I’m also not primarily in the business of being an Internet watchdog. It’s not really all that fun. So I tend to ignore most of the scams that land in my inbox, and try to stay focused on delivering value through my own business, and making money in ethical ways online.

Once in awhile something will really catch my attention or make me mad, and that’s the situation today.

The Prelaunch Hype

Over the past week or two, I received several “JV invitations” for a product launch called Free Commissions. I get those kind of invitations all the time, and it basically just means that someone wants me to promote their product as an affiliate. Some of those invitations came from Clicksure (the payment processor), from a JV broker, and from a 2nd-tier affiliate.

According to one of the invitations, the launch is being conducted by Tim Atkinson and Zak Meftah. The JV invite page contained a video of Tim Atkinson, and was signed at the bottom by “Tim Alexander”.

I’d give you a link to the page, but frankly it’s an embarrassment to the Internet marketing community (although it is sadly typical). There is no mention of the product itself or the value that will be provided to customers. It’s only about how much money they made on their last launch (over a million), and how they’re going to make more this time. There are affiliate prizes including a BMW.

What I’m NOT a fan of is when marketers utterly disregard their customers, and that’s the feeling I got from this launch before it even started.

The Emails

In spite of the above hype, I really didn’t give this launch a second thought. After all, I’ve seen it all before.

Then the emails started hitting my inbox. Again nothing new, but what caught me by surprise was two things…

- The number of people promoting it, including some that I’ve associated with in the past.
- The outrageous lies contained in the emails.

“I just saw this sick video on YouTube and it’s received already 1,539,922 views in the last 5 days.”

Really? That’s funny since it’s not on Youtube, and the sales page just went up today.

“This video was shared 189,294 times on Facebook.”

Really… the moment it was launched?

“Good news! Your application has been accepted! Please review the details of the position here:”

What application, and which position was that? LOL

“Your Payment has been approved. Set Up Your Payment Information Here”

Uh huh. I could go an and on with the variations of fake payment notifications, and I’m not even going to bother getting into all the ridiculous income claims.

The Sales Page

After receiving this barrage of emails, of course I clicked one of them to check it out for myself.

www.freecommissions.com (NOT an affiliate link)

Here we have a typical scammy sales video complete with the so-called zillionaire, the cars, the yacht, the girls, the clearly fake testimonial videos, the bank account screen shots.

But here’s what really made my blood boil. The guy, Tim Alexander, goes on and on about all the fakes and scammers. He even goes so far as to say that he’s NOT an actor!

Of course the fine print at the bottom of the page says “In some cases actors have been used.” So I guess that makes it OK for the actor to say he’s not an actor!

The worst part was the ridiculous income claims. Folks, I’m not even going to waste my time, or yours, by quoting the outrageous claims made in the sales video. I’d be typing them up for the rest of the day. The gist of it is this…

You will make hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, with ZERO work.

This is the message that is given over and over and over again throughout the video.

The price was $49…

But when I clicked to leave the page, I was given an exit splash page with a $20 discount. As I continued to attempt to leave the site, I encountered no less than FIVE exit pages.

The final one took me directly to the shopping cart, with an offer to buy Free Commissions for only $9. At that price, I figured it was worth it just for the entertainment of seeing what was behind the curtain…

The Payment

The payment was processed by ClickSure. From what I understand, their business was birthed as a result of the scammiest of products/vendors that got kicked out of ClickBank, who needed a new way to sell.

According to ClickSure’s website, they are based in China and Mauritius. Because of this, it seems to me that they are not afraid of the FTC, or anyone else who might come against them for making false claims.

Last time I purchased something through ClickSure, my credit card company’s fraud department called me within minutes to verify the transaction. That didn’t happen this time (yet), but I was certainly surprised to see this statement on the thank-you page AFTER I paid:

“ClickSure.com is an International Company and therefore due to fluctuated Currency Exchanged Rate, the actual amount that appears on your credit card statement will be slightly different from your order amount.”

Well that’s nice to know.

The Upsells

These guys truly redefined “upsell hell”.

After making the initial purchase, I was presented with SEVEN additional offers prior to reaching the members area.

The first One Time Offer, which purported itself to be “streaming live” was $297. There was no way to bypass the video! I had to watch it until the price button appeared until I could decline. Worse than that, it was totally insulting. It included phrases like…

“Hit the “no” link and go back to your pathetic life of struggle”

and

“You’d be a complete moron to not take this offer right now”

Upon declining I was taken to the 2nd offer, which was the same thing for $197 (but called it a 50% discount). More ridiculous claims, such as….

“$110k a month. All you have to do is copy and paste a link. Literally all the work is done for you.”

From there I was taken to another $197 offer in which Tim Alexander (along with his very busty model friend) said,

“I want to give you my exact website that makes $238,793.14″.

And no, he doesn’t say it’s a copy or a replica of the site. It’s THE site, and he even says he is going to “transfer the site to you.” Again I had to watch this video before I could decline the offer.

From there, I was taken to another video, in which the busty model friend offered to give me the same website for only $97!

From there, I was taken to yet another offer which I was forced to endure before I could decline. This one was $175, and offered…

“Free commissions for life, without ever doing any work, without even lifting a finger.”

Yes that’s a quote, as are these:

“The only thing you have to figure out is how to spend the money. This is no hype, no gimmick.”

“All you need to know is that when you wake up in the morning you’ll see commissions like this, for life, for free. The money never turns off.” (While showing a screenshot of $68k/day commissions)

When I declined that offer, I was offered the same thing for $75. As we were obviously getting toward the end of this funnel, the insults continued to get worse:

“If you’re going to say no to this, do us both a favor and just quit. Go back to your pathetic life. You don’t have what it takes. Are you the loser that most people think you are?”

Apparently I don’t have what it takes, because I said no… and was taken to yet another offer! This one was for a $1 trial. I’m not sure of the total price, as I didn’t stick around to watch the full video.

The Product

The membership area is laid out in an organized fashion. Unfortunately, it seems to be organized in such a way that its primary objective is to get more money out of you.

Here’s a screen shot:

Step #1 is to register for the member’s only webinar (Better hurry, there’s only 10 seats left). Nothing wrong with webinars, or selling via webinars for that matter, but most likely the objective in this case is to sell you something expensive. I made the mistake once of allowing someone to conduct such a webinar with my customers. I will not make that mistake again.

Step #2 is to schedule your strategy session via telephone. Hmmm, interesting that the signup form asks you how much money you have available to invest in your business training! A classic tactic, and a sure sign that they’re going to be selling you some expensive coaching. (The more credit you have available on your card, the more it’ll cost).

Step #3 is to claim your “free website”, which is actually just a video that leads to a web hosting affiliate link. The strategy itself is not a bad one. I’ve got no problem with offering incentives for web hosting referrals. But I wouldn’t exactly consider this to be something worth paying for. If it were my member’s area, I’d call it an “unadvertised bonus”, as I often do with such offers.

Beyond those three steps, most of the members area consists of advertisements. So where’s the product?

There is a web-based squeeze page builder, and a couple of plugins and videos. Those tools and information are OK, but certainly do not even begin to fulfill the claims made in the sales video.

I didn’t find ANYTHING that required zero work. For example, the squeeze page builder has templates, but you still have to write your own copy. Even if it DID do all the work for you, I don’t see any possibility of making the volume of “hands free” income that the sales video promises.

They do deliver something. I would even go so far as to say it’s “possible” to make money with these tools. Squeeze pages are a great component of a permission-based marketing model. I use them all the time, and I make money with them. But that doesn’t even BEGIN to justify the marketing.

I call this a scam. I’m very sensitive about using that word, because it is often not justified by those who use it. I’ve been called a scammer simply for being in the business of teaching others how to make money, and it never feels good.

Often what we’ll see in this industry are hyped up sales pages and products that do not meet all the expectations of those who buy them. That does not necessarily make something a scam.

In this case, the blatant lies, combined with utter disregard for the customer’s experience leads me to label it as an actual scam.

The Bottom Line

Watch out for this one, and others like it. I’ve been warning about these kind of scammy products for years, and we’ll be seeing them for years to come. They will always find another payment processor, etc.

I was really disappointed to see so many well-known marketers promoting this scam. Most of them are not scammers themselves, but in this case are guilty of blindly promoting something without checking it out first.

I thought about publishing their names here (there’s over 30 of them listed on the JV page alone), but I don’t want to muddy the waters and turn this into a hate-fest. Some of them have promoted my products in the past, and/or I’ve promoted theirs. These are guys with huge influence… the combined power to contact millions of people almost instantly. That’s partly why I felt it was important to call out this scam; since I know many of my readers are on those lists.

I do expect some flak from this review, and there will obviously be some fallout from former JV partners when it comes time for me to launch my next product (which is soon).

If you were someone who promoted Free Commissions, I’m asking you to do something brave. Send an email out to your list and retract your endorsement. I’ve avoided naming names (you know who you are), so just do the honorable thing and renounce this scam.

Like I said at the beginning of this review, these kind of things are not fun to write. I do not intend to make a habit of it. But I just couldn’t stay silent on this one today.

As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below

Have a great day!

(Watch this video - it may take a couple minutes to load after clicking it…)

Outline:

I was recently talking to my good friend Nate McHenry, who has also been a long-time Eric’s Tips subscriber, and discovered that he’s been doing some interesting things online. I thought it was pretty cool how he cashed in on this “rally squirrel” idea, so I conducted an interview to share his story with you.

How and when did you get the idea to use the rally squirrel?

My favorite baseball team is the St. Louis Cardinals so naturally I was watching the playoff series between the Cardinals and the Phillies in the NLDS in 2011 . A squirrel ran across home plate during the game and the Cardinals game back and won the game. ESPN and other networks starting replaying the squirrel’s appearance and the buzz phrase “rally squirrel” starting circulating. As I watched the publicity craze I thought to myself… I should buy the domain rallysquirrel.com. You can read more about the rally squirrel on wikipedia.

How did you create the graphics for your “fear the squirrel” and other squirrel products?

My sister is a graphic designer so I called her up and she designed the products.

Did you have any concerns about MLB licensing issues, and how did you get around those?

Yes. I did some research on trademarks, branding, etc. I also received a phone call from a guy wanting to buy the domain after I acquired it and we had some traffic going. He threatened the MLB may show concern, but nothing has ever come of it. I don’t sell any products with trademark logos or words such as MLB, St. Louis Cardinals, World Series, etc.

How did you build the website?

I built my website through WordPress. I learned nearly all of how to build in WordPress through Eric’s Tips and then trial and error.

How did you initially get the word out and get traffic?

Facebook was my initial driving force for traffic and still remains my strongest marketing tool to this day. At the beginning, I did gain traffic through ads on facebook too.

How did you acquire the domain? Was it available?

Actually, when I went to acquire the domain it had already been purchased a few hours earlier. I had a hunch that whoever bought it was trying to flip it because of the sudden craze around the rally squirrel in the sports arena. I contacted the owner and we negotiated for several hours until he sold it to me.

Have you made money from this venture?

I’ve made thousands of dollars selling hundreds of shirts, hoodies, hats, bumper stickers, yard signs, etc. More than anything I’m a huge Cardinal fan and it has been a really fun experience as a fan and as a business.

How did you process payments?

Paypal.

Did you make the shirts yourself or use a drop shipper?

The shirts were made through a local print shop in my city.

It must have been tough to fulfill all those orders. How did that work out, and would you have done it differently?

Well, my basement became rallysquirrel headquarters real quick. The crazy part was that my family had a Disney vacation scheduled before all the rally squirrel stuff took off. We went to Disney World during the World Series which the Cardinals won. My wife and I processed most of the initial orders and then we hired another person to help us as well. I’m not sure I would have done anything differently. If we had really tried to “go for it” and make big time money I may have used an online resource for ordering and shipping products.

How did you build your Facebook page?

Quite honestly, the facebook page built itself initially because of all the media attention. I did purchase a few ads on facebook. During the playoff games, because the Cardinals ended up winning the World Series that year, the traffic was constant.

What is the goal of your Facebook page?

To have fun. I have used it for business purposes, but mostly it has been a fun fan adventure…and I’d like to get to 10,000 Likes …and maybe it will help me get chosen to be in the MLB Fan Cave someday.

Where do you get the content for your Facebook page?

I create it. Sometimes I pull pictures form other fan pages, Cardinals pages, etc. Most of it comes from my mind as I follow the game of baseball and specifically the St. Louis Cardinals.

How have you attracted fans to your Facebook page?

As I mentioned previously-the initial burst (first 1,500 page likes) happened pretty quickly because of the media craze. The rest were built through other fans sharing about our facebook page, reposting or sharing our posts for the most part.

You had a FB post go viral with over 30,000 likes, and almost 1000 shares. How did that happen?

Consistency maybe, mostly luck. I found that one of the players, Yadier Molina, draws a lot of attention if I add his picture or reference him in my posts. He won many defensive awards so I kept posting about his accomplishments and one of them went viral. It was really fun! Up to that point my highest “likes” on a post was around 900 I think. Since then, we have had several posts over 1,000 likes. We may have reached a tipping point in our community.

Did you see any results from that event, such as additional sales or likes to your FB page?

We had several hundred more likes of our FB page.

Are you incorporating any list building other than FB fans?

On our website rallysquirrel.com we have done some list building through contests and promotions for free stuff. We use Aweber.

What have you learned from running this little side business?

I have learned a ton from this adventure. Most of all, I have enjoyed it because being a Cardinal fan is something I already actively did.

This “business” allowed me to do that at an increased level. I learned a whole lot about marketing and reaching an audience. I look at some larger companies that I have opted into to receive their email promotions. One thing that I have noticed is that they send emails on a very consistent basis. Sometimes daily, but always weekly.

I initially wrestled with how many posts I was making, or emails I was sending through our lists. I didn’t want to bombard people. I wanted it to remain fun and not just business. I realized however, that all the FB traffic and email traffic was opt in traffic so people wanted to be a part of it. That mini revelation freed me to stay consistent in my communication and keep the rallysquirrel in front of people. That has paid off. We now have a consistent fan base that interacts in our little community.

The Cardinals made the playoffs again last year and during their playoff games traffic increased steadily. I used this time to increase my communication as well. Through our FB page, interviews we have done with radio stations in the St. Louis area, and other ventures the biggest key is that I’m having a blast doing it. I have a passion for baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals so it has truly been an easy effort.

About Nate McHenry:

I’m a normal guy with lots of dreams. I love Jesus Christ my Savior, my family, my church and they are my priority in life. I have a beautiful wife and three amazing kids. I am the founder of IMchange and spend my working hours (from home mostly) in our organization’s efforts. We host mission trips for youth groups both stateside (in the US) and internationally. We also have a few other ventures trying to make the world a better place. I’m an avid sports fan and the St. Louis Cardinals are my favorite team in my favorite sport of baseball (see rallysquirrel.com). I also enjoy reading, games, outdoor stuff, music, and entrepreneurial adventures.

I hope you enjoyed this case study. By the way, if you personally have a CURRENT and substantial internet marketing success that you think would make a great case study for Eric’s Tips readers (and are willing to share some of your secrets), you can submit your story to my helpdesk for consideration.

As always you are welcome to leave your comments below.

Have a great day!

2012 was a great year for me and my family. I believe we are moving in the right direction, and walking in our God-given destiny. That’s not to say life is always easy. It’s not. But life is good.

In November of 2006, I wrote a series of three articles about the importance of vision for your life and business (later on, this became the basis of Eric’s Tips lesson #13).

In 2008, I began to get a new vision for my business. Here are some quotes from an article I posted on June 3rd, 2008:

“Internet marketing has been a catalyst which has enabled me to pursue some of the bigger passions in my life. My plan is to get out of this business in the not-too-distant future (maybe in a few years), to focus more of my time on some of those things.”

“And in case you’re wondering… no I’m NOT talking about retiring to an island and living a luxurious lifestyle. I’m talking about focusing less on money, and more on family and other things that will have an impact beyond our lifetime.”

I also made some fairly bold claims about stepping out of the Internet marketing hype machine, and not promoting many products for other people.

So here we are more than four years later. Am I still planning on getting out of the business? At some point, yes, but probably not very soon. My perspective has changed significantly. I’ve discovered that I can pursue those more important passions in life, while still maintaining my business.

One of those passions is traveling and visiting new places. Another passion is taking mission trips and helping those in need. In the years since I wrote those things, I’ve traveled quite a bit, and have taken at least one mission trip each year.

This year we spent two months away from home, during which time my business ran on autopilot. I also spent a lot of time on other things outside of business, including a bunch of time processing all those pictures that I took on those trips

Another passion that I’ve been able to devote more time to is painting, and I’ve been blessed to use this gift in ministry at church. I completed over 60 paintings this year, many of which can be seen here.

All in all, I’d say I spent a solid four months of the year NOT working on my business. To that extent, I’ve come a long way toward the vision that began forming in 2008.

I’ve also continued my commitment to run my business with integrity, and to not promote a bunch of stuff that you don’t need. While my inbox is flooded with promotion requests virtually every day, I only promoted 9 products (other than my own products) via email to Eric’s Tips subscribers in 2012. That’s less than one per month.

I’m happy to report that business is great. The business model that I use and teach DOES still work today. My income has not suffered in this economic climate.

I’ve been amazed at the number of business associates and various Internet gurus who have either gone out of business, or seen their businesses suffer dramatically this past year. Some were due to Google’s changes. Others burned out their lists promoting all the hype. Yet others built their businesses on a foundation of here-today-gone-tomorrow tactics.

Unfortunately, some of those guys are digging themselves into deeper holes because now they’re saying “dude, I need to make some money, quick!” and they’re resorting to unethical tactics, while their desperation is starting to show in their marketing efforts.

More than ever I would like to emphasize that the kind of business I teach is NOT a get-rich-quick business. If you use get-rich-quick tactics, you might get rich quickly, but you will also lose your business just as quickly.

A quick update on my personal health, as a few people have asked about it (thank you for your prayers and concern)…

On June 6th, 2011, I wrote about my battle with some symptoms that are called Adrenal Fatigue by some experts. It’s been a rough road at times, but I’m blessed to say I’m about 60-70% better so far.

The road to healing has involved a combination of traditional medicine, holistic medicine, and God’s power. I’ve continued on a recovery plan, and have seen improvements in the applicable tests. I also experienced supernatural improvement in my sleep that began while in Israel last fall.

One of the most important ingredients of a recovery from these issues is reducing stress and anxiety, and the way I’ve been running my business has been conducive to lower-stress living.

Of course it helps to be able to take vacations…

We just spent two weeks in Maui, Hawaii, which was a lot of fun. Below are some pictures from the trip. As always, I hope you know I’m not posting these to brag or make anyone envious in a bad way. I just enjoy sharing pictures, and hope to inspire someone else to pursue their dreams…

I’ve posted more pictures from the trip on my Google+ account: view them here.

When it comes to our economy and society in general, it seems that the only certain thing these days is uncertainty. Tragedies such as the recent school shooting in Connecticut are sober reminders of our human fragility (please pray for the families of the victims!), and countless other tragedies around the world go unreported each day.

I encourage you to remember your priorities and spend time with your loved ones while you can! Remember that the end goal of being in business is not merely to accumulate wealth. As you reflect on the past year, and look forward to the new year, this would be a good time to get a vision for what you want your life to look like. It would also be a good time to set some specific goals, like taking a family vacation in 2013.

As always, you are welcome to leave your comments below.

I wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!