Free Money Formula by Philip Mansour

If you were to compare the top sellers of today's marketplace on CB to the marketplace of a few years ago, you would see some major differences..

The first couple pages of Ebusiness on CB for instance, are usually the most regulated and managed. Its usually a very professional instruction system and company that is able to reach such high ranks on CB. It does have to do with Traffic sources too, who and how it is being marketed, but for the most part, a launch like Phil's is very internet marketing targeted.

And the bottom line is that Clickbank in general does not blip on the scam alert barometer and yes, in the eyes of the government because of their refund policy. Clickbank is NOT the choice of scammers. This would be like robbing a bank in a mall, not a good get away route! See I guess the FTC likes the fact that in a sea of fraud there is an island where people actually do get their money back! Wow! Thats refreshing! So the little minute details that we all scrutinize do not compare to the monumentally positive practices that are hard to find. If you compare Clickbank and paypal, which is a more common breeding ground for fraud? Paypal of course.

In fact, you might find that the companies that are breaking multiple laws and get busted use either merchant accounts to make their own rules, or have people send in checks and money orders (Because even with a merchant account its documented and doesn't feel as "safe" to the crook running the scheme.)

If you use an "all in one solution" like Clickbank its harder to make your own rules and break the law, especially with Clickbank. Ive been robbed time & time again with Paypal and they dont do anything for you. Heck, Ive been straight up robbed and deceived by Google. Again, nothing. When the FTC has mountains of complaints from letter stuffing schemes, Wal Mart, Adwords, Best buy (Oooh I hate bestbuy) and then ZERO from Clickbank, its not really going to be on your priority list. But I do agree, that this should not be taken advantage of and CB does need to be careful that it does not evolve into a situation where scammers find a loophole that do harm to consumers.

In fact, the complaint form on the FTC website doesnt even have a category that could possibly fit the complaints made from the buyer of a Clickbank product. Perhaps "Email spam" but usually you opted into the list. Telemarketing abuse? no. Identity theft? No. I think it is important to identify the real problem.

Their system is in fact very perfected, heck they are a few years old and have been able to really construct a good system for compliance and management.

Some things I have observed..

1. The top sellers in the "Ebusiness niche" of today's marketplace usually do not have any testimonials, whether true or false. And they are launches, they dont have any testimonials yet! This is one of the reasons why the big launches that are questioned here on WF most of the time check out with Clickbank.

Im not going to mention names, but there was a launch recently that did have a very big case study and it was real. Video interviews with the customer (Who had made money) and was very well substantiated. This is an exception. Actually having a limited supply, having sold the items at the higher price, actually planning to sell out and you are a good vendor. But that is a good question regarding the testimonials because Clickbank does not verify testimonials (It would be very hard to)

2. Clickbank frowns upon and discourages vendors from engaging in mainstream products like "work at home" etc. They encourage Internet marketing products where the vendor has made all the money, etc and does not make many claims like "You can make up to $4,373 a day" rather "I made $4,373" and then "You can use my same system" -basically keeping it real and telling the truth, making that separation from the get go.

3. In email marketing, everyone is putting disclaimers at the bottom of their emails to show they are an affiliate, which you might have seen.

Exhibit A: An example of a Clickbank site that follows guidelines:

1. Claims: "I made this amount, you can use my same system." Not "You will make $45,303 if you use this!"
2. Representation: Sales page represents the product, and has to deliver the product promised. (If you say on your sales page "FB software" and then in the members area its a paid surveys database, Clickbank will not approve it.)
3. Value: affordable amount (It is difficult to have a high ticket item on Clickbank)
4. Billing practices: Recurring billing ONLY for legit, recurring products (Everytime you are charged, you receive something)
5. Refund policy: Refunds for 60 days
6. Integrity: Vendors using their real names in their brand.
7. Monetary effects: Not a ton of money made because of the refund policy


Exhibit B: An example of a fraudulent site that could and should get busted:

1. Claims: You will make this amount
2. Representation: Sales page doesnt represent the product, in fact.. There is no product!!
3. Value: Ridiculous & unaffordable amount for there being no product.
4. Billing practices: Recurring billing for no reason (Without you knowing)
5. Refund policy: No refunds, or worse, it said there was a refund and they do not honor it
6. Integrity: The "guru" is fake and does not exist.. (Its ran by someone who does not know jack about the subject)
7. Monetary effects: Tons of money made into the millions

Notice I kept each point in tact, this is what is going on and might explain alot of the questions people have.

Im not a lawyer, but this is what I have seen in my experience.

But, anyone of these aspects can occur when an "ethical" guru launches a $1997 product. You might see often that a more respected Guru has not two but THREE of these points.

Ill give you an example:

So & so is good at creating a persona of himself that he actually cares about his customers.

*Since the "ethical guru" IS well respected and his list is extremely targeted, the claims do say "YOU WILL MAKE UP TO"
*He launches his product at $1997
*The value is maybe worth $297 (For example, Rosetta stone is freaking AWESOME and doesnt cost a third of what the "ethical" guru charges.)
*Harder to get a refund
*Fake name

Heck, thats like all of Exhibit B!! Its the persona and the well produced product that got him out of that one!

Regarding CB, They have been very cautious about mainstream work at home products since 2006 when the owners of a site that used Clickbank as their payment processor were sued by the FTC. (This was the last one I had heard of) In this case, the owners of the site were a straight up fraud, but also had records with the FTC prior to being caught and were being monitored by the FTC. They had engaged in letter stuffing schemes four years before operating this scam, where they charged people after making claims they WILL, not can, make their money back because it is a job. Then the customer would receive the kit, start working, submit the work to them and not get paid. They got busted for this, by the Postal Inspection service and the FTC, then four years later they started running a website that again, had no product, made ridiculous claims, and then the FTC nailed the operators of this fraudulent site again! What happened next? They knocked every site similar off of their marketplace and stayed in contact with the FTC and follows their guidelines ever since. A good metaphor for this example was that the owners of that site had a virus and slipped through the approval process. Naturally, they adjusted accordingly.

This was a good example of Exhibit B.

There was another case when a well known guy (A very good guy) got busted by the FTC on a small level. But again, there were special circumstances. He sold a legit IM product but made the mistake of encouraging his customers to use his sales page for their own purposes. The result was that 10,000 of his customers were publishing his sales page with his name on it. So when they broke the law, the complaints were in his name! Talk about 100,000 complaints to AG, FTC and all over complaint boards! He caught the attention of the FTC and didnt even know it.

I think this one example was one of the ONLY cases where the defendant did not especially deserve it. 99% of the other cases taken on by the FTC in fact did deserve it (In my opinion) and were straight up scams.

This example was similar to Exhibit B, but indirectly.

Also, on another interesting note, when you apply for merchant accounts with certain companies, you might find the "site approval process" alot stricter than clickbank as well. Usually because the merchant providers are under more heat because they have been used by serious offenders that did not give refunds, billed people without their consent, etc. If you apply for a merchant account with powerpay they do not even allow you to make it a high pressure situation at all. I had a product that had limited inventory but they would not allow me to put the word "limited" at all. In this same instance, I had real testimonials, again, couldn't use them even though visitors want to see testimonials like crazy.

I think you will soon see CB not allow scarcity not even in the slightest bit, hint, or explanation of why you are limiting it, especially if people abuse the system. The merchant accounts usually do not allow scarcity and this might just be overlooked when there just arent any complaints. But you should try running a site where you are building websites and you do in fact sell out. Talk about angry people! But I agree, a major indicator of a fraud is when you are being pressured into something especially during a telemarketing call or a piece of mail that is intruding into your life. Explaining that your website is in fact.. A website and you reserve the right to sell out, take it down, change it or switch the price is a bit different than what scammers are doing out there with high pressure sales tactics that actually cause harm to consumers, rather than simply communicate that this is intellectual property and can be taken down.

Vendors deal with fraud done by users of websites and people with credit cards all the time.

Some of which are:

*Leaked documents (Intellectual property theft)
*Credit card fraud
*Chargebacks
*Refund abuse
*Spam
*Trademark Infringement
*Copyright infringement
*Harassment

And that case of the "CPA Marketer" was a little more than just "Being a CPA marketer."

Two words:

Incoming calls
Debt relief.

(Ok, four words)

I guess our posts were originally intended to discuss the current atmosphere in IM and these recent launches, and we both went off on a tirade, me playing devil's advocate.. but back to the subject at hand, my opinion is these sites dont especially fall into the category of fraud or break the law. For the most part, they are like the products I explained in "Exhibit A." (Yes everyone should follow the law.) Special circumstances might allow harm to come from our Internet Marketing Instruction atmosphere at anytime, but more unlikely then you would think because the targeting is more concentrated to the internet marketing niche and not mainstream where there is collateral damage and people get hurt, resulting in excessive complaints.

Its cause & effect..

Good debate, Thanks! Im hitting the sack.