Jesse Willms Loses Everything to FTC

How about this for a starter:

Debiting consumers’ bank accounts without first obtaining their express verifiable authorization;

Con artist took in $359 million with bogus 'free-trial' offers
Life Inc. - Con artist took in $359 million with bogus 'free-trial' offers

There are a number of issues here. These typically start with "health claims," which the medical establishment always targets. That's usually what attracts attention. A savvy copywriter can avoid crossing the line, but if you've got other issues they'll get you there.

It sounds like he was doing "negative billing subscriptions;" where your forced in and have to opt out. By the time you call and cancel, they've collected a couple of months. And of course you were required to give 30 days notice to cancel. We all hate those anyway.

Frankly, this rash of "negative opt-ins" we had for some time is why merchant banks became leery of internet marketing and recurring billing.

Nevertheless, these agencies are targeting entrepreneurs at all levels, online and offline. Some deserve it. Some don't.

Criminal minds who bilked people out of millions of dollars by charging them for stuff they did not want and did not order can put whatever public relations propoganda on their websites that they want to ... he's still a lowlife scam artist.

No offense, but you're just terribly misinformed. Jesse Willms was the first guy to launch the Wu Yi Tea diet as a product back in 2006. He pushed these pills onto affiliate networks (Advaliant was the first) and then started running huge volume. He quickly switched to **** berries + colon cleanse and was the driving force behind its surge in 2007-2009.

That's not illegal, but the rest of it is.

He sold his product as a "free" trial. You pay $5.00 shipping and get 10 days to evaluate the product. If you don't want it you must call in and cancel your subscription. This tactic is called negative option rebilling and is completely legal. What isn't legal is when you make it nearly impossible for people to cancel.

Jesse's companies would typically take 3-4 days to process your order and then it would take 3 more days for it to arrive at your house. He started your evaluation period the second you ordered the product, which means you had less than 4 days to evaluate it. Most people didn't even realize it was a rebill because they buried their terms and conditions in a tiny link at the bottom of their landers.

Anyway, that wasn't the worst part. To boost profits, Jesse would upsell customers and, at it's worst, people were getting nailed with a $400 dollar bill for a "free" product ($80 for product + $320 in automatic upsells). That's illegal.

Even if you realized you had to cancel, doing was nearly impossible. At Affiliate Summit West in 09 there was a famous meeting between people I won't name, including Jesse. They were negotiating the terms of the next series of **** Berry offers and the networks, which were getting heat at this point for carrying these products, basically asked all the merchants to pull out their cell phones and call their call centers right there on the spot to see how long it took to get a person on the phone. Two hours later and most of the phones were still on hold.

If you got through to someone, they made your life a living hell when you tried to cancel. Cancelling online was equally as convoluted.

To add insult to injury, Jesse ran a lot of these products directly. He and two other guys were the originators of the Becky's Weight Loss style of Flog and they were the first guys to push out landers that pushed both **** and colon cleanse at the same time. The FTC has called this type of marketing, where you create fake profiles, make insane claims, and pretend to be a customer to be completely illegal.

Here is the bulk of the complaint:

Oh and Jesse got sued out of the ass by Microsoft a few years earlier for buying education versions of software in Canada and then reselling it in the US at retail price. I can't post links yet, so the complaint is titled:

Microsoft Corp. v. eDirectSoftware, Jesse Willms, Linda Willms, Dave Willms, 1016363 Alberta Ltd., 1021018 Alberta Ltd. and John Does 1–10

Edit: I just want to add that he scammed upwards of 4 million people with the **** / colon cleanse combo.

It certainly makes sense to take control of your own industry rather then to have controls forced onto you from the outside.

Also I have to wonder who gets the "everything" he is losing any of it going to the "victims?"

Yeah, the genius can be very proud of himself for bilking millions out of unsuspecting customers and having the law remove everything he owns from him. Pure genius. Seriously. :rolleyes:

wow some people really are stupid, just when i thought i had seen it all.

No its not, and I'm tired of seeing people glorify people like this. There are legit ways to make money, and doing things illegally or preying on customers, consumers is not the way.

He's a fraudster and was caught - he has been under investigation for years. Consumers are smart now, they report fraud, they go after the fraudsters.

I agree with you. Thiefs are disgusting.

But like said, not many people can make this kind of money through online marketing. He was smart, just not smart enough to not get caught.

Yes of course, but there's plenty of people who don't abide by the law, particularly when they think they can make millions.

This kind of marketing is precisely why the FTC has deemed it necessary to create more rules and oversight of the industry. We can all thank criminals like him for that.

Yes, of course - however, it means that if he ever does it, the settlement is out the window and he gets %&$#ed really hard by the FTC

I thought this needed to be in a bigger font.

One done and quite a few more to go. I don't like govt intervention, but if that what it takes to keep an industry clean then so be it.

Forget the question of how you personally want to make your money.

This is how an increasing number of your customers and colleagues make theirs.

No matter what you think of it, the world we live in is full of these people, and we work in a relationship business.

You don't have to make your money off lying and stealing and cheating, but on some level you should learn to be okay doing business with people who do.

If you go to an IM seminar, you'll be surrounded by these people. They're everywhere. And if you can't smile and make nice while you make the rounds, they've got no problem launching a lying cheating thieving torpedo at your reputation behind your back.

Basic self-defence. You don't go around Compton bitching about the drug dealers on the corner, because they're within earshot and have guns. If you want to bitch about drug dealers, go to Brentwood.