Do the words "business ethics" seem like an oxymoron to you like they do to me? Ethics is all about doing the right thing. Tricking you into spending your money on a internet marketing program, and then not delivering the goods is unethical – even for a business man.

Eric Graham is the Poster Boy for Unethical Internet Business Practices

We've discussed Eric Graham previously but the beat goes on. If you haven't been sufficiently warned off of Eric, here's another story about his unethical business practices, not to say thievery, you won't want to miss.

Internet Business Ethics 101

Can Eric Clean Up His Act?

Sad to Say: Don't count on it!

I signed up for a 7 day trial of this product on February 13 so I could evaluate it and advise you about it. It didn’t take me long to see that the product was worthless.

First Cancellation Request Ignored

So on February 17 I made my first attempt to cancel the account. Now one of the characteristics of a scam is that it is difficult to cancel an account and especially to get a refund. My cancellation request was ignored. But I didn’t know that until I got my next credit card statement on March 17.

Credit Card Charged $47

My credit card was charged for a recurring monthly payment of $47. Yikes!

Second Cancellation Request Ticketed

I called again to cancel the account and to demand a refund. And I was once again assured that my account was cancelled and the charge to my account would be reversed. They wouldn’t send another email confirmation and instead told me to make out a ticket at customerproductsupport.com. Then they sent me an email in response the ticket I filed telling they needed me to call and give them the information that I had already given them twice. I’m not holding my breath, but I did …

Dispute the Charge !!!

Call the customer service department at the number listed on your credit card and dispute the charge. Might also be called the Claims Department. The fact that the vendor ignored your cancellation and refund requests may be sufficient for the card company to reverse the charge.

Visit the Complaints Board

Go to the ComplaintsBoard and search for emillionaire, or other vendor to see if complaints have been filed about them. Then choose wisely. emillionaire may also be known as googlepayday, googlecash, or some variant of google. Maybe Google should look into internet marketers using their name.

Sometimes I ignore my own advice – if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

PS For your protection, the only clickable link in this sad story is the one to the ComplaintsBoard and the link to Google Notebook. 

The Rest of the Story …

I didn’t mean for this post to go on and on, but if you are interested, here’s more details of what happened to me.

I found this on Facebook and thought I would check it out. Should have known it was bogus when I read the sales letter on the site. Question: Does Facebook know about this scam site?

I’m Happy I Lost My Job
http://www.richstudent.net/

Kevin’s Money Matters
Learn How I Make $5,000+ a Month Posting Links on Google
Get paid $5 to $30 for every website link that you post on Google. No one needs to buy anything from you or Google in order to get paid. Weekly paychecks. Can work from home computer.

 Step 1: Google Profit System  Pay $1.00 for shipping. This link goes to https://secure.eznetincome.com/g5/?cid=3384&subid=0&red=1, which tells you to "Hurry, There are only 46 slots open". I have checked this link many times and it always says there are only 46 slots open.

* Step 1 Go to this link, fill out a basic online form and hit submit at Earn Cash With Google Only pay the $1.00 for shipping.
    * Step 2 Follow the directions on Earn Cash With Google and set up a Google account. Then they will give you the website links to post. Start posting those links. Google tracks everything.
    * Step 3 Google will start sending their first check to you in about 48 hours. Or you can start to have them wire directly into your checking account. (Your first checks will be about $500 to $1,500 a week. Then it goes up from there. Depends on how many links you posted online.)

You are led to think that you are going to get money from Google in 48 hours. Guess what? NOT!

Warning: The sales letter is unethical and grossly misleading which you have probably figured out just from reading the above and will find out the hard way if you keep going with it.

The copy says that you can get a 7 day trial for $1.00. On the very same page on the right side, it says, "First see if you qualify. If you qualify, just pay $1.99 for S+H." When I went to the site, I found that the 7 day trial was $1.95 s/h. That’s a clue for you if you are really alert, which says something about me I’m sorry to say. But that misstatement wasn’t even the half of the scam. It turns out that the product is actually a membership site and you will be charged $47 a month if you don’t cancel in 7 days. I figured 7 days was sufficient time so (foolishly) I gave my credit card number for the $1.95 trial and followed the directions to the sign-up page for eMillionaire.com.

[You did read the Terms and Conditions before you gave away your credit card information, right? See Note 2 below. I didn't read them til afterward - when will I ever learn.]

Says, “Rush me my kit!”  – What kit? is the question. Guess what? There is no kit!

Please note, you will receive your exclusive membership information for the eMillionaire Google Money System™ by email. Guess what? No email!

googmoney is the name that will show up on your credit card statement. You may contact us at any time either by emailing googlesupport@emillionaire.com or by calling 800-309-6980 Monday-Saturday 9am-9pm EST.

Module 1 – A poor telephone call recording.
Says he will go into market research in more detail.
Advises using Google Notebook – See Note 2 below.

Video 1: Unprofessional presentation with useless information
Video 2: Do you know what “lipsum” text is?  “Um, I mean, I’m not gonna totally go into everything about WordPress , oops, excuse me … um …Hopefully, you guys learned something.”
Video 3: The key would be in the Manage area … I did this in Dreamweaver … all you do is to edit things from the visual area … excuse me … and you just write what you want, write over the lipsum text … ah um … this area is pretty self -explanatory … Hopefully, you enjoyed this video.

Since the product is so bad, I wanted to cancel the account before the 7 day trial was up. Note this part – even though the product is inconceivably bad, it might be sufficient for the vendor to claim that you received value for your money.

<googlesupport@emillionaire.com>: Guess what? The link doesn’t work.
209.85.217.36 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.

Since the email bounced, I cancelled by telephone. 800-309-6980. Lot of echo in the voice line of eMillionaire and transfer to a call center somewhere unknown. I was assured that my account was cancelled and would not be charged again. I also received this email response.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 4:29 PM
From: “eMillionaire Support” <support@emillionaire.com>

To: my email address

Your request have been executed. You have been successfully been deleted to the eMillionaire  Program. We are sorry to hear that you have cancelled your membershp with us. Many members have been satisfied with the benefits they get monthly. If there are anything we can further to assist you with, please feel free to get back to us. Thank you!

Guess what? My credit card was charged $47 on March 6, which I discovered on March 17 when I got my credit card statement.

Since I could not get satisfaction from the vendor, I called the Claims Department of my credit card company and filed a dispute. They asked me for necessary information and told me the charge would be reversed (or a credit issued). They also analyze the transaction and can refuse further charges from the vendor.

Note 1 Terms and Conditions you agreed to but probably don’t know what you agreed to

If you have not cancelled the free bonus within the free trial period, you agreei to purchase the bonus material and/or service at a monthly reoccurring cost. This can be cancelled by calling the customer service number provided in the confirmation email [Ed. note: which you probably didn't receive] between the hours of 9AM and 9PM EST M-F and stating your desire to cancel said bonus material and/or monthly service. However, in order to not be charged any future reoccurring cost, please give ample time (2 business days) to be cancelled out of any reoccurring billing system before the next scheduled charge to your account (this does not apply during any trial period). Not canceling trial programs constitutes authorization by you for any charges for the associated bonus service until your request to cancel has been received by our customer service staff.  By not canceling the bonus program during the trial period or prior to two days before a scheduled billing cycle, you agree that any reoccurring charges billed to you will be non-refundable.

Note 2  Google Notebook

Stopping development on Google Notebook

Wednesday, January 14, 2009 6:30 PM

Posted by Raj Krishnan, Product Manager, Google Notebook

At Google, we’re constantly working to innovate and improve our products so people can easily find and manage information. At times though, we have to decide where to focus our efforts and which technologies we expect will yield the most benefit to users in the long run.

Starting next week, we plan to stop active development on Google Notebook. This means we’ll no longer be adding features or offer Notebook for new users.

You even hear that from the "gurus", who have, of course, already put in the 5 or 10 years it took them to be the successful millionaires they claim to be.

And most of their income comes from people who don’t have any idea what they are getting into. Could that be you?

When guru Hyper says here’s how I do it, just do what I tell you and you’ll start making your financial dreams come true in 10 days or so, he (or she) really means, "I’ve been doing this for years so it’s easy for me." If you’ve been doing it for years, it might be easy for you too.

But if you are just getting started and are trying to do this in your spare time, take a deep breath, don’t quit your day job just yet, and think about what you really want to do.

And for God’s sake don’t buy any internet marketing programs that cost more than you can afford thinking that you will quickly pay off the debt with your newly acquired profits

If you think you are going to start from scratch with no experience and make $20,000 in 20 days, then I have a bridge for sale that will interest you.

Making money takes work. If you are not willing to or are not capable of doing the work, you should fold your tent right now. Harsh maybe, but that’s the truth. The get-rich-quick scammers don’t tell you the truth because they are pretty sure you don’t want to hear it.

The truth is that you will have to put in a lot of work up front to get off the ground with your internet business to make any money at all, let alone a profit. The payoff is that things get easier after you’ve done the hard part.

If you are just beginning your new lifestyle of marketing on the internet, or you bought that book about how to become an eBay millionaire, ask yourself how much time and effort you are willing to put in to make your dreams of quitting your day job come true. In reality, ‘quitting your day job’ means changing your day job to internet marketing.

Refer back to your business plan often to keep yourself on track. What, you don’t have a business plan? You should really put some effort into formulating a plan. You will find these websites helpful www.planware.org and toolkit.com.

If you have even thought about internet marketing, you have seen all kinds of garbage in the form of extremely hyped up sales pages blasting you with unbelievable claims that guarantee you will make a fortune if you only pay them $47, $97, $197, $997, $4,997, and up.

That $7 thing is because some internet marketing guy read a research report somewhere or did a test of some kind that said if the last number is a 7, more people buy the product. The next time you go to Wal-Mart or your local grocery store, or any real store, tell me how many items you see a price that ends in a 7 compared to a 5 or a 9. Maybe you think Wal-Mart doesn’t know how to price the items they sell?

I’d be willing to bet that you’ve seen claims that you can make $1,000 in 48 hours (or less!) if you just buy a product that costs $49.97 or some similar number. That’s a real good ROI if you could get it. You can’t unless you’ve already been in business and making money. If you are a newbie, I’m telling you – don’t waste your money on any product that makes such claims.

How do I know? Because awhile back, I bought on of these bloodsuckers called "Internet Marketing Bootcamp", which promised that you would make $1,000 in 72 hours (that's 3 days) if you just followed the easy steps they would tell you. It even came with a guarantee that if you didn't make the $1,000, they would not only refund your $49.97 but pay you $200.00 in addition just for being willing to give it a try. Well guess what?

I started following the steps and I had a question. It was a Friday. I could not get a response for over 72 hours. Now it gets even more unbelievable. The guy who my billing receipt said sold this to me, finally emailed me and said he didn't sell it to me and wasn't about to support it. How about that. I bought this scam from no one! I'm gonna make this long story short and tell you that I got a refund for the $49.97, but the persons who perpetrated this just laughed and said I was crazy if I thought they were going to pay me the $200 promised in their guarantee.

Here’s the truth – the people who make real money on the internet spend most of their time at work! It’s their day job! Sure, they may be working at home, and they may be working only a few hours a day. BUT they work at it all the time, they have already put in the hard work that probably took 3-5 years, and if they are truly working only a few hours a day, it’s because their staff is doing the rest.

Sorry to be the one to fill you in on that, but my job is to be honest and trustworthy.

Here’s your bottom line. Resist that impulse to buy the impossible dream.