Hey stp! meet this douchebag: the mastercard vagabond | Squat the Planet

Hey stp! meet this douchebag: the mastercard vagabond

Hobo Huck

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Watch first:


I hate to be the one to do this, but I have to call bullshit on Tomislav Perko, and I'll explain why. I've read alot of his articles and interviews in the past, and this TEDx Talk is the last straw that breaks this camels back.

First of all, it's a bit misleading for Tomislav Perko to go around giving romanticized speeches about traveling around with "almost no money", or claiming that he "lost his job" due to a financial crash. That's not exactly the truth.

Tomislav Perko was a stock-broker that convinced most of his friends and family to pool together 30,000 dollars into a bad investment, promising them that there was NO WAY they could lose. Well, Tomislav lost all their money, and when his investors began demanding answers, he got frustrated at answering the phone calls, quit his job, and skipped out of town.

However, Tomislav didn't runaway empty-handed. He managed to smuggle away 1,300 dollars from that investment, and used that money to monetize a traveling blog BEFORE he even started traveling. Profit seemed to be his first priority, and to Tomislav it didn't seem to matter that he did this with other peoples money.

NOW, there is nothing wrong with making a little blog money on the side, and I think that's an awesome idea for many travelers! However, Tomislav takes "monetizing his travels" to the next level of complete bullshit, and it just gets worse and worse from there:

While Tomislav is writing away on his monetized blog and telling everyone that he boldly hit the road to escape the corruption and burdens of modern society, particularly the institutions of financial slavery, he then immediately accepted a deal with MASTERCARD.

This deal obligated Tomislav to backpack around the world around wearing a huge MASTERCARD logo, and the other part of the deal was that Tomislav had to promote and "plug" Mastercard on his so-called traveling blog.

Oh, and in exchange for being a complete sell-out and a walking contradiction, Tomislav received a 1,000 dollar monthly salary, including paid vacations and preplanned excursions. Tomislav even further brags that Mastercard directly pays 100% for some of his trips and vacations, including such luxury expenses including a skydiving trip in which he video's the experience while wearing a Mastercard shirt.

The fuck? At first he is boldly escaping the financial slavery of modern society, yet then agrees to accept a deal from a conglomerate financial institution that solely profits off exorbitant interest rates and potential customer debt? All the while, being housed and fed by people in third-world countries. The fuck?!

So, while Tomislav is "boldy traveling the world" and being housed and fed by the generosity of poverty-stricken families in third-world countries, he is simultaneously advertising for a billion dollar corporation, and making more money in one month than most of these poor people can make in a full year. Yet, he greedily smiles as he eats their food (Kurdistan, Iraq).

As if that's not enough, he then raises $12,000 on Indiegogo so that he could publish his vagabond book, which I'm tempted to believe was something he planned to profit from once he started this entire prepaid vacation.

I'm sorry, but as a vagabond, his entire story is simply revolting to me, and he profits by making a mockery of our lifestyles as houseless travelers.

In the end, when you read through most of his articles and put everything together, it really just seems like he was a corrupt yuppie that ran away from his financial obligations, only to start accepting money and gifts from corporate sponsors so that he can tour the world on a prepaid vacation.

And, of course, now he can stand in a room full of gullible college hipsters, lying to them by claiming that everyone can do the same thing as him, while continuing further profit over the phony claim that he is a vagabond that "backpacked the world with almost no money".

Oh can't you just see the wanderlust in those college kids eyes, soaking up every bit of this crap, dreaming of buying an REI backpack and living wild and free? Gimme a fuckin' break...

Just checkout his rules for traveling success:

For the end, 3 most important things:

1. have a product that is unique and will be interesting to people

2. communicate with the public

3. find a way to get in the media

TL;DR - If tricking your friends and family into giving you money for junk investments doesn't get you rich, just runaway and trick the entire world into giving you money for your phony "vagabond" vacation.

LINKS:

 
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briancray

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Why does he need 12,000 USD to write a book? I've started writing a book of some of my travels it did not require money for me to think lol...let alone 12,000 USD? I feel no shame in working and then traveling with the money I have earned. It sounds like this guy just doesn't want to work and found a way to beg on the internet and through lying about his financial situation to live on a lifeline prepaid vacation.
 

Hobo Huck

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Why does he need 12,000 USD to write a book? I've started writing a book of some of my travels it did not require money for me to think lol...let alone 12,000 USD? I feel no shame in working and then traveling with the money I have earned. It sounds like this guy just doesn't want to work and found a way to beg on the internet and through lying about his financial situation to live on a lifeline prepaid vacation.

He claims he needed the $12,000 for translating and publishing the book. Considering his "investment" history, it's a plausible assumption that Tomislav pocketed a majority of that money, using only a fraction of it to publish just enough copies of the book to please his investors..
 

briancray

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He claims he needed the $12,000 for translating and publishing the book. Considering his "investment" history, it's a plausible assumption that Tomislav pocketed a majority of that money, using only a fraction of it to publish just enough copies of the book to please his investors..

The fact he is trying to translate his book just shows he is looking to profit from it. If I were to write a book I would be concerned about the people of my country hearing my story and hopefully being an inspiration for some people to change their lifestyle. If I got a few bucks out of it...then cool, but I think the message is more important than a 12,000 USD pledge fund. Just sounds to me like he is pocketing it. He can't release the book in his country and then use that money to translate it? Nothing he did is even inspirational anyway. I would feel like a piece of shit if I lost my friends and family a ton of money and then left on a prepaid vacation by Mastercard.

Is any of his money going back into their pockets for the losses they incurred? I don't even know this dude and this got me heated. What a shitty human being.
 

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not really all that surprising really. i'm sure he justfies it to himself. and has no problem with what he's doing, but that's the way of the ignorant.

anyways, this reminds me that i'm hoping to write an article soon about how full of shit the travel blogging scene is. that'll be after we open an articles section here though.
 

Hobo Huck

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I just posted my opinion on his blog. I'm sure it will get deleted, but hopefully some will read it. Thanks for posting this Hobo Huck.

I left a comment on his blog also. Thanks for calling him out on his own blog, that was epic. I can just imagine his face when he reads that shit...he is going to shit a brick.

However, he can't delete this article from stp, or the article I put on my forum, and I have a feeling the combination of these will expose him to a much, much larger community. And he deserves it, too.

I've seen some poser-blogs before, but this is the absolute worst I've ever seen.
 
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briancray

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I left a comment on his blog also. Thanks for calling him out on his own blog, that was epic. I can just imagine his face when he reads that shit...he is going to shit a brick.

No problem man. I wouldn't have been able to unless you posted this article so thanks for that. I'm not broke, but I wander and get odd jobs to fund my travels. The shit he is posting is deceiving and fake. Fucking over people and then acting like you're some broke vagabond is just pitiful. There's nothing wrong with earning money to travel, but lying about your story for financial gain is about as low as you can go imo.
 
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Durp

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What can we do and organize to expose this phony? For a jerk like this we will need an organized and directed effort. Comment blast all his media cites? The .sucks domains will be available soon. We can make a honeat site exposing his exploits.
 

Hobo Huck

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What can we do and organize to expose this phony? For a jerk like this we will need an organized and directed effort. Comment blast all his media cites? The .sucks domains will be available soon. We can make a honeat site exposing his exploits.

I'm currently summoning his username and taking him to Vagabond court. He is being charged with 1 count of "Impersonating a Vagabond"

This is his official court summons. I also sent him a direct inbox message informing him of his right to defend himself.

This should be fun.

COURT SUMMONS: (http://www.reddit.com/r/vagabond/comments/33wbp2/u1000daysofsummer_you_are_being_summoned_to/)

I would also suggest leaving comments on his TEDx video link, since he can't delete those comments, and much of his publicity is coming from that youtube link. I left a comment there already, as well.
 
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Durp

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Haha wicked. I'm trying to figure out how to get a pay off from this jerk. Fuck, I've been perpetually on the road for 4 years and now working my butt off to start a homestead/ vagabond anarchists travel center, no one is handing me 12k for a tractor. there has to be a way to be such a thorn he pays up. Oh and I'm still houseless....

Edit: the universe is reminding me of my utter fuck status by not allowing my shitty phone to load anything other then stp and craigslist haha. I guess I should cool down and hope he gets his. Damn sometimes I wish I had real internet.
 
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Matt Derrick

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The fact he is trying to translate his book just shows he is looking to profit from it. If I were to write a book I would be concerned about the people of my country hearing my story and hopefully being an inspiration for some people to change their lifestyle. If I got a few bucks out of it...then cool, but I think the message is more important than a 12,000 USD pledge fund. Just sounds to me like he is pocketing it. He can't release the book in his country and then use that money to translate it? Nothing he did is even inspirational anyway. I would feel like a piece of shit if I lost my friends and family a ton of money and then left on a prepaid vacation by Mastercard.

Is any of his money going back into their pockets for the losses they incurred? I don't even know this dude and this got me heated. What a shitty human being.
oh
@Matt Derrick I'd support travel blogs by real vagabonds. I love reading that stuff. I'm just tired of all these "Backpacking through Thailand/Costa Rica/Morocco blogs. Jeez, there's like 100,000 of them, and 90% of them are full of shit just like Tomislavs blog.

the article i want to write is basically centered around how a lot of these 'make money travel blogging!' websites are just a minor form of a pyramid scheme since they always require you to sell something to someone else to finance your travels, or "credit card hacking" to get free miles. the reality of credit card hacking is that you need to spend a LOT of money (about $3,000 in three months) to get those free miles that (in my opinion) you're just better off spending on plane tickets for actual travel. i've been reading up on how to do this stuff for years now (i have a lot of the major player's books) and without writing a novel here it's all a bunch of bs.
 
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Hobo Huck

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oh


the article i want to write is basically centered around how a lot of these 'make money travel blogging!' websites are just a minor form of a pyramid scheme since they always require you to sell something to someone else to finance your travels, or "credit card hacking" to get free miles. the reality of credit card hacking is that you need to spend a LOT of money (about $3,000 in three months) to get those free miles that (in my opinion) you're just better off spending on plane tickets for actual travel. i've been reading up on how to do this stuff for years now (i have a lot of the major player's books) and without writing a novel here it's all a bunch of bs.


THAT'S a travel article that should be publicized by Vice or Newsweek. Unfortunately, that is going to be a hugely "unpopular opinion" that the mainstream media is going to conveniently ignore. But I do agree, this guerilla-corporate form of pyramid-schemed blogging is the BIGGEST problem when it comes to traveling articles/websites/blogs/youtube-vids/etc, but all the trust-fund backpackers are going to bandwagon with the corporate establishment against you.

I'll gladly link the article on my site and several other sites as well.
 

Hobo Huck

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MASTERCARD VAGABOND REPLIES!

Here is his reply:


Hi - Tomislav Perko here.

There's a lot of work here, so lets start with some simple true/false points, later I will explain in details:

  1. I was a stock broker who convinced his friends/family into bad investment and at the end of it all, owed 30,000 dollars - TRUE.
  2. When investors started demanding their money back, I ran away - FALSE.
  3. I smuggled away 1,300 dollars, and used that money to monetize a traveling blog BEFORE I even started traveling - FALSE.
  4. I accepted a deal with MasterCard - TRUE.
  5. I was housed and fed by the generosity of poverty-stricken families in third-world countries - TRUE and FALSE at the same time.
  6. I had paid vacations and preplanned excursions - FALSE (I did used sponsor money to pay for that skydiving and my fathers visit to Kenya).
  7. I raised 12,000 dollars on Indiegogo for my book - TRUE.
So, you have 3 1/2 out of 7 right. 50%.

Let me know explain in details:

  1. I was a stock broker, young and naive, and I did convince my family members to lend me money so I can earn more for them. I succeeded for a while, until 2008. Then I lost everything I had, and much of what they gave me. So yes, guilty of being a self confident stock broker, but instead I was more of a gambler. I did fuck up, and had to find a way out of it. And then we come to the point #2.

  2. I didn't run away. The people I owed money were my family. And they even didn't ask their money back, but I felt the obligation to give them what is theirs. So I started working in one juice bar in my city, while hosting 100-150 people on CouchSurfing. Then, I started traveling myself, 5 days to Bulgaria, around Croatia, 2 months around Europe. That was 2009/2010. So I was "home" 2 years after I "ran away".

  3. When I was posting photos of my "vagabonding", friends told me they like it, so I opened a FB page and started posting things there. I went to Spain for 2 months, and the FB page grew bigger, I ended up in media, gave few talks in my city. When a lot of people wrote to me that they would like to try something like that themselves, I organized a hitchhiking race from Croatia to Turkey. We had 2 sponsors for that race - we got free travel insurance, T-shirts, and some rakija. The race was a huge success, but there was no 1,300 dollars and monetized blog.

  4. After the hitchhiking race, I was approached by MasterCard, and they told me - keep traveling like you do, we will give you our T-shirt and our card, mention us in your blog, take some photos with our T-shirt. And I said yes. The reason for that wasn't because I needed money for traveling, but because of my debt. I saw this as a perfect opportunity - I will continue doing what I want (traveling) using ways I want (hitchhiking, couchsurfing, busking, etc.) and use the sponsor money to pay off my debt. Then I went on my RTW trip called "1000 Days of Summer". MC said they will sponsor me two days before I embarked. I planned this year since July 21st 2009. I started it in September 2011.

  5. I was fed and housed by poverty-stricken families in third-world countries - yes, as everybody who is traveling in third world countries. But did I take advantage of them - I don't think I did. I wasn't a free loader - I was hosted by people like I hosted people in my flat. I cooked with them like people cooked with me in my flat. It was an exchange.

  6. I had no planned excursions - I received a monthly salary (which was directly going to paying off my debt), and I used that money twice in 3 years - for skydiving, and for bringing my dad over to Kenya to fulfil his lifelong dream. Plus, I was always clear about that. People who read the story from the beginning, they knew everything.

  7. When I started writing my book, I had two choices - to self-publish or to accept some publisher proposal. I saw crowdfunding as a perfect way of getting what I want, and I offered perks in exchange for money. Is that a problem? Or everybody asking money via crowdfunding is begging?
There you go. I am willing to discuss this further if anyone has any questions.

Peace out, T.

PS. You will be happy to know that my debt of $30,000 just got payed off couple of days ago, thanks to MC sponsorship and profits from my book.


___________________

If you want to express your opinion to Tomislav, the comment section is here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/vagabond/comments/33vmda/fixed_post_how_to_travel_the_world_while_being/
 

Hobo Huck

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I have now informed Tomislav to get off Reddit and face this challenge to a community of real vagabonds. Get ready, STP:

"Dear Tomislav,

I figured there would be a well organized list of bullshit judtifications and elaborated excuses, as I predicted here[1] while I was explaining this fraud to another traveler.

Your reply was absolutely everything I expected it to be. I'm ready to INVEST!

Let the markets open, vagabonds!

(Keep in mind everyone, there might be Mastercard guerilla-marketing trolls designated to downvote us into oblivion, not to mention the horde of trustfund backpacker kids that make up his fanclub of wanderlusters)

However, Tomislav, you will also need to dedicate the marketing team to handling this post that was made to a community much, much bigger than r/Vagabond: SQUAT THE PLANET

That's the place you dare not venture, and dare not submit you bullshit excuses. The Reddit community may fall for such rhetoric, but STP can smell this sort of monetizing-for-profit-fake-vagabond bullshit from a mile away.

/u/1000daysofsummer[3] , I welcome you to a community of REAL harcore backpackers and REAL harcore vagabonds:
https://squattheplanet.com/threads/...ag-the-mastercard-vagabond.23497/#post-170233
https://squattheplanet.com/threads/...ag-the-mastercard-vagabond.23497/#post-170233[4]

I'll see you there, Mastercard.
 

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This thread is awesome! Nice callout there @Hobo Huck . You know I really do enjoy reading the travel blogs of people here and elsewhere and then I run into some stuff where it is quite commercialized and unfortunately I don't get it till I'm mid way through reading and fek I got caught up in it. It's like a paid infomercial or something. Channel Sunday TV or something where I can cure every skin ailment and lose weight at the same time.
 
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Durp

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Thanks @Hobo Huck for sticking up for those of us with too shakey of service, because, :COUGH COUGH: ya know we ARE actually broke travelers trying to avoid the ilk of a cancerous rotting society instead of profitting off of others. This is hardcore usery, and if there is any sort of afterlife he will suffer along with the rest of his kind.
 

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