Internet Business Guide

Part Two: TV Infomercials Pitches

 Are You A Statistic?

A report by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a joint enterprise of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, on 2006 Internet crimes finds that Americans lost a record high of $198.4 million to Internet fraud schemes last year, up eight percent from 2005 levels of $183 million and up 191 percent from 2004 levels of $68 million.  Internet auction fraud accounted for the  greatest volume with 44.9% of  complaints.   The median loss per complaint was $724.  To see details click the image on the left to enlarge.

Law enforcement officials believe that actual losses are higher, as many victims don’t report the crimes. Of the Internet criminals who could be traced to their location, 61 percent resided in the United States, followed by 16 percent living in the United Kingdom and six percent in Nigeria. The statistics also show that victims of the Nigerian 419 scam had an average loss of $5,100 in 2006, an increase of $100 per incident compared with 2005 and an increase of $2,100 per incident compared with 2004.  86,279 fraud complaints in 2006 were referred to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies for investigation.

Why is the above information important to you as an Internet Business Opportunity owner?         

Because the past fraudulent acts of others’ will affect your online business.  If you already own an online business get involved with one of the dozens of sites that monitor ecommerce to keep the site owners honest.

Big $$$ Fast, Internet Millions, Make BIG Money, EBay Millionaires
The above slogans are from TV Infomercials.  Those TV shows that have the TV station placing a disclaimer, ”the following is a paid program” at the beginning and end of the show.

A show I’ve seen lately is Jeff Paul’s Shortcuts to Internet Millions; which to me makes outrageous claims.  The show has mostly interviews with Internet business owners stating how they make money online; $10,000, $20,000, even $130,000 per month. The Infomercial pitch is that their methods will be revealed in the product.  A set of CDs.  The Jeff Paul’s “Shortcuts to Internet Millions” is just $49.95 + $14.50 Shipping and Handling.  Wow!  I’ll be checking my postal box every day, as it also says allow five or more days to receive the CD set.  Maybe I should put John Paul in touch with Netflix as they can get a CD to me the next day! 

To me, and my 20 years of online/Internet experience, the claims about making money online were so outrageous I had to investigate more.  So first, I did a Google search for it, which returned 304,000 web pages containing the search term.  I checked Google against Yahoo which showed 1,200, and MSN which showed 1,107,272.  In the Google SERP (search engine results page), a  sponsored result is a link to what is touted as:  Jeff Paul’s Official Site  Shortcuts to Internet Millions Start Making Money Now!  

However, closer investigation indicates that the product is not owned by Permission Interactive, Inc., the site that claims to be the Official Site.  The web site has a disclaimer stating, All products and services you have ordered are shipped and billed to you directly from each product or service provider. On the Terms and Conditions page of the site it again states that Permission Interactive, Inc. is not the owner of the Jeff Paul’s “Shortcuts to Internet Millions”, We allow access to or advertise for Merchants from which you may purchase certain goods or services. You understand that we do not operate or control the products or services offered by Merchants. Our sole involvement is to submit order forms completed by users of through our Site to Merchants for processing. 

A bit more checking discloses that the Official Site company has had some complaints.  I found this out by checking one of the resources I wrote about in Part One of this series on Internet Business Opportunity Scams.

Better Business Bureau of San Diego 
The BBB processed a total of 21 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total of 21 complaints closed in 36 months, 6 were closed in the last year.

I then investigated another of the top links from the SERP.  Arriving at the following web site…  SeenOnTVExpress.com - which appears to be owned by Steven Langley, travis@seenontvexpress.com, 17108 Bedford Drive, Edmond, Oklahoma 73003, 405-562-7777. Click the image to the right to enlarge.
The web site is a collection of over 400 products that have been advertised through TV Infomercials. Checking the date of the domain registration it appears that Jim Langley, or a predecessor, has been online since 03-May-01.  Further checking through the web site you will find that many of his pages, beyond his home page, have Google Page Ranks. If you look under the hood at the source code for his pages you will find that he has optimized quite well. If I would venture a cursory opinion the owner of this site is making a six figure income.  The site has what are called micro sites. Meaning single pages focused on a single product.

Another web site I reviewed was jeffpaul.tv.  The owner’s name appears to be Jim Fleck, support@instantprofitssupport.com, 630-736-1237, Fax: 956 S. Bartlett Rd. St. 264, Bartlett, IL 60103.  I noted the domain name expires in less than 30 days if the annual fee is not paid.  The web site does have a corporate name, Shortcuts to Millions, L.L.C.  The site also plays the TV Infomercial, but does not have a stop play button.  The video goes on and on and on.

I investigated three more links on the Google first SERP.  In each case the web site for the Jeff Paul product is a micro site.  Succinctly stated, this is your clue that you are investigating what is most likely a product seeking to separate you from your money.  Thousands of micro sites promoting the purchase of an ebook, for anywhere from $39.95 to $59.95.  Most likely when one of these sites makes a sale they get 50% to 70% of the price.   I would suspect that the Jeff Paul program seeks to extract more than just the initial payment.  Once they have hooked a new customer they certainly will have upselling.

The information below is from the other three web sites:

• instantprofitssupport.com - Instant Profits Marketing, Inc., Web Master (jaf23@comcast.net), 866-492-2987, Fax: 630-604-0090, 956 S. Bartlett Rd. St. 264, Bartlett, IL 60103
• shortcutstomillions.com - Family Products, LLC, MJ OConnell (moconnell@familyproductsllc.com), 818-464-1609 Fax: 818-464-1601, 7030 Hayvenhurst Ave, Van Nuys, CA 91406
• jeff-paul.com -  is a “private” registration, meaning the Registrant information is hidden, but this much can be determined -Domain Name: JEFF-PAUL.COM, Created on: 03-Aug-05, Expires on: 03-Aug-09, Last Updated on: 27-Feb-07

The tenth link on the first page of the SERP was to The Ripoff Report.  Which lists the company contact information as: Jeff paul shortcut to Internet millions - big league players club: 800-434-5426,  7030 Hayvenhurst Ave Van Nuys, California 91406.  Given by a poster who purports to be a disgruntled customer of the Jeff Paul CD package.  Using the handy Map Quest tool I discover the address is next to the Van Nuys Airport.  Hmm.  Makes sense if he travels a lot and has a private jet. Using InfoSpace my preferred reverse address lookup did not return a name for the address.  My backup is the Netscape White Pages reverse address lookup.  Still no name, but enough information to determine that the address is most likely a private residence.

The next time you’re watching an Infomercial about how to make money online with an Internet Business Opportunity apply what you’ve learned here to discover through your due diligence was it true, or was it a true lie.  I would place Jeff Paul’s Shortcuts to Internet Millions to be nothing more than a detour, not a shortcut to your making money online.

In Part Three of this article series about Internet Business Opportunity Scams I’ll write about email scams.  Including the CAN-SPAM Act which has driven this type of scam overseas.  The most famous of these is the Nigerian 419 Scam, where customers have collectively lost more than $5B.  Yes, $5,000,000,000.

Articles of This Series:
Part One: Internet Business Opportunity or Scam?
Part Two: Internet Business Opportunity Scams | TV Infomercial Pitches
Part Three: Internet Business Opportunity Scams | Email Pitches
Part Four: Home Based Internet Business | Plays, Puffs, Profits

For information on more than 400 Internet Business Opportunities, contact Business Broker Don Janke. With over 20 years Online/Internet experience I can guide you to your ideal acquisition.

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