Self-proclaimed expert blogger, spkeaker = sucker

It is unethical to snatch money where you don't provide real value to your customer.

Sounds familiar.

Sounds even more familiar.
Sorry but is having adsense ads on your sales page/site a prerequisite for success?

How many people do you see here and everywhere else, offering MMO online courses, having not made a penny themselves?

Well, it's not nice but I'm afraid it's a sad fact of life and a lot more common than you think.

Doesn't make it right but I'm surprised you don't come across this sort of thing more often.

I feel so bad that your friend has came across a false claim about this matter. There is real money to be made online with or without adsense and we can all read and lear4n all about them using the internet. I understand the situation that he felt like he was robbed because the information shared was actually free all along. There are lots of products which are made for the sake of money.

Andrea

I can understand her wanting to avoid AdSense and squeeze pages, of course (I don't use either, myself, after a lot of split-testing of squeeze pages), but you'd think she'd want a decent, regularly updated blog if she's teaching people how to make money from them.

No, not at all.

I think it's arguably immoral (but that's an entirely different question).

But "unethical"? No.

She may be making available to people a big collection of information that wouldn't otherwise be available to them. It may not be her information, and it might be trivially easy for her (or for anyone) to do that, but so what? It might be pretty reasonable information, anyway? Delivering what was promised? In which case it's no disaster, surely?

So, she's making money through teaching instead?

That's true of the authors of 90%+ of the "article marketing guidebooks" available online, too, you know? They're certainly not making money by doing what they teach, because what they teach is nonsense based on mistaken beliefs and doesn't work anyway. I think that's far more questionable than what you're describing here.

Of course it's unethical if the product isn't delivering what was promised, but unfortunately, there's a lot of unethical people in the world. You can't "out" them here. Rule #1 prohibits that.

People need to do some research before buying. Some will still get scammed. There may be some remedy through the payment service. How did your friend pay for it? Can he do a chargeback?

That is definitely unfortunate, but it happens. Sure, you even get people on here asking how they can make some money. Then in their signature they have a link that will apparently show you, how to make $xxx in xx days.

I hope your friend can get your money back, if the course truly was useless. Let us know how your friend gets on.

I would suggest it is your friend who is at fault. There is a reason he had to borrow money to join the service. There is also a reason why his investment has not panned out as well. It's most likely the same reason for both.

So, what's your point?

This person is making money teaching how to make money online. I hear it's quite popular.

Perhaps she isn't qualified to teach the course. Maybe the information is basic and generic. It's not unreasonable to believe that unrealistic expectation were given and it's even possible that she is overcharging for what was delivered.

It's nothing new. I think I've heard this story before.

And yeah, it is F'd up, but whatever.

despite it being deceptive and crap training, have you considered the "ladies" situation?

People do some pretty desperate things in times of need. Just sayin' - Could be more to it...

Tried for years, fed up, instead chooses to believe that it's all a scam and the money is in making others believe so.

Maybe she's stuck for money and this was a last ditch attempt by her before she goes without food; a home, and a bed?

To be fair, I've heard of courses in the UK that cost quite a bit just to learn how to setup your website accounts in WHM, changing the NameServers to your host, allocating space, setting up usernames and passwords.

And then CPANEL, Wordpress and so forth... things you can learn if you play around with them long enough, and people pay good money to skip the trial-and-error part.

No. I read them.

This is a pot meet kettle post.

But I think you fail to see it.

Here is a hint: similar complaints are posted daily, they are always deleted.

The people that attended need to speak out about the experience (good or bad). Feedback goes viral either way. If they felt taken advantage of, it is up to them to make sure they get their money back and that this proclaimed 'expert' never gets another chance to rip people off. If, however, the majority got something of value out of it, then perhaps the 'expert' should be told on how to calm down the hype and market what actually IS of value. Hard to say, since I wasn't there, or a part of it, but those that were hurt by it need to SPEAK OUT against it.

It's too bad the course didn't live up to her expectations. All the more reason to do some digging before signing up for or buying anything, either online or off.

As for much of the material being available for free online - virtually all information on just about any topic you could wish for is available for free online; if you know where to look and are willing to put in the time to research and find it. Part of the value you should receive for a course is having the information all organized and in one place so you save your valuable time. A bit of personal service and mentoring on the topic in question wouldn't hurt either.

Of course, there is always the possibility that the person "teaching" the course really doesn't know a lick about what they suppose to teach, thus the lack of value in their course. Lesson here: Always go beyond the sales page.

For something like blogging, there is so much free information on the basics of making money from a blog, especially here that maybe she should have started by browsing a few of the posts here and joined the war room.

It can seem pretty overwhelming for newbies. Have her start at the beginning. Is she looking to build a real, long term business from her blog with sustained readership, or just some quick, CB bucks.

If she wants to go long term she has to start by planning and answering questions, especially if this is her first real blog. You can short cut the process later, after you've learned a few things.

What are you passionate about?
That will make it easier to keep posting and engage your readers.

What do readers want from a blog in your chosen niche?

How are you going to monetize it?
There are so many choices, and different niches are better monetized with different strategies.

How am I going to promote it?
This could fill a volume in itself, and it certainly has. Some of the most effective strategies are guest posting, blog carnivals, social bookmarking, forum marketing, article syndication, and directory listings. A good guest posting strategy can't be beat for building relationships with other bloggers in your niche, which is hugely important for both long term growth, building traffic, and promoting future product offerings. Article syndication in the right e-zines can rapidly bring readers also.

What is your exit strategy?
You won't blog forever (on the other hand, maybe you will), so how are you going to get out of it and get some compensation at the same time?

This is just the beginning. There are so many other things that you need to look at. Start in this forum. It's a gold mine.

So, neither your friend nor your sister thought, hey, let's ask Adie about this before we fork over $400 to this woman?

This is great news, actually. Isn't it a prerequisite of IM success...getting ripped off at least once? Now they can succeed!