New Warrior Special Offer (WSO) Rules

Please clarify concerning the Warrior Forum's High Voltage Video Forum.

Good stuff and congrats on doing this so swiftly Alaister.

I think we could do with some clarification on the "may" part of the above rule. As in the circumstances where proof is more likely to be asked for and where it is less likely to be asked for. Also what kind of proof - given that screen shots of bank accounts etc are notorious in MMO offers and often fake.

Regarding #10 - paid video testimonials, does that include written ones as well?

Last week there was a mention that blind offers were disallowed but I didn't see anything where that was mentioned. I know that it will be hard to explain offers in some cases without giving the secret/process away, but in many cases of blind copy the results are not good because the buyers get something they would never have bought if they had known.

Mark

One of the reasons Allen previously recommended to NOT give out review copies is because they wound up being shared. So maybe this also needs to include products received as a review?

Of course, it's hard to track these things down but it wouldn't be good for some know-it-all to claim the WF doesn't have a rule against sharing review copies - only paid copies.

Mark

Some very positive changes. Thanks.

Can one use the acronym WSO in one's product title?

Great changes! Two questions:

1. If we already have some free WSOs out there, do we need to either add a buy button (with a price) or do we need to pay the $20 for re-listing in classifieds.. or do you guys plan to move all free WSOs to their proper sub forum?

2. Some of the clearly defined previous text was removed in that WSO products must be created by the seller or a partner of the seller and are 100% unique to the seller. The way it reads now someone could argue that they edited some PLR to "make it their own". I just thought this might could use some further clarification.

A standard classified ad is $20. It's $100 if you want it "pinned" at the top for a while.

To remain in the WSO Marketplace the WSO must abide by all rules, including to be a paid offer and to have a buy button. In the coming weeks, free offers will be moved to the Classified Ads. Sellers do not need to pay a re-listing fee.

This is part of the overarching Moderator's Discretion rule mentioned in the introduction, but we'll make this clearer. Such offers like you mentioned have no place in the WSO Marketplace. Where appropriate we'll ask the seller to provide a copy of the product for evaluation.

Exactly right. The only time such "WSO of the {Day|Week|Month|Year|Decade}" can be used is when it has been awarded by the Warrior Forum. External parties are not authorised and have no place implying that we endorse a WSO that we have no affiliation with.

The Warrior Forum High Voltage Forum is part of the Warrior Forum and we don't consider it a WSO. In this example, you have nothing to worry about it and nothing that requires changing. Hope that this makes it clearer.

We are being very strict with these. We'll inspect them all visually and where appropriate ask the seller for further proof. If the seller does not want to provide this proof then he or she will not be permitted to make the claim.

We will be rolling these out to existing offers over the next few weeks, but they do apply to all new offers being submitted.

You saved the forums. Literally. These changes needed to be made. Bravo.

I agree with Rus that putting a moderation note in any of the sales threads that the income claims have been "proven" when it is nigh impossible to really prove them, would be taken as an endorsement and should it turn out to be a dodgy offer that indeed, the income claims were not based in reality, the Warrior Forum would possibly have liability for providing that endorsement... or at the very least, look complicit or discredited.

I thought FREE WSO's are being MOVED to the Classifieds Ad Section...

I see MANY posts on the WSO Thread today that are "FREE"

Some are "bumps" from existing and past WSO's, are these NOT being MOVED too?

One person has 4 threads that are nothing more than sign up for my FREE Coaching program...

I realize this process may take some time, but is there NOT a mechanism to MOVE existing threads to another Section? I've run a few forums and each had a feature where an administrator could MOVE existing threads...

Anyway, I think the new changes are a GREAT move in the right direction...Thanks for taking the time to IMPROVE the Warrior WSO thread...

~AzSno...

Alaister,

I am really impressed with the effort to clean things up.... Awesome work!

Off the top of my head, there are several WSOs that fall into these categories...... What will become of these "old" WSOs? Will they be moved.... or deleted?

I don't think anyone should have to prove net income that's a bit tough to determine. ClickBank has had these proof of income requirements for years and they just want screenshots to show proof that the money was made. Also you can't prove that it was made from the method shown.

You could sell products as a vendor and then post it as affiliate income for example.

Still these rules will stop people from just going to google images and grabbing income proof for their sales letter. Also, most launches are self hosted now so it's not like this will revolutionize our industry. It might make the WSO section a little more honest. Should stop the affiliate reviews posted in the WSO section for google rankings too.

The following WSO was closed. Can you tell me what is wrong so that I can correct it.

Thank You.

Or anybody that I can contact? Is it the title of the WSO or anything else? I have complied to all rules & it's been almost an year since this was up. But suddenly today it got closed.

I have sent you a PM about this with what needs to be changed. A member reported the offer because you are offering cashback in return for reviews; this has never been permitted.

The Help Desk is the best point of contact for quick response: Freelancer.com - Powered by Kayako Help Desk Software

Warrior Forum - The #1 Internet Marketing Forum & Marketplace - Announcements in Forum : Warrior Special Offers

This is correct. WSO listing must not attempt to imply affiliation or endorsement with the forum. The use of the term "Warrior" in the product title implies this. The only exception to this is when products are genuinely endorsed by the forum, such as we (the Warrior Forum) featured the WSO.

Income claims update:

Thank you all for your input regarding this.

We have revised rule #17:

Rule #17: Income Claims & Guarantees

Sellers are not to make claims around income that has been made unless this income can be verified through Warrior Payments. Sellers are not permitted to make claims about or imply that income will result from purchasing a WSO. This will be strictly enforced to protect the Warrior community.

The only time income claims will be permitted is when in reference to a product being sold on Warrior Payments, as this is the only platform we can confirm accuracy.

Wait what?

So my next WSO is how one can make money doing Google helpouts and that I've personally made 5K a month doing it.

Please tell me how selling my WSO through the Warrior Payments platform helps any one verify my claim?

All you can verify are the sales you've processed through the platform and that has nothing to do with my income claim.

It doesn't and just like Dennis said, you'd have to actually have a WSO ABOUT making money with WSO's, which by the way I'm VERY MUCH against! For other reasons though, but yeah.

Hello

One doubt. We are using 2checkout. Due to 2checkout Policy, we can sell from our website. We can't use There Buy Buttons any where else.

My question is, how we can use 2checkout or Blue Snap to sell On WSO Section ?

My request is, Please change this rule, "To sell a WSO in the WSO Section of the forum, your offer must have a Buy Button that takes the user to a checkout. "

Thanks

To be honest, I find the WSO Forum a lot harder to read than the others because of all the income claims. All those dollar signs and figures just make it look like a badly-formatted knitting pattern to me and it's more difficult to maintain my concentration if I'm looking for something specific - I often have to make a conscious effort to stop my mind from wandering. It's the entries without an income claim that stick out for me, possibly because I take one man's income claim about as seriously as the idea that two identical shops in different parts of town will be make the same amount of money and so am practically blind to any figures given.

I realise I'm probably in the minority, but there is a small chance that some people might actually do better with their offers once the WSO forum stops looking like it's sinking under a tidal wave of competing dollar signs and comes across as a bit 'cleaner'.

I rarely come here any more, but was curious after receiving the email about the new rules. One of which, apparently, states no income claims in WSOs. I just went to the WSO forum and 3 of the first 10 products have income claims in their heading.

Great Stuff. Some need changes.

Within #4
"Reviews must be of the product, not the seller nor the seller's previous products."

Good job!

I wonder why this in #5 "Automation Bots"

There are MANY cases where automation just makes sense. We write a lot of bots that have 100% legitimate use. It's called working smarter, not harder.

I think that the existing way the WSO forum is set up has contributed to the problem of the big income claims that we often see in the WSO thread titles, right.

So obviously the WSO title appears on the overview page or whatever it's called so all the titles are competing against 49 other titles for a click through.

Now it used to be that a WSO couldn't be bumped until it hit the 3rd page but now those rules have changed and you can bump the second it drop's off the 1st page.

So now I believe what will happen is that WSO's will be dropping off the first page even faster then before, so if you ask me its a total disservice to those who've posted a WSO and only serves to increase the advertising revenue for the forum itself.

Intended or not the consequences for vendors will be that they won't get any value at all for their ad spend.

Income claims or not, if the forum is taking money for advertising space they have a duty to their advertisers as well, not only buyers.

Honestly I'm not sure there is any implied duty to buyers at all "UNLESS" membership became paid instead of free.

Awesome....long needed changes

Gj alaistair

Information like this is great for new comers like myself. Since I usually find it difficult to find and understand the rules. For example I recently posted a email marketing 13 video course which was remove and considered as Spam.
Is it ok to include videos in post?

Some positive steps in the right direction!

While I have used many "Free WSO" to build my business and will miss that option but am glad to see some steps being taken about all the income claims that plague our industry.

Good work FL!

Cheers,
Coby

This is a good one, and sorely needed. However, I hope it extends to things like, "Make $45,967 a week for only $7!"

Not sure if that's considered a "claim" or a "guarantee," but WSO's are rife with that kind of BS, and they make the whole site look cheap and scammy.

Not trying to be snarky but there are Rule #17's up all over the place:
http://i.imgur.com/txA1fL3.jpg

Would a picture of me sitting in my Ferrari, surrounded by babes smiling with a mouthful of Gold teeth be construed as an earnings claim? Just sayin'

New sales copy revised to be compliant with WSO rule you might make money you might not I can't tell you because the WF would ban me from selling this to you if I did. So nothing secretive here as that would also ban me but I can't tell you about it because that would ban me. But buy my stuff anyways and see whats inside.

Will these rules be applicable to existing WSOs ? or only for the new WSO which will be posted from now ?

perfect, love this development, a lot of fake income claims

I could see how they could enforce using "Warrior " or Warrior Forum "on the Warrior Forum website that they own.

2. However, I doubt very seriously that Warrior Forum could have any legal right or recourse to the word "Warrior" being used on another website that is not owned by the Warrior Forum.

3."Warrior" is such a general word, that has been in existences for hundreds of years before there was a Warrior Forum website.

I checked Google for the name warrior and there were tons of variety of websites using warrior for many products, services etc. Even Amazon, Twitter and Facebook popped up under the word "warrior.

Just my opinion..

I believe the new rule will make the Forum more clean. Specially not allowing people to claim about earning $$$$$$$$ without proved by a trustworthy way . I am sure it will save a lot of newbie at the long run.

I only have one complain.....That is about buy button. I use Fastspring as my payment processor. It does not allow me to send people directly to their cart page other than from my website. So I usually send people to a specific page from where they can go to the payment processor.

So, I think you would be kind to ensure that people like me can use WSO section. Other than it seems I will not be able to release any WSO in near future until paypal comes to my country ( may be within next few years )

Thanks
Sabbir

I can see both sides of the issue.

On the one hand, how can I convince potential customers that the technique I have been using really does have the potential to help save their mortgage or help them have that long awaited second honeymoon or send their kids to college without presenting some real numbers or potential numbers. This new rule will hurt many sellers who now cannot share those numbers.

On the other hand, anyone that is half decent and uses common sense can see that many of the existing claims are untruthful, unrealistic, or unsustainable.

If it was all 100% on the up and up, the sellers need to be sharing their techniques with Congress because with the numbers, promises, and hype we have enough right here to overcome world hunger and poverty. This is especially true once you realize, according to many of these promises that a customer needs no knowledge nor website, the technique can be done from anywhere, and there is no risk of saturation.

Those kinds of claims, along with *perceived* scammy marketing techniques, have given the WF a bad name and reputation amongst many.

For example, there have been some threads lately about churn and burn email marketing.

Yes we all understand that it's not technically spam to get 3 emails a day because we agreed to share our email address for the free report or whatever. But the mothers (regular people) of the people that are doing it would call it spamming (or worse) too. Yet some here never take the side of the consumer - it's their fault for signing up. We say to new emailers with questions "you aren't your market so it doesn't matter if YOU don't like getting 3 emails a day or having 5 downsells or 14 popups - it works so just do what works!" This is hilarious when at the same time there have been many posts recommending throw away email addresses when signing up for said free report. Talk about hypocritical.

Regular folks would be saying their computer must be infected because they can't leave a site (with all the exit popups) yet some say it works so they keep doing it and keep getting the same bad rep. Then someone pointed out that they and others, marketers, use software to block ads. Again, we don't like it but we impose it on others.

Likewise, someone complains about a WSO and some are quick to pull the "buyer beware" card because everyone's hands are tied and the WF is just an advertising platform. Then we try to overcome the perception of being ripped off by throwing out the "if you learned one tiny tidbit you didn't know then you weren't scammed" line.

That attitude (amongst many here but not all by any means) isn't helping the WF. Those WSOs, while paying the bills, aren't helping the reputation of the WF either in many cases.

Note that above I'm not calling anyone a scammer or spammer. I'm talking about regular folks and the perception or feeling that many have of this place. Don't believe me? Get some of your real friends on some email lists or invite them to the WSO forum. Some of the guys I"m talking about above will say to that "well they aren't my target market so..."

This kind of "correction" always happens and always effects even those that aren't "guilty."

Look at all the rules along with all the complaining about Google, Youtube, FB, Craigslist, etc. For example, your FB account may be in danger of a shutdown (if it even remotely feels suspicious no matter if you've done anything wrong or not) because someone else decided to open 300 FB accounts with fake profile info and pretty girls as the profile pic. That may have been learned on the WF.

My email address was recently sold or shared several times by these wonderful friends that post here after I trusted them with my email address. It works, right - all about the numbers.

I am glad to see the changes - they are much more "regular folks" friendly. However, I hope that FL hasn't bitten off more than they can chew with these much needed changes but a most assuredly decreased income. Before the balance was maybe too much in the favor of the marketer/seller and now the balance has shifted to be more on the consumer side - some say too much.

In the end, I hope it all balances out and we can have a win-win-win experience here for all.

Mark

Bravo! Just might be enough to get me back to the WF when time permits.

It's really not that hard to prove you made money with a particular technique with no screenshots or videos. You'd have to provide temp login info for a mod. I'd be fine with that, as long as there's an agreement that the mod will not use your log in creds for anything else. Then change the password after approval.

Thanks for the awesome changes it's good to see some application of some long overdue improvements.

Thank you all for your input regarding the new rules, particular Rule 17.

Eliminating questionable income claims is one of the most important features of the new rules. We know that a lot of buyers are potentially being misled with current income claims and promises of income if the buyer were to purchase the WSO.

Here are some examples to clarify what is an income claim:
- Make $100 per day in 7 minutes.
- I made $100 by selling eBooks.
- Earn $100 every time you press this button.
- I made $100 selling a domain.
- Make $100-$15000 per month by buying a website from me.
- Make $5+ in 30 days.

Under the new rules, any such statement is not permitted in the WSO Marketplace, which includes all sub-forums.

We require all sellers to read through the rules thoroughly and adjust any offers accordingly.

Many of these rules have been in place for some time. Their presence in the new rules means that these rules will be addressed for sellers who are not adhering to them.

In answer to the specific questions raised here:

This will be addressed in the coming weeks.

This is applicable to all WSOs.

This is definitely an income claim, which is the kind of misleading statement that we’re addressing with the new rules. No new offers with such claims will be approved. Sellers must adjust their existing offers.

Great. We're changing the rules so potential buyers can feel secure browsing the offers in the WSO marketplace while knowing they can pick up a great deal on IM related products.

This will be rolled out to existing offers in the coming days and weeks. No new offers that contravene any rules will be approved henceforth.

I love that people now need to provide proof for their claims. So many people are full of BS its not even funny.

This has been an interesting read with many valid point made on all sides. As a newbie I bought many products that failed to deliver on the results claimed - not good for me or WF. I eventually learned that there was likely some catch to get the required results, like having huge responsive list, an army of eager affiliates lined up, an enormous advertising budget, significant human resources, or a whole bunch of knowledge that was not included in the WSO. Consequently, I bought fewer WSOs as I increasingly distrusted them. As I associated with more experienced marketer I learned that most WSOs target gullible newbies who are incapable of evaluating the claims.

However, if income claims are not made, it makes it very difficult for me decide if the WSO is worth it. I want to know if the product works, what results I can expect, and what I have to have/do to get the predicted results. I don't just want the gross income claim, I want the expenses side too. I think it would be difficult to sell WSOs if income claims were banned completely and WF might find that revenue decreases. Perhaps there is a way to force the seller to reveal expenses and resources used to generate the income.

I believe some of these moves will prevent the forum from further slippage and increase the quality of the products offered. For far too long things have been constantly in decline.

I foresee 2015 being the year that many people that have abandoned making special offers continue again without worrying about having to compete with ridiculous claims from people who are just out to make a fast buck or getting lumped in with them.

Well done!

BAYO

Further to the "no income claims" discussion, will that apply to subsequent posts the seller makes in the thread?

For example, when someone asks the seller how much he's made using his system, is he allowed to answer with specific dollar amounts? If so, then you might as well allow income claims because every shyster that sells here will either have a shill ask it for him or he'll ask it of himself with a second account.

Thank you, this will increase the quality of the WSOs immensely!

Glad to see these positive changes, especially the new "income claim" rules.

I'm a software developer so the new rule about automation bots pretty much puts me out of the game here on WF. I'm ok with that of course. I can live with it.

I just wanted to chime in on the "income claim" topic. I just read 3 pages of posts almost entirely about that one little thing.

As a proficient ad copy writer, you do not need to "say it", all you need to do is paint the picture in the readers mind.

Example1: How I made $1000 selling chicken lips! [WF say no, you can't use that]

Example2 : Can You Really Make $1000 Selling Chick Lips? [Oops! Will WF accept or reject? It clearly isn't an income claim, yet it clearly paints the picture in your mind that you might be able to make $1000 selling those chicken lips!]

Exmaple3: I'm Not Going To Claim I Made $1000 Selling Chicken Lips - Not When I Can Show You How I Built A List Of 41,000 Chicken Lip Buyers ![Another WF head scratcher. You made no income claim while you painted the income picture in the readers mind]

So good patrons of WF, stop worrying about the little "income claims" rule. A litte ad copy goes a long way.

-That's just my 2-cents, and you were probably grossly over charged.-

Is this gonna apply to the spammy ads still showing at the top of the page?

Absolutely LOVE the new rules! Maybe the junk can finally be eliminated?

And a good idea to get things under control before some one else steps in with a hammer.

Thank you WF team!

Some of the new rules are great and they make sense.

However, some are just downright silly!

Not really even sure I understand the value of not allowing review videos or testimonials in the sales thread? Using review videos in copy has been around for ages? Just really curious as to who benefits from removing videos? How does this protect the buyers?

If It is a misinterpretation of the rule then I will take that. The way it reads is not clear to me. Pardon my ignorance. Is it just saying you cannot "LINK" to videos or you cannot emebed them in the threads either?

It's not like it is "amazon" or "Kindle" or "ipod" or "facebook" I understand not using the logo... Or even the full "WARRIOR FORUM" connected

but....

You can't trademark a real word. There is no patent or trademark violation on the word "warrior". In copy, it is used to call out your audience. So they know who you are talking to so that you can further relate the product to them.

It is not used to pretend there is an association or sponsored by the website. All of the facebook marketing products that came out and people had "Facebook" in their title... I don't think many buyers purchased the product because they thought it was products and sponsored by Facebook directly.

But I am not here to dispute the rules. Bottom line, you guys can do what you want and your numbers will tell you if it is a positive change or a negative change.

The groovy thing about building your own business is,... platforms change all the time. When you control your own assets you can pick up and move somewhere else and adjust and business is moderately effected. So I wish you guys all the best with your updates and if I wish to use the platform in the future, I will simply adjust accordingly.

Good luck to you all and happy new year

My apologies for the LONG post to all reading the following...

I DO have a question in this long post and it is concerning the following rule:

"Rule #16: Buy Buttons Must Be Present

To sell a WSO in the WSO Section of the forum, your offer must have a Buy Button that takes the user to a checkout. This link cannot take the user to your website, an order form or an opt-in page.

This rule does not apply to other sections, such as Warriors for Hire or Classified Ads."

In the past I have used WarriorPlus and JVZoo to offer my WSOs. 99% of the time I leaned towards WarriorPlus as the payment system to use the Buy button from not only because it allowed me to control the buyer's experience with regards to enhancing the purchase with an OTO or Upsell, automated the adding of my buyers to a segmented list plus allowed me to direct my buying traffic through the funnels I set up but more importantly because a lot of my products were Video Tutorials which could total 500 megs, 1 gig or more so I was able, through WarriorPlus, to send them to a link which WarriorPlus masked and protected for me. I also was able to get valuable stats through WarriorPlus including stats to combat Refund Bandits because in my case there were a few rare occasions where I had to prove to Paypal that the buyer had downloaded the product when they stated they hadn't or were attempting to share it. Paypal would accept screen captures, in my case, from the WarriorPlus system as "evidence" that someone had downloaded the product or tried to share the download based on the IP tracking and you would see various IP addresses had downloaded the product either in a short time frame or from different geographic regions after checking them.

Now we pride ourselves on excellent support even providing our personal phone numbers to customers to insure they could get a question answered or if they needed support in any way. Never really had problems there either because we provided so much value in the product and did over deliver on what we sold that our phones hardly ever rang and I mean hardly ever. We take care of our reputation here (my husband and I).

So with all that said which Payment Processors other than Warrior Payments can we use since we are now no longer allowed to send our buyers to our own Landing Pages, and Order Form or Opt In page after purchases are made? Am I confused or incorrect here?

Is there an approved list for "carts" you are allowing or recommend??

I know I can set up something like DAP or InstaMember for the delivery of my products but much preferred using the WarriorPlus system because of all it included with not only the security, sales and tracking data but additional promotion through other affiliates via their own network which JVZoo was also good for plus it didn't hurt to get the blessing of having Mike Lantz on board and he mailed for you. That would certainly give one a huge boost in sales.

So in summary regaridng my question... I can no longer offer a WSO which would allow me to enhance the purchase with an OTO, Upsell or Downsell based on the new rule of not allowing the Buy Button to forward buyers to my own sites or order forms or am I not understanding this correctly?

Thanks for your time,
Jubilee

Thanks all for your continued interest.

In regards to the points raised:

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. We found that the seller changed the offer post approval. Appropriate action has been taken.

Just to add to Alaister's point, each software and its function will be addressed on a case by case basis. We're ultimately looking at the intent of the software.

This has always been a rule. Embedding a video is fine, but not to link to external sites for a review. This is similar to Rule 16.

We are yet to see a purpose for using the term except to imply association. Each offer will be assessed on its own merit.

A buy button needs to be on the sales page. When the user presses it, it should take the user to a checkout page. You can offer OTOs as long as it adheres to this, which most platforms do, including Warrior Payments.

The overarching intent of the rule is to prevent sellers from using the WSO marketplace as a means to drive traffic to their website, rather than having a special offer for sale.

Thanks for answering my question above.

Jubilee

Coach, The sellers and legit affiliates. Posting reviews that are embedded in the thread was okay under the old rules (and probably still is under the new ones). The problem was people linking to offsite reviews and setting a cookie or linking back to the thread with an affiliate link, thus effectively hijacking sales from the sellers or the affiliates who originally directed people to the product. They didn't say you can't use it elsewhere. Just not here. And if they want to forbid paragraphs that start with vowels, they can. It's certainly not out of line for them to forbid things that might suggest a link to or endorsement by the forum ON the forum.


Paul

interesting that the first thing I see when reading the special rules is this ad for Do You Want to make your first 3,000 online this month. See attached jpg from the forum. I would like to see these kind of spammy junk ads banned too.

I asked about this rule but perhaps it got missed?

Rule #18: Forced email opt ins

Sellers are not to force email opt ins from customers to gain access to their product. While you are allowed to request the customer to subscribe to your mailing list, this should not be the only way the customer may gain access to your product or service.

Some special offers are delivered via a membership site which requires buyers to register at the site to gain access to the materials.

Is this deemed a forced opt in, and if not can we amend that rule to clearly differentiate please?

It's really good to see these changes being made and implemented. It's actions like this that will bring back old faces and help members prosper in the longer term.