Complaint Review: StoresOnline

On November 10, 2004, in Indianapolis, IN at the Holiday Select at the Airport, I attended the Internet Cash Flow Workshop presented by StoresOnline. The attendance at the workshop had been result of a prior 90-minute briefing that I had attended during which I had been promised that I would have access to a wonderful reverse search engine and that I would be able to taught Internet marketing techniques.


Buyer Beware

What approximately 90 others and I received was a high pressure and very slick sales presentation. There was no personal access to this reverse search engine of theirs, there was however, access to it through a bleached blond, very sexy, who had a wonderful way of crossing and un-crossing her legs.

While the marketing ideas were interesting, they were nothing that I had not learned or read about from articles and books available from my local library, bookstore or through online research (mostly free).

My warning lights started going off when they asked for my Social security number, date of birth and just about every other type of personal financial data on a sheet titled Confidential which I chose not to fill out. I still am not sure why StoresOnline needed to know if I own a house and my annual income to teach marketing techniques.

During lunch, these Confidential sheets were laid out very nicely along a table as the staff entered the data conducting credit checks. I watched with interest as several credit reports were reviewed, names were checked and selected staff were then tasked to provide the consultation.

I found if of interest that all of the females were approached by a gentleman with a nice accent (New Zealand) and Miss Blond approached the males in attendance. Since I did not fill out the questionnaire, I was not approached until I was one of the last 10 or so that had stayed and had not already laid down $3891.00 for three (3) websites, a credit card interface and an account with Links4Trade.

When my turn in the barrel came, Miss Blond immediately went into a high-pressure sales pitch, didn't I want to save money for my family? Did I have something against making money? This was the ONLY time that I would be invited to a workshop and obviously I could not afford to pass this opportunity.

The loan of $3891.00 that they were pushing VERY HARD was at a rate approaching 21% APR and I only had to put down $200.00 to take this opportunity home with me. When asked how well her personal websites were doing I was told extremely well, however, she could not remember the names of her websites or what she sold as it had been set up by others for her.

When I asked somewhat simple technical questions such as: monthly down time for the site or web servers; bandwidth utilization; what additional charges were there for overages in bandwidth; what type of service level agreements were in place, etc. Miss Blond crossed and uncrossed her legs with a wonderful view and kept insisting that this was the best source of income on the web. When I refused to bite, she became just a little agitated, thanked me for attending and went off after a nicely dressed gray-haired gentleman.

What I got from the workshop of 8 hours no hands-on of any type in direct contradiction to the 90-minute briefing; a nice view; a nice lunch and a $39.00 valued carry-case.

Opinion: StoresOnline is a fast moving; hard selling operation that targets older, technically and economically challenged populations. Based on the sales that I observed, I must say that they do it very well. Of the 90 or so in the workshop, I would estimate that less than 15 were below 40 with the remainder well into the 40's or much older. I also found it of interest that during the presentation which is reportedly taped, numerous times it was mentioned that the values shown may not be typical and your results may vary, etc. It seems that in the non-recorded, one on one consultation, your chances of success seem to multiply substantially.

The product sold is a kit with a CD, three to six websites (if you buy 6 you get 2 CDs (?), an account with Links4Trade, a credit card interface, a promise for support (which was not evident at the workshop) and an image of impending wealth.

Buyer Beware!

Pete
Indianapolis, Indiana
U.S.A.

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