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[Investigator]

First post here and have been reading this thread with interest.

I was one of the lucky ones that saw stompednet mentioned on the warrior forum, where it remained for about 20 minutes before being quickly pulled. . .

One thing led to another and I find myself here.

I would like to add that there seems to be a fair bit of skirting around the issues here as there was on the WF.

The court dox look genuine to me and I haven't seen anyone claim that they are fake, therefore it would seem that they are genuine. . . which begs the question

'why were the stompers denying it so vehemently'?

I saw the poster on WF get shouted down by Andy about SN going into receivership, and also he had some mates that very quickly rushed to his aid. . . Stomper staff members along with surfer looking dudes that try and look like the 'big IM surfer dude'.

Now the court documents come out and in my mind all those that quickly defended SN look foolish.  They were playing the general public on a string and now that it has all unravelled they look silly.

The 'I am going to pursue other interests' didn't seem logical at the time and when it became clear that it wasn't the truth there seems a concerted effort to shoot the messenger.  Once again I haven't seen one denial that the court dox are not genuine, so what is the point of saying this one or that one put the site up.  Does it matter who put up the stompednet site. . . whether it was Andy, Mel Gibson or Mr Joe Public doesn't make any difference to the authenticity of the dox and therefore would demand a response from all those that flatly denied there was any problems at SN.

So let's not skirt around the issues. . . there appears to be problems at SN, they are approaching a large 09/09 launch, therefore the public that are considering paying their hard earned to join whatever the 09 launch is about should be aware of the problems before committing.

That is how I see it. . . but I am happy to hear other points of view.

[Georgetta]

Other points of view?

1.  It is stupid to deny facts that are, or can be, public record.

2.  It is unethical (and stupid) to employ ad hominem (attack the person) strategies when such facts are public record, or any time.  Anyone with a lick of sense realizes ad hominem attacks are logical fallacies.  I admit that many people don't have a lick of sense, and are swayed by these tactics.

3.  It doesn't REALLY matter why Mr. So-and-So left Organization XYZ.  That is essentially gossip - not business, not marketing.

4.  The financial health of an organization IS important only if you are paying in advance for an ongoing service that you may not receive.  I don't think that Stompernet's stuff (so far) has been like that.  I subscribe to the Net Effect and DVD thing - if they go belly-up, I just don't get those any more (and if they try to charge my credit card without providing the product, I just have the credit card company reverse the charges).

5.  The only things that I see that ARE important in this are whether Stompernet's claims about their own business are factual, and whether the information they provide is accurate.  If they are trying to sell me based on how great they are doing, but they are going broke, then that is important.  Otherwise, it doesn't seem to matter much, beyond amusement (gossip, again).

6.  I DID think that Dan Thies was a straight shooter.  I trusted his PPC and SEO advice.  IF he is actually coming here and attempting misdirection, misinformation and ad hominem attacks, then that DOES change my opinion of the value of his advice.  So, I will watch that more closely.  Note that no one has proven that Dan Thies was doing those things, only a suspicion.

7.  Re: WarriorForum - - every forum has a character or feel.  The closest analogy I can think of for the WF is "High School."  There are the popular kids (small minority, the "in" kids) who run everything, and everybody else, who don't matter at all.  The popular kids can do whatever they want, can bully, beat up, rob, etc. the unpopular kids and everyone looks away, then continues to praise the popular kids.  Other forums have that character too, but WF takes it to a pretty high level.  So - don't expect anything negative or honest posted about any of the popular kids to stick around. 

They have a rule - don't post a beef about a warrior.  What they MEAN is "don't post a beef about a POPULAR warrior."  They have had plenty of "beat up on person X" threads that go on for days and days, without any of this "you can't post a grip about a warrior" rule ever coming up.  That is because the target is one of the unpopular, or "out", kids.

I still go there almost every day.  I look for things that provide me with value.  I understand the nature of the place and don't get too worked up about it.  It is JUST A FORUM.  Yes, some dillhole can bully me in print (and has), but they cannot spit in my hair, or throw me against the lockers, or urinate on my books.  So - why take it so seriously?  And being banned there just means you have to create a new id and start again.  So?  Why worry about threads being deleted?  Why worry about anything, really?

Just random thoughts.

Regards, Georgetta

[MarketingJunkie]

Breakin' through the Delphi Technique. Sweet.

And Georgetta's random posting was AMAZING advice for those looking into this mess. Invetigator's post was equally awesome.

For me, here's the best observation:

5.  The only things that I see that ARE important in this are whether Stompernet's claims about their own business are factual, and whether the information they provide is accurate.  If they are trying to sell me based on how great they are doing, but they are going broke, then that is important.  Otherwise, it doesn't seem to matter much, beyond amusement (gossip, again).

Well said, Georgetta. Well said.

For me, the most stunning part is Andy Jenkin's multi-thousand word essay about how there's nothing sinister going on about his "retirement" from StomperNet. It seems pretty sinister to me.

And if any of the behind-the-scenes stuff that I've been hearing about via IM and PMs to me is even 5% true, it's stunning how much lipstick is being applied to the pig.

[Investigator]

I agree with Georgetta about WF. . . I do post a little bit but am mainly a lurker there.  The high school analogy is a good one. . . there are certainly some that are a protected species.  Others like the owner of the Google Cash Detective have copped a fearful whack and the thread has been up for months.  I am certainly not sticking up for GCD, just making the analogy that GCD and Chris have been castigated for months and the thread remains and then the thread about Affiliate Jump was pulled very quickly.

I also agree that the stuff about Stomper is gossip and has no effect on me.  I do feel concern that if the receivership stuff is true and they proceed with a launch - then there may be people that are hurt.  If people are informed and choose to continue then no one can complain if it all falls over, so there is some value in keeping people informed.

What annoys me is people dismissing out of hand there was any problems at Stomper and then it comes out there is problems there.  Makes the players look silly when the truth comes out.

The wiser way for those people would have been to say nothing.  Release a press conference about the parting of the ways and then say nothing.  It is very hard to ignore all the accusations, but if there is any truth in the accusations, they would have been wise to say nothing and then if it ever got out - which it seems that it has - they would not appear to be lying and foolish.

So I guess in summary is people are not that worried about what is going on at Stomper. . . it hasn't affected any customers YET, but what upsets joe public is the lies that have been told and then the personal attacks on people that realized things weren't smelling of roses and asked some questions.

   

[outdoor]

For all those who need to know, please visit the Fulton County website at the link below.  If anybody tells you it is not true, you can shut them up very quickly.     

www. fcclkjudicialsearch. org/Scripts/UVlink. isa/tsgdb1/WEBSERV/PUBCivilSearch?action%253Dview%26track%253D644476

Sorry, cant get the link to save right, you can copy and pate, just remove the spaces.

Glad to be part of this forum, just found and joined.       :o

[tradermike1999]

I'm subscribed to a thread on the warrior forum where posts were being deleted if someone just brings up the lawsuit or asks a question about it.   I would get notifications of the posts then when I went there they were deleted.   Was pretty disgusting.

One thing about the lawsuit - it talks of a third party owning some of their other businesses.   Wonder who the other party is.

[xblade]

Another thread just got nuked at WF just for talking about this, lol.    I think it lasted for nine posts, and no one said anything out of line.   Seriously, how freakin' lame is that? How can the WF have any credibility left among its members with the way they cover for folks over there? They certainly have little left with me.  

[MarketingJunkie]

I'm more ticked with this whole thing about the warrior forum.     I've posts there occassionaly and it gives me a creepy feeling now.     Mad enough I decided to just make my own blog linking to this thread and post there where it won't be censored and join here and talk with you all.  

Kudos to Mike for taking action. People are reposting this at Twitter:



Link: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=stompernet

And Mike posted this at his blog:



Link: http://marketingmoneyonline.com/?p=49

There is so much to this story it would blow you away. Stay tuned.

I wonder when the Warrior Forum will finally stop deleting this news.

It's refreshing to see real people finally breaking through the Delphi Technique. I've been battling these psychopaths since 2001.

Keep on posting this, folks. When you do, you help out other people from falling for their scams.

By the way, here's a secret hack to find out how many people are clicking on this from Twitter (just click on the link below):
http://bit.ly/info/12tCav

[xblade]

Wonder if there's a non-redacted copy of that lawsuit floating around? Aren't lawsuits public record? I assume the official document wouldn't have blacked out info in it.  There should be a record somewhere of who the unnamed third Stompernet partner is.

[DanThies]

Well. . .  first off, I'd like to apologize to Markus, Mike, and everyone else.  You will not hear from "Truth Be Told" again, at least not from my network.  I don't need to be anonymous to say what I have to say about this.  If I do need to be anonymous, I do SEO so that's a trivial matter of pushing a button and I'm anonymous, or a Googlebot, or whatever is required.

Now. . .  Markus - you said some things on the Warrior Forum (apparently "2b1" is you) and you've said some things here.  I certainly owe you an apology for the WF thread.  I shouldn't drink and post.  Having spent a lot of time as a moderator trying to maintain a civil tone in discussion forums, anonymous people playing gotcha when they don't know the full story is a wee bit annoying to me.  That combined with your decision to jump into a discussion about Mike Filsaime's thing, where Andy was just trying to help.  It chapped my hide.

As far as I know, the staff at StomperNet gets paid.  I asked 4 people today and they all said they were getting paid.  Maybe they were all lying to me.  Maybe they are all getting paid.  Possibly some of them are lying and some are getting paid.  If you have information to the contrary, nobody's stopping you from publishing it.

Some members of the faculty have been asked to take pay cuts - I just offered to take a cut myself.  This has happened more than once since StomperNet opened.  StomperNet's membership has not been replenished by a significant promotion for more than a year, and the current business model has high fixed costs that depend on having a certain number of members to operate profitably.

The idea that StomperNet is going out of business is a little over the top - not gonna happen.  StomperNet needs to bring in new members (customers) - just like any business does.  StomperNet needs a different business model that isn't driven by large spikes in membership followed by a slow decline.  Both of those things will happen in a BIG way with the offer that will be made in September.

The document posted at "Stomped" (funny) makes it plain that these guys did not always agree about how to run the business.  However, they did agree on how to resolve their differences, and a process to protect both partners during the negotiations.  In the end Andy was happy to sell, Brad was happy to buy and invest.  Yes, it took a while for them to haggle their way to a final agreement, but so what?

I still don't think that their private dealings is anyone's business but theirs.  It is hard to believe that anyone who thinks otherwise has ever run a business that large, or even had a business partner - much less had a disagreement with their partner.  I know it's fun to take shots at the "big guys" but none of this noise has anything to do with the future of StomperNet.

Said all I need to say about this now.  If Brad and/or Andy want to say something they will.

[Investigator]

Credibility can take years to gain and seconds to be lost. . .

Now the main players may have thought they were doing the right thing by withholding the truth from joe public to protect the reputation of stomper, but in the end a lie is a lie and if you are going to tell little porky pies you better make sure they don't become known. 

The thing for me is not that the main players went their separate ways, after all that does not make one tittle of difference to me, but I feel cheated when I read on the WF posts from Andy that not only denied any problems but proceeded to make personal attacks on the poster who dared to question whether the reasons that he provided for leaving Stomper were valid.

Now Dan is here saying that 09/09 is going to be big blah blah blah but for me a certain amount of trust has gone out of the window and I feel like stomper may be treating 09/09 as their get out of jail free card.  They hope it will work to save the company, which would seem to be a precarious position to be in, especially when it has been revealed that the main players were happy to tell us lies.  Are they suddenly telling the truth about 09/09!!!

I would not get any pleasure out of seeing Stomper fail, and as stated previously my life will not change whatever happens to Stomper, and I imagine this is the same for the majority of people. . . so why am I here posting about this stuff - because I feel let down by a group of people I trusted.  I loved the videos that Andy made, they were at the top of the tree as far as quality goes, but he lied to us.

[DanThies]

You know what? I got one more thing to say.

What Andy posted on his blog are the real reasons why he decided to sell his shares.  It's that simple.  Nobody held a gun to his head.

There's a little joke that's been going around for a while, that you can say *anything* to someone, no matter how profane or insulting, if you just preface it with "all due respect. "

Well, all due respect, but you don't know Andy.  You weren't there when the doctors started tossing around the C-word.  You didn't get the call in the middle of the night, like I did, when he was re-evaluating everything in his life, and he was afraid of letting people down if he sold his shares.

No.  You're just out there on the Internet calling him a liar.

It's really precious how some people think they can come at somebody with personal attacks, call them a liar, and then expect to be treated with immense respect in return.  What Markus did on the Warrior Forum was a personal attack, plain and simple, and his actions fully merited being banned from that forum.

Goodbye.

[tradermike1999]

Some thoughts:

Stompernet is planning a big launch on the 9th of September in order to bring in some big bucks.

Theis is right though and as an outsider looking in it is easy to to see where Stompernet is going.

There is a path that most successful information marketing companies take when they grow.

They begin with a successful product that generates positive cash flow.  At some point though that product loses the initial hype around it or simply reaches a maturation point.  To grow to the next step companies then need to make new products.

With Stompernet they began by launching an $800 a month membership site.

That launch generated over $10 million for them in just a few days.

But at such a high membership rate it wouldn’t be shocking if they had a high cancellation rate and refund rate.

The standard refund rate for information products is 10-20%.  I’ve found that historically my refund rate is 5-15% when I do promotions.

But I was talking last month with the lead marketer for a $30 million plus online website – one of the biggest sites on the Internet – a top 1000 Alexa site – who had a lot of experience working with financial newsletter publishers and he told me that he found when they charge over $1000 a year for something the refund rate would often be around 50%.

So I think its safe to assume Stompernet probably had a high refund rate simply because they charged so much money.

Even if they had a low rate though simple attrition could be a problem for them if they have high costs to run their business.

Last year they launched The Net Effect newsletter as a new product at a lower price point to attract new customers.  Now it looks like they are going to make yet another product or offering next month.

It is almost imperative that they do a promotion – not only to inject money into the company – but with the Andy Jenkins fallout – in order for those running Stompernet to assert their power in the market place and with their affiliates – to maintain the presence of Stompernet in the market.

As far as the lawsuit goes, Theis wrote that it “makes it plain that these guys did not always agree about how to run the business.  However, they did agree on how to resolve their differences, and a process to protect both partners during the negotiations.  In the end Andy was happy to sell, Brad was happy to buy and invest.  Yes, it took a while for them to haggle their way to a final agreement, but so what?”

Well, the problem is the way people have been treated by just asking about it and the obsessive active cover-up on message boards to prevent news of this from getting out.

It also would appear that what happened was more than a simple disagreement.  Even if no wrong doing was done then at the least a very nasty fight occurred.

You would think they wouldn’t have tried to hide this, but would have just said we had a nasty fight and are parting our ways.  But they didn’t.  They wanted to create a false impression – and maintain some sort of illusion, which is not even necessary to maintain their dominance in the IM niche.

That in itself isn’t what interests me.  This was an eye opening thing for me in another way.  It gives me the impression that the Internet marketing niche is tightly controlled.  If you take the WarriorForum for example – the biggest IM forum and meeting place on the Internet – there are threads were people and products are bashed for weeks on end and then specially favored people and products were if a critical comment is made the poster is instantly banned.

For the past week every time someone makes a post asking about what is happening at Stompernet that post has been instantly deleted.

It is an attempt to hide the truth and control the news flow.

[Investigator]

The question that keeps cropping up in my mind after reading that they had their differences but were able to sort it out is. . . did it take the threat of a lawsuit to sort it out.

They can posture all they like about it. . . but it was stated that one was happy to sell, one was happy to buy, but how 'happy' was the transaction.  Was there an element of 'either you buy me out or I will sue you'?

Putting that aside because 'that is life' and happens all the time. . . what has upset so many is as tradermike so eloquently put it 'They wanted to create a false impression – and maintain some sort of illusion, which is not even necessary to maintain their dominance in the IM niche. ' There was misinformation distributed to make out everything was smelling of roses when clearly it wasn't.  When people had the 'audacity' to question the rose smell they were hounded down, with some high profile friends coming to the rescue.

I agree that it has been astonishing the control displayed at the warrior forum.  I think of threads about the cash detective which went on for weeks and weeks along with a popular autoresponder company, they received some really nasty posts and the threads remained there and still remain to this day, but step on the toes of one of the 'inner circle' and you are risking you membership, the threads remain for a very short space of time.  It's just another thing that smells fishy.

[MarketingJunkie]

With Stompernet they began by launching an $800 a month membership site.

That launch generated over $10 million for them in just a few days.

Excellent reply, Mike. I can tell you invested a lot of time with your thoughts.

And a rhetorical question:
We know that they generated over $10 million in just days because...[/i]

Because they told us so?
Did that $10 million launch include PROJECTIONS if the members stayed on a year (hint hint)?

"Fake it 'til you make it." Look at this old post here:
http://ablakeforum.com/index.php/topic,1161.0.html

Remember, we're dealing with lies and coverups here. It's stunningly sloppy and obvious, too. Everyone sees it. It's not in dispute. So why should we believe any of their income claims to being with?

By the way, I have 3 separate people confirming to me that a famous internet marketer who bragged about making a million in just 24 hours was lying, too. This same IM guru suggested in his course (twice) that stretching the truth was okay. (I was asked not to name names so we can keep the focus on StomperNet here.)

Do you see a pattern here?
Fake it 'til you make it.

So why is this important? Why should you care?

It's simple:

We all know something is wrong when these gurus flaunt wealth their wealth on those YouTube videos while most can't even generate their first dollar online. But we blame ourselves for not working harder or smarter. And most people ultimately give up and say, "Internet marketing doesn't work." That's COMPLETE nonsense. Internet Marketing is one of the most amazing methods of marketing ever invented...

... But knowing that the people at the top are faking it is actually a relief - at least it is for me. It all makes sense now.

Isn't it ironic that all of these gurus tell us to "take massive action" to "make it." I think their definition of "take massive action" is to lie about their success.

You should also care because when you post your thoughts here about the wrongdoing and the lies, it forces these crooks to work harder and be more transparent. Proof: less than a year ago, most marketers used hidden, forced continuity on their "victims." Here's a thread about "the great" (sarcasm) "guru" in Arizona getting caught outright scamming his victims (the thread as you'd imagine at the Warrior Forum was locked):

http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=211504

The good news is today, most are more upfront about forced continuity.

This is EXACTLY why those reading this post need to express their outrage.

When you stay silent, the frauds win.

Don't let the frauds win... post your thoughts here.