In November of 1997 Guthy-Reeker Blew into Minnesota and invited small business owners and individuals by mail to come to a seminar that would change our life.
It was a two hour deal the first time and They were all very impressive to listen to.
They had very well dresssed people with huge resumes and expertise and an amazing technical show.
After the first seminar we were told we needed to sign a sheet to agree to come back for the next two days. I did.
They talked non-stop about how great Guthy-Renker was and how they were going to make their mall a household name.
Choice Mall was the scene of the future and they would make sure of it.
They promised their company would make Choicemall THE mall on the internet because they had the resources and the know how.
We were all shown these very impressive packets of information which showed us how to resell the pages and how to market the pages to our community, along with videos that re-iterated the stuff in the packets.
All of which we would recieve with the purchase of our web pages.
They said that buying web pages in Choice mall was like buying expensive real estate and that we could leave it to our children as an inheritance.
We could keep them for the rest of our lives becuase they were valuable just like real estate.
They said Choicemall would always hold it's value because they would make Choicemall a houshold name like kleenex or Coke a Cola.
They said they would have bill boards, commercials and magazine advertising Choice Mall across the country. Minnesota would know who Choicemall was.
By the time the two days were up all of us were mesmerized, I believed them and so did the hundreds of others.
After all this was the infomercial king Guthy-Renker they had to know what they were doing.
Then the pressure was on, they wanted us to spend at a minimum $2000 for a simple web page, plus we had to pay to keep it running every month, plus we had to pay yearly to keep it registered, plus we had to pay every time we wanted somthing changed, plus we had to pay to get it designed.
The cost increased with each web page.
I spent $11,980 for 20 Web pages. I told them I didn't have the money and the pressure increased, do you have a mortgage, can you borrow from a family member, do you have insurance you can cash in.
I said no to them all because I am on disability and didn't have any other income.
I did however have the last of my fathers inheritance and I could get it next month, I asked if I could buy the pages then instead.
Then they said I could post date a check, this is the only time I could buy these pages so I can't pass up a deal like this etc... So I wrote a post dated check for the amount.
I had just written a book and believed I could put it on the site and make money. I hadn't had it published yet and I was going to by a publisher that did it one book at a time.
I tried to sell the pages and never sold one. And I did get my book up on the site but never got a bite.
They said we didn't need to worry about marketing the mall they would do that but if we were going to sell the pages then we needed to market them.
After the six months of never hearing or seeing any advertising being done I pulled my book off the page becuase I couldn't afford to keep paying them.
I waited to see how long before I started seeing Choicemall advertised. It never was, never!
I waited a total of 7 years. Finally I had had enough of the waiting and wrote them a letter explaining this same event to them and that I wanted my money back and the money I lost in sales from my book.
I recieved notice from them that they had sold Choicmall two years after they had their main event, to Lycos. That they did indeed spend over 2 million in advertising.
I was never notified of the sale of Choicemall and as an owner of the pages you would think I should be.
They said I had opportunity to get a refund and didn't. I say if It was available then it should be now.
I didn't make a deal with Lycos I made a deal with Guthy-Renker.
As I researched I found that they did not promote Choicemall but rather Guthy-Renker Products in Choicemall.
Today, Choicemall does still exist however there are only 32 business and half are Guthy-Renkers products. Out of the one hundred or so in that seminar that bought pages none are present.
Guthy-Renker Lied and promised it's way into millions of dollars across the country and all of us have been scammed who bought into the mall by this company.
We believed them because of who they were and they took advantage of us all because we didn't have the knowledge they did about the internet or marketing and businss.
I filed as duty a complaint with the BBB and they responded in like manner as the certified letters I sent to the owners of the company.
They blame the internet crash and push the responsiblity of the mall on Lycos.
As of yet I have not recieved any further response after I replied to their BBB response to me demanding a refund.
0 comments