This is how you get SCAMMED online!

Dave, I'd be satisfied if they read what they were responding to. Like the part of that post where I said I'd make all income promises forbidden here if it were up to me.

Hard to be much clearer on the subject.

Ross's initial assumption was understandable. I'm the only one of the mods who regularly talks publicly about how the system here works, so it's not entirely silly to think I'm somehow involved in the forum's finances. It just happens to be wrong.

His response to my additional information was not unusual: "That doesn't fit with my preconceptions, so it must be a lie."

I think the world will be much better off when schools start teaching that the way to correct a gap in one's information is to look for additional facts, rather than forming assumptions without basis and presenting them as truth.

I don't hold out much hope of that happening any time soon.


Paul

I wouldn't say "nobody." You obviously have not explored all the corners of IM very well.


So I can go tell all my friends to go purchase and rate me high and then I'll refund them all - and I'll do the same for them?

BTW, how is WF going to know who bought my product?

Think about your local paper/classified for a moment here. Should the newspaper have to go examine the business placing the ad in the paper before taking their money? Should the newspaper demand for reviews of the business from outsiders in order to let the ad continue? Doesn't the newspaper have enough to do? They run classifieds to generate revenue - not out of the kindness of their hearts for the community and local businesses.

You spell rope real funny.

I just had to repost this because I was already thinking this in my head scrolling
down this thread when I read this comment.

Couldn't have said it better!

Perfect example is a guy on this very thread saying he got scammed by Empower
Network. How the heck did that happen?

They sell a blog and a bunch of upsells that are marketing information courses.
There's no refund policy. This info is very easy to look up on the net being that
that company is widely known.

In a way it is kind of funny. There is some amazing copy being written
on some of these sales pages and videos and a lot of newcomers/newbies
think they just hit the lotto.

Then they pay and get to the product and realize they actually have to do a little
bit of work!

SCAM!

That is clever but false logic. I cant remember the math term for it but that is what it is. Ok you may not get a problem when they is a dishonest seller and a smart buyer but that does not make it ok to be dishonest.

Um... no. The dishonest seller bears equal responsibility for the problem.

The real issue is that we do not have honest sellers and dishonest sellers. We have bullshit sellers.

It is impossible for the buyer to tell with any real certainty whether an offer is honest or dishonest.

Imagine that I have a product which actually does what it says, and you would like to buy a product that does that. I can be honest and say it actually does that. Then you will buy it.

Now imagine that I have a product which does not do what it says, but you would like to buy a product that does that. I can be dishonest and say it actually does that. Then you will buy it.

In both cases, I can say the exact same thing no matter what the product is.

I can take the exact same sales page, edit one form field on my product delivery software, and change the product that gets delivered from one that works to one that does not work. The sales page is the same. The traffic is the same. The conversion rate will be the same.

There is absolutely no way for you to know a priori which product will be delivered. It's Schrödinger's product. It both works and does not work until you click the download link and collapse the wave function, at which point most products take thirty to sixty days before generating results anyway.

And since this forum is packed to the freakin' gills with people who think three weeks is a long time, the overwhelming majority of people will never make use of the product anyway. They'll still leave a testimonial and a good review, because the product sure does sound like it's gonna work.

Which means that whether you are honest or dishonest has no actual bearing on the ability to sell your product, nor does it have any bearing on the actual results achieved by the overwhelming majority of customers, nor does it impact the quality of your reviews and testimonials.

It doesn't matter.

Except... of course... for that one tiny problem.

It is easier to build a crap product and tell lies than is to build a quality product about which you can be honest.

And since people are SLIM, most of them will choose what's easy. This is the internet. It's trivial to set up a brand new false identity long enough to sell your garbage, then disappear and make a brand new one for the next garbage product. There are no consequences. They get the money without having to do the work or know the answer, and the buyer suffers but they don't care.

Research people, not products.

Anyone who has any business selling you a product can be identified and checked out online. If you can't find any of that person's other products online, or identify which other domains they own, or find some kind of history and track record and at the very least a footprint... a social media presence, one or more personal blogs, non-business-related sites and posts and activities... then the chances of that person being a liar rise significantly.

Past performance is no predictor of future performance (the history of a stock doesn't tell you what it will do in the future any more than the history of a roulette wheel does), but past behaviour is a pretty Goddamn good predictor of future behaviour, because people do not normally change.

If they do, you can see it happening. Yes, some of my older opinions stated online are stupid - sometimes embarrassingly so. But you can also find me questioning those opinions and altering them. The process of changing them is online, too. If someone says one thing today and another thing tomorrow, but there's no indication anywhere that he's questioning his stance or admitting his prior error, chances are he's full of crap.

That said, ignore assertions by third parties that so-and-so is a liar or a scammer. All you care about is the vendor's own behaviour. People are jerks, and if they're jealous of someone or too stupid to understand them, they tend to scream "LIES" and "SCAM" for no good reason the same way people shout about conspiracies and the new world order.

Sales pages are bullshit. Always. You can never, ever, EVER trust them. An honest vendor might hire a dishonest copywriter who tells lies. A dishonest vendor might hire an honest copywriter and lie to him just like he's lying to you.

It can't be stressed enough: ignore the copy. Look at the person.

The biggest prob with WF and especially WSO's is the shocking lack of regularity, transparency and research into whether the WSO's are credible and genuine.

Ie, how many times have you read a line similar to this....."Discover how to earn xxx$'s per month using this system....proof inside"

These "proofs" can be photo shopped by almost anyone. And yet, on the strength of this, WF continues to let this stuff be sold on a daily basis.

Paul, I find your answer less than credible. And moreover, irresponsible.

The fact is, you are making so much money form these un-regulated and dis-proven WSO's that, ultimately, when it comes down the buyer, you wash your hands of them and tell them to take it up with the seller.

This attitude to forum marketing simply stinks as it is WF itself that is taking the revenue to sell a lot of these WSO's without first of all; checking to see if its genuine, credible and witholding the credibility of the WF forum.

Major regulation needed.