Someone on the Warrior Forum recently asked “What’s happened to MyViralSpiral?”
As it turns out, the main My Viral Spiral site is currently down, as is the customer forum and anyone who had their MVS site hosted by Tim Brocklehurst has found their sites down too.
So what has happened?
I was first introduced to MyViralSpiral back in 2007 at a seminar in Coventry. Before this event I must admit that I’d never heard of Tim Brocklehurst or his software.
Tim stood on stage at that event on the Sunday and spoke about Viral Marketing before finishing with a pitch for his software. He wasn’t a particularly brilliant salesman but it was obvious he was just starting out on the seminar circuit so this almost seemed a “practice” run.
11 months on Tim appeared at another seminar in London and the change from the previous year was quite dramatic. Gone was the casual jeans and polo shirt outfit, replaced by a suit and tie.
Tim strolled onto the stage and, hand tucked behind his back, slowly walked back and forth across the stage talking steadily to the crowd with his very posh English accent. He was obviously going for the “English gentleman” gimmick which I imagine may work well outside of the UK.
The difference was remarkable and the results showed this.
In Coventry in 2007 Tim didn’t seem to convince any of the audience to sign up but in London in 2008 he was far more successful in his back of the room sales.
From what I can gather Tim went on to travel with the World Internet Summit to speak at many different events across the world. He also spoke at other seminars regularly. Videos on YouTube show that he seemed to become very comfortable on stage and fan sites and review sites show that he had plenty of takers for his MyViralSpiral software.
So it’s very puzzling to see that the sites have seemingly been taken down.
If they had been abandoned I would imagine that the sales page would still be live and would remain so until the domains expired but this isn’t the case suggesting that somebody has purposely taken down the sales page. In addition, somebody has very recently extended the renewal on the MyViralSpiral.com domain for another 2 years.
There is very little information on the web about what has happened.
On Twitter someone has directly questioned Tim about the status of his software but he has not replied:
Tim hasn’t disappeared altogether as he posted a “tweet” on the 13th of February 2010 but this could’ve been an automated post as I believe some marketers use software to automate their sales messages on Twitter.
The Google cache of MyViralSpiral.com shows an Apache successful confirmation page from the 30th January 2010. The cache of the customer forum (MyViralSpiralForum.com) also shows the same Apache page from the 1st February 2010.
So it looks like either the site or server has been hacked or somebody has purposely taken the software off the market.
If you have any further information, please do leave a comment below. In the meantime I’ll update this blog post with any information I receive.
One person previously wrote a review of MyViralSpiral pointing out some pretty serious problems with it. Tim replied to the accusations, you can read that particular review below:
MyViralSpiral Review – Manuel Viloria.com
* UPDATE 8th July 2010 *
Read the comments below for an update – it seems Tim may be in a bit of financial trouble…
This appears like more than a temporary hitch. It’s April 2010 now – about five weeks since the web sites went offline.
For the owner and promoter of this product (Tim Brocklehurst) to not have informed his user base what was going on for this long seems outrageous. Like the dragons in Dragons Den say, “For that reason, I’m out.”
Comment by James Collett — 4th April 2010 @ 4:39 pm
if tim has/had a legitimate reason for “shutting down” timsviralspiral well then so be it, BUT for tim to not let his members/subscribers know what’s going on is entirely unprofessional.
now if he passed away, i apologize…
and my condolences.
cheerz,
alex
Comment by alex alaska p — 10th April 2010 @ 6:44 pm
Brocklehurst never provided me with the MVS package I paid for.
I’ve just done a search on the Insolvency Service’s Site and it would appear that there is an IVA against him.
These are the details:
Report Requested For : ALEXANDER TIMOTHY BEN BROCKLEHURST
Report for Individual Voluntary Arrangement Case
Individual Details
Surname BROCKLEHURST
Forename(s) ALEXANDER TIMOTHY BEN
Title null
Gender (Information Not Available)
Occupation (Information Not Available)
Date of Birth 27 April 1966
Last Known Address The Beeches
Rotherfield Lane
MAYFIELD
TN20 6ET
Insolvency Case Details
Case Name BROCKLEHURST ALEXANDER TIMOTHY BEN
Court No Court
Type Individual Voluntary Arrangement
Number 1745472
Arrangement Date 25 May 2010
Status Current See Footnote
Insolvency Practitioner Contact Details
Main Insolvency Practitioner DAVID RONALD ELLIOTT
Firm MOORE STEPHENS
Address Victory House
Quayside
Chatham Maritime
Post Code ME4 4QU
Telephone 01634 895100
Insolvency Service Contact Details
Insolvency Service Office IPU
Contact Enquiry Desk
Address 4th Floor
Cannon House
18 Priory Queensway
Birmingham
Post Code B4 6BS – Click Post Code for Map of Office
(The Insolvency Service is not responsible for the content of external sites.)
Telephone 0121 698 4180 0121 698 4180
Comment by Stephen Moore — 7th July 2010 @ 4:50 pm
Stephen,
Thanks for that info, very interesting indeed!
Looks like things may well have taken a turn for the worse for Tim:
“In the UK, an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) is a formal alternative for individuals wishing to avoid bankruptcy.”
Oh dear.
From what I have been hearing recently, Tim isn’t the only internet marketing “expert” who is facing severe financial problems.
Comment by Ben — 8th July 2010 @ 8:27 am
Screenshots from http://www.insolvency.gov.uk:
Comment by Ben — 8th July 2010 @ 6:01 pm
I have been in touch with Tim, and he claims he advised everyone that he was closing MVS down. The comments from you all, and my co-MVS victims here in Sydney show that this a lie.
The incredible irony is that he is now relaunching himself as some sort of saviour of the planet. His new venture is http://www.conscienceinstitute.org/
Now you know, i suggest you follow him and let him know how you feel
Comment by Mark Allen — 10th October 2010 @ 9:19 am
Sad.
The spiral itself was a reasonable idea – I actually used it briefly.
However it was too buggy, the support not good enough, which is why I turned it off, and the code was just a mess. It did actually catch hundreds of subscribers in one of my niches, but using it was too much of pain/
In my view it was a prototype that should have been structured into a proper product – and it might have done well it had – it was not good enough (in my view) certainly to unleash on rank beginners in the freedomclass.
And for that I am very critical, it should have been rewritten then beta tested before ever unleashing to joe beginner.
Also I had and have a fundamental problem which I argued with Tim on stage the first time I ever saw it. Domains get blacklisted for spamming.
If you allow people to send emails out from YOUR domain, which they clearly can, and let them load up emails from anywhere you will attract spammers who will shut you down.
The other problem is, to use it outside the “make money” niche where people had no clue about affiliate marketing, but you still wanted to encourage them to pass the product on, the man machine interface woudl have looked like the tardis to them!!! – It needed simplifying for people who were not marketers.
The upshot is, I just see MVS as a wasted opportunity, not a scam.
I have seen a lot worse offered in internet marketing for a lot more money.
Just my view…
Comment by Mike B — 28th January 2011 @ 4:45 pm
Tim Brocklehurst is nothing but a thief-period! I was 1 of the early Viral Spiral affiliates-and I paid $197 for it.It never delivered close to what was promised-always down-no tech support-lost passwords,etc.This was 1 of the bigger rip-offs I got caught in.Now,Tim is apparently broke. Good! I hope he lives in a cardboard box for awhile.
Comment by bill springer — 19th July 2011 @ 5:57 pm