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Josh Fenton doesn’t like to pay his writers, and now one of them, a featured writer for GoLocal Portland, is doing something about it.

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As you know, Turtleboy Sports had a partnership with GoLocalWorcester that lasted a couple months back in the winter. Here’s what their owner Josh Fenton said about our arrival as a featured columnist:

“Turtle Boy is an irreverent voice in Central Mass. He is funny, clever, off-color and 100% Worcester,” said Josh Fenton, CEO and Co-Founder of GoLocalWorcester, “Turtle Boy’s columns make you laugh, make you think and sometimes make you mad…sometimes at him, but no one captures the City like him. He is Studs Terkel, Howie Carr and John Stewart all rolled into one Worcester Diner meatloaf.”

It was easy money and we drastically improved GoLocal’s Alexa page ranking and page views. Because no one went to GoLocal before this unless they wanted to view a slideshow about the Top 25 places to wipe your ass that weekend.

The relationship wasn’t pretty. We told him the day before the Super Bowl that we wouldn’t have a column that Monday because we were going to be really, really drunk the night before. He was cool with it. Then the next day he sent us a message freaking out about it, because the man is a completely unbalanced lunatic with psychological issues. Nevertheless the blogs continued and so did the page views for GoLocalWorcester.

Then the hippie boycott happened and Josh told us that he didn’t wanna do business with us anymore because we were too crude. Keep in mind, he knew exactly what we were all about:

Turtle Boy’s columns make you laugh, make you think and sometimes make you mad…sometimes at him, but no one captures the City like him.

His loss. Since then his page views plummeted, as did his Alexa page ranking. Here’s where we currently rank in the world:

Here’s where GoLocal ranks:

Advantage Turtle. We also exposed how Josh Fenton is lying to his advertisers about his page views. He tells them that he gets 3.4 million views a month. But Josh forgot to change the password to his back page for GoLocalWorcester, and we proved that was a blatant lie:

Basically what he does is he counts each impression as a page view. So when he makes a slideshow with 50 slides like this one, he’s counting that as 50 unique views. Thus he can jack up the price he charges advertisers. It’s illegal, it’s unethical, it’s Josh Fenton. Someone might wanna tell these advertisers, because they’re literally being lied to and robbed:

This is why we can’t endorse Moe Bergman. Bad instincts. These guys are all paying well over $1,000 a month to have their ads on his website, which very few people actually see, and almost no one clicks on. They’re pissing their money away, but this is America and they have a right to do that. I’m sure they’d love to find out they’re being lied to though. Feel free to reach out to Moe Bergman or whoever runs ticket sales at UMass. I’m sure they’d like to know who they’re doing business with.

Anyway, GoLocal started in Providence, and he’s burned every bridge possible there. After we wrote about him we had literally dozens of people reach out to us with horror stories about him from the Ocean State. The most common complaints were, 1) he’s batshit insane, 2) he likes to threaten imaginary lawsuits, and 3) he never paid me so I quit. He tried that shit with us too. Luckily the woman in charge of payroll quit (they always quit when they work for Josh Fenton) and the new woman just cut us a check.

But he’s started up GoLocal franchises in Worcester, Newport, and Portland, Oregon. The problem is that he doesn’t have an office in any of these places. On his site he claims to have an office at Mechanics Hall in Worcester. Turtleboy went down there and found out that was also a lie. Pat Sargent’s affiliation with the site is coming to an end, which means all he will have left is an accused pedophile/campaign manager for Joe Petty (Paul Giorgio), and an accused pedophile/school committee member (John Manfredo), as writers.

But it’s the Portland site, GoLocalPDX, that is causing the most controversy right now. Byron Beck is an established entertainment and lifestyle blogger who lives in Portland.

Josh Fenton “hired” him not too long ago to write for his latest franchise. The problem is that he never paid him. This is Josh Fenton’s M.O. He finds the most well known and established media figures in town, hires them, and then tries not to pay them. They get frustrated and quit. Then he threatens to sue them. Just take a look at the comments:

But the tables have turned this time around. According to the Willamette Week, “

Byron Beck, the site’s former lifestyle editor and biggest name, filed a complaint Oct. 9 with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, saying GoLocal CEO Josh Fenton didn’t give him his last two paychecks, totaling $3,000. Beck, a former WW columnist, says he and Fenton fell out over pay. “My former employer wouldn’t respond to my requests to pay me my final two checks,” Beck says.

A representative of TBS reached out to Byron Beck yesterday and spoke with him on the phone. We didn’t get much more than was reported in this article, largely because it appears as if Byron Beck seems almost scared of what Josh Fenton will do. Because Josh Fenton is a bully and an asshole. But we also spoke with a couple other former employees who wished to remain anonymous, and they’ve informed us that Josh is threatening to sue Byron Beck. Ya got that? He hired this guy, used him for page views, never paid him, and now is filing an imaginary lawsuit against Byron Beck because he wants to get paid.

Don’t worry Byron, this is what he does. Welcome to the “Josh Fenton threatened to sue me club.” Population – everyone who has ever done business with him. Don’t worry though, he doesn’t actually follow through, because any lawyer with a brain would laugh at him and tell him they don’t want his retainer. For instance, there was his imaginary lawsuit against Turtleboy Sports because we used a picture of a misspelled sign at North High School. Because only GoLocalWorcester was allowed to report about a misspelled sign at North High School:

As you can see, there was no lawsuit. Because we’re dealing with a pathological liar who will do whatever it takes to pretend that he runs a legitimate news website.

As of right now there is NO ONE writing for GoLocalPDX. Yet articles keep appearing on the site. Who’s writing these? No one knows. But we’ve been told by reliable sources that no one who lives in Portland is currently employed as a write for them. Very “local” of GoLocal as usual. Oh well, Josh Fenton is still a champion in his own mind, and he’s got the trophy to prove it!!!

#1 media outlet ever!!! Nice shorts Josh.

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