I've been trying out the Copy Paste System during the refund period and I've made a few discoveries.

The OTO Gauntlet – Many Times

First, the whole system is designed to sell you OTOs so when you buy in to get Copy Paste Systems, you get to run the one-time-offer gauntlet that could cost you a couple of hundred bucks if you bought it all.

But don't worry – if you pass them up the first time through, you will get emails constantly reminding you that you can still get them. Maybe they should be called MTOs – many time offers.

Support is Poor

The second thing I discovered is that you shouldn't count on quality support, especially if you are a newbie and need more than a 1-sentence reply to a question. I was working my way through the "Famous Automatic Cash Machine" – how secret could that be if it's Famous, but I digress – part of the Copy Paste website when I had some questions I wanted help with.

I sent an email with my question to support@copypastesystems.com on January 22, 2010. Then on January 25, I sent another email adding a different question. The first answer came back on January 31, that's about 9 days late, consisted of 6 words, and ignored my second question totally.

On February 2, I got another support email answering part of my second question with a nearly unintelligible reply. Soldiering on I've sent another email to support asking if they could please send me an answer I can understand and please answer the entire question.

Good Luck with That

So if you want to give the Copy Paste Systems a try, let me know how that worked. Maybe you will have better luck with support than has been my experience thus far.

Have fun,
Ed

Sorting through my email, I opened a note from an internet marketer advising me that he was about to let me in on the greatest secret marketing book nobody knows about.

Well, of course I had to see that so I clicked on the link in the email and got to the website of this marketer where a video started playing. The video revealed the title and author of this greatest ever book, and this marketer explained that he cherished this book so much that he would never let this book get outside his arm’s reach.

But wait there’s more

Then he told about how he and his company had created a course based on this book, and how I really really needed to take that course so I could learn how to write mind controlling copy for ads. But you know that mind control can be dangerous in the wrong hands so you really have to take this course to learn how to use it ethically and not damage anybody’s psyche.

It’s FREE … Almost

It’s TRUE! You can get a free 7 day look at the course and can cancel anytime in 7 days and it costs you nothing and you get to keep the FREE Gifts anyway. If you don’t cancel within 7 days, you are automatically signed up on a monthly basis for the full course for a "mere" $49/month.

Order Customization – Serial Killer OTOs

When you see something like this, you know you are going to have to wade through this stuff to get what you originally wanted – your free look at the copywriting course.

Even though it says your order is not yet complete, if you cancel out at this step, you are still signed up for the free trial because you gave your credit card information before you got to this step. Clever, huh. So go ahead and check the course out and cancel if you wish.

OTOs Increase Sales

Why do marketers do this OTO stuff? Because it increases their sales. Some people will be put off by this marketing strategy, but others will like and buy the offers and thus spend more money they intended to when they set out to get the free trial. If you have money you don’t know what to do with, go ahead and buy all the OTOs.

No Thanks?

If you don’t want the OTOs, you have to scroll down to the bottom of each page and click the No Thanks links to get the original offer. Another thing to learn about marketing – the No Thanks part at the bottom is in small type and often in lighter colored text to discourage you from saying No Thanks and to encourage you to buy the OTO.

PS If you want to see the offer(s) for yourself, click Here – and follow all the steps that start with an opt-in (another marketing lesson).

PPS The best copywriting book ever written is …  

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters

Truth

There is no fast and easy way to make money on the internet if you are starting from scratch and have no business experience!

There, I said it. Again. You will find that most of the internet marketers you know about worked for years to develop their business, some of them even studied the internet for several years before they actually started a web-based business. So when they tell you how easy it is to stuff money into your bank account, they are telling you half of the truth. The other half is how long and how hard they worked to become successful.

It is possible that you could start from scratch with no business experience and become a wealthy internet marketing entrepeneur in about 6 months to a year. So my point is that you should plan on that time frame as a minimum. When you are thinking about buying that latest greatest thing you just heard about in the email you got this morning because you are on 35 internet marketing mailing lists, STOP AND THINK. If you haven’t made any money with the last one you bought, why is this one going to work?

Half-truth

Here’s an example of a half-truth in a product that we have recently been discussing. If you decided to buy Michael Cheney’s Automatic Income System because he said he would feature your website on his very own websites thus giving you lots of exposure, you only got half the truth. The catch he didn’t tell you about in the sales pitch is that you have to give him a testimonial to get your website listed. You don’t find that out until after you have paid for his product. A testimonial by definition is not a fair and balanced review.*

Half-truth

You are offered a product that sounds really good at a very reasonable price (maybe even free). After you buy in, you are immediately made an OTO – one time offer -  that basically tells you that the product you just got isn’t that hot after all and for more money you can upgrade to the product that actually works. The first offer was half of the truth. Sometimes these OTOs can get really annoying and you have to wade through 3 or 4 of them before you can actually get the product that originally interested you. Now you have to ask yourself, how good was that first product when the marketer him or herself is telling you really ought to spend more money to get a better product. If you really want to buy into one time offers, I recommend the Home Shopping Channel.

Get a Refund

Internet marketing is rife with half-truths like these. As a newbie, how are you going to see that coming? Because experience is the best teacher, here is my mantra. If you don’t like the product or the half-truths you were told to induce you to buy the product, GET YOUR MONEY REFUNDED. And if you have any trouble getting a refund, complain!

* A testimonial or endorsement consists of a written or spoken statement, sometimes from a public figure, sometimes from a private citizen, extolling the virtue of some product

Just be aware that you will also see several One Time Offers in addition that could increase your cost to hundreds of dollars if you decide to give them a try. Use your best judgment.

If you just want the $10 items that intrigued you in the first place, scroll to the bottom of the OTO pages, and click the "No thanks …" links until you get to the 6 mp3 files and 1 pdf.