The headline read “Internet Marketer Responsible For Prison Sentences”

In an unprecedented move the courts today sentenced thousands of unsuspecting “would be” internet marketers to anything from a £1,000 (say $2,000) fine to 5 years in jail for deception.

Despite their pleas of “we had no idea what we were doing was wrong” the judge, looking solemn declared…

“Ignorance of the law is NO defence”

One of the defendants, who happens to be well known to readers of this blog – yes Homer – was excused punishment on the grounds of diminished responsibility (and total incompetence). He is still not over the public humiliation he received from his ex Sylvie Fortin and is clearly not in control of his faculties. Trying to rebuild his life with Marge he embarked on another spending spree that ended with his recent court appearance.

Asked what he had done Homer responded…

“All I did was to buy a really good product on the theme – how to make money online. It was being heavily promoted – in fact most of the big names seemed to love it. I just followed the advice in the product and the next thing I knew they arrived.”

“I was dragged out of bed – at least I was wearing my newest satin pajamas – to be interrogated by the newly formed Internet Police.”

“It seems I’m not allowed to put up a picture of someone else on the internet, make out that I am that person and say that a certain product has changed my life. They said that is deception. The IP actually was quite agitated and told me that I was obtaining money by deception”

“Fortunately, I hadn’t actually sold anything. Between you and me” he continued “despite trying a million different strategies I’ve never actually sold a thing online!”

Fact or Fantasy?

I really cannot say. I just feel there are some very grey areas surrounding certain online activities and posing as someone else to gain financial advantage could very easily be construed as deception.

If, for example you saw a weight loss program being promoted by a 350 lb lump, would you buy the product? If you answered yes, please leave now

Assuming you wouldn’t – would you buy that same product from that same lump if that person had a royalty free picture of a good looking young thing, clearly no more than 150 lbs, stating how much weight she / he’d lost using product X?

If you were in the market I’m guessing you may give the product a go because you believed what had happened to the “promoter” of the product could happen to you.

Now if you knew who was behind this promotion – someone who had only put on weight from the day they were born I think you may think you had been somewhat deceived.

Maybe it’s time for the internet to be cleaned up a little.

What’s your take on this?

Am I wrong – should any amount of deception be allowed? Is this just another form of advertising? Should we as consumers be aware that all that glitters is not gold?

Tell me what you think – and in the meantime be careful what you do and say online – the headline above may one day come true!

The Anti Hype

Related information:

The Wikipedia description of deception according to English Law would worry me if I was up to these tricks!

And in New Jersey perhaps this would be of concern

Do some Google searches and you’ll find similar sites and articles everywhere.

I’m no legal expert but I’d hate to be sailing this close to the wind. I’d much rather know I was clean than rely on an assumption of some sort!

© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2008. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: deception, internet marketing, online fraud, Sylvie Fortin
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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
Post tags: AntiHype, homer, internet marketing, internet marketing sins, Sylvie, the antihype
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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
Post tags: homer, humor, Humour, internet marketing, internet marketing sins, Michel Fortin, Sylvie Fortin
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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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Phil was brought to my attention by our long suffering friend Homer.

Once again Homer thinks he has found the pot of gold and the “no work” easy answer but I fear the worst.

YOU WILL ALREADY KNOW PHIL, or someone very much like him. We know them as Bad Gurus. Phil has one objective in life – fill his ClickBank account. A very worthy objective – provided it is not done at the expense of someone elses dreams and aspirations.

Enter Homer.

Homer, you’ll know by now loves the illusion of the internet lifestyle:

• expensive houses
• fast cars
• Marge (she used to be a fast women, allegedly)
• boats
• international travel
• flexible working hours
• cash on demand

He is, however, still torn between working in his pajamas or underpants. He has read conflicting sales letters and is currently erring towards long johns with a pajama jacket. Kinda likes to hedge his bets.

He still believes, despite the thousands he has spend on manuals, e-books, e-courses, podcasts, seminars, software, mentors, not to mention night attire, that there is one hidden method where riches will fall into his pajama clad lap without any work being necessary.

On his endless quest this week he responded to an email from one of the 98,343 lists he has subscribed to, and bought:

“Scarlet Pimpernel Marketing”

The Sales Letter

The usual heart wrenching story of the orphan, born with one leg shorter than the other. For this poor unfortunate soul the problem was compounded because his other leg was also longer!

With no guide in early life he fell into a life of depravity and spent 20 years of his teenage years in and out of institutions. Math was never his strong point.

Fortunately he learned to tell a good tale and made some great friends along the way – read any of the testimonials!

Despite his background he miraculously stumbled across a method of making money online that until today has been kept secret.

It is time that Phil McLikbanck, for that is his name, repaid the world and helped everyone else now he has made his fortune as evidenced by the blurred out images of Paypal Accounts and Clickbank statements . The blurring is so good there are no names ( Data Protection issues), no amounts, the bank wouldn’t like it and no numbers of visitors, Google wouldn’t like it. But the evidence is plain for all to see.

So Scarlet Pimpernel Marketing is a must for anyone starting out, regardless of background. Sign up today for the immediate discount (it can be removed at any time naturally) and by tea and muffin time tomorrow you’ll be sitting in your good old jimmyjams watching the money roll in.

The risk is all Phil McLikbanck’s of course. If you’re not a millionaire within 28 days there’s a 100% refund, no questions asked.

A click swipe of Homers forehead chip and the deal was done.

“Marge, Marge” a frustrated Homer calls to his long suffering wife. How do I download this Scarlet Pimpernel Marketing manual? Maybe it’s too big to get through the telephone line. They were promising a massive package.

An email was received thanking Homer for the purchase and telling him to log in using the User Name and Password already emailed. Never received and no contact details on the sales page to chase up.

Marge suggests he responds to the email. Doesn’t work – just an auto-responder message with no mailbox attached. Fortunately, within minutes another email arrives promoting the must have accompaning product for Scarlet Pimpernel Marketing – The online Sherlock Holmes Tracker device. While waiting to find the login details Homer decides he needs to take advantage of this never to be repeated offer.

28 days have since passed and still Homer has not downloaded Scarlet Pimpernel Marketing. He has been unable to contact Phil McLikbanck despite the best efforts of the Sherlock Holmes Tracker device, which seeks him here, it seeks him there, but Homer is sure he’ll fulfil his obligation under the money back guarantee, even though the guarantee period has ended – he seems such a nice guy, particularly with his poor background.

It must be just a technical fault because he still keeps in touch by email about other products. In fact he’s just about to launch Claret Pimpernel Marketing. Very similar but updated to encompass the change on Google, Yahoo, Alexa ranking issues.

Homer will buy it no doubt!

The Conclusion

Phil McLikbanck has fallen into the trap of expensive lifestyle, houses, cars, personal pyjama tailor, typical online guru stuff.

He has no long term sustainable business so has to do a big launch / re-launch to generate big cash flow. He has and shows no care for his customers, to him they are just guru fodder and cLikbanck (sic) fillers.

Homer, is clutching at his dream and loves to believe the solution is the next credit card entry away. If he would just stop buying and act on just one of the programs he has already bought he would see what he needs to do – Take Action!

As long as there are Homers there will be Phils!

Beware, there may be a Phil near you.

The characters in this post are, of course, fictional and none of this would happen in real life… or would it?

The Anti Hype

Thanks to Randy at Internet Starting Steps for inspiring this post

Tags: badgurus, scarlet pimpernel marketing, internet marketing, humor, humour, The Anti Hype, guru fodder

© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bad Gurus, guru fodder, humor, Humour, internet marketing, Scarlet Pimpernel Marketing, The Anti Hype
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They’ve decided to focus on one thing rather than buying up e-books and programs on anything and everything that comes their way like before. That’s good I thought, at least if they avoid the distractions they might get something started and stick with it until it started working for them. But…

They told me yesterday that they are now only considering programs where the sales letter promises they can work in their pyjamas (sorry if you prefer pajamas!). And I thought we were getting somewhere!

They won’t be persuaded otherwise. They’ve taken on board the hype and they’re now officially gung ho pajama seeking guru fodder.

Now I don’t want to encourage them with their folly but I did come across an interesting site today that offers just what they’re looking for and a potential business that might work for them. I have to say, they don’t strike me as being technically able, or, frankly, likely to be able to concentrate on one thing long enough to make a success of it. But this domain name business (it doesn’t really appeal to me but I think Homer & Marge may like it) looks really simple and there’s very little to learn.

Now here’s the bit that will really appeal to our guru fodder friends: -

Pajamas are mentioned not once, not twice but five times on the sales page. I can almost see the frenzy that Homer & Marge will be in by the time they get to the end.

Now, the real plus is that we are not talking just any old mention of pajamas. We are talking real guru wearing pajama poetry:

There’s the delightful “passive pajama wearing monthly income” the classic “pajama wearing work from home millionaires” & the aptly named “pajamas lifestyle”. With promises like like I don’t think Homer will be able to resist.

Take a look for yourself if you don’t believe me:

Earn A Passive Income With Your Domain NamesThe owner of the site, Sean Stafford, is not a bad guru – he has simply found the right words to encourage Homer & Marge to get their credit card out of their pockets again. Sean, I’ll be amazed if they’re not on your list by sundown!

Coming Soon…

As an aside, I’ve been working on some of the Bad Gurus requesting they disclose the full details of the pajama ranking system they use and I’ve been promised by the Chief Colonel PJ (strange titles they give themselves – I guess so we ordinary guys don’t ever get to know their real names and who ranks where) that he is seeking approval at the next Bedroom Meeting. Yes, that’s right, they call their meeting room the Bedroom and not a Boardroom. How sad!

As a gesture of good faith Chief Colonel PJ has sent me a photo of his kid – he tells me kids have to wear the same colour pajamas as their guru dads – so there’s a big clue in this!

The Anti Hype

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© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2008. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bad Gurus, comedy, Fun, guru fodder, homer & marge, millionaires pajamas, Pajamas, pyjamas, The Anti Hype
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