A quick post today just to point out that there’s a new cash gifting scheme being heavily promoted by UK marketers.

Paul Raven and Julie Wilson have teamed up to promote the “Abundant Living System” in much the same way as they used to promote the Number One Success System.

Previously Julie had teamed with Paul Stevenson when promoting NOSS but this time it initially appeared that she had a new partner who called himself “Paul Raven“.

After tuning in to one of their conference calls it quickly became apparent that Paul Raven had exactly the same voice as Paul Stevenson.

Also, all promotional material pointed to Paul Stevenson’s UKMentor.net website.

How strange! Or maybe not… Looks like Paul has decided on a change of name to promote ALS.

Still, it doesn’t really matter. This is yet another illegal gifting scheme, much like the others that Julie and Paul have promoted in the past.

The laws haven’t changed and organised gifting schemes are illegal in the UK.

You can read more about why these schemes should be avoided on the main website:

Chain Gifting from the “Cash Mentoring Team” – Julie Wilson and Paul Stevenson

You may have seen some of the YouTube videos that Shaun Smith seems to be constantly posting.

He is heavily into promoting YourNetBiz and is uploading lots of videos in an attempt to boast about his apparent earnings from that opportunity,

I won’t lie to you, I think YourNetBiz is a poor opportunity and the vast majority of members will lose money. In fact, I think it’s a barely disguised pyramid scheme where money is passed around with no real product changing hands.

Still, the commission on selling the main product is $2,000 per sale so it’s no wonder that many people are promoting it.

Back to Smith and his video production endeavours…

I’m dubious.

I’m dubious about Shaun’s past and his claims.

The first thing that worries me about Shaun Smith:

I wonder about his latest video that has been posted on his top-income-system.com website on 28/09/2009.

On that page Shaun states:

“If you like the idea of making £1,248.11 in one day, then don’t delay start TODAY?“

Not sure why he put a question mark in that sentence but we’ll ignore that for the moment.

In his video Shaun claims out that he received a payment for £1,248.11 on the 28th September 2009.

I am aware that Shaun promotes YourNetBiz and that YourNetBiz has a membership level that is known as the “Gold” level.

To join at that level you must pay $1,995 to your sponsor. The rules state that your sponsor must then distribute that money. He must send $295 to YourNetBiz’s owners and he must send $300 to his own sponsor, leaving a maximum of $1,400.

According to FXHistory the USD/GBP rate on the 28th September was 1.59590.

A payment of $1,995 on that day would become, roughly, £1,250.08 which, when slight rate changes are taken into account, could become around £1,248.11.

So if you were ignoring any distribution to the company owners or any distribution to his sponsor, it is possible that Shaun received a payment of £1,248.11 in his merchant account on the 28th September 2009.

However, I am doubtful that Shaun “made” that amount of money.

After fulfilling his obligations I would imagine that he netted closer to £875 (around $1,400). If he used a PBA to close the sale the amount would’ve been even less that that.

The result of all this is that Shaun is claiming to “make” £1,248.11 when it is likely that he actually made about 2/3 of that or less.

Yes, it’s still a nice amount of money to make and I’m sure that many people would like to have that kind of money paid into their account. The issue is that it seems he is claiming to make more money than he actually is.

If it is an exaggeration then I must ask the question: what other earnings is Shaun Smith exaggerating?

The second thing that worries me about Shaun Smith:

I took a few minutes to do a Google search and found some very worrying articles regarding Shaun’s past problems with the authorities.

The first I found was from a well-known national UK newspaper, the Daily Mirror, featured on the Mirror’s website mirror.co.uk:

Court you at last

Dated 21st September 2001 it states that Smith, along with a couple of accomplices, was tried at Stafford Crown Court.

The Mirror said that:

“…after a nine-week trial [the jury] found [Shaun] Smith, 36… guilty of five fraud charges…“

Another article elaborated on Shaun’s conviction:

Homeworking scams con-men found guilty of conspiracy to defraud

Here it stated that Shaun Smith was found guilty of “conspiracy to defraud”.

It seems that Shaun has had some very serious problems in the past and, according to one website, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for his involvement with a homeworking scam.

His videos seem to suggest that he exaggerates his income and newspapers report that he was convicted of fraud just a few years ago.

For these reasons I would never be able to recommend any of Shaun Smith’s products or business opportunities.

It’s always interesting to keep tabs on certain dubious marketers to see what they are currently promoting.

When somebody actively promotes an illegal cash gifting scheme, and continues to do so when they have been warned that it is illegal, it suggests that they have no problems promoting dodgy schemes.

Likewise a man who went to prison for several years for a home working fraud, then got out only to start promoting various internet businesses with fake proof of earnings isn’t to be trusted.

So when both of these people start promoting the same opportunity it means the opp should be examined very closely.

The opportunity I am referring to was previously known as “MyInternetBusiness.com” or MIB for short. Earlier this year the name was changed to YourNetBiz.com.

Name changing? More warning signs. Noss123, the illegal cash gifting scheme, was previously known under lots of different names with the organiser changing the name regularly to try and delay the inevitable problems it will face from the authorities. As far as I am aware it has now changed names again to tlc2003.

YourNetBiz is currently being heavily promoted by many people with hundreds of Youtube vids dedicated to it and a glut of review sites springing up and singing its virtues.

Myself, I’m not too sure about this one. I’m always of the opinion that if the main source of money is recruiting other people into the scheme then it’s bordering on being a pyramid scheme.

I have other problems with YourNetBiz, all of which you can read in this report:

An Outsider’s Review of YourNetBiz aka MyInternetBusiness

Comments are welcome below.

Please remember that all comments are moderated and that this isn’t a free advertising blog.

Affiliate Jump was launched last week with usual launch fanfare i.e. lots of affiliates aggressively mailing their lists, seemingly desperate to get to the top of the “leaderboard” of JV partners.

It seems to be some kind of CPA network – CPA meaning “Cost Per Action” – where you basically earn commission by getting people to fill in forms. Sadly it also usually involves “free trials” and forced continuity as the money has to come from somewhere to pay for all those forms people fill in.

CPA has been a buzz topic for months now and it’s no surprise that Filsaime has decided to jump onboard the trend. I am slightly surprised though to see that there is no guarantee to this opportunity and some CPA experts aren’t convinced that it’s worthwhile.

It seems that Affiliate Jump is pretty much just a CPA network that you have to pay $200+ to join whereas most CPA networks are free to join.

Also, you share any commission you make with Mike and his partners which is not ideal.

I’ve read some reviews by some very disappointed people who have, quite rightly, asked for their money back because they aren’t satisfied with the quality of the product. Those same customers are also complaining that they are being refused refunds.

One was kind enough to post the response from the Affiliate Jump support desk:

“Please note that there are no refunds for Account Activation fees or your first month of service. Because of this, we’d encourage you not to cancel and to stick with the program.”

The “Account Activation” fee is $200. The “first month of service” could be $39.95, $89.95 or $99.95 depending on the level chosen by the customer and is an ongoing monthly fee.

Therefore any disappointed customer who wants a refund and is refused it will be out of pocket to the tune of between $239 and $299.

In my opinion, this is unacceptable.

According to the small print during sign-up, the $200 fee is refundable only when (if?) you earn $1000 through the program. On the affiliate signup page, potential affiliates are told that until the 23rd of August they will earn $200 for each new member they introduce.

So it seems that the $200 “Account Activation” fee is actually the affiliate commission which may go some way to explain why it is non-refundable.

I was under the impression that best practice for marketers is to refund immediately whenever there is a complaint. It’s extremely disappointing to see that a well-known marketer like Mike Filsaime is putting his name to a product where unhappy customers are denied a refund.

Please heed this warning if you were looking at Affiliate Jump with an intention to buy – if you are unhappy with the quality of the product you may find it difficult to get a refund…

** UPDATE 19/08/09 **

There are rumours on certain forums that people are now being issued refunds so perhaps the marketers behind this product have decided to retract their “no refunds” policy. Let’s hope so!

Spam email hasn’t been a problem for me now for almost 3 years because I signed up with the marvelous SpamArrest back in 2006.

My inbox is always immaculately clean because the one truth about spammers is that they never use a real email address. Consequently they cannot receive the challenge email that they are auto-sent by SpamArrest and they cannot complete the whitelisting procedure.

So all spam stays in the ‘Unverified’ folder where I can occasionally check to see if any proper email has slipped through.

It was yesterday when I found what I think is the best email subject line ever used by a spammer:

“We are too lazy to change subjects every day, please buy our viagra”

Brilliant.

Not so brilliant is the news that one particularly dodgy internet marketing ‘opportunity’ has been re-released just a year after it was last unleashed on the public.

Let me ask you a question or two. If you…

• Released a product which was largely described as ‘crap’ by its buyers
• Released a product which was so falsely described in the sales video that it prompted over 200 posts full of complaints on the most popular internet marketing forum around
• Released a product with a 60 day 100% money back guarantee which you wouldn’t honour
• Told complaining customers to ‘GET A LIFE’
• Provided customers with websites and products they were supposed to sell but could end up in trouble if they did so
• Had your staff sign up to an internet forum under a variety of different usernames in order to try and argue on your behalf against your complaining customers
• Blatantly lied in emails to your customers – and were undeniably found to be doing so
• Threatended complaining customers with legal action for publishing their poor experience of purchasing from you
• Had a raft of complaints written about you and your company on RipOffReport.com because of one product

… what would you do with that product?

Let me guess – you’d either look at the sales process, the product itself and your existing customer support infrastructure and make drastic changes or you’d stop selling the product completely and try and make good with your tarnished reputation.

Personally I’d do the second – stop selling the product immediately and then try and make amends with all the customers I’d pissed off.

What I wouldn’t do, and what I imagine most reasonable human beings would not do, is re-release the same product with the same name exactly as it was the previous year with the same sales video and price.

Guess what this idiot did?