Karen Taylor’s Going Viral

Instant Affiliate Websites: The Small Print

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” certainly rings true here. On December 19, 2008, Mike Filsaime launched his The7FigureSecrets / InstantAffiliateWebsites promotion. I had received an “early warning” alert from another marketer and was interested, so I kept watch for it.

When it went live, I viewed the videos, and read the sales letter several times. I was very impressed by how the administration software works, how easy it is to customize the Instant Affiliate Website, rearranging tabs and page content. I’ve spent so many, many hours “customizing” that this, albeit still an affiliate website, really appealed to me. I had, a few months ago, set up hosting for a domain name I’ve had parked for years, and installed Mambo. And that’s about as far along as I was with that project. “Perfect,” thought I. Delete the Mambo installation, choose the “host in my own space” option, and put that sucker to work!

Having formulated my plan and cleaned out the directory, I returned to place my order. I re-read the terms again, just to make certain that I was understanding any “forced continuity” aspects.

Here’s what the sales page says:

All This, Yours Today, 100% Free…

…and all you have to do is pay S&H (US and Canada $7.99, all others add $4) to test drive a free issue of my new magazine. If you like the magazine, do nothing, and you will automatically be billed $39.95 a month (plus S&H) for future issues. You can cancel at anytime and never be billed, and the rest is yours to keep. Sign up for your 30 day free trial now!

Now, here’s how I read that:

1. Pay $7.99 shipping of a physical package that includes a wire-bound report and a 16-page newsletter.

2. This “sample” newsletter is free, but if I don’t cancel, subsequent issues will be billed to my card on file at $39.95 per month.

3. I can cancel and not be billed.

4. I can keep everything else.

Is that how YOU read that?

Would you take it to mean that you can keep “everything that you get today through instant access, plus the bound report, plus the ’sample’ newsletter, but you’ll not receive any additional newsletters”?

That’s how I took it.

“Partner With Me, Mike Filsaime, And Get A Free Custom Website With Free Hosting, Selling My Most Popular Products, Allowing Your To Earn Huge Commissions Every Day As Well As Residual Income Every Month…

…When You Test Drive A Free Issue of My Monthly Newsletter

(Let’s try to ignore the fact that there’s no close-quote and “Your” should be “You” and that careful editors would not have capitalized every word. Let’s really try.)

[NOTE: In between the time I copied the text quoted above directly from my affiliate website and pasted it into this blog post, finished the post, and went downstairs for "evening with family", a nap in the recliner during Marco Polo on the Hallmark channel, and a return to my desk armed with a fresh cup of coffee, the "Your" has been changed to "You" on my affiliate site! I still have the other tab open! I just took a screen shot; now, I'm going to refresh and see what happens. Well, I'll be! That "r" went away! Wonder of wonders.]

The next mile or so of the sales page shows numerous screen shots and verbiage touting the various features of the admin control panel, and another video, nicely presented, whetting my appetite.

Below that is a box of “bonuses”. You must have “bonuses”. Nobody in his right mind would buy something or even try something if there were not a ton of bonuses. I was not interested in the bonuses. I already have the Butterfly Marketing Manuscript (and did not pay $97 for it), don’t care about the charts, and didn’t really want the newsletter - yes, the newsletter is grouped with the bonuses - but was certainly willing to give it a “test drive” because what I want is the Instant Affiliate Website, hosted on my server, under my domain name.

I’m a PayDotCom.com member and can “market” most of the products featured in the Instant Affiliate Website anyway. The “privilege” is not new to me. The ease of setting up the website is, as I’ve said above, what really held value for me.

I ordered the package, and as soon as the payment processed, was given instant access to my Instant Affiliate Website and confronted with an extremely confusing and time-consuming procedure of “signing up” as an affiliate of all the included programs. I hadn’t counted on that. Shot the day.

But I’m thinking “long term…” and tried to finish the process, except I’m not certain I did because “affiliation” is apparently based on email addresses, and over the years, Mike Filsaime has managed to find me at about seven different email address. I grew weary.

Finally I was able to move on to actually “managing” the website - choosing a template (theme), colors, fonts, font sizes - the fun stuff - and progressed to “Manage Sidebar”. At some point I realized that the blog would be the Home page and I was entirely too beat to blog. If you do decide that an Instant Affiliate Website is for you, do be prepared to devote some time to placing or writing good reviews, familiarizing yourself with the products and services that are offered through the website, and to trying different configurations to see if one works better than another. I set it aside to tend to chores that preceded its acquisition, and then I had Christmas. I tell you all this to let you know I’m perfectly happy with my Instant Affiliate Website and eager to get back to work on it. I’ll give hawking Mike Filsaime’s stuff the old college try and see if I can earn some dough.

The Package Arrives

Sometime during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the “The 7-Figure Secrets” package arrived. I opened it, flipped through the report to get a feel for what was there, and gave the 16-page newsletter my “print publication designer / metropolitan newspaper copy editor” scrutiny. Some nice design elements; others, not so great. Typos. Not something I want to pay five cents shy of forty bucks for.

Which brings me to today’s discoveries.

I spent most of the “inter-week” before January 1, 2009, cleaning house and tying up loose ends. There were things I needed to do more urgently than work on my new IAW blog. For example, I have more than 12,000 unread email messages in my Gmail account alone (mostly list mail)! This must stop! So I’ve been processing and evaluating, looking back through messages stashed in folders, often unread, separating the mass into three piles: 1) newsletters from folks I feel I’ve developed a relationship with - those who toss me some good stuff from time to time, who speak real English rather than marketer-hype, and whose products or services I’ve purchased, liked, and use regularly; 2) those whose missals were way too pithy for me to absorb at the time of original receipt, were filed to read and study later, and more than likely have not been opened again (but I really do want to read them!); and 3) those whose “newsletters” I was forced to subscribe to in order to get something at a “giveaway”, the substance of which is often not original and has very little to offer that I don’t already have or know. I “Unsubscribed” to group 3. Oh, what a weight off my chest! I’ve always felt somewhat obligated to hang in there with them, seeing as how I accepted their gifts. Having resolved yesterday, January 1, 2009, never, repeat never to enter a “giveaway” again, I’ve also given myself permission to slim down my inbox.

I’ve put most of my lists on vacation. I wish I could actually take the vacation, but the “vacation” for me will be the wonderful feeling of freedom I will have when I get caught up with what’s already in there. Then I will see if enduring all this email agony netted me anything. If not, I’ll probably stay “on vacation”!

I’ve analyzed memberships. They’re little payments, $7.50 here, $5.95 there, up to the forty-somethings and the sixty-somethings. I’ve tried for several months to cancel Square Trade and can’t seem to do it, and, drat, they just charged me again. I haven’t been active on eBay since we moved from Arizona! In this mindset, I remembered my The Best Damn Newsletter subscription, and, knowing that I do not wish to continue it, figured that while it’s on my mind, I’d just cancel.

Surprise, surprise!

So, I pulled out the bright gold sheet that was included in the Mike Filsaime package. At the top, it says “Urgent: Before You Do Anything, Call This Number: [number]“. I had ignored it, choosing to pretend that the package had gotten hung up in Christmas mail and didn’t arrive until after the first. I listened to a recorded message from Mike Filsaime. Then I moved to “Next Step: Read Only After You Call The Number Above”, which I had just done.

This is the paragraph that follows:

The Free Instant Affiliate Website and bonuses provided at the site, as well as all of the contents in this package are yours free without further obligation, PERIOD. Take 30 days to decide if you want to keep your “Instant Affiliate Website” active. After your 30-day free trial, if you decide to keep the “Instant Affiliate Website” active, we’ll conveniently bill your credit card just $39.95 USD (plus s&h). Should you decide to deactivate your money making affiliate website, simply call Customer Care at 1-631-615-4597. You will be charged nothing more, and get to keep the contents in this package plus the bonus downloads!

Okay, folks, I ask you, where in the sales page does it even give so much as a HINT that keeping the Instant Affiliate Website is hinged to a $39.95 a month payment? Go look for yourself: http://eldorado.instantaffiliatewebsite.com Right above the bonuses box, are these words:

“Get Over $630 in Awesome Bonuses For Just Trying Out My new magazine for 30 days free when you pay just the shipping & handling.”

And I’ll grant you, there was a potful of stuff to download. I don’t think I managed to get it all. I stopped because what I wanted was the Instant Affiliate Website!

But the quote above does not say “…For Just Trying Out My Instant Affiliate Website for 30 days free…”

Three sentences up from the sales page footer are these words: “To Cancel Your Subscription Please Call +1 631-615-4597″. I ask, where on the page is “subscription” tied to anything but The Best Damn Newsletter aka the MarketingDotCom Magazine (decide, at least, what the name of the publication is!)

I can’t find “Terms” anywhere. I’ve re-read my original “join” emails. Today was the first I’d heard that the $39.95 charge was for the Instant Affiliate Website and not the newsletter. (I’ll admit having read only the “Urgent” headline on the package insert when it arrived.)

So I have like two weeks to make this thing earn me at least $39.95, and if it doesn’t, then I’m not sure what I’m going to do. In my mind, this “deception” is far, far worse that StomperNet’s “forced continuity” with its promo introducing its magazine The Net Effect. There was no deception there; if you read carefully, you knew exactly what was going to happen.

I’d really like some input here.

Thanks for reading this far.