The bucking Internet Scam horse: How’s that rump you landed on? • Thursday May 21,2009 07:00 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/makelessnoise/

So you got bucked off - once you get that dust off your rump, what are you going to do now? Sorry, today was not supposed to be a “post” day - of putting new stuff up on this blog. Problem was, I kept Prosper’s website up in another tab on my browser so I could “get to it”. And it was left open to the Success page. There’s about 50 successes on that page. Yes, not something you expect after you’ve dealt with Bright Builders or Thrive Learning. 50 all natural, not over-hyped, fake successes - but the real thing, “warts and all”. Each written in nice English, but not by the same person. Sure, they’ve been cherry picked - but check out this link: “Click here to see hundreds more…” What?!? So I did. Oops. They had them by five categories. And it’s not this crap that Thrive has (pardon my French) - like their recent “Thrive Finance” which has shown up as a new site (domain owned by Matt Rasmussen). Whythrive, choosethrive - all that silly nonsense. Maybe 7 or 10 pages to each site. Back to Prosper - there are five categories and I chose ecommerce, as that is what my bent was. But the page goes on and on and on and on - screenful after screenful. Some are long, many are short. There’s one by a Marine there which is only a single paragraph. But another lady said she spent 6 months researching coaching opportunities before settling with Prosper. One that touched me was this one from David B. Bournemoth, Dorset, United Kingdom:

I recently suffered a severe illness which required 2 years rehabilitation and forced me into early retirement. I then urgently looked around for the best ways to earn an income from home. I don’t believe the get rich quick schemes so set out to acquire the skills to run an online business. I went to another coaching company first but they were not good at all. It became obvious that they were mainly reading from scripts, they couldn’t answer my questions and I soon began to realize some of their advice was blatantly wrong. I had got my fingers burned and I was very skeptical when I first approached Prosper, but what a difference!! - The first time on the site I was presented with pages of resources on all aspects of my chosen course as well as access to material in other related subjects. The student care is excellent; when I telephone they are always professional, polite and helpful. I also have access to Resource Centre staff who will answer my technical questions on an ongoing basis. And all this is provided IN ADDITION to my Coaching Sessions. …. And here’s one you’ll probably relate to - from a “Spen C.” in Rockland ME. No website (many do) but read this: …I have to admit I was skeptical at the beginning of this program. However, I realized it was critical for me to take a step if I wanted to come even close to achieving any of my goals. So with faith, conviction and commitment I decided to do the Prosper internet program, with minimal if any internet knowledge. With your approach, wanting to know me as a person and not just another student, you helped me immensely, eliminating much of skepticism. I had no idea what was out there in the internet world. What an eye-opening experience! I was amazed at all the different sites you sent to for information and knowledge. At first I thought you were reading from a script. (Realize, of course, you were not). Using the tools you introduced me to; I was able to intelligently determine a product to market. The domain name was a bit of a challenge. Again, with your able assistance, that goal was easily accomplished. With your explanation of hosting and where to go to get that done, I soon had a domain name registered and hosted in an efficient manner. …. Does that “reading from a script” sound familiar? And the phrase, “not just another student“? You see, those of us who got scammed have this simple problem. Mark Twain pointed it out: A cat who sits on a hot stove won’t sit on a hot stove again. But it probably won’t sit on any stove again. The deal is that making money online - either as addtional income or moving into a full-time business is exactly what you should be doing. Unfortunately, and as I went over, it isn’t that one burn you just got - it’s that they put people in the hole with credit card companies and not able to make it back. So they are doubly discouraged from every trying that again. Don’t want to do it now and can’t afford it if

you could. Thrive Learning Institute and all the scammer sales floors which feed it are taking this economy down by depriving the potential entrepreneurs their chance to shine and glow in ways that only they know how to do. Thrive does this by being a copy-cat, a cutative, an also-ran, a cheap knockoff - well you get the idea. The research on this showed what these guys all came from those Carlton Sheets infomercials in the late 80’s. PMI and then Prosper started up as they found the demand for coaching and training to be a valid one. As the Internet found it’s footing, it was just a logical extension to move into this arena as a way to contact and service even more clients. Note that term: clients. Thrive runs through one-shot consumers. Prosper deals with continuing clients. So you have to separate out your bitter angst at being had and get back on that horse which bucked you off. Sure, you’re nervous about it. And if you are like me and get a comfortable seat on the corral fense to watch the other riders, you soon see which ones get bucked off and which ones stay on to ride - even comfortably. A few studies like this and you see that horses can be ridden. Some don’t want to be and some riders are clueless enough to irritate the horse into bucking them off. But enough lessons from sitting and watching and you eventually see how you can ride and stay on - so you begin again. No, I haven’t taken any Prosper training. I’m stil in the hole from the Internet Income Solutions / Thrive Learning mess. And the credit card companies are raising their interest rates right now, so that makes it even harder. But the point, again, is that you can find your own corral fence on this Internet rodeo and do your own research into what works or not. Practically, I’ve amassed enough data even before I got scammed to write several books on the subjects you need to know - and I did. But they’re incomplete and I’m figuring out how to get back to them again. You might even see them shortly. The message today isn’t that you have to join up with Prosper - or anyone else. I’ve said often that you can learn this stuff on your own - for free - if you want to. I’m not going to stand here and twist your arm from the other side of this screen. Do whatever you want with your life. You will anyway, regardless of what I say. That’s the way we are set up, after all. The point is that these “Big Boys” are the ones with the real training. Like Visible.net, there are people out there who are not scammers and count that it’s important to help someone else improve their lives. Sure, they have to charge to cover their costs and make a profit to reinvest in improving the customer experience. But they aren’t there first and foremost to get their split of the action. Completely different mindset. And I’d explain that mindset - but we’re already way over an average post. Just read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, or pretty much anything by Earl Nightingale, or maybe Robert Allen or some of these other modern guru’s - maybe Stephen Covey’s stuff. Because while there are a pitifully small number of people who figure it’s “just business” to ruin people’s lives with their scams, there are a small but growing number of people who know that it’s their business to enrich others’ lives as their sole duty. So find that comfortable corral fence seat and take some of these books with you as you watch the bucking bronc’s. And may you find the horse you can ride off into your own beautiful sunset.

New free ebook on Internet Scams - with all your favorite villians and heroes - just released! • Wednesday May 20,2009 07:52 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, internet income solutions, thrive learning institute

Thought you might be interested in this expose’ on the Utah Internet Scam Family. I’ll tell you more about this - in fact will be releasing most all of the content as posts - which will probably update the lessons as well. Just released - and available on Scribd - as well as on our Press Page. And you can imagine that I’ve already sent Bill Gephardt his own copy…

Colton Moody called today. Wonder what he wants? • Wednesday May 20,2009 06:49 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

Photo: fakelvis Colton (Colt) Moody called my personal line today. I was out, so only got his message. A bit cryptic, so I asked the Utah Div of Consumer Protection for advice. Of course, I’ll call “Colt” back tomorrow. Thought you’d be interested… ---Just to bury this, but also to answer these questions for you (I know that was a bit of a cliff-hanger I left you with) – We had a talk. And it turned out OK. He told me his side of the story - an exclusive that won’t be told here. A deal was struck. I revised a couple of pages - and will probably have more “twiddley bits” to fix.

But my refund looks like it’s finally going through. Thanks, Colt.

The gift that keeps giving - our Utah Internet Scam Refund community… • Wednesday May 20,2009 05:43 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, internet income solutions internet scam, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80546354@N00/

Here’s a gift for you - maybe not as big as all that, but something to help you on your refund journey. I got this today in my email - it really lays out the specific points to cover in your refund request about the company which sold you that bill of goods: 13-26-11. Prohibited practices. (1) It is unlawful for any solicitor: (c) to make or cause to be made any untrue material statement, or fail to disclose a material fact necessary to make any statement made not misleading, whether in connection with a telephone solicitation or a filing with the division; (d) to make or authorize the making of any misrepresentation about its compliance with this chapter to any prospective or actual purchaser; (e) to fail to refund within 30 days any amount due a purchaser who exercises the right to cancel under Section 13-26-5; or (f) to fail to orally advise a purchaser of the purchaser’s right to cancel under Section

13-26-5 unless the solicitor is exempt under Section 13-26-4. What does this mean? • They can’t lie to you and tell you that you’ll make the money back in 60-90 days, when only 1 in 10,000 do so. (Since they get about 10,000 customers a year, you might have better odds buying a lottery ticket.) • The next biggest point is not informing you of your rights to cancel. Orally they say - meaning they actually have to outright tell you. This is beyond the FTC regulation. Everything else they told you just adds fuel to the fire. Drag out your notes, transcribe them so they make sense, send them along (a copy) as a fax and a letter to the Div of Consumer Protection - and have fun with wondering how fast these will appear. Now again, you aren’t worrying about the fulfillment center who gave you the lousy service (Thrive Learning Institute). You want to go back to the sales organization, or lead floor (Summit Consulting /Group, Internet Income Solutions) and complain about them. That’s where the money trail goes. Save your government worker some time and just note down the exact numbers and words above. Might even speed up your refund… Oh — before I close - Make sure you tell 5 other people about this. There are plenty of people in the forums to contact who have complained about their problems and scams. Just let them know how they can get their refund. (And don’t forget to get them to file a fraud report with the FTC, FBI and their credit card company as well…) Thanks!

Interesting news about Colton Moody, Thrive Learning Institute - from Work-At-Home forum… • Tuesday May 19,2009 07:00 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jepoirrier/ Just found this one on the Work-At-Home forum. Everyone call and get your money back…. I’m sorry to read about every one’s stories on this message board. Below is a link to an article written about the “coaching industry.” The article mentions Thrive Learning Institute and does a pretty good job of exposing this industry for what it really is….A SCAM! http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-7772-called-into-question.html You will see, this article raises some disturbing questions. Although I don’t live in Utah, I spent a few years back going to school out there. I still have several old college buddies that are sales agents in that industry. They all make great money, but I never understood how they justified what they did for a living. My former college roommate once told me that 99.99% of the people working in this industry know they are dishonest, but they justify their actions, business models, sales practices etc. because “the money is too good.” He

even admitted to me that companies prey on naive, inexperienced, and desperate people. I’ll just say, the more I learned about the “coaching industry” the more I lost respect for these old friends. After stumbling across the article above, I started digging around and found more out about Thrive Learning Institute, it’s owners, partner companies, etc. I thought I would try to track down some personal contact info, so people could go straight to the source for a refund. Maybe if enough people call, the scammers will start to listen. So, here it is…Here’s some contact information for a few of the main principals of Thrive/Summit Group/Momentum Marketing. I called a few of my old buddies in the “industry” and apparently based on reputation, these guys are scum. Based on what I read on this message board, it appears I’ve received accurate information. These guys apparently all have ownership in the company and are “decision makers” according to my sources. FYI..Colton Moody and Erik Largin also are the main owners of The Summit Group (renamed “Momentum Marketing”) a notorious Utah call center. I’m told they partnered with the Rasmussen brothers after they were fired from a previous coaching company with a similarly poor reputation. Not sure what they did, but apparently, it was more sketchy than just ripping people off. Whatever that means??? Anyways, Good luck with your refunds! I’m sure everyone would love to hear your experience. Matthew Rasmussen- 801-787-3979 (cell) David Rasmussen- 801-735-3909 (cell) Colton Moody- 801-310-1067 (cell) Erik Largin- 801-492-0714 ext. 1062 (work) sorry no cell…i tried

Update: How to run a successful business in a recession (not an Internet scam)… • Monday May 18,2009 09:13 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tooliver/

(A tribute to all those GoldRush miners who got scammed…) Just got off the phone with one of the head honchos at Visible.net - well, he sounded like a head honcho, anyway. He wanted to have it all about me and I wanted to have it all about him. See, I’ve got waaayy too many ideas and am constantly trying to give them away to a good home… Anyway, I this is really a follow-up post to my last. If you want some real good folks on your lines who will take care of the ecommerce end of your business, you probably ought to get a ticket for this show before they are sold out.

No kidding. I kept bringing up suggestions to this guy and his problem was just getting around to some very basic promotional points - because they don’t have any problem with people buying their services. They are more concerned with taking care of their customer that they have and making sure that their customer succeed. What?!? Yeah - even in a recession like our politicians talk about allllll the time - it’s not so bad for everyone. These guys are making out like crazy. (Or so I’m told.) Now you came here to get some tips about Internet scammers and here’s some: • Thrive Learning Institute used the Internet to promote itself and get top rankings on Google so people would buy their packages. • Visible.net spends all it’s time helping it’s customers get top rankings on Google so their customers can sell their own stuff. But Thrive never built its customer service back-end and depended on unscrupulous independent sales floors to sell their services (who in turn got their leads from unscrupulous shysters who turned every opt-in into permission to endlessly telemarket away their privacy.) So the complaint boards and forums now rank with or higher than Thrive Learning Institute for their own name. Took all that nice PR work down with them. I’ve just spent a few hours chasing up Thrive’s backlinks in order to see how they initially got their top rankings on Google. It’s a classic manuever more and more people are finding out about - to simply get on all these social media platforms and link back to your own site. In this case, they were only pushing their brand as a keyword, so had no competition for it. And so took most of the two 20 spots of Google with highly complementary thingy’s. And in visiting these links, it turns out that a lot of these entries were just simply spam. Propeller even took their stuff down because they violated their terms. Visible.net does it differently. Their sales floor and delivery are completely in-house. And they give away the training. True. Check it out at http://training.storeblogs.com/ And they build your ecommerce site for you and then train you how to do it. (And that’s all free training you can sign up for and take as a webinar. Or several.) This honcho I talked to - when I told him how Thrive operated - completely agreed with the models and time-spans I mentioned on what it takes to build a business. Basic bottom line: You don’t get rich overnight. And you don’t make your money back in 60-90 days. Period. He agreed that it would take that long just to train a person in how to use an ecommerce system they built for them. It actually takes years to set up a business, even if you’ve already set up one before. Recall from my previous post: • • • • •

Thrive makes you build your own site. Thrive makes you research and stock your own store. Thrive then lets you go promote it. 4 hours of coaching. A ton of videos to pick from - on your own. No way to get trained and do all of it at the same time at any speed.

So - try to make your money back in 60-90 days when you are an Internet newbie who’s never built a site before. And you don’t know how ecommerce works. And you don’t have a ready list of products to

sell. And you don’t have a clue of how to promote on the Internet… See why more people are complaining about Thrive than they have shills to spit up on the social sites and article directories and press-release companies? Thrive Learning Institute is based on a completely faulty model. It’s not that there aren’t wellintentioned people working there. It’s that their model simply can’t work. Period. They’ll end up scamming everyone who comes in the front door and forks over any money. What those independent sales floors are promising is where the bulk of the scam comes from. And it’s why I say Colton Moody is the Godfather of the Utah Internet Scam Family and ought to be wearing an orange jumpsuit with “racketeer” across the shoulders. He’s set up a perfect storm of scamming. He owns and manages both the sales floors and the “fulfillment” center. Lying sales people who just don’t care, selling packages that can’t possibly do what they are supposed to - which is to help a person get additional income into their lives. But what they do only put people further into debt. And less likely to make the income they really needed to begin with. And that’s racketeering - organized crime is another word for it. (Moody organized consumer rip-offs by combining these two under his ownership and management for both - got that FBI?) Visible.net, however, takes the solid “Big Boy” approach and has everything in-house. And when their state A/G came in with some complaints - they handled the customer and then handled the A/G, and he backed off. Because they were right. You got to, got to have everything under one roof and have your primary importance on caring for the customer. Frankly, if I had the dough right now, I’d get Visible.net to do my back-end for me. Set up an online ecommerce which would take care of all those headaches of getting sales and delivery and such going. I’d then be able to concentrate on simply working up how to help people with all the products I have. Because that’s all promotion really is, isn’t it. (And you can imagine how I’d love to point these over-verbose fingers at something far more fascinating than scammers…) ---OK, I see we are running now around a thousand words on this post. And I literally have probably another thousand to go just in talking about Visible.net - having found a real customer-oriented business that cares for the customer more than it has to worry about sales. And frankly, I’d be concerned that they are going to shut off their front end at some point so they can simply concentrate on caring for the customers they have. I’ve seen it done. Waiting lists. Visible.net - check them out. Thrive Learning Institute - chuck them out.

The complete miss of the Utah Internet Scam Poster Boy - Thrive Learning Institute • Monday May 18,2009 07:00 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, internet income solutions, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gracesfam/ (Caption: Gracie misses her target - the family dog Homer.) Had a delightful day yesterday, and I hope you did as well. Part of what made it so enjoyable was talking to an honest telemarketer - two of them, actually - who showed me how real Internet businesses and training operate. What — you might say (in a jaded, cynical voice) an honest telemarketer? True. These two guys were cold-calling (one a nervous novice, who then handed me off to his more practiced “advanced” associate) and were completely real about what I was doing and what they were and both knew and didn’t know about their areas. And that frank honesty kept me on the line. They were willing to talk to me and listen to what I had to say, even after I told and showed them I wasn’t qualified to be sold anything. Here’s the company and you can check them out for yourself: http://visible.net Now how did these telemarketers make my day?

Here’s how Internet Income Solutions, Bright Builders, and Thrive Learning Institute really soured my last few months: • • • •

Lies, more lies, and stonewalling. No real delivery for the inflated price I paid. Outrageously poor customer service. And they definitely don’t want you visiting their offices. (Any volunteers - with cameras?)

What does Visible.net do that Thrive Learning Institute and Bright Builders don’t? • Honest about their mistakes and their bottomed-out BBB rating - something to do with a competitor who screwed up, so the A/G is investigating the whole industry. Got to love politics. • Their prices are fixed and visible on their website. You know exactly what you are getting. • They have real examples and links to real customers and what package they bought to get their site running. • They have a real business and even invite customers living in or around the Redmond, Washington area to come in and get personal, live training and support at their office. (Even include driving directions to get there…) It’s true. Go to their site and check it out for yourself. And it’s not a five-page site, either - so spend some time and look around. These guys are the real deal. The difference? They’ve got an actual working model which allows them to concentrate on customer satisfaction rather than weekly income to make their bills. It’s all in-house, from sales to delivery. And they didn’t run a big PR campaign to get their ratings with the BBB up. They’re just slogging through the injustice of the BBB’s algorithm.

How the Bright Builders / Thrive Learning Institute model will never work 1. They don’t have a fixed price - sales people will get whatever they can from customers, from $1200 to $14,000 or more. Pity is, it’s always the same package - just more unnecessary frills added on in different instances. 2. They are dependent on week-to-week sales as they are operating on a cash-basis accounting rather than accrual-basis. Now most businesses run on a cash-basis, and this isn’t bad at all. (Even reportedly the Big Boys in the industry do this.) The point here is that when you are dealing with future delivery, you have to be able to defer income to meet known future expenses. Anything else is a Ponzi scheme. 3. Because of the sheer amount of customers, they can’t actually afford to invest in CRM and back-end services to assist the customer. Means they are built from the beginning and the bottom-up to scam. Visible.net actually shows how it has to be done (as well as PMI and Prosper). You have to have the bulk of the operation in-house. Sure you could outsource some of the sales part if you get way too many leads, but the delivery has be to be based inside a big-box environment where people can and do get individual attention they need in order to succeed. And so the prices have to be actually figured on what it takes to make each client of that company a success. (Note I said client, not consumer. This is a Jay Abraham thing. Clients return based on their

success you helped them attain. Consumers return based on habit/custom. You invest in clients to help them succeed. You sell consumables to consumers so they have to come back to you for more when they use it up or run out of it.) In the Internet Income Solutions/Bright Builders/Thrive Learning Institute world - you don’t want that consumer coming back - you just want to consume their money. And you hope they drop off your lines and shut up about it. (Someone like me who tells people the exact steps to get their refunds and complain must be real irritating to these guys…) Another thing Visible.Net does is to build your website for you. Yes, it’s proprietary software. Yes, I’m sure you are paying for some sort of hosting (although this isn’t clear on their site.) But there are three levels of pricing for three levels of service. One price-set for setting up your ecommerce site, another price-set for marketing it. And little cute itemized charts saying what’s different when you compare what you are buying there. What you don’t get is: • “Here’s the lessons so you can teach yourself how to build your website.” • “Here’s a bunch more lessons so you can teach yourself how to market.” • “OK, got that? - gee, your four hours are up. Well, email us if you have any questions. Oh, and you have a year to make your money back and then you’re on your own - but keep paying us monthly, OK? Wouldn’t want your locked-in website running on our servers to just quit running and lose all that data you put in, now would we?” But the assurance/promise is that you’ll make it all back in three months. Not on four hours of training. Not if your life depended on it. Like - “You can make millions flying people around the country in your own jet. Here, read these instructions. Watch these videos. Here’s how you collect from the paying passengers. Here’s how you fly the plane. OK, there you go. Email us if you have any problems.” That’s the current Utah Internet Scam Family model. Never has worked - even in the days of snake-oil salesmen. The whole trick was to get out of town before they could come and find you in the next one over. But they didn’t have credit cards in those days. Note: Visible.net does one thing wrong. They don’t have an affiliate program. So I can’t make a dime sending anyone their way. Sheesh. So the next best thing is linking to them and telling all you fine folks about them. Hope you visit their site. It’s really refreshing. ---One last point before I go: Their sales guys got a kick out of this blog - but they didn’t know how it would work for their company to be marketing a book which was about how to stop telemarketers. But I mentioned Thrive and got the oddest response: “Oh, them. Yeah, we run into them all the time.” When I asked about that, one of them said that honestly, they don’t talk down about anyone else, even when they aren’t competing with them. The only problem that this sales associate had is that the people on Thrive’s lines would say that they had to check with them, as it sounded real good, but Thrive could possibly do that for them. So the guy would put them on his list and call them back in three months. Sure enough, they wish they had gone with Visible.net - but they were now so far in debt from paying Thrive additional money that they couldn’t pay for what they really needed.

And that is the pity of Thrive Learning Institute, Bright Builders, Summit Group, Internet Income Solutions - the whole Utah Internet Scam Family. They are taking willing, capable people and making them so they can’t afford to invest in something that will work in order to make that money back. You see it’s not bad enough that Thrive Learning Institute is diggint their own hole deeper - they have to dig holes under other people as well. This is why I keep talking about racketeering and orange jumpsuits. In any other state, in any other industry, these guys would be arrested, and put away. Utah, are you listening?

Ready for Internet Scam Target Practice? Love bullets all around… • Sunday May 17,2009 03:01 PM • By robertworstell • In Bright Builders, Internet scam, internet income solutions, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wili/ Had some great response from “Let’s go Internet Scam wabbit hunting” post and I thought I’d give you some more target practice. Now, just to line up your sites, we are after the following “big game”: • • • • •

Thrive Learning Institute (or Matt Rasmussen or any of their spinoffs), BidFuel (or similar scammy lead providers), Summit Group/Consulting (anything Colton Moody touches, basically), Internet Income Solutions (or Mike Adamson, Dave Merhi, Charlie Frazier) Bright Builders (particularly if they are still in the scamming business)

And here’s some great new ammo to use: our very own Press Page! Visit that link and you’ll find a form you can fill out with your story, a description of what Press are looking for, links to press in your area (as close as I can find for you, anyway) and some materials they can download or look up to make your story all that more fascinating… As well, I’ll shortly have an ebook for you based on the material of this site. So you know it’s riveting,

delightful, scintillating, awe-inspiring, and destined to become the number 1 New York Times giveaway. Yes, another freebie for you! (Thank you, thank you, your spontaneous applause and cheering is just too much — but there’s a donate button up on your right…) But what we are looking for is • the nitty-gritty details of how these places operate. We know they rip people off and scam people out of their hard-earned money - it’s all over the complaint forums. But who said what to whom and when? • Who are their undisclosed owners and managers and executives? Contact details, phone numbers, emails, etc.? The stuff you can find on the web (but not their home phones unless that is also their business address…) • But what we want are organizational details of how they are set up, who’s done what to whom when. What organizing structure they use, what addresses… • We want to know the legal cases they’ve lost, all the cease-and-desist orders. • Photos! People who live in the SLC area and can visit their addresses to get photos of what their offices are like. People coming in and out, you know… • Facebook and social media pages for the owners and principals. Be nice, but verify these people. We want to publicise their connections. Send them nice traffic and stuff — that’s what social networks are for, right? • In short - anything and everything a reporter would find fascinating about these scammers! And we definitely, definitely want to hear your story. If you are an ex-employee (or currently employed) - consider yourself moved to the front of the line! All that in addition to being able to give you any and all help possible so you can get your refund back and stop telemarketers from calling you. Note: we want verifiable data - or the post where this stuff is posted. The contact information is so the press can call these guys up and visit their offices to find out what is really going on. What are we going to do with this? Tell the press - and publish it here and in the forums so that people can get the Justice they deserve. The point is to get some grassroot pressure going in order to get some real reform. So let me recap what guns we are shooting at them: 1. Get the press to tell our stories - brings them out in the open where they can’t hide in the shadows any more. 2. Get people to do charge-backs on their accounts. Enough complaints on this line alone will close down their credit lines. 3. Have people file reports with the Utah A/G for their refunds - this lets him know exactly how many people have been scammed across the country. 4. Pay it forward. Hit the forums and boards and blogs to let people know what steps they should take. Give them this blog link - that’s what it’s for. Email the persons who have contacted you and give them hope. But get them to act. Get imaginative - but find five people and help them! Hope I haven’t loaded you down with too many shells and guns and stuff. (I’m all out of spare carriers and rucksacks and cartridge belts - sorry.) The point is to make this hunt fun for everyone except the scammers. The general strategy is to drive

them out of the bushes and weed-choked gullies where they’ve been hiding - right out into the bright sunshine so everyone can see what they are up to. And then we can help Utah clean up this varmint infestation. So — who’s taking the first shot?

Into the Belly of the Utah Internet Scam Beast not too nice in there… • Saturday May 16,2009 11:54 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/buymelunch/

As I keep finding more people to talk to and with about Internet scams, I occasionally find some distressing news about the scammers, not just their prey. While I have another post upcoming at to why these scammers act as they do, suffice to say that Money plays a greater part in motivating their lives. Money is an arbitrary idea that only Humans use. It doesn’t exist in Nature, and you don’t need it to survive. (Imagine lugging around Gold in the Amazon or the Desert Southwest and trying to survive. Hint: just bury it and come back for it at some point…) But this distressing news was this: Where you have the Colton Moody’s and Matt Rasmussen’s out there, they are actually as bad if not worse for their employees as they are for the people they scam. While I have often pointed to City Weekly’s “Called into Question” article about the Utah A/G, it also paints a very disturbing story about Mentoring of America (MOA) which has a long and severe problem with drug abuse in it’s operations: Corine Cyphers was featured in a Jan. 21, 2009, City Weekly article about a discrimination

claim filed with the Utah Antidiscrimination and Labor Division against MOA. In a Jan. 8 interview, she told City Weeklythat management was more interested in results than office behavior. “[Management] made it a free-for-all as long as the job was done,” Cyphers says. “Go to work, party and then leave. The supervisors knew about it.” This dope-fueled sales environment made for an unusual workplace, Cyphers said. Cyphers described employees toting Nalgene bottles full of vodka, and people passed out at their desk. Both Lawson and Cyphers said employees overdosed while at work. .... “They follow the philosophy that the more money they make, the bigger the toys and the more drugs they can get,” Cyphers said in her January 2009 interview. Lawson says employees were making a killing off selling a computer program teaching customers how to make money off real-estate tax-lien sales. Team leaders like Lawson easily pulled in over six figures a year. “These kids are bringing down serious money and have no accountability,” he says. MOA was an amped-up sales powerhouse, according to Lawson and Cyphers, pulling in roughly $1.2 million in sales—a week. Other former employees, confirm the company’s drug culture, at least for the period between 2002 and 2005. “Some guys there made $35,000 a week,” says salesman X, a former employee who asked to remain anonymous. “A lot of that just went down the drain with drugs.” X says numerous drugs were sold and available and people had connections to street drugs like ecstasy and heroin, but he says, for the most part, prescription drugs were the narcotics of choice: OxyContin, Lortab, Percoset—even a combination of all three they called “legal speedballs.” X says these prescription-drug cocktails were like performanceenhancing drugs for the sales team. He says the mindset of using while at work was, “I’m going to [work] for 12 hours; I won’t feel rejection, I won’t feel pain. I’ll be patient with the people on the phone. [The drugs] give people the ability to mold and mirror people on the phone and basically take their money.” The disturbing news I got this week is that this isn’t isolated just to MOA. The report of this company, from an ex-employee, stated that another call center was also rife with drugs abuse - from the top down. I’m still investigating this, but finding that such a situation was going on - and perhaps wide-spread in this industry - was un-nerving. Where’s the money going? If this is such a big-money scene, then how is there some problem with what their employees are being paid and how they are treated? Now, take this above as just a single report, but it also tends to add up with posts in the forums. One fulfillment company is hiring ex-felons because they can’t get a job anywhere else, easily. The problem is that they aren’t hiring them in order to help them, they are basically exploiting them - minimum wage jobs, with some rip-off of their paychecks through Human Resources. So there is a very fast revolving door at this place, people in and out all the time. How’s a person just out of prison supposed to get a footing and start his new life? Not here. While I thought this isolated to a forum post describing a Kansas City call-center using ex-felons and

people on probation to gather credit card data - this report from an insider says the same operating basis was in place within this fulfillment center right there in SLC-area Utah. Why can’t these owners pay their help enough to get and keep honest, hard-working people? Well, let’s look at another ad I found on Craigslist for the Provo/Orem area (the jungle home of Bright Builders, Thrive Learning, and others). Reactive Coach (Orem) …. A growing business consulting firm is looking for consultants to help our clients succeed with their online businesses. We are looking for someone who excels in email and live chat. Our training department will be able to help you increase your knowledge in the needed areas. …. Great Health Benefits available. PTO and paid Holidays also available. Shifts are Monday-Friday, 8-4 or 12-8 …. Location: Orem Compensation: $8-$12 DOE Here’s an ad which matches the scene complained about on the forum: that untrained coaches are being used to deliver this over-priced “training” at these fulfillment centers. Provo is also the home to Brigham Young University, where they can get all sorts of students to come in. But look at that pay. $16K to $24K per year. Not enough to really raise a family. Fine for a single student who shares a rental with others. Now, fulfillment centers only get about 10% of the take on any sale. So this could mean they are strapped for cash and cut their biggest expense (personnel) whenever they can. Let’s cover the money breakdown here in brief: - Lead Providers get unsuspecting people to opt-in online for their low-cost media (a CD is common) and also their quasi-hidden subscription service. Then they sell those names over and over, usually on a contract basis for 35% of the take. - Sales Floors (call centers) do the dirty work of deceiving these consumers into buying over-hyped, over-priced services. While their take is around 55%, they also have to pay: • Sales people, who get about 20% of the take (about a third of the sales floor’s percentage) and • Credit Card companies, who take 5% of the sales price for the service and another 5% in reserve against chargebacks. Their 10% sales price cost is around 25% of the sales floor’s percentage. • Refunds - usually about 10% of the sales floor’s current sales to pay for earlier mistakes. This leaves • Overhead and profits, which then make up the remaining 25% of the sales floor’s percentage, or about 10-13% of the total sales. - Fulfillment Center gets only 10% of the total sales. Which explains why they do webhosting and other add-ons to get their income.

Let’s do some math: Out of a $7,000 package, • Lead Provider gets $2450 (and is away scott-free with this), • Sales Floor gets $3850, but operates on under $1000 (which still isn’t bad, since they don’t see the customer again), • Fulfillment Center gets $700 to service that consumer for a year. Taking the greed of unscrupulous owners in search of “get-rich-quick” schemes, they then pay out huge top-dog bonuses and cut everything else to the quick. Like MLM scams, the only people who get any money out of these scenes appear to be the owners. (Other than the Lead Providers, who don’t have to pay refunds.) Why would I suspect that the owners are taking big chunks and leaving everyone else to fight over the remains? Look up their back-trails of the beasty boys: • Colton Moody has a reputation that can’t be matched by any other single person in this industry. Do a Google site-search for his name on RipOff Reports and you’ll come up with 486 entries. (RipOff Reports’ own database search comes up with just 2. Can you say “payoff?” - I knew you could…) • Matt Rasmussen was kicked out of Tahiti for skimming and outright embezzlement. • Now they are co-owners of Thrive Learning Institute (along with a few as yet unknown others.) So here is the humane reason to deal with these guys: they hurt everyone around them. You can’t run a business which openly tolerates drug abuse and unscrupulous sales techniques. You can’t run a business which doens’t really care who works for them and whether they come to work the next day -because they’ll just hire some more (I’ve even worked for firms like this out in the Midwest - don’t think scammers are the only ones who have this mentality.) Any business is not there for the owner’s profits. It’s there for the community. A lot of people have this backwards, saying, “it’s just business.” But they don’t understand Business. Practically those type of people have never grown out of the heady diaper-days of being successful as a pompous, swaggering, esteem-impaired “hot-shot” sales person. They have no clue about being able to run a business. The apparent reason these scammers in Utah continue to exist is that the entry bar is too low and the supervision nearly non-existant for this industry. There are people and their companies who, regardless of the blackmarks others have tried to lay on them, actually do a decent job at helping people. And I’ll cover then in another post. But the deal is that you can’t go around and be me-me-me-me-me all the time. People get hurt. You wreck other peoples’ lives. It doesn’t matter how much money you make - your life becomes a living hell after awhile. Because of the people you hurt. So: let’s get these guys straightened out - and put a nice steak on Utah’s black eye so it can start to heal.

Don’t just throw this beast another meat hunk for his belly.

Help the Poster Boy of Utah Internet Scam Family Crash • Friday May 15,2009 07:33 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, ripoffreports, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tombothetominator/ Oops. But if you see my last post about Thrive Learning Institute’s Google rankings, you’ll see why you can only help them descend. (Hope everyone gets out alive… in orange jumpsuits.) Here’s how you can help. When you search on Google, you’ll see several complaint forums which show up prominently - even above Thrive’s corporate site. Following my advice to “pay it forward 5 times” and help scammers enjoy this recession like the rest of us, go to these top forums (not, not, not Rip-Off Reports, which is a shakedown, not a forum) - anyway, go to these forums which are ranking higher than Thrive and simply post a helpful, supportive comment to the people who got scammed there. Once you get all those done (three right now), then go find some more until you’ve helped 5 people with your comment or post. (Of course, you don’t have to stop there…) What this does is to make the complaint boards stay higher on Google than Thrive’s corporate site (0utside of any ads they take out - which costs them money).

And so more people can find out about the incredibly lousy service they give their customers. And so more people won’t fall for their scam. My suggestion is to tell them three things: 1. File a fraud report with their credit card companies and request an investigation into charge-backs no matter how long it’s been. 2. File complaints with FBI, FTC, Utah A/G, and Utah Division of Consumer Protection with their specific situation. 3. Go on the complaint boards and forums and help 5 other people with their own situation - telling them these three things to do (which are the most effective ways to get a refund right now). What this does is to get the truth on top at Google and other search engines. All of Thrive’s shills on these forums actually only get that complaint thread to show up higher still. So there is really no defense to their own customer complaints. Here’s what they could do to handle this scene: • Pay off all refund requests (owners like Colton Moody and Matt Rasmussen will have to dig deep). • Apologize publically on their own website. • Become active in working to reform this industry - starting a complaint forum of their own where they could actually monitor these complaints and as well start pro-actively doing something about them - like giving out the customer service numbers and representatives names of these sales floors so that they are held responsible. • Start delivering real service - not just 4 hours of coaching over 2 weeks. This means the company would hit the field for real. Because they can’t afford it. Now, what would really have to happen: • Pay off the refunds as above. • Sell what’s left of the company to PMI, or Prosper, or someone who knows how to really run training. • Then run apology ads all over the place so that the “under new management” will give the brand name a chance. But this, again, costs money. And the sales people who are running Thrive are in it for just one thing: money. That’s the bottom-line reason it’s a scam. So my personal prediction: Thrive Learning Institute crashes, burns, and disappears within this year. It’s going to take your help to make it happen, though. You know where the complaint boards and forums are. How many people have you helped today?

Thrive Learning Institute - in the toilet of Internet Scam rankings • Thursday May 14,2009 06:56 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bs/ How can I say something dastardly and inflammatory as this? Two words: “Customer Service” When I talked to Zach Bradshaw last (he doesn’t phone me any more or answer my calls) - I actually complimented him on how he managed to keep the front page of Google free of desultory (critical) remarks about their company. So anyone looking up the company would see only nice things and go ahead to sign up. However, their money dried up and their focus changed. You used to see a lot of articles and videos and stuff hitting the web about Thrive Learning. Now you mostly see complaints. Creating videos takes money if you don’t have people doing it for you. Thrive has no affiliate program to share their wealth - so no one is going to promote their services for a splitcommission. And social media, being social - Google follows fads, er… interests of people. Meanwhile, Thrive Learning has been busy pissing people off. Quite a lot of people. So these people hit the complaint boards.

I even told Zach to take the ‘thrivelearningscam’ keyword and create a site which would answer those questions people had about their web training. Well, some mysterious someone took that name - but just left it parked at GoDaddy. Meaning that management at Thrive is probably too busy putting out brushfires to do some forward thinking. Which also explains why posts of articles to article boards and shills on complaint forums haven’t kept up with the amount of complaints hitting their lines. So they disappeared from the above-the-fold on Google for their one terms - except for their corporate site (which is bland and shallow). Reason managament is so busy - it’s a plane-on-fire downward spiral. They oversubscribed and underprepared. Trying to suck in all this money with sales while not figuring out how to actually and factually deliver what they promised. At 1.5 million a week, they are getting some 200 new customers a week. Thrive only really keeps them online for a year. But their training lasts all of two weeks with about 4 hours of coaching delivered. After that, you’re on your own with their a la carte eLibrary to keep you company and answer all your questions. Good luck building that top-dollar website. Their only hand-holding is a “[email protected]” email address - which pretty much describes what they think about you. No small reason that people have elected Thrive Learning the most hated Utah Internet Scammer of the Year. Way too many people pissed off about shoddy service. 200 customers a week for a year gives them 10,000 customers who each got 4 hours of questionable training for about 10 years of paying off that credit card debt. And a bunch of short video clips they can access for the next year - some of which are not just misleading, but completely wrong. And when you’re waaaayy too busy just trying to keep your new customers serviced, what happens to the old ones - they are neglected and get teed off. Any big, old business sees that you have to actually spend a great deal of time on customer service and making sure that they are actually cared for. You have to pay out refunds regardless of whether you did the right thing by that customer. Because word gets around. Fast. And more people wil say how screwed up you are than will say how nice and polite your PR person is. Look, rankings these days are more and more fluid. You don’t stay on top if you got there by using social media. And when more people concentrate on how lousy your service is - you drop, drop, drop. Get a clue, Thrive Learning Institute. Use what you “train” other people on. And get your corporate head out of the toilet.

The Utah 3-day Internet Scam loophole might have been closed… • Wednesday May 13,2009 08:44 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brymo/

This from an update post at Kelso’s Corner - tells you that Thrive Learning Institute (which doesn’t have a refund policy on it’s front page - or anywhere on thriveli.com site, at least that you can access directly for TLI itself) and Internet Income Solutions (among others) can be required to refund your money even after the 3-days have expired. (And note that these laws require they be business days, not weekends.) Remember to put this on your Utah Division of Consumer Protection report… If they did not tell you about the 3 day cancellation and it was not in the contract, them according to the laws of Utah, you have 90 days to cancel. ther are some of the Utah Consumer laws. 13-26-11. Prohibited practices. (1) It is unlawful for any solicitor: (c) to make or cause to be made any untrue material statement, or fail to disclose a material fact necessary to make any statement made not misleading, whether in connection with a telephone solicitation or a filing with the division; (d) to make or authorize the making of any misrepresentation about its compliance with this chapter to any prospective or actual purchaser; (e) to fail to refund within 30 days any amount due a purchaser who exercises the right to cancel under Section 13-26-5; or

(f) to fail to orally advise a purchaser of the purchaser’s right to cancel under Section 13-26-5 13-26-5. Right of rescission — Cancellation. 13-26-5. Right of rescission — Cancellation. (1) (a) Except as provided in Subsections (1)(b) and (c), in addition to any right to otherwise revoke an offer, a person making a purchase from a telephone soliciting business required to be registered under this chapter may cancel the sale up to midnight of the third business day after the receipt of the merchandise or premium, whichever is later, provided the solicitor advises the purchaser of his cancellation rights under this chapter at the time any solicitation is made. (b) If the solicitor required to be registered under this chapter fails to orally advise a purchaser of the right to cancel under this section at the time of any solicitation, the purchaser’s right to cancel shall be extended to 90 days. (c) If the solicitor required to be registered under this chapter fails to orally advise a purchaser of his true name, telephone number, and complete street address at the time of any solicitation, the purchaser may cancel the sale at any time. (2) Sales shall be cancelled by mailing a notice of cancellation to the telephone solicitor’s correct street address, postage prepaid. If the telephone solicitor provided no correct street address, cancellation can be accomplished by sending a notice of cancellation to the division’s offices, postage prepaid. (3) (a) If a cancellation involves durable goods, as defined by rule, those goods shall be returned to the seller. (b) If expendable goods are involved, the purchaser shall return any unused portion of those goods. (c) A reasonable attempt shall be made to return goods to the solicitor’s correct street address within seven days of exercising the right to cancel, providing the solicitor has provided the purchaser with the address. If the solicitor has failed to give a correct address, no return is required to qualify for a full refund of the purchase price. (d) If the purchaser has used any portion of the services or goods purchased, the solicitor or telephone soliciting business shall receive a reasonable allowance for value given. This allowance may be deducted from any refund due the purchaser. (e) A solicitor shall be jointly and severally liable with the telephone soliciting business for any refund amount due following the cancellation of a sale made by the solicitor. (4) For the purposes of this section, “business day” does not include Sunday or a federal or state holiday.

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,

How to help the Utah Internet Scam Capitol have a Recession of it’s own… • Wednesday May 13,2009 08:37 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/igboo/

(Wouldn’t it be just great to see a sign like this - imagine what you could get for 30% off - not much you’d want, I’d wager…) While I can get a bit worked up over the injustices which Thrive Learning Institute, Bright Builders, Internet Income Solutions, and BidFuel have wreaked, I can also see some light at the end of the tunnel. But to do this, we are going to have to get some real grassroots work going. Pay if Forward 5 times The situation is that most people don’t know who to contact or what to do with their problem when they realize they’ve been scammed and these companies give them the brush off. Only after 8 months of research have I come up with all the links on this page and data on this site. Now you have here all the links and information you could want. Even a book. And I’m shortly going to make it simpler by creating a simple ebook which lays out the basics for you something that can be simply downloaded and also passed round. We simply have to get the word out. Now the technique is going to be very simple. You get help, you help five other people. Simply tell them how to get their refund, like you’ve been informed. Again, these simple steps are:

1) Initiate a charge-back against that company by filing a fraud report with your credit card company. 2) File your reports with FBI, FTC, Utah A/G, and Utah Division of Consumer Protection. 3) Go on the forums and help five other people with their complaint. The effect of this will be to simply increase the complaints by at least 5 times. But you have to tell who ever you help to do these steps, especially the one about helping 5 other people. Here’s how it works: 1) The most effective way to really snarl up a telemarketer is to kill his credit. By filing fraud complaints, the credit card companies will start to have a much bigger list of complaints against this company - whichever scam company did you - and will be more likely to start investigating whether they should actually be doing business with that company. If they already have some charge-backs in the works, it’s possible that a flood of complaints would cancel their account - so they can’t scam anyone else. The second part of this is that - and this is unconfirmed - a fraud report will extend the investigation indefinitely, meaning that you don’t have just 60 days to get the credit card company to do a charge-back. In other words, you may be able to get the credit card company to do the work of getting your money back even months later. 2) The Federal government won’t act until they are literally deluged with complaints. The FBI isn’t interested in fraud until it gets over $50,000 - and none of our scams usually amount to that. But imagine if they got 1,000 complaints or more about a certain company or several all coming out of the same geographic area… (Now you can also back this up with letters, faxes, and emails to your elected Washington officials - demanding a full Federal investigation into the possibility of racketeering being the routine in the SLC telemarketers.) And, as I’ve linked often, the Utah A/G has a problem in that he’s taking a ton of cash (nearly $200,000) from the Utah SLC-area telemarketers - that City Weekly article. So when you phone, fax, and email him with your complaint, as well as the Division of Consumer Protection, they will then be alerted with all the data they need to really crack down on these guys. The more data, the more they will be inclined to act. And next year is an election season, so contacting your and their US Representative would help, too. The essential point is that we each contact and help 5 other people and get them to contact and help 5 other people. What I’ve boiled down above are the most effective ways currently to handle these scammers. We just need to get this data out to as many people as possible. By contacting 5 other people and actually helping them, we amplify our own effects and so stand a much better chance of getting our refunds and also cleaning up this whole area.

It’s simple: 1)Report the fraud to your credit card company and demand an investigation, and 2) Report it to the Feds and Utah A/G for handling. And if you’d like to be a media star… Now, what I’m doing meanwhile is locating local investigative reporters you can contact or refer these people to - if they want to talk to the press. I’ve already found one SLC-area reporter who is interested. And a chain of media outlets in most of the US who are interested in investigating consumer advocacy-type stories. These can be sent to them by state - so if you find someone who was scammed out of Utah, you can either send it to Bill Gephardt at KUTV in SLC, and also to a local reporter who is part of this chain. That way, we start backing up our complaints with some real harsh spotlighting on this scene - both locally and also in the states where it happened. And this will also mean getting a Press Kit out to you so that you can simply email a file to a reporter and they will have all the contact information and basic facts to hand. You just add in your personal story of how it happened and how it affected your life - and they can run with it. Of course, it will have the numbers of the Utah A/G, Gephardt, the Utah Senators and US Representatives for those areas, plus the numbers of Thrive Learning Institute, Summit Consulting/Group/Momentum Marketing - and anyone else concerned. So they can be contacted directly for these stories. Basically, guerilla citizen journalism. But for this to work, you really, really have to pay it forward. You need to haunt the forums and boards so you can find and help your five people. Post, post, post, post, and post. Get the word out. I’m going to set up these files so that anyone can download them from Scribd and some other download spots. Not just so my own server doesn’t get hammered but so anyone can find them by searching. Maybe, I’ll even do a video on this so people can find the data quickly. Now, if you do the math above, you’ll realize that if everyone finds 5 people, get them to handle their scene by complaining above, then get them to find 5 people… We’ll soon have an out-of-control scene which escalates beyond anything that has been seen on these lines before. That’s the point. Shut these scammers completely down and make Utah clean up it’s reputation as the Internet Scam Capitol of the US. Maybe the Utah A/G will clean up this act. If not, a lot of people are going to hear about his campaign contributions… OK - let’s go! Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,

Let’s go Thrive Learning Institute, Bright Builders hunting — Siwwy Internet Scam Wabbits… • Tuesday May 12,2009 07:00 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjsorg/

Ooh, here’s an idea: Let’s see how many clients Thrive Learning Institute and Bright Builders used to scam/deal with? I’m pretty sure Bright Builders was it’s only soul provider - oh, I shouldn’t have said that. How many people are using their software? OK, now about Thrive Learning Institute… I’ve got about ten on it’s own site (just do a site search on thriveli.com and you’ll see all the stuff hosted there.) Then there’s searches on the various complaint forums and boards (even -shudder- RipOff Reports). Let’s see what we can come up with. Up to the challenge, anyone?

And if they are scamming for multiple companies, ripping people off - does this fall under racketeering? Check out the links and decide for yourself. Just a hint - Colton Moody owns and operates both Summit Group/Consulting and Thrive Learning Institute… Well, in a very tortured paper-trail way.

Why BidFuel, Internet Income Solutions, Bright Builders, Thrive Learning, and Summit Group are getting what they don’t want… • Monday May 11,2009 06:56 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nanoprobe67/ (How’s that for a keyword-stuffed title - just like RipOffReports - oops, left out one.) If these guys had more common sense and less arrogance, they would have gotten rid of me months ago. It came to me when I was talking to a friend today, that the only real reason I’m keeping going with this is simply because their customer service sucks. Why do I call them a scam? Not because they didn’t deliver anything, but because what they delivered was shoddy. And they didn’t really listen to me or give me a refund. Hear that BidFuel? Your initial scam may have gotten a couple hundred bucks from me. But you guys are now right up there with everyone else. A bunch of the worst rip-off artists of all time. And you sold my name over and over and over - getting the most money from my sale finally. Hear that Internet Income Solutions? You probably think you guys are really cool and have

everything sorted out. No, you won’t listen to me. You lied about Bright Builder and Thrive Learning doing a “merger” - isn’t that right, Charlie Frazer? Lie, lie, lie. Tell your therapist Charlie. Call me up and tell me how I’m wrong - you’ve got my number. Bright Builders - where do I begin? Now you think you’re out of it, don’t you. Lucky for you that Ed Magedson of Rip Off Reports told me he could get money out of Thrive. Left you off the hook for awhile. But guess what? My contract was with you. You were the guys who fouled up on the customer service right off the bat. And now, maybe the spotlight starts to swing back. What did you do with all my money? Thrive Learning Institute - oh, you guys used to have it so nice. Turns out you’ve oversubscribed. And there’s so much more data on you than anyone else. Oops. Had your chance to pay me off, but it became “sorry, we never had a contract with him.” Well, then how did you get my business? Some deal with Bright Builders so they cut your costs on leasing their software? Isn’t that a form of a contract? You got something out of taking on my services. Ask Joe Rowberry. He’s the one Charlie said he talked to. (Of course Charlie lies - not like the anyone in the rest of the industry…) But you know, all of this would be unnecessary - this whole vent today, this whole blog - only if I had gotten in with a legitimate lead provider who had gotten me over to a decent fulfillment center. Because the problem is no real back end. You guys simply hope people fall off your lines and quit, don’t you? Here’s news - I’m not only not quitting - in fact, I’m going to bring back some people who thought they had given up. Night of the Living Dead. Stay tuned… Oh - almost forgot - Colton Moody and Summit Group. Here’s the real top dog of the Utah Internet Scam world. If SLC is the Internet Scam Center of the USA, Colton Moody is King Scammer. Oh, I’m sure this does anything but makes him quake in his boots. He’s just a little too cocky, too sure of himself for that. Let’s see how the crown of “racketeer” fits after he’s torqued a few too many people off. How did poor little rich boy Colton get in my sights? He runs Thrive - and you can simply chase that domino chain right back from him. Dig deep, Colton - turn off this spigot. Pay me off. Last chance. Will he hear it? Nope. Ears probably plugged with money. OK, now I know you guys are listening. You’ve got people who do nothing but look out on the web for complaints and stuff. Consider this another shot across your bow. Within the next week, look for an organized series of articles which will culminate in a real mess for you. I just got some hot dope on how you guys operate and why. And I can tell you how your particular type of operation is going to be extinct within a year or so - quite independent of what the Utah government does with you. So everyone, stay tuned to this blog. Watch the fireworks. And I won’t even lay a glove on them, but they’ll hit the mat like a ton of bricks. (Go ahead - pay me off, see if you can stop this…Colton, Joe, Charlie, Emily, Zach, Matt.) ---Here’s the funny one, Zach. Every time I mention your company name and link to one of my other posts, your Google standing goes down just that much. And they aren’t giving you the money to get new stuff posted any more, are they? Deep end of the pool with a hole in your inner tube. Go ahead,

say it, just another blogger to ignore… See you in your own standings. Watch me climb.

How RipOff Reports Racket is going bust - what this means for Utah Internet Scams • Monday May 11,2009 11:20 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjsharktank/ Just got an email saying that RipOff Reports is now being sued for misusing Google - and so winding up in top positions all over the place. Their top positions for all these brand names is where they make their money. Yahoo and MSN have effectively de-listed Magedson’s stuff. One SEO-savvy author takes them completely to task. (You know you’ve got a genius on your hands when your head spins just keeping up with all they’re talking about…) Here’s what 97th floor had to say: I am sure you are all familiar with Rip Off Report, it is by far the largest database of complaints about businesses, individuals and pretty much anything on the planet from religion to government all the way to Racist remarks. Rip Off Report has been accused of all sorts of shady things, racketeering, black mail and rip offs. I am not going to get into the lawsuits against it’s owner Ed Magedsonon or any of the many allegations of what appears to be shady practices. What I am going to get into is how they are being leveraged to manipulate Google’s search results and how Google is fueling their questionable business.

Rip Off Report thrives off of ranking in Google’s search results, I would say that the only reason they are so popular is because of the relationship they have with Google’s search results. According to Compete.com Rip Off Report receives roughly 606,439 referrals from Google’s search results each month. I bet you wish your site got that many referrals from Google each month, in fact I would say most sites on the net don’t. From October 2007 until now (Jan 2008) those referrals have come from 5,761 different search keywords. Again this is according to Compete. I was curious about how Yahoo and Live treat Rip Off Report in their search results. I don’t think that you will find the results surprising as Google can tend to favor and love certain domains where as Yahoo and Live don’t play favorites as often. And then they do a detailed analysis of exactly what spam techniques ROR is using to hold onto their standings -as well as blatently false reports on the site where Google founders are misreported as drunkenly trolling for 17-year-olds in coffee shops… Now, a link at the bottom of this then goes to a legal eagle who has more to talk about ROR. She makes several points about how Magedson is gaming the system for his own use. But the classic piece is where there are some depositions which actually show ROR is on the dirty end of the defamation stick: There is more than just speculation that Magedson was involved in altering reports.Declaration of Dickson Earl Woodard Deposition contains the sworn testimony of the Plaintiff’s former employee2 and states repeatedly that Magedson drafted fake complaints and manipulated search engines: Attorney: So what I’ve gathered from all of your testimony, Dickson, is that Ed Magedson has indirectly told you that he is responsible for making posts about companies. He will make these posts. Mr. Woodard: Yes. Attorney: And then he will manipulate the search engines; is that true? Mr. Woodard: No question about the search engines. That’s where the money is made. In his Response to Woodard’s testimony, Magedson blames Woodard for making the fake complaints. Magedson’s deposition also throws his credibility into doubt. Read excerpts of his testimony and determine for yourself whether he’s telling the truth when he states that he did not write the email asking a disgruntled employee to write an inflammatory post about his employer. Now this also brings up the point of how certain individuals who are associated with several fulfillment center ripoffs could themselves be brought up under RICO (racketeering) charges. Say a person was proved to be both the (partial) owner of a sales floor and (partial) owner of a fulfillment center - and was actually on record as managing both - if that said person was using his influence to calculatedly defraud people repeatedly, and if the companies under his care did it - even without his expressed direction - he could be held under the RICO act. But get this: RICO allows for punitive damages. Meaning that the fine could be trebled above the

damages asked for initially. Check out Sarah’s points here: ⇒ What is the RICO Act?

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was designed to bust up organized crime like the mob. The Godfather, as everybody knows, never did his own dirty work. He had people to take care of his unlawful business. Thus, it was not easy for law enforcement to pin him with money laundering and murder because he wasn’t doing it himself. After years of mafia domination, the legislature wised up and finally made a law that made it illegal to be the head of an organization that conducts a pattern of unlawful activity. It didn’t matter anymore if the Godfather didn’t pull the trigger. Because he was in charge of the organization that made the murder happen, he could be found liable for a RICO Act violation. Plaintiffs are now applying this same strategy to RipOff Report litigation. ⇒ The RICO Act is a Favorite with Plaintiffs Because it Allows for Punitive Damages There is another brilliant thing about RICO Act claims that make them a very attractive avenue to plaintiffs’ attorneys: Punitive or treble damages. If you are found liable of a RICO Act claim and you extorted $50,000.00, the Judge can order you to pay three times that amount! Most civil lawsuits (like defamation, for example) only allow plaintiffs to recover the amount that they were actually damaged. The ability to recover punitive damages is what makes RICO so suave, my friend. ⇒ What Does a Plaintiff Have to Prove to Hold RipOff Report Liable for a RICO Act Violation? The most common RICO claim makes it unlawful for a person to manipulate an enterprise for purposes of engaging in, concealing, or benefiting from a pattern of racketeering activity. In order to prove a “racketeering activity,” you must essentially prove a crime within a crime. Extortion can serve as a “racketeering activity” under the statute. In the case of RipOff Report, a plaintiff must demonstrate that Magedson manipulated an enterprise (RipOffReport.com) for the purpose of engaging in a pattern of extortion. Note: If you want to learn more about the RICO Act, I commend to your attention to Mr. Jeffrey Ernest Grell’s RICO Act in at Nutshell. It’s a thorough review and will tell you everything you want to know and more about RICO. The current legal cases being brought against ROR and Ed Magedson would have notable traction in cleaning up the Utah Internet Scam field. Practically, while I’m not bringing suit, I’m giving some warning to this industry that there could be some real ramifications to what they are doing - and way beyond their nested LLC protections that they’ve been using. Again, this simply means that they need to be exposed publically. Their greatest defense so far has

been staying in the shadows. Guess what: “It’s showtime!”

Salt Lake City, Utah - Scam Capitol of the US • Friday May 8,2009 08:13 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rothwerx/

Recently checked my list of call centers and fulfillment centers. Turned out they are mostly in Utah. (Is that news to some of us?) Also turned out they are mostly not licensed to practice in Utah by the state. Fancy that. I remembered someone from North Carolina who emailed me about an “Auction Profits” or some such selling him a training package from Thrive Learning Institute. Turned out that there is no company with Auction in it’s name operating legally in the state as a telemarketer. Fancy that. So I emailed him today with that information. He should be able to get a refund on that basis alone. Anyone can get the same data off the Internet - it’s actually publicly available with little effort. Do a site search of the complaint boards and you can quickly compile your own. And when you compare the names from the state official list of telemarketers (updated in late April), you can find whether your spammer was actually ever licensed to begin with. If they aren’t, you can probably then get a refund moving with the state.

Good Hunting!

Easiest way to get your Utah Internet Scam refund payoff • Thursday May 7,2009 12:41 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalsextant/ Just a disclaimer - I didn’t say “easy”, and I didn’t say “fast”, and I didn’t say “certain” or “for sure”. And the pulp fiction cover above makes it look a lot more dangerous than it is. It just turns out that several emails I’ve had recently point in this specific direction.

Utah Division of Consumer Protection [email protected] 160 East 300 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 Phone: 801-530-6601 Toll-Free: 1-800-721-SAFE Fax: 801-530-6001. You download their form (link to the right) and fill it out, then fax it back in. Best would be to email,

fax, and then send by letter as well. While you’re at it, email the Utah A/G and Governor while you’re at it (remember “Complain Like Hell”?) Oh - and there’s a real easy way to fax it. You can search for “free fax” or just use FaxZero to send it for free (with an ad on the front page) or for $1.99 with priority service. You’d pay more than that for the long distance call and fax machine maintenance. (Yes there’s others, this was top of the search engine heap and worked, so I thought to share.) Here’s more links for the Utah A/G: Questions, Complaints, Requests, or Suggestions General Office Numbers: (801) 366-0260, (801) 538-9600, (801) 366-0300 Toll Free within the State of Utah: (800) AG4 INFO (244-4636) E-Mail: [email protected] Please leave your name, phone number or address so you can be contacted. And what the Division of Consumer Protection deals with are at these links: Division of Consumer Protection, Utah Code Ann. §13-2 (authorizing statute) Buyer Beware List, UT Admin Code R152-1 Business Opportunity Disclosure Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-15 Business Opportunity Disclosure Act Rules, UT Admin Code R152-15 Charitable Solicitation Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-22 Charitable Solicitation Act Rules, UT Admin Code R152-22 Child Protection Registry, Utah Code Ann. §13-39 Consumer Sales Practices Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-11 Consumer Sales Practices Act Rules, UT Admin Code R152-11 Credit Services Organizations Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-21 Credit Services Organizations Act Rules, UT Admin Code R152-21 Health Spa Services Protection Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-23 Health Spa Services Protection Act Rules, UT Admin Code R152-23 Music Licensing Practices Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-10a New Motor Vehicles Warranty Act (Lemon Law), Utah Code Ann. §13-20 New Motor Vehicles Warranty Act Rules (Lemon Law), UT Admin Code R152-20 Pawnshop Transaction Information Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-32a Price Controls During Emergencies Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-41 Prize Notices Regulation Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-28 Postsecondary Proprietary School Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-34

Postsecondary Proprietary School Act Rules, UT Admin Code R152-34 Pyramid Scheme Act, Utah Code Ann. §76-6a Telephone and Facsimile Solicitation Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-25a Telephone Fraud Prevention Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-26 Telephone Fraud Prevention Act Rules, UT Admin Code R152-26 Unfair Practices Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-5 Uniform Debt-Management Services Act, Utah Code Ann. §13-42 Uniform Debt-Management Services Act Rules, UT Admin Code R152-42 What’s of interest to you are the ones on Telephone Solicitation, Telephone Fraud (these are obvious), and Consumer Sales Practices, but key is the Business Opportunity Disclosure Act. Did you know these guys are supposed to be telling you about the actual risks of your new business you set up on their servers? And how many of these fail in the first few years? I didn’t either. So if you check these out before you send in your complaint form, you can really nail these guys for their fraud. Quote them chapter and verse if you want.

Now why would this particular line be most effective? Oh, I dunno - check out this often-linked SLC Weekly article about the Utah A/G’s campaign donations and see if something drops out between the lines….

Look out Thrive Learning Institute - a new group is aiming for you… • Wednesday May 6,2009 02:40 PM • By robertworstell • In thrive learning institute

http://www.flickr.com/photos/donabelandewen/ (Because the slingshot’s more like David and Goliath… and who doesn’t like baseball…) Here’s the latest group to start up - something a lot of you will be interested in:

petitionagainstthrive · Petition Against Thrive Group Description A group that supports an individual attempting to recover his/her money that was take in/by a telemarketing scam with such companies as Thrive Learning Institute, Momentum Marketing,Summit Group,Six Figures, Wyoming S Corp, Sellers Lounge, Concept Executions, Biz Review, Infusion Media, Auction Sizzle, Diverse Marketing LLC, Prosper Inc, Echo, J.C. Residual LLC, Internet Auction Solutions, Platinum Trading Solutions, Biz Review, Tafiti Consulting, Media Learner, Vanuity LLC group and many other companies…… Group Email Addresses Post message:

[email protected]

[email protected] petitionagainstthriveUnsubscribe: [email protected] List owner: [email protected] So send them a message to join. Subscribe:

---Why would a company like Thrive Learning Institute get a groundswell starting against them? Maybe they aren’t really taking responsibility for their refund requests… Another day in the life of a wholly misunderstood fulfillment company caught in the gross injustice of an unfair Internet Scam label (as sarcasm dripped onto the keyboard.)

A new Sheriff in Internet Scam Town… • Wednesday May 6,2009 02:17 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yogi/

Got an email from someone who was scammed from the other side of the fence. He was trying to run an honest business and then his products started getting used by scammers as part of their training and coaching. Sullied his reputation, to say the least. We’re going to get together later so I can tell you more about that side of the fence - which is almost, or perhaps even more hair-raising than losing several years of pay to a credit card company over an overhyped promise which can’t be delivered. But he gave me an address for an association which just started up in 2008 and is actually trying to get that Utah bunch to reform their own scene. By record, independent professional associations have a better chance of changing things than the government does. Peer pressure. Now, just to be honest and painfully frank, they’ve got an uphill climb and two strikes against them.

• First, most of their promoted members are also featured with some unsavory histories in most of the Complaint Forums and (shudder) RipOff Reports. • Second, they have a K Street address in Washington - and as I told them, anything with a government address is trusted about as far as… The great part is that it gives us yet another place to complain: Alliance for Lifelong Learning - http:// www.alllearning.org/ (You’ll have to excuse their Flash site - navigate over to Consumer Services and then down to Complaints/Concerns to find a form to complain on. They should actually get Thrive Learning designers to chop that up and make regular pages out of it - they’d get better search engine traffic that way…) But their intentions are good. So I offered to help. Here’s what I told them: A member of yours sent me your link, saying you were in an organizational stage - and were intent on reforming and protecting the industry. I run a blog, which has not been too complementary to several of your members listed. Reason being is that I was scammed by an unscrupulous telemarketing organization who then passed me off to two different fulfillment centers, both of which wouldn’t effectively handle my complaints - just passed me back and forth. So I started a blog, based on my research into this area: http://stoptelemarketers.midwestjournalpress.com The basic premise being that if I couldn’t get a refund, I should be able to sell books to get my money back. (Sigh.) OK, seriously - you probably haven’t heard of that blog and don’t have time to wade through it, so let’s get to the quick of it: I want to help reform the industry. It needs some standards. So I want to promote that there is an associate forming out there which is intent on doing something with this industry. The products they have, on the whole, are needed. The highpressure sales tactics aren’t - or the inflated promises that you can earn it all back in three months. These set your members up for the label “scam”. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. But they don’t have to be. Actual scammers will be involved in criminal actions regardless. Others (like our anonymous member) incidentally fell into it and were rather embarrassed when their honest company was tainted by those unscrupulous tactics by some of them. I’m not being paid by any of your members (and this blog certainly isn’t making me enough money to live on) - so all this blogging is being done from my own sense of justice (and fingers which don’t know when to stop typing.) So I’m offering my services as an external review point, or in any other way I can help you succeed in your stated goals. Frankly, you have an unhill climb ahead of you. A lot of these companies have a great deal

of explaining to do to the public at large. But I’m willing to host their comments and their side of the story if they want. The warning is that I’ll play the devil’s advocate with them fair, but skeptical. So they can have a platform to offer up explanations of why they acted that way and how they are doing business now. Not just a bunch of “we are dedicated to 100% customer satisfaction” but actual sites created by their clients which are looking good, doing well and not owned by some employee or friend of the owner. And believe me, I can give a professional critique of any site they name. But when they do bring up a site which does perform and is an honest success story - they’d have more goodwill coming their way than they can shake a stick at. And I could put their example sites in my final book version so they have an independent review of their actual products, not just the complaints about what a scam they are - which are flooding the Internet (and make great sources for over-verbous bloggers like me…) Anyway, let me know if you think I could help you in any way. I’ll be blogging away - and feel free to comment on my posts if I’ve gotten it wrong in any way. Robert. ---And that offer is open to anyone who’s been accused of scamming, Thrive or anyone: Comment on one of my pages, or email me with the site address of any successful site you want to offer as proof some of your clients actually make it. I’ll dissect it and review it and give you an honest appraisal. If the domain name is owned by someone who lives around SLC, I’ll assume it’s an employee or a family member of one of the owners. If they don’t rank in Google above the second page - oops. Technical points, like use of keywords, usable navigation, and so on - I’ll tell it all. If it’s a legitimate site and set up to succeed, I’ll tell the world about it - and they’ll get the external link. But send me cheap PR and reap the whirlwind. Look, the way this blog is set up, I don’t make money unless I sell some books or someone donates. And believe me, if someone tried to donate their way to a good review, I’d return the donation and then tell the world what just happened. Someone suddenly buys 20 of my books on Lulu and I’d get suspicious, but Lulu doesn’t tell me who bought what. (Just don’t make it all in one bulk purchase wink, wink.) Take the way I’ve treated Thrive Learning, as example. I think their site is one of the most professional I’ve seen. And their servers are optimized for really fast video delivery. Technically, they are tops. But when you search for keywords of the site, you find they aren’t trying to take over any niche market share. And the remote blogs they have pointing to their site don’t have comments enabled. That means an A for style, a C for SEO, and a D or F for social media marketing. And I actually have a great deal of respect for their PR, Zach Bradshaw. He’s been polite and fair to me. That’s why I apologized to him. They just have to disconnect from some of these sales floors which over-promise their stuff. And they need to be responsible enough to see that those sales floors actually refund when they are supposed to not just handing it off as a stonewall. Another hint to ThriveLI: Set up affiliate sales and give commissions to your clients who refer others to

you. Look, SiteBuildIt! has been making money for years without coaching - just selling monthly hosting for more than you do. And Internet Marketing Center charges more for their coaching… And those affiliate commissions will probably cost you less in money and headaches than the false promises of the sales floors you’re using. ---So I invite all these companies labeled “scammers” to put up or… The main point is that when the bright lights hit you, you can scurry for cover or put on your best show. Your choice. But if the audience boo’s you, don’t blame the guy running the spotlight.

Coalition to Reform Utah Internet Scams petition now online! • Tuesday May 5,2009 06:30 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/izarbeltza/ Well, now we’ve gone and done it. You can now sign a petition and support our efforts to get the government investigators to do their number on Utah Internet scammers. Online petition - Clean up Utah’s Call Centers, Lead Providers, and Fulfillment Centers Sign up today! Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,

Utah Internet Scams: The Shadow Harvesters • Monday May 4,2009 06:40 AM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/srinig/ There’s a crops which is grown and harvested in the shadows. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry and few people know about it. The reason for its secrecy is found from the highest levels of government right down to our poorest backyards. Everyone has a hand in this, more or less. So we are all at fault and we all pay its bills. Utah is just a quiet suburban setting where these shadow harvesters can quietly extract their billions from the economy and go about their business. I’ve told you all about this for the past few months. Let me lay it out again: • Telemarketers find people who are naive about how the Internet operates. • They intrude on their privacy because people haven’t been trained to simply not talk to strangers - even on their own phone. • They are sold a training package to learn about what they don’t know. This is put on their credit card. • The credit card companies make a lot of money on this deal for the banks, who are partners with them in this. • The banks even provide the telephone numbers to telemarketers on occasion. • If not them, the telephone companies will - as well as renting the telephone lines and

telemarketing equipment. All because this area is quite profitable. • Some of these monies are used to buy protection from government officials, who benignly look the other way and have their minions deal with the people who do complain. • Because those people are a very, very small minority. It’s a minority who gets scammed, and it’s a minority of these who complain, and it’s a minority of those who actually get a refund. So only a fractional percentage of the money they take in is paid out as refunds. • But of course, these scammers fight it all the way. But once they do find out the person is adamant about getting all their money back, they cave. • Of course, they extract a blood-oath of silence about how they operate meanwhile. • So those who do get their money back don’t tell anyone else. Keeps the whole business in the shadows, doesn’t it. Now, you could chase this higher and find out that it actually goes to the Federal Reserve. All our money is fake and could disappear at any time. But those are shadows no one wants to look at. (I gave you all the links in my just earlier post, as well as earlier in this blog, where you can check all of the above for yourself.) Bottom line is that people who are working for money and dealing in money and profiting off other people’s money - are all pushing a fiction. For most of these people, from the bottom to the top, they live rather interesting lives. Because their money doesn’t buy them anything really valuable. If you look at the life span of people, you’ll see that no one has actually extended our ability to live longer. We’ve figured out how to help more children survive childbirth, but all the expensive health care in the world hasn’t made any difference (except to the health insurance companies and the politicians they donate to.) And look for someone who has bought peace of mind and a happy life with any amount of money. Has anyone been able to make themselves more brilliant by charging it on a credit card? Has the Federal Reserve or any amount of Congressional spending been able to eradicate poverty in the slums of New York, the barrios of East L.A., the mountain villages of Appalachia? No. Why? Jesus said the poor will always be with us. Reason? They think like the people around them, the examples they grew up with. And they don’t think differently enough to rise above the circumstances they grew up in. But anyone actually has the opportunity to do so. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Sam Walton, Michael Dell - look at these rich guys. Either graduated from a mostly unknown university or dropped out of college. All from humble backgrounds. No one has to be poor. No one. Poor is a lifestyle choice made by those who are too afraid to tip over the applecart and rebuild their lives from the bottom up - so they could build and own a chain of apple orchards and the massive processing plants, and the string of big-box retailers who are pushing apple products all through our economy - and meanwhile paying off politicians at all levels to ensure that favorable laws are passed or prevented from being passed so that profits remain high.

And that person from a poor background is incredibly rich. All because they wanted to quit picking apples for a living and only sell them to similarly poor neighbors - those that they didn’t sell for commodity prices to the big producer down the road… This is the nature of the world we live in. The scammers will always be with us - in one way or another. (Moneychangers in the temple.) Because they prey on those who won’t look and think they have to accept the hand they were dealt. (Instead of tossing in the cards, and demanding a new hand.) Who gets their refund? The people who are persistent enough to push through all the hype and bluff and stonewalling to get it. Really. You might be asking - where does this guy get all his information? Answer: the same way you are right now. Reading it on the Internet. The difference between me and other people: I’m a bit more persistent in getting my questions answered. And I found that I like to write and tell people about the new stuff I found. But is all my writing/blogging/podcasts and videos going to change the world? Maybe. Is it going to eradicate scammers or lift up the poor people they prey on? No. Absolutely not. It will help, though. Can it help you with your life? If you want to take what I’ve studied up and written here - accepting nothing of it on face value, but checking it out for yourself, doing your own tests - then, Yes, it might. ---Practically, this one blog could actually mess around with the Utah A/G and that whole batch of Utah scammers who paid for his election. And maybe someone would get the idea that if they simply paid me off, I’d shut this thing down. Actually, Thrive Learning Institute had that chance once. But they flubbed it. They hesitated. They liked their profits a wee bit too much - or just really wanted someone to take them on. And now they’ll be paying for that mistake for years to come. Because the Internet has a long, long memory. Bright Builders (Greg Cole) and the really shadowy Internet Income Solutions (which arose out of some other ashes a year ago) are the other two targets on my list. Thrive got a bulls-eye painted on them because Ed Magedson of Rip-Off Report said he could get a refund from Thrive for me. As I told you about. So now I’ve gotten an email from someone who got their refund and was made to agree to not tell anyone (publicly, anyway) how she got it. Of course, this actually matches up with another forum post where someone else told the same story. And so my refund is very close now. But if someone wants me to take down this site, guess what - the price went up. And what will I do with that money? Well, pay off my bills and get rid of my credit cards to begin with. Then there are a short list of people who have contacted me already about their own scam and have learned their lesson - so I’d throw some charity their way.

But even if these scammers simply paid off all their complainers right on the money, it wouldn’t make much difference. Because they are scamming hundreds if not thousands every week. Maybe 3% of these will complain. And maybe 3% of those will file a refund request and persist so that they actually get one. 1 in 10,000. Not enough to rattle the cages in Utah and make people get their laws reformed. Unless we found some people who make a living at publicizing for the downtrodden victims of this world. Yes, consumer advocates! So that’s the next step in this campaign. Get some pro’s onto this deal. Make some politicians very uncomfortable about who they’ve included in their strange bedfellows sleep-over list. Am I worried about recrimination? No. 1) This is all first amendment stuff. I link my sources on the Internet and the rest is just opinion. 2) I’m not worth anything to sue. 3) Try to sue me to shut down my Internet site and we’ll see if the ACLU would like to look up some scammers’ past and publish it to the world. Much less a few other legal Internet guys who do nothing but look for someone shutting down Free Internet Speech. As I said. Money talks. Wouldn’t erase the incoming links and the various snapshots and page-scrapes people have done with this site. (And I should probably wrap the whole site up as a zip file and put it on a torrent somewhere so it can float around forever… technicaleze.) So if these scammers want to preserve their shadow economy, they need to work fast on the very broad hints I’ve laid out here. Because the next target is getting the real big guns into this scene - and how you can find your own consumer advocate to champion your cause! Stay tuned…

Technical details and your decisions about your Internet Scam • Sunday May 3,2009 09:42 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/p hotos/17258892@N05/ Just came across a reason why these Internet training scams are so intriguing. It’s because they are so complex. The longer the runway, the easier it is not to take off. Internet marketing is not simple. And I’ve said before where I caught both Bright Builders and Thrive Learning Institute throwing some curves into the works. Essentially, if they could get you to quit, then they are off the hook. And that brings up other choices, doesn’t it? Once you are outside of the realm of government protection, what do you do? I laid that out in my last post. It’s going to take some work and perseverance, but you can get your monies back if you complain long and hard enough. At some point, someone is going to get tired of you and simply pay you off. (Or, maybe you’ll sell the story to a movie studio…) Meanwhile, keep your day job to pay your bills otherwise. An easier way is to just pay the d****d thing off with a personal loan which will get you out from under the burden of your credit cards that much faster. Means a tight belt for awhile - and some real discipline about not using them for any reason at all…

Regardless, your life is going to change. I’d refer you at this point to some other posts I’ve done: • How to kill off Internet scams - Love them to death • Internet scams - it’s an addiction In these, I point out that one purpose scams have is to invite you to hate - and this gets you into their line of work, their playing ground. And like Pinochio on the Fantasy Island - if you don’t know when to quit drinking the beer, you wind up another donkey working in the mines. The thing is to keep your level on this subject. Ensure you know what you are heading for and why. If you can afford to take a short or long detour messing with these fools. The public service these clowns are providing is very overpriced education. And yes, the laws in Utah should be amended to protect the consumers - and practically, they won’t ever be safe enough. It’s like trying to keep people from killing themselves with car accidents. Or telling people that far more people die of regular flu each year than this Swine stuff going around right now - but news media make their money on the sentationally morbid. That will neve change until the last viewer turns of their set. I’ve talked at length on other blogs about the Bell Curve and how the bulk of humanity just slogs their way through life. Victims of all sorts of things, paying the bulk of the Income Tax, being cannon fodder for government wars - it hasn’t changed much over the years. What has changed is having geniuses (genii) around who make remarkable improvements in things. They push the curve over to their end. When you have geniuses who scam or geniuses who create World Wars, it’s the same thing. They are making society worse. Deep down, they know this. And want someone to catch them at it. Daring people to, in fact. The question you have to ask yourself is: do I have the time from what I’m trying to get accomplished otherwise in order to wipe their nose and paddle their butt and get them re-trained to play nice and share their toys? That’s the question I have in front of me at this point. And while I already have my list of things to do in order to wrap up this particular adventure, I also will be next finding some consumer advocate and linking to these so that we can attract a real hero to take it on from this point. For you see, I have the job of writing the texts that will actually help people find a scam-free way of starting or expanding their small business online. And I need to get someone else to wear the hat of “Coalistion to Reform Utah Internet Scams” leader. Some sort of crusader-in-charge. Are you the one we’ve been looking for? Let me know.

Internet Scams Handlings: Doing a Chargeback on your Scammer • Sunday May 3,2009 01:37 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eliazar/

Object here is to get your money back. Time is not on your side, however. The faster you act, the better chance you have in getting your money back. First off, Credit card companies are capitalists in the severest sense of the word. They make money from money. Every time you charge an amount, they charge that merchant a 3% fee. Every time you are late at all in a payment, they charge you a fee. They make their money from people who don’t pay on time or in full. Credit card companies are the actually in bed with the scammers to this degree. The more the scammers can get you to charge, the more they will make from you. Credit card companies are also able to change their rates with little to no warning, as well as sell your name and information to telemarketers. Unless you specifically tell them no. (Check the next time you get a change in your privacy policies - to see if they aren’t saying they have the privilege to send you information from associates. Unless you send them a letter in writing stating that you are not in agreement with such policies, this is a loophole for telemarketers to call you, since can be construed as a related business transaction with the bank - and so Do Not Call policies don’t apply.) This brings up a key point in dealing with credit card companies which has been brought up time and

time again in this research. Always deal with them in writing. If you do have a phone conversation with them, immediately also send them a letter describing the conversation - keep notes. Also, tell them you are sending a letter. If you can record this conversation (some states have different laws on this), do so. If you are recording, it’s probably a good idea to let them know that you are. Keeps them on their best behavior. PBS did an exhaustive expose about credit cards “Secret History of the Credit Card” and gives substantial data about their rise to power and profits. If you have time to get through all of their data (and most of it looks to be on video), you’ll probably have a much different view of credit card companies. My own conclusion is to use their convenience, but only buy what you can pay for in cash that month. Pay them in full every single month. If you need a loan, get it from a credit union. Always, always get a fixed rate. There are strategies for dealing with a large credit card balance at the BCS Alliance site. This strategy gives you the statements for financial reconciliation (you can download these into Quickbooks and make your taxes and financial work much easier. Disclaimer: The research on this page has been done on the Internet and so is only as valuable as the data and sources found. Where possible, I’ve linked the sources I studied. This is not to be construed as legal or financial advice. Consult a professional for your financial and legal affairs. (You got to love this legal system we are under. I’ve heard lawyers are having a hard time during this recession finding work… crocodile tears, all around.) General Refund Laws. In Utah, as well as most other states, they allow a person to return the item in three days for a full refund. I believe this was brought into play by fraudulent automobile dealers, where the item you bought was misrepresented. It also deals with an upset spouse - or other relative - who realizes that that family or individual can’t afford those payments and bought something they don’t need, etc. Now another phrase for this is called buyer’s remorse. There is a psycho-babble explanation of this at Wikipedia. The practical explanation is “came to their senses.” Utah requires the company to refund the money. Period. Don’t let a scammer off the hook - if they refuse your refund, report it to the Utah Attorney General, and the Division of Consumer Protection. Also the FBI, FTC, and your own state Attorney General. (And if you are so inclined, file complaints with as many of the online boards and forums listed on this site.) Then immediately do a charge-back and make your credit card company handle it. The 1 to 2 month rule. Credit card companies are disinclined to do a charge-back after two months. The root of this is in the Electronic Funds Transfer Act, also known as Regulation E. You have under this, a responsibility to file no later than 60 days about any erroneous statement. And, as above, follow up any phone or electronic message (e-mail) with a written letter. (Keep a copy of that letter and send it certified if you must.) Some scammers have gotten around this by stating that the amount was a transfer, which the EFT doesn’t cover. The above link has substantial documentation to look up which explain more of these rights and

restrictions. A note here is that companies are also protected from deceptive and fraudulent consumers, who buy and then charge back or demand refunds. (I had this happen once on eBay - sent the guy a CD and he immediately demanded a full refund of auction cost and shipping. I said that as soon as he returned the CD - at his cost - I’d refund his original cost, but not the shipping. Never heard from him again, and didn’t get a bad review, either. Those who did return the CD I refunded completely, a matter of good business policy.) We are assuming here that you don’t do charge-backs routinely. Who is really running your credit card? The bank who extended you the credit is not the credit card company. They may have co-branded the card, but there is a credit card association who enables the bank to use their services. Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, Discover, etc. Credit card companies also get away with everything they can, mostly due to the fact that consumers are too busy and too inactive to pay attention to what is being billed on their card and how. There is an excellent article about how to complain about your credit card company at BCS Alliance.com An earlier page on this same site says that you have certain rights - and the best way to deal with a credit card company is through your State Atty Genl: If you believe a credit card company has violated your rights, you can file a complaint online with the Federal Trade Commission [Web address: www.ftc.gov]. You can also complain to your state’s attorney general. Many AG offices allow you to file a complaint online, too. You will get better results complaining to your state AG office than with the FTC. Most AG offices investigate every single complaint. Some AG offices have filed suit against credit card companies who they catch engaging in unethical conduct, particularly overbilling or incorrectly billing customers. The FTC only takes action if it receives thousands of complaints against a specific company or industry.

Now, because the states have stepped up efforts to intervene on behalf of their consumers, the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) has reportedly intervened to help these credit card companies and has cut the state’s rights to sue, at least according to the BSC Alliance: In the last decade, many Attorney General offices in dozens of states have stepped up their efforts to go after credit card issuers and stop their abusive and illegal practices. As a result, the OCC decided to put a stop to it once and for all since this organization is really behind the credit card banks and against the consumers. Therefore, in January 2004, the OCC declared itself the sole authority over all credit card consumer issues, squeezing out state consumer regulatory actions. You can still complain to your state AG office about the sleazy tactics your credit card company uses, but there is little your state AG’s office can do about it thanks to the OCC.

The OCC has complaint forms you can fill out. Their contact page has phone numbers and addresses. Their online complaint form is here. But the BSC Alliance also says this about how to handle credit cards companies: Step 6. Complain, complain, complain. Credit card companies get away with all of the above because too few consumers complain to their state and federal elected officials. If your senator received hundreds of letters from consumers threatening to vote him out of office in the next election if he doesn’t stop taking money from the banking industry and enact regulating legislation as soon as possible, you can be sure he would do something to keep his job and his fat salary and

benefits. Links are below.

This aligns with other data I’ve uncovered about scammers. The more of a pest you make yourself, the more likely your scene is going to be resolved. Again, writing your US Representatives and Senators is more likely to get response - but use all the links on this page with every company who is not being truthful or working on your behalf. The online sites will help people find your data who have similar problems of their own. And that’s why this site: to help people who got scammed like I was. (Yes, I accept donations…) Who really pulls the strings on the credit cards - and how this affects scammers From Wikipedia article on Chargeback: The chargeback mechanism exists primarily for consumer protection. U.S. credit card holders are afforded reversal rights by Federal Reserve Regulation Z under the Truth in Lending Act. U.S. debit card holders are guaranteed reversal rights by Federal Reserve Regulation E under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act. Similar rights extend globally pursuant to the rules established by the corresponding card association or bank network. A consumer may initiate a chargeback by contacting their issuing bank, and filing a substantiated complaint regarding one or more debit items on their bank statement. Chargebacks are the consumer’s last line of defense against unscrupulous merchants. The threat of forced reversal of funds provides merchants with added incentive to provide quality products, helpful customer service, and timely refunds as appropriate. Chargebacks also provide a means for reversal of unauthorized transfers due to identity theft. (Thought you’d love all those links…) But this continues below that quote. Merchants who routinely get charged back by consumers can lose their credit card account. I earlier reported this in some posts I found on RipOff Reports (yes, that site can give you valuable data, despite their reported shakedown activities.) On that first post, there is mention of a “Match/TMF” data base which is maintained on all merchants (your scammer is one). Here’s a definition and a page full or more data about this blacklist the credit card companies maintain: When consumers do not honor the terms of their credit agreements, the creditor may report the default to a credit reporting agency. If the consumer applies for additional credit, the new creditor obtains a credit report and learns about the consumer’s previous history. The merchant processing banks (also known as “acquiring” banks) do not have a similar creditreporting agency available that can report information about the way that a business handles its merchant processing responsibilities. The card associations, instead, use a file known as “MATCH.” The MATCH File is a database file, previously and most commonly known as the Terminated Merchant File “TMF.” This file is used by MasterCard and Visa processing banks, known as “acquiring banks,” to identify specific merchants and principals who have already been terminated. Once a merchant is on this list it is highly unlikely that future merchant account applications will be approved. The “TMF”, or MATCH list, is essentially a BLACKLIST from which it is almost impossible to be removed. Scammers get around this by shutting down and re-starting again with a new company. This is also why they use principals to start their businesses and the actual owner is seldom named. It’s like they

say, “Get some guys who have a good background and pay them to set up the company and be the front guys.” Look up the company on Utah’s corporation pages and you’ll find some interesting details about your scammers - but not the big cheeses themselves. But often the on-the-ground investigation is needed - I couldn’t link Colton Moody directly to Thrive Learning until SLC Weekly did their reporting about Moody’s contributions to the Utah A/G’s election fund. How this hurts the scammers - continued: Later on in that Wikipedia article, it tells how these credit card companies can actually do a number on those merchants (read: scammers) who abuse their priviledge: The merchant’s acquiring bank accepts the risk that the merchant will remain solvent over time, and thus has an incentive to take a keen interest in the merchant’s products and business practices. Reducing consumer chargebacks is crucial to this endeavor. To encourage compliance acquirers may, at their discretion, charge merchants a penalty per chargeback received. Payment service providers, such as PayPal, have a similar policy.[2] In addition, Visa and MasterCard may levy severe fines against acquiring banks that retain merchants with high chargeback frequency. Acquirers typically pass such fines directly to the merchant. Merchants whose ratios stray too far out of compliance may trigger card association fines of $100 or more per chargeback.[3] So every charge-back can be fined to the involved banks by the Credit Card company. This means your bank really doesn’t want to do charge-backs in general, as it will probably cost them as well. While you always have the scenario that you can and will quit doing business with them, it might be less expensive to lose you as a customer than to have another black mark against them (particularly if they’ve already had an extensive charge-back history.) You can expect resistance. But what does this all mean? Some salient points: • The faster you move to get your charge-back the better. Credit card companies, like scammers, work within the letter of the law and are out to make as much money from you as possible. Best is 3-days, second best is 30-days, third should be well within the 60-day limit of the law. (But keep reading if you’re beyond these - there are logical steps to take to get charge-backs happening beyond those time limits.) • Practically, no one and no company has to do anything. • The Federal government usually won’t act on anything that doesn’t involve a large number of people or a huge amount of money (another reason the scammers keep it below $10,000 usually as an initial charge. The FBI is mostly interested when it gets above $50,000 - so scammers have a sweet-spot range.) • What seems to work in all cases is public scrutiny and embarrassment. US Representatives and Senators have to be publicly elected. Credit card companies and banks have a vested interest in ensuring their “good name” (and spend millions on advertising campaigns to build that up.) Scammers who work to develop some sort of high reputation (as Thrive Learning has worked at for the past year) have also a huge Achilles’ heel in that same area. • But scammers in general (and credit card companies) have no real sense of shame. They only

act out of profit and loss. Bad PR means they make less money. For scammers, if they get enough bad PR, they simply close shop or “declare bankruptcy” and start a new company. Credit Card companies are more vested in continuing their multi-billion-dollar scheme. (It is a scheme, too - check out “Secret History of the Credit Card“. Now, how can you put this to use: Obviously, if you are quick enough, you can get a charge-back. However scammers know this and keep you on the ropes until several months have passed. (Bright Builders’ training wasn’t over until 5 months had passed - at 15 minutes every other week.) But you aren’t SOL if all this has gone by. Here’s what my approach is to be: I’ve been trying to get a refund for 8 months, meaning I’m over a year since I charged that amount. So: 1. Research that credit card site to get data on exactly who needs to be contacted and what needs to be in the document. 2. Figure out how to put a fraud alert on my credit cards and to get my free credit reports. Tell that credit card company to change my number. 3. Send a request for charge-back in a certified letter to the appropriate address, with an enclosed fraud report. This letter demands a charge-back be made. Copy of fraud alert on my credit card and a note that this report has also been sent to the FTC and FBI. 4. Get their response in writing. If they only call, then send them a copy of my phone notes by certified letter. If no response, they have then tacitly agreed what I said was correct. 5. If they refuse, report them as party to the scam to all the Federal Authorities and also to relevant complaint boards linked on this site. 6. Investigate them on the Internet and file a complaint with my Congresspersons that both they and the scammers should be investigated for fraud - and laws should be passed (tie into what ever legislation is currently in the House or promoted) to eliminate this possibility of credit card/bank/scammer collusions in the future. 7. Find the addresses of the CEO and Board members of both the bank and the credit card company and send them a copy of this letter, plus a request that they act on their respective companies to resolve this matter. 8. Of course, I blog my responses and results - so it’s on the internet tagged to their company. 9. If obvious it’s going to be a long haul, then get a personal loan to get out from under the onerous rates I’m being charged. And cancel the credit card.(If they do agree to pay, I’d reconsider - long and hard.) 10.But don’t quit complaining about that company and looking into their history of scam-support. 11.And it doesn’t mean I can’t get the money back just because that credit card company refused. I still am pursuing the refund through the Utah A/G and other routes I’ve listed in the side links. 12.And finally, I’m working to get this made into a movement. Next research is to find Consumer Advocacy groups to align with. And you can bet that I’m going to pare down my credit cards to nearly nil real quick after what I learned today. Go back to the traditional save first, then spend. If you have a different approach, or different data, let me know...

Ditch digging: Internet Scams To-Do list from Midwest Journal Press • Saturday May 2,2009 08:31 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/diamondmountain/

Just wanted to let you know where we are heading. Just digging the last few feet of ditch on what we still have to do with this site and effort. First off, we have a few approaches to getting everyone on board for reforming Utah Internet Scams laws. This means we are going to be doing a few steps to promote our “Coalition to Reform Utah Internet Scams” (CRUIS) efforts: • A group on Yahoo or Google where people can give support and aggregate data - provide helpful tips on how to get refunds, where to complain, what Congresspersons to hit up with what data, latest news, how to get interviews in the press, etc. • Social groups on at least Friendfeed, if not Facebook. • Aggregators built which pull blog posts, news, and web pages from across the Internet and then feed them into Twitter, Stumblr, and a host of other regular micro-blogs - plus into lifestreams on Friendfeed and Facebook - plus wherever else we need to go. Idea is to make all this data available readily to anyone who want to follow it. • I need to start promoting this book as a way of getting our message out to the media so other people can find us. This means radio interviews. Essentially, the proceeds from this book (and

any other donations) make it possible to spend time on this site - otherwise, I have to keep a lucrative day job, meaning I don’t have time to find and post more content. We need to start finding ex-employees of these call centers and fulfillment centers. • The plan right now on this is to search through the existing forums to find where ex-employees have posted. • As well, weekly classifieds need to run in Craigslist and any similar online classifieds (preferably free) • Then encourage these people to either post their data anonymously or give us their data in confidence so that we can pass this on to investigative personnel. • Data useful to readers will be posted without disclosing sources. Helpful hints - or “try this and see how it works…” Then there are a few housekeeping chores I need to do on this site. • Legal pages for copywrite data, indemnity against opinions by the blog authors, Privacy policy, etc. • A FAQ page for people who want to know what to do next. • Find a faster download, simpler layout theme. • Fix the site feed and get this hosted externally to help with bandwidth (less cost for me). • Tweak the site so that if we get a popular page it doesn’t crash the servers. Last content changes • other than inspired blog posts, the next actions are to get podcasts, presentations, and videos created for the major course lessons. This allows us to get our message out on additional lines and bring people to this site so they can get data and links to join our cause. Don’t underestimate how much time this takes to do - however, once I get started on this, I’ll probably be able to knock out several in a few days’ time. • As well, these will each be submitted as articles to the major article directories - as there is yet another type of viewer on these sites • Press releases for the blog and the book will also need to go out. This segues into getting radio interviews - and possibly lectures. • And there will be a final editing of the book, based on feedback. It may have to go into a 2nd beta version before a final print version. Send in your comments, please. The real exciting news comes after these are done: Midwest Journal Press is going to be hosting a series of blog/books on Internet marketing training - how to start or expand a small business online. • This data will be free (but you’ll be able to buy books and CD’s to support the site) • It will be simple, direct, and what you were looking for before you ran into these scammers. • This data will be available in several formats so you can read, listen, and/or watch in order to learn. • It looks right now to be about 12 volumes of data. A massive undertaking. • And you’ll also be able to use this data as content for your own blog in order to get started. What that will give us is a way to help people actually earn money online with a legitimate work from home business opportunity.

And so we will be finding ourselves full circle, back at where we initially wanted to end up - able to market our products online for additional or replacement income. This time, it will cost us only what we put into it and not a super-charged, maxed-out credit card scene. And this training will be something that you only have to choose what you want - but will give all possible links to alternative training programs and materials so that you can do your own or additional research at any time. Plus, you are going to own your own site and do anything you want with it. The main point - no company trying to upsell you on something you don’t really need to succeed. So I just wanted to lay out what’s going on here. Help we need at this point: • Volunteers to help set up these social media groups and moderate them. • People to man the forums and find people who were scammed when they were looking for Internet training - bringing them to this site and the groups so they can get this data and file all their complaints and refund requests - as well as demands for investigation into the Utah Internet Scam scene. • Help finding ex-employees of Thrive Learning Institute, Bright Builders, and any of the rest of these call centers and fulfillment centers. We need inside data, while protecting the sources - but feeding this data to government agencies for their investigation (and also passing any hot tips on how to get refunds back to those who need it.) • If any editors are out there - I could use help getting the final edition of the book into shape. • People with radio connections - to line up interviews with the author so we can get the word out. • Once the book is final and is exported to Amazon - buyers to support and popularize it so we can reach more people with this message. Keep up the good work and keep sending people to the site anyway you can. It’s vital that people know what they can do after they realized they got scammed. Good Hunting! Update: 5/9/09 Had this talk with a mysterious “Joe” who’s inside this Utah Internet Scam industry. And this changed a few things. What you’re going to get starting Monday is a series of articles which lay out the entire system, and how it’s set up to crash sometime later this year. And the only ones who are really going to be hurt are the people who have money in these over-priced training packages. And there’s going to be a media kit with names and addresses of people as well as this whole expose’ of who did what to whom - and how they are getting away with it completely. Even when their businesses have all four legs up in the air.

Get the media to take up your Thrive Learning Institute scam story • Wednesday Apr 29,2009 08:42 PM • By robertworstell • In thrive learning institute

While I’m taking my own “doctor’s orders” (complaining to every site I can find about Thrive Learning Institute and its Internet scams), I came across this simple little site which has hotlines in nearly every state - media which are willing to take a story from you about your consumer complaint. It’s called Call for Action and has links for local Call for Action Offices. In other words, if you could get your facts in front of one of these media outlets, you have a good opportunity to get media on your situation and possibly get some real action on Colton Moody, Zach Bradshaw, Dave Rasmussen, and the host of other scam organizations they operate and control. If we could all get some press to shine a strong light on these scammers, they’d have to clean up their act - or move into another line of work. And we’d all be better off for that.

Thrive Learning Institute: Class Action Lawsuit - Spread The Word! • Friday Apr 24,2009 01:50 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, thrive learning institute

Thrive Learning Institute Scam Here’s the data you should know about getting a Class Action Lawsuit against Thrive Learning Institute (thriveli.com - Thrive Learning - whythrive.com). Just found this yesterday on a search through complaint forums for something else (don’t you just love serendipitous synchronicity?) Read and forward and link to everyone you know: Here is lots of information and links including my earlier letter. Anything else I can do to help just e-mail. If you wish to speak to me please provide your phone number and I will call you. If this just happened here are the steps you may need to follow. (1) Ask to speak to someone at Thrive to get your money back. Zachary Bradshaw is supposedly the highest person in what is called customer relations. Put the complaint in writing as well. (2) Contact the Credit card Company and place the charge in dispute. This is your strongest adversary at this point in time. If you can get the bank connected to the credit card company to ask thrive on your behalf to return the money this is the most powerful thing you have going for yourself and the easiest if they will do it. Be tough with the credit card company. (3) File a complaint with the BBB of Utah. I know it is now an A- however last week it was a C. Thrive pays to be accredited by the BBB and they pay off or resolve the complaints to the BBB of Utah’s satisfaction. (4) File a complaint with the FTC (5) File a complaint with the Attorney General in your state and the state of Utah (6) File a complaint with the FBI at IC3.gov (7) Call the Governor of Utah and lodge a complaint. (8) File a suit in small claims court. You can try here as well according to this site Thrive will settle all complaints however; Thrive pays these guys at rip off report dot com as well. I would not leave a stone unturned in trying to get my money back. http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp? q5=Thrive&Search=Search&q1=ALL&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0&submit 2=Search! From: Law suit Against Thrive < [email protected] >

Subject: What you can do to help our group effort Thrive goes under these names; Thrive Learning Institute is also The Summit Group, The Sellers Lounge, Concept Executions, Biz Review, Infusion Media, Auction Sizzle, Diverse Marketing, Internet Auction Solutions, Platinum Trading Solutions, Momentum Marketing, Biz Review, Tafiti consulting, Media learner, Vanuity LLC all companies are operating in Utah, Lindon, Draper, and Murray Thrive Learning, LLC 350 South 400 West Ste 101 Lindon, UT 84042. J.C. Residual LLC 947 S 500 E #110 American Fork, UT 84003 Six Figure Consulting Corp 4760 Highland Dr # 222 Salt Lake City, UT 84117-5149 Wyoming S corporation, 3333s 900e Salt Lake City, Utah, 84106 Hello Everyone, It looks like a class action suit at this point is a no go because we just don’t have enough people. At present in total we only come to about 50,000 in total rip off amount from everyone involved. There are some people who are ripped off for more than 200,000 on up into the millions from other companies. As you may realize lawyers want money to handle a class action suit. If all we have is 50K no one is interested in the case.. I spoke with the FTC, the BBB of Utah, the DA of Utah, the FBI, the attorney general of PA and the US attorney general. I am sorry to say not much can be done to stop these people at this time. I do however suggest you follow the below advice. This may help stop them in time and may possibly help in recovering your money. If you file nothing, nothing will ever be done to stop them. File a complaint with the FTC http://www.ftc.gov/ 877-438-4338. File a complaint with the Attorney General’s office in your state and ask to get your money back. http://www.usdoj.gov/ Please include the cease and desist order from the state of Illinois Attorney General’s office. http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/securities/administrative_actions/2008/nov ember/thrivelearning_noh.pdf File a complaint to this e-mail a division of Telemarketing fraud: e-mail [email protected] Also file a complaint at www..IC3.gov IC3’s mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. The IC3 gives the victims of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. Thrive is not accredited with the BBB of Utah and at present has a rating of a C. http://www.bbb.org/utah/business-reviews/training-programs/thrive-learning-llc-in-lindonut-22219354# You may also file a complaint here as well. http://www.bbb.org/online/consumer/default.aspx

Something else you may wish to do is contact your local politician, Senator, Congressman, Governor etc.. and complain about Thrive. Here is the Governor of Utah http://www.ontheissues.org/Jon_Huntsman.htm Also file a claim in small claims court. Most small claims are up to 5,000. In my state it is up to 10,000. Every state differs.. For those in other countries I believe similar amounts apply.

Internet Scams: find them in your (Thrive Learning) spam • Tuesday Apr 21,2009 02:55 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, thrive learning institute

Just got this fascinating mail: I am currently in contact with the WhyThrive group. I answered an email for the Google Treasure Chest and they called me. They do a great job of building you up and getting to know you and then they tell you how much it costs while they keep building you up. I was even offered a scholarship as a possibility. Now, besides this being a complete bunch of horse-hockey, this has direct links to scammers - Nigerian ones at that… After I rescued it (temporarily) from my spam filter, I looked up the website (patriot.websitewelcome.com) this was sent from - turns out there isn’t a website at that address. As well, it is a subdomain for another site - meaning you can create all sorts of mail addresses from this. Here’s the link on antifraudintl.org to a scam being run from Nigeria, using this as a return address. Other whois data shows that the registrar is keeping their name secret. Cute. What these guys wanted was for me to answer their spam and get involved in another scheme. So is Thrive Learning behind this spam/scam - or is another scammer jumping on the Thriveli.com bandwagon (or whythrive.com) and touting a scammers’ site to run their own scam?

Again, realize you are dealing with a real nest of scammers whenever you open up one Internet Scam Pandora’s box. ---Sponsor: If you’ve been scammed, if you blog, if you are a member of the press - you might qualify for a free pre-release version of this book. Details at this link.

Why is Thrive Learning - Bright Builders a scam? Not just the money… • Friday Apr 17,2009 07:51 PM • By Robert Worstell • In Bright Builders, Internet scam, thrive learning bright builders, thrive learning institute

To be fair, I’ve worked this over in my mind many times to see if there wasn’t simply something I’ve personally omitted. After all, I can work as hard as the next guy. Why did I feel I got scammed? Well, the day after I completed the training at Bright Builders, I confirmed what I had been suspecting that I hadn’t been taught anything and all their many recommendations wouldn’t get my money back not at the $150 per week I was making off eBay. (But I was assured that it was possible to get it all back even before their training was over.) So I started the process to get my money refunded. They referred me back to their sales floor, a guy named Charlie Frazer at Internet Income Solutions, who then said - oh, we’ve got this great offer: “Thrive and Bright Builders are merging and I’ve set it up for you to get their training for free.” So I did that “training” too - only this time it only took a couple weeks and I was actually teaching my coaches before that training was over. So I went back for a refund - I was given to Zach Bradshaw, who then again referred me to Charlie Frazer - who said, sorry, I’ve talked to my bosses and they say they can’t do anything. What they meant was - we’ve now had you on the line for 6 months and we are certain your credit card company won’t do a charge-back on us - so screw you. (A sidebar here - If I had continued to make my paltry $150 a week, I could have earned that money back by now. Problem was, it took me 20-30 hours to get that $150, because finding sources of profitable merchandise to sell on eBay is where it takes the time. Added with my day job, it would mean not having any life for a year. I went back to that original promise that I could make it back in 3 months. A person I chatted and emailed with since - who worked at Thrive but quit - said only about 3 percent of 3 percent actually make their investment back - or 1 in 10,000.) ---Now it’s been 7 months I’ve been working to get my “investment” back from Thrive Learning. Somehow, I finally got Zach Bradshaw to call me. Once he’d found out that they’d stringed me along for a year by then - he said that there was nothing else to talk about. He did admit in our conversation that Thrive Learning LLC was actually responsible to refund my investment, as Thrive Learning had in fact merged with Bright Builders and were the ones who contracted the sales floor - so had inherited responsibility for Internet Income Solutions fraudulent sales activities. A few days later - once he had seen these and other posts - he called me back to find out how much it

would cost to take my site down and no longer mention Thrive Learning. He mentioned that the connection between Bright Builders Inc and Thrive Learning LLC wasn’t what management wanted publicized. A week later, and no contact, I resumed posting about the Thrive Learning - Bright Builder connection. Still no contact after two weeks and I’m still here. And you are reading my recent blog post… Since then, the managers for Thrive Learning have been named by Salt Lake City Weekly.net as they reported on April 8, 2009. And so Colton Moody now heads my complaint list. (Right up there with Zach Bradshaw.) This was actually the missing piece to the puzzle. Now I can file full reports starting back from the top down, just as I’ve told all of the readers in this blog to do. All that happened for me is that Zach’s call just put it on pause, since I thought I was going to actually get a refund at that point. It’s not a question about getting the refund or not - it’s just when and how much. So, I’m taking my own advice: “Complain Like Hell.” and “Start from the Top Down.“ • Means FTC and FBI get updated first. • Then all the online venues I can find. • Then A/G’s of both states (though don’t hold out for Utah’s Mark Shurtleff as he got elected with call center money - probably some of mine.) • Then Utah and Missouri Senators and US Representatives, demanding an investigation into Utah’s Telemarketing racket (and the infamous Colton Moody Internet Scam Association) • Then we start working over state and local organizations - Chamber of Commerce and any watchdog groups for Utah commerce and businesses. (I imagine the Governor and Lt. Governor might be interested, if the Utah A/G isn’t, because of his campaign contribution faux-pas) • And last (because they don’t have clean hands in this) the BBB. And meanwhile, I continue to blog daily and do research about how Utah Internet scams continue to function while other states root them out and shut them down. No, this is no threat. It’s just laying out a plan of action - just following my own advice. Look to my lessons linked above to see if I’m taking my own medicine. Will I get my refund? Count on it. Only a question of when and how much…

Colton Moody: Utah’s Internet Scams Godfather? (Part 1) • Friday Apr 17,2009 07:28 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet scam, ripoffreports, summit group, thrive learning institute, utah attorney general (Revised 21/5/09 - in light of new research data coming to light) Is Colton Moody the Godfather of Thrive Learning Institute, Bright Builders Inc. and other Utah Internet Scams? Short answer:

No. At least according to the data I now have. But this post has been up for months. Why would I change that opinion now? Simple - more research, more contacts, more data. Is this going to be some glowing, smootchy, kiss-up report? No. Even heroes can have fleas, every heroine can have a wart or mis-shaped something or other. (Joan of Arc was really a plain Jane, despite what Hollywood says…) But fact are facts. Let’s look at this data from publicly available data: 1. Who is Colton Moody? Facebook profile. LinkedIn profile: Colton Moody’s Experience * ceo summit group (Telecommunications industry) Currently holds this position Colton Moody’s Education * Brigham Young University 1990 — 1995 2. What does Colton Moody do - why is he interesting?

This section was originally based primarily on data from the Rip Off Report. Data that’s come to light since shows that RipOff reports itself deals in embezzlement - a sort of online protection racket. And may have even falsified reports on that site in order to “earn” that protection. As an investigator from the Utah Div of Consumer Protection told me today, the problem with RipOff Reports is that a person can get scammed by someone selling Acai berries and reports it. Then someone else says, “Hey, that’s the company that sold me” When it actually wasn’t. But the other company gets the bad rap. So while I noted that Colton Moody was connected with over 178 different scam companies and sites you really can’t trust RipOff Reports data too much - simply because of the above to data: their business model, and consumer errors. While he’s connected by name through Rip-off Reports to all these different Internet scam companies and sites. Unfortunately, because of RipOff Reports keyword-stuffing tactics, a lot of other companies are named which may have nothing to do with the report. Now I’ve left this below Rip Off report post as an example of what you should do with this data. My notes are in italics: www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/370/RipOff0370882.htm Erik Largin (a racquetball enthusiast, it seems) is not the owner, he is the operations manager. The guy who handles customers. Colton Moody owns the Summit group. Here is the information I’ve dug up so far: Practically, most of these businesses aren’t own soley by one individual. Because with the tax laws and our legal system, it’s far smarter to have multiple LLC’s in layers to protect against the government and lawyers (and expecially government lawyers.) BBB rates this company as unsatisfactory for over 105 complaints and more than half are not reconciled, mostly for the stuff that I and others swindled by this company have complained about: High-pressure sales tactics, fraud as to the exact nature of our ‘investments’ among a few. The BBB has it’s own problems. Because it’s a paid subscription by their clients, they aren’t particularly impartial. It’s a network of business owners. There is also the problem that the fulfillment centers can do shoddy delivery and then foist all their complaints over to the sales floor as “unhandled.” Drives the sales floor’s rating down - and this tactic ticks them off immenslly, I’m told. Doing Business As names: Success Team (the) Summit Group South Professional Coaching Group Grant Partners Summit Group The BBB provides essential data on any of its members. You can also cross-check their data with the Utah Dept of Commerce. You won’t necessarily find all the data on the owners here, though, since people can (and probably should) hire people to act as their

principals and contacts. Again, our legal climate. Addresses: (first seems to be the most current) 947 South 500 East Ste # 110 American Fork, UT 84003 15 West Scenic Pointe Dr Ste 100 Draper, UT 84020 Phone numbers: (801) 847-4010 (800) 405-8334 (I know for a fact this one works) (800) 405-8582 ext 1039 for cole; 1043 for eric (800) 405-8581 Fax: (801) 492-4839 (801)-492-0189 link to BBB info (see for yourself): http://utah.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=139&bbb=1166&firm=13002802 e-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Some of the numbers and addresses may now be broken links or disconnected numbers. I will be testing them out soon. Since 2002, the Summit Group has, one rip-off at a time, been draining the hopefull of their cash, leaving a path of carnage and waste on the internet as well as people’s homes and wallets. I would like to see something done about that. There have been over 186 rip-off reports regarding the summit group and their ‘affiliates’ known by different names with the same results each time- heartache and lost dreams. Someone needs to do something about this. If anyone has ANYTHING they can contribute, I’d be very thankful. I WILL have my money back one way or another, plus some if this goes too much further.” Now, this last paragraph simply can’t be proven and it could very well simply be one of these “embezzlement” pages. But the emotion certainly is designed to get you going, isn’t it? Check out my lesson on the triggers that people can push to get you to buy something even if it’s partially true. 3. Why could he be called a “Godfather of Utah Internet Scams?” Stay tuned for Part 2 - hint: it’s his reported connection to Mark Shurtleff, the Utah Attorney General… And here’s some of those heroe’s fleas I tell you about…

Colton Moody: Utah’s Internet Scams Godfather? (Part 2) • Friday Apr 17,2009 04:26 PM • By robertworstell • In Internet fraud, Internet scam, ripoffreports, summit group, thrive learning institute, utah attorney general, utah telemarketer scams (Update - May 21, 09: This post was revised in light of new data.)

Q. Why would anyone even think that Brigham Young Graduate Colton Moody is involved with Internet scams? A. See Part 1 of this series.

Q. How could anyone call Colton Moody “Utah’s Internet Scams Godfather?” Practically, only if they had partial data. Or — a completely bullet-proof Federal investigation and after the end of a juried trial. (Or don’t worry about being accused of slander and character assasination.) Can I say that Moody isn’t - in a believably 100% undeniably, absolutely positive manner? No. With what I now know - should I have made that claim?

Nope. But again - I know only what I get off the Internet and those people I have been able to interview. So let’s see where I went wrong on this trail– Checking publicly available data: 1. He’s got over 432 pages on ripoffreport.com where individuals have named him as part of the Internet scam they fell for. – But RipOff Report Founder and Editor has been accused of making up many similar reports. 2. My own research in these pages showed he was connected with over a hundred (possibly as many as 178) organizations and websites on ripoffreport.com. Still - it’s another RipOff Report-based conclusion - and is faulty with data that has come to light since about RipOff Report. So - a single source was driving my research. (And so I am correcting that point here - so everyone can come to their own conclusions.) 3. Salt Lake City Weekly.net reported on April 8, 2009 that Shurtleff received a quarter of his campaign donations from call-center telemarketing industry: So, for a candidate like Shurtleff, who raised $680,546 in 2008, MOA’s donation makes up a small chunk of that change. But from the call-center telemarketing industry in Utah, Shurtleff pulls in $156,000 in donations for 2008. Counting the allegedly returned MOA checks: $187,500.

These companies weave together a large web of money and legal actions. Several have multiple company names and most are interconnected, sharing client information so different companies can offer the same client additional services (see diagram, p. 20). There is even one infamous complaint of one company using waterboarding as a motivational exercise. And also that Thrive Learning is managed by Moody: The Summit Group and another call center, Thrive Learning, both under the management of Colton Moody and Eric Largin, donated $25,000 to Shurtleff’s campaign in 2008. These are actual quotes from that article. You’d have to contact that author to verify the sources used. I haven’t done that - look, I’m an unpaid blogger. Do I look like someone pays me to fly out and talk to journalists? I can’t even get someone to pay my long-distance bill… So we are going to have to take this on its own basis - for now. 4. SLC Weekly also ran a graphic of the donations to Shurtleff’s campaign and had these companies named as recieving little or no government investigation, litigation, or mandated settlements: StoresOnline/Imergent Prosper, Inc. The Tax Club iWorks Mentoring of America Professional Marketing International/NMI The Summit Group/Thrive Learning Institute 5. You’ll note from comparing the ripoffreports.com list above and the list from SLC Weekly, Colton Moody is directly identified as involved in scams with all of these companies. (Ouch - I wrote that?) Again, while Colton may have been involved with these organizations - do I have proof that he ran or controlled them - or exerted influence over them?No. Again - if someone wants to bark up that tree, they need a boots-on-the-ground investigation. A Federal one. I don’t know of any in progress or requested - but the Fed’s don’t ask me for advice (and I’d like to keep it that way…) Colton did give donations to Shurtleff’s campaign. He does know Shurtleff’s brother. Corporately, especially in a state with a population that looks to be packed mostly around SLC, this is sensible. (Two Nevada counties are responsible for electing their Sen. Harry Reid, similarly - the entire rest of the state voted the other way.) Moody also contributed to McCain’s campaign, per the Huffington Post - smart, since the state is almost entirely Republican, and corporate benefits would be stronger. Not quid pro quo - but look up Ciadini’s book and you’ll see how campaign contributions tend to pay off indirectly. Look over that article’s list of call-centers again. You’ll see some good mixed up with the bad - which is really the reason I blog about this subject (at least now that I’ve mostly gotten over being ripped off to begin with.) I’m not saying that Thrive doesn’t deserve the bad press it gets for poor customer service over the last year since it started. However, businesses also take some time to set up - I’d say more, but it looks like I’m going to start apologizing for Thrive – nope. (But if they started sending me verifiable successes and what percentage this is of their total customers… but you know that won’t happen. One blogger doesn’t make that much difference in their PR.) MOA, a sole sales-floor call-center as described in nearly lurid terms by City Weekly, is being compared to Prosper, Inc. - which is a complete front-to-end delivery operation. MOA has been around

a fraction of the time Prosper Inc. has been in business. MOA is in constant trouble per this article having the top third or so of the article’s content, yet Prosper has a single paragraph telling of a single incident - while alluding to more. Fair? No. Does it make for exciting reading? Yes. Look - if you want to start checking the City Weekly article for yourself - look up StoresOnline, MOA, iWorks, Prosper and the rest up on the other complaint boards - like Complaints Board, Scam.com, Complaints.com, or my3cents.com See what you find there. Then you’ll have some verifiable comparisons. No, I’m not apologizing for any of these cats. I’m just saying that it’s easy for me and other people to act on single reports and not verify data. Because if we did this, and actually checked the data scammer salespeople tell us, we wouldn’t have bought into the scam that paid our credit card companies for so long. Lesson learned - late and expensively. Q. Can I then say that Colton Moody is Utah’s Internet Scam Godfather?

Nope. Q. Can I then say that Colton Moody bought protection from Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff?

Nope. ---And that’s about as close as an apology you’re going to get. Look, any business can get beaten up by some scammy customers who were brought on board by unscrupulous sales people. Then that business has to handle the problem. Young businesses and untested managers can fall into this easily - they don’t know the ropes. Costs them lots in refunds. Tafiti went through this, to my understanding. They don’t even exist anymore - except in RipOff Report’s database. Do I think Thrive’s business model is a failed one? Yes. But just because Colton Moody is one of their investors — so? It’s failed because they can’t afford the decent CRM they need to do unless they have lead generation, sales, and customer fulfillment all in one shop. Failed model - no matter who runs it, is employed by it, or invests in it. And that is the false premise all the current Utah scammers are built on - trying to do pieces of the puzzle because it’s an easy start-up (anyone can run a sales floor or fulfillment center out of their basement or garage. Internet Income Solutions’s address looked to be a rented post-office box at a UPS Store when they first started.) Does Summit have a bad rep? Yes. And his LinkedIn statement says Moody’s it’s CEO. OK. So he’s got some work to do. Look as above - Summit’s a single sales floor trying to operate on it’s own. Failed model. Merge those two (or have one buy out the other) and maybe you could start getting somewhere. More resources to spread farther. You’re going to have to add in some lead generation, like an affiliate program, among other things. But that is the proven method of success in this industry.

Can I be investigator, judge, and jury? Not even in the court of public opinion - look, I’m one lone blogger. And this one blogger can jump to conclusions with insufficient data. Particularly when blinded with bitter anger which needs a target. Sorry, guys. But count on this - I’ll revise and correct my posts if I get different data. This isn’t an OpEd blog on politics… But now you have the scoop as best I know at this time. Lesson: do your own research, verify your own facts, keep the bitterness in the spice rack.

• 2 Comments

How Internet Scams trick you into fighting by their rules • Friday Apr 3,2009 02:03 AM • By Robert Worstell • In ripoffreports, thrive learning institute

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23905174@N00/) I’ve been doing more research on what has become my nemesis - Thrive learning (scam) and found myself a bit overwhelmed. They’ve got this big PR machine which seems to want to dominate the top positions in Google for its name. They do this cleverly with lots of articles and videos - social media, plus having their own site optimized for that term. So simply going into forums and complaining (where they have plenty of shills) won’t affect that. And commenting on all of their articles and videos also just makes you personally look like you have a vendetta. Now that may be true - because they ripped you off with their persuasive telemarketers and stonewall their refund requests (I’ve been trying for over 7 months myself). But you really have to learn something from them. No, you won’t learn how to make money as an internet entrepreneur from them. You’ll only learn it in spite of them. Look at their business model very closely. (And Google their site to see what their refund policy is — you’ll find more about them than you want to know…) Thrive Learning is a scam because its demographics are 40 and 50-somethings with the children all raised and some disposable income. And they are not rich - they’re mostly lower to middle income folks. (Check quantcast.com for data like this.) Those people aren’t savvy and fall for someone who says they can make it back in 90 days. When they don’t (and only about 1 in 10,000 actually do), they are stonewalled away from refunding, saying that they just need to continue to follow their coaches’ advice - and, oh yes, send an email to [email protected] if you have any problems… The way they get these leads is when that person clicks on some Bidfuel.com ad and buy something. BidFuel sells the leads to Thrive’s telemarketing contractor (Internet Income Solutions or Summit

Consulting or some other incarnation of a Utah telemarketer scammer). Then Thrive is the lowly “fulfillment center” on the totem pole. (Of course, this is the reverse, and BidFuel is the bottom feeder, selling your name as many times as possible. Thrive as top dog contracts the sales floor and pays by sold prospect. The sales floor - Internet Income Solutions or Summit Consulting or whatever - buy or subscribe to the lists and sell the converted leads. ) So they don’t depend on people finding them and signing up by the Internet. They don’t even have an affiliate program so they can take direct sales. Go ahead, email them and check it out. Their use of the Internet is entirely PR. As long as they dominate the top positions for Thrive Learning with highly polished shills, they are fine. How this becomes a trap is trying to beat them at that game. Could be done. But why? There’s no money in it. You’re burning time with no result (when you should have been busy building your website.) Even this blog post does little for me except vent - but the reason for this blog is to potentially help others (and I’ll disclose the secret strategy they can’t combat down below…) How do you combat the Thrive Learning Scam? Here’s a funny hint: How do you get down from an elephant? You don’t, you get down from a goose (or a duck). Thrive’s public are naive Internet newbies. They don’t get their sales from experienced Internet aficionado’s. But who are people who buy up Internet scams - the government. They eat scams for breakfast - they only need to know they exist. But the government isn’t all that Internet savvy either. They like letters and faxes. (Though emails do pretty good…) You complain like hell about Thrive Learning to the government and keep doing it until they do something. All your research can just add to your reports. And you get other people to do it also. Eventually, they’ll get real unpopular with a different public than the ones they are selling to. And that public will force them to start up a new company (which is expensive). And the owner will have to hide behind another LLC or corporation. (More expense.) But who knows? Maybe Utah will wise up and revise it’s telemarketing rules so it’s not so easy to set up multiple scams in that state. Follow the links above and you’ll get all the scoop about how to do it. P.S. What’s my secret weapon? Try searching for “Thrive Learning scam”. And if everyone who blogs and complains about Thrive Learning links to one of the complaint boards or Rip-Off Reports - then those sites get the Google ranking for that term. Meanwhile, we get people to find out that if you want to figure out if something is a scam, just type in that companies name and the word “Scam” behind it. Works like a charm. Very, very few defenses against it - and I’m not going to spill all those beans here… • 0 Comments

The Great Internet Scam Way to handle customer complaints - stonewall • Wednesday Apr 1,2009 09:30 PM • By Robert Worstell • In Internet scam, stop telemarketers, thrive learning institute Just a short note here. Came up against another Internet Scam stonewall handling from Thrive Learning. Here’s the way these Internet scams handle their customers’ refund requests - first, the fulfillment center sends you back to the sales floor (telemarketers), who diddle around and basically say: “Sorry, but management couldn’t approve your refund.” Then you go back to the fulfillment center and tell them that they are actually responsible for the service and so should refund. (They are the one’s who contracted the sales floor, by the way…) Next stonewall: “I’m not authorized.” (So bloody well get authorized, bub.) Third stonewall: “The agreement you signed says we don’t have to refund you.” (And that agreement isn’t worth a hill of beans, actually - unless you take them to court and they haul out their fancy lawyers. You’d be playing on their home field at that point.) The point of this is that for most people, this works. They just quit. And that’s how scammers stay in business and profit. They simply refuse. And most customers give up. Ah - but savvy customers have two tools which dissolve all stone walls: 1. Complaints 2. Persistence. And you need plenty of both to get your refund. But I’ve given you the lists of places and the sequence to do these in. It’s up to you to keep at it. You see, complaints bring attention to them and their actions. Like shining a light on cockroaches they scatter. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. When you are persistent, and complain to many, many sources, they have to relent. Another secret is that you start over at the top when you reach the local level. Just keep updating your complaint with everyone you’ve reported that scam to. (This particular PR’s error? Didn’t do his homework. If he had, he would have seen that I’ve started taking over top Google positions with his companies name… which means when people want to find out how to stop his company’s Internet scam, they come here and get these lessons and my book.) ---I’ve been adding in the online course lessons today and last night. Moving along fine - I have about 9 more to go, which will make a baker’s dozen when you count the Introduction. Should be a great little course - which will also be available by email. And there will be PDF’s to accompany these, as well as straight text files. Don’t think I’m going to do any videos on these, but there will be some online presentations at SlideShare.net. Plus probably make them available through Scribd.

The book is in final editing mode. Just needs a cover treatment and publishing to my Lulu storefront. Back to it.

Refund Recipe: How to stop telemarketers and get your money back from an internet scam • Monday Mar 23,2009 09:44 PM • By Robert Worstell • In Bright Builders, Internet scam, internet income solutions, stop telemarketers, thrive learning institute, utah telemarketer scams [Note: the original post on this has been heavily edited. Ed Magedson, Rip-Off Report.com and RipOff Revenge have a heavy history behind them. So I'm not endorsing them and will be removing any links from this blog as I can.] Now, my approach to this right now is this: 0. Do your research and write a succinct, fact-filled statement about your fraud. Leave out no detail about what this has cost you and what you’ve done to correct it. 1. File complaints with FTC, FCC, and FBI. 2. Handle your credit card: Request and get a fraud form so they can do a charge-back. Put a fraud alert on all your credit cards and get a copy of your 3 free credit reports. Get the credit card company to issue you a new number, regardless. 3. [edited..] And then start doing the below, taking one item every day: 4. Fill out complaints with all the online complaint organizations you can find. (Post coming soon with these links.) 5. Email, fax, and send a letter to your Congressional senators and representatives about your situation, … Request/Demand a full investigation of Utah’s telemarketing factory under RICO statutes, as well as FTC and FCC regulations. 6. Work down to the local Chamber of Commerce in every city these scammers operate in. 7. File with the BBB. 8. Once you get a refund, then update your online complaints - not recant, just update. 9. And then write a book about your adventures and go on radio shows so others can learn how to get their own money back. Or just blog about it. Or just post to the complaint boards and forums so others can learn from your actions. And of course, I’m varying from the above, as I’m blogging about my plans before I actually do them. Of course, I’ll update the results from what I do - but you already know the addresses and have pictures from Google of the buildings they are located in. Not only that, but I’m holding the training companies (Bright Builders, Thrive Learning) liable for their actions - not just the sales floor (Internet Income Solutions) who did the sales - they were all involved in the scam. And they can each pay me separately, as far as I’m concerned. Sure this is overkill, but we are working for real justice - you are going to be helping others who aren’t as dedicated as you. And who knows, you might actually get Congress to start an actual investigation and Utah might straighten out its lax laws in this area. And in the meantime, it’s an education that will bring closure for your pain. ----

Update: As I thought this through, I considered this - your faxes should be addressed to individuals. So you need to send one to every person by name that you find in that organization. In Bright Builder’s case, I’ve got seven names so far. For Internet Income Solutions, I have three. Now these two companies use the same fax number. Their tough luck. Good thing I’m not sending all black pages… ---Update: There is a use for Rip-Off reports. If you see one of their headings that are glowing about that company despite the reports of scams, Ed might be able to get you a refund as part of their agreements. Maybe. • 0 Comments

Telemarketer Training - The nest of scammers and a single word to stop them… • Friday Mar 20,2009 09:43 PM • By Robert Worstell • In Bright Builders, internet income solutions, stop telemarketers, telemarketer training, thrive learning institute

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mplemmon/) Stop Telemarketer Training: what a nest these scammers make and a simple way to stop them. (OK, I couldn’t resist with the picture again - last time, I promise…) Now, I spend a few hours and culled through RipOffReports to find all the inter-related groups and organizations that had anything to do with Internet Income Solutions (scam), Bright Builders (scam), and Thrive Learning Institute (scam). The first one I ran into had all three together, just like I found them. But it went on and on and on - finally: Action Line Advantage Corporation Amazing Profits Amber Harris American Dream Challange American Sales Industries Auction Profits Auction Secrets Auction Sizzle Auction Success Group

Auctions 4 Income Auctions For Income Auctionsecrets.Com Bid Fuel Biz Review Bright Builders Brightbuilders.com Business Group Usa Cash Secrets Ckf Consulting College-Scholarship-Grants.Biz Colton Moody Consolidated Marketing Group Dave Espino Diverse Equities Diverse Equities Dm National Llc Dolf De Roos E-Biz Solutions E-Pro Coaching Ebay Auction Success Kit Electronic Clearinghous Epenzio Epi Epibiz Epromo Lls Executive Marketing Foreclosure Leads Foreclosure Secrets Foreclosure Store Foreclosure Training Foreclosure World Foreclosures Foreclosureworld Fortius Group Frank Kerns Freebay Wealth Freebay Wealth Developement Team Galaxy Mall Galaxy Mall Genesis Media Google Pro Googlemoneyprofit.Com Government Grants Service Grant Partners Grants Biz Greg Cooper Hacket Media Idi

Idi Global Idiglobal.Com Imergent Imergent Inc Income Success Team Inetseminars Infusion Media Internet Auction Solutions Internet Business Solutions Internet Business Systems Internet Coaching Group Internet Development Internet Development Inc Internet Logistics Internet Marketing Conference Internet Treasure Chest Internet Ultra Solutions Itc Internet Treasure Chest Iworks Iworks Incorporated John Beck Jordan Publishing Lfg Inc Linked Media Resource Inc. Links 4 Trade Marketing Solutions International Media Learner Mentoring Of America Mentors In Motion Michelle Valdez Google Pro Kit Moa Momentum Marketing Motivational Fulfillment & Packaging Services Multiple Streams Of Income. Nathan Kenyon National Financial Publishers National Market Research National Marketing Resources National Real Estate Investors Institute National Training Conference Netgateway Newave Nick Marks Success Training Nmr (National Marketing Resources) Nmr Coaching Nmrcoaching Omni Business Solutions Online Supplier Online Supplier Coaching

Onlinebiz Llc Onlinesupplier Onlinesupplier.Com Passive Google Profits Passport To Millions Pat Talerico Paynet Merchant Services Pcs Pcs Professional Consulting Services Pmg - Provo Ut Pmg Mentors Pmgicoaching.Vermotion.Net Pmgmentors.Com Pmgtech.Com Pmi Pmi (Professional Marketing Inc/International) Pmi Coaching Pmicoaching Power Profit System Power Seller Consultants Private Mentoring Group Process-At-Home By Angel Stevens Professional Coaching Group Professional Consulting Services Professional Marketing Group Professional Marketing International Prosper Prosper Inc. Prosper Learning Prosperlearning.Com Quetico Quicksite Quicksite Builder Quicksite National Marketing Resources Raven Media Robert Allen Robert Allen Company Robert G. Allen Russ Dalbey Secure Gate Selectyourgifts.Com Stores Online Storesonline Storesonline.Com Storesonline.Com Strategic Financial Services Success Team Success Training Suite 110

Summit Summit Consulting Summit Group Summit Group Internet Coaching Summit Group Management & Newest Being Summit Group Marketing Summit Group Of Utah Summit Group South Surplus Alert Surplus Alert Tafiti Consulting Tekmeds The Sellers Lounge The Success Team The Summit Group The Summit Group Llc The Tax Club Theo Hansson Coaching Thrive Learning Institute Thrive Success Unique Finance Usight Usight Home Inc. Vermotion Virtual Contact Inc Virtual Contact Incorporated Wealth And Self Wholesale Exchange Wholesale Exchange Llc Www.Asiincentives.Com Yourgiftcards.Com Names that keep coming up related to Summit and BrightBuilders: • • • •

Colton Moody Jim Cochran Erik Largent Brian Church

And as I look these individuals up, you can rest assured that I’ll post all their publicly available data on RipOffReports as well as here for the world to see. ---Now, want to get rid of telemarketers - real quick and easy? Simple: Treat your phone like your email - don’t consider that anyone has a right to call you that you don’t know. But don’t just hang up. They’ll keep calling back (and I have the exact reason that happens for another post…) Once they’ve asked for someone, and you’re sure you don’t know them, just say, “No.” and then hang

up. This has cut my residual telemarketers down to almost nothing. Seriously. Why does this work? Because: 1. They got a live person. 2. That person legally refused their offer. Their machines are set to dial back any no answer indefinitely. So, wait until you get a live person on the other end. And then say “No.” Just like your email - don’t know the person, just hit delete. Don’t open anything up you don’t know where it came from. Same with your phone. Look, phones used to be private, respected. Then came telemarketers, who took advantage of the “manners” people were brought up with. I’ve got news for them, here’s the new manners: “No.” and hang up. This reminds me I have another post to research for you about how to make money off telemarketers who violate the law. Not that you could make a living from this, but it will be an interesting hobby. Lots to do here… But sleep calls. Later.

Telemarketer Training - how you get a whole nest of scammers • Friday Mar 20,2009 08:36 PM • By Robert Worstell • In Bright Builders, stop telemarketers, thrive learning institute

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikbenson/) Telemarketer Training - how to find a nest of spammers and what to do with them… (Couldn’t resist this image. Anyone who’s lived in Los Angeles or the humid south knows how persistent cockroaches are…) Today’s post is mostly from someone named Brent from Kansas City, Mo. He tells what it’s like to work for one of these telemarketers and how he survived to tell his tale: I was a former employee of a company called Diverse Equities. They were associated with NMR and PMI. All these companies are tied together. They utilize layer upon layer of LLC’s to make sure they are protected. I started of closing sales for the real estate coaching. At first I was a believer in what I was doing. After I purchased the coaching myself (at a much lower price) I realized what a ripoff it was to those paying thousands of dollars for this ‘product’. I want to give a brief desciption of how the whole process works. First the victim buys a real estate training program off the TV or Internet. Ususally this is a low cost item or even a

free item. All this is intended to do, is to generate a lead. Once a lead is generated, then it goes to one of the sales floors. At that point a screener calls the lead to find out if the lead is qualified. They ask a series of questions to determine the finacial status of the individual. This is done for two reasons. The first reason is to see if they have enough money to make the sale. The second reason is to determine how much they should charge for their product. If the lead is qualified, then it goes to the closer. At that point the closer spends 30 to 60 minutes closing the deal. The owners of the company I worked for (Mark Tapp and Dustin Garr) also started selling their own real estate training program with NMR doing the coaching. They hired almost exclusively from the halfway house in Kansas City. The people buying Dustin and Mark’s coarse were giving their credit card numbers to people still in prison. The owners of these companies are the people that belong in prison. Some of my ex-con coworkers had more integrity the the owners of Diverse Equities. These guys are conartists, plain and simple. If you want to get started in real estate or an internet business, go to the the local library. All the information that you would pay thousands of dollars for, is all there for free. I apologize to all the people that I sold coaching to. I feel horrible that I worked for such a dishonest company. I do have more information and people willing to testify if anyone is interested in pursuing these companies legally. Another person contributed to Brents debrief: What Brent did not see behind closed doors was the fact that these companies probably had access to people’s credit information PRIOR to contacting them. I bet the majority, if not ALL of the people he was asked to contact HAD credit available. How many people were actually turned down for the program? In my case, my computer was hacked. Hackers were able to obtain my e-mail address and personal information right from my own computer, right under my nose! I was contacted by an e-mail of which I never signed up for. Then once I opened it, the problems started. These companies have used layer upon layer upon layer of ‘business entities’ to try to protect themselves. Here is a brief list of companies associated with this. Professional Marketing Group, PMG, PMG Mentors, Private Mentoring Group, Vermotion, Secure Gate, Fortius, Auctions for Income, NMR, IDI, Auctions 4 Income, Quicksite National Marketing Resources, PMI, National Marketing Resources, Iworks, Inc, Virtual Contact Inc, Paynet Merchant Services, Professional Marketing International, PMI Coaching, ITC Internet Treasure Chest, IDI Global, Summit Consulting, Online Supplier Coaching, onlinesupplier.com, online supplier, Netgateway, StoresOnline.com, Galaxy Mall, Imergent, Internet Treasure Chest, Stores Online, Foreclosureworld, Summit Group, Summit Consulting, Internet Development, Income Success Team, The Tax Club, Links 4 Trade, Professional Consulting Services, PCS, nmrcoaching, pmicoaching, quicksite builder, Nathan Kenyon, Dave Espino, Jim Cochran, Greg Cooper, Frank Kerns, Colton Moody, Dolf De Roos, PROSPER INC., Prosper Learning, prosperlearning.com, pmgmentors.com, pmgicoaching.vermotion.net, pmgtech.com, multiple streams of income,

PMI coaching, usight home inc., EPenzio, Russ Dalbey,Hacket Media,John Beck, Robert Allen, auction secrets, auctionsecrets.com, brightbuilder.com, bright builders, foreclosures.com, foreclosures, EPI, epibiz, power profit system, mentors in motion, passport to millions, wealth and self, cash secrets, Auctions for Income, NMR, IDI, Auctions 4 Income, Quicksite National Marketing Resources, National Marketing Resources, Iworks, Inc, Virtual Contact Inc, Paynet Merchant Services, Professional Marketing International and the list KEEPS GROWING!!! My advice to people is close all your credit card accounts. Get a new number assigned for each card you have since you do not know how much credit information might be out there. Change any passwords too. Then get copies of your credit reports from the 3 major companies, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. By placing a “fraud alert” on your credit you can receive free copies of your credit report. … Please, if you have a similar problem in dealing with any of the companies on this page, fill out your own RipOffReport now. The more individual reports filed, the better. I include this here as this is a probable explanation of how different people get different priced packages from the same company. The prices don’t change as much as their allowable limits do. While I got scammed for just over $6,000 - I’ve heard others start as low as $2K and some as high as $10K. And that just for starters. They keep adding on stuff. Here’s a short version of what I went through. • I signed up to learn about selling on eBay. • Went through BidFuel.com who has a scam running where they sell you a CD package with mostly worthless stuff on it (you can find these for free on the Net - and I already had several of their ebooks) for about $1.95 and $4.00 S&H. After 14 days, (read the fine print) they start charging you $40 a month for access to their site (hokum). By the time you find out about it, it’s been more than 30 days and so you only get a couple of month’s charges reversed - if you call during daylight hours and get a supervisor. • Then they sell your name to a sales floor like Internet Income Solutions. • A qualifier calls you to see if you’re legit. He sets an appointment for the real heavy sales guy to call. • The heavy uses all the regular tactics and gets you to cough. (I’ll post later about the 6 ways everyone is trained to become a patsy and how you can un-train yourself…) • Then they also set you up for a $30 monthly fee for online tools and hosting your website. (But their webhosting is worthless - and that’s another topic, how they set up roadblocks so you won’t continue with your training.) • And then they say you need add-ons (which you don’t). They do a special arrangement for you to accept credit cards on your site (use PayPal - it’s free). And they do a special service to recommend tweaks to optimize your sites for search engines. (Don’t get me started on this one there are five things you need to know, period. They said there were 1200 search engines out there - yes, but most of these are in foriegn countries and aren’t English-based. Google and Yahoo have around 90% of the market-share, with MSN taking most of what’s left - see, I said I shouldn’t get started…) • For Bright Builder, they gave me about 4 hours of training over 3 months at 15 minutes every

other week - 24 lessons. And I didn’t learn anything. But, because I was over 60 days since I signed up with the program, I wasn’t able to get a refund - or so I thought. (Yes you can, and yes I am…) I was given over to Thrive Learning Institute for another complete set of training (since these two companies were “merging”) and found out that they also gave only 4 hours of training, given in half hour segments twice a week for four weeks. But the data was also useless. By this time, I was nearly 6 months and little to show for it. Maybe $800 in sales on eBay before I learned you had to have about 300-500 products going all the time in order to make any amount of serious money - let alone make back the $6K I am still paying (so far) on my card. • But save your money. You can find out everything they train you on for free. (Actually, both Bright Builders and Thrive throw some curves in there which make sure you never actually succeed if you follow exactly what they say. But, again, I diverge.) • The training I got on eBay was useless - and I learned more from the free tutorials which eBay, HammerTap, WorldWideBrands, and others (like Skip McGrath’s excellent newsletter) - not from BrightBuilder or Thrive. • On top of that, the number of telemarketers calling my phone increased. And I found out why Internet Income Solution’s has a web page where they advertize what great lists they have and how they can sell them to you. Like they did to me. OK - this is gone a bit long. What’s next: my own list culled from RipOffReports about all the inter-related (incestual?) groups which all seem to stem from four individuals. AND: A very simple way to get telemarketers to quit (this is really too easy and very, very effective.)

Thrive Learning and Me - the Minotaur and the gadfly. Of course, anyone versed in mythology remembers the story of the Minotaur. Half-man, half-feral bull, this creature lived in a labyrinth (maze), imprisoned there by King Minos - where legend has that it preyed on anyone who ventured inside. While this analogy some complainers might say fits Thrive Learning to it's "T", we are also reminded that no one ever told the story of that beast. Did it have human feelings? And while young maidens were "sacrificed" to that beast - none returned alive to their families - we don't actually know what happened in those winding hallways. If we were to take up this story from the beast's perspective, we'd see another small story that could be told. Everyone knows of the hero that entered that maze with a ball of string to find his way back. He slew the minotaur and then went on to deal with King Minos. (For this allegory, perhaps the Credit Card companies fit that King role.) But that is telling the story of two more or less equal opponents - this guy Theseus with the sword and string-ball, plus the Minotaur. What about the story where the Minotaur met an unstoppable foe, but neither was able to best the other - yet they lived on, pestering the other in an indefinite arrangement? Enter our Gadfly. Now anyone who's dealt with or had to live around cattle knows what pests insects and flies in particular are. Summers can be real hell for cattle, as the flies get into any moist area they have, eyes, nose, mouth - and even settling onto their back and riding around, scratching and digging for food there. This of course drives the cow nuts - and is the reason their tails are so long (as well as their long necks and tongues, among other reasons). All in order to chase away flies. Consider a lone blogger who was simply denied all outlet to get his refund. Credit card laws said they didn't have to do a charge-back. The sales floor (telemarketer company) which sold the faulty goods have all sorts of lawyers who know exactly how to bluff the government and keep from paying any refunds. Fulfillment centers simply drop-kick all their refunds back to that sales floor. However, there is one defense any individual has - Complain Like Hell. Constitutional Right, in fact. I admit, this doesn't seem to be an effective tactic on the face of it. It's annoying and impolite in the extreme. But it aggregates a certain amount of power after awhile, in that persistence brings about a

certain reputation. If you had a storefront and a person came every day to sit outside your store with a simple sign that said they were swindled. And maybe you didn't sell them the original product, but simply inherited the service contract - but the original product was not fixable. Rightly, you'd tell that person, "Go take it up with the manufacturer." And it wasn't your legal responsibility to reimburse that individual for his purchse. The manufacturer was in a remote city and had layers of receptionists and was in the warehouse district, where no one visits or walks by. Your storefront, however, is in a prime location where lots of people go by. And you have lots of customers coming in and out every day. Plus, that person simply lives a few blocks away and so, every day, probably during that person's lunch hour, they come and sit or walk in front of your store with their sign and talks to your customers as they come in and out, telling them not to buy that particular product. Annoying, but legal. Back to our Minotaur. No one has really ever told the story from the Minotaur's viewpoint. Maybe that Minotaur had a good deal with King Mino's. The legend has varying times where these young maidens were sacrified - but never less than a year. Wouldn't keep that Minotaur alive - so he was kept alive with some other arrangement with Minos. What if they simply took those maidens and put them to work in a factory or shipped them overseas? Maybe that Minotaur was being fed three squares a day and had a job doing upkeep on that labyrinth as well as doing consulting work for Minos and perhaps some coaching on being King, his commerce and trade, how to leverage his wealth and pay down debts. Whatever the life that the Minotaur lived, we are actually here to talk about that gadfly. Gadflies are pests. Look them up. Quite a reputation. But they have their own story as well. Sure, if you can swat them effectively, you can probably kill them with a single blow. But they are quick. And flyswatters didn't get invented until 1905 (Kansas - by Frank H. Rose). In Africa, they traditionally used fly whisks, made of horsehair. So, the gadfly/Minotaur relationship is a standoff. And the Minotaur gets the dirty end of the stick. And if that Minotaur doesn't understand the needs of its pest, that gadfly will breed and create more flies. (That one protester outside your shop might get some media coverage, might actually make it a

consumer campaign, might actually get people to boycott your shop - all for the pittance he was denied...) But, as farmers know, flies don't like certain things. Farmers install backrubs filled with chemicals to keep the flies away, plus move their cattle on a frequent basis so when new flies hatch, they can't find the cattle (it gets more graphic than that, but we're trying to keep this story clean...) The Minotaur is simply trying to make a living, as is the gadfly. Both have different ways of going about it. But both are right. The real solution is for the Minotaur to simply get a nice piece of bait that flies like - say, get one of those maidens to bake a juicy cake - and then take that cake to a remote location in the labyrinth and make sure the gadfly gets well at home there. Then the Minotaur quietly leaves while the gadfly is busy eating and doing whatever business a gadfly has when they aren't pestering others. Our Minotaur can get back to doing his own job and no longer pestered by that fly. And the moral of this story tells how that "Complain Like Hell" strategy works to get a refund. A company will simply quiet loud complainers by paying them off. Sometimes the complainer has to be blatant about it. And you have to be incredibly persistent. And just keep talking and saying things until that Minotaur goes and finds you a nice, juicy cake and a quiet place you can do your business and not have to bother the beast. ---During the course of this blog, you'll see that my attitude changed. As I found out more information about Thrive Learning and the model for this industry, I became less shrilly bitter and tried to start finding solutions to these problems. But I also found more and more ways to complain. Now, in watching Thrive Learning on the Internet, I also saw their complaints start to take over their standings. Originally, they got all the top spots in Google to be completely complimentary. Even RipOff Reports was saying nice things about them. But in those few months, we now have complaint boards coming up often higher than their own sites and the first three pages of results being filled with complaints and derogatory comments. Since the initial push was to brand Thrive Learning through PR Internet postings, essentially their insufficient customer service has now undone all that work. Now, when sales floors have clients

looking up Thrive Learning, they don't want to purchase the product. Because there is someone with a protest sign who comes every day during their lunch hour to sit and talk with customers who come in and out. However, this protester isn't your usual bitch-and-moan type. In their spare time, they are doing research into the company, its investors, its management. So every day, they have new conversations with people going by about the company they are protesting. It doesn't matter that these passer-by's aren't even interested in visiting that business. The protester is nice, engaging, educated, informed - and willing to talk to anyone about that business and the product that they bought which didn't work. And why they are there every day. That protester is even giving people tips on how not to make the same mistakes this company made and tells them how this company could start giving incredible service and could make even higher profits. Problem is - no one in that store is coming out to talk to the protester. There's some company policy to simply ignore them. (And maybe someone even told top management that the protester refused to accept a refund.) But sales continue to drop, and now media are getting into conversing to this local "legend". All because that one customer was poorly serviced and is willing to sacrifice his lunch time - in all sorts of weather - just to politely picket outside their door every single workday during lunch. The company now tries to expand, and redesigns the store, renovates from top to bottom - does a new "Grand Opening" - but that protester is still out there every day. Even during the ribbon cutting. Smiling, talking to anyone he can. Telling them that the company is missing the point. Protester = gadfly. Minotaur = business. Neither side winning in this standoff, but the company is losing more than the protester (who brings his sack lunch.) ---Back to me - what's the bottom line here? While I've been criticising and critiquing Thrive, Bright Builders, Internet Income Solutions, I've given Thrive and the rest free marketing and business strategy advice through this blog and other venues which is probably worth $50,000 or more in consulting fees. And I've analyzed their business model from a consumer standpoint and told them specifically what simple actions need to be taken just to improve what they are doing.

So far, it doesn't seem to have taken root. And so this gadfly activity comes during my extra time (when I'm not making a living otherwise) along with my sign. And I pester Thrive Learning. Because they are most visible and the last on my chain of consumer dissatisfaction. But really, what would help this single protester move on? A check. See, Thrive Learning and I can agree on one thing - there is a huge amount of life out there to live which goes far beyond a single sale. I've talked to their PR guy. I've talked to one of their key investors. I've had promises of this and that. Actually had some nice conversations. The one thing missing? A check. And so this blog post, this protester, this gadfly. Is the Minotaur actually a beast? No. Does the gadfly need to bother it? Only as long as the gadfly thinks it can only get what it wants by flying around that Minotaur. And that Minotaur can do all sorts of things to try to get rid of that gadfly. But the gadfly is quicker and more nimble. And the Minotaur has no flyswatter, and can't hire anyone with an effective way to get rid of this gadfly. A standoff. Both have better things to do with their time. OK, moral to the story: One way to stop all this -A check. If the Thrive Learning "investors" were to take my hints and figure out how to combine a sales floor and a lead generator function - putting them all under one roof. And then invest ample funds into real customer service backend - well, they wouldn't be in this problem, would they? And as I said, one gadfly quickly becomes more gadflies. Until the area around the Minotaur's head is abuzz with more gadflies than new ideas to expand business.

So it's in most companies interest to simply pay off the top complainers (as McDonald's does to some really stupid lawsuits) just to get some room to breathe and concentrate on the next production and raising more income. And again, one reason Thrive Learning doesn't do this is because they don't really get enough money to do so - they are on the low end of the payout on every sale and so it takes a chunk of change away from their regular coaching production. They simply don't have it. But if they had some real backend customer service in place, they'd pressure that sales floor to cough and to quit making those illegal promises. And this is probably the reason that it's been around 9 months of complaining. Their business model is so flawed that it actually is crashing the company. Can't pay off gadflies and their sales floors stonewall - so more gadflies, more complaints, lower sales, less income, more expensive promotion, more gadflies, more complaints... Who bites it in the end? Thrive Learning. The sales floors simply find other fulfillment centers to push - or maybe products which don't have to have coaching. Sales floors are just banks of telemarketers. Not a lot to them. Thrive Learning has to maintain a lot of customer service which it frankly isn't getting paid enough for. And that's why they are in the labyrinth in King Minos' palace. Flawed business model. Not enough money to do what they really need to do in order to get really successful clients. For this gadfly, it all ends with a check. For the Minotaur - it's got to figure out how to get out of that labyrinth and get a decent living, instead of constantly fighting off a perpetual stream of gadflies.

Thrive posts.pdf

Page 1 of 107. The bucking Internet Scam horse: How's that. rump you landed on? • Thursday May 21,2009 07:00 AM. • By robertworstell. • In Internet scam ...

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