I ordered Jeff Paul's Shortcuts to Internet Millions for $39.99 off the infomercial with the two "enhanced" female spokespersons who claim you can make money without a computer. I was got three CD's where one of Jeff's friends, Jim Fleck tries to talk you into the next phrase of their money making scam. Two or three weeks later, I got a phone call from them, where they tried to talk me into another program, where I would make back what I spent and then some. The man's name was Joe (sorry don't remember the last name) who told me I would be hearing from his Department Director who would disgust the program in more detail regarding their all-star program and how much it would help us make more money--that we would get coaching, unlimited training, etc. we would get (myself and my daughter).
A day later, we got a phone call from Joe Peterson, the Senior Director of Office, who claimed to be a retired Wall Street trader, a 61-year-old man, who just wanted to earn some extra money for him and his wife. He had a number of websites using Jeff's system and made "boat loads" of money. He just returned from a two-week vacation in Hawaii with his entire family. He told us what a great guy Jeff was how close they had gotten since joining. He told us the company and Jeff believed is honesty, integrity and a commitment to excellence. (Should have been the first warning it was a swindle).
Then, he asked if we were interested and when he said yes, he said he would have to see if we qualified. He needed personal information and would get back with us by the end of the day. Personal information being credit information, full name, age, date of birth, home address, phone number, etc.
He returned the phone call and announced that we qualified. That we would get books on training material, have a choice of 40 coaches and we would join a service team. He told us the internet industry brought in $41.7 trillion the year before. He sent us to a website using my daughter's first name eileen.com where we would have something similar up in just a few hours. Just a few click on the website autositebuilder.com and we could have 300 websites up in the first 90 days. We agreed. He told us what we would be getting if we joined the all-star program:
1) 5 months of coaching with Jeff Paul package including 9 telephone/internet session with Jeff directly. We were told Jeff held these sessions weekly and they were to teach you his entire course over the nine-week program. It was supposed to be a step-by-step tutorial sessions. That usually cost people $10,000. However, if we joined, it was part of the program. The sessions were 2 hours, pre-recorded and you weren't allowed to ask questions about what he was saying.
2) 4 - 30 minute live coaching sessions with a highly trained coach on website building. They sent you to a website with free pages already put in place. You choice the one that fit the type of item you wanted to sell. There was a list of categories to choice from. This also included a 1 -- 30 minute session with a tax consultant. We were told this usually cost people $5,000 but this was included in the all-star plan.
3) You got a Hotline advisor that was staffed should you had any questions regarding the coaching. This was available in-between sessions and after you graduated from the all-star program. This generally cost $5,000 but once again was part of the all-star program. Found out later on there was an additional charge of $39.95 to use this and a limit time that it was available for the day
4) The use of their software program on building webpage's and content. Normally cost $15,000. However, it came with the program. The program was Auto Site Builder, which is a Content Management System allowing you too quickly and easily builds a web site and add or modify site pages and No HTML knowledge needed! - Drag and drop objects from the toolbox menu. We were told this usually cost people $15,000 but it was all part of the all-star program. (the program was amateurish and no way was it worth $15,000)
5) A two-day boot camp in Las Vegas, Nevada. A two-day course taught by Jim Fleck to take you to the next step in internet marketing. Hotel and airfare were not included. This usually cost $5,000, but we got it as part of the all-star program.
Normally, this program cost over $35,000. However, we would get this special all-star program for only $6,500.00. Now if we earned 20% or have 30 websites up in the first 90 days, we would get $3,000.00 back. After 6 months and have 100 websites up and active we would get the remaining money returned to us as being a special member of the Jeff Paul All-Star Team member and a member in "Mentoring of America." We were told there would be no license or hosting fees, but would be charged $50.00 when we opened a merchant account to handle the e-commerce side (which we never go up and running).
There were something that weren't clear, that each month we would be billed for $108.33 but the deal sounded so temping we agreed to that monthly fee.
The next day, we got our special all-star package that included Strategic Financial Services software (the financial tax consultant that also cost us $65.00 a month to do our books and taxes for us. In addition, become a Corporation. $100.00 charge to become a corporation. Which we did.
A star up introduction package.
Enrollment confirmation form,
Jeff Paul Online Training Course,
Website Software,
Special monthly billing of as additional $39.95 a month after graduations.
All-Star books, pre-printed modules to read and follow to get the most out of the program. Module 1 through 9 and 3 loose-leaf books.
5 Personal Coaching Sessions,
2-day boot camp leaflet that tells you what you'll learn in the classes.
We had to sign a Declaration, Release and Affidavit and return a signed copy. We were told to read the first three modules and then call our contact Jim Peterson. Jim told us we were a member of James's Team and that he would be contacting us in the next few days. We waited about 10 days and still no call, so we contacted Jim Peterson because he was the only contact that had a phone number. He didn't call us back after we left a message. The next day and no Jim and we left another message. By the third day, we contacted our credit card company and told them to reverse the charges. Suddenly, Jim called us back. Told us he would find and get him to call us. We told him, if by the end of the day if we didn't hear from him the credit card company Citibank will be reversing the charges and we would be returning his material at his expense. (God, I wish we had done it.)
Finally, James called us and told us our coach would be Traci and our appointment would be on 11/1 at noon.
He gave us the phone numbers for Client Services and the Coaching Department. This would be just a Welcome call and she was to go over the program in General and ask any questions we might have. Our assigned coach would be Ren.
November 1st came and went and there was no phone call, or on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th. We called the coaching hotline to see what was going on and we were told that Ren had a death in his family and would be out for the remaining part of the week. So they set us up with Martin and we would be calling on the 7th. By now, we had wasted an entire month and still had no coaching session yet.
November 7th came and went and we were forced to call the coaching hotline again to be told that Martin had quit. The rescheduled us back with Ren who would call us on the 17th. Yes, you guess it, we got no phone call again. This time we called right way and was told the Ren was still stuck on a previous call and that Denise would start us off. She set us up with Seth who would go into the setup of the website. Before the schedule first phone call session, she advised us to set up accounts in Paypal and Click bank, and to read the next three modules (4 through 6).
Seth did call us almost 40 minutes late, this time I demanded to speak to a Supervisor. We are almost 7 weeks into this crap; we were tried over all the delays and excuses we had 90 days to earn that $3,000.00 and we had already used up 7 weeks of the 12 that was allowed. We told the supervisor that this was a scam to delay the repayment of the $3,000 and we were going to the Federal Trade Commission to file a formal complaint and wanted a refund of our entire cost. She said she would get back to us after speaking to her supervisor. He called us the next day; Nick and that they would give us 6 sessions, instead of the usual 4. That he had assigned his best coach a young woman named Courage.
She was generally late in contacting us; she was impatient and sometimes rude. There were times we had to reschedule our appointments with her, because she was late and we lost 15 to 20 minutes. When that occurred, we demanded a full session. We were into January 2008 by the time our coaching sessions were completed. Past the 90 days to get our $3,000 back. We were supposed to get some certificate that stated we had completed our training. That never came. Courage had also enrolled us in the advance package called "Big League." Just another site that you supposedly can make more money from according her and it was free, no extra charge.
Why I'm able to remember all this is I wrote everything down, everyone's name and phone number, I took extensive notes (because I'd done web publishing and web development in my previous employment). I asked questions I already knew the answers too to see if they knew their stuff. Courage did, the others kept putting me on hold all the time as if they needed to look up the answer, when they called. In addition, we recorded every telephone call and session after initially speaking with Jim Peterson. Everything is on tape. They recorded us, so we recorded them. After all the delays and games they played, I wanted proof, which was why we recorded our conversation.
The lies are the 3 clicks with your mouse and your up and running and earning that extra income. They give you a name and password, their site was down a lot and when you called to complain that it was done they told us they were working on fixing the problem.
The Financial Company set us up as an S-Corporation and charged us $1,795 and $49.90 every month. The Corporation was set up in Wyoming because our contact person Will Pringle said they had lax tax laws there that benefited companies, they knew what to deduct and it would benefit our corporation so we did it, even though we lived in Alabama. Wyoming had so plan that you could deduct 70% 0f your corporate income. A lot of legal gibberish and they know it will confuse people. When you hesitated, Will told us that was his recommendation.
I'm sure that there is some behind the scenes deal between FSC and Jeff Paul. That they give Paul a percentage of what they get. At least it sounded that way to us.
It didn't matter; we never earned a penny even though I put up a website that only got a few hits mostly from my friends. Pet and a music websites that compared download music sites, the best software to use and the best MP3 players what they offered, etc. We probably spent close to $15,000 with the initial payment, set up of a corporation and the monthly fees and paid phone calls when you needed additional help and got zip in return. These people need to pay for this fraudulent business practices. They've been the only ones who have made millions defrauding people. They should be forces out of business, tried and convicted and forced to return peoples money with interest. By the time you're done with the training, getting the website up the 6 months is long gone, with all the delays and reschedulings and it seems to be setup for that exact reason. Prison sounds about right for these people.
