Question time…

What do these 5 alleged millionaire marketers have in common?

Edmund Baker
Jeremy Gardener
Jeremy Taylor
Michael Milligan
Raymond Whittaker

No need for answers on a postcard but I’d be interested to hear your answers in the comments section below.

Yesterday I sent an email out that pointed out Joel Comm’s latest promotion - his $97 AdSense book for just $9.95.

Tongue firmly in cheek, I suggested it might be because Joel has had an unexpectedly large tax bill. It’s not uncommon for people to do specials around tax time…

Below is the email I sent:

“Hi,

Just a quick email because you may wish to take advantage of what looks like a “I-need-money-for-my-tax-bill” sale.

Joel Comm’s just released the 4th Edition of his New York Best Seller AdSense Guide and he’s priced it at $9.95 which is about £5 at the current exchange rate.

I don’t know the real reason why he is selling it so cheap…

Could it be that it is tax time in the US?

Maybe that’s just me being cynical…

If you’re interested in using AdSense on any of your websites, or creating websites especially to use AdSense (Virtual Real Estate as it is known) then Joel is recognised as the “industry expert” in this field.

So $9.95 is a bit of a bargain if you ask me!

Be aware that should you buy the book you will get an offer - a “MASSIVE AdSense Premier home training” as he puts it - at a 75% discount on the usual price.

I can vouch that it is at a huge discount, I saw Joel speak at a seminar some time ago and his Premier package was several thousand dollars.

It’s very good value but not essential by any means.

For most people the book will be more than adequate to explain advanced AdSense strategies in detail.

The offer can be found at:

http://www.AdSenseSecretsRevealed.co.uk

Hope that’s of use to you!

Thanks,

Ben”

I’ve since discovered that buyers were automatically signed up to a continuity program when they bought the eBook. It’s a membership at just under $30 a month and you get the first month free - after that you must cancel if you do not want to receive any more issues.

Now this WAS mentioned in the sales letter but not highlighted on the order form.

So, if like me, you have bought Joel’s book without realising you’ve been signed up to a monthly continuity program then make sure to remember to cancel the newsletter subscription if you do not like the first issue.

I will be ensuring that I do not get charged unless the newsletter contains 100% superb information.

After all, I did not specifically request this membership and I doubt I would’ve ordered it if had had a choice!

So, my apologies for suggesting this was a great buy at $10 - I honestly did think it was a good buy - which is why I bought it myself.

However, if I had realised that there was a forced continuity program contained in the offer, I probably wouldn’t have promoted this book.

If you have any issues whatsoever cancelling the monthly charge, then please let me know. I will let you know how I go on cancelling it - I really hope they don’t force me to phone the US.

Very sneaky Joel, very sneaky. I’m not impressed.

I don’t mind people acting as joint venture brokers - matching seller with promoter - and taking a percentage of the sale for arranging it all.

In fact, I could see it as a pretty good earner if you do it correctly.

What I don’t like is this new trend of finding a series of sites in a particular niche and then spamming the email addresses listed in the WHOIS with an affiliate link for a 2-tier affiliate program.

Take, for example, this email I got to the address I have listed in the WHOIS on one of my domains:

“Subject: A Quick Question About [My Website URL]

Hi there,

My name is James Max.

I was recently reviewing forex trading sites in some of the major search engines and I came across your web site: [My Website URL]

Out of all the sites I came across yours really stood out for me and If you could please spare me just two minutes I have a business proposition for you as you are in the same market as I am. After reviewing your site I found that we are both targeting the exact same market, though we are not in competition with each other. I have been studying this target market for quite some time and would like to present you with the opportunity to increase your income for five minutes work. You will be provided with the marketing materials, all you need do is sending out an email to your ezine list or adding a graphic to your web site, and you can make money!

You can do this by signing up to the affiliate program found here: [affiliate link masked using TinyURL]. By promoting this product you can earn a commission without ever having to handle customer service or ship any products. It’s a fantastic way to make money pretty much out of thin air! By working together, we have the potential to create an additional revenue source for both of us — without investing any money or even any time. Because we share the same target market, your customers are guaranteed to be interested in the product. An affiliate arrangement is a sure-fire way to make that interest work to our mutual benefit. To sign up to this affiliate program visit: [affiliate link masked using TinyURL]

I offer this partnership very selectively, so please do act fast if you wish to go ahead with this. Also please feel free to email me if you have any questions. Finally I know you’re a busy person and I’d like to thank you for reading this email whether you choose to promote and make some extra cash or not. Keep up the good work! By the way, you’ll be paid by 10th business day of every month, for the preceding month’s earnings. [affiliate link masked using TinyURL]

Sincerely, James Max

P.S. I hope you don’t mind me emailing you it’s just your forex trading web site really stood out from the others I came across during my research.”

Unfortunately for “James Max”, I very much did mind that he sent me this email.

What really got on my nerves is that it was completely obvious that this was either an automated email or a quick edit of a template email to stuff in my email address and website address.

He couldn’t even be bothered to take 5 minutes to rewrite the email slightly to include my name or anything else even slightly personal.

I don’t actively ask for people to suggest products to promote anywhere on this website and I certainly do not expect people to just pluck my name from the WHOIS records and send this junk. It is unsolicited commercial email - it is spam.

Sadly I think that this practice is going to get worse and more and more of these emails will be received by webmasters who simply aren’t interested in the slightest.

Just last month this “technique” was provided in detail as a suggested business blueprint by a UK marketer in his new monthly “snail mail” newsletter.

I used to respect him as a good guy before he suggested to all his readers that they go out and spam people with affiliate links for 2 tier programs.

Anyway, to wrap up this rant, here’s the reply I sent to “James Max”:

“Nice “template” email.

I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try and treat me like a complete idiot. This is a well known “technique” which is likely to mark you out as somebody not to be trusted.

Have a word with whoever urged you to send emails like this and ask them why they suggested you ruin your reputation by spamming email addresses you find via WHOIS.

Tip: If you want to be taken seriously in this business, don’t try to trick people, don’t use privacy protected WHOIS records and offer value - not dodgy 2 tier affiliate programs.

Oh, and don’t use template emails.”

Just another example of so-called internet marketers trying to trick people.

Is it just me or is the whole business opportunity/internet marketing field becoming more and more seedy and dishonest?

I’ve already had:

(a) Keith Wellman go back on his promise of bonuses (see Keith Wellman of FX Marketing Inc and Everyday Wealth LLC),

(b) the Global Pension Plan slowly disappearing (bizoppsuk.com/global_pension_plan.php) and

(c) another marketer has yet to send out some DVDs I ordered from him over a month ago.

Is it any wonder that the general public sees internet marketers as a bunch of scammers?

Yesterday I got back from a weekend away where I was without access to the internet for four days. It was a risk - sometimes automatic digital delivery can go wrong and people need help - but luckily I got a nice break from the internet and didn’t come back to any screaming customers.

Which gave me a little time to think…

I found an ad in a national paper over the weekend offering what seemed like a great bargain. A 19th Century gold sovereign for just £120.

The ad made it clear that there has been a huge increase in the price of gold and that it has been a great investment over the last few years. And it has. Since I’ve been into financial trading, gold has risen from around $380 an ounce (late 2003) to around $1,000 per ounce.

My immediate thoughts were that it may be worth investing £120 for one of these coins. Of course, without the internet I had no way of finding out whether it was a good deal or not.

The ad made it clear you’d be offered further coins in the future unless you opted out. I thought that the first coin might have been offered slightly below actual value as a “loss leader” to gather names.

Buying gold at slightly below what it is currently worth was very attractive to me and so when I got back to a PC, I went to work.

Gold, today, is trading at about $980 per ounce and a pound is worth about $1.9875. So, back of an envelope calculation, gold is about £493 per ounce.

These sovereigns weigh 0.2354 oz which comes out at about £116 if it is pure gold.

However, and I didn’t know this before, 24 carat gold is considered “pure”.

22 carat gold is considered 91.6% pure and these sovereigns were 22 carat so their “fineness” is 916 out of 1,000.

Technically, buying one of these sovereigns would result in me getting about 0.2156oz of gold.

Which I work out as being worth 0.2156 x £490 = c. £106.

Net result: the sovereign is available for £119 but is worth roughly £106.

Glad I did my research before blindly sending off for the coin…

I also came back to several not-too-pleasant comments on the blog. Somebody pointed out to me that a couple of these comments could actually be considered libellous.

Needless to say, they were removed.

And I am now considering whether or not to remove the comments feature altogether. As I was told by a business associate:

“…the problem with running forums etc – as I once found when I ran one too – is that anyone who feels a little brave behind a keyboard can post anything – and you as the forum owner are responsible. I closed mine down long ago as I saw no sense in spending time monitoring posts from nutters that could lead to legal action and me possibly losing my house. It just didn’t seem worth it to me…”

Scary stuff and so I will be monitoring comments very closely from now on!

Lastly, I found I had some money sat in my BetOnMarkets account so I had a little punt:

Bear Contract: Win GBP10 if, at the close of trading on 13-MAR-08, GBP/USD is lower than 2.

My thinking was, looking at the chart, there seems to be a resistance level at 2.00 so it was worth a very small wager for a bit of harmless fun. It only cost £7.45 so it’s a couple of pints worth of risk!

Just for the lawyers: THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE - please don’t copy my trade blindly.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

Ben

Somebody wrote to me this week and asked:

“I would also like to subscribe to Nick Laight’s “What Really Makes Money” but I have only used my credit card on High Street websites that I know are safe (Tesco, etc). How would I be protected if I gave out my details over the net to a site I know nothing about? I have heard of something called “PayPal” but again, I know nothing about it.

I hope you can answer my queries, as you can see I am a complete novice but I want to learn.”

I understand your concerns about paying with a credit card over the internet. The media has done a great job of making the world completely paranoid about spending cash online!

The truth is, as long as you are careful, you shouldn’t have any problems when you use your credit card to pay for items on the web. You just need to make sure that the site uses what’s known as a “secure server”.

For example, if I got to Nick’s site and click on the button that says “Click Here for a 30 Day Risk-Free Trial” then the resulting page is a secure page. I can tell this from 2 different things:

(1) The address of the website starts with https rather than just http. The extra ’s’ means the site is secure…

(2) There is a closed padlock icon somewhere on browser program. In my case I use an Apple Mac so the icon is in the top right but with other internet browsers it could be towards the bottom or in the top left etc. Look around and you should find it somewhere.

Ok, so from those two signs we now know the site is safe.

Next, you asked about how you are protected if your credit card is used without your consent.

This happened to me recently where my card was used to buy mobile phone top-up cards online. I rang my credit card company and told them that the transactions were fraudulent and they sent me a form to sign. I returned the form and the charges were removed from my card.

I couldn’t figure out how anybody could’ve got my details as I rarely use my credit card for anything. I eventually traced it back to a transaction I made in Portugal back in May - which was the last time I ever used my card in a shop (i.e. not online).

Many people use PayPal to buy items from eBay and also from other marketers - Clickbank allows you to pay via PayPal, as do domain registration companies like GoDaddy.

Perhaps the main reason a lot of internet entrepreneurs use PayPal is to receive payments on their websites.

I would suggest that you do sign up for a PayPal account if you think you are going to buy a lot of things online and also if you think you will be selling online at some point.

Paying via PayPal involves using just an email address and password so that the seller never gets to know your credit card details. If you want to be extra careful it is probably worth getting an account just so you know that you are more protected.

In any case I think it’s a good idea that you get an account now so it is ready when you need it.