Unfortunately some marketers think it is a good idea to post comments on this blog in order to try and advertise their products and services.

And this is despite the warning on the About BizOppsBlog.com page that tells would-be comment spammers that their comments will never appear.

This morning I logged into the admin area to find a wonderfully useful comment by “jereWevonge” who wanted to let everyone on the Global Pension Plan post know about Shaune Clarke’s copywriting website.

The message said:

“[URL was here]
Shaune Clarke has the gift to double the response of existing big guru campaigns is why copy writing celebrities like Brian Keith Voiles - Terry Dean - and Mark Joyner praise his work.
He’s a former Canadian Television host, whose No-Hype, special style keeps him booked solid 8 months in advance for copy services and consulting.“

First question:

What is the first sentence supposed to mean? Read it again, it doesn’t make sense. And remember that this is an advertisement for copy-writing services!

Second question:

If Shaune is booked solid for 8 months, why does his website (that I am purposely not going to link to) say:

“OK, Why Not Try Me Out — No CHARGE!
FREE 30 Minute One-On-One Coaching Session” ?

If I was booked solid for 8 months I wouldn’t be touting for business by offering free 30 minute sessions to any Tom, Dick or Harry on the web.

Maybe Shaune Clarke has been hit hard by the downturn in the economy and is finding that he can’t quite get enough business at the moment, hence the blog spamming.

1/10 for effort Shaune but you really need to check where you are placing your adverts in future.

Seems to me you should know better; after all, you are a “Genius” according to “copywriting legend” Brian Keith Voiles…

As it turns out, the main My Viral Spiral site is currently down, as is the customer forum and anyone who had their MVS site hosted by Tim Brocklehurst has found their sites down too.

So what has happened?

I was first introduced to MyViralSpiral back in 2007 at a seminar in Coventry. Before this event I must admit that I’d never heard of Tim Brocklehurst or his software.

Tim stood on stage at that event on the Sunday and spoke about Viral Marketing before finishing with a pitch for his software. He wasn’t a particularly brilliant salesman but it was obvious he was just starting out on the seminar circuit so this almost seemed a “practice” run.

11 months on Tim appeared at another seminar in London and the change from the previous year was quite dramatic. Gone was the casual jeans and polo shirt outfit, replaced by a suit and tie.

Tim strolled onto the stage and, hand tucked behind his back, slowly walked back and forth across the stage talking steadily to the crowd with his very posh English accent. He was obviously going for the “English gentleman” gimmick which I imagine may work well outside of the UK.

The difference was remarkable and the results showed this.

In Coventry in 2007 Tim didn’t seem to convince any of the audience to sign up but in London in 2008 he was far more successful in his back of the room sales.

From what I can gather Tim went on to travel with the World Internet Summit to speak at many different events across the world. He also spoke at other seminars regularly. Videos on YouTube show that he seemed to become very comfortable on stage and fan sites and review sites show that he had plenty of takers for his MyViralSpiral software.

So it’s very puzzling to see that the sites have seemingly been taken down.

If they had been abandoned I would imagine that the sales page would still be live and would remain so until the domains expired but this isn’t the case suggesting that somebody has purposely taken down the sales page. In addition, somebody has very recently extended the renewal on the MyViralSpiral.com domain for another 2 years.

There is very little information on the web about what has happened.

On Twitter someone has directly questioned Tim about the status of his software but he has not replied:

Tim hasn’t disappeared altogether as he posted a “tweet” on the 13th of February 2010 but this could’ve been an automated post as I believe some marketers use software to automate their sales messages on Twitter.

The Google cache of MyViralSpiral.com shows an Apache successful confirmation page from the 30th January 2010. The cache of the customer forum (MyViralSpiralForum.com) also shows the same Apache page from the 1st February 2010.

So it looks like either the site or server has been hacked or somebody has purposely taken the software off the market.

If you have any further information, please do leave a comment below. In the meantime I’ll update this blog post with any information I receive.

One person previously wrote a review of MyViralSpiral pointing out some pretty serious problems with it. Tim replied to the accusations, you can read that particular review below:

MyViralSpiral Review - Manuel Viloria.com

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”

Many people, including myself, thought the ideas were wonderful and that Andy was an extremely successful property investor who was willing to share his secrets for a small fee via the book.

Of course, there was more expense. The book only gave a general overview of the methods. For detailed instructions you would need to spend more with Andy and Greg.

Buying the book automatically enrolled you in a monthly membership site for which subscription rates were £40 per month. Then there were seminars which came with a ticket price of £5,000+ (allegedly) and also a scheme, costing £35,000+ which promised to set buyers up with 6 properties over 5 years.

In reality the book was just the top of the funnel and Greg and Andy’s main aim seemed to be getting people onto the program costing £35k.

I met both of these property investing experts at a seminar in Birmingham in April 2007. Andy insisted on drinking Bellinis all weekend, which cost a fortune and therefore I imagine made him look rich. Greg spoke loudly about the problems he and Andy had faced in driving “the Bentley” up the motorway.

They were nice people, friendly to all the attendees and willing to share tips and advice to anybody who asked. I wasn’t surprised when they spoke on the Saturday and wooed the 100 or so people in the room. At the end of their presentation they simply stated that if anyone wanted to know more they should just buy the book. Every other speaker that weekend went to great lengths to sell some expensive special offer but these two didn’t, they just mentioned in passing that everyone should buy the book.

Several months later I learned that they had held a small seminar with 30+ people attending and providing video testimonials as to how great the material was. I recognised several faces from the Birmingham seminar. I guess they had gone ahead and bought the book then gone through the funnel to the £5,000 seminar part.

Next was the £35,000 part of the funnel - which brings us up to the present day.

According to reports, things have soured a little…

“Greg Ballard is in Brighton bankruptcy court on 14 December and Andy Shaw on 21 December“

To learn more, check out Maria Davies’ blog:

Passive Investments - Greg Ballard & Andy Shaw Latest…

On reading more it struck me that some of the people I recognised from the testimonial videos may well be contemplating a huge loss at the moment.

One I remember had been sat with Greg in the smoking area as Greg suggested he remortgage his mother-in-law’s house to release funds to start investing in property.

I just hope he had second thoughts after the seminar and stopped short of taking Greg’s advice and using the money to fund the 5 figure investment with Passive Investments.

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

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.

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.

The event is no ordinary internet marketing seminar but your chance to listen to and meet a group of successful people and learn from some of the UK’s leading Information Marketing Experts in a private meeting.

The ‘Two Neils’, as they are known in the IM world, promise that their event will get you focused on building your business with the very latest online techniques. There’s no fluff and no pitch-fest - just excellent, solid, money making information.

In fact, here’s how powerful the event is.

Just last year one delegate sat in the small audience and listened hard to what he was being told. He then twigged onto an idea for his fledgling business and went away and focused on that idea.

I’ve been told that this attendee is going to be back this year - as one of the specially chosen speakers

The reason?

Because he made a ton of money and he has promised to reveal exactly what he did and how he changed his life around inside 12 months.

His success is a direct result of applying A.L.F.I.

This is the secret UK Gold Event Success Formula:

Attend, Listen, Focus, Implement = Money.

Grab a seat and start applying A.L.F.I. in your business:

Internet Marketing Review UK Gold Event September 2009

Neil was also kind enough to give a special discount for readers of the Biz Opps Blog.

Use the link below to receive £500 off the ticket price and still claim all of the bonuses including the full DVD set of last year’s event which he’ll send to you within 48 hours.

Internet Marketing Review UK Gold Event September 2009

Please note: Discount is valid until 31st August 2009 ONLY

It seems to be some kind of CPA network - CPA meaning “Cost Per Action” - where you basically earn commission by getting people to fill in forms. Sadly it also usually involves “free trials” and forced continuity as the money has to come from somewhere to pay for all those forms people fill in.

CPA has been a buzz topic for months now and it’s no surprise that Filsaime has decided to jump onboard the trend. I am slightly surprised though to see that there is no guarantee to this opportunity and some CPA experts aren’t convinced that it’s worthwhile.

It seems that Affiliate Jump is pretty much just a CPA network that you have to pay $200+ to join whereas most CPA networks are free to join.

Also, you share any commission you make with Mike and his partners which is not ideal.

I’ve read some reviews by some very disappointed people who have, quite rightly, asked for their money back because they aren’t satisfied with the quality of the product. Those same customers are also complaining that they are being refused refunds.

One was kind enough to post the response from the Affiliate Jump support desk:

“Please note that there are no refunds for Account Activation fees or your first month of service. Because of this, we’d encourage you not to cancel and to stick with the program.”

The “Account Activation” fee is $200. The “first month of service” could be $39.95, $89.95 or $99.95 depending on the level chosen by the customer and is an ongoing monthly fee.

Therefore any disappointed customer who wants a refund and is refused it will be out of pocket to the tune of between $239 and $299.

In my opinion, this is unacceptable.

According to the small print during sign-up, the $200 fee is refundable only when (if?) you earn $1000 through the program. On the affiliate signup page, potential affiliates are told that until the 23rd of August they will earn $200 for each new member they introduce.

So it seems that the $200 “Account Activation” fee is actually the affiliate commission which may go some way to explain why it is non-refundable.

I was under the impression that best practice for marketers is to refund immediately whenever there is a complaint. It’s extremely disappointing to see that a well-known marketer like Mike Filsaime is putting his name to a product where unhappy customers are denied a refund.

Please heed this warning if you were looking at Affiliate Jump with an intention to buy - if you are unhappy with the quality of the product you may find it difficult to get a refund…

** UPDATE 19/08/09 **

There are rumours on certain forums that people are now being issued refunds so perhaps the marketers behind this product have decided to retract their “no refunds” policy. Let’s hope so!

There is obviously some kind of affiliate arrangement as the domain name ends with “sw”, indicating Streetwise’s involvement no doubt.

This tactic seemed familiar as it was used by several companies to promote the The Lazy Lay Quick Profits System by Bill Stratford back in late 2007.

At that time each different company (i.e. each different joint venture partner) was provided with a specific URL to use to promote the system.

For example, if the company was called “X Promotional Masterminds” then they would use a URL such as lazylayxpm.co.uk (not a valid website or company name, I’m just using it to show an example) - where the xpm was added for tracking purposes.

In any case, the Lazy Lay system was pretty expensive for what it was - £197 for a short PDF file outlining the simple system.

Sadly it didn’t work very well either. As you can see if you go to the link above, I tested it extensively and found it lacking in its basic premise - it didn’t make any money.

This Lay Bet Genius system is also surprisingly expensive at £297, which is another reason why I think it might be from the same people as the Lazy Lay system.

I’ve also discovered that both the Lazy Lay and the Lay Bet Genius domains have been registered by the same company, “ProMax Data”.

So by adding up all of the little clues, my guess is that the same people are behind both systems.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the Lay Bet Genius system won’t work but there is the track record (pun intended)…

(Just as a side note, if you are thinking of buying this then please thoroughly read through the guarantee conditions. If I remember correctly there were some rumblings about problems with the money back guarantee when the Lazy Lay system went wrong).