It must be wonderful to have a friend/business partner like Simon Stepsys when he is willing to shamefully shill for you.

Stepsys has published two poorly written articles on “articlebase.com” to try and rank for the term “Shaun Smith Scam“. Looks like he is trying to help out Shaun as they appear to be working together in order to sell a product.

The product is called “How to Market Experts” and promises £70,000 per month. In fact, Shaun and Simon are, according to their adverts, “Two of the Top UK Internet Marketing Experts“.

Not sure I could agree with that description. I’m not even sure I could find anyone other than those two who would agree with the description either.

Shaun is facing problems as some of his customers aren’t altogether happy with their purchases and his poor guarantee.

For example, there is this site:

Shaun Smith Scam

According to that report Shaun is only prepared to give a refund on his “700 per day” product if the purchaser follows Shaun’s step by step instructions. Also Shaun warns that should the purchaser “miss use” (nice spelling) the system, no refund will be given.

Sounds like a great excuse to use whenever he doesn’t want to refund unhappy customers.

Onto Simon’s articles…

The first one is called “The Truth Behind The Shaun Smith Scam Issue“.

Simon says: “Shaun Smith has started in the internet marketing business sometime in 2005”

That’s probably true. From what I’ve read Shaun was in prison before that after being found guilty of fraud.

The remainder of the article is a poorly worded attempt to keyword stuff the term “Shaun Smith Scam” in as many times as possible. I guess Simon thinks that is the best way to rank high for a term - he should know, being one of the “Top UK Internet Marketing Experts”

Simon’s second article has the title “Why The Shaun Smith Scam Is A Lie“.

Apparently “a certain Shaun Smith have been accused of selling products that did not deliver what they are supposed to do“.

Simon even concedes that Shaun’s products could be considered “ineffective” and that Shaun really could be out to swindle his customers’ hard earned money. Don’t believe that Simon would say that? Here’s what he wrote:

“You see, the Shaun Smith scam issues solely revolves on the fact that a couple of clients and customers are unsatisfied with the turnouts of their ventures with the marketer’s products, claiming that the whole product is ineffective and that the man is only out to swindle other people’s hard earned money. This could be the case“.

So, is “Shaun Smith Scam” a valid term to use?

On the internet people will tend to ask a question like “is [insert marketer's name here] a scam?”

It isn’t a valid question. A person can’t be described as a scam but their method of doing business can.

For example, let’s say someone purposely sold a poor product with inadequate advice but then refused to refund unhappy customers. Could that be considered a scam?

What about if a marketer openly promoted what is basically a thinly disguised pyramid scheme, could you legitimately call that a scam?

How about if that same marketer was caught copying proof of earnings from another marketer’s site and claiming them as his own?

What about if a marketer claimed to be “bringing in £20k a month” but was actually spending £19k on advertising to make £20k, leaving less than £1k profit?

I think you’d agree that those methods of doing business are pretty scummy and could probably be labelled as a scam.

Shaun Smith is very vocal about how much he likes YourNetBiz. That particular “opportunity” is covered on another blog post and the main website:

A Couple of Things That Worry Me About Shaun Smith and YourNetBiz

An Outsider’s Review of YourNetBiz aka MyInternetBusiness

Simon Stepsys spent a lot of time in 2006 promoting the illegal pyramid scheme “Prosperity Automated System” in the National papers (before the SEC shut it down).

I certainly can’t blame anyone for labelling what these two marketers do as a “scam” following their past behaviour. 

And I wouldn’t EVER recommend either of them, or their products.

—————–

As an amusing aside, Shaun has posted a video of himself on YouTube:

I’ve taken a copy for myself in case he tries to remove the video so I can re-upload it. Check it out around the 2:50 mark. He has one of his mentoring students, “Mick”, on the phone as he is driving:

Student: I’ve signed up for Twitter and all that now but it’s two weeks and I’ve had no-one. I’ve tried eight or nine places every morning and had no-one.

Shaun: So you’ve had no opt-ins at all or?

Student: Not a thing, not a single thing.

Shaun: Right, OK, errrrrmmmm…. OK…. we’ll have to… errrmmmm… are you doing any YouTube videos at all at the moment?

[some further conversation] 

Student: YouTube? I haven’t done that yet Shaun, just advertising in eight or nine places every morning doing it over and over again and I’m getting nothing…

There you have it folks, Shaun Smith’s mentoring student has been following his advice for two weeks and hasn’t had a single person opt-in to his newsletter.

I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions from that…

Keith Wellman has just released yet another product (the “Automated Sales Formula”) that is advertised using a lengthy sales video that you can’t fast forward.

Like several of his previous products it costs $500 and promises a lot but will it deliver?

Here’s a rundown of what Wellman promises - and what it is likely to actually be.

Wellman’s promise: “15 Completely Ready To Go Niche Sales Systems”

Likely to be: A series of readily available PLR or “resale rights” products purchased from eBay or discount wholesale resale rights websites.

When Keith offered his “VIP AutoPilot Profits Plus System”, customers were promised “a product to sell that has proven conversions” but what they actually received was an old product that was proved to be an “in the rough” info product from Nicheology.

As it turned out, Keith didn’t even have the right to distribute these products but that made no difference - the products were extremely old and available across the web for pennies. Customers weren’t realistically going to be able to sell their products when they were for sale on hundreds of other websites at a fraction of the price.

Alternatively they could be videos created by Wellman i.e. a set of 15 videos with the same set provided to each and every customer.

The effectiveness of this material will be reduced heavily when they are distributed in any quantity.

Wellman’s promise: “Simply plugin your affiliate link”

Likely to be: Instructions showing how to “cookie stuff” to avoid Clickbank vendors’ sales pages. Sounds great but it’s against Clickbank’s Terms of Service and could result in the affiliate being banned. Not a tactic you want to employ if you’re looking for an ongoing income stream (or even an income stream that actually works!).

Wellman’s promise: “super secret in house Twitter Traffic Syphon software”

Likely to be: Goodness knows what this could be but Keith claims to use it himself to drive traffic because it works “super well”.

Funny that he hasn’t posted to Twitter for almost a month! His last post was on December 8th, 2009.

Surely if this “Twitter Traffic Syphon” software worked well he would be using it more often? Especially when he says that you could be “cashing in at $100,000 per month” after using it for 100 campaigns.

If it worked that well, why tout this Automated Sales Formula product?

He’d have to sell 200 copies of this per month (400 if he’s giving 50% commission to JV partners) just to match the efforts of his autopilot Twitter software.

Remember the old saying - if it sounds too good to be true…

Wellman’s promise: “You’ll get the sold out, highly sought after, $1997 Easy Sales Formula course”

Likely to be: The Easy Sales Formula product that Wellman released in June 2009 with a price-tag of $500 or thereabouts. Whether he “sold out” or just stopped selling it is something only Keith would know.

Wellman’s promise: “This is the same system responsible for over $20,000,000 in online sales in the last 8 months alone for my students”

Likely to be: Unknown but twenty million dollars in 8 months, wow! Some of his students must have been given copies of the course in April, two months before the release date in June. Sadly there’s no way to prove that these claims are accurate or not.

Wellman’s promise: “Midnight Paycheck Recordings - [worth] $197″

Likely to be: Possibly teleseminar recordings explaining how to set up forced continuity programs attached to one-time product purchases. Much like this purchase where all customers are automatically enrolled onto an ongoing monthly commitment - until they cancel, of course.

Wellman’s promise: “2 Tickets to my like Everyday Wealth events - [worth] $997″

Likely to be: Free tickets to one of Keith’s seminars - usually held in partnership with Gary Ambrose and usually free to attend for anybody. Gary even offers tickets on the Warrior Forum: link. Not sure if these can be described as being worth almost a grand if anyone is allowed to attend, free of charge…

Wellman’s promise: “order within the next 10 minutes, you’ll get access to our Automated Traffic Software Suite”

Likely to be: No real details given but apparently it is some secret software that can give anyone “massive amounts of traffic simply and easily”. Who needs Adwords! As Keith says “It’s really that easy”. I wonder if you can use it on top of the Twitter software to create double massive amounts of traffic?

Wellman’s promise: “you need to order in the next 10 minutes in order to get the bonus traffic software”

Likely to be: … still there in two weeks.

Come back tomorrow, next Tuesday or even next month and you’ll still get the software.

Ever seen the Simpsons episode where Homer rings up to ask if they have any microphones in stock? “A couple” answers the warehouseman with them stacked up to the roof behind him.

This software is just digital dust. It’ll still be available in 10 weeks, nevermind 10 minutes. Which gives you plenty to time to do some due diligence - which is probably why you are reading this…

So, no, I won’t be buying this product.

And with a lack of any kind of guarantee, coupled with Keith Wellman’s past behaviour, the Automated Sales Formula is something I could never possibly recommend.

Keith refused to provide a series of several bonuses that he promised to give me back in 2007, you can read about that episode by following this link:

Keith Wellman of FX Marketing Inc and Everyday Wealth LLC

Also, don’t forget to check out Ripoff Report where there are dozens of complaints from Keith’s past customers:

Ripoff Report Search Results: keith wellman

Once you’re read all those complaints, check out the other post on this blog where people have been kind enough to add their comments:

Keith Wellman Product Is A Scam or Not - The Video

* UPDATE 5th January 2010, 20:20 *

Keith Wellman has just been banned from the Warrior Forum for the FOURTH time! He had created a new username called “EverydayWealth”.

Also, in the short window in which he was allowed to post before being banned he made the following comment about the guarantee that comes with the Automated Sales Formula product:

“In the video I didn’t mention a guarantee because I want people who are serious and not just going to purchase and refund. You’ll see on the order form there are terms of service at the bottom which state that the guarantee is 72 hours.”

Keith also confirmed that every customer will be given the exact same 15 videos and sites and that it is all an original creation:

“Everything in this was created from scratch by us”

A quick post today just to point out that there’s a new cash gifting scheme being heavily promoted by UK marketers.

Paul Raven and Julie Wilson have teamed up to promote the “Abundant Living System” in much the same way as they used to promote the Number One Success System.

Previously Julie had teamed with Paul Stevenson when promoting NOSS but this time it initially appeared that she had a new partner who called himself “Paul Raven“.

After tuning in to one of their conference calls it quickly became apparent that Paul Raven had exactly the same voice as Paul Stevenson.

Also, all promotional material pointed to Paul Stevenson’s UKMentor.net website.

How strange! Or maybe not… Looks like Paul has decided on a change of name to promote ALS.

Still, it doesn’t really matter. This is yet another illegal gifting scheme, much like the others that Julie and Paul have promoted in the past.

The laws haven’t changed and organised gifting schemes are illegal in the UK.

You can read more about why these schemes should be avoided on the main website:

Chain Gifting from the “Cash Mentoring Team” - Julie Wilson and Paul Stevenson

You may have seen some of the YouTube videos that Shaun Smith seems to be constantly posting.

He is heavily into promoting YourNetBiz and is uploading lots of videos in an attempt to boast about his apparent earnings from that opportunity,

I won’t lie to you, I think YourNetBiz is a poor opportunity and the vast majority of members will lose money. In fact, I think it’s a barely disguised pyramid scheme where money is passed around with no real product changing hands.

Still, the commission on selling the main product is $2,000 per sale so it’s no wonder that many people are promoting it.

Back to Smith and his video production endeavours…

I’m dubious.

I’m dubious about Shaun’s past and his claims.

The first thing that worries me about Shaun Smith:

I wonder about his latest video that has been posted on his top-income-system.com website on 28/09/2009.

On that page Shaun states:

“If you like the idea of making £1,248.11 in one day, then don’t delay start TODAY?“

Not sure why he put a question mark in that sentence but we’ll ignore that for the moment.

In his video Shaun claims out that he received a payment for £1,248.11 on the 28th September 2009.

I am aware that Shaun promotes YourNetBiz and that YourNetBiz has a membership level that is known as the “Gold” level.

To join at that level you must pay $1,995 to your sponsor. The rules state that your sponsor must then distribute that money. He must send $295 to YourNetBiz’s owners and he must send $300 to his own sponsor, leaving a maximum of $1,400.

According to FXHistory the USD/GBP rate on the 28th September was 1.59590.

A payment of $1,995 on that day would become, roughly, £1,250.08 which, when slight rate changes are taken into account, could become around £1,248.11.

So if you were ignoring any distribution to the company owners or any distribution to his sponsor, it is possible that Shaun received a payment of £1,248.11 in his merchant account on the 28th September 2009.

However, I am doubtful that Shaun “made” that amount of money.

After fulfilling his obligations I would imagine that he netted closer to £875 (around $1,400). If he used a PBA to close the sale the amount would’ve been even less that that.

The result of all this is that Shaun is claiming to “make” £1,248.11 when it is likely that he actually made about 2/3 of that or less.

Yes, it’s still a nice amount of money to make and I’m sure that many people would like to have that kind of money paid into their account. The issue is that it seems he is claiming to make more money than he actually is.

If it is an exaggeration then I must ask the question: what other earnings is Shaun Smith exaggerating?

The second thing that worries me about Shaun Smith:

I took a few minutes to do a Google search and found some very worrying articles regarding Shaun’s past problems with the authorities.

The first I found was from a well-known national UK newspaper, the Daily Mirror, featured on the Mirror’s website mirror.co.uk:

Court you at last

Dated 21st September 2001 it states that Smith, along with a couple of accomplices, was tried at Stafford Crown Court.

The Mirror said that:

“…after a nine-week trial [the jury] found [Shaun] Smith, 36… guilty of five fraud charges…“

Another article elaborated on Shaun’s conviction:

Homeworking scams con-men found guilty of conspiracy to defraud

Here it stated that Shaun Smith was found guilty of “conspiracy to defraud”.

It seems that Shaun has had some very serious problems in the past and, according to one website, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for his involvement with a homeworking scam.

His videos seem to suggest that he exaggerates his income and newspapers report that he was convicted of fraud just a few years ago.

For these reasons I would never be able to recommend any of Shaun Smith’s products or business opportunities.

It’s always interesting to keep tabs on certain dubious marketers to see what they are currently promoting.

When somebody actively promotes an illegal cash gifting scheme, and continues to do so when they have been warned that it is illegal, it suggests that they have no problems promoting dodgy schemes.

Likewise a man who went to prison for several years for a home working fraud, then got out only to start promoting various internet businesses with fake proof of earnings isn’t to be trusted.

So when both of these people start promoting the same opportunity it means the opp should be examined very closely.

The opportunity I am referring to was previously known as “MyInternetBusiness.com” or MIB for short. Earlier this year the name was changed to YourNetBiz.com.

Name changing? More warning signs. Noss123, the illegal cash gifting scheme, was previously known under lots of different names with the organiser changing the name regularly to try and delay the inevitable problems it will face from the authorities. As far as I am aware it has now changed names again to tlc2003.

YourNetBiz is currently being heavily promoted by many people with hundreds of Youtube vids dedicated to it and a glut of review sites springing up and singing its virtues.

Myself, I’m not too sure about this one. I’m always of the opinion that if the main source of money is recruiting other people into the scheme then it’s bordering on being a pyramid scheme.

I have other problems with YourNetBiz, all of which you can read in this report:

An Outsider’s Review of YourNetBiz aka MyInternetBusiness

Comments are welcome below.

Please remember that all comments are moderated and that this isn’t a free advertising blog.