Article by Charlie Wright
I’m not sure why this happened…
Perhaps you can tell me…
But this August saw the greatest amount of unsolicited junk email hit my inbox EVER.
It was a deluge.
I had about 200 emails when I got back from my brief Devon holiday, only 40 of which were from my subscribers. On the bank holiday weekend I got 73 dodgy emails in 3 days. That’s not including the many more which were blocked by my filters.
Don’t these spammers take a holiday?
Most of it was that gobbledegook rubbish, or emails proclaiming that some A-list celebrity was dead. Someone claimed to have a photo of my girlfriend. And apparently I had to re-enter my banking details.
Oh, and my Yahoo account (which I don’t have) had been suspended. Darnation.
Anyway, you know what I’m talking about.
Most of this stuff is easy for anyone to recognise and dismiss as luncheon meat. But it was depressing to see some apparently ‘genuine’ offers slip in with the slurry. Emails written in proper English from apparently real people with irresistible offers…
One of them invited me to join an amazing Thousand Dollar Cycle.
The stranger wrote:
“$350 gets you in, and every time you (or your team) get 6 sales, it’s called a cycle, and every time you cycle, YOU get PAID $1,000 by AlertPay! I’ve already cycled 7 times since joining on Friday 7/23/10”
Essentially the promise here is: send them $350 and you’ll cycle it into multiple profits very quickly.
It sounded like a pyramid scheme to me…. or at least a flaky sort of MLM scheme…. so I popped along to the website, risking the possibility of downloading an evil virus that would wipe out my entire music collection and DJ Mixes…
A big American voice boomed:
“How could YOUR life change if you could TRIPLE your money in the next 3 hours?”
Oh crikey, not Mr Shouty American voiceover again. Will we never be free? This time Mr Shouty American Man sounded like he was narrating a violent 1970s nature documentary about bears.
“Just one mighty swipe of his claw is enough to rear open the skull of an average man.”
Or as if he was promoting the latest action film…
“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… they’re back…. sharks… and this time they got GUNS!”
Anyway, I didn’t need to join this scheme to know something smelled deeply of fish.
So I dug around and discovered that this is described as an ‘automated marketing system’ which promotes the Bon Voyage 1000 opportunity.
Bon Voyage Revealed
This is a travel business promoted through – yes, I was right – multi level marketing. The idea is you join BonVoyage1000, for a flat fee. You then get access to “travel related products and services”.
Fine. But the main reason to join is that you can earn money through a “Membership Loyalty Rewards Program”. So really it’s a sort of business opportunity. And this is where the thousand dollar cycle strategy comes in.
Essentially, you get money through referrals. Like a pyramid, or whatever you want to call it… a “CONE” or something.
Anyway, I don’t care if I get hassled by desperate agents of Bon Voyage, I just don’t like it.
I don’t believe in automated profit opportunities, and while there’s clearly a product at the heart of this, I think that people joining though unsolicited emails like I got will NOT make money.
Why you should ignore these fake reviews
Depressingly, if you research this opportunity you find blogs pretending to offer “a brutally honest” review. At first glance they appear to slag off the opportunity but in fact they’re subtly promoting the same company.
Check this out, for instance – this is supposed to be a harsh negative criticism of Thousand Dollar Cycles:
Con #2 – Their main selling point is, you only have to sign up 2 people and you can make $1000 commissions for a lifetime. They barely even mention the value of the product, and the site is blanketed with big bold “join now”, “lock in your spot” and “your timing is critical” statements. Those are called scarcity tactics, and anyone who has been in this industry knows that whenever you see statements like that, you RUN! Whenever scarcity is used that much to persuade you to join someone, their probably not worth joining.
Don’t get me wrong, timing is important in BonVoyage1000. You can make a ton of money from “spill-over” if you join the right team at the right time, but that should not be the main selling point for the business. Anyone can say, “you will make money if you join my team,” and the Thousand Dollar Cycles system proves that.
See what they did? They attack Thousand Dollar Cycles for its sales pitch…. but then turn the same negative point around to ‘prove’ the Bon Voyage system makes money. But they’re both part of the same company!
It’s quite clever really. And I would congratulate the blogger for his sneaky skills… except HE DOESN’T EXIST!
You see, I saw about ten “independent” blogs doing their “brutally honest review” thing…. all using word-for-word THE SAME COPY! So I conclude that this was written by the people behind the scheme and sent out to all affiliates as part of the package.
What a pile of pants.
All in all, avoid, don’t bother, move on.
My advice is never to respond to an offer in an unsolicited email. If some random stranger emails or rings you out of the blue, ignore them. Delete the email. Put the phone down.
For some vetted opportunities – and the latest reviews, news and tips as I post them – check out the review section on the website.