- Connect with us on Twitter and Facebook
Stay Connected with Insider's Edge
Review: Stores Online – Free seminars from iMergent
It really irritates me when people in the biz opp world give the rest of us a bad name.
Especially US companies who come over with their slick pitches, hoping to take advantage of the strong pound… treat us like idiots… and sell us thin air for monstrous amounts of cash. I’m talking here about Stores Online.
This great email says it all:
Reader, K.A, emailed me to say:
“I have to tell you about a narrow escape I had yesterday with the above company.
“They invited me to an all day seminar in a posh hotel, which turned out to be a relentless, high pressure sales pitch to buy into their website building business.
“They insist on a minimum of 3 websites at a cost of £3000, promising help and support the whole way and that you can make money within days of starting. But it’s not a get rich quick scheme, huh?
“I escaped before they could relieve me of the money and when I logged onto Google later, I found loads of reports warning people off storesonline, who seem to be in a lot of trouble with the authorities in the us where they’re based.
“Tell people to keep away from them and to bin these invitations as soon as they come through.”
Consider it done, K.A.
Now, I’m not trying to put people out of business here. I’m positive when I find something good, really I am. It’s just that I believe I should pass on what I hear with as little bias as possible. So if you’ve had an amazing experience with StoresOnline, then do write and tell me.
But in the meantime, if you’re about to go to one of their free seminars, here’s what I know…
Stores Online is a multi-level marketing software company based in Utah, USA. It’s a subsidiary of a company called iMergent. At the moment, they are swooping through the UK, promoting their web design services. You’re most likely to get an email from them, or something through the post.
As you can tell from K.A’s email, you get invited to a free 90 minute conference on “How to Make Money on the Internet’. Now, there’s no scam here. You could go to this conference and leave without paying anyone any money. Nobody holds a gun to your head and barks ‘BUY YOU FOOL!’
But these guys are supposed to be super slick. They’ll roll out the biz promises and put pictures in your head. The pictures will be of you with two Rolls Royces, your own million dollar business within 6 months, and Girls Aloud in your bed. You know the kind of thing.
Now they use the ‘drop in the bucket’ trick The idea they pitch is that you sell your products through the shops that they sell you. Or you find a business and go into enter into a marketing venture with them. You have to pay huge amounts of money up front.
K.A .mentions £3,000, but it’s often as much as £5,000 to £8,000.
Sounds a lot, but they’ll use the ‘drop in the bucket’ technique. This is an old direct mail mind trick where you hammer the prospect over the head over and over again with big money promises.
“You could make this money back in your first few weeks… £50,000 in your first few months… £250,000 in your first year.”
So when they ask for the cash, you find yourself saying, “YES”.
One comment I found on a forum says:
“This is the slickest operation I have ever seen and it appeared so plausible that we very nearly got taken ourselves. At the end of the day there were at least 50 people queuing to hand over their money. The only people who will talk about it are those that escaped (I’m one).”
The problem is, there’s no money back guarantee. When you pay, it’s gone. And some people even enter into a financial agreement with them, so they pay for months and months for something that I hear is rubbish.
They say you can exploit niche markets with your own website. Which is true. Then they will claim to help you do this. But all you’ll get is up-sells that cost even more money and do nothing extra. Please folks, this is help and support you can get online yourself, or from any of the online products on this website.
You could even hire your own personal, professional web designer to do the job for that price. It just doesn’t seem worth the money to me.
Posted by Sophie
on November 21, 2010. Filed under Online & Internet Opportunities,Reviews.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
