what a read this thread has been!!
Ok to answer some of the pish thats been written and also defend my wife
House competition. Jo never wanted to do the house come in the first instance, She had enough of insta around this time last year and i was pushing for the competition to go ahead. It was a fantastic opportunity for someone to win a house but from my point of view it was a fantastic business opportunity. we have bought and sold houses for profit through the years and this was another way to make profit. With jo having such a large following it was a no brainer. Jo was against the idea but went along with it to please me. i pushed and pushed her to plug the comp which she done from time to time but never anywhere as near as i wanted.
Did we/i dupe ppl out of money. Nope. everyone that played the competition can read the terms and conditions. the competition was ran the way it was to please the gambling laws. The competition ran for 6 months and if the lower threshold of 20k tickets wasn't sold then a cash prize would be won which equated to 70% of funds raised
Picking a name out a hat was and is considered a lottery which needs special gambling licence in place. Doing a spot the ball comp doesn't need the licence in place hence why i chose this.
In short the competition as a business was a failure. It raised £78k in total, from which £54k was paid to the winner
Gillian lowe from burntisland in Fife won the money. She didn't want her name on social media(instagram and Facebook) but as per our terms she had to have the name on our website.
the remaining 24k has paid the set up fees and running costs, advertisements etc which have run into the tens of thousands. We are also set up as a ltd company and will have a corporation tax bill to pay on all funds the business has made. So to answer questions or rumours that we have pocketed the cash or rolling in it ain't true. No doubt some will be suspicious still, Unfortunately we can't please you all. The books will be done and anyone can check this info online. nothing to hide
The reason we never done a live draw was simple. The company we were using to run the competition changed their minds massively with regards to the cost for doing a live draw. It went from £500 plus vat to have one person do a draw behind closed doors to £3200 plus vat for a 3 person team do do it live. Considering we were running the business at a loss by this time i decided this wasn't going to happen. No radio silence from jo. Just she wasn't wanting to do the comp in the first place.
Website was taken down after one month of advertising the winner because it was costing £120 plus vat per month to host it.
An accountant on here making assumptions of this and that. Its a business, do the math, 700k ticket sales for a 400k house.
700k into a business minus corporation tax(20percent) minus tens of thousands in set up and running costs minus paying off a mortgage and all of a sudden a 700k business isn't worth shouting about. Yes we would have made a decent profit but someone would have also won a house for £35 quid.
Too many ppl focus on what we would make and not what they would actually win. It was a venture and ultimately didn't pan out. thats business
Also someone put up saying that similar comps are 1-10 quid, Simple sum, If we made the game £5 to play and for the tax reasons i've explained and needing to hit 700k, we'd have needed to sell 140000 tickets, This is not realistic. 20k ticket sales was a realistic target hence the price increase for a ticket.
its easy for people to write tit under a false name that has no truth.
chatty sally just put up a thread regarding my kids, first point about the police is a lot of pish. Who makes this tit up. second point about kids going to others to use the toilet and feed lol, we live in a build up estate where there are about 20-30 kids outside running about playing every day. i've lost count of how many kids i/jo has fed in our house or used the toilet. Of course our kids have gone to their friends house's and played, been fed, used the toilet, this is normal in a built up estate, its why ppl move to estates like this, so they have a community of like minded ppl and their kids are able to go out and play etc, this is normal sally!!!
Someone mentioned about jo having a hard upbringing and another commented on not being sure how hard an upbringing she's had!! a father that committed suicide at 12, into foster care from 12-18 and moved house to house, change of schools in 4th year at a crucial time in your life and bullied at a new school and watching the downfall of your other parent, and then calling your car your home for a period when you were old enough to leave foster care is pretty grim. but then the expert on here not sure about how hard an upbringing she's had will probably know best!!
ppl on here complaining that she's got above herself or doesn't answer the messages etc . she has 76000 followers. If 0.5 percent of her followers message her on a daily basis which she does get every single day. Thats 380 messages per day, every day. that number goes up massively when she posts something. Instagram isn't a full time job for her, she has a life outside instagram, she can't message everyone back and struggles to even get through have the messages. If she hasn't messaged you back its not cause she's up her self or a snob or a witch, it's cause she doesn't have time. If she doesn't go on insta for a few days she has over 1000 messages in her inbox unread.
Ppl are jumping to all sorts of conclusions about nikki.
Mark brown is from kirkcaldy. Mark and i were friends from age 3-4 and best friends for a number of years in 20's and into 30's. We lived in hollybrae and 2 doors along from mark and nikki. Despite what nikki might retaliate and say the truth is we were all very close friends.
I was best man at their wedding in italy and jo was good friends with nikki for a number of years and were in and out the houses on a daily occurrence. Jo done all the wedding stationery for the wedding etc. As time went on there was resent towards Jo from nikki.
Nikki was best friends with another girl and her and her husband spent many a night at mark and nikki's along with me and jo. But as time went on stories would get back to us that the friend didn't like jo and would talk about jo behind her back. Jo confronted nikki one day as to why her friend had an issue to which nikki pushed all the blame on the husband not liking me.
Me being me told nikki i wanted to confront the husband as he was being two faced for speaking to me and then hating me behind my back (knowing she was talking pish as i had known the husband of her friend for 15 years and had been invited to his stag doo a mere 6 weeks earlier)
Nikki texting me telling me that my ego was hurt because not everyone liked me and to deal with it and not waste my time confronting him. That the guy wasn't worth it and to then harp on that her and mark wanted to distance themselves from her best friend and husband, Thats the best friend and husbands overseas wedding was totally tit etc etc. All very nice conversation nikki kindly put into text.
When i messaged the husband asking his issue, he was furious and was at my door in 10 mins to confront me. After showing him what had been written he demanded i send him the messages. long story short, 3 friendships destroyed through nikki talking pish about jo
No doubt nikki will be on this and insta to tell her side of the story, but text messages don't lie. Anyway thats all handbags and they have been in company once since where nikki was nice as pie!!
lot of hatred on here towards jo, Its pretty simple, if you don't like someone then why follow them. jog on and follow ppl you do like. so many ppl watching her every move. christ she logged into insta and a comment on here within a minute to say she was back on wtf. are ppl seriously sitting at home in lochgelly or wherever watching and seeing what she's doing.!!
Another commenting on her homeware business and the accounts are due soon and we will see what she's done with that wtaf
jo done the houseware business from home and as a part time thing, once it started getting bigger she had to make a decision as to run it full time from a premises or finish it up, going back to uni was the priority and so the homeware business was slowed down.
Some of the thread has been ppl asking questions and i hope they have been answered, some of the thread is pure hate and is bullying. Lots of ppl harping on other threads about kids and protecting them but imagine your kid was bullied or indeed a bully, would you put up with that. thats what this thread has become. Jo is a mother first and foremost and a wife to me. A uni student and a lover of home design. her page isn't a business. she's human, she makes mistakes, she has feelings, reading stuff on here has effects on ppl. it won't stop but i can and will defend her.
cheers
dario
