I’ve just been on a favourite forum of mine and read something I am not particularly happy about.

Basically a certain internet marketer sent out an email to his list saying:

“If you already bought [product name] go ahead to [vendor] and refund. After that buy through my link”

There have been a whole load of launches recently with every big marketer offering bonuses for anyone who buys through their affiliate link. There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s health competition I suppose and I am not aware if it breaks any terms or conditions….

But, the problem comes where people start trying to steal commissions in this manner by urging customers to refund a purchase and then re-buy it through another link.

It started with the StomperNet launch and looks like it is starting to spread with others deciding to use this dodgy tactic. The person who first did it (as far as I can tell), said:

“I’d contact Stompernet IMMEDIATELY and tell them you meant to order through [certain marketer]’s link. And that if they don’t change it so that you can go to the [certain place], you are going to ask for a refund!”

Things could turn ugly with this tactic. I for one won’t buy from either of these people ever now that they have done this.

As far as the discussion thread goes, so far it has received 70 posts in just a few hours.

The person concerned has replied but his reputation hasn’t been enhanced by this very silly mistake. I’m watching for anyone else doing this – there is too much deception on the internet, making potential customers very wary of dealing with anyone.

The last thing we need is something else to add to this…

Another A4 envelope through the post today and again it is from Streetwise Publications’ John Harrison.

You can always tell before you even open it – the “if undelivered” address on the reverse gives it away…

OK, this time around it’s another offer of the Pentatrade Profit System for just £1947 + VAT (£2287.72) and the sales pack is very thorough.

First of all there is an opening letter from Mr Harrison who was says:

“Shock Confession… I Was Wrong!“.

OK, but what on earth were you wrong about?

It seems that John has known about the Pentatrade Profit System for several months but was sworn to secrecy by the creator Hugo Lawrence.

Hugo is a perfectionist and would not allow the course to be released until everything was perfect which was really frustrating for the Streetwise boss. But… he was wrong to try and rush Hugo because this new course is “worth the wait“!

Second up is the huge sales letter. It’s 20 pages long and goes into great detail about how you can use this new course to “‘Steal’ Thousands A Month From The Biggest Pile Of Money On The Planet“.

You see Hugo has developed 5 special profit alerts which, when they all line up together, give you the green light to get thousands of pounds from trading the financial markets.

Indeed, it’s a “sure-fire way of making thousands of pounds, month after month, year after year… forever!”

It’s all a very convincing sales letter until, on page 10, there is a very strange claim about other trading systems:

“…There are plenty of ‘systems’ out there and I’ve tried many of them. Most are ‘okay’ and could bring you £200 – £500 a month. But NONE are as powerful as Pentatrade!”

Now, how can a system only bring you up to £500 a month? Surely he means 200 – 500 points a month.

If a system could make you 200 – 500 points a month then if I was trading £10 a point I would make £2,000 to £5,000 a month. If I was trading £1,000 a point I would make £200,000 to £500,000 a month and so on…

It’s probably just an error in the sales copy – after all it’s very unlikely that Hugo Lawrence actually wrote it himself.

There are then 10 more pages of sales copy explaining how much money you can make and how easy it is. What it basically boils down to is that you will be day-trading all manner of financial markets in order to try and scalp some points each day.

Hugo does own up and say that sometimes you will not be trading – some days the five indicators will not match to give you the “green light” so you do not trade at all that day.

However, he also says that if the “Window of Opportunity” is open and “some alerts are there, [you] might have to wait a while to see all five line-up…”

Fair enough, at least he is honest!

Personally I don’t have the time or patience to sit watching charts all day. I get the feeling it’s probably rather boring and stressful, especially if things aren’t going your way.

Searching for information about Hugo Lawrence doesn’t actually bring much up although I did find that he placed an advertisement in the Sunday Times earlier this year promoting his spread trading seminars which were around £500 – £1000. The websites have since been taken down…

As per usual with Streetwise Publications, you get to test the course risk-free for 30 days. If you don’t like it you can return it for a full refund – as is mentioned in the sales letter and again on the third part of the sales pack, the “Risk Free Priority Reservation Certificate“.

I won’t be buying to be perfectly honest as my trading is longer term and day-trading doesn’t appeal to me…

I have been trading though, you can check out how I am doing with my little spread betting “experiment” at the other blog:

https://bizoppsuk.blogspot.com

After Mike Filsaime’s presentation in the afternoon there was a break until a special event later on in the evening.

This was quite fortunate as England were playing in a Euro 2008 qualifier so I got chance to grab a beer and watch it in the bar. Turns out it was a very one-sided match but it was nice to sit down without a pen and notepad (I had taken over 25 pages of notes by this point – and I’m still referring back to them 2 months later).

Come around 8pm all of the attendees and the speakers met back in the bar for the evening’s event. This was a very clever idea – internet marketing “speed dating”.

Basically, we were split into small groups of around 8, each group with their own table.

Then, each speaker would spend 15 minutes at a table, during which time the attendees could grill him about anything they liked. One by one we got to spend plenty of time chatting to Robert Puddy, John Taylor, Joe Robson, Martin Avis and Mike Filsaime.

Chatting to Joe Robson was particularly interesting as he is a copy writing expert and was giving us a lot of pointers about how to go about structuring sales copy. Brilliant stuff.

Sadly, Joel Comm had left by then as he had took time out of a holiday to present at the seminar – his family was in the room during his presentation.

This “speed dating” session lasted for a good 2 hours and then the vast majority of people stayed in the bar for the rest of the night. I finally retired at gone 2am although there were plenty of people still up – including Mike Filsaime!

Got my second issue of the Internet Marketing Review today. Great read once again. I think this will be a very worthwhile investment. One page of the newsletter was a quick report on the Yanik Silver Underground seminar from September 2006.

The line-up was very impressive, as well as the two Neils the speakers included Yanik, Jeff Walker, Phil Gosling, Ed Dale, Ted Nicholas, Gary Vurnum and more.

It sounds like a great event and I think I will try and get there myself next year.

One thing’s for sure, I will definitely be going to Robert Puddy’s Focus 4 the Future event again. I still have to cover Saturday night and Sunday’s sessions from the last one which I will do over the next couple of days.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I have purchased Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing Manuscript which I have been reading steadily.

I must admit that when the whole BM launch was going on in January of this year I didn’t really pay much attention as I didn’t know much about Mike. When I heard him speak in September though, I took notice.

This is an eBook that is perhaps not for the internet marketing newbie but for someone fairly experienced who wants to sell a lot of their product. It has certainly given me a lot to think about.

In fact, I am seriously toying with the idea of buying the whole Butterfly Marketing package… I will keep you updated.

Just a couple of weeks ago I decided to subscribe to the Internet Marketing Review newsletter at a rather reasonable £14.95 a month (paid 12 months in advance).

https://internetmarketingreview.com/

This is yet another printed newsletter, delivered via Royal Mail. As you may know, I subscribe to several Biz Opp related newsletters such as Fleet Street’s “The Money Club”, Nick Laight’s “What Really Makes Money”, Iain Maitland’s “Passive Income Newsletter” and Oliver Goehler’s “eBay Kommando Newsletter”.

It was quick delivery, I received several items through the post the day after I paid. Specifically:

– A four-hole A4 ring binder containing one back issue of the newsletter (24 pages)
– 16 page manual – “Using Public Domain Material for Profit”
– Welcome letter containing the download link for several eBooks
– A DVD entitled “Neil Stafford presents The 7 Highly Effective Ways to Dominate a Niche Online” from a very recent Frank Garon seminar
– 3 audio CDs – Google AdWords Secrets Revealed with Neil Stafford and Peter Woodhead
– Reservation forms for 2 x 30mins telephone consultations with the 2 Neils

There are several other perks to membership such as teleconferences etc.

I will report back on the newsletters in the future but this does look like a good deal so far.