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I was Wrong! Free Blog Course Not a Scam

January 4th, 2008 · 7 Comments

Wrong

 Okay I can admit when I am wrong and in this case I guess I may have jumped to a conclusion too soon. In my post “A Free Course on Blogging - Scam!“. I wrongly accused Mark Joyner of intentionally trying to scam people who agreed to review Simpleologys’ new blogging course.

 This mostly stems from the sign up process. First they ask you to place this code on your site:




I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

  • The best blogging techniques.
  • How to get traffic to your blog.
  • How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

(You will notice that I left the links enabled this time)

 After which you verify that the code is on your site and then go through the sign up procedure. This is where Simpleology totally turned me off because they attempted to do an up sell. However the way in which they try to do the up sell reminded me way to much of how we built sites when I worked for an internet porn company. This caused me to immediately recoil. That is what lead me to write my post that the Simpleology offer was yet another scam.

 Well shortly after that post was published Mark Joyner left me a comment. Unfortunately it got caught in my spam filter (this seems a little bit ironic to me). I only look through my spammed comments about once a week and never thought nothing of it. However Mr. Joyner was not going to be called a scam artist so easily. He no doubt searched my site and found my contact form on my about page and e-mailed me this e-mail.

Hi Ben,

 

Just wondering why you didn’t post my reply to your blog post. I think your
determination of our simpleology blogging course as a scam is based on a clear
misunderstanding. I’m happy to discuss any issues with you and clarify
things.

Further, I noticed that in your blogrush review you say “all you have to do is
give up some space on your blog” yet you don’t have a problem with blogrush
calling itself free. One of your complaints was that we “weren’t really free”
because we ask you to post about us on your blog in exchange. Blogrush says
“add your blog posts - FREE” but by your definition it’s not.

Yet, you didn’t have this problem with them in your review. In fact you were
glowing.

Maybe I’m missing something?

I’m hoping this is a real person here who is willing to listen to reason.

All the best,

Mark Joyner



 Well I was surprised and a little shocked to get the e-mail. Now I wasn’t sure if he was baiting me or what but I tend to consider myself reasonably intelligent (I don’t think they just hand out Master Degrees on whims, but I could be wrong) and thought hey some controversy might be good to stir up some more traffic. So I e-mailed him back and made sure his comment was posted (that is only fair that he can defend himself). Well he took the time to help me navigate to the blog course.

  I completed the blog course and will be reviewing it in another post. I have to say that this indeed is a legit Free blog course offer. Free in the sense that you spare some space on your page for Simpleologys’ code to refer more people to them and can spare about an hour and forty five minutes to take the course.

 This post is not intended to be an apology. I still feel the up sell in the manner that Simpleologydoes in this case is not quite honest. But hey I am not a marketeer. I am just a coder and if my professional life has taught me anything, marketeers and coders rarely see eye to eye. I was wrong the Blog Course is indeed free. I even noticed that they have also given me access to Simpleology 101. I am not sure if this is in error or not, but I hope it isn’t as I am curious about this Simpleology.

 I am really even considering given this course a try to. Well Mr. Joyner I hope this proves to you that I am indeed a real person who was willing to listen to reason.



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Tags: Blogging · Tutorials

7 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Nicole // Jan 4, 2008 at 8:31 am

    Mh, haven’t checked it yet - but WHAT exactly does this course do?

    And hey, at least YOU know where to find your Spam comments.
    I am still a bit lost in that regard over at b2.
    I can’t even delete blacklisted words.
    And there are some harmless ones on there :S

  • 2 no imageMark Joyner (Who am I?) // Jan 4, 2008 at 1:55 pm

    Hey, thanks - you are indeed real and a gentleman :-) If you would like to provide me some feedback about what you didn’t like about the upsell process I’ll be happy to consider it. I’m not sure what’s dishonest about it … It gives people a very common offer: “here’s a chance to buy something else now, but if you navigate away from the page you won’t be given this offer again.” Which is in fact the case - you won’t be given that same offer again (unless someone spoofs us and tries to sign up as a different person - nothing we can do there). But I’m open for feedback - something rubbed you the wrong way and I’d like to learn from your perspective. We’re hell-bent on quality here and always wanting to improve things. Thanks again for being reasonable. I hope to learn from this exchange. MJ

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  • 3 no imageBen (Who am I?) // Jan 4, 2008 at 5:44 pm

    Nicole - I have a review on the Blog Course due to be published on Jan 7 2008. If you can hold off that long great, if not drop me and e-mail and I will give you a brief summary.

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  • 4 Nicole // Jan 5, 2008 at 6:04 am

    Nope, can hold on for that long :)

    I rather have an upsell than a small note somewhere after I payed for a service via credit card and a small email one year later that easily ends up in my spam folder, that my account is expiring soon and when I NOT delete my account it will book it again from my CC.
    I caught it in time, but I sure as heck will NOT do that again…ggrrrr….

  • 5 no imageBen (Who am I?) // Jan 5, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    I agree with that, I am very hesitant to give CC information out online.

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  • 6 no imageMIke (Who am I?) // Jan 6, 2008 at 3:52 pm

    Now I’m very curious as to the value of the course. Can’t wait for your review.

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  • 7 Blogging School - a Free Course on Blogging | Tenacious Creations // Jan 7, 2008 at 5:57 am

    [...] I was Wrong! Free Blog Course Not a Scam [...]

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