Is internet Marketing a scam? - some people believe so | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace

CDawson

Banned 16 years ago

My wife all the time...

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Matt Morgan 16 years ago

Originally Posted by CDawson

My wife all the time...

I bet she doesnt complain about the profits you bring in.
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Alavi&LazosBonuses 16 years ago

Originally Posted by CDawson

My wife all the time...

Tell me about it :rolleyes:. Only solution is to feed em with the checks ... NOT
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Sara Young

16 years ago

Well, apparently there really are scams out there, and they give IM a bad name.

Too bad, because it's a great way to make a living...

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Steve Wells

16 years ago

Many times, I think they have the overall impression of this because internet marketing is full of scammers, maybe not the majority, but lots and the bad unfortunatly in peoples minds sticks out more.

I do not think that online (internet) marketing has reached the reputation (trust level) of offline marketing yet, but I believe it will.

I am in the Graphic Design field and everything is being geared for online marketing, Graphic Designers NOW need to have a treasure chest of skill sets to be marketable online.

From being able to do offline and online graphics, website building, programing and many other things.

Originally Posted by Matt Morgan

I used to chat about my Internet marketing with some people, and they would say that it is a scam, taking money from people, and I would just challenge that we are providing products/ ebooks, etc to customers who want to purchase it, and improve their lifes.

and basically I won the discussion.

Have you ever had this? people assume that your internet stuff you are doing, to take money from people is a scam?

who were they, and what did you tell them?

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Kierkegaard

16 years ago

There are scams in every type of business.

I remember an experiment carried out in the UK in which someone with perfectly healthy teeth visited loads of different dentists. They all said he needed fillings. I've experienced this personally, my new dentist pointed out where my old dentist had drilled into a healthy tooth.

Most people assume tradesmen will scam them, plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc. Which is why word of mouth advertising is the most powerful in those businesses. If you can point to a tradesman who did a good job without ripping you off, then people will hire them.

The easier it is to scam - the more scams there will be.

Internet Marketing schemes - that is, how to make money with internet marketing - is a goldmine for scammers. There are so many desperate people needing a 2nd income or even a main income that the pickings are rich for a scammer. This doesn't mean of course that everyone is a scammer but people have to be careful.

There is also the lasting stigma of the dot.com failures (from over 10 years ago!) people remember them and still believe that all talk of making money online is either a scam or doomed to failure. Or that an online business isn't a real business. Yet they alll use Amazon, price-comparison websites and so forth.

To cut short. There are a lot of scams but this is true for a lot of businesses. People are wary of internet businessses but so what?

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GoGetta

16 years ago

Its peoples mindset!

When you are making money by something that doesn't seem like "Normal Work", it is labelled as a scam!

But, IM is the same as anything else. For every 10 plumbers, you have 1 that rips people off (scams them), charges for work not needed, same with probably every other type of business. (Not real numbers, but you get the picture)

IM is like every other business, there are scams, but there are also great products delivering! But, IM is labelled like so, because it is classed in the bracket of "NORMAL WORK", so it must be a scam!

GoGetta

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tyroneshum

16 years ago

Originally Posted by GoGetta

Its peoples mindset!

When you are making money by something that doesn't seem like "Normal Work", it is labelled as a scam!

But, IM is the same as anything else. For every 10 plumbers, you have 1 that rips people off (scams them), charges for work not needed, same with probably every other type of business. (Not real numbers, but you get the picture)

IM is like every other business, there are scams, but there are also great products delivering! But, IM is labelled like so, because it is classed in the bracket of "NORMAL WORK", so it must be a scam!

GoGetta

True, many people may say this and that about Internet Marketing because most of the times, the bad guys in the industry are much recalled. But not all people may be bad at all because it still depends upon every marketer.

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kmckillop 16 years ago

Originally Posted by GoGetta

Its peoples mindset!

When you are making money by something that doesn't seem like "Normal Work", it is labelled as a scam!

That's pretty much it. I mean look at the contracting/home repair/etc business. It's ripe with shady people and people getting ripped off, but nobody assumes you're ripping people off because it's 'normal' go to work for the day type thing.
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Steven Fullman

16 years ago

Yes, most "normal" folks I run into think I'm a "spammer" (as opposed to a "scammer", although I'm sure that runs a close second), because I happen to make a living online...whilst still holding down a J.O.B.

It's normal, I think. Skepticism, I mean...

Even when I tell them I'm just a programmer who happens to write for my company's customers first, and my own second.

Cheers,
Steve

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jamieludlow

16 years ago

Whenever I speak to friends and show them sites with long page sales copy they immediately assume its a scam. I know most sales pages convert well, but a lot of "regular" people just see them and immediately think scam without reading a word.

I guess most people probably think the internet marketing lifestyle is "too good to be true" so thats why it gets labelled as a scam.

The thing is the lifestyle may be great, but it takes a lot of hard work and determination to get to the top and its quite a big learning curve along the way so although the prize for sticking in there and reaching your goals is massive its not always quite as easy as what most famous internet marketers make it out to be.

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Steven Fullman

16 years ago

Originally Posted by jamieludlow

Whenever I speak to friends and show them sites with long page sales copy they immediately assume its a scam. I know most sales pages convert well, but a lot of "regular" people just see them and immediately think scam without reading a word.

I guess most people probably think the internet marketing lifestyle is "too good to be true" so thats why it gets labelled as a scam.

The thing is the lifestyle may be great, but it takes a lot of hard work and determination to get to the top and its quite a big learning curve along the way so although the prize for sticking in there and reaching your goals is massive its not always quite as easy as what most famous internet marketers make it out to be.

That's interesting, Jamie...and might bear out some of the recent tendencies towards video sales letters...which could be perceived as less hypey.

My first reaction, 3 years ago (I'm a relative newcomer), was "this looks so easy...it must be bogus"

It took me 2 years and a lot of learning to realise it's not so easy.

But neither is it bogus.

I *loved* the learning, by the way. It was mainly listening to other people's success stories.

There's a big world out there...and the chances are pretty good someone will be excited by your product/idea.

Like most things...if you stick with it long enough, and take the time to learn the nuances...you'll be fine.

We seem to have this amazing "self-policing/self-fulfilling" policy.

Steve

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jamieludlow

16 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Fullman

I *loved* the learning, by the way. It was mainly listening to other people's success stories.

There's a big world out there...and the chances are pretty good someone will be excited by your product/idea.

Like most things...if you stick with it long enough, and take the time to learn the nuances...you'll be fine.

I agree the learning is quite fun, because you hear people's success stories and you see what is possible if you learn the skills and put in the work.

The problem is most people get caught up for soooo long dreaming about where they can be in the future and going through all the training they possibly can without ever taking any meaningful action which is what is going to produce the results.

You can't learn forever, you have to learn enough to get started get something out there, make mistakes, learn from your mistakes and improve and then start seeing results.

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Steven Fullman

16 years ago

Originally Posted by jamieludlow

I agree the learning is quite fun, because you hear people's success stories and you see what is possible if you learn the skills and put in the work.

The problem is most people get caught up for soooo long dreaming about where they can be in the future and going through all the training they possibly can without ever taking any meaningful action which is what is going to produce the results.

You can't learn forever, you have to learn enough to get started get something out there, make mistakes, learn from your mistakes and improve and then start seeing results.

So true.

You won't make a penny without "going for it" at some point.

Thanks for correcting me!

Best wishes,
Steve

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Biggy Fat

16 years ago

Yep, I couldn't agree more. Internet Marketing is one HUGE scam. So here we have 203,297 scammers and aspiring scammers here at the Warrior Forum, which is a PR5 forum and available on the internet for all eyes to see. That would include the FBI, CIA, BBB, FTC, among many others.

Yeah, we're all criminals and would be criminals. Call the internet cops.

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Fernando Veloso

16 years ago

Originally Posted by Biggy Fat

Yep, I couldn't agree more. Internet Marketing is one HUGE scam. So here we have 203,297 scammers and aspiring scammers here at the Warrior Forum, which is a PR5 forum and available on the internet for all eyes to see. That would include the FBI, CIA, BBB, FTC, among many others.

Yeah, we're all criminals and would be criminals. Call the internet cops.

^^ What he said makes sense for me.

Will print a t-shirt and send it to everyone that makes that the stupid remark "so, you work with computers... can you help me and change my broken hard drive?

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John Atkins

16 years ago

Funny how most people that believe internet marketing is a scam
keep getting sucked into 'get rich quick' BS... lol

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mainstreetcm

16 years ago

Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill

Yes, everything under the sun is a scam unless the customer gets something for nothing.

I totally agree with this. You have no idea how many times I heard "well this seems like a scam..." when I worked at Disneyland shilling daily stroller and electric wheel chair rentals...

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andr3w84

16 years ago

In general, most people are still not aware of how this online moneymaking works, don't understand or worse, don't want to understand it. Most people I've talked to about it said things like "ah, cool, good for you" acknowledging that it's indeed a viable way to make money but still they didn't want to be bothered more.

I assume most people think something is "bad" because they cannot understand it right away or it's too different from what they are usually exposed to. On the other hand, as it takes less investment to earn $$ than in the offline world, it also takes less to run a scam...

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philbowman

16 years ago

Hey Matt,

I talk about it all the time, and nobody has ever said it was a "scam". Yes, I believe Internet Marketing is a process of providing honest, quality products and services to people who are interested in that information.

It's always the customer's option if they feel the information is what they're looking for.

Phil

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dankas

16 years ago

Scam or not, what makes me laugh is that all of us are trying to sell each other "that one perfect" product that will skyrocket you and your business into 3000$ a month type of business. Everyone is promising insane traffic, great profit, and the best of all, the price. Originally it was 349$, but now it's only 27$, and that's not all, here are 5 free books of total worth of 667$ and this free video where I will show you how I made 456$ in just one day. And so the circle continues. You pay 27$ and the poor guys get rich. And he's ebook says: visit forums and try to sell the e-book as I did. Works great, I promise. That's why is in bold letters on yellow bkg. You feel stupid as the "killer SEO truth never told" book is actually google SEO blog or something simmilar made simple. And free of course.

I wonder if we are really scam spammers indeed.

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NicheMayhem 16 years ago

Something to consider that most of us "marketers" seem to always forget:

In the grand scheme of things, the internet is truly still an adolescent.

The difference between today and only 5 years ago is extremely substantial, yet barely circumstantial for those who were not a part of the movement. Sure for those who were there to see or even create the sites which have brought many brick and mortar businesses online to gather prospective customers and advertise their products know how powerful it is. But, those who weren't are still sitting in their office scratching their head wondering why the competition seems to be getting more business. Most of them today are saying "we need a website" but still you will find a vast majority of them are not optimized for getting real traffic, they just HAVE a site.

Kevin Riley's report on video marketing (available as a WSO, no plug here just good enough to share) stated that today 97% of people come online before they make a purchase to compare pricing and find the product they want. 97%! That is an incredible statement and only 5 years ago I wonder what the statistic was.

The 203,303 active marketers or would be marketers on this forum are honestly pioneers in a brave new world that will stick around, I think mostly because of the transparency. It is getting harder and harder to hide online and the wiser people get to the tactics being used the further us honest folk are going to get into profit and enjoying what we do. What some people don't realize is everything they do is essentially being recorded, every tweet, email, etc etc, having a mindset for the long term relationships is by far the smartest way to go about it. Short term persuasion is getting around to not working anymore and I think pretty soon it won't work at all.

The online marketing world is only a teenager if you step back and look at the timeline, sure its still misunderstood, but it won't be forever.
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jamieludlow

16 years ago

I think as long as you are providing quality content that you actually believe in and feel comfortable talking about the subject yourself and know what you are talking about, all the claims on your sales page are true etc. then its fine.

Its when you make a product in the IM niche and have never made money online, that you should think "am I doing the IM market any favors here?". Morally I think its wrong. If you are new to IM then find a niche market where you know your stuff and sell to those people. If you make $50K selling in that niche then great tell people in IM niche how you did it, but just be honest and you can't really go wrong.

I think most people can see if you are fake and just trying to pull one over them to earn a quick buck.

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Laura B

16 years ago

Originally Posted by Matt Morgan

Have you ever had this? people assume that your internet stuff you are doing, to take money from people is a scam?

who were they, and what did you tell them?

Yes, just yesterday, in fact! On another forum, in their subforum devoted to affiliate links and promotions, I listed my affiliate marketing course for sale. I got several snippy replies to the effect that I wouldn't get any sales there because they never, ever pay up front to work for someone. Huh? One person told me you should never have to pay to join an affiliate program, which I never even mentioned (and it's free anyway).

Even after several attempts to explain that this was not a job offer nor an affiliate program but rather an information product helping people to start their own business, they appeared to remain convinced that I am a scammer.

Just a knee-jerk reaction, I guess, and I can understand why people are so jumpy since there are indeed a ton of scammers out there. But the fact that they didn't even know the difference between working at home as an employee of a company and working for yourself as an affiliate marketer is kind of frightening. It's no wonder the average person is thoroughly confused.

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jamieludlow

16 years ago

To be honest you will never sell your products/services to people that are skeptic so instead of wasting your time and energy explaining things to them its probably best to just move on and focus on finding new people that do get you and do believe in your product and sell them.

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sdentrepreneur

16 years ago

I am proud of being an Internet Marketer, in the retail business/offline world, it is highly respected. Regarding selling people a home based business product, that is a tougher sell.
My suggestion is brand yourself a leader with the power of Social Media and LinkedIn, this will give you more creditability and will lead to more sales. Seldom will someone buy a home based business or education product from someone who isn't transparent and doesn't have a solid profile. People are doing their due diligence now before taking their creditcard out.

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MassiveMarketer

16 years ago

Yes because there are a lot of scammers out there. I guess there are some people who are hesitant to earn money online because of security issues. There will always a possibility of some transfer issues but that doesn't make it a scam. Maybe because of their bad experiences of what they've heard of.

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George Tee

16 years ago

IM is often misunderstood as a scam, but they would have never been able to comprehend the amount of effort we have put in...certainly not a get-quick-rich scheme. And if we're providing something of value to the customers backed up with results to show for, we certainly aren't scammers. But if customers don't work hard after buying our products and dream of the insanely huge profits without taking solid, consistent actions, they'll just dismiss this whole thing as scam.

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Diana Lane

16 years ago

Of course IM is a scam. Amazon, eBay and all the other big outfits who use internet marketing to put their products in front of the people who want to buy them are obviously scammers, and there's never been a successful delivery of a product ordered online.

No-one really believes that - the people who say that internet marketing is a scam either have a very limited idea of what IM means and think that you can't profit from selling something that you haven't got, failing to realise that you can profit from a cut of someone else's sale if you work at helping them make it, or lack belief in their own abilities and think that putting up a fuss about alleged system-wide flaws will deflect attention from the flaws they feel are their own.

Yes, there are scammers on the internet, just as there are offline. Online there are probably more because of the ease of anonymity, but if you are a straight up internet marketer who supplies a worthwhile product or service in exchange for cash then it shouldn't be that difficult to put it into words if someone asks what you do, without becoming a community outcast as a result. 'Internet Marketer' is just a label - it's up to us what people stick it to.

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texasmom64

16 years ago

Too bad that "real scammers" are giving IM a bad name.

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pappyy3 16 years ago

Originally Posted by texasmom64

Too bad that "real scammers" are giving IM a bad name.

Unfortunately some IM people earn the title scammer for a good reason ....

Read some of the titles in the WSO's and tell me what they "smell" of?

There are good and bad elements in every proffession, occupation etc

As they say ... bad news travels twice as fast as good news
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reynoldscorb

16 years ago

Most people associate Internet Marketing with "Get Rich Quick Schemes." This is the reason people think Internet Marketing is a scam. They don't know the difference.

Internet Marketing is an honest business to many. That's why I love the warrior forum. Quality Internet Marketers in here.

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Bicycle Cat

16 years ago

Originally Posted by reynoldscorb

Most people associate Internet Marketing with "Get Rich Quick Schemes." This is the reason people think Internet Marketing is a scam. They don't know the difference.

Exactly. Everyone always has this vibe when I'm on other, non-IM related sites/forums. The minority of scammers out there don't help the cause at all.

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JennSpencerIM

16 years ago

People will think anything is a scam if they don't understand what it really is...and then there are others that think its a scam cause they can't do it!

I think JOBS are a scam...

So I guess it just depends on how you look at it!! hehe

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IRichie

16 years ago

No, This is not the case. A lot of my customers appreciate my product and say that they are extremely happy. I do not think that a lot of people think that internet is a scam. If this is the case, then people would not have been buying online.

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lacraiger

16 years ago

its not a scam but there are alot of scammers out there.

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Mohammad Afaq

16 years ago

My mom used to think so when I didn't make a dime but after money started rolling in she didn't have as much of a problem with it.

I still get a feeling sometimes that she thinks it's a scam but just doesn't wanna talk about it because I'm making as much as her

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Srikanth D 16 years ago

Is internet Marketing a scam?
HELL YES !

Everyone here is a SCAMMER. Ya everyone including you reading this LOL!!

to be honest, there is a kinda outer shell of scams which people encounter - things linke Pyramid schemes, fake data entry sites, fake CPA - get rich in a day products.
People first here about these things are they sound like an easy way to EARN. They try one or two, get scammed and spread the word...... That's about it - They never return to dig deep and find the real IMers
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specopkirbs

16 years ago

some of my friends and colleagues thought that by doing IM i was some sort of scammer. There are many missconceptions about IM due to a high number of crap products and adverts available on the internet. That said people are becoming more aware of the guru crap and scams. I think its simlar to people becoming "Ad Blind" to adsense and such, after a while you just process through the crap without thinking.
The problem with IM is that although there are many other mediums available for people to use for advertising, the size of the market is huge in IM compared to say a local paper AD or simlar, and a lot of advertising can be done (effective advertising that is) without spending much money, and what with the recession around the world and all, people are looking to get an income or add to their existing income and IM in my opinion is one of the quickest and most profitable ways to go.

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niffybranco

16 years ago

Internet Marketing is a job, Get Rich Quick Schemes are a scam if you belive you will wake up without having a clue about website design, Adwords, PPC, Backlinking, social marketing, Selling on auction sites etc and you feel you can just grab a computer and with 15 minutes work start making $200- $300 an hour then you deserve to be scammed.
Internet marketing is a proper job and if you do not pay for e-courses sit down to read , or pay a mentor to teach you and most importantly if you do not take action you are bound to fail and you will foolishly call the people that tried to teach you scammers.

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