16 – Seminar Scams

Episode 016 - Seminar Scams
I hope you listened to Episode 15 with the Gorgeous and Stylish Rayne Parvis talking about being an image consultant in the cutthroat city of Los Angeles. She also makes great points about collaborating with a major brand. That’s a great business idea.

Our sponsor is the Internet marketing training center of Virginia a distance learning school which teaches legitimate techniques to make a great living either working for someone else or starting your own online business. Check it out at IMTCVA.org

People ask me all the time. Tom why are you attacking the seminar industry. You’re going to ruin it.

I respond the seminar industry is ruining itself by standing by while rip-off sociopathic seminar leaders rob good people. How do you like that?

Actually, I really wish I didn’t need to do this, but I live by one of my favorite quotes and there is some controversy about who really said it. The quote is

The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing
I won’t take time here but I also feel that I’ve been put on this earth as a sheepdog.
I’ll put a link to the famous parable as recounted by Lt. col Dave Grossman I believe it was in his book called “On Combat” It has to do with sheepdogs protecting sheep. And so you know being called a sheep is not portrayed as being a baaaaad thing hahaha. I couldn’t help throwing that in. It means you’re really nice. Anyway, if you would like to read the parable check out the show notes where I have a link.
https://www.killology.com/sheep-wolves-and-sheepdogs

Today’s topic is the top 20 seminars scams and how you can avoid them. I’m pretty sure there’s more than 20 but what’s a few extra scams among friends? Hahaha I’ll also have links to an article about this in the show notes and a webinar I did about this same topic.

I decided to do this after spending over half of my speaking career which is about 13 years speaking at public seminars and watching the decline of services provided by seminar speakers and promoters and also the increase in scammer speakers getting rich while committing fraud at the expense of mostly unknowing and trusting people.

I'm hoping those speakers and promoters on the edge will clean up their acts and I hope the really bad ones will be exposed. The good ones won't be bothered a bit because they won't allow these kinds of things or activities to happen at their events. I might add that I'm talking about expensive coaching and training programs sold at these seminars not something like a low-cost book or a CD set or something that’s a small amount of money.

I'm talking about big training programs that don't really come through. Hey, maybe you need a kick in the rear no matter what the cost. I don't know. The reason this is such a tough subject is that even some of the worst rip off events can be an exhilarating shot in the arm or a kick in the butt in some cases for people to improve themselves. And I'm all for that. What I'm totally against is the manipulation of people solely for financial gain and the devastating let downs that occur after the seminars.

Many of presentations at seminars are good but they are incomplete. Mine are included in that. I mean many seminars provide fairly good information on the front end but it's incomplete. This is totally understandable really because it's naive to think you can learn what the speaker knows in a 90-minute session or even all day or even three or four days. The problem comes with these high-priced coaching programs that just don't deliver.

They’re sold at these events and you’re promised the moon and the secrets behind secrets but they only deliver pitch after pitch for more training that leads you down a financial rabbit hole. This is no good. They also create a lot of fake excitement and use tricks to get you to buy overpriced stuff.

Once you get out of this artificially created excitement and frequently I’d call it mass hysteria, the harsh reality sets in. I mean most programs you buy don't even come close to living up to the hype used to sell them to you. Once you see the kinds of tricks that these fraudulent speakers use on you you're going to be able to make better decisions on whether to attend a particular seminar and once you're there whether you should invest in further coaching. (chuckle)

I’ve got to laugh because it's kind of an unwritten law that in the seminar business speakers have to use the word invest instead of buy. This is so they can manipulate you better. Hahaha
What's coming up are some insider tips to watch for when attending a seminar and they are in no particular order. You could get zapped by one of these at any time and at any place at a seminar. If you go to a seminar, you probably should print this out and take it with you. Well that's ridiculous because you're listening to this but I’ll try to get the transcription in the show notes for this episode. You’ll be able to see if they're using these techniques against you. So here we go.

Here’s the first one and I'll probably forget about first, second, third after a while here but here we go.

FAKE APPLICATION PROCESS
While there are many legitimate application processes to determine if you are right for a particular program, there are also many that aren't legitimate at all. This scam is designed to make you think the program you're applying for is exclusive. The really insidious part of it is that it's not an application at all. It's a contract and frequently it's designed to get around the right of recession law.

The right of rescission law is applicable in pretty much every state that I know of and gives you a minimum of three days to cancel a contract for any reason or no reason at all. It's designed to protect consumers from high pressure sales tactics. You do have to be careful because one attorney told me “Oh federal law makes it three days no matter what.” But then I keep running into individual states that maybe it only applies if you're if someone is trying to sell you aluminum siding or windows or something like that. So, I really don't know who to believe here but it depends on the state.

Anyway, it's supposed to give you three days to cancel a contract for any reason or no reason. So, the fake application process scam is using a combination of the take away close. The takeaway close is when a salesperson makes you feel like you're losing out on something and circumventing of the right of rescission. They have you fill out your application which is really a contract and they tell you that you will be notified later.

Of course, they notify you that you have been accepted……BTW. Everyone with money is accepted and they make sure they notify you past the 3 day right of rescission mark so that you have no right to a refund.

What should you do? Don't put your credit card number on one of these applications. If it’s legitimate the seminar speaker will review your application discuss it with you and make a real appraisal of your chances of success. If you accepted the deal, you would then put on that contract the date you decided to proceed. This would still give you three days minimum to change your mind.

Watch out for the speaker who refuses to discuss this with you and claims the deal is only good right now. They might say they have to leave to catch a plane and they don't have time to discuss your participation. Those speakers should be highly suspect. Remember, they want to stretch things out past 3 days.

A Good trick is to put the credit card number on the application but purposely mess up a couple of the numbers and then watch what happens. A legitimate speaker wouldn't even notice this because they would not have run your credit card until after you were accepted by them and you accepted the deal after talking to them. If they run the credit card before talking to you about your acceptance, then what you signed was a contract and not an application. And by putting the fake numbers on there somebody is going to contact you saying Oh well your card declined.

Well there's your red flags that say Wow you didn't even talk to me. I thought this was an application. So, watch out for that. OK.

FAKE MARKETER OF THE YEAR
Next one is fake marketer of the year program. These programs can be totally legitimate. They can require a lot of work. They can have a legitimate judging system or they can be a Broadway quality play designed to set you up for that financial kill. The way it works is that the seminar promoter handpicks people to compete for the prize. And I have quotation marks around the word “compete” The contestants all get in front of the crowd and praise the promoter to high heaven for their successes. Their praise is almost always from one of the promoter’s high price coaching programs. Of course, all of this is supposed to be social proof and send a message to the people in that crowd that they can have the same success if they just signed up for the promoter’s high price coaching program.

I have a report on file of an unknowing participant in one of these marketer of the year programs where he refused to play along and brag up a program that wasn’t even responsible for his success. He was cussed out, blackballed and one of his ideas was stolen. You have to take these marketer of the year programs with a massive grain of salt ….maybe I should say block of salt.

CELEBRITY HYPE
Ok. The next thing that can get you ripped off at a seminar is if you get sucked in by celebrity hype. I know people love celebrities. You might say our culture is celebrity obsessed. Even me a guy who wouldn't fall all over himself to get John Travolta's autograph. When I was standing right next to him at a party. You just can't help but feel differently when you’re in the presence of someone like that. I get that. I get the fact that it's fun and exciting to meet celebrities and all kinds of organizations have celebrities appear at their functions. That's great. Get your picture taken. Have fun.

Unfortunately, I also get the economics of celebrity hype and how con men and hucksters use celebrities to manipulate you into spending money you never would have spent had you been clear minded at that time.

Many celebrities are really cheap when it comes to personal appearances. Let's look at the economics of this. You can get a B list celebrity appearance for a couple thousand dollars. Now if you head towards the A list I mean the sky's the limit on what you would pay but skilled manipulators can get pretty well-known people to attend seminar events for fees way less than ten thousand dollars and you could get industry celebrities pretty much for free.

So, you're at a seminar and you see a well-known person touting the promoter as good so you figure the promoter must be good. Or the seminar speaker must be good. This is a wrong assumption. All you just witnessed is a paid endorsement probably delivered by a celebrity actor who's really good at saying words someone else gave them. It doesn't mean a thing of how they really feel or what they really know about who they are endorsing. The reason this is cheap is that a skilled seminar speaker or promoter can sell you intangible things for anywhere from a thousand dollars to even 50 or a hundred thousand dollars. Now multiply this by many people in the audience who bite and they've got a million dollar a day and it only cost them ten grand or less to get a celebrity puppet to help make it happen. NONE one of the celebrity hype has anything to do with the service you will get. Not a thing.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the promoters do give great service to the celebrities and industry celebrities so those celebrities may actually believe the speaker is a good person.

I’ve had some of them tell me they actually thought the promoter was good and in some cases they became victims too hoodwinked by the promoter or seminar speaker.

Bottom line is that the celebrity is not going to help you get your money back when the promoters and the speakers rip you off. So, you must really resist the urge that the celebrity will sway your decision to invest or not. You MUST do it on the merits of the program and the reliability of the speaker which is in many cases hard to ascertain because they frequently sue anyone who says anything bad about them.

ARENA EVENTS
This is a giant spinoff of the celebrity hype scam I just mentioned. Super big-name people like Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Barbara Bush and people like that are paid big sums of money to appear at these enormous events. I’m not saying they’re complicit although I’d love to see their contracts to see if they are getting percentage of sales at the event.

The names of the big celebrities are used to attract enormous crowds and in between the big-name speakers, no name high pressure speakers do speeches and sell stuff. And I can tell you, they would not be there if they weren’t supreme at selling stuff to crowds no matter how worthless the product or coaching program is.

DONE FOR YOU PROGRAMS
OK the next thing is done for you programs. Oh my god I get so many complaints about these programs. They are designed to take advantage of several things. Number one laziness and the dream you can have something fantastic and put in little or no effort which is ridiculous. And number two the purchaser's inability to assess what they are actually buy until it's too late and they can't even tell if it was worth it or not.

This falls into the too good to be true category. Expecting in any fashion whatsoever that you can have great success and riches without any effort is pretty much ridiculous. Most people in front of a trusted and knowledgeable adviser who explained to them the complexities of actually gaining success in a particular field would probably say that most of these programs now look ridiculous to them even though they spent money when they were in the midst of all the hype.

To actually do anything that would be any good for you would most likely cost tens of thousands of dollars worth of man hours and labor. If you fall for these types of schemes no matter how good they sound you may as well go ahead and apply for the old make money stuffing envelopes from home scam. I mean if it was so easy to do everything for you and make money why do they need you? Think about that. Why do they need you? Why don't they just do this thing for themselves and keep all the money?

It's a ridiculous scam based on your laziness thinking you can have something for nothing. There's something more insidious going on here for this scam and I've uncovered one lately that has nothing but complaints. It's one that sells poor and outdated information and fraudulently predicts the prospects of success of the people who have zero ability to even know what they bought until it's too late and there's no refunds. I have on file detailed complaints about one promoter who is now backpedaling as fast as he can because I'm exposing this and I think he's changed the name to “Done With You” instead of done for you. It's done with you because it clearly wasn't done for you.

I think a more accurate description of this program is “Done TO You”. The program in my expert opinion is misrepresented, has little chance of success, is outrageously overpriced, it sells poor quality and outdated information. In addition to the ridiculous entry price I think it was like something thirteen thousand dollars for this piece of garbage. They even had the nerve to charge you a monthly fee to maintain the garbage dump they helped to create. I mean this is ridiculous.

The Bottom line for you folks is that you should run from most done for your programs sold at seminars unless you've got cash to burn and you don't care if it's success or not.

REFUSAL TO RECORD
All right let's see what's next here. Refusal to record. Now this is an issue that can be legitimate but it can also be sketchy. For years a no recording policy at seminars was pretty much standard. However, times have changed. Many large companies are even ignoring their copyright violations against them that are uncovered on YouTube because they kind of get the idea that they'll get more favorable publicity by looking the other way instead of crushing a fan with the threat of a lawsuit who will then spread that around the world. I mean look at the Grateful Dead. Arguably one of the most successful bands in history allowed people to record their entire concert and even made it easy for them to do it.

Keep in mind I'm in no way advocating copyright violations. Not at all. I'm just saying that companies that ignore this trend should think twice and let people record and I'm also saying that some companies strictly enforce this policy to make sure there isn't video or audio proof of their nefarious dealings behind closed doors.

So that's what I'm saying is a sketchy part. One seminar promoter stole a participant’s 300 dollar note taking pen. This person had already paid for this expensive seminar and the scumbag stole his pen.

Of course, no legitimate speaker or promoter wants their information sold and they don’t paid for it. But there is no reason after someone has paid for the information to come to an event and wants their notes and recording to restrict that unless something sketchy is going on.

Find out before you agree to attend the seminar what their policy is and get it in writing. If it's no recording I mean you may still want to attend for other benefits of the seminar like networking and meeting industry experts, but it could be very shaky what's going to be said and they don't want to be held accountable.

FAKE URGENCY
Okay here's another really big one and it’s very very common. This is called Fake urgency. First of all, let me say that I teach copywriting as part of my Internet training. Yes, I use urgency techniques to get people to act now.

No question about it. Pretty much the entire business world does this and there is nothing inherently wrong with moving people to action so long as what you sell them is truly right for them and will help them. That's the big difference. The reason you see so many urgency techniques at seminars is that the bad boys and girls seminar speakers and promoters know they will not follow up. They'll not give you what they promised. They know they aren't going to treat you with your best interest in mind. They want that quick buck while you're standing there and they want it in the heat of the moment when you're probably not thinking clearly.

Being on the inside for so many years I'm aware of the enormous number of chargebacks they get for pressuring people to buy now. Chargebacks are when you have to call your credit card company to get your money back because the person that sold you something refuses to deal with you or give you a refund.

The reason this is somewhat of a scam is that I can virtually guarantee you I'm talking about fake urgency here. The person making the claim that the price is only good for the next 27 seconds or something like that they would grab your credit card in a heartbeat if you called their office and said the following.

Well I was at your seminar last month and if you'll give me the seminar price I'll sign up if you won't then. Thanks. I won't sign up. They would grab your money so fast. Now I think this urgency technique also shows a bit of desperation. The most truly powerful people don't need you to sign up. I mean they really don't. Yes, they want you to sign up and they want to make the money. Heck I do too. I get that. But if you don't sign up today it pretty much won't mean a thing to me. It will not change my lifestyle won't mean a thing. So, the most powerful people are not going to force you to sign up.

Just yesterday when I was working on this podcast someone called to sign up that had seen me six months ago and he wanted to participate in my program with his son in law. But his daughter and son in law just had a baby and they had to really get a handle on that situation before they could concentrate on my training. I gave them a seminar price I passed on the commission to the promoter which I didn’t have to because I was only obligate to do so for 90 days after the event. I did it anyway… because I’m honest. Everybody's happy. Nobody felt pressured or scammed. And I sleep at night knowing I'm not one of the aholes that does all the bad things listed in this podcast.

LYING ABOUT RESULTS
Ok. The Next thing very common. Lying about results.

Wow. I've heard some whoppers from the stage in the years I've been up there. I heard a stock market speaker virtually guaranteeing 30 percent returns. I heard a real estate speaker doing the same thing in combination with a done for you scam talking about 30 percent returns being easy on real estate in Mississippi or I don't know whatever state was the furthest from where they were speaking so people couldn’t easily check it out.

A Public speaking speaker and his partner were talking about the number of people they put in a seminar and the enormous sales they made. It was later revealed all of it was a big lie. All totally exaggerated. Now even proof is not proof anymore. I was one of the first people ever to show real sales figures online. I've Been On the commercial Internet since 1994.

I was there when the commercial Internet started. I started showing real sales figures to support my training with actual bank statements. I'm still the only one that shows real figures for sure because when people come to my retreat center they actually see the real bank statements. Now you regularly see fake screenshots of sales that are either made in photoshop OR it could be real screen shots of sales figures but they don't tell the whole story.

Here's an example. Maybe a person would show you two hundred thousand dollars in sales in a very short period of time that they made on their fantastic product. What they didn't show you was to get that two hundred thousand dollars in sales. They spent 250000 in pay per click traffic and the promotion actually lost fifty thousand dollars.

They figure whatever they sell you and the thousands of other suckers that they sell their program to will make the 50000 back plus a lot more. This is totally lying about results. Or lying by omission. Now if I had to average it out over the many years that I've been speaking and seen people B.S. and onstage it would be as safe to say you could divide whatever they say by 10 and be closer to the truth than what they're saying up there. So be extremely careful when you hear sales figures being hyped from the stage.

Now when I say sales figures, which I do sometimes, they're verifiable or I don't say them or I make a big deal that I'm not sure about the figures so be careful when you're listening about results of anything from a seminar.

MISREPRESENTATION
OK. Next thing is misrepresentation. It takes many forms. The do it for you programs I mentioned earlier are good examples of this. The name of the program totally misrepresents the reality of the program. This is unethical at best and actually criminal at worst. Unethical seminar speakers or promoters have many chances to hoodwink you both at their events and in their coaching programs afterwards. Sometimes this is innocent and unavoidable, but sometimes it's a deliberate attempt to get more people to attend even when they know they can't produce what they promised. Here's an example that involves me.

I was booked to speak at an event that I had done many times in the past. The scammer seminar promoter knew that I was selling more than anyone including himself so he wanted to get rid of me so he could get the sales and money. The greedy bastard created a contract situation he knew was unacceptable to me. So, I did not sign it and did not attend. He purposely kept the advertisement of my appearance on his Web site I heard later people in the crowd were there in part because they were expecting to see me. But, of course, I was not there. This is misrepresentation.

Had I gotten sick at the last minute that would have been an unavoidable situation and unfortunate, but not misrepresentation. Knowing in advance that I was not going to be there was misrepresentation. And if you listen to this here you freakin jerk you know I'm talking about you.

Another speaker misnamed his seminar to make you believe it was about let's say subject “A” when you got to the seminar subject “A” was only a tiny fraction of the entire seminar. This is misrepresentation. When it comes to taking training from any of these people, make sure every single thing is spelled out.

The scammer people have many weasel clauses which are totally in their favor. For instance, a one-on-one training day with the coach. Sounds pretty easy to understand doesn’t it. Well not really. The unscrupulous coach could mean it as a 4-hour day and you think it's an 8-hour full day. Also, what time of day is it. Does it include lunch breaks and all of these kinds of things.

There's plenty of weasel clauses they use if the unscrupulous coach reschedules your appointment and causes you damages. Who pays the change in airfare? You put that time aside and potentially missed work and other opportunities.

Was it fair for the coach to be able to reschedule but not the participant? What are the guidelines for advance notice for rescheduling/ You need to spell out what will be done during the day. If the coach spends the entire day bragging about his or her own accomplishments which I hear about some scumbag doing that all the time and ignoring your business well that's not acceptable. That's misrepresentation. I could go on for months on this one but bottom line here is at least to get everything in writing and make sure everything is defined and clear. The sad thing is that even clear agreements are only as good as the people signing them. If the speaker is out of state I can assure you the agreement says you have to go there to sue him/her. Plus, these speakers usually have scumbag lawyers who can eat you up and threaten to sue you

SHILS
Okay the next section is Shils. Now I really can't say it any better than this so I'm just going to read the definition of a shill from Wikipedia. Thank you to Wikipedia for writing this. A shill or plant is a person who helps another person or organization to sell goods or services without disclosing that he or she has a close relationship with the seller. This is similar to the fake marketer of the year contest I mentioned earlier. The shil pretends to have no association with the seller or group and gives onlookers the impression that he or she is an enthusiastic independent customer. The person or group that hires the shil is using what's called crowd psychology to encourage other onlookers or audience members who are unaware of the setup to purchase the goods or services. Shills are often employed by confidence artists AKA con artists.

THEFT BY CONVERSION
Okay so that's very common. Okay now let's look at an actual criminal thing called theft by conversion and by the way some of the things I'm mentioning are criminal but this one is clearly a criminal act.

Most of the things I've been talking about might have a criminal aspect to them or civil or a civil and criminal aspect. This one's clearly has criminal implications. Again, I have evidence of people that have done this because theft is part of it. Just to explain the idea in layman's terms because I'm definitely not trying to give you legal advice here but let’s say you lend your car to someone. Well they obtained it legally because you lent it to them.

Now if they never bring it back. In other words, they converted it to their own property which is the same as saying they stole it. Well that's theft.

The idea as it relates to business coaches is that someone let's say accepts a contract to coach you on your business idea or tells you they can take your business to the next level. Then after they get all the information about your idea or business from you legally they take the idea and use it for their own gain. That's theft. That's theft by conversion. They converted it to their own property. So, I've had two complaints like this in the last month about the same seminar promoter so I highly suggest you make the coach sign a nondisclosure agreement that has some real teeth in it put in there by a good lawyer that's looking out for your interests.

I will tell you that there are legitimate reasons why a highly successful coach may decline to sign one. The coach may have had the idea himself or someone he collaborated with before and then you come along and claim he stole it from you. Not really fair to the coach. However, their reluctance should make you rethink the entire agreement and whether this coach is right for you or not.

Here's a bonus tip for you. Always make notes of what people say to you at the time they said it. Don't wait. See if you ever end up in court and again I'm not giving you a legal advice. This is just common-sense advice that could help you in the future. If you ever end up in court. You have a much better chance of getting your notes admitted if they were created at the time of the event. You don't want to wait. If you wait a year later and then try to recreate in your mind what was said, that's iffy at best and most likely has less credibility with judges and juries if the notes are admissible at all.

It's not a bad idea to ask the coach or seminar speaker to sign your notes that he or she agrees to what your note said. It’s fun to watch the rip-offs squirm out of that. And it's also a good idea for you to tell someone else what happened. Recording it on audio and video is even better. But make sure that their awareness of the recording if you're recording somebody it's in accordance with whatever applicable laws in that State. It varies depending on where you are so be careful when you're recording people. OK so that's theft by conversion.

FAKE TESTIMONIALS
The next scam is testimonials selling and trading and providing fake testimonials. These are highly unethical practices.

And now with the Federal Trade Commission ruling from December of 2010 probably illegal. I understand that paid endorsements have been common for a long time and quid pro quo or you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours testimonials have been common for a long time. I also understand that these testimonials have hurt many people by convincing them something was good when it actually wasn’t.

I've kicked people out of my mentor program for using fake testimonials in their sales letters. Why do you think the Federal Trade Commission came down so hard in December of 2010 on their endorsements ruling? Well the answer is that fake and paid endorsements have done a lot of damage to people and now you can go online and look for the Federal Trade Commission December 2010 Third party endorsement ruling.

That's a mouthful. But there will be other people that will give you a simplified language of what it really means to you. Anyway, go look it up. OK so how does this apply. I know of a case where person had a bunch of affiliates and I'm using that term person benevolently. He’s more of a scumbag. But anyway, he had a bunch of affiliates and he forced his affiliates to take down all of their affiliate promotions and threatened to sue them if they didn’t.

Now me and all the other people have been around forever on the Internet have never seen such a thing ever. If you sold out of your product you'd leave all the promotions up and brag about hey it's sold out. Better luck next time. But this person had all the affiliates take down all of their reviews and all their affiliate stuff to promote his product.

If I was called as an expert witness in a case like this I would have surmised that most of or all of the endorsements the scumbag fed to his affiliates were fake. He figures there was too much evidence out there on the web that he provided fake reviews and he had his affiliates flooding the Internet with them. This is called destroying evidence or maybe obstruction of justice. There is another legal term called spoillation of evidence. But these are the kinds of things that fake testimonials will get you. You’ll get scrutiny for making stuff up and it will kill your credibility especially with somebody like me looking out for it.

You’ll know you are in the middle of a fake testimonial scam if you are in a training session and people that don't know each other are giving each other video testimonials. This is as unethical as it gets and probably illegal now. It’s ok to practice giving testimonials so that when you give a real one, you look credible, but in most cases, people will use these in real situations which crosses the line.

Teaching someone to do such a thing exhibits a total lack of conscience and ethics and also it's going to hurt a lot of people down the line. Maybe it might help them sell something in the short run, but when they are found out that they are being fraudulent their credibility is shot.

SELLING ENDORSEMENTS
Now another thing to watch out for is for well-known people selling you endorsements or interviewing you for pay. Now this again is covered heavily in the FTC guidelines. A paid interview thing is a gray area. And I would tread cautiously and have your attorney review the agreement because using such a testimony or interview in a fashion that does not comply with the FTC guidelines could probably could get you into deep trouble. I’ve been on those kinds of interviews and they are basically infomercials.
If you get involved in that just make sure false claims are not being made.

So, watch out for the hucksters selling these things and taking advantage of their status. Do it right as the FTC guidelines say or don't do it at all.

NETWORKING PROMISES
OK. Next thing that can happen to you at a seminar is networking promises and actually this doesn't happen to you at the seminar. This is part of their carrot to get you to pay big money for that coaching because they're going to introduce you to a bunch of people.

So, this is a tactic seminar speakers and promoters will pull on you throughout the event. They show pictures of celebrities and industry luminaries. And they really put on a show to prove to you how connected they are even though they simply paid big bucks to get their picture with Magic Johnson or some other big-name celebrities. But throughout the event they insinuate by joining their expensive programs you're going to meet many important people and not necessarily the ones they've been parading in front of you.

This is hard to prosecute because all someone has to do is say to an industry expert this is Carol and technically they introduced you. Most of the scammers don't even bother introducing you to anyone because they know you'll probably never complain about it. Networking promises are just one of the things they screw you on and probably not the biggest one but it's done very often so you must be wary of networking promises. Most of the time it's a scam.

You could most likely meet those people just by learning how to approach them by buying a networking book.

REFUND POLICIES
Next is refund policies. This can be a place you can get scammed very easily. I've seen some promotions where there's more than one refund policy on the same promotion. More than one promoter has a policy of making it impossible for you to request the refund. So, when you're trying to get a refund from any company for any product right from the first attempt start documenting what you did. This will give your credit card company pretty much no choice but to prevail in your favor if the company that you're trying to get the refund is nonresponsive. I mean this would most likely supersede anything you have agreed to because you tried to get to them and nobody would respond to you.

For instance, let's say you bought a CD set and it had a 30-day refund policy. Make sure you get the refund policy in writing. You listen to the CDs and you don't like them at all. You e-mail a vendor to request a refund. You get no response. You call the vendor and get no response. You call again and get no response. You should make note a date time of each attempted correspondence. Print out the e-mails make notes of what you said on the voicemail. Put the exact date and time of your notes if it was 1:07 p.m. then put 1:07 p.m.. The more precise you are the more credible your complaint is. Now if you haven't gotten the response from the company in a reasonable amount of time. That would be like 48 hours maximum during business days immediately call your credit card company and start the complaint process. This will give you ironclad proof you initiated the refund within that 30-day period.

Some refund policies are designed to be impossible to comply with. For instance, you order at a seminar and agree to let them ship you the products. They have a 30-day guarantee. The slimy promoter says the purchase was made the day of the seminar. Five weeks later the fulfillment company ships the CDs which you deem are terrible. Oops too late your guarantee started the day you bought them.

It's too bad for you. It took so long to deliver them. You should have carried them home on the plane with you. All right. Not that that would have mattered to some of these scumbags.

Now how about the promoter who tells you ominously that if you ask for a refund you'll be blackballed from buying other products and attending other seminars. Not only from him but other seminar promoters he knows. Is this legal? I don't know. I'm not a judge or a lawyer. Maybe a onetime instance might not be illegal but an ongoing policy of intimidation. Well according to my law enforcement friends that's a different story. So be careful with refund policies they could simply be smoke and mirrors and one little story about this.

I have a on file an e-mail from someone that worked for one of these scumbags and she told me that when she first started working there that she said to the scumbag, “What's the password we need to check the 800 number today to see what calls we had.” And he said, “I don't know.” She said, “What do you mean I don't know?” He said, “Well I don't ever check it. If I never check it then they can't say that I know if they were asking for a refund.” That was the policy from this scumbag. So anyway, be careful with refund policies.

PRESALE CONTACT
Next thing is presale contact. Now this scam has two opposite parts. The first part has the speaker or promoter spending little or no time with you and forcing you to purchase before he or she will answer any questions. Now this leads to people getting caught up in the moment buying basically the proverbial pig in a poke. there's no way on earth you should deal with such a person no matter how important and knowledgeable they make themselves appear to be.

The second type of scam is where the speaker or promoter spends all kinds of time with you answering all your questions being nice to you until he or she gets your credit card charged and gets past the right of recession. Then you pretty much don't exist. I've heard stories of a guy who charged someone forty-seven thousand dollars for a coaching program and the person heard absolutely nothing from them for over a month and then only when they themselves pressed the issue.

This is a harder to detect because they seem so nice. It lulls you into complacency. It's better that you do your research in advance and locate people that have been in the persons program for a while and see what they think. And another little sidebar here is be careful of the ones that drank the Kool Aid. I mean there's people out there that you can screw them over and over again and they still are wrapped up in oh you're a big shot. They’re just super naive people. You darn sure don’t want to take their recommendation.

So, make sure you get a good cross-section of people that that you get recommendations from. Get solid examples of how the coach or speaker helped the person after the money was paid.
Answers like, “Oh he called me to welcome me to the program” or “He’s such a family man” or “She’s so well liked” are not acceptable answers. First many scammers parade their family out on stage or in PowerPoint pictures to make you feel they are good family people. One guy I know does that and then spends the entire conference trying to get laid by young women from the audience.

You want answers like, he helped me develop my idea. She showed me how to create my first information product. “He called me back on a Saturday when I had an emergency question. You want results and action-based answers. Not just feel good answers. Remember you paid for help on with your problems, not to be around someone who it appears is well liked.

FAKE ACCESS
OK. Our next scam is Fake access. This is where the bad speakers of promoters use slick language to pretend to be available to you when they're really not. My favorite one ever is when I heard a female speaker say. And I might add t this was the biggest and slickest double talk BS I have ever heard recently.

Here's what she said. “You have unlimited one-on-one time with me via tele seminar.
WHAT? This is totally ludicrous! I know her and I know she does not do one-on-one anything. So why is this ludicrous? There's so many ways.
.
Let's break this down. Well. First unlimited means as much as you want right? Well in this case it means only when she has a teleseminar and only for the length of the teleseminar. So, it's not in any way or even close to being unlimited.

One-on-one doesn’t make sense either when combined with the word “teleseminar.” Teleseminar means many people are on the line at once to talk to her.

So, it’s neither unlimited or one-on-one. This would qualify I would say for the fraudulent double talk Hall of Fame. For an audience member . . . .maybe you . . . caught up in the heat of the moment, it would sound like oh you have unlimited one-on-one time with the speaker which in this case was definitely not true. Before you go with any coaching program get it in writing. Exactly how much actual …..not fake…..one-on-one time do you get with the coach.

If you see any double talk weasel clauses in the agreement, don't join the program. If the speaker or promoter clearly lets you know upfront that contact is via email, web or teleseminar. Great if that satisfies you and you don't need or you aren't willing to pay for one-on-one time. This might be right for you. I have no problem with that. Just don't get hoodwinked by buying one-on-one time that doesn’t exist.

Again, this is a time to be extremely clear and get everything in writing. If you're supposed to have one-on-one time in person. Exactly how many hours are included? Is everything geared to helping you with your business? Who pays for the meals? How many breaks? I can assure you slimy speakers will find a way to get around what’s in your agreement. But having it in writing puts them on notice that you know what you're purchasing and you expect to be fulfilled.

SUPER TITANIUM PACKAGES
Now the thing is what I call the super titanium platinum gold silver Diamond Emerald packages. I mentioned only coaching packages speakers promoted here because much of it has to do with access. The basic package includes X Y and Z and the super-duper packages are just more access to the Guru. Of course, for scammer coaches the access never happens or doesn't quite happen but you still bought and paid for the most expensive package. I'm an audience watcher. When I attend an event and see one of the silver gold platinum kind of speakers I see the audience in total confusion of what they're actually getting.

And the speaker is usually such an expert at manipulation of crowds, the audience members buy anyway even though they have no idea what they just bought. And this makes the slimy Speaker very happy.

Another part of this fake access thing is emergency calls. The speaker or promoter tells you that you get so many emergency calls. This is part of their access. This also needs to be in writing and all the details spelled out. An emergency is an emergency right. This means by definition that quick response is expected. I know a scumbag speaker promoter who didn't return an emergency call for four weeks. Okay. What a piece of garbage this guy is. An emergency call rarely should take more than 24 hours to return. In most cases if the person that sold you the coaching really wanted to they could return it in a matter of hours or even minutes. What happens in real life with unscrupulous and uncaring coaches is that they already have your money and your emergency is now an inconvenience to them with. I also heard the same speaker spent an entire emergency call with the caller who was supposed to be receiving help relentlessly eliciting the caller's expertise to help with an area of the scumbag’s business. .

YOU’RE GREAT
And the next one is you’re great. This scam inflates the coaching prospects ego and the value of their idea until the bad coach gets their money. Then sometime during the course of the coaching it is determined that the idea is not good or the coaching client didn't do what the coach told them to do. That's if they get any coaching at all and when the idea fails the coach then blames the student for poor performance. When in actuality the idea had little chance to start with and the scumbag either didn’t know or didn’t care. Either way he or she is a scumbag. This is a time when Weasel clauses appear. For instance, the coaching client missed one call out of 14 and the coach says Oh I did my job but you missed that one call so it's your fault. Make sure you have independent corroboration of your ideas before you hire an expensive coaching program.

FAKE CREDENTIALS
OK. Fake credentials. A major big-name player in the seminar industry recently got caught falsifying his educational credentials and because of the embarrassment was forced to resign from a major company board of directors. Another guy was recently outed online for possibly being involved in a scheme to create a fake credential for himself. I have evidence of this on file. Sometimes I see so many letters after people's names they get like Old MacDonald in EIEIO. It would take a team of investigators to figure out what the heck all those letters are. Many of the bad eggs falsify their income figures and experience levels. I was an award winning this or that. Well what was the award?

What company did you work for when you won the award? Who was your supervisor? Is the award recognized outside your cubicle? Many of these fraudulent speakers spam the Internet with false positive information about themselves to bury the bad stuff. They're so good at it that it's difficult to find the real truth.

I suggest dealing only with people that have a tremendously long track record and very few negatives things being said about them. Yes, I understand the best of people in the business myself included have jealous naysayers and people who complain about everything attacking them occasionally. For good people the bad stuff certainly isn't widespread and there certainly isn't much of it. For bad people unless they’re brand new, once you start digging and you know who to talk to eventually you could find a virtual geyser of civil and criminal complaints.

What compounds the trouble with this one is that the bad folks are master manipulators and able to get really nice things said about them by very public figures. This further bolsters their ruse of being experienced and credible. I know several very big-name people in the speaking business and our business who are regretting their very public endorsement of some very bad people. To combat this, do your research as best you can but add this to what you find. If they are known to, or you see them participating in many of the other scams outlined in this, steer very clear you could be the next victim.

FAKE MASTERMINDS
All right. Here's another one that's going around like crazy. It's fake mastermind sessions. Masterminding is considered an extremely powerful business and personal improvement tool. Rip-off speakers and promoters have managed to bastardize this concept too. The real concept is a small group of peers maybe 10 or so who get together and work on each other's problems. Pretty simple concept right.

In an effort to maximize their money while minimizing the depth they would have to go into for any individual business problem scummy mastermind leaders pile everyone in a room. A mastermind is not 70 people stuffed in a room each with a very limited time where their business is being addressed. What this does is three things for the scammer. Number one it fulfills the obligation to let people participate in a mastermind session. They get that out of the way. Number two it lets the scammer do it all at one time instead of doing multiple small and in-depth sessions like he or she should be doing. So, they do it one day and they're done and they fulfill their obligation because you joined this stupid large mastermind session. And number three it hides the fact the scammer may not have the experience to go into much depth when facing business problems. Heck anyone can stall and get many of the 69 other people in the room to chime in with ideas for the pitiful 15 or 20 minutes the participant is on the hot seat at one of these fake mastermind sessions.

If a seminar leader says that masterminding is included in their package, this again is a time for you to get exact details like what is the maximum number of participants. Are they going to be selected with similar income and achievement levels to mine? A lower income and achievement level don't necessarily mean the person has nothing to contribute. But if I was paying big money to be in a mastermind session I would want to know the people in there giving me advice were highly accomplished.

It's very hard to find the right mix of people to put into an effective and small mastermind group. It's easy to lump a bunch of people in the room and put on a dog and pony show when you couldn't care less if anyone got meaningful and helpful information out of it. Another problem with the fake masterminds has to do with theft by conversion which I covered earlier. When the scumbag hears all these great ideas, they frequently steal them and use them for themselves. Yes, I understand some value could be had from the worst run mastermind groups. I understand people with little business experience might say, “Oh it was wonderful.” That's primarily because they don't know any better. Some of the people with lots of business experience but who have him imbibed the Kool Aid of the con man feel important when they get to talk a lot at the mastermind and lord themselves over the newbies. It’s just a pitiful situation.

I just don’t want you to spend top dollar to get a dollar store mastermind experience. I suggest you spend the money on a business book subscription and you’ll most likely be better off.

And one more thing about the fake mastermind. Since you paid to be there the leader has a captive audience to spend an inordinate amount of time upselling you to his/her bigger programs and you’re basically stuck there and forced to listen.

SELLING THE DREAM
OK. Next is selling the dream. In many cases the seminar you attend will be mostly hype and selling the “dream of success” rather than giving you actual content that would help you achieve success. The entire event is a continuous pitch. Also known as a pitch fest. With promises of the greatest information always just one more and more expensive seminar away. Sometimes the initial seminar has content and helpful material mixed in with the pitches. Well you can't really complain too much about that if it was reasonably priced and you got everything that was promised in the promotion of the event.

In fact, you can expect pitches at most events. That's in part how they're financed by the promoter who gets a percentage of what the speaker sells. Many of the scams occur when you make one or more of the purchases for further training. So, be extremely diligent about what you buy at a seminar and refer to this entire list of items. It's great to have dreams, but not pipe dreams created by people who only want their dreams paid for with your money.

So now I've got a bonus that I want to tell you about.

Let me say I'll hold that off for a second.

Let's talk about some other things that happen at seminars. Watch for this fake exclusivity that is used quite a bit to make you think you're in some kind of secret club or inner circle. When in reality the operator of the secret club is laughing at you for thinking you're really in and yes you are as long as you pony up big bucks. But the question is in what? There's no secret handshake or signal. The only thing that you need is lots of money to think you're something special. I made fun of this years ago when I called the one I was involved with the “outer circle”.

The other thing to watch for is that con men and women want you to think they have something really great or cool that no one else has. They are supposedly going to tell you things that no one else tells you. In some cases, they are telling the truth but here’s the warning. This information could be unethical or downright illegal and could get you in trouble for using the info even though you learned it from the scammer.
I got a report last month that one scammer promoter learned the fake application technique from another scammer promoter and now he's being reported to the attorney general of his State. Probably the reason no other seminar leaders or promoters are telling you this stuff is because it's most likely unethical and illegal.

One scumbag lawyer was telling people to put the logos of major networks, magazines and newspapers on their sites. He was justifying this by having them either advertise on the site or make a blog comment. This is highly unethical and, I believe, in violation of FTC rulings. If it seems shady or shaky. Use your gut and ethics and don’t do it.

Now I do have a couple bonus ones for you that since I put out the first edition of this top 20 list.

I’M A CHRISTIAN
I'm a Christian. This like many scams is not really a new scam. I've just noticed IT making a comeback lately. This is where the fraudulent seminar leader professes to be Christian. Or they have found God. Well first of all. That's pretty much an insult to Christians everywhere. Secondly, I doubt if God is cool with it especially since the technique is being used to try to cover up past bad behavior and to set the audience members up for a crucifixion of sorts.

The old joke is that God must live in prison, because that’s where everyone seems to find him. hahaha

Now it's a shame so many good God-fearing people get taken by this tactic. They give the bad guy or girl second and third chances. I'll tell you why it’s a bad idea. Giving a sociopathic speaker a second chance is like letting them chop off your hand and then using your other hand to help him sharpen his blade so he can cut off your other hand. I mean it's just ridiculous.

It reminds me of a quotation I saw somewhere. I don't know who originally said it so if you know please let me know. It went like this, “With proper nurturing the shepherd can fleece the sheep over and over again.” Well, good and real Christians don't lie, cheat and steal and they certainly don't use God to cover up their scams so watch out for the Christian scam.

LIVE DEMONSTRATIONS
Also, the next is LIVE demonstrations. This is where the seminar leader pretends to do something totally spontaneous to show how easy it is to do what he's selling. Here's an example. One scammer, who I might add is being protected by his well-known scumbag lawyer pretends to start a website and make online sales during the course of a 90-minute speech or some kind of variation of that.

The reports I've been getting are that everything was planned and set up carefully in advance without the audience's knowledge. It's kind of like a magic trick. The same seminar leader did the exact same thing with the exact same website at another event. Yeah sure. That’s really spontaneous isn’t it? A magic trick is a magic trick. Doing this is fraud. Whoever told me about this if you listen to this please remind me so I can get all the exacting details of this.

This is how the sociopaths think. In fact, if you want to go deeper into the sociopathic seminar leader’s minds I have an entire webinar on this at http://www.tomantionwebinars.com It’s the first one right at the top.

They think they never do anything wrong and. I had one totally scammer ask me, “Why I was doing this to him” when I exposed his wrongdoing. I'm also hearing of someone going all over the place giving live demonstrations of a service. I've actually used this service and it is total garbage and you can be sure that whatever he or she is showing is the absolute best rendition of the service. That’s no reflection of the service that you're going to get. OK. So, watch out for fake demonstrations.

ONSITE CREDIT and SCAM CATALYSTS
The next thing is on site credit. I call these things scam catalysts. I made this term up. A catalyst in chemistry is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction. In a sense. In the seminar scam world providing an onsite finance company to give the audience members instant financing can be a scam catalyst.

Sure, I have seen it used to help people finance perfectly legitimate training and I even have reasonable financing available in my licensed Internet marketing school. But in most cases. It's used to increase the rate of scamming by giving you access to fast and usually way overpriced credit.

Please get control of your own credit situation. Don't fall prey to someone who wants to give you easy and overpriced credit especially when they're rushing you to make a decision. You can be sure they want to take all that new borrowed money from you by the end of the seminar.

And here's another example of that. This is another scam catalyst. This is very common at real estate investment seminars. At the beginning of a seminar they teach you how important it is to be able to get money quickly. They also teach you how to call your credit card company and get the limits raised on your credit card. . . . Sometimes as high as a hundred thousand dollars. Many of them even give you a script that tells you exactly what to say and if you’re not real smooth on the phone, some of them will call for you pretending to be you.

This is all done during the first part first day of the seminar. Conveniently for the seminar promoter you now have plenty of credit on your card to buy their high priced and mostly worthless training. So that's the raise your credit scam catalyst.

Now here's another important scam catalyst. This scam Catalyst uses a sales technique called “Overcoming objections” before they are raised.

Here's how it works. The scumbag seminar leader knows he or she has done really bad things to people. He or she knows that others either know about what they've done or will easily be able to find out by doing a simple google search. So, they’ve got a problem they’ve got to overcome. How are they going to “groom” future victims if it’s public knowledge what they’ve done to many others?

By the way I got that term “groom” from a psychologist who was a victim. He said that these people are grooming you to take your money. They could be charismatic and they could be loving and funny and well dressed and all that stuff, but they're still grooming you to take your money. They are chameleon like and have no conscience. They’ll be whatever they have to be to take your money.

So, what do they do? They use the old sales technique of overcoming objections before they are raised. They say something like this, “I've become so well known (or they might say the organization is so well known because many of the really big names you’ve heard aren’t delivering the seminars themselves. They have other high-pressure salespeople doing it for them.) so anyway, I’m so well known that I'm a target for jealous competitors and negative people that have nothing better to do than to try knock successful people down. We’re not going to let them do that are we?” Now he’s trying to make you feel like he’s the victim and you’re on his team to fight the jealous competitors.

The reason this method is so insidious and a really manipulative technique is because basically it’s true. The statement is true. The more well-known you are the more likely someone will attack you. The problem is that it's also a curtain to hide behind to make others think you really didn't do those bad things. Now the bad guy or girl is making the audience members think that the bad reports were false and planted by jealous competitors and negative people then BAM they pull out one of the many scams in this report and use them on you while you're busy feeling sorry for them.
Some of the biggest name Internet marketers are convicted felons or had their assets frozen by the government and of course, they didn’t do anything wrong. They were victims of government conspiracies to get them because they were too successful.
Yeah, I call BS on that and I’d be using lots harsher language against these people, but I don’t want to have to list this episode as having explicit language in iTunes.

So, don't fall for that thing. Check everything out independently.

Here’s one more bonus scam catalyst. Over 25 years ago I witnessed the method a big-name speaker was using to pressure people into buying things they couldn’t afford.
They would play carefully controlled upbeat music and encourage people to jump up and start dancing. The minions of the big-name speaker would watch for the people jumping around the most and later take them aside. They would say things like, “You’re such a great leader”, “You’re one of the most enthusiastic people here”, “You’ve got a great future, etc.” Then they would say you’ve got to attend the next level of training. It’s only (some large amount of money). If they said they couldn’t afford it, they would get pushed hard. You have credit cards don’t you. You have a house you could mortgage. You are cheating yourself and your family if you don’t find a way to go, etc. etc. etc.

At the next level training they would do the same thing. Target people and push them to a super expensive training. Etc.

People were losing their homes, going bankrupt and worse. If you want to stay out of high pressure at a seminar, don’t jump up and dance. You’re not going to be dancing with the stars, you’ll probably be dancing with an empty bank account.

Just to finish up there many seminars these days that are conducted using very controlled manipulative atmospheres. It looks great, and exciting and helpful on the surface, but it's totally designed to extract the most money possible with zero regard for the well-being or success of the participants and that would be you. If you're lucky you just lose your money. If not, you can actually lose your life and if you think that statement is inflammatory just google James Ray who was convicted with the deaths of I think three or four people with a sweat lodge thing in Arizona. This this is total disregard for human life.

I've been in this business a long time. I'm trying to help clean it up so everyone wins. Good speakers good promoters and good attendees who are trying to better themselves. That’s all good with me. Certainly, I lost a bunch of speaking jobs over this but guess what. I don't care. I sleep at night knowing I don't pull any of this crap on people. I make plenty of money giving good honest service and became a multimillionaire. I'm just sick of the rip off types that I've alluded to in this report.

I just continue to gather evidence I'm making the bad apples household names at every white-collar crime organization. I have a former White House staffer teaching me the ropes of Congress to present my evidence files there and at the Federal Trade Commission.

I'm a person that not into politics so that's tough for me but it's worth it to help get these people to stop from ruining this industry and ruining so many lives. I would just like to give a reminder to a few seminar promoters who I declined to speak for several years ago. I lived in Washington D.C. area for 13 years and I was president of the speaker’s association. And those of you that remember I told you years ago that my contacts told me the FTC was turning their eyes toward the seminar and speaking industry. Well who do you think the third-party endorsement rule was aimed at?

We don't need bad apples bringing down more scrutiny on an industry that has the potential to do so much good for so many people. So, if you're a low life scumbag seminar speaker or a promoter or both and you hurt somebody I know. You can make all the fake apologies you want. You can scurry around trying to cover your corrupt tracks and you could try to hide your nefarious dealings but keep this in mind. I'll be watching you. After 40 years treating people honorably and ethically in my business. I've got friends everywhere that are only too happy to lawfully help bring you to justice. Just keep that in mind. Now to you seminar attendees. The last thing I want and I know this has been a lot of negativity and a lot of dangerous things and rotten people I've been talking about in this report. I get that. The last thing I want for you to do is to quit going to seminars.

I want you to have a continuous quest for improvement and joy and learn from the experience of many of the fine speakers you will see at these events. The purpose of this is simply to protect you from an environment that could hurt you badly if you're uninformed about it.
I will have this transcript in the show notes and you can always visit https://www.Antion.com/top20seminarscams.htm

I'd even suggest that you take this list with you if you go to a seminar and watch for these kinds of manipulative things. If you don't see any, you probably had a pretty darn good seminar but they're getting harder to come by folks. Now if you suspect you have been scammed at a seminar or sold coaching or consulting you're not happy with please contact me with your details in writing. I’ll put it in my evidence file but I really hope you use this information and keep out of those terrible situations. I’ll also have in the show notes at http://www.ScrewTheCommute ways you can complain and places to complain. So. Go out there. Have a quest for knowledge but be safe. I hope this keeps you from ever being taken by an unscrupulous seminar leader.

I also don’t want you to get robbed in your or your family’s higher education so be sure to watch the higher education webinar at screwthecommute.com

This has been episode 016

I’ll see you on the next episode where Jerry Teplitz and I will show you how to Switch On Your Internet Marketing Brain. Catch ya later.

Please subscribe and leave a review.

Join my distance learning school: https://www.IMTCVA.org
OR
Join the mentor program PLUS get a FREE Scholarship to the School: https://www.GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com