In July I went to a Click Income Seminar that was held here in Portland, Oregon. I saw the seminar advertised on TV. You know the ones. You can make $ a month? I normally never watch or take to heart any of the infomercials and just switch them off, but since I had been out of work for over a year and had at least a dozen applications out there for a job (I live in Oregon with the high unemployment rate) with no responses I figured what the heck. I'll find out what it was all about. So I went in the evening and listened to someone talk about how you could make a comfortable living setting up your online store for products and/or services working from home. The products are from their drop-shipping department. Which is fine because there are really a lot to chose from. The cost you ask? Only $99.00 to join, and get trained on their website. Then they try to sell you on signing up with "their" Merchant" account services. The cost? $2500.00 over a lock in contract of 3 years. So if you decide this isn't quite the biz you want to do, your still stuck in the contract at $70.00 a month for 3 years. Of course you do pay interest on it. You can sign up at any Bank for $29.00 per month or Paypal that just charges fees per transaction. They really weren't to pushy about it, so I didn't sign up. Thank goodness! The next morning I went to a free seminar with a speaker from someplace I can't remember, but he does have a successful online business and wanted to talk to you about it. I must tell you that I never felt pushed into really buying anything. But of course if you wanted to join the "Presidents" club it would cost $10,000.00. I guess your suppose to really make a lot more if you do... (sigh). Of course I just let my $99.00 ride and see what happens.
That night I received a call from the company welcoming me and I thought that was nice. The next day another person called, was very nice and asked if I was interested in making $3,000 to $5,000 montly. "It can be done", he said. We talked for awhile and I thought it over for a couple of days. Well I have always wanted to start a Gift Basket Business. Since I couldn't find a job and had already taken my 401K to have something to live off of until I did find one I figured "You'll never get anywhere if you don't take a chance just once in your life" I said to myself. Of course I didn't have $10,000 to join the "Presidents" program, but they said they would be willing to settle and take pretty much my last of my savings. $2500.00.
The last thing I heard this person say is congradulations! You will start making at least $3,000 to $5,000 monthly. We will have one of our mentors call and set up an appointment with you and schedule you for 10 sessions. Also the customer service area would call and set up 10 training sessions with you. Now I need to tell you that the Customer Service department called me the next day. They did follow through with that promise and more. I was trained and setup with my own website working from a template. I have nothing derogatory to say about them. However I finally called 2 months later to get a mentor to call me. (What happened to the $2000 to $3000 monthly earnings?) They set up phone appointments. One each week. Trust me when I tell you if you miss their phone call, you cannot get them to return your's again until the following scheduled appointment.
Here is what no one tells you:
That it takes at least 3 months to get your website out to the search engines. So your in limbo land until then. Can't sell anything yet unless you pay for pay per clicks to drive people to your website, but what happened to the $2000 - $3000 monthly earnings?
The way you can make your $2000 - $3000 is from referrals off your website. You know kinda like the pyramid thing. So if someone is referred to Click Income by hitting a banner button from your website to setup a website with them, then a Click Income sales person calls that customer and tries to talk them into the same thing I was talked into. Where the big money for you comes in is if they sign up for the $10,000 Presidents plan or for a Merchant account. However, and this a big however, there is no absolutely no way for you to know if someone from your site has signed up with them. My mentor, and I have had 3 of them, told me to put an ad in the paper advertising free website offers. You know the kind of papers that doesn't cost you much to advertise in. Like the one here in Portland is the "Nickle Ads". When I told my Mentor that they wanted at least $400 for a one week ad his response was, "Why did you tell them you were a business? Just tell them you are someone who wanted to be a nice person and let people know through this add (that still costs money to advertise in) that there is this website (give them your web address) that offers a free website." "So you want me to lie and list false advertising?" I said. He told me it wasn't false advertising. "Your giving them a link to us that will sign them up for a free website. This will drive more traffic to your site as well." Ok, I did what he said for a while until the paper found out what I was doing and cut me off. Well, that's a good way to ruin your reputation when your starting.
There is a place on their site that tells you how many people have signed up however. But you can never reach these people to find out if they paid anything for it. You can't get the information from Click Income. They just keep telling you that they are setting up the site so you can get that information.
To this date (1 1/2 yrs later) I have made $0 on any commissions that was told I would be getting. All I have done is spend money to get things started which is okay because you have to for advertising and such. But thats not my gripe. My gripe is these companies such as this one should not be telling people that you can make a monthly income of $2000 - $3000. If you have followed all their rules and instructions and nothing is happening, then at least a partial refund should be in order.
All I can say is I have learned from this experience and thought I would share it with any of you who are interested.
I am finally working 40 hrs again after 2 years off. Still have my website. Sales are low but climbing ever so slowly only when I pay for the advertising.
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