One night, while browsing the web, I came across an add that I had seen before, only this time it was a little different. It had the word scam in it, so I decided to click on it to see if they were indeed telling about a scam or what. The add was about a mom who supposedly makes several thousand dollars a month working from home. When I clicked on it, up popped a web page saying you could make extra money working from home and all the computer knowledge you need is to be able to check emails. That seemed simple enough, so I decided to check it out and what they said they were going to do was teach you how to post links to websites for $15 per link. Also, you could call a phone number they supplied for a ’free’ consultation with a business advisor. All this program cost was $99 with a money back guarantee. You just had to give it a serious effort for 20 days. That sounded fair enough. So, I decided to try it because all I had to loose was $99. Besides, it had a money back guarantee.
The next day, after work, I got on the website to check out what this thing was all about. I hadn’t been looking at it for more than 10 minutes when I got a call from the so called “business advisor” (he was really just a con-man posing as a business advisor) that I was supposed to call. I didn’t even have a chance to look at the $99 program when this guy interrupted me. They have to call you pretty quick or you’ll find out that the $99 program you bought was just an eBay selling course. It had nothing to do with posting links to websites at all. It caught me off guard when he called. But he sounded like a nice fellow, (but don’t all con-men) so I went ahead and talked to him. He started talking to me about money and goals and those types of things. For instance, wouldn’t I like to pay my house off in 5 years. According to him, that should be one of my goals. He was just working me so I would think the program they were selling could accomplish those goals. He was supposed to weed out the people that wouldn’t fit with the program because, supposedly, they only had two or three spots available in my area. WHAT A LOAD! When he finally finished his line of bull and figured that I would be a good fit, he was going to have his manager call and give me the details of how I could fulfill those lofty goals.
After talking to the manager for a good while, and being led to believe he could be trusted, I told him my credit history and even the available balances on my credit cards. That might have been partly to see if I had enough personal credit to get a business up and running, but probably the main reason was to see if I could pay for the program he was selling. He went over some other stuff and then it was time to tell me what this grand program cost. Option A cost $9540 and included 14 weeks of 30 minute ‘coaching’ calls from your very own personal instructor plus total search engine optimization and unlimited reactive coaching. Option B cost $8440 and included 12 weeks of the same useless coaching calls plus ½ search engine optimization and unlimited reactive coaching. Third was Option C. It cost $6540 and with it came only 10 weeks of coaching calls plus unlimited reactive coaching. And somewhere in all this I found out that this program was Power Seller College’s course in selling on eBay. You also have access to Power Seller College’s worthless website with all these options. I have since found out that those ‘coaching’ calls are charged at $300 per 30 minute call. There is no way they can justify that charge for what a ’student’ gets out of it. At least not for this ’student’. And if you have to contact your coach for the reactive coaching, there’s no telling what they charge for that. This whole program is just a BIG RIP-OFF.
I feel like I’ve been violated and taken advantage of by these people. The con-men that I mentioned earlier apparently don’t work directly for Power Seller College, but for a company called VIP Team. If you make the mistake of signing up for this pitiful excuse of an eBay selling course, they give you three days to look at it and if you don’t think you can do it or don’t want to do it, you can cancel. After that three days, they claim they don’t give refunds for any reason and all sales are final. So if you don’t cancel within three business days of signing up, you will think you’re stuck with this outrageously expensive program and your only options are to do the course and hope you make your money back that way, or just loose your money.
After I looked at the course, I didn’t think it was something I could do or would even want to do, so I tried to cancel my enrollment within the three day limit. I signed up on a Friday and sent my cancellation request Sunday by email. Just to make sure they got it, I sent another email Monday when I got home from work. Shortly after I sent that email, I got a call from the manager/con-man that talked me into that ridiculous program in the first place. He wasn’t about to loose the sale I made him work so hard for. He talked to me for about an hour trying to convince me that this program really worked and it could help me meet my goals and gain confidence among other things. He also told me that I wouldn’t have to make my credit card payments out of my own pocket because my new company would be able to make them. That was a BIG LOAD! Unfortunately for me, I let him talk me into continuing on with this foolishness. I was in the program for six months and never made any money using Power Seller College’s tools and resources. I was conned into signing up for this expensive pile of dung in the first place, then I was conned AND lied to so I would remain signed up. This was nothing more than a bait and switch scam to lure gullible people into giving them a big chunk of money. I wonder why a legitimate company that claims such success from its students would have to rely on such a deceptive business practice to get new students.
Power Seller College makes the claim that since they don’t sell their course to anyone, they aren’t responsible for how VIP Team recruits students. They claim they just offer their “services” to VIP Team to sell. The fact is, they are benefiting from VIP Team’s practices, so that makes them just as guilty.
Maybe Power Seller College does have some success stories with students that really want to sell on eBay and have some kind of online retail store. And maybe they actually thought $6500 to $9500 was a good investment. If you’re someone who thinks they might want to have an e-business and start by selling on eBay and you have $6500 to $9500 to blow on a ‘college’ course, maybe Power Seller College is for you. But if you’re like me and had never bought or sold anything on eBay before, save your money and find some other way to make extra cash. EBay is way overrated. But, if you made the same mistake I did and signed up for this overpriced Power Seller College course, then you go look at it only to find out there is way too much involved and you don’t think you can do it, or don’t want to do it, and try to cancel, DON’T LET THEM TALK YOU BACK INTO IT. They will surely call and try to convince you they are your friend and they’re only trying to help you, but they aren’t your friend and who they are trying to help is themselves to your money. Please don’t let them do it! You will regret it!!!
0 comments