This is a topic I have wanted to write about for many years but was worried I may “offend” some people. I no longer care. Over the last five years I have purchased about $100,000 worth of information online. I did this to stay ahead of the curve and improve my odds on being successful. In the last year I have started to notice that almost every author I buy from has someone calling them a “scam”. How is it possible that every known expert on the internet is a “scam”?
I started to do some research. I randomly picked some people who have affected my life in a positive way. I did a Google search on these people:
Anthony Robbins- He has sold millions of books, helped thousands of people, and suggests love as a way of doing business. Apparently, he is a scam.
Donald Trump- Self made billionaire, TV show host, best selling author. Guess what also called a scam.
Oprah - Self made billionaire and super philanthropist. Also called a scam. Impossible you say? More like unbelievable.
Now, just for fun I thought I would enter the search term Mother Theresa. There is no way that someone could call an icon, a person of such amazing levels of compassion, a saint, a scam is there? Wrong. There is actually a website that calls her a fraud and an evil person. That one blew my mind.
How could all these people and there businesses be a scam? The truth is….they aren’t. The true scammer is the person writing the article about them.
Now, I am not saying that there aren’t illegal or illegitimate businesses out there. There are. But not anywhere close to as many as you think. At least 98% of people and businesses that are of accused being a scam are being improperly labeled. Here are the three reasons why calling something a scam is a scam.
1) People take zero responsibility for the decisions they make. They buy some information or start a business and when it doesn’t work for them they call it a scam. Did they do the research? Did they follow the instructions? Were they under capitalized? There are so many reasons why a person can fail and 99% of them are the fault of the buyer.
2) They want to “ride the coat tails”. This means they have something they want to sell and they leverage the successful person’s traffic to get people to there website. If you ever see someone selling something right after they trash a person on there site then understand it is a marketing tactic. It has zero credibility.
3) Consumer protection-like sites. These are the biggest scammers out there. Most of owners cannot even be found for a reason. They are constantly being sued for slander but if you can’t find them you can’t sting them. They allow uneducated people to whine and complain about people and companies without verifying the validity of anything. You could even go on these sites as an employee of a company and randomly trash your competition….without anyone verifying the truth. So why do these sites exist? So the owners can sell advertising spots on there website. They are cockroaches. Plain and simple.
I hope this article gets passed around to millions of people. I want to educate everyone on how ridiculous things are getting. If you have a bad experience with something then ask yourself if you could have done something more.
Why?
Because that is how you learn. If you never take any responsibility for your failures then it makes it almost impossible to succeed. Look at the people who have the results you want and copy them. Don’t rip them down.
Don’t be a coward and call them a scam.
Aaron Parkinson
March 25th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Chris Moran
March 25th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Awesome article about one of the most misused words in the English language! Keep up the positive work.
All the Best!
Kursten
March 25th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Amen to that Aaron. You are such an intelligent and articulate person! Glad to know you!!!
Dena Riley
March 25th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Your post is awsome! I’m not saying this just to say something. I liked it so much because is truth! And this is something I can relate to! Especialy the part about people who purchased something and never followed the instructions! I’ve been there my self and learned from my mistakes. There is a funny story I’ve learned in NMarketing: how many people have bought washing machine, used it and never read the manual. then when something goes wrong it’s the company’s/ product foult. I’m not suggesting that this is the case with all products/services. Yes here are lots of shi*** ones. But we are tailking here about the PEOPLE and until these ‘all knowing individuals’ change their pattern of THINKING we’ll always have this comments around.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Excellent article,Looking forward to learning more
from you. Success is my dream….
Fredericks
March 25th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Very well put Aaron and very true. I talked to a person the other day and he said that he has been looking for two yrs. for a home business. Hasn’t found any because they are all scams. What did I do? I said mine was too, thanked him for his time and wished him well.
March 25th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Hey Aaron,
Couldn’t have put it better myself, I’ve been getting more and more pissed off by these bottom feeders…
The only good thing from this is that the chances of these people making a success of anything is remote at best…
John
March 25th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
It’s part of human being to denigrate and roll in the mud successful people and good people( saints). It’s not an excuse and nor even acceptable. The 3 reasons mentioned here are crystal clear to identify who are the real scammers and the intention behind.
Jean
March 25th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Good information. Next to the word ‘love’, I would venture to say in the technological the word ’scam’ is the most misused and abused word.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Aaron,
I wrote an almost identical article about a year ago..Bravo!
In my examples, I ran Lee Iacocca,Abe Lincoln and one other and saw the same results you did.
Like your writing very much.
March 26th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I to got “scammed” recently and I’m glad it happened because i learned to do my homework from now on. there is good in everything we just need to find it. Great article!
March 26th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Aaron - 100% spot on. Thanks for stepping out and putting forth the “real side” of scam. This world is all about taking responsibility for your decisions and actions. Notice responsibility comes before scam in the dictionary! Take responsibility - you will never feel scammed.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:58 am
All top earners failed their way to the top. You just keep going after each failure. You dust off and kick in the door one more time. Take a stand for your piece in life. It’s like my dad always said, “No balls, no babies.”
March 30th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Thank you for putting into words exactly what I have been thinking. Whenever I see “scam” I just mentally replace it with “Loser”.
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:46 am
Absolutely dude!
Fortunately for some of us, there’s a certain ‘Application’ process that helps to filter out these weirdo’s
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Great article, Aaron. Those that believe they were scammed are probably scammers themselves.
April 5th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I could not agree more Aaron! People capitalize on people’s fear like that should meet you in the ring! =-)
April 6th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Besides the word scam is sooo 90′.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
People Throwing out the word Scammer really have low self esteem and often use the word as a Cover for their own failures. Follow who uses that word and I bet you a Nickle they have tried every system under the sun with the same lousy results in all of them. They have noby to blaim for themselfs as they are often very short sighted and generally greedy self centred people.
John H.
Texada Island
BC, Canada
April 21st, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Wow! At last, you revealed it all for common people who doesn’t understand why most people are calling scam a scam. I admit that you most have been auto something greater than you ever thought you have right now. Yes, you really pointed out here intelligent argument in a stylistic way. Keep on guy…
April 28th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Good job. I tackled this subject awhile ago on my blog with much the same conclusions.
I suggest people find their mentor. Follow his advice. If you do nothing you will be where you were last time you did nothing.
Great blog will be back often
May 1st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Very interesting site, Hope it will always be alive!
May 11th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Go NEO! Get your flame on!
May 28th, 2009 at 6:12 am
I agree with a lot of what you say however I know of people who actually have experienced scams which involve people claiming to be experts in what they preach. I believe you take the information and use it as it applies to you however that does not stop the person who you do business with sucking you behind your back which I know has happened. It works both ways. Build the credibility and the critics have nowhere to go. Screw people behind their backs and you better find a damn good place to hide.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:12 am
[...] This post was Twitted by money1000 [...]
September 15th, 2009 at 10:04 am
BEST MAAAAN
THANK YOU
September 17th, 2009 at 7:08 am
I was searching for a hot topic this morning on the net. On the paid searches every single on of the ads were about how this company (that rocks by the way) is a scam. Who are the people who are writing these ads? So called competition, sad, sad, sad. I thought that at this stage of the game people would be a bit more enlightened that this type of copy only produces suckers. Like attracts like, I go for the gold…
December 8th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Thanks Aaron, I watched and old Ustream video of yours and you mentioned this article. I had considered using this scam tactic because I had heard about it from several people but I did not feel right about doing it. After reading your article I am glad I did not use it.
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Brilliant article! Thank you.
Along these lines, something that bothers me is the trend of calling any business related email *spam*. I see this all too often in the “freebie” market.
It is a good idea to use a dedicated email address when signing up for free product sample offers, but don’t refer to the email you will receive as *spam*! That’s part of the deal. Many businesses are willing to give away 100% free product samples in exchange for the opportunity to send you information about their products via email. So, if you signed up for it, it’s not spam folks. ☺ It’s a pretty good deal!
December 30th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Love it! Everything can’t be a scam…the scammer is actual the ones who bought and didn’t try…Love the article.
May 27th, 2010 at 9:36 am
Howdy there,just identified your Post when i google something and wonder what hosting do you use for your wordpress,the speed is more faster than my wordpress, i really need to know it.will back to check it out,thank you!
June 13th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
That is a very interesting way to put it about scams. People can be so negative about everything. Can’t we all just get along?