Jason “Jay”) out to be more than it was, then crying that it wasn’t moving fast enough — they had only been dating for 4 weeks!
Anyway, Hollie was working for Grind coffee shop and trying to start up the vintage clothing shop too (or was working for one? I never got the straight answer), and supposedly applying to fashion design school too (to start the month she moved in at FIDM). Roughly 10 days after moving in, 7 of which her mother lived with us, she told me that she would be leaving in 4-days to return to Australia for 3-weeks to sell her house (first it was 6-weeks, then 3, and finally just 2). Evidently, her mom had flown out to SF to bring her back to Aus — so that week was filled with fighting and uncomfortable silences. I actually felt bad for her mom, and I had a strange feeling the whole time that her mom wanted to tell me something, but just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
So, 4-hours before her flight to Aus, while I was on a road trip, she text me that her “friend” would be taking her room while she was out of town. Given how strange things were at that point, I said no and explained that had I had the opportunity to meet the person prior, it might be different. She got really angry and we spent the better part of a 4-hour drive in a heated text argument. I won. By the way, during that argument it came out that this “friend” was someone she had only met that day in the coffee shop.
She was due to return to SF right about the time that Feb rent would be due. She didn’t return on time, though she did eventually pay her rent. The damage was done though. I couldn’t prove anything, but I had nothing but a terrible feeling about her, and wanted her out of my home as quickly as possible. Thankfully, she moved out at the end of February 2010. She tried to stay longer, insinuating that the 30+ days of notice that I gave her was insufficient, but I put my foot down and got her out.
At the end of the day, I didn’t lose any money or property, but I will say that I feel rather vindicated after reading about all of the other trouble she caused here. It honestly doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Oh, and I found her resume/CV in my email. She had asked me to pass it along to catering friends. It’s FILLED with past experience working for restaurants in Australia (all lies I would guess?), and mentions absolutely nothing about Online Divas. Ha!!