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[MarketingJunkie]

Yesterday, my inbox lit up with an endless parade of pitches for a well-known guru looking to relanch his product after pulling it from the market several years ago.

This same guru claims to have generated a million dollars in business in a single day... a claim that 2 well-known gurus I know personally say isn't true.

I'm not surprised by this. Most of the gurus I consult are literally a launch away from being homeless. It's true. They're a desperate bunch... hardly successful when you consider that they're blatantly ripping off the masses with crap that has a shelflife of less than 6 months.

This may surprise a lot of people here... these gurus live by the mantra, "Fake it 'til you make it." In fact, one "guru" even posted a blog entry about it here:

http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/10/09/perception-is-everything-or-fake-it-til-you-make-it

Interestingly enough, the same person who published the "Fake it 'til you make it" article has been caught at least 2 times faking it. These are fascinating articles about it:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Shoemoneys-132-99497-From-GoogleAds-A-Hoax
http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/06/21/azoogleads-check-featured-on-photoshop-disasters/
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2008/06/azoogle-this-was-really-well-thought.html

But here's the best part... this "guru" continues to display a Google AdSense in the amount of $132,994.97... and he explains, "100% of this income was earned with organic seo. I had not heard of search engine arbitrage at the time and did not buy traffic from MSN Yahoo or Google itself. I did that about 1.5 years later ; )"

Now in order to generate that kind of income, you need tremendous, obscene amounts of traffic. Let's just say the BS meter was on full alert. And while looking at this "check", I noticed it looked fake to me. The bank routing numbers at the bottom were blurred out...  I thought to myself, "Why would this guru blur out an incoming check's routing numbers?"

Sure enough, when you zoom in real tight -- the check is an obvious "pasted" Photoshop fake. Unbelievable!

Take a look... zoom in on it here:



"Fake it 'til you make it."

In my efforts to track down an real Google AdSense check, I stumbled upon another guru's check -- a well-known guy who runs a "highly successful" matchmaking service. This guy is a darling of internet marketers for his ability to make big bucks with no employees. In fact, I was just about to invite him to come on my weekly internet radio broadcast and interview him about his success... I guess that's one less guest I have to concern myself with booking after looking at his fake AdSense check:



"Fake it 'til you make it."

Here's another obvious fake -- look how there are two different fonts:



As a reference, here's an example of a Google check that looks legit to me:



The good news is I'm seeing a lot less apathy about this nonsense than ever before. Several years ago, this would have been swept under the rug. But today, I sense growing anger out of this deception.

I appreciate this board because it allows us to finally post the truth... truth gets deleted from the Warrior Forum.

So now what do we do?

[Jay Jennings]

You must know what to look at better than I -- I don't see the obvious fakes. I do see that some checks look like they're from Canada and at least one from the US, so that would account for some of the differences.

What else should I be looking for?

 Jay Jennings

[Mike Ambrosio]

Jay,

Look at the third one again. The number says: $85,650.38 but below that, typed out is: Forty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Fifty and 38/100....

THAT one is a fake for sure. What an idiot.

Mike

[MarketingJunkie]

Jay,

Look at the third one again. The number says: $85,650.38 but below that, typed out is: Forty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Fifty and 38/100....

THAT one is a fake for sure. What an idiot.

Mike

But wait, there's more.

Look at the signature stamps... all the fakes have the same... the real check is different.

For me, zooming in is the real way to spot a fake. Ask anyone who knows Photoshop -- and if they're honest with you, they'll laugh... all of the checks have pasted-in data.

So I'll ask again... are we going to let this information remain hush hush or are we going to spread this around. I will spread this far and wide... will you?

I gotta tell you, a lot of people buy into these fake gurus. And that's money out of the pockets of legit' marketers like ourselves.

[Lisa Preston]

I "get" the idea of showing cheques and paypal statements as being some sort of proof, but in this day and age of Photoshop wizardry, I don't pay any attention to them anymore. I simply discount them out-of-hand, and my "bullshit alert" goes up 5 levels when reading the copy.

I think I'm old.

I was raised to consider my personal finances to be a very personal thing, and nobody else's business. If showing people a cheque from Google, or a screenshot from PayPal to prove that what I'm selling is the "real deal" is the ONLY way to prove it, I think there's a fundamental problem with my marketing.

I prefer to back up my claims with facts, and a really solid guarantee. I let unsolicited testimonials from real customers tell the tale.

[Mike Ambrosio]

I "get" the idea of showing cheques and paypal statements as being some sort of proof, but in this day and age of Photoshop wizardry, I don't pay any attention to them anymore. I simply discount them out-of-hand, and my "bullshit alert" goes up 5 levels when reading the copy.

I think I'm old.

I was raised to consider my personal finances to be a very personal thing, and nobody else's business. If showing people a cheque from Google, or a screenshot from PayPal to prove that what I'm selling is the "real deal" is the ONLY way to prove it, I think there's a fundamental problem with my marketing.

I prefer to back up my claims with facts, and a really solid guarantee. I let unsolicited testimonials from real customers tell the tale.

Never paid much attention to checks as proof either (the Photoshop thing is the biggest reason). It depends on who it is using them. Some, these days, also use a video of themselves logging in to their various accounts as proof.

My "BS Meter" won't necessarily go off when people use "income proof" (in any form). These days, it seems so many people do want to see them (visit some forums...). But that's not what will convince me one way or the other to buy anything.

Like you said - facts, solid guarantees and unsolicited testimonials go way further. Even outside of IM. The last 4 or 5 major purchases I made off line (including my car) I visited a LOT of consumer review type sites. The word of the average consumer is a good indicator and carries a lot of weight.

[profitclinic]

Dunno what the IRS does about this kind of foolhardy public declaration of income, real or not, but the financial ferrets from the Australian Tax Office would be seriously hard to budge if your argument for not paying the right amount of tax on those cheques/checks was that "they're fakes".

Next visit would be from the fraud squad... and the ATO would put all your other claims under the spotlight (and an electron microscope) for up to 7 years — and probably disallow all claims in related categories, then add penalties and interest!

Really, really DUMB.

But, then, the criminal mindset isn't noted for being particularly intelligent. Cunning, yes. But so is an outhouse rat.

John

[Joreymay]

I let unsolicited testimonials from real customers tell the tale.

How do you know they are either? "unsolicited" testimonials and "real" customers are easier to fake than those checks.

Jorey
.

[Lisa Preston]

Well, I know they are unsolicited because... I don't ask for them.

When I post a testimonial, I always include the person's full name and website, so anyone can check to see if that was a real testimonial or not.

While some people may use fake crap on their sites, it takes very little to uncover the truth in most cases, and (I keep going back to this) doing your due diligence on any product, marketer or business is always in your best interest. Generally speaking, if someone regularly lies, cheats or employs unethical tactics in their marketing, someone somewhere has likely posted about it somewhere... and a Google search is all it'd take to find out.

[Martin Luxton]

Is the check for the onlinemoneyzone done by the same guy who does all the phishing and Nigerian emails?

Due to Google Terms and conditions the complete information has been hided

I recognize that masterly command of the English language.

Martin

[calgreg]

This is an interesting topic for me because I am concerned about when, not if, the newbies find out that many people are putting up fake info about so many things now on the Internet.

Can you imagine how many fake reviews there are at Amazon books? Or in Google's local ads. I am sure that when you see a lot of reviews there many of them are fake.

I know a lady who publishes a small niche magazine. She said that her subscribers would not believe a letter to the editor unless it showed the town and state where the sender lived.

We don't need this type of publicity even though some bad publicity is better than none at all.

greg cryns

[MarketingJunkie]

This is an interesting topic for me because I am concerned about when, not if, the newbies find out that many people are putting up fake info about so many things now on the Internet.

Can you imagine how many fake reviews there are at Amazon books? Or in Google's local ads. I am sure that when you see a lot of reviews there many of them are fake.

I know a lady who publishes a small niche magazine. She said that her subscribers would not believe a letter to the editor unless it showed the town and state where the sender lived.

We don't need this type of publicity even though some bad publicity is better than none at all.

greg cryns

I started this thread because when I brought this up at The Warrior Forum, the topic was soon deleted.

This needs to get out far and wide. In fact, I'm quite shocked by the lack of relative outrage here. Do you realize that these fake gurus are literally diverting money away from legitimate marketers like us.

My list is going to know about it next week. And I will make a big deal about it on my broadcast, too.

By the way, I once saw a newspaper snippet included as a testimonial on a "guru's" webpage. I couldn't stop laughing because here's the "snippet generator" he used to fool his visitors:

http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp

[zerofill]

LOL I am more apt to believe the $103 check anyway hehe. If your making $130k from adsense you must have 8000 websites, a bot net, or you really found something the entire world doesn't know about lol.

[Ron Killian]

What can you do about it? I'm not saying, oh well, can't do anything about it. Main problem is, and we've all seen it, the big marketers (least in perception) can do what ever and still they seem to have a loyal following or a big bandwagon.

So many guru's getting busted, they turn it around as an innocent mistake and 99% of the IM population sticks up for them. It's been brought on on this very forum, recent examples.

[ExRat]

Hi (again) Ron,

Main problem is, and we've all seen it, the big marketers (least in perception) can do what ever and still they seem to have a loyal following or a big bandwagon.

The keyword here is 'seem'.

If you watch closely, this is one aspect of their business that they 'spin' very well and it's vital to their success.

I watch forums quite closely (you don't say) and I don't always talk about what I see (really?). None of us do - there is no point - you spend your life getting drawn into pissing matches.

But I have seen countless 'big marketers' working the forum system at launch time with fake forum IDs. Some of them are experts - once their basic tactics get called they go further and create/obtain forum personas that -

a) are aged

b) have real looking websites in their sig/profile that appear to suggest that they are independent IMers

c) have posting histories that suggest that they are independent

So what psychological effect does it have when -

the big marketers (least in perception) can do what ever and still they seem to have a loyal following or a big bandwagon.

?

It causes a large amount of lower level IMers to stall, thinking that they can never break in, they can never compete, that their honest approach will get blown out of the water by the big guns who have such a rep that they can do whatever they like and STILL prosper.

That's essentially what you are saying and by saying it, it shows that it works. Which is why they continue to do it. But it's a smoke screen. Many of these 'big marketers' are not doing anywhere near as well as the smoke screen would have you believe.

You only have to watch the 'chinese whispers' effect that applies to anyone who makes a killing.

Firstly, the vendor themselves will quote figures which -

a) don't include 70% AND 100% deductions for certain JV partners

b) don't include 50% affiliate deductions

c) don't include ANY expenses


So they sell 10000 units at $47 (according to them) and they made 1/2 mill.

But shortly after they will add, 'I made that much again on the OTO'.

So the vendor swans around quoting that they made a cool $1m from one launch.

And THEN - the chinese whispers kick in - even from innocent bystanders who are not part of the smoke screen. You see it in forums all the time. The $1m launch guy gets these type of comments -

'he made a million from that launch'

'he makes a million from all of his launches'

'he makes millions from each of his launches'

'when you're a top IMer like Mr. XYZ and you make millions every time you click send'

And that's how it works. And the top people really are masters at compounding their own spin with the natural spin that occurs in a marketplace full of starry-eyed newbs.

And this DOES (from what I have seen and experienced) do the job of making others feel like there is a barrier that they can not cross, a zone that they can not enter.

Put it this way - when things do go well, we always get to hear about it.

When things go catastrophically wrong, we don't always get to hear about it - depending on who your contacts are and how much they will share with you.

The successes are leveraged and shoved down everyone's throats with a whole bunch of spin applied. You don't see products launched like 'How I killed my reputation, lost a fortune and lost all of my high level contacts by doing this one simple thing wrong' - do you?

Therefore, it appears that there is a lot more success around than there really is. And it also appears that some people are untouchable. The truth is - no one is untouchable. We are all (mostly) human. But online, in the IM world, propaganda, spin and BS are extremely powerful forces - and the reason they are even more powerful than they are in the offline world is because -

a) the internet is an information network - every IMer has access to the latest news and actively seeks it for a variety of reasons

b) the power of word of mouth/social proof is exponentially more powerful and instantaneous than in the offline world

JMHO