Talk:Bulgarian Dreams

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Edits October 2010[edit]

I note that some of this article as it existed previously had been removed or substantially reduced. I have edited it further - partially reinstating some of this material, but this edit has been repeatedly reverted without explanation.

To justify the edits I have made:

1. Changing "Membership of AIPP" to "AIPP Membership". Why use three words when you can say the same thing with two? Brevity is generally good practice in written English. I think "AIPP Membership" reads better, and that most readers would agree.

2. Reinstating the section on the AIPP resignation/expulsion issue. As it was, this stated the positions of Bulgarian Dreams and the AIPP in their own words - which is about as clear an explanation as there can be under the circumstances. Simply saying that Bulgarian Dreams resigned their membership and the AIPP subsequently expelled them would leave many readers scratching their heads.

3. Removing the sentence "Bulgarian Dreams were the sales agent only for these properties". This does not fit well in its current location and is largely redundant as the company is described in the article as 'selling properties'. To clarify this I have changed the first line of the article to be more specific and refer to the company as a property sales agent.

4. Removing the sentence "Purchasers who had used Bulgarian Dreams were contacted individually by letter with the contact details of Bulgarian Dreams' smaller Sofia office which remains open to provide purely customer service support to existing purchasers." This had a long-standing 'citation needed' flag and no reference was provided for this statement.

5. Expanding 'legal action' section. This includes material from a September 2010 article from the Sofia Echo / Capital newspaper. This is probably the first time in eighteen months that Bulgarian Dreams has featured in the media so it is very relevant as an update on the situation.

6. Removing the "at all" from the sentence "To date no subsequent action at all has been reported as being taken." These two words are completely redundant here. Why use 13 words when you can use 11? Again, brevity is generally good practice in written English.

7. Split the references into two columns.

I would suggest that it would be neither productive nor courteous to continue reverting these changes. SofiaSoGood (talk) 17:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Media Coverage[edit]

The whole thing seems to be just media coverage without any real concrete evidence against Robert Jenkin or Bulgarian Dreams. With so many developers going bankrupt currently I can't see the difference between this company as a sales agent and the many others that have sold property all over the world. A significant amount of all off-plan property sold in the last 2 years is in delay and incomplete because of the credit crunch. They seem to have been a larger company in their sector but that is all. How is this case different from all the others except for the vocal laments of this agents' customers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.91.216.211 (talk) 13:56, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Differences are - or at least include:
1. The fact that problems started before the credit crunch.
2. The whole issue of whether Bulgarian Dreams were just an agent as claimed, or were involved in the developments they were selling. Development contracts bear the names of Bulgarian Dreams personnel, or relatives thereof, as developers. SofiaSoGood (talk) 12:32, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Neither of your claims are substantiated. What are the problems pre-dating the credit crunch and is there any evidence to suggest that if there were any problems they relate in any way to Bulgarian Dreams or individuals running Bulgarian Dreams? To date I know of no such evidence. Likewise your second point is a completely unsubstantiated claim. The managers and shareholders of all the companies in Bulgaria are a matter of public record, freely available on the internet. There has never been any question that Mr. Jenkin was a manager at Interlink until 2006 nor that his wife became a manager after that. Other than this there is no other links that have ever been substantiated in any way. It is all too easy to constantly look for hate figures in relation to problems with the properties that Bulgarian Dreams sold but the fact remains that the real reasons for the problems are in my opinion banal and self-evident. Douglasdavis 17:32, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
1. I'm referring to property which was sold apparently without the necessary permissions in place.
2. I'm not referring to Interlink BG in particular, but the fact that contracts from other developers bear the same names as representatives of those companies - which are supposedly separate and unrelated.
Granted, this information is not readily available to the general public so it can be considered unsubstantiated, but it is relevant as a response to the original question. SofiaSoGood 25 October 2009
Yes you are right, the entire basis for the vast majority of the news coverage and subsequent internet discussions is unsubstantiated and largely un-evidenced accusations. Has Bulgarian Dreams sold properties in a different way to other agencies at that time or actually did anything legally wrong? Were they unlucky that Interlink BG subsequently experienced problems? No evidence suggests the former despite all the coverage and attention which in my opinion is very telling. I would also add that the quite broad positive improvements brought about with many of the developments subsequently can't be included on Wikipedia because they aren't publicly available being on their private forum or internal company documents that owners have seen but aren't available on the web. Likewise media generally have little interest in knowing about what are important positive developments but don't make interesting press coverage. 'Problems solved at XXXX' isn't a headline you read much so it isn't a one way street as you may be implying. Generally speaking individuals are more motivated to get coverage if there are problems, when they are solved they rarely are motivated to try and get coverage that there are no more problems etc. It is the sort of standard bias shown in telephone phone ins and other such mediums expressing opinions and it affects Wikipedia through the need for referencing in the same way. Douglasdavis (talk) 12:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Owners' groups and online forums[edit]

I question the repeated removal of the reference to OffplanCollective.com. In a section entitled "owners' groups" is it not appropriate to refer to owners' groups, whether BD-sanctioned or otherwise? The insistence on including no groups other than the official Bulgarian Dreams forum indicates, to me, a lack of neutrality.SofiaSoGood (talk) 06:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the reference to Offplancollective because it is a privately run commercial forum of no particular note compared with numerous others. There is also significant reason to believe the owners of the site are not disinterested in relation to Bulgarian Dreams and the editing and original creation of the Wikipedia page. Given that the majority of content on Bulgarian Dreams relates to complaints regarding poor or lacking customer service (more recently) it is directly relevant that Bulgarian Dreams have subsequently made efforts with regards to this, primarily via their forum. Further, as a company page, it is directly relevant to include references to all activities of the company and, in common with their website and other activities, the forum is a major activity of the company currently. Other private forums are welcome to have their own pages should they be sufficiently noteworthy to be included in Wikipedia instead of driving traffic to their commercial operations via other companies. Having read the early news coverage references, they typically include direct quotes of Bulgarian Dreams customers of a positive nature. The labelling of negative coverage as such and the complete exclusion until recently of early references to positive coverage (which in fact is more numerous in absolute terms) only demonstrates the 'agenda' of this page in general until the recent major edits. It is questionable why this page and those of the Bulgarian Dreams managers are included in the Wikipedia at all.
Wikipedia notability guidelines: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." Bulgarian Dreams therefore qualifies as notable having been featured in most major UK newspapers and on BBC television. User: SofiaSoGood

News coverage[edit]

Recently I changed 'positive news coverage' to 'news coverage' near the beginning of this article, and this has now been changed back - the justification being that negative news coverage is referred to subsequently, and to be balanced the earlier reports should be referred to as positive. Point taken to a certain extent, although I do not entirely agree. Equally I think squabbling over it would be fairly pointless. To explain, the reason I changed it was that most of the early reports were publicity driven, with the media reporting Bulgaria positively, saying it had great prospects, while coverage of Bulgarian Dreams specifically was more neutral (simply stating that the company was in the market, selling properties, and was reporting great opportunities for buyers). In my opinion, 'positive coverage' reports good performance from the company and/or cites good reviews from customers. 'Negative coverage' reports poor performance and/or highlights the plight of unhappy customers. Therefore I would call the earlier reports mostly neutral, and later ones mostly negative.Wotnot (talk) 21:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where have my original comments gone regarding this? As per previous comments the earlier coverage does repeatedly reference Bulgarian Dreams customers who are clearly happy with their purchases. The coverage is positive in general on Bulgaria and property there, the use of Bulgarian Dreams customers constitutes positive references of Bulgarian Dreams. There are many more positive articles currently unreferenced in the page. For some reason there were no such references included at all by the creators and editors of this and other related pages until I added. Strange that. Douglasdavis (talk) 12:01, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your original comments regarding this were removed because the discussion was getting well away from the subject at hand, and was not in line with Wikipedia talk page guidelines. However, the previous response to your point seems entirely valid, and this was that most of the references cited as positive make no mention of Bulgarian Dreams customers. As far as I can see only two of the ten (currently numbered 7 and 9) refer to Bulgarian Dreams customers at all, and in those cases they have only just invested (i.e. they have ordered the product but are a long way from taking delivery). Given the nature of the problems with Bulgarian Dreams developments, any endorsement before receiving the keys to a finished property would be premature. According to your statement (that a reference to Bulgarian Dreams customers who seem happy constitutes positive references of Bulgarian Dreams), only two of the citations could be categorised as positive coverage - and I would take issue with those.SofiaSoGood (talk) 17:27, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually what you are doing is opining on coverage which isn't what Wikipedia is for. You don't know how the purchasers turned our that are mentioned or whether they are happy or not now. The fact is they stated they were happy at that time and people are able to access coverage with the understanding that it is supposedly accurate at the time of publication, not subsequently. Douglasdavis (talk) 12:14, 47 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RBP terms and conditions[edit]

I'm going a bit off topic here for which I apologise, but some might find this amusing: http://rainbowbulgarianproperties.com/html/terms.html This page refers to Berkeley Square Trading on the second line although it does not appear to be in any way related. One possible explanation might be that someone has borrowed the T&Cs and been a bit overzealous with copy & paste(?!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TalkBansko (talk • contribs) 19:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Rainbow Bulgarian Properties page looks like theft of the T&Cs by this company from the Bulgarian Dreams site. Have you emailed them? User: douglasdavis
It does look like theft and no, I haven't contacted them or anyone else about it. None of my business, really. Just thought it looks comically inept to 'borrow' material like this (assuming that is what has happened) and leave such an obvious reference to the original source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TalkBansko (talk • contribs) 12:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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