As you know he has been in big trouble of late but with some skillful negotiating we managed to get refunds on all of the internet marketing courses he recently signed up for and his credit card company are no longer hounding him. He went away, cap in hand, and promised not to spend anymore on courses and “make money” products.

And today he was excitedly telling me he’d given up internet marketing for good.

He went on to tell me he had bought a bookstore of all things from a certain Mr Wong who for some reason wasn’t doing too well. My eyebrows raised – “why oh why Homer can’t you just do something straightforward” I thought.

“It was a bargain” he told me, ” it is in the centre of town and has loads of passing trade and a website – but the last owner tells me the biggest potential is the telephone / postal service. Apparently he gets hundreds of calls a day but for some reason people keep putting the phone down as soon as he announces the name of the shop.”

“I can’t think why Mr Wong isn’t making any money from it. I know I can – I’ll even have a section where I’ll sell off all my internet ebooks. I’ll print them out and make a fortune – I have enough stock to last several years without buying anything else.”

OK, Homer I said – take me to take a look at the store.

My heart sank. Does that guy never think?

So who cares about product names!

Sometime I despair – I know Homer will be back on the internet marketing trail after he’s answered the phone a few times!

As usual Homer failed to do his research

© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Hot on the heels of my expose earlier Sylvie admitted as much in her comment left here.

She kindly gave me advance warning of the revelations made by “John” on national TV.

John (aka Homer) is seen here in his first TV interview:

Some deep, dark secrets are revealed by Homer here and I strongly recommend you don’t caught up in such a tangled web. My guess is the perpertrator of this horrendous “opportunity” was no less than the guy who wrote to me in March 2008

Here’s why Success Is Only Possible if You Take One Bite At A Time

© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Homer's TV Debut, Success Chef, Sylvie Fortin
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Well, I think it’s funny!

And I don’t mean funny – ha! ha! – I mean funny – strange!

Ever since I revealed the , er, “relationship” between Homer & Sylvie Fortin I’ve seen less and less of him. In fact he’s been so quiet of late I thought he’d left the internet scene altogether.

And today you’re about to discover the reason why…

Homer has started a new career. Now I don’t know whether Michel Fortin meant to let the cat out of the bag but his blog post today did just that!

Clearly Sylvie decided to rekindle something with Homer and offered him a part in her epic film that has just been released. You can watch the full length feature below.

Homer of course would jump at the chance to become a celebrity and of course would be taken in by the business opportunity presented as the plot of this outstanding movie.

Sylvie, if you are planning a sequel be warned that Homer will undoubtedly be immersed in a new direction – he has clearly seen that making money by using a ghost writer is the way to go!

Now it’s obvious she couldn’t use his real name and how she persuaded Marge to co-operate I haven’t yet found out but anyone who knows Homer will immediately recognise him in this video.

Click here for more information and a demo video!

I’m only prepared to let this slip without asking Sylvie for my share of the Royalties for Homer’s appearance because I like her Success Chef program so much.

But if I find out Homer has been nominated for an Oscar there’ll be trouble!

© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: homer, humor, internet marketing sins, Michel Fortin, Sylvie Fortin
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Following my earlier revelation Sylvie interrupted her writing to admit to her brief, albeit unsatisfying affair with Homer.

Read her revelation here:

Sylvie’s admission

On a serious note, thank you Sylvie for being such a good sport and joining in the fun.

You may wish to follow Sylvie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sylviefortin

The AntiHype

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This is what happens when you take a holiday.

I’ve been away for just over two weeks and I return to an unprecedented upset.

Randy (The Hermit) is upset with me for not giving him credit for introducing Homer to Sylvie Fortin.

Michel (Sylvie’s husband) is clearly upset with me for introducing Homer to Sylvie. He’s been around here again looking for evidence! You can still see him below as I write.

Sylvie, however, appears to be the only happy one out of them all. She’s not retracted here positive comment about Guru Fodder “a Must Read” from her blog – so that’s my assumption anyway.

And here I am caught up in the middle of this messy threesome – Homer in his pajamas, Randy Baustert – the introducer – & Sylvie Fortin whose only “crime” is to write an excellent report slamming some of the underhand marketing tactics used online.

So let me put the record straight.

Randy told me about Sylvie’s report – The Internet Marketing Sins. I took a look and liked what I read. So Randy, thanks for the introduction. Randy is already known to Michel & Sylvie Fortin – if you don’t know him you should. He runs an excellent site called Marketing Beginners – and you can read more about him at his blog. Although he lives in the Virgin Islands his time spent living in the UK sounds very interesting – see Being Randy In The UK

Loads of innuendo’s in that lot!

I thought the report would be great to quench Homer’s thirst for internet marketing products. In fact, secretly I believe Sylvie was actually writing about Homer in part of the report. (If so that suggests she knew him long before Randy told me about the Internet Marketing Sins report – the plot thickens!)

Now, in all of this mess – Homer has gone quiet again. For obvious reasons I can’t ask Marge what has happened for fear of adding another dimension to this farce.

My conclusion is I should leave them all to sort themselves out. Perhaps in future I should simply say -

Read Internet Marketing Sins by Sylvie Fortin – it’s outstanding.

But if I did, I wouldn’t be The Anti Hype would I?

The AntiHype

© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2008. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Michel Fortin found out about Homer getting into bed with Sylvie (as reported here a few days ago) and came looking for him. (You may still see Michel in the BlogLog widget below if you’re quick).

He obviously confronted Sylvie. Sylvie in turn has admitted to knowing Homer and she seems to have developed a soft spot for him as she says the post is a “Must Read” where she refers to the post on her new Internet Marketing Sins feedback page.

Don’t forget you can access the whole report at Internet Marketing Sins.

You’ll be glad you did.

The AntiHype

© admin for guru-fodder.com, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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I first heard of him last night, so it’s real coincidence I’m going to his manor today.

Ziggy is a Polish immigrant who sweeps roads for a living.

So what’s that got to do with the internet?

Quite simply, Ziggy is now an internet celebrity as a result of his very own style of sweeping. He takes his ipod with him and dances as he sweeps. Without the internet the videos of him dancing would not be seen and he would not have become the tourist attraction he is today.

Clearly, Homer has a thing or two to learn from this guy – how to get internet exposure.

I can just see him doing a twirl or two in his Guru Pajamas. Anything for some exposure. I just hope he remembers to button up properly!

Which reminds me I must check with Marge to see if he is out of his hypnotised trance yet.

On a serious note, this is exactly the type of outrageous publicity that Joe Vitale talks about (see Hypnotic) and although Ziggy doesn’t appear to have an agenda, marketing seems to be about daring to be a little different!

The AntiHype

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Post tags: chiswick, chiswick london, homer, hypnotic, internet celebrity, joe vitale, marge, road sweeper, the antihype, ziggy
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Could this be Homer & Marge out for a Sunday afternoon drive?

Let me know what you think.

The Anti Hype

© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2008. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Image via Wikipedia

Homer Wants An Ice-Cream

Sitting at his PC, adorned as always in his perfectly ironed pseudo satin pajamas, Homer heard the distant chimes of the Ice Cream Man’s Van.

Could he afford the time away from the world he inhabited? The cut and thrust of the Make Money Online the Bad Guru way? Surely, 2 minutes wouldn’t be a problem.

He called to his adoring wife “Marge, I want an ice-cream”

“Get it yourself” came the loving reply, for Marge had frankly lost interest in Homer and his desires.

And so began the sad, sad story of Homer and the Ice Cream Vendor.

The Ice Cream Vendor Mantra – Don’t Move The Van Until You Sell Something

Hiding the smirk from his face (the sight of Homer in his pajamas is not one for sore eyes) the Ice Cream man launched into his sales patter…

“It’s your lucky day – I’m giving away Ice Cream today, you just have to buy the cone”

“So it’s a large cone for you is it sir?”

“Now before you go, if you buy another ice cream (full price) you can have all five in my range – vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, tutti-frutti and passion fruit and mango”

“What do you mean “no thanks I’ll pass on that offer – I know I’ll only ever be asked this once?”

“Now before you go…”

He was begining to sound repetitive and somewhat like some guys we all know.

“…if you buy 5 out of my range, you’ll get them for the price of 1″

Even to poor old Homer, hardened by the daily online pitching he subjected himself to, he saw this was going to end in tears. He only wanted one ice-cream and Marge hated the stuff. He watched as the melting vanilla ice-dream dribbled down the side of his cornet and the ice-cream man launched into his final pitch…

“Look, you cannot lose. You have my 30 day, money back guarantee. This is a never to be repeated offer. You take your pick from my catalog of top-selling ice-creams. You get the 5 for the price of one deal. Pay a little more and you get chocolate chips, strawberry sprinkles, raspberry sauce, chocolate sauce, maple syrup, jelly diamonds and I’ll throw in two chocolate flakes as my extra special fast action bonus.”

Now that sounded like a Homer deal.

And then the clincher…

“Sign up today and I’ll be back every week with more. All you need to do is complete this recurring credit card payment voucher and…”

Marge Is Not Amused

“Homer, you’ve been in there for two hours. What is the matter?”

Emerging from the bathroom looking slightly green and decidedly drawn Homer still managed to exude the look of someone pleased with themselves.

“Marge, you won’t believe the deal I’ve just done” he screeched triumphantly.

“I think I might” mumbled the less than amused Marge, picking a red, maple syrup stained jelly diamond from off the collar of his now crumpled pajama jacket.

“I’ve arranged delivery of ice-cream every week for a year – no more looking for loose change – it’s all on recurring credit card payments, we get 5 for the price of one and every topping you can imagine”

“Homer, you went out for a small vanilla cone! You’ve been taken in again – you’ve bought stuff you don”t need, stuff you don’t like and stuff you’ll never use AND you’ve agreed to pay monthly for all this stuff with a guy you’ve never seen before and in all likelihood will never see again. Did you get his contact details or his van’s registration number?”

Marge, was becoming very experienced!

“He didn’t have any contact details and I was in such a rush to make sure I got everything he was offering, it just kept coming at me thick and fast and I didn’t want to miss anything and when I looked up the van was gone.”

Marge raised her bushy eyebrows – her days of making herself look her best for Homer had disappeared shortly after the Pyramid Selling fiasco in Egypt – and she sat at Homer’s PC to ask someone, somewhere to beam Homer up – somewhere!! And there was the sales pitch…

The free product, the OK take your pick from my range, buy this, I’ll add that, what about this, and a few of those – it mirrored the Ice Cream man’s pitch. Was the ice cream man really a Bad Guru?

Homer’s hard drive was so clogged up with stuff he didn’t want, didn’t need but it was free, cheap, not to be missed, a One Time Offer, an OK so you can’t afford it but here’s a discount offer and if you get that I’ll throw in my bonus pack. It looked just like that mess of an ice cream he came in with a few hours ago!

Marge thought it was all bull.

And it was just at that point Marge had her idea.

… to be continued. Don’t miss out on Marge’s idea. Sign up to the Guru-Fodder RSS feed above.

The Anti Hype

P.S. This post was inspired by a real life “pitch” I received only this week!

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photo credit: david.nikonvscanon

© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2008. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Homer has been very quiet for the past week or two.

I thought maybe he’d found “the light” and settled down to get on with building his business.

I should have known better!

Marge called and told me the sad story…

“Marge, this is the one! And it is only $1. We can’t go wrong. Get the catalog out and order up them new pajamas – Homer’s going to town”

“Mr Anti Hype, I knew right then it would end in tears but there’s no talking to him when he’s got those $ signs in his eyes.”

“He’d seen an offer from a retiring Bad Guru who was selling everything for just $1. He couldn’t fail. An established business, high levels of loyal traffic – I just carried on with the ironing (he has so many pairs these days) because I’ve heard it so many times before. Well, he whipped out the credit card as quick as you can say “guru fodder” and he was up and running.”

“I was waiting for the one time offer – but no, I didn’t hear another word. Maybe the download failed. No, everything was fine.”

“Of course, he did nothing with the information but then it happened. The credit card bill arrived. There was the $1 charge but then recurring monthly payments for $30″

“Marge, I honestly didn’t sign up for that!. I know I overspend – I know I try my hardest to make you rich” – he’s such a romantic at heart – “but this time I really didn’t agree to a continuity program. It was my last $1.”

So poor old Homer got caught in the Forced Continuity Program scam.

He’s lost the sales page. For $1 only he didn’t bother to keep a record and now can’t remember what he downloaded or from where.

The credit card company don’t care. “You’ll have to cancel with the vendor” they state. But when you don’t know who the vendor is that’s a tad difficult!

Yes, I’m afraid this one is for real.

Do the guys intend to steal like this?

Does it matter? If you get caught you have a major job unraveling it, whether it was intentional or not.

In many cases, if you have loads of credit card transactions you may not even notice the payments going out for months – then it’s too late. No refund even if you can track the vendor down – it’s outside the Money Back period.

Work out your business strategy. Decide what you need and only buy what you need to move your business on when you need it.

Check carefully whether you’re signing up for a one-off payment or some regular recurring membership site. And above all – keep records of what you’ve done.

I use Flock – I love it – and create a folder in the sidebar immediately I see a site I’m interested in. Simply name the folder the name of the product and drag the URL of the sales page from the address bar into the folder. Do the same for any One Time Offer and Thank You page and the Download page when you get there. Everything stored to refer back to.

It won’t prevent scams but it may make life a little easier to sort out if you get caught.

Be careful out there

The Anti Hype

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© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2008. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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