It all started when I bought a $10.00 e-book from The Rich Jerk.com on how to make money online in May. Within 30 minutes of my purchase, a salesman (said his name was Brett; probably not his real name) from Vision Learning called me pushing a training program, but not stating the price.
When I asked how much the training course cost, he said "how much do you want to make per month". I replied that I wanted to make a minimum of $10,000 per month. I went on to explain that I had a website that wasn't making any money, I had experience building websites, and I needed to learn how to market on the Internet.
The salesman's response was: "for a $10,000 investment we will teach you how to make $20,000 a month online". The salesman went on to tell me that the skills necessary were taught by mentors who already had successful online busineses and that the training was self paced. I told him that was great because I was unemployed and ready to work 15 hours a day.
Furthermore, he explained that $10,000 would buy me 30,45-minute phone training sessions with a mentor, and that beyond that, they would stick with me until my financial objectives for the business were met. He also told me that the price was all inclusive and I wouldn't need to spend another dime on the business.
I vividly recall asking him why someone with a successful online business would want to help someone like me. He said "because the Rich Jerk website needs a continual fresh supply of success stories to lure more clients". After numerous phone calls, he convinced me to spend the 10 grand.
The first thing the salesman did was have me write my objectives and email them to him; which I did.
I was assigned a mentor name Deborah and away I went. The first thing I discovered is that it was not self-paced as advertised, because the "mentor" had only 45 minutes per week to spend with each client. I was also informed that I would have to build a new website using the Vision LE site builder (which costs $39.95 per month for hosting).
My Mentor also recommended that I use their designers to make the site background and header (about $150), and use their business people to build a comprehensive business plan (another $1650).
I listened to the mentor and did exactly as she told me every step of the way. During my second month on the project, Deborah quit working for Vision Learning. I was left high and dry with a half finished website and no mentor.
I was assigned a new mentor by the name of Kody. I spent our first 45 minute session showing him the website and explaining to him what was going on as he was completely unprepared. The second session, he didn't call or cancel it or anything.
I tried to call him with no success and he did not answer my emails. For all I know, he quit working there as well.
Next, a lady named Jodi contacted me and assigned me a new mentor by the name of Jo. Her idea of mentoring was spending the 45 minute session (that cost me about $333.00 per session mind you) having me navigate to Wikipedia and reading word definitions out loud on the phone... Absurd.
After a few sessions with Jo, I complained to Jodi and she assigned me a fourth mentor by the name of Darren. Unfortunately, Darren was too busy to learn about my site or the monetization of such, and he just suggest websites for me to use. I tried a couple of his ideas... Total fail (plus another $200 to Vision Learning for directory registration fees).
By now, I've had it with the entire project and with Vision Learning and their people. I called them up and ask how many sessions I had used and how many I had left. I was told I had used exactly half of my "sessions".
I emailed Jodi on October 1 and requested a $5000 refund for the 15 "sessions" I had remaining because I didn't want them. She responded via email by saying how much her and her boss liked my site and they could't understand why it wasn't making money.
They requested my Google analytics login to evaluate the site traffic. Again she emailed me back and told me how much they liked my website.
On October 4, I told them I would sell it to them for $12,574.75 since that's how much I invested in it monetarily; not counting four months of my life wasted. I explained that if they didn't want the website, I would be satisfied to receive a $5000 refund for services that were never rendered (unused mentoring sessions).
I did not receive a response from Jodi, so I sent her another email on October 12; no response. On the morning of October 13, I sent my request to her purported boss (Marshall) and copied Jodi. I have not heard from anyone at Vision Learning.
NOTE: To date, the website has made one sale for a commission of $0.67.
I highly recommend to everyone that you not do business with this organization. They have dishonest sales practices, the so called "mentors" are inexperience and incompetent, and they are unresponsive to customer requests.
I am filing this complaint; my next step is a complaint to the Better Business Bureau, and if necessary, a lawsuit.
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