It’s a scam-filled rut, but a rut nonetheless.

These past couple months there’s been a trend of reviews here. I’ve covered three things primarily: fake check scams, push-button nonsense, and updates on programs that I like. These things are all fine, of course, but I’ve been wanting to try something new.

That’s where you guys come in.

Send in a Review Request

I need a nice long list of programs or products to try. Is there something out there that you’ve been wanting to try, but unsure if you

DON’T SEND IN…

• “Push Button” Sales Pages – If the program is offering thousands or even millions of dollars for simple work, I don’t want to try it.
• MLM or Pyramid Schemes – These just aren’t my style.
• HYIP or Ponzi Schemes – These are illegal.
• Data Entry or Rebate Processing – These have been beat to death over the years. The next data entry program isn’t anything different.
• Basic Affiliate Marketing Courses

DO SEND IN…

• Programs You Have Tried and Liked – Especially if that program or product has actually made you money or has improved your quality of life in any way.
• Work at Home Aides
• Advanced Concepts in Affiliate/Internet Marketing
• Physical Products – I’ve reviewed random objects as well, including wake up lights, heated mattress covers, and even food.

Just use your own judgement really. If you received an informal newsletter blast about a new product launch, that’s probably not what I want to review. If you saw a late night infomercial on a product that grows tomatoes upside down, yeah, I’ll definitely give that a shot.

I just want to breathe some new life into the blog. It’s getting a little stale.

Do your part and help me out!

Click here to submit a review request

Yes, I know that’s the complain form, but it works all the same.

Can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!

Love,
Steve

I started this blog in 2007 and started working on it full-time in 2009. It’s my baby. I love it and I love all of you. Without you guys, there would be no I’ve Tried That. Some 3.5 million people have visited this site since I started it. For the most part, people seem to enjoy my work. You guys like to email me or leave comments on my blog thanking me for opening your eyes to new scams.

I used to try and keep track of how much money has been saved by this blog, but the task became very tedious. I’d have to guess that it’s within the tens of millions of dollars by now (mainly due to all my work exposing wire transfer scams.)

But alas, some people are not happy about I’ve Tried That. They accuse me of having ulterior motives (“wolf in sheep’s clothing” comes up as the most common insult) and taking advantage of people who want to learn how to make money online. It sucks, but with 3.5 million visitors, someone is BOUND to get angry every now and then.

So, I decided to collect a laundry list of complaints against the site. Here are the most common complaints that pop up (in no particular order)…

I’ve Tried That is a Scam!

Steve promotes the same products he bashes!

“How can you bash data entry or home typing “jobs” because they sell affiliate marketing training and then promote a company like Wealthy Affiliate that ALSO promotes affiliate marketing training?!”

I completely see the confusion. I’ve called out plenty of programs that sell affiliate marketing training programs and I DO highly recommend another. There is absolutely no denying that whatsoever.

The thing is, I don’t bash a program for promoting affiliate marketing training. Affiliate marketing is one of the few legitimate ways of making money online. I bash programs who disguise the fact that it’s affiliate marketing and overload their sales pages with hype to try and deceive people into thinking affiliate marketing is a quick and easy way to make a lot of money online.

The biggest offenders here are companies that label themselves as data entry or home typing jobs. If you paid money to become a data entry employee, what would you expect? Probably something along the lines of getting paid to transcribe data from paper into digital form, right? Would you expect a packet of information on how to do affiliate marketing? Is that at all related to data entry? No! Herein lies what I advocate against.

Here’s a visual aid to help illustrate my point. The following two programs are both selling Affiliate Marketing training. One is the type I warn you guys against, the other I actively promote. Spot the difference!

Again, both are selling Affiliate Marketing training, but it should be immediately obvious which one is actually going to help you and which one is using insane amounts of hype to trick you into think affiliate marketing is something that it’s not.

Affiliate Marketing isn’t a job in the traditional sense of the word. It’s a business that you start. It CAN eventually become a job, but it does take quite a bit of time and effort. It’s not easy to go from knowing nothing about affiliate marketing to living solely off the income you make as an affiliate marketer. It takes a lot of work. I realize affiliate marketing isn’t for everyone which is why I also make recommendations on telecommuting jobs, and other miscellaneous ways of making money online.

Steve wants you to trust him so he can sucker you into wasting money!

My good friend Eddy over at WorkAtHomeNoScams.com (check it out if you’re looking for more ways to make money online. Eddy’s site rocks!) had this to say…

The fact of the matter is you provide various ways to make money online legitimately. Many are free. But when it comes to running a business it requires an investment in the business and or training to run a business. It’s no different than someone going to school for an MBA. You have to pay tons of money to do that! So why would it be different for an online business.

The issue here is there is a lot of misinformation out there about fees and making money online. Too often sites and people are running around saying anything that requires money is a scam. But what really should be said is that you probably shouldn’t pay for a job but when it comes to a business there is going to be an investment involved. In which case you should still do your research to determine if the business is legitimate.

Smart guy that Eddy. Seriously check out his site.

I’ve covered this plenty of times in the past though. When I say “you shouldn’t pay to start a job” I mean, avoid websites that are guaranteeing you’ll make a set wage doing things like data entry, typing, filling in forms, surveys, etc. If they make it sound like you’re going to be an employee of a company and you’ll make x amount of dollars per hour, but want you to pay some fee up front, they’re most likely trying to trick you into buying information and NOT offering you an actual job.

On the other hand, we have “paying to learn how to make money online.” The distinction here is that you’re paying to learn how to do something that you didn’t already know how to do. You want to learn how to make money online? A good place to start would be to seek out a mentor or a training program. Find someone who can teach you the things you don’t know. This costs money because you’re paying for someone’s expert knowledge. You’re not paying for a job; you’re paying to learn. It’s no different than attending classes at a school. Make sense?

Steve charges for some of his information!

I do! It’s a guide that costs $7 and lists 121 work at home jobs.

I also offer free lifetime updates, host contests where I send money to random buyers for no reason other than to say thanks, and have given away nearly just as many copies as I’ve sold. If someone writes to me and is truly struggling, I’ll send over a free copy of the book.

The goal of the book isn’t to make me rich, but to help offset the costs of running I’ve Tried That and to give you guys updated lists of real companies that hire work at home employees. Buy it if you can afford it (60 day money back guarantee!) or send me an email if you can’t.

Steve is a millionaire!

Ha. Ha. Ha.

God I wish this one were true.

Steve doesn’t care about his readers!

Of all the complaints against I’ve Tried That, this one hurts the most.

If you’ve spent any time on the site or have sent me an email, you’ll know my goal is to protect and help others. I can’t even begin to count the hours of free support and help I’ve given out over the years. My I’ve Tried That email account currently has 65,000 emails in it. That’s about 44 emails per day since starting this blog! That doesn’t even include the times I’ve purged my email because I was running out of space.

It’s greatly upsetting to know that people think I don’t care about my readers. I know I shouldn’t let the opinions of a few upset people get to me, but it occasionally does.

One things is for sure though: I’m going to keep on doing what I’m doing. I’ll continue to point out scams, provide legitimate ways of making money online, offering hours of email support, and just helping out all of you in general. I truly hope this blog has helped some of you.

Enjoy the music as well.

Bottom Line: I’ve Tried That is no scam. Feel free to drown out the naysayers and leave a comment below. I always love hearing from you guys.

Love,
Steve

Wealthy Affiliate + 70% off a Membership

It’s been my top recommended Internet Marketing training program since April of 2009. In a world where the Internet changes drastically from day-to-day, the fact that Wealthy Affiliate has been at the top of my list for years now really speaks volumes about the quality of the site. You really just don’t get much better than this.

Wealthy Affiliate is celebrating their 6th birthday this week and as a birthday gift to everyone else, they’re letting people sign up for the price of a membership in 2005, the year they started. This works out to about a 70% off discount. You can sign up at Wealthy Affiliate for 1 year and get unlimited access to all features for just $359. This works out to about $29/month. The regular pricing for unlimited access runs for $97 per month, thus giving you a savings of over $800. This one is hard to pass up on. Highly recommended you check out their offer below.

Click here and read more about Wealthy Affiliate’s discount. — This offer does end on Monday, September 19th. Just a heads up that they’re not offering this forever.

SwagBucks + a Bonus for New Signups

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, we have SwagBucks. It’s a completely free, no-nonsense way of making some extra money online doing pretty basic things. You can accumulate SwagBucks and get paid for searching the web, participating in polls, and a ton more other things.

SwagBucks recently issued a special promotional code for I’ve Tried That readers. Create a new account and use the promotional code: ivetriedthat — and you’ll automatically receive 70 extra SwagBucks just for signing up!

Click here and create a free SwagBucks account now!
Remember use the code: ivetriedthat when signing up for a special bonus.

121 Hidden Online Jobs has Moved

In an effort to help others find legitimate work at home jobs and to get my guide some more exposure, I’ve created an entirely separate site for my 121 Hidden Online Jobs report. The guide hasn’t changed; it just has a fancy new page to show it off. Feel free to pass out the link below to friends/family trying to find real work at home jobs. Your support keeps I’ve Tried That running!

Click here and check out my 121 Hidden Online Jobs report.

I’ve Tried That + Me Personally

Finally, we have Steve. I’ve been a little preoccupied the past couple of weeks, but I can finally start focusing back on the site. Some of you may already know this, but I recently got engaged and have been busy planning a wedding! It’s been fun so far, but man, people do not exaggerate when they say this takes a year. It’s been quite a shock how much planning goes into this thing. It’ll all be worth it in the end though.

So I just wanted to say thank you all for your continued support over the years. You guys are great! I hope you’ve been able to put my research to good use. Hopefully I saved you from losing money to a scam, or supplied you with information on how to actually make money.

As always, please do not hesitate to ask me for help. I’m always taking review requests and I’ll be more than happy to give you my thoughts on whether or not an offer is a scam. All you have to do is ask! I’m also open to any post suggestions or features you’d like to see here at I’ve Tried That. Just leave a comment below!

In the meantime, I wish you all nothing but the best. Thanks for reading and rock on.

Love,
Steve

They’re generally positive, but I do run into the occasional grumpy person who seems to be diverting a lot of misplaced anger at me. I wanted to share a few emails I’ve received recently. I’ll keep the more vulgar ones out. No one should ever have to read those.

Let’s start with…

how do i kno ur not a scammer?

I love this question.

To answer this, I’d want to say the opposite of whatever a scammer would say so I wouldn’t sound like a scammer myself, right? So, let’s see, what would a scammer say if you asked if he or she was a scammer? They’d probably say something like, “No, I’m not a scammer.” So, I’d want to say the opposite of that… “Yes, I’m a scammer?”

Damnit.

Well that didn’t quite work out as planned.

There’s no real way to answer this question. I usually just tell the reader to look at our Archives Page. There are nearly 1,000 posts in there written over the span of five years. Almost all of them are warnings to stay away from a certain program or product.

A lot of these articles rank really high in search engine results. I could very easily change the review to a positive one, slap in an affiliate link, and make a ton of money, but that’s not what this site is about. This is probably the best proof I have to offer that I am, in fact, not a scammer.

You think your so smart but I have you all figured out.

Please share. I haven’t quite figured myself out yet and would love to know the results of your findings.

OMG. I TRUSTED you. And now you want me to pay to see the work at home jobs. I should have known this was all a scam just to get all my money.

The guide in question is my 121 Hidden Online Jobs report and it costs $7. If that’s ALL your money, I think you may have some more pressing issues.

A few people got angry at me when I released this guide. I didn’t really understand the hate. The guide lists 121 different work at home companies that are hiring. It took me well over 100 hours to research and create. I offer free life-time updates. I give away a free copy of my 45-page Complete Guide to Telecommuting. I regularly give away random amounts of money to customers. It only costs $7.00.

Yes I charge money for it, but that money goes toward operating costs for I’ve Tried That. Plus, IT’S ONLY $7. You’d easily spend that money on a bucket of hot wings. I think this is a much better value for your money and you’re not at risk of dripping hot sauce on your shirt. That’s money saved man.

They’re not all bad however. Take this for example…

I need to say thank you. I was just hired as a customer service agent for one of the companies listed in your guide. I had almost lost all hope that it was possible to find a real work at home job and then I found I’ve Tried That. I’ll be starting next Monday and I will be working full time from home! Best wishes and I can’t wait to tell all my friends about your site!

Yes, I’m gloating.

But I just LOVE emails like these. They instantly brighten my day and I get insanely productive.

If I’ve tried That has helped you in any way, please do share. These types of stories help me keep the site going better than any $7 eBook ever could. I love to hear that people find value in my work and that my site has been able to improve your life.

Plus, it’s much better to hear that I don’t suck.

Happy Friday!

(I didn’t know how to end this post.)

I have personally investigated hundreds of different companies looking to hire work at home employees and have compiled the best work at home opportunities into this new report.

What’s New in Version 1.2

The guide was fully updated on 6/8/11 and the following changes took place…

• New companies added
• Removal of companies no longer hiring
• Updated all the dead links & ensured all companies are active
• Grammatical and spelling fixes

What’s Included When You Order

• 121 different Work at Home opportunities all personally screened by me
• REAL telecommuting jobs, not “money making offers”
• Companies looking for employees to fill positions like writers, editors, data entry workers, virtual assistants, customer service representatives, and so much more!
• FREE Lifetime updates
• Enough leads to last you for months
• A free copy of my 45-page Complete Guide to Telecommuting

For full details, click here and read more about 121 Jobs.

Additional Information

• This opportunity is for US based employees only.
• If you bought the guide already, use the download link you originally received to get the updated version. You do not have to buy the guide again!
• Don’t have the link? Send me your name and email and I’ll send it again.

Order Today!

This full report will only cost you $7 one time. Yes, you read that right, only seven dollars. I couldn’t be pricing this report anymore fairly… at $7… the price of a bowl of 6 hot wings… I’m almost giving it away!

For more information or to order a copy of your report, visit the 121 Hidden Online Jobs page.

Enter for a Chance to Win $25!

To celebrate the update of my report, I will be giving away $25 to Amazon to one lucky customer. To be in the running to win simply order a copy of the 121 Jobs report by 11:59PM (EST) on Friday June 17th 2011 and you’ll automatically be entered into the drawing to win. Past customers are automatically included in this drawing as well!

Hurry! Time is limited!

Feel free to leave a comment on this post with any questions you may have!

Steve

For more information or to order a copy of your report, visit the 121 Hidden Online Jobs page.

You see, in my day, scams used to at least allude to some type of work, whether it was data entry, rebate processing, auction processing, or some other fancy technological doodad. Now all these young whippersnappers are running amok promising millions of dollars with absolutely no work other than “Here, push this button.”

Kids these days I’ll tell yah.

Warning: Avert Your Eyes

Here are some ACTUAL screenshots of the headlines for some of the most popular products for sale at Clickbank right now. Yes, these are ACTUAL headlines. These people are really advertising “EASY” ways to make millions of dollars online.

All four headlines have one thing in common (besides being overly obnoxious of course): they’re all advertising “push-button” systems that guarantee instant success.

There’s no real content on any of the pages. There are only made up, elaborate stories referring to proven success that was achieved by the push of a button using some fancy software. The sales pages all refer to hidden, “underground” secrets that were “stolen” from guru millionaires.

Lucky for you, the stolen software that will make you rich will only cost you a few bucks. There’s one teeny-tiny little thing that wasn’t mentioned. The software doesn’t work. But hang on! Mr. Secret Giver has another secret to give. It’ll GUARANTEE success for only $197 more. Still not rich yet? How about this fancy new coaching program! Only $2997 and $97 a month for future lessons! It’s a steal and you’ll be rich in no time! PS. Here is a list of 57 other products you need to buy in order to achieve success.

This is more or less the exact path you’ll follow with any of these programs. They lure you in with a cheap ploy, then hit you upside the head with upsell after upsell until they bleed you dry. Even after that, they’ll come back for more with new products, cross promotions and JV deals.

Truth be told, someone will get rich, but it most certainly won’t be you. Building a business online requires W-O-R-K. It takes time, and like anything else in life, it’s not easy. Stay far, far away from any product that labels itself “push-button.”

While it’s good they’re starting to crack down, I have two major issues:

1. They’re about a year and a half too late.
2. They’re only focusing on fake weight loss scams for now.

As it stands, there are exact replicas of these fake news sites out there with work at home scams instead of weight loss scams that are exempt from the FTC crackdown. I’m happy that they are starting to take a stand, but I wish they’d hurry up and target work at home scams as well.

FTC Seeks to Halt 10 Operators of Fake News Sites

The FTC writes…

he Federal Trade Commission is requesting federal courts to temporarily halt the allegedly deceptive tactics of 10 operations using fake news websites to market acai berry weight-loss products. The FTC seeks to permanently stop this misleading practice and has asked courts to freeze the operations’ assets pending trial.

According to the FTC, the defendants operate websites that are meant to appear as if they belong to legitimate news-gathering organizations, but in reality the sites are simply advertisements aimed at deceptively enticing consumers to buy the featured acai berry weight-loss products from other merchants.

The FTC complaints allege that typical fake news sites have titles such as “News 6 News Alerts,” “Health News Health Alerts,” or “Health 5 Beat Health News.” The sites often include the names and logos of major media outlets – such as ABC, Fox News, CBS, CNN, USA Today, and Consumer Reports – and falsely represent that the reports on the sites have been seen on these networks. An investigative-sounding headline on one such site proclaims “Acai Berry Diet Exposed: Miracle Diet or Scam?” The sub-headline reads, “As part of a new series: ‘Diet Trends: A look at America’s Top Diets’ we examine consumer tips for dieting during a recession.” The article that follows purports to document a reporter’s first-hand experience with acai berry supplements – typically claiming to have lost 25 pounds in four weeks.

“Almost everything about these sites is fake,” said David Vladeck, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The weight loss results, the so-called investigations, the reporters, the consumer testimonials, and the attempt to portray an objective, journalistic endeavor.”

The Illinois Attorney General’s office is announcing an additional case against an affiliate marketer using fake news websites to promote acai berry weight-loss products.

The FTC will ask the courts to permanently bar the allegedly deceptive claims, and to require the companies to provide money for refunds to consumers who purchased the supplements and other products. The FTC charges that the defendants:

• make false and unsupported claims that acai berry supplements will cause rapid and substantial weight loss;
• deceptively represent that:
  • their websites are objective news reports;
  • independent tests demonstrate the effectiveness of the product, and
  • comments following the “articles” on their websites reflect the views of independent consumers; and
• fail to disclose their financial relationships to the merchants selling the products.

The Federal Trade Commission has a new consumer alert to help consumers recognize and avoid deceptive claims made by fake news sites that market acai berries for weight loss. It also has a new video detailing the risks of free trials, which often are used to market acai berry supplements and other products.

According to the FTC complaints, in pitching the acai weight-loss products, the defendants post attention-grabbing ads on search engines and high volume websites, such as “Acai Berry EXPOSED – Health Reporter Discovers the Shocking Truth,” driving traffic to the fake news sites and ultimately to the sites where merchants sell the products. The FTC has received numerous complaints from consumers who paid between $70 and $100 for weight-loss products after having been deceived by fake news sites

Click here to read the full article

As always, be sure to submit any scams you come across to FTC’s Complaint Assistant. Your complaints do not go unnoticed. They are used to help build cases against scammers and help victims get their money back.

So good work so far FTC, but please, shut down the fake news sites used by work at home scammers too.

I also hate their blatantly misleading advertising. We should all be well aware that there is nothing free about FreeCreditReport.com by now and it’s about time the feds started cracking down on this company.

The Class Action Suit Against FreeCreditReport.com

Mint.com writes…

On March 22, 2011 David Waring, a consumer who lives in San Diego, filed a class action lawsuit against Consumerinfo.com, essentially Experian, because of the actions of FreeCreditReport.com and FreeCreditScore.com. As with all class action lawsuits there is a large number of potential class members. Could YOU be a member of the class? Read on to find out.

The plaintiff alleges that he and other consumers who signed up for services via the aforementioned sites were deceived because the credit score provided by Consumerinfo is not the actual score sold to lenders, yet their advertising suggests that it is used by lenders to assess creditworthiness. The score on their websites is the “PLUS” score, which isn’t even commercially available to lenders so it can’t be used to determine your creditworthiness. Experian discloses as much, “Calculated on the PLUS Score model, your Experian Credit Score indicates your relative credit risk level for educational purposes and is not the score used by lenders.”

The problem is that on another one of their sites they state that your “Free Credit Score Matters” and “Your credit scores determine the amount credit lenders will make available to you and the interest rates and payments on mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, insurance policies, and more.” This, of course, isn’t true because none of the aforementioned lenders use your “Free Credit Score” for anything. Further, there is no disclosure in their ubiquitous television ads about how the score you get for free is not used by lenders.

The core service offered by the Consumerinfo sites (and there are a lot more than just the two mentioned in the lawsuit) is actually a credit monitoring service that includes a free score as the “loss leader” to get consumers to sign up. Despite the use of the word “free” in the URL the services aren’t actually free. There is a trial period of seven days and if you don’t cancel your trial credit monitoring service during that time frame your credit card, which you gave them when you signed up, is charged $14.95 each month until you do cancel. At best I’d call this “conditionally free.”

[...]

Who’s in the class

The lawsuit class “period” covers the time frame from March 22, 2007 to present. This means everyone who purchased services from FreeCreditReport.com, FreeCreditScore.com or Consumerinfo.com during that four-year period could be a member of the class. Clearly this means the class size could number in the millions.

I’ve been involved in several class action lawsuits as an expert witness. These types of cases can take years to resolve. As such, we should not expect news any time soon and we certainly should not expect a quick resolution. But, I’ll be watching the process closely and will provide you updates as often as possible, given that many of you are probably members of the class.

Click here to read the full article at Mint.com

To sum things up…

• Your “free” credit score comes with a $15/month credit monitoring service that is near impossible to cancel.
• The credit score they give you is some arbitrary number that actually means nothing to credit lenders.
• If you ordered a credit report from freecreditreport.com anytime after March 2007, you may be eligible to enter in the class action lawsuit.
• Their commercials are still some of the most annoying on TV.

Really the most shocking thing here is the fact that the number they give you means nothing to lenders. You’re paying for a “free” number that has absolutely no meaning. You’d get just as much value if you sent me $10 and I gave you The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything.

Finally, if you really do want to gain access to your credit report for free, you can go to https://www.AnnualCreditReport.com/. Despite the unprofessional name and lack of a .gov extension, it is the only website run by and approved by the government to give you access to your credit report. I believe you can access your credit report once per year per credit agency.

Whatever the outcome of the lawsuit, I desperately hope to see an end to their commercials.

Really I do.

It may host a number of programs that I’d deem scam worthy, but there’s one aspect of Clickbank that really sets it apart from other payment processors. And that is their 60-Day no questions asked guaranteed refund policy. If you order something from Clickbank and it falls short of what was promised, request a refund. They’ll give you one and for that alone, they’ve always had a special place in my heart.

Well, Clickbank has decided to take it one step further and is going to be actively monitoring sales pages for unethical practices. Yes, really. They sent out an email last week warning advertisers to adhere to FTC guidelines and had a few rules of their own thrown into the mix. This is really exciting.

The Clickbank Crackdown

Paul from WorkAtHomeTruth has posted a copy of the Clickbank letter on his website…

“Recently we’ve received a few client questions about issues affecting our industry, such as the FTC’s recent case against Ivy Capital and other “work from home” business opportunities. Specifically, some of you wanted to know how these issues might affect ClickBank vendors, and what we’re doing to address them.

First, please know that ClickBank appreciates the hard work and skill that our vendors put into developing quality products and effective sales messaging that appeals to customers. We want to do everything we can to support your efforts and ensure your products convert as well as possible, while also protecting you from the possibility of getting on the wrong side of the FTC.

We wanted to share some of the most important guidelines to keep in mind when creating your Pitch Page, upsells and other sales material. To ensure that ClickBank vendors stay in good standing with the FTC, we will apply these guidelines when approving new products and working with existing vendors.

Most importantly, please do not significantly alter your Pitch Page after approval. We recognize that some changes are necessary for testing, but if you need to make significant changes to your page (such as earnings claims or images, sales messaging or video content), please notify your Account Manager so we can ensure the new page is also in compliance.

For Internet Marketing products: Per the new FTC information, sales material shouldn’t create the impression that customers can easily earn money without putting in much work, and should give specific ideas of how they’ll earn the money (e.g., content marketing, video marketing, social media, etc). Sales pages should also not overstate how much can realistically be made, or imply that earnings are guaranteed.

The FTC also strongly discourages false urgency/scarcity messaging (for example, “Only 3 copies left!”) when there is no actual scarcity. Closing the doors to new customers after a specified amount of time and reopening later is fine.

Any Pitch Page references to ClickBank sales stats need to be verifiable by ClickBank, and need to have been earned by the methods being promoted. For example, selling an affiliate training product using sales snapshots from a vendor-only account is not allowed.

For vendors using video Pitch Pages, if a Buy Now button appears during the course of the video, the price must appear as well. We also request that vendors provide transcripts of video sales letters when submitting a product for approval.

For upsells, the initial product purchased must be valuable and usable on its own, without requiring the purchase of the upsell offers. Customers must also be able to immediately access their original purchase upon completion of their order, before being presented with upsell offers. An access link may be placed on the first upsell offer page, but the link must be very clear and conspicuous (i.e., not hidden or in a small font). We highly recommend that vendors use ClickBank’s official upsell flows to present upsell offers to customers.

Please submit product approval requests at least several days before your launch, so that ClickBank has time to thoroughly review the offer and request changes if necessary. This is especially the case for products with video sales letters, since making changes to these can take time. We may not be able to accommodate last-minute requests.

To prevent customer complaints, vendors should not close refund request tickets or switch tickets from Refund to Tech Support more than once, and the latter should only be used when actually trying to help the customer and save the sale.

We hope this list helps make our guidelines clear. If you have questions about any of these items, please feel free to ask your Account Manager and we’ll be happy to discuss them with you. We also want to reinforce that our mission is to make you successful, while at the same time ensuring our industry is on a strong foundation that will last long into the future. Thank you for your valuable work, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with you!”

I bolded two of the clauses I thought were the most important.

First, they’re starting to put an end to that “HURRY THERE ARE ONLY 3 2 1 COPIES OF THIS DIGITAL PIECE OF INFORMATION” crap that you see on almost every sales page. Digital scarcity is BS. How can you run out of something that could be infinitely duplicated? Well, you can’t and Clickbank is finally going to put an end to this.

Second, and more importantly, they’re coming down hard on products that work only after you purchase hundreds of dollars in upsells.

I’ve been warning against these types of sales pages a lot recently. They hook you in with offers to make hundreds of thousands of dollars at the push of a button and the product is dirt cheap. Problem is, the product is crap and in order to make it work you have to spend tons of money in upsells on extra tools or support. I’m thrilled to hear Clickbank is trying to put an end to this practice.

I imagine there are going to be quite a few people who leave Clickbank now that they’re starting to put an end to these dishonest practices. Clickbank will definitely take a hit in business but they’re putting the interests of the consumer first and for that, they’ll continue to be my favorite payment processing website.

I <3 Clickbank.

The most asked question I received when I did the “Ask Steve Anything” posts went something like this…

How could you tell us to never pay for a job and then you recommend we join Wealthy Affiliate? That COSTS money!

There’s a difference between paying for a JOB and paying for TRAINING to learn how to start an online business.

When I say “never pay for a job” I mean, avoid websites that are guaranteeing you’ll make a set wage doing things like data entry, typing, filling in forms, surveys, etc. If they make it sound like you’re going to be an employee of a company and you’ll make x amount of dollars per hour, but want you to pay some fee up front, it’s most likely a scam.

On the other hand, we have “paying to learn how to make money online.” The distinction here is that you’re paying to learn how to do something that you didn’t already know how to do. You want to learn how to make money online? A good place to start would be to seek out a mentor or a training program. Find someone who can teach you the things you don’t know. This costs money because you’re paying for someone’s expert knowledge. You’re not paying for a job; you’re paying to learn. It’s no different than attending classes at a school.

Make sense?

There’s another popular sentiment floating around that goes something like…

If this actually worked, they’d let me join, start making money, and THEN pay them. I’m not joining if I have to pay first!

While I completely understand where you’re coming from, I have to disagree with you and here’s why.

If Wealthy Affiliate (or any other online program for that matter) wasn’t an online based course, I don’t think you’d have these same sentiments. In fact, I’d say you wouldn’t think twice about paying money.

Look at it from this angle: say you wanted to become a chef. You’d take some cooking classes right? Would you be upset that you had to pay for those classes? Would you tell the instructor “Thanks, but I’ll pay you AFTER I open up a restaurant and become world renowned and insanely successful?” No, of course not. It sounds ridiculous, right? Another example, you wouldn’t tell a University you’ll pay for your degree only after you got a job. It just doesn’t work like that!

Both of these examples would take you YEARS and TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars before you started making money. I doubt you have any qualms about that, but here we we are debating the few months it takes to get started online at $47 each month.

To reiterate, paying for a job, probably a scam. Paying to learn how to make money online, probably not a scam.

Does this post make sense to anyone? I’d love some feedback here.