Hey Guys,

I'm gonna have to swallow my pride on this one. Up until today I've been fairly proud to not have the traditional scam stories most IMers experience at some point in the beginning.

I made the mistake and let my guard down.

I thought I was clever by outsmarting the so called gurus and seeing through the BS to what was really going on. 

I even took 2 - 3 months looking into WA before I paid a measly dollar to have a look. 

Now you'd think with a bit of experience under your belt you'd be wiser. I went from not want to spend $1 for WA to 9 month later, and somewhat more relaxed about it...to handing over $100.

I consider (ed) myself to be somewhat of an experienced marketer that's clued up to the tricks of the trade and know what to avoid. 

But I just got caught out. 

Here's 2 of the companies involved.

Brain Host

and

My Creative Site Design

The other company I won't mention just now til I get my money back off them. Don't even know which darn company owes me to the tune of $105.35. 

It's going by the name of a 3 way deal.

This is to try and explain to you the 3 parties involved in the deal and the commissions are made from the recurring commissions you pay for the hosting. 

You buy hosting either monthly or annually or up to 4 years. Pay them for that.

That will go through and then the other site building company comes in to give you the free website. 

The content of the site is all pulled from articles base. 

It's the sites that end up on flippa.com to be sold on to some other unsuspecting newbie marketer who doesn't know any better. 

Sites like this which is on flippa 

http://www.guidetostopsmoking.com/

Now, being a WA member we're not trained to get scammed and pass the buck. So I have had a rant at the guy demanding a refund and an explanation as to what the heck is going on. 

Folks like Jay who I know is on the community will probably know the deal that was offered and the who behind it.

The company deals in SEO training and to give credit where it's due, the training is worthy of the price. However,  this thing known as reciprocating is a darn powerful tool. Especially when used along with trust.

Guys like Travis, Jay, Kyle and Carson and ladies like Jeniffer Ledbetter and Tiffany Dow are all honest marketers and I haven't a bad word to say about them. 

But, the guy that just shafted me, I held him in the same realm. He was up there with the best of the mentors I'd had the fortune of learning from. 

Anyway back to explaining how this worked for them

He offered a custom service, previously, to have him build a website from scratch. The cost $1000 and guaranteed rankings.  A lot of members saw success with them and it gave them a leg up for a fast start at earning online. 

It was then withdrawn in January. 

The email comes in yesterday to explain the reasoning.

There was too much demand and it had to be pulled as he didn't have the time and it wasn't profitable. He charged $1000 for a site, then explained there wasn't time to build his own so he was outsourcing to a company. 

http://www.mycreativesitedesigns.com/ 

To see the sites that you will get slapped with it will be like 

http://www.guidetostopsmoking.com/

Look familiar.

They're all over Flippa.com. The only way to make money off them. Pass the buck to someone else and let it be their problem

Cost: $1995 - the same package being offered for free. I highly doubt it. My best guess is that it's a pre-designed website to showcase this so called genius offer.

He explains it is going to be more profitable as he gets recurring commission and we all get the websites built for us.

The only cost is the hosting (which outwith WA) would cost anyway.

Sounds like good marketing practice. Be honest and tell folks you earn from whatever it is. 

After all, we all know nothings for free. 

So it seemed  to be a genuine offer.

Alarm bells started to go off at the brain host site. There must have been a dozen attempts at upselling something or other and while my gut instinct was to get the heck outta there...

I trusted the guy that sent me over.

So I bought into the crap. 

Look out for it. Especially if you're new. Scraping articles from directories to build an entire site with scraped content is history and will never rank. It will cost you money. Not only out your wallet, but your time will be wasted trying to get traffic. 

I have posted in their forum and contacted the site owners about it. I await their explanation and my money back. 

Just to be sure you all know how to identify it. 

A 3 Way Deal...

1 company makes the deal happen

1 company puts a website together

1 company hosts it

The recurring revenue from the hosting gets split between all 3. That's supposed to be profitable for everyone involved. 

How the hell did I fall for that. 

DON'T GET CAUGHT OUT!

As for me, I got caught but I will get my money back.

I have my email open incase he replies when I'm in here. Got one there but it was another member trying to stick up for him. 

"I think the value we get is a video showing us how to tweak things."

Huh! Can you believe that. The value is now being perceived as a video on how to tweak it."

What a bit of trust can do. 

I can build and rank sites from scratch. Why on earth would I pay to be shown how to tweak scraped content. 

This is nuts. 

On top of that it's gonna cost me the days work as well as there's no way I can produce decent content in the mood I'm in.

INFURIATED!

More with myself than anything

Don't let them catch you out guys. As the old saying goes, 

If you want something done right

DO IT YOURSELF!

Robert