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Many of the business opportunity ("biz opp") infomercials seem to be "front-ends" for "mentoring" or "coaching" services. I quote those two words because many have lost a lot of money purchasing this "coaching" to get "advice" that appears in the old (or even current) versions of the product, from expensive seminars by the product purveyor, or even straight from the internet.

It seems a couple of weeks after you purchase the infomercial product, you will receive a call from the "mentoring" company. It doesn't matter if you are on a state's or the national "DO NOT CALL" Off Site New Window list, as, having bought the infomercial product, you have established a relationship with the company and have implicitly accepted "customer service" and other related calls. The offers made are in association with the product you purchased, so are legal.

This call is normally made by a high-pressure, smooth-talking salesperson. He will tell you that the package does not tell you everything, and that if you are highly motivated to SUCCEED, you NEED the coaching/mentoring. This salesperson apparently gets you to disclose to him or her how much money or credit you have available, especially credit through your credit cards. (Yes... That was NOT a typo... cardS.) If you don't have any, or have already maxed out your current cards, they will tell you how to find 0% or low-interest introductory interest cards on the internet, with a decent (for them - somewhere between $2000-$5000) credit limit.

They will then offer you their "amazing" and "exclusive" one-on-one coaching for an amount which will almost "max out" ALL of your available credit. (I have read of cases where this amount is upwards to $10K!) Their (the salepersons' and the companies') job is apparently also to convince you to join various subscription websites (taxes, bookkeeping and others) and to incorporate (through their services, of course) so you will "be ready" when your business takes off. These cost you even MORE money. They apparently believe that if you will put that much money into your "coaching", you are serious. (<--- I'm being sarcastic, there!)

As I implied, the callers are GOOD. They will get you excited about making money using the product, and have convinced MANY people into the service. No matter HOW "hopped up" they get you, no matter the promises made, I suggest that you DO NOT DO IT!

First of all, from everything I've seen, if you wish to rescind the purchase, even a few minutes after you order it an hang up, you will NOT be able to contact them or their customer service.

All phone calls are recorded. Your recorded acceptance of the terms given means they can win in almost any court of law. (With the internet, if you click "I accept", it's considered legally binding. On the phone, if they state terms and you reply "Yes", it apparently is, too.) This leads to the "Second of all" paragraph.

Second of all, apparently, somewhere in the recorded statements they manage the words "non-refundable". This means that you have accepted that they will get paid whatever you said they could, and no matter what, it's ... "non-refundable". (You can't get it back, for those that don't understand.)

Many cases I read about had to threaten legal action, cancel credit cards and/or dispute all charges, and not everyone got their money back. THEN, after THAT hassle, they were contacted by shylock lawyers (read some of the stories) and collection agencies (seemingly owned by these companies) about money they no longer owed!

Third, I've read on numerous sites that it's VERY difficult to contact your "personal mentor", if you EVER get in touch with them. If you DO, no matter what problem you're having, they will tell you information that's already in the manuals you bought, or seminars you've attended. You will probably be told that you're not "trying" hard enough, and they will try to sell you other products and subscription website services "where you can FIND" the information. (Sometimes, for other biz opps, these will be mailing-list services, business articles, wholesalers you have to pay for, sometimes... you get the idea?) In some cases, at least, if you DON'T buy these "extras" and complain about how much it's all costing, they will again, say you're not trying hard enough, and they don't have time to waste on people that don't REALLY want to succeed.

These are SUPPOSED to be successful business people mentoring you. I've ALSO read where these are "just plain Janes and Joes", "trained" to answer your questions and sell you even more.

It's ALWAYS possible that the purveyors of the products may just be honestly selling his/their somewhat outdated systems, and the group(s) they've teamed up with ... the "fulfillment" companies, the "coaching" companies, etc. MAY be the BIG sharks, here. Don't count on it, because after all the complaints lodged about what happens during and after the sale, I would think an HONEST person would dump the "bad apples" ... but it IS possible. (Even successful businessmen sign bad contracts at times.)

Professional Marketing International (PMI) "Coaching"

Professional Marketing International - Additional DBA Names: P M I; PMI Coaching; Wasatch Summit LLC; Think a Little Different (UT), aka Professional Marketing Inc. (KS), aka America's Note Network LLC; Cashflow; Dalbey Publishing; Dalbey Wealth Institute; Dalby Publishing; Diamond Real Estate; and Winning in the Cash Flow Business (CO).

NOTE: I have NOT searched for ALL of the DBA names through Google. I found enough (for my report) looking for "PMI", then "PMI Coaching" and "Professional Marketing International". Please continue researching using these DBAs after you review what I found.

NOTE: If you came here directly, or from the page link at the top, and haven't read the above, yet, may I suggest you do so now? smiley - wink

From (Denver, CO) BBB Reliability Report - America's Note Network

America's Note Network sells informational manuals and offers training programs for buying and selling notes on web sites they host. The company uses nationwide infomercials to solicit interest in this business opportunity.

Consumers report to the BBB that there is a significant degree of time commitment to succeed with this business opportunity. Consumers also report the company offers additional training materials after the initial offer materials at a cost that is significantly higher than the price of the initial offer.

With this opportunity, you must be willing to spend a lot of concentration and work hard to achieve success. To assist, the company provides a list of sellers to participants.

Before the internet age, this buying and selling activity was usually conducted mainly by commercial banks or hybrid types of financial institutions as opposed to individuals conducting a business opportunity.

[My emphasis and highlight -BS]

At least this one appears nominally honest. Some points:

  • Notice that "CONSUMERS report ...", not the company.
  • Being tied with PMI, the "significantly higher" cost for MATERIALS (note that it doesn't say "COACHING") means THOUSANDS of dollars.
  • The "With this opportunity ..." paragraph may be from the BBB, itself.
  • It's nice that the company "provides a list of sellers"... Why didn't the COMPANY (in this case, Russ Dalbey) buy these properties, himself? Hmmm? (Of course, he'd say it's because he's got all the money he needs... What about his employees? Do they?)

From Better Business Bureau of Utah - Professional Marketing International

According to information provided by the company they are a direct marketing organization contracted by outside companies to market to client databases. The company markets business opportunity consulting services by telephone as well as other business development products

[My emphasis and highlight -BS]

What does this mean? To me, it means they are NOT the "mentors" or "coaches" they are made out to be. They are contracted to SELL you more stuff, not to "mentor/coach" you.

According to the BBB Utah site, they HAD an unsatisfactory rating for resolving customer complaints out of the accepted BBB time-frame. They met with the BBB in April, 2006, and have "implemented some of the Bureau's suggestions concerning the handling of customer complaints. They have demonstrated improvement by agreeing to resolve complaints within the Bureau's timeframe."

From Better Business Bureau (Kansas City, MO)

According to the US Post Office the company has moved and left no forwarding address for the Kansas City, MO location. According to information in Bureau files, this company is headquartered out of America Fork, Utah.

Hmmm... Left no forwarding address... When apartment tenants leave that way, they usually don't want to be found ...

NOTE: There appears to be NO connection between PMI Coaching and Project Management Institute (PMI) - "The largest project management association" or various other "PMI"s.

Company Websites

Infomercial Companies Known to Use PMI "Coaching"

  • Auctions for Income (Dave Espino)
    Dave has "teamed" with Professional Marketing International (PMI), who he (supposedly) trained to "coach" you. From Dave Espino's's AuctionsForIncome site - "Coaching" tab:

    This is a very exclusive optional program. PMI is limited on how many personal mentors can be assigned to Auctions for Income students each month and reserves the right to only work with students who are extremely serious about creating a long term auctions business online.

     
  • Russ Dalbey
  • Internet Treasure Chest
  • The Tax Club

Reviews and Warnings

This section lists the sites where I found "negative" comments about the people and company, and/or the product. Some of the terms "sham", "scam", "scams", "flim-flam", "complain", "complaints", "rip", "rip-off", "fraud", "warning", similar words, and maybe just "review" were used in searching for negative comments.

Besides the information from the BBB Websites, above:

  • ScamFraudAlert - Auction for Income aka PMI Coaching, Tax Club [Archive]
  • Rip-off Report.com - badbusinessbureau.com - PMI (199 reviews 07/16/2006 - some may be other PMIs)
  •  

  • StockLemon.com - "The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same"  (The entry is about iMergant, Inc., but there's information about PMI about 1/2-way through article.)

    PMI Coaching . Hold on to your wallets.

    In the conference call held on February 25, 2005, The Boston Company analyst Randy Watts asked CEO Danks about the issue that one of the "recurring complaints is that the customers get up-selled to this executive mentor."

    Danks responds by referring to these mentors as, "A great group of people". This executive mentoring is done by a company called PMI Coaching. PMI Coaching has almost as bad a reputation on the internet as iMergent. PMI Coaching up-sells services to many different "wealth building" industries including, but not limited to, internet and real estate.

    PMI Coaching has an unsatisfactory record with the Better Business Beureau [sic] of Salt Lake City. http://www.saltlakecity.bbb.org/commonreport.html?bid=2003044

    PMI used to be a division of Fortune Financial Systems (OTCBB:FFSY) which currently trades on the pink sheets at a price of .0001. Besides PMI Coaching, Fortune also was a partner is a get rich quick real estate operation in which they were partners with Steve Sitowski, former employee of William J McCorkle who is currently serving 23 years in prison for fraud among other charges. http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=12641

    PMI Coaching's record with the online site "The Rip Off Report" is just as bad as the one from Storesonline. Please read this thread to get an idea of who iMergent turns over its customers to. Click here

    &nbsp;

  • From a cached copy of a board at The Creative Investor - Real Estate Investing [Copied because cached copies can change, and they want you to become a member just to read the board - I can see this if you want to post, but to READ?]:

    John Beck and PMI coaching

    Yes PMI coaching is a company that sells business opportunities and the caoches [sic] are not "experts as they claim, they are just common guys that are paid by "appointment" and follow a curricula. I worked for a competitor of these guys and sold coaching for John Beck ted [sic] Thomas and others. Understand this, Whe[n] you buy a kit from an infomercial, the $40 or so investment is just the hook to get your info, these guys turn around and sell the "lead". Yes you become a lead, a very good one because if you purchased from an infomercial you got a degree of being seriuos [sic] and you want to risk it. You can find better info here at TC forums instead of paying $5000 plus.

    Check on ****Must Reach Senior Investor status before posting URL's*** (search under pmi ) adn [sic] you will see many people are unsatisfied. The only thing that I liked of working there was the commision [sic] check I got (I did not care if the guy I sold to made money or not). Utah is a hotbed for these companies.

    [My highlight -BS]

    The "competitor" was probably the one listed below.
     

  • Also from a cached copy of a board at The Creative Investor - Real Estate Investing

    PMI Coaching

    [2003-08-05] Me and my wife are currently interested in doing tax liens. We purchased the coaching from PMI for a great deal of money (at least to us) and was told it would take 3-5 bus days. Well business day 12 no software or program but did have 1 coaching session. What a joke. They said we needed to hand out business cards and look for investors. Great advise. I new [sic] we were going to be the investors but did not want to have to go out and look for run down or abandond [sic] property and then try to find the owner and try to purchase it if it had little work to be done. Also what does this have to do with tax liens nothing at all. I've learned more on my own and at the county collectors office than with a product I've never received.. My advice BE CAREFUL-and do your homework .

    [and - another posting - no [sic] markings here... too many]

    [2005-07-22] We recieved an phone call into our motel room..as Nick had to come into town to recieve radation treatments for lung cancer....He was told he had about 2 months to live.....I gues PMI figured that would be just enough time for us to do the course...The got Nicholas...84 year old senior in radation treament expected to pass on with 2 months...well...they got $6,495.00 out of our account....in Novemeber.....and in March after months of deliberation $2,495.00 was credited I THINK..and the balance of $4,000.000...we we never recieved anything or any coaching and called to make sure then did not take Nicholas and my money the next day...Mind you they called at 7 pm and than had about 5 other Super High Pressure Sales People call saying...GET THIS that we were chosen for the tv comerical..they even threated Nicholas and I...welll within 12 hrs I called to make sure they did not do this to an dieing person senior....But they did...they ran with the money out of our ATM card to our bank...and thay was 8 months ago...we can not make contaft so..I am going to the Attorney Gerneralll

    [My highlight. I didn't highlight the bottom entry, as MOST of it would have been. -BS]

    So,

    1. The first coaching session was "hand out business cards and look for investors"? I didn't know I should do that! (*dripping sarcasm*) DUH!
    2. They got an 84-year-old mentor with terminal cancer on radiation and two (2) months to live. They never received any coaching. They had "tag-team" sales people trying to sell them when they were trying to find out about their (and PMI's own, apparently, late, at that time, mentor's) money. Then they can no longer make contact. Sounds like a VERY reputable company that I'd like to work FOR and WITH! (*more sarcasm, here*)

While not a lot of links, and other than these, I could not find that much on them, be sure to read the Rip-Off report pieces (and all the rebuttal/follow-ups), I think this shows the character of the company. True, they DID, very recently, tell the BBB (of Utah) that they were going to implement some of the board's suggestions ... We will have to wait and see on this one, I guess.

Just be aware that they consider THEMSELVES a contracted direct marketing organization who MARKET business opportunity consulting services. Apparently, the "coaches/mentors" are sub-contractors, huh?

Mentoring of America

Mentoring of America, LLC aka HG Marketing, Additional DBA Names: Real Estate Riches, Provo Mentoring Group, Cedar Mentoring Group, Draper Mentoring Group, St George Mentoring Group (UT); aka John Beck Free and Clear Amazing Real Estate Profits (NH) dba Mentoring of America, LLC.

From the Utah BBB, it appears they have the same officers as Mentoring Institute, Inc., in California. Additional DBA Names: Money Mastery, T M I, The Mentoring Institute, Trading Your Way to Riches, Commodity & Options Mentor Institute.

NOTE: I have NOT searched for ALL of the DBA names through Google. I found enough (for my report) looking for "Mentoring of America". Please continue researching using these DBAs after you review what I found.

NOTE: If you came here directly, or from the page link at the top, and haven't read the above, yet, may I suggest you do so now? smiley - wink

The New Hampshire BBB reports five (5) complaints. On ALL of them it says "Company cannot be located. Mail returned and phone disconnected."

Company Websites

The BBB of Utah report states:

the company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to failure to respond to one or more complaints and or two or more otherwise unresolved complaints. However the business has resolved most complaints presented to the bureau.

It also reports:

This company appears to share common officers Mentoring Institute, Inc. located at 13063 Ventura Blvd in Studio City, California 91604. A separate report is available on this company at www.labbb.org.

Which shows at least four listings for the company (different addresses and different address spellings (Summary and Detail are the same report, just one's a ... Summary. Looking through the reports, I am assuming they are all the same, since it's based on the company ID, and they list them separately, so people can search on the address.)

These reports are for the compan(ies) located at:

They list a web address of http://www.tradingmentor.com, which doesn't appear to be valid/working when I tried to view it on 07/16/2006.

During a Google search for the company, I found the following:

 (Yes, these are all separate sites, not pages.)

I spent about an hour reviewing Google results for "Bright Builders" and stopped. I found a lot of decent information at each site. I don't know that I'd purchase anything from them. I just don't understand how a company that purports to be experts in building sales websites:

  1. Doesn't put descriptive Titles on the page (the ones that appear at the top of the window... and in most search engines) - Some don't have Titles at all, and some just say "Home Page", and don't include the site name.
  2. Uses dark text on dark background (that's what KIDS do!) - This occurs in SOME of their sites.
  3. Would promise to "mentor" people through building a site and then not provide ANY help.

According to information I found on the WebMarketingNow site, they have a strategy to rank higher in Google searches. I found them on PAGE SEVEN (7) of results searching for "Bright Builders". It appears their strategy doesn't work that well, huh?

Infomercial Companies Known to Use Mentoring of America, LLC

Reviews and Warnings

This section lists the sites where I found "negative" comments about the people and company, and/or the product. Some of the terms "sham", "scam", "scams", "flim-flam", "complain", "complaints", "rip", "rip-off", "fraud", "warning", similar words, and maybe just "review" were used in searching for negative comments.

WARNING: Be aware that some of the following sites may be attempting to sell their own or lead you into buying another product. If you consider their (or others') offers, at least do as much research on them as you would in looking for a new house, car or doctor before buying anything. Also, be sure to read and understand any company's Privacy Policies and Terms/Conditions, too. A "$$" indicates these sites.

Mentoring of America

Bright Builders

I could not find anything showing that Bright Builders is associated with Mentoring of America, except as web site builders and maybe hosts. Apparently, they've got their own detractors. The linkage I found is through the website, above (under Company Websites).

News

Mentoring of America

Bright Builders

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