Class Action Against Stephen Pierce?

salty droidHopefully, you have never heard of Stephen Pierce. And unless you either frequent internet marketing dens of inequity or have accidentally answered the phone, chances are good you haven’t (we hope). But there are a lot of people that have heard of him, and as a result, many of them end up with a lot less money and no good explanation for it. I will let my friend the Salty Droid tell you all about it in his recent posts: Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, and Stephen Pierce…standard warning about the filthy language over there, and I do encourage you to do enough reading and link following to understand the specifics.

According to Salty’s investigating, Pierce not only has scammed tens-to-hundreds-of-thousands from people buying biz-ops, but he also flexes his lawyer on them, and sues people all the time.  It doesn’t take a genius to do a little web searching and find tons of complaints on Pierce – but these are common in the stinking, scuzzy world of biz-op Internet marketing. What is not common is to sue people as much as Pierce does, and this is pretty unappealing by most standards. It’s like stealing the wheels off wheelchairs, or raping the wounded.

Here’s the interesting thing though. There is a legal action brewing against Pierce and his company, led by an attorney in Dallas named Allen Rosenberg. The way a suit like this works though, is the attorney for the plaintiffs cannot solicit more folks to join in – so the word has to be spread in other ways. Like on Salty’s site, or this blog post.

To quote the droid from the most recent post, The People VS Stephen Pierce:

Dallas Attorney Alan Rosenberg is preparing to bring a lawsuit against Stephen Pierce International {and affiliated companies and individuals} for the victims of SPI’s various scams :: fake opportunities :: and boiler room soul crushings. Alan and his firm :: Chamblee, Ryan, Kershaw & Anderson, P.C. :: have agreed to take the case on a contingency basis … which is super awesome of them because people who’ve just been scammed for insane monies don’t tend to have lots of cash lying around.

If you’ve been scammed by Stephen Pierce {or a phone room calling in his name} you should consider being a part of this suit. Not just for yourself :: or for the money {which you deserve to get back} … but because it needs to be done for the greater fucking good. Because it’s not going to stop unless we all step up and do our part to stop it.

Contact Alan Rosenberg at this email address for more details about getting involved in the suit.

All of the links there are live, and I do encourage you to reach out to Rosenberg if Pierce’s organization (Stephen Pierce International) had or has you in its tendrils. And, if you have a blog, or Tweet, or Facebook all the time or something, make sure to help spread the word, so victims can learn about this action and come forward, and hopefully get back some of what they lost here.

Here’s hoping this suit gets huge, and brings more light to this subject matter – not to mention a little well-earned restitution!

 

Make it Stop

salty droidOver on the Salty Droid site today, he released some audio files and a very strong message about the lack of (seemingly) any accountability for many well-organized online marketing scams. The audio tapes give clear examples of telemarketing fraud happening every day – thousands of times – to vulnerable people who are fed lies about how easy it is to make an online fortune in your pajamas without knowing a thing about business.

I really suggest to give this post a read and a listen – and if you are not familiar with the droid’s stuff, be warned – language on the site gets filthy dirty, and it can become very heated. While not for everyone, it is a site I would highly recommend to anyone considering entering the world of Internet Marketing, and I personally find him to be a very funny writer.

The audio tape is not something the scammers who orchestrate these sales assaults want anyone to hear – because it makes the fraud and deception blatant. Yet the point I got from Salty’s post, is they are not spending any time defending it – they are free to do as they wish, seemingly with no retribution.

Salty’s post and the commentary are going to do a fine job of tackling the topic of the legal aspects of accountability, so I want to talk about this ridiculous message – this unicorn dream these assholes are pushing.

Easy = Experience+Skill

One of the main dreams being sold (aside from the mounds of money everyone makes online), is how easy it all is. “Look: I just turned on a website, and it was just like turning on a magical fountain of riches! I never even look at it for more than ten minutes a week, and make a zillion dollars a year from the beach – and you can too!”

OK – it is true, turning on a website is easier than it has ever been. No rocket science needed in launching a blog or using some other free option to do the heavy-lifting of code writing. But the difference in launching a site and having a successful one is not mentioned. Instead, it is quickly shifted from the work you do or knowledge/experience you need (which is downplayed, obfuscated or even refuted) into how quickly you start earning.

Often, they’ll tell you they are sharing Mysteriously Powerful Internet Secrets that experts use all the time and hide from the peons, and that is why they are successful…and you can too! But there are no hidden secrets like this – it is another lie. Having tricks or tools to save time is a great thing, but it is not the miracle that makes work disappear. If you buy the best lawn mower made, you still have to know how to operate it – and it doesn’t cut the grass on its own.

These vipers are intentionally targeting people who are elderly, struggling or show some exploitable vulnerability – they look for personal pain points, offering the scam as the wonder-salve. In the audio Salty had, the phone weasel quickly uncovered personal financial information he used to pressure his sales pitch. Regarding this poor guy falling prey to it, Salty said:

His desperation is obvious :: but everything Artino says to him is a blatant lie … and he’s totally sold after just a few minutes.

This is what really infuriates me about this shit…greedy manipulation in the guise of “we’re helping you to help yourself.”

And blatantly lying about earning potential and easy is how these dripping pantloads continue to wreck people who show vulnerability and need.

Easy is a lie. Easy is only experience – and without it, your business idea will need to grow – and it is really hard to make a good business idea work and grow.  There is a lot of failing, making mistakes, and rough times.  And the reality is – most people won’t make the kind of “decent” money online they need to survive. Because work is hard, and so is business.

You don’t start a legitimate business thinking, “I am going to make easy money online.”

If you have a legitimate business, you can promote it really well online, and earning potential can be amazing…but easy is still not going to be part of the equation for you.

A legitimate business requires work and effort and skill and everything that the phone scabs intentionally avoid telling you, as they root through your past for new pain points to salve. Hard work doesn’t fit on their unicorn’s backs – truth doesn’t up-sell – reality won’t get you thru the re-billing turnstiles.

I really hated listening to that audio because of what it represents – it made me mad as hell, again, that these predatory sleazeballs just won’t stop – and that the consumer protection agencies don’t appear to make them sweat nearly enough. But once again I applaud Salty Droid’s willingness to expose this crap and to take the associated risks involved in doing so. If I can add to the spirit of his important work, let me express emphatically, there is no EASY – online, offline or otherwise.  If they get you to believe in easy, you are halfway up the unicorn and on your way to losing – not earning – money.

Salty also likes to say “You can’t make money online” and while I laugh at that statement (I make plenty of money online, silly fake robot), I understand what he means by it and for most people innocently answering the phone, I agree. Anyone can make a little bit online for sure – but not the kind of money you are being told. Most of those zillionaires, aren’t, weren’t, won’t be. Call me a hater.

Protect yourself from getting horn-swaggled by these kind of scams through identification of the scammer’s tactics – just remember if something sounds too good to be true, it is likely coming off a well traveled script in a Utah boiler room…and you may already be a mark  full of pain points for these con artists to wear down aggressively.

I’ll join what I felt to be the droid’s lightly veiled plea to federal and consumer-protection-oriented powers-that-be: Please make it stop…pay attention.

Shark Fishing is Just Like Online Marketing

A while back, I wrote a post about how A Goliath Grouper is Like a Successful Marketing Plan. It ended with a threat about me getting amped on sharks – and look :: here we are.

I just back from a trip to Hilton Head island (on the South Carolina Coast) where a shark fishing morning clearly showed me that shark fishing is exactly like online marketing.

Really.

It has nothing at all to do with me wanting to talk more about shark fishing. 🙂

Gear-up for the Local Conditions

I live in Atlanta, so I don’t fish off the Atlantic coast too often. However, I have been there before, and it helped me know what gear I needed to bring this time.

Last time I went to Hilton Head, I didn’t know what I needed so brought a lot of tackle. Very touristy. I lugged my big tackle box down with me to the beach every day, but never really pulled anything out of it. I was actually only using the same basic set-up all day, and just throwing cut bait.

All the lugging did for me, was compromise all the lures and gear in my tackle box. I got sand in everything and the sun just beat down on it mercilessly every day, for no good reason. A lot of undue stress and wear-and-tear on stuff I wasn’t even using.

On this trip, I learned from my previous mistakes. I went through my tackle ahead of time, and pulled out only the weights, hooks and steel leaders I would need. I took a bait knife, to cut the squid. I took a pliers, to pull hooks from shark jaws. I even took WD40 this time because last year, my pliers got corroded in the salt air and made it tough to open them. I didn’t like the alternative, of using my hands to take the hook out, so keeping the pliers functional was a must. I put in a couple hand towels, because even without reaching into sharks’ mouths like a hero, it always gets really messy. Flashlights, sun block and bug spray and some extra line. I put all this stuff in two ziplock bags, then put the ziplocks in a nylon bag and left my tackle box at home.

I had one salt water rig (pole and reel), so I got new line for it (20 pound test) and oiled it up. Got it working well, with a full spool of new line to get me through the week.

In a word, I was prepared with specific gear for this specific trip. The kitchen sink stayed home.

Based on what I encountered before in Hilton Head, I knew this time around what I needed to increase my chances for success. I cut out the extra, and made sure my stuff-to-be-schlepped was efficiently considered. I hit the beach with only what I needed, all of it well protected from damage in the sun.

Use Experience to Reduce Investments

I knew from the last time I was fishing here that I could throw cut squid into the surf, and likely catch some sharks. I had learned how to cut the squid and get it to stay on the hook from a guide we hired on the last trip. I knew one bag of frozen squid would last us all week unless the fishing was crazy good. On the last trip, I bought way too much squid and had to give away bags of it when we left.

I also got some frozen shrimp this time, because I know from experience in Florida that shrimp are pretty much a go-to bait in any body of saltwater. I had never used them here, but figured they would be a decent bait to try if the squid was not being effective. Figured they might get us smaller fish we could use as cut bait.

I was able to use the money I saved on excess squid to pay for the shrimp, and still paid less overall than I did last year for bait, for fishing a couple more days this year with more people.

My experience allowed me to reduce the investment without affecting the number of casts I could throw. Actually, because they were headless, the shrimp proved to be harder to keep on the hook than the squid (plus, small fish nibbled them down)…so I had even more casts than I anticipated – but spent less to get them.

This year, I also knew a party boat would not give me the fishing experience I wanted. Last year, I hooked into a 6-7 foot shark on a party boat, but the gear on these boats is made for people who don’t fish – I found it frustrating, and pretty dopey. Like using a telephone pole and cables to reel in a car.

I wanted to catch, fight and feel the power of a big fish – that was why I liked catching these things. Spending the extra money to get out a bit (like party boats) certainly increased my chances of catching some different things (and we did) – but I was content to stick to surf casting this year, using gear I knew would offer me a richer experience should it prove effective. The extra money saved from the party boat was spent on a couple dinners in some nice restaurants. And cupcakes – found a place that made only cupcakes: amazingly wonderful. I swear the éclair one they served as a Thursday special was like making-out with Heaven.

Overall, I spent considerably less money to be fishing much more often on this trip than I did on last year’s, with more people. Used the savings to increase more fishing opportunities and also to enjoy other, non-fishing vacation fun…let me repeat: they made ONLY cupcakes.

Be Willing to Adapt

Last year, when we were throwing squid out into the surf we caught little black tip shark pups – lots of them. It was on almost every cast for a while – just lots of little shark action over the whole trip.

This year, we didn’t catch any. Didn’t see that coming at all, and it took us all by surprise. No telling why – but there just weren’t bunches of little shark pups waiting to be caught  this time, even though we were prepared. Despite the numbers and data to support otherwise, squid was falling flat.

The shrimp allowed us to catch some Whiting – which are little fish common on the shore – but even these were few and far between. Personally, I didn’t catch one, but my son and his friend Trey did. On the third one they landed, we used my bait knife to throw out pieces of the Whiting as cut bait. One piece I pitched out there got a decent hit, but nothing noteworthy.

As I stood there in the surf not catching anything but a tan, a man came down the beach and asked how I was doing. He said a guy down a ways had caught some huge Cobia over the last couple days. He was also surf casting like me and the boys, but he was taking the Whiting he caught, re-hooking them as bait and throwing them back out, live and whole. He said the Cobia came in an hour or two, every time…they always just grabbed the bait and ran and jumped and thrashed and eventually broke off – but it made me want one, real bad. All that running and jumping and thrashing sounded like exactly what we were after.

We had not been using the Whiting like this, and my cut bait approach was not getting results though it always worked in the past. Neither was the squid, even though last year, I couldn’t miss with pieces of cut squid. Nature: 2; previous experience: 0. The shrimp was working for the boys to catch Whiting though, so the next one Trey caught, he re-hooked like the guy suggested and threw it back out.

And in a little less than a hour, he yelled as the rod doubled over, and a 5-6 foot shark rolled. The shark jumped and thrashed violently, and the line broke. It was really exciting, but short-lived. Luckily, we all saw his fish, too, which made it better.

Let’s review here: none of the things I thought would work, worked. It did not make us stop fishing or anything, but it made us adjust what we were doing to increase the likelihood of success. Trey hooking into that monster was great – it made the day really exciting, and the fishing adrenaline go to full-boil.

But most importantly for me, there was now a method I could see that worked. Unfortunately, it seemed to require Trey or my son catching a Whiting for me since my fat, cupcake-filled butt couldn’t seem to catch anything at all. Even here though, I was willing to adapt.

Patience, Grasshopper…

We were on the island for a week, and fished almost every day there. This did not stop me from never catching anything – but I didn’t mind. I like fishing as much or sometimes even more than catching, so it works out well for me. And there were cupcakes.

But despite the achieved Zen and the delectable butter-creme frosting, on our last day, I secretly hoped I could do better. Little did I know, I would soon do much better than I had hoped.

We packed stuff, and then returned to the beach for one last morning before heading back to Atlanta. We spent a lovely morning there – but nary a nibble for hours on end.

Trey gave me a Whiting he eventually caught as our time wound down – turned out to be the only one of the day. We were running out of opportunities yet he was gracious enough to give me the lone baitfish so I might catch something. I was not too proud to accept it, either.

I put on a slightly longer steel leader (because Trey’s shark had broke-off on a smaller one) and a larger hook for the Whiting. I threw it out in the water, and went back to stand on the shore, hoping for something to end the week with. I thought Cobia, but was fine with anything.

In about 30 minutes, I felt the Whiting wake up, and start to swim frantically. I told the boys to watch, and reeled down the slack, lowering the tip of the rod. I yanked up to set the hook, hard. The rod doubled over, and I felt the weight of a very powerful fish as I tried to turn it around under water.

And it was on.

For the next 45 minutes or so, I wrestled with this big fish (safely from shore, of course).

He broke the surface more than a few times (so we saw it was a shark), but mostly just drove out. I would reel him back in, and he’d do it again, reel screaming-out line, the drag (and me) frantically holding on.

 

 

The rod I had made this really fun – as did the fact I had 20 pound test, while trying to land a fish easily over 90 pounds. If I tried too hard, I would lose it. I needed to keep playing it, gently, or the line would snap.

However, I did not count on my reel being grossly outmatched here – it took the brunt of the stress, and ended-up conking-out on me. I think the gears wore down in it – I got to a point at the end, and simply could not use it anymore…but it held.

 

Unfortunately for me, this was at a point when the shark was still a few hundred yards out in the surf. So I started backing up, pulling him into shore. I had to again move slowly, or I would accidentally break him off. But I had a clear path and it was low tide, so there was a bunch of beach behind me.

I ended up causing a bit of a fuss on the beach with all this commotion, and the Beach Patrol came to watch. I pulled the shark about 3 feet from shore (I was waaay back on the beach). He was exhausted, and I was too. But then I tried to yank him onto the sand, and I snapped the line.

People came up to me saying they were sorry  I lost him after such a long fight – but I did not want to land the thing, really – I had no way to deal with a shark. I left all my tackle at home, and even with it, I had nothing to make a monster like that submit. I wasn’t going to eat him or anything, or keep him. I had tried to get him on shore, but had no idea what I would have done once he was there, so it was better this way.

shark fishing on Hilton Head

 

Totally fine with me – he ruined my reel, and I gave him a workout to remember – figured we were even.

Even free from my line, he was dazed and tired for a few minutes, before he flipped tail and went back out to sea. He was OK, and would live to eat more Whiting.

The Beach Patrol came over and told us we couldn’t fish anymore that day, which was fine – we were leaving anyway, now a bit later than we had planned. (They don’t want you to catch sharks, which I respect.

Doesn’t stop them from being there though, and I am not trying to hurt them – just catch them for a little while if the Cobia are less willing to play.)

There was only about 10 yards left on the spent reel, which remain there today. I removed it, so it’s like a trophy for me. The rod held up like a champ so I’ll use it again, but I learned that next time, I need a stronger reel if I am going to go after these bigger fish.

Makes for a great memory anyway, and the trophy serves as proof. The reel was well worth the expense to me…and infinitely less expensive than even one seat on a party  boat would have been.

Let’s think of this a little like my metaphor should imply.

  • I planned for success, based on something that had worked in the past. My plan did not work, despite being well budgeted and well implemented. Unwilling to bail, I adapted.
  • Current situations changed the viable and known tactics, and had I not adapted, I would have left (clutching my data) skunked.
  • I listened to what was happening around me, and acted on it.
  • I used the help of others when I could not do it all myself.
  • I traded the telephone pole and the cable deal for something more specific and meaningful, and ended-up with a fishing tale I will have forever. I pinpointed my approach, waited, and eventually connected in a very meaningful way.
  • If you do land a big one, expect the Beach Patrol to come and shut you down (cough *G-word* cough).

I’ll probably get down to Florida soon, so I’ll likely be able to figure out how other fishing is just like something else. Until then, feel free to give me a call and get me out on the water for some business advice…who knows what we’ll catch. Until then, swim carefully – especially if you look anything like a Whiting! 🙂

Building Lifetime Customer Value

There is a great post Geordie wrote a couple weeks ago on PPCblog.com about building lifetime customer value. (in case my link doesn’t work, go ahead and paste this: http://ppcblog.com/building-lifetime-customer-value/)

I have talked before about how much I like Geordie’s style of writing – he has a lot of great experience and knows how to get to the meat of making money, and staying profitable. Had the pleasure to co-write an article with him, and his technical deftness is also top-notch – but you’ll see that quickly.

This post comes soon after a huge shake-up for many online professionals, so I think it is particularly relevant and worth a read. When finding new customers is always going to present unique challenges, being able to serve more to the ones you already have is invaluable.

This post also shows you the kind of teaching/writing style Geordie uses. He is more personal inside the forums, but it is the same direct, no BS approach with suggestions you can really use. PPC is one online marketing oasis many webmasters are seeking as organic becomes even less predictable, so get on their membership waiting list. The community doesn’t appear to be accepting new members right now, but things always change. They maintain a limit, so it doesn’t get weak. I would put in your interest if this is something that appeals to you. I can talk from personal experience about how valuable I think this community is – in fact I have. Twice.  🙂

Geordie Carswell of PPCBlog

image borrowed from http://www.purposeinc.com/pwp/geordie-carswell

Trial Coverage of Murderer James Ray

Maybe you know about the trial happening right now for James Arthur Ray. He is on trial for 3 counts of manslaughter. Three people who believed in James Ray paid for it with their lives, and now it is time for the courts to decide if Ray is guilty.

I personally think James Arthur Ray is a cold-hearted manipulative monster, who actually led four people to die through his ignorance, greed and vanity…not just these three innocent victims (I will not forget what I see as his center role in the death of Colleen Conaway). I hope that justice is for once, swift, and this bastard pays with a life spent behind bars. It won’t even the score by any means – 4 good people will still be missing, and he won’t be – but I hope it does offer the families of his victims some form of relief, watching this beast get locked in the cage he deserves.

The trial started on March 1st, and is being offered in live video feeds and news streams. I was going to write something about it, but I am not as well informed as many people are on this matter – so I want you to go to them to learn more about it. My own thoughts on it are simple: guilty – lock him away forever. But there is of course, much more to it.

Visit the Salty Droid’s Blog

On the Salty Droid’s blog, Ray has been a topic of discussion since this whole thing started. Not only is the fake robot himself perpetually in a full-on attack to the monster known as “Death Ray,” but there are many very intelligent folks that have chimed-in along the way with additional background and evidence, as well as ongoing support for the victims’ families. These folks are now commenting on the trial and offering insight and links to help shed more light on it all. The comment thread is already over 650 strong, and it will continue growing as the trial continues.

The ‘droid has really created a great resource here for James Arthur Ray trial updates. Expect potty talk and lots of stirred-up passions. There are audio and video clips, he is doing  day-by-day summary updates, and like I mentioned – the comments have some really interesting stuff too – some of those offering opinions are really super-sharp folks.

I applaud ‘droid for his work here, and in hammering on other assholes that take advantage of innocent believers. We need more fake robots, willing to take a stand. In the meantime, go catch-up on the JAR trial.

And I am sincerely looking forward to you rotting in Hell, James Arthur Ray. Can’t wait to watch you pay for what you’ve done.