"Customer Poachers, And Other Online Miscreants"

I had another article in the works. Then I saw a couple of things that reminded me that I've been meaning to write this one for a while.

It's about one of the sneakiest and sleaziest tricks that get pulled on people online, and it appears in all sorts of guises.

Poaching.

No, not eggs. Customers.

....

So, there I was, minding my own business and typing away at an article on a new(ish) approach to list building. I check my email, and here's a note from a friend asking about an offer someone sent him.

The basic idea is, if the people who "JV" on it sell this $10 product, they get 100% of the sale.

Sounds okay, if the product is worth it. Most of us will recommend stuff without the commission if it's a good deal for the people buying.

Nothing to be alarmed about there, right?

Well, it turns out there's a bit more to it than that. The process is not quite so fair as it seems.

It works like this:

You email your list about the offer. When they get to the site in question, they don't see that offer. They see a "name squeeze" page.

For those who may not be familiar with the term, that's a page that requires folks to sign up for something before they can get to the information (in this case, a salesletter) they came to see.

There's a place for that tactic, but this ain't it.

Assuming they sign up, they then see a salesletter for a $30 product. If they buy that, they see the promo for the $10 product. If they buy that, you get paid.

Well ain't that cute?

....

Here's why that's bad for you.

He gets the most active people from your subscribers - the ones who are reading what you send and are willing to ask for more information. Those now go on his list.

Then, he builds a customer list by pitching them on something they weren't expecting. The ones who buy are good for him. The ones who don't are bad for you. They know they were deceived.

Then, in return for sending him people who buy twice in one visit, and for burning your credibility with the rest of the folks who looked at the offer, he'll give you 25% of the profits. (If they only buy once, you get nothing.)

What a freaking scam!

....

You'll occasionally see experienced people who'll fall for this, because they didn't look at the process or consider how it would affect them. Usually, only the novice will fall for this kind of siphoning.

There are two kinds of people who propose offers like this. The very new, who mix tactics without understanding them, and the very slimy, who know exactly what they're doing and are willing to screw you to get what they want.

Neither person is good to get involved with.

Yes, you can "educate" the newbies but the odds are, when something is this carefully slanted toward the seller, they're not really newbies.

They're slime in newbie clothing.

Just say no to slime.

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By the way... If the same offer is made to you, but the terms and the entire process are presented honestly and up front, it's not dishonest. You'd still be stupid to go for it most of the time, but it's not unethical.

Just slimey.

....

Okay, so that email got me distracted and ticked off. I took a break to refocus and head off to the Warrior Forum.

Not always the smartest move when you're distracted.

I see a thread there discussing a recent change at a paid service. This place sells hosted pop-ups, and they added a little note to the pops delievered for their paying customers that says "Powered by adimpact.com."

They're the folks behind "Instant Attention."

If you're using "Instant Attention" pop-ups, you may want to check your sites. At least one person reports that they also changed the design he'd been using.

So, they change the terms on existing paid accounts in a way that steals traffic and potential customers from their own customers.

The "fix" for this? Pay twice as much for an account that doesn't show those ads.

Form your own conclusions.

....

How is this different from the model Hotmail used?

Hotmail made their famous tagline the price of a free account. They didn't make it the free ride on paid accounts.

....

I got to thinking of other, similar situations I've seen recently.

For example, several people selling resale rights to software. When you paid, you discovered that what you really got to "sell" was a PDF with a link to a registration page where your customers were supposed to give their name and email address to the creator of the software.

Yeah. You make the effort to market the product and they get your customer list. And the customer list of every other person marketing the product.

One gentleman that I know did this and, when asked about it, said he was collecting the data so he could notify people about new versions.

Fair enough. I asked if the information was going to be used for any other purpose.

I got no answer.

Hurm.

....

In another case, a friend of mine paid $50,000 to give resale rights to an ecommerce suite to his customers. The people he paid set up a similar situation to the one above, but they added the twist that they only guaranteed the software would work on their own hosting service.

They tried to get this guy to get all of his customers to send them their customers. As a captive audience.

That's serious slimage.

....

I bought resale rights to some videos a while back. What I got was an 8 page PDF. I was told that the only thing I could distribute was that PDF.

It was 6 pages of ads for the guy's other products, one page with the URL for the videos, and a full page bio of the guy.

The main focus of the ads was to get the people who bought the videos to sign up for his resale rights notification list.

Yum.

This sort of thing happens a lot with resale rights products. I'm not sure if the producers assume we're stupid, or just figure that the folks who are smart enough not to sell someone else's ads are the types who also don't ask for refunds.

I think they assume we're all too dumb to notice.

....

I'm sure there will be some people who will think this is about not wanting to share or being afraid of competition or whatever their excuse is to justify their use of these tactics.

Gong. Thanks for playing.

This is a warning. Keep your eyes open for stuff like this. Do not fall for it. You can't afford the damage it will do to your business, as a buyer or seller.

Play straight. It's more fun.

And it doesn't make you enemies.

Paul