Tag Archives: fraud

Either It’s Free. Or not. Period.

C’mon, marketers. Either you are giving me something for free—or you are making a fraudulent come-on. 

I’m not saying you have to give anyone anything. Far from it. You are in business. No one expects that.

But be honest about what you are offering. Whether it’s a forced-continuity membership or “low fee for shipping,” that is not free. If there are any strings attached that require payment, it is not free.

[Whether or not "free" actually applies to things you give in return for the site visitor narking on---I mean, giving you the email addresses of---his or her friends is another quibble for another day.]

If you are offering a gift with purchase (normally referred to in Internet marketing as “a bonus”), say so. Call it a bonus. Don’t pretend it is a gift.

All these little scams (and, Yes, they are scams on a small scale) are simply making me unsubscribe from your list and/or delete your mail without opening. Do you think I’m the only one? Thank again.

Look at it this way: If you will scam me on small things, why should I trust you at all?

And on that shipping and handling scam: The last thing I need is more CDs or DVDs to store. Plus, this is the Web. If I want your info at all, I want it right now! Not whenever the post office gets around to processing it.

So there. I’ve said it. I feel better. How about you?


Tired of Being Urged to Make Crappy Products?

I am sick of Internet marketing “gurus” teaching people to make and sell crappy products—such as ebooks on topics they know nothing about—by simply relabeling and reselling the same old, tired private label rights products everyone already has.

Does this Constitute Fraud?

Just last night I listened to a guy urging people to do those things. 

On the webinar the guy used as an example a niche that he *clearly* (and admittedly) knew nothing about. Yet part of his sales copy was a *guarantee* that the processes he made up or swiped and cobbled together were not only effective (How on *earth* would he know?) but also safe. In a field that is extremely active and known to be physically quite dangerous.

Can you say “lawsuit waiting to happen when someone is injured or killed”? And rightly so. In effect, the guy is urging us to commit fraud.

Can you imagine that he is going to do more than refund the purchase price when his product (and his *guarantee*) result in someone being crippled and confined to a wheelchair for life? Yeah. Right.

Abusing Private Label Rights (PLR) Products

I recently feel for a sales ploy and bought another “brand new” super duper, highly touted “complete step-by-step system”. It not only led to the kind of OTO bait-and-switch process I described in a recent post, it also turned out to be a barely relabeled PLR product. It was so bad that parts of the OTO still had the title of the original ebook in the header. 

Fair enough, you may say, if it was a good product. But it was crap. It was fluff. Generalities. Nothing useful.

Not only might I already have owned it. (Who wants to pay twice for the same ebook with a different title and cover?) It was useless to anyone. So far from being a complete, step-by-step process, it was actually just several “modules” of…well, nothing much. And old, vague, useless nothing much at that—but with important-sounding titles.

So if anyone tells you to create products on topics you know nothing about, don’t do it. At the very least, you will be unmasked and laughed out of your chosen niche. At worst, you could end up sued for everything you own—or, in some jurisdictions, even end up in jail. 

If you are going to repackage private label rights products, start with *good* ones. Then really do something to improve them. Combine two or three to make one much better product. Add information. Update instructions. Contribute some useful ideas.

In other words, create a new product. Make the product actually worth the money for your customers. 

That is how you develop a good reputation and a loyal following. Come on, take the pledge: “No more crappy products!” There now, don’t you feel better?