Re: Emerald Passport

> Rich responds: I know that many of you will not believe me, but I am
> actually having success with Emerald Passport. Yes, there is so much hype
> in their movie, but the Q & A calls are more truthful, and the EPI
> sites are completely factual. Here are some surprises for you.

We never say that EPI participants are not raking it in. If you're having success, it might be interesting to examine how you're reaching your prospects.

> The Emerald Passport To Prosperity Wealth & Self Webucation Series has
> been available on a strictly retail basis at $1,295 for almost a decade.

Odd thing is, I can't find any proof of this on any web site. Can you provide any backup to this claim? Have you just accepted this claim made on some phone call without asking for proof?

> It really is a good value, but you would have to see it to know that. Most
> ethical EPI directors give prospects access to the series before they
> invest in it via temporary passwords, so nobody has to take "my
> word" on it. Just 3 years ago, EPI started the business model that
> uses independent distributors who pay a $99 annual fee to have the right
> to buy the product at wholesale and sell it at retail, at the same price
> that it sold for before this business model.

You claim it was for sale before the 2Up payment model. For $1295. Did it sell? A lot? If so, there should be SOME mention of it on the net. I see none.

> The Profit Masters Team, a third party marketing arm for EPI, does no
> training on email blasting.

Nonsense. Bloody nonsense and balderdash.

I have archived some of the "A Team" training material about email blasts, and how to lease a mail server on two separate hosting providers to run spamming software. They post a link to http://www.1-bulk-email.com/ for the software you need for spamming, including an automated address harvester.

> They strongly oppose spamming.

Then surely they should have replied to my email of 8/18/04 to their abuse address asking if they wanted to discuss their spamming members. They failed to reply.

They are listed in SPEWS, a major blocklist, for the Tim Dunn and Bill Tatum spamming incidents. Are these guys still participants? I believe both are in line for lawsuits for their spamming.

http://spews.org/html/S3161.html

Powerprofitteam.com used to be registered by directi.com, but were cancelled after spam complaints last August. Now they're with another registrar that does nothing about spam complaints.

Their former domain registration was handled by Adam Bernard, at lynxdigital.com, who tries to portray Lynx as a legitimate hosting service, but which used to have a link (I've archived it of course) for spamming services. This web page on lynxdigital.com used to contain the delicious message:

"With PromotionExperts opt-in database of over 60 million, you will be able to optimize your online reach while maximizing your ROI and developing an overall Brand Awareness.

With our special selects you will be able to target your audience based on your specific criteria. There is no limit to the depth of targeting selects."

Let me give you a hint: NOBODY has 60,000,000 legitimate opt-in addresses. Not Microsoft, not General Electric, not General Motors.

And certainly not some little hosting outfit in Canada, who's owner also has a Florida address.

And somehow, they got it in to their heads that spamming this list of 60,000,000 wasn't spamming because somebody said they were opt-in addresses.

But it certainly wasn't safe to email those addresses, so the spammers got the bright idea to set up redirector web sites, registered at GoDaddy because they're cheap. That didn't sit too well with GoDaddy.

> In fact, any
> emails sent through their system may only be sent to people from a recent
> double opt-in list, and the required opt-out language is all over the
> place. If you don't do it right, your privledges are terminated
> immediately.

Tell me more about this "recent double opt-in list". Are you saying they allow you to buy lists? And they think that permission to send email transfers to the buyer when a list is sold like that? Most folks in the network administration community know that permission rarely transfers when a list is sold. If the list is even comprised of people who know it will be sold.

More likely, they're allowing people to buy lead lists, and many, of not most of these sorts of lists are now generated by spamming. The spammers get their victims to go visit a throwaway web site, hosted in someplace that ignores complaints, like China or Korea, and that web site touts the fantastic opportunity to be found by working at home! And when the victim (or an investigator) fills out the form, their data is sold as a double-opt-in lead. It is in no way, shape or form a double opt-in lead.

It's just that the rate of complaints is very low because of the sneaky use of the form to collect data, and very few investigators go to the trouble to follow the train of evidence all the way to the end.

I do, and have done it hundreds of times.

> Rich responds: Really - anyone who would believe that should also be in
> the market for a bridge. That verbage is not in any EPI approved email
> message.

Spammers often use non-approved marketing tactics. :-)

> Rich responds: No he did not. He invested $99 to become a distributor. He
> also invested $1295 for his webucation product, which is not mandatory but
> highly logical. How can you sell something that you know nothing about
> from personal experience.

Same way Corvette and Rolls Royce sales people do it. You don't schmooze them into buying the car, and then working for FREE for the next two sales to enrich their manager!

> Rich responds: That was a company not endorsed by EPI, and EPI has since
> obtained a "Cease & Desist" Order from that company for that
> fiasco.

Can you name this scumbag company? In my experience, almost all of the leads companies are similar scumbags.

I'm guessing it's Newport Internet Marketing (Robert Soloway - currently being sued by Microsoft and my colleague Robert Braver), but there are a lot of scumbags out there.

> Rich responds: He got bad leads. My team has 3 co-op sources for leads
> that range in price from low to medium to high. The lower the cost, the
> more calling you have to do. However, we also provide a guaranteed sales
> fullfillment center. For 25% of the commission, we will get your sale for
> you - guaranteed.

"Bad leads" is a code phrase for harvested or spammed or overly re-sold leads. Can you describe in detail how each and every one of your leads is generated? I've talked to leads vendors who simply can't get enough legitimate addresses from their usual ethical/expensive sources, so they resort to buying from spammers to feed the INSANE demand.

> Rich responds: I guess liars teach liars to lie. We tell our people that
> there are no guarantees, and that most of the prospects they call will say
> no, hang up, or be unreachable. But we have tried and true conservative
> statistics. 100 low cost leads will run from $250 to $300, and will
> generate 1 sale for $1,000 ommissions. As you get alot of these, and
> people start passing 2 sales to you, you marketing expense goes down.

Until the pyramid runs out of steam. The number of gullible (or qualified - if you prefer) prospects HAS to run out sooner or later. Then the new participants won't get their training sales, and will finally see they have NO potential to ever make their money back. Since they're in it for the riches, not the benefits of owning the $1295 "product", they'll lose enthusiasm and the pyramid collapses.

How many participants, seriously, fail to buy the product and limit their exposure to just $99?

> 1-Up Automated was a pyramid - it had no real product. I had some honest
> friends who could not see past the dollar signs no matter how much I tried
> to stop them. But EPI has a real product, and some honest, ethical people.

A few, it seems. And some spammers. When you can describe the entire lead-generation process for the ones YOU use, and tell me where they come from and that spam or address harvesting is not used in any stage of the process, then I can conclude you're not part of the problem. But other EPI members are using spam-generated leads, and profitmasters has never seemed willing to discuss it since they ignored me last year. If they thought I was some sort of crank for trying to alert them to their spam problem - that was a poor choice. They should have figured out who I was and that I wasn't going to go away.