WSO of the Day? Are you sure?

No need to be so defensive Will, I was just asking "is it OK"

Some useful opinions here, not a useless thread at all, as someone suggested. I would have to agree with Alexa that "Mike Lanz's WSO of the Day" would be a more appropriate title, as I cannot see how anyone who is new to the forum or just takes a cursory interest, would not just take "WSO of the Day" as being a legitimate proven accolade from the forum. Of course in an ideal world we would all read the rules stuff at the top, but if you just want to dive in and not be afraid that you are going to be abusive, then it's something you might leave until later (no excuse of course, a bit like reading the Highway Code - who's done that?). I was aware after a while that it was a 3rd party involvement, but it did take a little time and as Exrat says, it mainly seems to be a commission thing for Mike Lanz, as he used to send me emails every day with the links (and I bought some - thanks Mike) :rolleyes:

Hi WillR,

How often are the olympics? How many gold medals are awarded each time?

Imagine if things were changed and an olympic gold medal was awarded to an athlete every single day? Imagine if it seemed like every time you read about an athlete, their name was preceded by 'gold medal winner'. People would justifiably start saying that the whole thing was devalued and meaningless.

Some would defend this by saying, 'So what? Does it really matter?' but....(see next point)

This same answer comes up over and over again in countless different threads related to countless different issues that people have with the way products are sold in the WSO section and in IM in general - EG - blind copy, products sold as 'everything you need' which turn out to require the expensive OTO to be purchased to be at all useful, being added automatically to buyers' 'product update' lists used for daily offer bombardment and the emails are then sold to other bombardiers....etc etc

But, when you add them all up and then view the consequence of all of these different issues, the cumulative effect is one that seems to taint the whole industry and casts anyone who calls themselves an 'internet marketer' as a snake-oil salesman.

People can say 'buyer beware' and 'Caveat Emptor' until they're blue in the face, but eventually it means nothing. The person you were responding did not make his point in the context of 'buying a product simply because it says 'WSO of the day' in the thread title' yet you choose to respond to him in precisely that context. Why? It's a small thing, but it makes a big difference.

It's exactly the same as the person who works for a low wage as a bank teller becoming agitated because whenever they say 'I work in a bank' people sneer at them.

But after TBTF, bailouts & TARP, forced refunds of extortionate and undeserved bank charges, PPI scandal, the interest swap 'mis-selling' scandal, the LIBOR scandal, HSBC money-laundering for Mexican cartels and terrorists scandal, the London whale, CDOs, the sub-prime mortgage scandal...and many others....and virtually none of the guilty are convicted and sent to jail, but the banks are simply fined a portion of their ill-gotten gains and the fines go into the pockets of other criminals and their enablers, then it's possible to turn around and defend the banks by saying, 'did you read the small print?' or 'did they hold a gun to your head?' but in reality, they're simply burying their head in the sand, wearing blinkers, missing the point and twisting reality by using those defences.

Likewise for 'Caveat Emptor' and 'buyer beware' in IM and the WSO forum. You simply cannot excuse the sheer quantity of made up, solicited, deceptive and bought on Fiverr testimonials in this industry. That in itself is a blight on us all.

If you want to come along and introduce yourself in this marketplace and gain a reputation for honesty, you have to accept that you are starting out with a deficit in this area, even when you haven't even done anything yet - simply because you are an 'internet marketer'.

You have to go way beyond honesty, simply to appear to be at all honest, because the whole industry is so tainted in the first place. Therefore, the problem is not simply peoples' buying habits and to put everything down to that is to be deliberately blinkered.

People don't expect car salesmen to be completely honest, they expect them to be a little tricky - they also don't expect them to be absolutely dishonest in every way. Likewise for internet marketers.

But when they find them forming cartels, paying for testimonials, cookie-stuffing, selling complete junk, rebilling when no rebill was expected, disappearing, failing to offer any customer service as promised, selling someone elses aged product, lying through their teeth - it's way too simplistic to blame peoples' buying habits and to do so eventually becomes a non-defence.

Yes, the majority of people have poor buying habits. But no - this does not mean that it's right to take each issue in isolation and defend it by blaming those poor buying habits, without looking at the sheer quantity of issues arising in this industry.

So you can see the difference there? There's also a difference between it being the buyer's fault if they buy something purely because it is WSO of the day, or if there are a host of other deceptions going on and we are viewing things in that latter context, but you choose not to see that difference.

But for some reason, you choose to see this from the 'singular issue' viewpoint (someone buying purely because a product was WSO of the day) when it's quite obvious that without it being spelled out in black and white, everyone in this thread is assuming that there might be other reasons for buying too and some of those might be due to deception as well.

In other words, no one is referring to buying a product purely because it had WSOTD in the title, yet you choose to create a defence using that singular context for some reason. This is exactly what I am referring to, when it comes to defending dodgy practices in IM - the deceptions are across the board, not singular and it's that which makes the difference.

The horse analogy is out of context, in my opinion.

There are so many things wrong with this statement I don't know where to start. We are talking about WSOs, aren't we?

Show me one WSO advertised as a crap product? None? Therefore any of them who are selling crap products are duping the buyers and being dishonest. How is a buyer meant to defend against that? Never believe a word in a salespage and never buy anything at all, ever?

(Disclaimer - sorry to pick on your points WillR. Everything I have seen from you on this forum gives me the impression that you are a great bloke and entirely honest. But unfortunately, you made your points in this thread in a manner that was begging for this type of reply. Nothing personal meant, I hope you can accept that.)

I agree with your points and I said similar earlier on.

But it's not useless to Mike Lantz or the seller who receives it. What matters to many of us is that those most likely to end up feeling deceived by it are those who have just arrived in the forum and decided to buy something.

So the outcome is that as soon as newbies are introduced to this place, they get their fingers burnt.

Then if they mention this, some wag will turn up and say, 'no one put a gun to your head and forced you to buy', or 'WarriorPro has nothing to do with this forum, it's entirely seperate and unconnected', or 'Caveat Emptor', or 'it's your buying habits that are the problem.'

Then that newbie has to go and change their primary Paypal email address because it was automatically added to a 'buyers' list' and it's getting slaughtered with spam and daily bombardments of offers for more WSOs.

Personally, I would like to be an internet marketer plus I would like to continue to contribute to this forum and be a prominent member without being tainted by this stuff.

Currently, that equation is not possible.

I would point out some other things here about deception and WarriorPlus but the last time I did so, the thread got deleted and although Mike Lantz briefly made an appearance, he chose not to address the specific points I had asked him to address, before the thread got zapped.

The WSO of the Day title means nothing to me. When it first came out it looked interesting, but they milked it by making it a daily thing.

I know that sounds a little odd to say but i seem to remember at least one list that had WSO of the week, month and year. Though it seemed arbitrary which WSO got picked, it made the entire process seem less aimed at milking our wallets than attempting to give us something worth looking at.

I've used some WSO's that were only open for a short period that I killed it with making literally $1000's. Some of these authors had legit methods but never returned back to the forum (a pity, really). And I'm pretty sure those weren't even in the running for WSO of the Day, much less known by many marketers.

On top of that there are particular WSO authors I strictly stay away from, since their course style is not in tune with how i run my business.

Even with all the drama that can happen in the comments of some WSO's i can gather more about a particular WSO than simply knowing that it's "WSO of the Day". To me it's pretty much a useless title.