This, of course, was back in the day when everyone was buying.

The “Jerk” was a cartoon character created to mask someone who wanted to remain anonymous but it worked a treat. The sales letter sold thousands of copies at as much as $97.

Of course, over the next couple of years there were more products including some very dubious “coaching programs” and also an infamous party at the Playboy Mansion.

More recently the man who was behind the idea has come out and revealed himself. He has even created a blog that gives some insight into his past and some of the quite fascinating success he had even before becoming the “Rich Jerk”.

It’s well worth a read so I’m happy to provide a link:

Prelude to a Rich Jerk

It seems like a lot of the biz opp related news on this blog recently has been negative. That’s just the way it is unfortunately - good products are very rare at present but scams and junk are plentiful.

Previously “successful” internet marketers are finding it very difficult going in the current environment, despite what they may say.

One UK-based marketer was this week found to be having some serious financial problems, perhaps explaining why his software suddenly disappeared from the market a couple of months ago.

Another US “guru” is now at the point of having to go back to getting a regular 9-5 job despite having several top-selling Clickbank products in the past.

And I’m having a lot of trouble getting paid commissions going back to February 2009 from another US marketer who is universally considered an internet marketing “guru”. Everytime I ask for a payout I receive the same reply to my support ticket - “Payouts are scheduled for this week” - but this is the fourth time I’ve asked. I’m starting to think he just doesn’t have any money to use to pay me!

There’s no denying it, things are bad.

However, there is some good news - a decent product at a very attractive price.

Info Product Killer is a set of templates, videos and reports from Craig Kaye that show you how to make big money selling REAL products for commission. By “real” products I mean consumer products that you can touch - not the “how to make money on Clickbank” junk that’s usually thrown about.

I’ve just bought it this afternoon and after looking through the member’s area I can see it’s a great little package.

The problem is that it’s almost sold out so I can’t go into too much detail now except to say go and check out the sales page before it’s too late. Apologies in advance for the auto-start audio. It might be an idea to turn your speakers down now, before you click:

Info Product Killer

Craig has said there were only 300 or so spots available and just 47 left now so be quick.

I’ll be doing a full review very shortly.

If you weren’t aware, and now wish you had’ve known, then make sure to bookmark the site so you don’t miss future events.

Robert managed to pull in a load of expert speakers from both the UK and also across the pond.

Aside from the speakers he also managed to attract a lot of VIP experts who were generous with their time (and in some cases their hotel bar bills) in the evenings and between presentations.

I’ll do a full review in due time as I managed to catch every speaker and hotseat session and make plenty of notes.

In the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of who spoke and what they spoke about:

Donna Fox: Donna did two sessions as well as the introductions for each speaker. Her first session was a kind of motivation session, encouraging the attendees to think about what they wanted to achieve from the event. The second session was entitled “Internet Marketing for Muppets” and as you can no doubt imagine it covered some IM basics.

Robert Puddy: Bob spoke about his membership site process, something he calls “Login Frequency Marketing” which involves using integration points on membership sites - so-called “dead” real estate that many neglect to use.

Omar Martin: Omar, on his first trip to the UK, gave a presentation which showed exactly what he’d been through in his career that led him to internet marketing and the 6 figure business he now runs.

Martin Avis: Well known for his “Kickstart” newsletter, Martin gave the audience a great run-down of how he works just a couple of hours a week writing, yet draws in a very impressive income from a small subscriber list. Takeaway thought from his presentation was - you don’t need a massive list to make a great living online.

Simon Leung: Previously a Google employee, Simon is now a leading expert on Google and so his presentation gave us the 10 secrets that Google really doesn’t want us to know.

Jonny Andrews: A real character, Jonny shared how he went from living in an office in his former workplace (without his bosses finding out) to selling very high ticket (tens of thousands of dollars) products.

Ambar Hamid: Ambar works with big businesses and shared his process for going from no sales to big sales in the quickest possible time.

Sterling Valentine: Another speaker who was enjoying his first trip to the UK, Sterling went into detail about how he became an “overnight success” starting from absolutely nothing.

Jani G: Jani’s a UK marketer who specialises in promoting launches and getting into the top 10, and higher, in JV contests. His full name is Jani Gaffhor and he covered his methods for making big profits from a tiny list.

As I said, a full review will follow.

One thing I can say is that travelling First Class with Virgin Trains is excellent, especially when you’re the only customer in the carriage!

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…

This annual event is one that I’m always happy to promote because I know first hand how beneficial it is to attend.

Seminars can be a very difficult sell because people simply don’t realise their worth until they’ve actually been to one. It’s much easier to sell a ticket to someone who’s already attended an event because they know how valuable seminars can be.

So, here are 13 reasons why I think you need to book your ticket to the LFMpire seminar now and get to Bristol for the 7th May:

1. No one is successful as an internet marketer when working completely on their own, it’s a team sport. Look at any of the big marketers, the ones who pull in a lot of money, they all work with friends. You find these friends by going to events and meeting people

2. A ticket for the three day Bristol LFMpire seminar is just £67 at present, which is a bargain

3. Robert has attracted many excellent speakers across the pond in the past and this event is no different. You’ll hear from Donna Fox, Johnny Andrews, Simon Leung and Omar Martin plus from the UK there’s Martin Avis and Robert Puddy.

4. Getting away from distractions will leave you free to concentrate on your business for three days - when was the last time you could do that?

5. You’ll meet lots of people who understand what it is you’re trying to achieve online

6. No matter how experienced you are, you’ll learn something - probably from the speakers but don’t be surprised if one of your fellow attendees gives you some great, useful information in the bar one night

7. If you’re looking for joint venture partners, marketers you’ve met ‘in the flesh’ will be far more likely to JV with you than someone you’ve only spoken to on a forum

8. When someone’s had a drink, they often let their defenses drop a little which basically means they tell others things they wouldn’t usually. Gossip, stories, promises, hints, tips, secrets; they’re all shared late on at an event. If you’re not there, you’ll never know.

9. I won’t namedrop but I’ve spoken to plenty of big names one-on-one at events and now they know who I am, answer my emails and often help me if I need it. All this from spending ten minutes chatting over a beer once at an event.

10. The hotel is big, comfortable and inexpensive. I’ve booked a room on B&B rates for £55 per night. Compare that to one event I attended - it was in a hotel that cost me £170 (ex VAT) for the first night without breakfast…

11. I’ll be there… but seriously, you’re reading this blog and now know I’ll be at the event. You regularly read emails and blog posts from other marketers, some of whom will be in Bristol in May. It’s surprising who turns up as an attendee but doesn’t advertise the fact they’re going.

12. You’ll get to meet Robert Puddy and experience his unique sense of humour

13. You’ll get a lovely badge with your name on it!

So step out of your comfort zone and get yourself down to Bristol.

By the end of the Sunday you’ll be kicking yourself for waiting so long to attend an internet marketing seminar.

Tickets are still available from the website at just £67 for the entire weekend:

http://www.lfmpireworkshops.com

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

* UPDATE 8th July 2010 *

Read the comments below for an update - it seems Tim may be in a bit of financial trouble…

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.