Spoiler alert: The women claiming wrongful termination, were NOT employed by Smart Moms Travel. 

So, what it was, was.

People are crazy.

I mean you see them out there, don’t you?

I actually do not. I am blocked and I am smart enough not to look, but I think you can just go have a quick look at these people who are freaking bananas.

Calling the police to my house multiple times, making false accusations. CPS and many other government agencies have been inundated with “anonymous tips” to the point where if you call on me, they may be like, “Smart Moms? Yeah, we heard.”

The police are bored when they come here, like “Yeah, we got another few dozen calls. You all good? Ok. Have a nice night, then. See you again soon.”

My husband and older kids have watched more of what’s gone on online and they discussed that these women are calling for the “total destruction of Smart Moms Travel” and more. Just go look.

I haven’t seen it thankfully, but I think go take a look.

And then just think, does this make sense?

Are these people logical, coherent, well-spoken and coming from a place of little emotion and drama?

Are these people calling for the total destruction of Smart Moms Travel making sense?

Let me just say what happened as plainly as possible and then we’ll talk about how they responded and then you can draw your conclusions as to whether they are overreacting in a huge way or if maybe I’m underacting. I thought we should just not do business together since I wasn’t about what they were about, but maybe you’ll think that I should be forced to continue to work with people I don’t want to work with.

Because that’s what it comes down to- regardless of what they did or didn’t do, should I have to keep working with contractors who I don’t want to work with?

Wrongful termination?

Here’s what happened:

• I received a tip that many of my independent contractors were stealing from my company.
• I began investigating.
• I saw lots of immediate evidence that it was true- I do not have proof of some specific claims people made to me about theft which I stated when NBC interviewed me, but I did immediately see lots of evidence that the agency was being stolen from in many ways.
• Once I saw the theft, I asked some leadership members to step down from leadership roles but didn’t terminate them as contractors.
• This triggered many contractors who were stealing to begin to panic and to flee, terminating their contracts with me. I was told by many they sent their resignations in to our Agent Relations department. Agent Relations is like HR in other companies. Human Resources. I am the CEO of a company that generated $100M+ in sales last year, I did not have access to that specific person’s email where the terminations were supposed to be sent.
• I heard from some of these exiting contractors that an entire group of contractors were involved for sure and I believed it because the explanation of what happened made sense and this group was acting very unprofessional, suspicious and guilty.
• Due to their behavior alone, I wanted to part ways with that group of contractors. I knew I did not need proof of wrongdoing to terminate our contracts as they are at will, which means that either party an terminate them for any reason at any time. Florida is also an “at will” employment state, you can google that, but it means anyone can quit or any employer can fire anyone with or without cause at any time. So wrongful termination is just a very, very, very bizarre claim. This is not a legally protected situation in any way. I screenshotted this from an attorney’s site, just google it.

• To be more clear on the point above:
  • Wrongful termination is a legal term for the “unjust firing of an employee” in violation of Federal or State laws.
  • Florida is an “at will” work state meaning wrongful termination isn’t possible here.
  • Wrongful termination is not “being fired for no reason”, it protects things like being fired because you were pregnant, because you were a woman, discrimination etc.
  • Furthermore, none of these women claiming “wrongful termination” were employed by Smart Moms Travel.
  • These women owned LLCs, small companies, that were partnered with my LLC, Smart Moms Travel.
  • We had a contract governing how the two businesses were partnered and I terminated the contract according to the agreement we had made at the start of the relationship.
• Back to the timeline: I used both our internal communication system and email to terminate our at-will contracts with any in this group who had not already terminated their contracts with me. I do not believe that I terminated any who had not already sent me their termination notices, however, one of the fleeing contractors had access and that data is unrecoverable at this time. Some of our contracts had different terms and we sent emails to cater to those terms as well (like that it had to be by email, not internal communication, and that there was a 30 day notice required. Each of these were met.)
• I contacted Disney to let them know that things were out of hand. I told them we removed those terminated from our booking system with Disney (DTA) and I asked that they alert their call center to keep these unauthorized contractors from making changes to our mutual clients bookings that were not authorized. Screenshot: (note that Disney then did not text me again until November 11- thirteen days later.)

• I then watched as dozens if not hundreds of resignations from other contractors came pouring in for no apparent reason. If I terminated contractors in a certain group “for no reason” why would others who were not part of that group resign in panic too? And then take to the internet claiming wrongful termination? It's confusing.
• I assigned all of the bookings that had been under the care of terminated contractors to other contractors so that their vacations and plans could continue uninterrupted and serviced properly.

• I then watched as Disney allowed these unauthorized contractors to cancel bookings from my agency and rebook them with new fledgling travel agencies which are springing up everywhere- my terminated contractors.
• I watched as these terminated contractors stole everything they could from my agency- my copy, my emails, systems I created, deleting files, tearing down entire sites, removing training and intellectual property.
• The police came to my house for a wellness check for the first time.
• Disney made it extremely easy for these newly created “agencies” to partner with them (the timeliness of it alone, it’s usually a process and takes new agencies weeks or months to be approved, but google these agencies and see if you can book a Disney trip with them already- Disney was very accommodating with these contractors even after I requested help securing my bookings with them) and they helped with removing business from my books and giving it, against our contract, to these terminated contractors.
• The police continue to make an appearance in our drama. I was in Italy for this one. Text from my husband.

• About credit card fraud: my agency recommends our contractors use TravelJoy to securely accept credit card information in order to make payments to travel providers on clients’ behalf. Contractors took this information from this secure site and used it in unauthorized ways, including to cancel and rebook vacations with their new fledgling travel agencies they’d just made.
• If you had a booking with Smart Moms Travel and you see a refund and a new charge on your card, your trip has been cancelled and rebooked with another agency. This is credit card fraud, and is a criminal charge. If you’d like, you can go to the police about how your card was used by this contractor. It should be a simple process to file a police report and protect yourself from further action by this contractor.
• Disney is at fault with this as well. They knowingly collected funds from clients who were unaware of how their credit cards were being used. Disney knew what was happening- I alerted them, and they chose to collect unauthorized payments from terminated contractors.
• Disney might face a class action lawsuit here. They collected payments in a way that they knew was credit card fraud.
• That’s a criminal activity, not civil, which means potential jail time for the humans who made those choices. And Disney is not known for protecting their own in that situation. Can you imagine understanding that at this juncture? Realizing you’re the one who made that decision and knowing that Disney isn’t going to look bad for something you decided? I hope prison orange looks good on you.
• Smart Moms Travel will have no credit card fraud liability as clients input credit card into an invoice with TravelJoy which is a separate legal entity from Smart Moms Travel. Smart Moms Travel never had clients’ credit card information. The contractor sent clients a Traveljoy invoice, the contractor was authorized to use that information by the client for that trip. That trip has been cancelled and rebooked under a different agency, and the rogue contractor still has access to that card information.
• Again, Smart Moms Travel never has any client’s credit card information. This is the case for every trip we book. We never have access to credit card information, only our contractor- your agent, does.
• I watched as other travel agencies used email lists that had been stolen from me to try to recruit my agents and to solicit clients. My mother-in-law was a hobby agent with my agency (meaning this wasn’t a job for her, she did this more as a hobby and never advertised her services) and she received this solicitation from another agency, just blatantly trying to recruit her. Bear in mind that my MIL has never advertised her services or used that email address publicly. This means that this agency has received a stolen list of email addresses from inside my company. They could not have had my MIL’s email any other way.

• I received a Fedex from Disney that our business relationship was being terminated. I’ve highlighted where they said that they are terminating our agreement and acceptance of bookings, and ceasing all commission arrangements. No conversation was had other than my text asking for help, no questions were asked. They simply terminated our relationship and began helping my former contractors to steal from my business.

• Disney did terminate our ability to make bookings with them for a time. But they then reinstated our access. We can currently make bookings. No conversation has been had about this. It just happened. We are doing quite a lot of business on a daily basis. I suspect they didn’t love the dramatic decrease in business that happened when they terminated our partnership, and wished immediately for it to continue. No conversation, just hey, we can log in again.
• On November 5, I began to receive word that lawsuits for “wrongful termination” were forthcoming. You can see this all over the internet. They are threatening legal action everywhere. I have received letters and phone calls from attorneys as well.
• Knowing that you should not pay anyone you are going to be going to court with, and having plenty of extra time before our contract stipulates payment, I instructed my team not to process payments to any contractors- I didn’t know how to know who is suing, who was stealing, who is violating their contracts in other ways (breaking their Do Not Compete, stealing clients, etc. these are issues covered clearly in our contract.)
• I thought that it was common knowledge that you should not engage further once someone indicates they are suing you, including payment or even conversation, knowing the court should sort that out. I have since seen that this is not the case, even the interviewer for NBC seemed not to know that this was a clear best practice. I did some basic AI to show that this is common best practice, and you can google it as well. The second I was threatened with legal action, it became the right thing to do not to process any further payments.

• Here is the contract language regarding when commissions will be paid. All commissions for September were paid, so all October commissions would be paid by the end of November had these contractors not clearly breeched their contracts.

• While I'm here in the contract, let me also share our agreement regarding the contractors continuing to work in this industry. This is a skilled trade, not flipping burgers, and it's common to the point where I am comfortable saying most travel agencies have a contract outlining a Non-Compete Agreement. Contractors cannot learn from our training platforms, receive benefits from our knowledge, know-how and agreements, learn how to do this and then go start their own competing agency without a waiting period. You can just google and see these small new agencies sprouting up. They are in breech of this part of our contract.

• Since then, I have seen that there are agents acting in goodwill and who have not broken their contracts or stolen. I am genuinely unsure how far the theft went. I have committed to figuring out who is not in breech of their contracts and who I genuinely owe commissions to and to paying them.

• I did not terminate any contractors who did agency work alone, such as reporting, accounting, website maintenance, training etc. Yet every single one of the contractors involved in processing payments to agents has terminated their contract with me and fled. I need to rebuild the infrastructure of the company to even process payments. I have since asked for patience as I sort out what is owed to contractors who have not broken their contracts.

• I became aware that my former contractors were calling for my death (again, I haven’t seen it, but I was told), “total destruction of Smart Moms”, were doxing me, saying things like, her address is available and you’d be doing the world a favor... I was told there were AI created videos of me doing horrible things- if the police were not aware of AI videos being so easy to make, I’d probably have been arrested.

• NBC contacted me and I gave an interview. I’ve heard their version is heavily edited to make me look bad- the interviewer felt very adversarial to me. Look for the uncut version, I heard it leaked. I have heard that I have grounds for a lawsuit with NBC as well.

• Disney contacted me demanding a response to emails and text messages I never received (so weird how communication is like that. It’s almost as though they never emailed or texted, because I received this email, but no others. Bizarre.) I attempted to set a Zoom meeting, with no success “it sounds like our schedules are not aligning” and then asked to meet in person once I arrived home. They declined citing “commitments” and asked for more scheduling options. I once again gave my availability and they “will follow up with some options” for a meeting. I’m hopeful that they will meet with me in the coming weeks. It doesn’t seem very urgent or important to them. It seems more like they want to say we’ve been trying to contact her, but she... whatever. I’m here in Orlando and can come now, Disney.

Wrap Up

I said at the beginning that I’d give the facts and you can be the judge of who is in the right here. I have found myself explaining this a lot recently and I think it bears repeating here:

Here’s how you can tell who is right and who is wrong. Typically, you can look at who is attacking and who is defending, and that alone should tell you who wants to oppress someone and take something that doesn’t belong to them.

In this case, I’m being attacked viciously all over the internet. I’m not attacking, I’m defending myself. I terminated contractors I was well within my rights to terminate being that Florida is an at will employment state and also these were contractors, not employees. Our contract states clearly that I have the right to terminate their contract for any reason. It also states that I have until the end of the month to pay them, I am not in breech of contract in anyway.

So that’s me. My agency- clearly not in breech of contract in any way.

And them? Doxing, threats, drama, slander and libel, theft, destruction of property, false accusations, credit card fraud, AI videos made trying to incriminate me, turning me into CPS, and other government agencies, harassment, and that’s just the stuff I have heard. You can find more than I can I’m sure. I’d love screenshots for my attorney- email at lj@smartmomstravel.com

What’s next?

Gosh, it’s like a never ending list of who I have grounds to sue. Tons and tons of contractors are in clear breech of their contracts. Disney is in clear breech of theirs, NBC for character defamation, I think ADP knew things were not all well in the kingdom, and I have some screenshots that show that Hubspot allowed some craziness as well. Permissions were changed and email addresses and other data were stolen because of it. Hubspot is at fault and that is also a criminal activity. There is actually quite a lot of criminal activity that went on. Some of my contractors forged my signature on documents, some tried to run payroll without my consent. My training platform is destroyed.

Criminal law governs protecting the population at large against bad people.

Civil law is business and money, ownership.

You can go to jail for breaking a criminal law. You will face a charge from the government. The court case will be like, “The people v. Emily Boone”. The people are the one bringing the charge (the plaintiff), Emily Boone is the defendant, and she can face prison time or other punishment if convicted. If she isn’t convicted, she doesn’t stand to benefit- she can only be innocent, or guilty.

Civil law is only about money. The case will be, “Smart Moms Travel v. Disney Parks” and they can’t go to jail- if they lose there will be a settlement determined by the court. If they win, nothing happens to me or Smart Moms Travel as the plaintiff (person or business bringing the lawsuit.)

Criminal Activity I’m Aware Of:

• Doxing- a possible felony
• False accusations
• Credit card fraud- a felony
• Theft
• Making false statements to the police- a misdemeanor
• Forging signatures
• Those AI videos? That seems criminal to me.

I will be in breech of some contracts beginning December 1, 2025. I can’t prevent this as I do not know who I owe money to legally and who I do not, and I also do not have staff to run payments to our contractors. This isn’t something that can be done quickly- I had a team of contractors who handled it and it took them dozens of hours a month. Those contractors destroyed all the records they could on the way out. So there’s a mess to clean up.

I have asked for my agents who want to continue to be patient as we sort this out. I think I have the support there. I have thousands of contractors and only hundreds fled.

Should I keep trying?

I’m not the girl I was when I started this business and I can make more money doing less labor intensive things. I also don’t have that blind burning passion for Disney that I used to have. I’m deeply hurt that I invested in these women, women I called friends, only to see them say some of the meanest things ever about me. To make me about getting likes and views and attention- their joy when I post something they can try to pick apart, “Smart Moms Update!”, stolen internal communication coming up.

And Disney for me was a place that meant happiness and I wanted families to experience that. They are different than they were and certainly do not mean the same things to me. We will see what happens if they ever give me a meeting, but Universal? Royal Carribean? What are you guys doing later? Want to make some money together?

I’m deeply hurt but this is happening right now. I’m in the thick of it and I’ll probably feel differently once God has time to heal me up and tell me He loves me and that people are people and fallible and scared and ashamed and will I keep helping His for Him?

I’ll probably say yes.