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SUBJECT: Advisor Builder "eBay Profits Made Easy" Workshops in Wiliamsport
Re the 11/15 SeniorNet Message No 152
on the upcoming eBay seminar being presented on Tuesday by Builder Advisor, there has been some interesting feedback.
Again let me emphasize that this is NOT an official SeniorNet announcement.
And I cannot verify the accuracy of any of the following emails -- I am just passing them on.
However, it appears that there could possibly be some potential "red flags" here.
((And I'm also probably guilty of misusing the SeniorNet Listserver; likely to be disciplined with a 50% or so temporary pay cut. ))
Interconnected Companies ?
Note these following companies MAY be somehow all interconnected:
* Advisor Builder, AdvisorBuilder.com -- the company I believe did the presentation Wed evening at Best Western.
I could find no physical address or phone number given on their website.
I also could find no mention of eBay on their website.
* Website Dynamics ( WebSiteDynamics.com ) -- a company in Vancouver BC, that apparently registered the domain name AdvisorBuilder.com in August 2005
I found this using GoDaddy.com.
I could find no physical address given on their website.
The phone number 1-866-903-3663 is on their 'billing' page.
* Pacific Web Works ( PacificWebWorks.com )-- mentioned on one of the below emails.
The address is given as 180 South 300 West Suite 400, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101, phone 801.578.9020
* TradeWorks Marketing ( TradeWorksMarketing.com ) -- mentioned on one of the below emails
I could find no physical address or phone number given on their website
(bottom report implies same address as Pacific Webworks)
* U.S. Merchant Systems (usms.com ) -- per website, 3125 Skyway Court, Fremont, California 94539, phone 800-655-8767
* eAuctionSuccess.com -- listed on the following site,
which was gotten via a Google search on 'Pacifc Web Works' (see following banner)
FEEDBACK EMAILS:
* THANKS to people to took time to send responses.
They're listed in order received, except 2 long ones have been moved to bottom.
* I hope nobody minds their names being used here. (Feel free to notify me if you're upset about that.)
* Don't miss the 2 long posts at the bottom from Your Auction Company in Montoursville ( YourAuctionCompany.com ).
I put them at the bottom, because they are much longer in length.
* Note there are various links given from RipOffReport.com .
I have been unable to get this site to "load", since this "discussion" has started.
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Thanks. - Jim Ingram VMS/Land 570.322.7597
Williamsport PA <http://www.track2.com> Macintosh G4/OS 10.4
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On Nov 15, 2007, at 10:08 AM, Dwaine Gipe wrote:
Jim.........Thanks. Your report has all the indications of a first class flim flam. You did not mention that the newspaper fine print...very fine indicated no relationship or association with eBay. Applying the principle of "if it sounds to good to be true it likely is not". I had doubts. Now I shall avoid this firm. So far nothing has been shown as content that is not already free on the eBay site. A lot of things around this firm just reeks with possible fraud.
Dwaine Gipe
On Nov 15, 2007, at 12:35 PM, Carol Goodman wrote:
Jim - As always, I thank you for your communication, no matter what aspect of computers you talk about. Carol Goodman
On Nov 15, 2007, at 6:33 PM, Joan Madden wrote:
Jim: I attended the seminar today at Holiday Inn. Our facilities were fine. The speaker was knowledeable and no high pressure, like you said. However, he told us the cost to join them is $4,995.
My friend who was there said she thought she signed up with this outfit before and had to cancel her credit card in order to get out from under their monthly fee. Guess you can never "unjoin".
Anyway, I signed up for the $20. also and I did ask for the number of the home office. Duane quoted an 800 number, but never gave it. When I asked Eric he said that is for customer service.
Anyway, the phone number he gave me is 801-748-2198. I thought since I signed up for 3 guests and myself, the $20.00 will cover only the cost of lunches and the seminar is free. You are right....worth your time.
Thanks, Joan Madden, a SeniorNet student from the past!!
On Nov 15, 2007, at 7:15 PM, Gretchen Kennedy wrote:
Thanks Jim. I was going to attend the Thursday eve. conference, but didn't get home from work in time. I thought the same things you have, and so am kind of glad I wasn't able to attend. I saw the same thing on the E-Bay site. I do sell some of my "Attic" stuff on E-BAy and am not interested selling for a no-name company. I think it is a scam.
Gretchen Kennedy
On Nov 16, 2007, at 5:37 AM, Rob Colley wrote:
Jim,
Sorry , I had trouble making it to the Holiday Inn last night. I am
going out of town today and need to get some things ready. I hope that
people don't fall for the "magic ebay man" .
But this is an interesting valley. I liked the fact that the seminars
are called free seminars and the presenters name is free. That leads
me to think that the cost is going to be BIG.
I have always wanted to learn Ebay. I have lots of items that would
make a little or a lot of $. I even had a customer give me some things
to post. Oh well.
Take Care,
Rob Colley
Hoyers
At 7:59 AM -0500 11/17/07, Rob Colley wrote:
Jim,
Please read this post, it is very interesting!!!
Take Care,
Rob
On Nov 15, 2007, at 8:42 AM, yourauctioncompany.com wrote:
Jim,
If you attend these seminars merely out of curiosity and you keep all your money in your pockets thats fine.
However these guys are scammers of various levels. The fact that you couldn't find any business info or phone number should of been the biggest give away. And of course they are "smooth" excellent speakers - it's there job to be.
Also google the speakers name with quote around it 'Duane Free" And 0 results. It was a made up name.
And you are right, the company was a made up as well, they probably use a new company for every city and a new name.
I would not recommend to any of your members to attend these at all.
If they are selling you a product or service it's with hopes of getting your upfront money and you not making a dime and they never see you again.
Here's a similar story. Not up front fraud, but still wrong.
Also i've heard similar tales or people giving their info in registration and then their name being sold to mailing lists, or being spam emailed or even leading to identity theft. These guys now have your info and can sell it to the highest bidder.
And if they do get your credit card, forget it, you are at risk for so many fraudulent charges and they can get away with it. And in return you get their useless product or service.
Here are some more rip-off reports from the same company - different names.
Here is a detailed report on how they work and how you can really get scammed.
In any case, selling on ebay is hard work, and no money comes easy. You must work at everything. Profits on ebay only come from either finding 1 think in your attic and getting lucky or make a career at it and finding andselling things you love ( actually treating it like a job not a hobby) and giving excellent customer service.
I've been selling on ebay professionally since 2000 and it is HARD work!
Please update your members to avoid these scam seminars at all cost. These big shots will smooth talk your members out of their money or worst their identity. I would say even if you are curious about these "free" seminars, ask around and look on rip-off report and do your research, if it's too good to be true IT IS.
People who truly teach ebay are called Certified eBay education Specialist, or ebay university puts on a 1 or 3 day teaching that's wonderful. Anything EBAY is doing is worth it. But if there is no company name or phone number don't go. PLEASE! This is this serious.
Thanks you,
Adam Leidhecker
At 12:08 AM +0000 11/17/07, yourauctioncompany@... wrote:
They are not connected to ebay in anyway. And no one is allowed to use the ebay logo, not even me as a certified education specialist. Do what you want but they are a scam. I just won't let them get your credit card.
I'll paste in the info from the rip off report site. below. Thanks, adam
~~~~~~~~
Tradeworks Marketing eBay and other Seminars, Please Use Caution and Do Your Homework, ripoff Salt Lake City Utah
Tradeworks Marketing
Phone: 801-578-9020
Fax:
180 S 300 West #400
Salt Lake City, Utah, 84101
U.S.A.
The company uses full page advertisements to entice readers to attend a free seminar eBay Profits Made Easy!
The company is in a licensing arrangement with eBay. Though complaints online seem minimal, I did find this from the BBB: (link deleted - see below)
Don't fall for the offer of a free camera-An $80 Value! There are hundreds of identical ones for sale on eBay, most from the UK at about $1.60 (US). It is only .3 megapixels-that's 300K pixels... Certainly falls under my definition of deceptie trade practices. Check out Digigr8 and look at the product. It is the one that looks like a camera and not the DVR...
Look at the catalog of items you will have the chance to sell if you signup. Check a couple of model numbers against Google and eBay. Though I don't know the member price, there are many online outfits offering these at 'very low prices' compared to retail.
Do you really want to compete against the others who are also members? Go out and find your own drop ship arrangements with real companies and you may come out ahead. Frankly, if you want to make money on eBay or with an online store, it is not EASY.
Web Works Web Works Pacific Web Works Pacific Web Works IS A RIP OFF PLEASE DON'T SEND THEM YOUR MONEY !!! Utah Salt Lake City Utah
Pacific Web Works
Phone: 800-497-4988
Fax: 801-578-9019
180 South 300 West, Suite 400
Salt Lake City, Utah, 84101
U.S.A.
Michelle Sanders Call me about 20 times to offer EBAY PROFITS MADE EASY package I finally agreed and give her my credit card info for postage and handling. The package didn't arrive two week later so I called; a week later I called again finally I received it. Two weeks earlier my account was charged $49.90 I called and Aaron canceled the membership for me on the 14th day after the order was placed. I asked for a refund on the 14th day acording to their policy but they refused to give me back MY $49.90. THIS COMPANY IS A RIPOFF PLEASE DO NOT SEND THEM YOUR MONEY !!!
Tradeworks - Pacific Webworks ripoff, Lie, Mislead, Steal, Greedy , Small Ebay Businesses Watch Out! Salt Lake City Utah
Tradeworks - Pacific Webworks
Phone: 800-497-4988
Fax:
180 South 300 West Suite 450
Salt Lake City, Utah, 84101
U.S.A.
In November of 2005 a friend of mine contacted me about an Ebay seminar she saw in the local paper. My husband and I sell on Ebay and had been looking for other ways to build our business. We had considered building our own web-store but we were not sure how it all worked, let a lone know how to do it. My friend and I went to the short seminar that was free of charge to get more information.
Paul Mulder was the speaker. The short seminar was a sales presentation for a 6 hour class that would cost $49.00 to attend. Paul gave teases to the great profitable information the class would provide and my friend and I determined that it was worth the $49.00 fee to attend. This fee also covered the cost of your spouse so this seemed to be a great investment that would grow our Ebay business and would surly pay off in the end.
On November 7, we attended the Ebay class that was promised. Robb Mulford was the speaker at the class. One of his first statements was that „we could take notes but we could not bring in a video camera or tape recorder" This should have raised a red flag but he was so convincing we did not think anything of it.
The class was disguised as a helpful learning tool but was in fact a convincing sales pitch. Robb works for a company called Tradeworks which is a division of Pacific Web Works. Tradeworks is a company to help small business build websites and sell things online on their own personal website. They use the „Ebay" name to drawn in the crowds but they are trying to divert money from Ebay into their own pockets. Needless to say the class was full.
They were selling four major products in this class,
* Their Website software, free download and $29.95 a month service fee. This included customer service etc. They said that this was very user friendly and easy to set up. My husband did finally get it all set up but it was far from easy. Not worth the $29.95 a month as after 5 months we did not sell a single item.
* Their Tradeworks Product Club. They claim that they are selling these products at wholesale price and you can make big profits on your personal website and Ebay. We looked up several of these products and found that Ebay was flooded with the very same products and at a way lower price. There are many other Drop ship companies that sell the very same products at much greater discounts. Free with purchase of the monthly service of Web software.
* Business Merchant Account. This is offered through U.S. Merchant Systems. $1000.00 set up fee. $20.00 a month service fee plus 2.29% discount rate, $10.00 a month gateway fee and .15 cent transaction fee per transaction. Anyone who has never done this before does not realize how much money this is really costing per month. They did not inform us that U.S Merchant Systems also charges a $40.00 annual fee to have the account on top of all the other fees. We were also told that this account if offered on a month to month bases and we are able to cancel at anytime. And we could use this account with any website including Ebay. This would eliminate the need to pay Paypal fee's for excepting credit card payments.
* Ebay interface software. $1000.00 set up fee. This software is used to connect your website to Ebay and the Merchant Account. They did not tell us that you will need this software to be able to easily use your merchant account on any other website except the one you have purchased from them. All of the products offered were needed together to get anything to easily work. This would be a total investment of $3000.00. None of this was made very clear although there was high pressure to purchase all they offered for the $3000.00 investment.
We decided to download the website and start the process of building it for the $29.00 monthly fee. They said that within a matter of hours we could have it up and running making us tons of extra money. We also decided to purchase the Merchant account for $1000.00 figuring that we would make the money back with our profits and we would not have to use Paypal for our credit card payments any longer so we would not be paying those fees. Of course Tradeworks said that the cost was $1000.00 for the evening of the class only! After that it would be double the cost. We were one of many who fell for this sales ploy.
When we looked at the product club online and saw we were not going to make any money with their products we looked at other drop ship companies and my husband started to build the website Tradeworks had provided the software for. It took him two weeks to figure out how to get anything to work.
Tradeworks customer service was not much help. We listed products from another vendor that we would have a much better chance of making a profit on. We followed Tradeworks advice to market our site although a lot of the information and sites they recommended did not work or interface with the site they provided. We also found that the Merchant account would not work with Ebay easily. We could not connect it to our live auctions we would have to run all of the transactions through the website Tradeworks was providing service for.
This took a lot more work and time. Our main business has been Ebay sales so this was the main reason for the purchase of the Merchant account in the first place. We were very disappointed that this was not as easy as we had been told and that we would have to invest another $1000.00 to make this Merchant account work for our needs. Really this was not an option as we had put the original $1000.00 investment on our credit card and did not want to get further in debt. We decided to go the long way around and try and make the best of it even though it was more time and work. We figured it would pay off in the long run.
After 5 months of maintaining the website and running all of our Ebay money transactions through the website so we could use the merchant account we looked at the money we were putting out and the extra work load and time consumption and decided to close it all down and go back to square one. We had not sold a single item on this website even though we were using lower cost products from another vendor.
Our site must have looked good as Tradeworks was baiting other potential candidates using my husband's hard work and trying to take credit for themselves. We were contacted by someone asking us about Tradeworks. She said they wanted her to make a $10.000 investment for their services. We told her our experience and needless to say she decided not to do business with Tradeworks.
I wrote a letter to Tradeworks and sent is Registered Mail asking them to close my account and stated that I should have no other charges taken out of my bank account as of March 27, 2006. I have kept a copy of this letter and the Certified Mail Reciept if needed. My website was immediately offline. I also contacted U.S Merchant Services and spoke with a gentleman in their customer service dept. He advised me to write a letter asking them to close my account right away so I would not have to pay for another month. I faxed the letter over on 3/27/2006 and stated I should have no other charges to my account as of that date. I have also kept a copy of this letter. My account was closed right away.
I track all of my bank transactions online and on 3/31/06 I noticed my bank had charged me an insufficient funds fee of $20.00. I was surprised because I do not bounce checks and try to be very responsible with my money. I still had money in my account and did not understand why I was being charged a fee when I had money in the account. I called my bank and was told that U.S. Merchant Systems was trying to make a withdrawl of $250.00.
I instantly called U.S Merchant Systems to question the reason for this attempt. I spoke with Sulton and he stated that I needed to keep the Merchant Account open for 6 months or I would be charged $250.00 for closing it early. I told him that I was told by Tradeworks that it was a month to month account and I could close it at anytime. I kept all of my paperwork from the Tradeworks class and no where on them does it say I have to have this account for 6 months. He said that I needed to call Tradeworks and get a copy of my application for the Merchant Account, It would have the information with regards to having the account open for 6 months.
I called Tradeworks and requested a copy of the application. They said they would mail it to me. Approx a week later it arrived. After looking over the application carefully it was again clear that I had Not agreed to a 6 month account. The application said nothing about any required length of time. I called and left Sulton a message on his Voice Mail stating this and said that I had disputed the charge with my bank. I did not authorize this charge and U.S Merchant Systems was not allowed to take anymore money out of my bank account. He never called back.
On 4/15/2006 I received a bill from U.S Merchant Systems Collections Dept. It was signed by Christina Boronkas. They charged me another $25.00 for a reject fee so now they claim I owe them a total of $275.00. I called Christiana and told her that I am disputing the charge as I never signed anything agreeing to a 6 month account with them so I did not feel that I owe them anything.
I told her that I have all the paperwork I filled out when opening the account and nowhere on them does it say anything about a time length required. She told me that I have to take that up with Tradeworks because they have an agreement with U.S Merchants Systems. I said that if they have an agreement with Tradeworks then they should be billing Tradeworks for the $250.00 and not me as I have not signed anything.
I tried to call Tradeworks following the conversation with Christina at U.S. Merchant Systems. Tradeworks phone no# had been disconnected with no forwarding no#. A couple of days later 5/1/06 I found the Affiliate telephone number for Pacific Webworks that was given at the class in Nov and tried that.
The woman I spoke with said she would call U.S. Merchant Systems and try to figure out what was going on. She said she would call me back later. She called on 05/02/06 and said I owe the money because a booklet that was given with the application states the terms in it. I told her that I did not remember the booklet but never the less I did not sign an agreement. Handing someone a booklet that is not signed by the receiving party is not a contract that I am aware of. She said that U.S Merchant Systems Charges up to $390.00 for closing an account. In other words, I should feel lucky that mine is only $250.00.
I have worked hard to keep my credit in good standing. I almost feel like I am being black mailed because if I don't pay this money, I am sure U.S Merchant Systems will report to the credit beau and put a bad mark against my good standing. I don't feel that I owe them this money and I really feel that Tradeworks/Pacific Webworks owes me the $1000.00 they stole from me with their misleading outright lies. I feel that if Tradeworks/Pacific Webworks and U.S Merchant Systems has an agreement with each other then let them settle it with each other since I was not a party to the agreement in the first place.
My husband and I have done some research on these companies in the midst of this mess and feel that these companies are scam companies that are out to lie and steal peoples money using the Ebay name to give them credibility. Tradeworks hides behind the Pacific Webworks name but when the pressure is on they disappear. Tradeworks posted the BBB logo on their website for a while and it suddenly was removed by the Better Business Bureau.
My husband found that they never belonged to the BBB in first place. When calling and speaking with the people that work for Pacific Webworks/Tradeworks it is hard to get the name of the person you are speaking with. They are very hesitant to give it out.
I am not sure why Tradeworks has disconnected their phone with no forwarding number. I would think a successful company would be hesitant doing this as it would be hard for clients to reach them.
I looked on the internet and found a site called the Rip Off Report with a past client who has also been ripped off by this company. Same people, Same names but she is from Florida. Across the United States from me. I can only wonder how many thousands of dollars and honest small business people have been bilked by these sharks.
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As you can see they go by different names - but if anyone constantly changes their names or false names and numbers I would stay away.
If you or anyone really wants to learn ebay - Contact ebay directly they have wonderful material and classes.
They have dvd's and free online videos
:
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