I came across an interesting post from Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog: Most frequently visited websites - not what you’d expect

It is from April 2007, nevertheless it is interesting. It looks at the top 2000 domains but ranked by number of visits per month. The results were a little surprising.

F.e. info Google has been ranked as #15! Who was first?
Take a look!

Got this question: Why did you buy PPC Classroom?

Why?

Well, here are 3 Main reasons:

#1.)
I have Absolutely No Interest whatsoever to “Build a list”! I Hate writing newsletters!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s Not that I hate writing, I just hate writing when I “Must” do it! And with a newsletter you simply Have to do it very often otherwise your list will be ‘dead’.

I also have a hard time to withstand all those complaining idiots who after your Mailings, start complaining about spamming them Regardless they had to Double opt-in and had manually Confirm their subscription! Not to mention in each and every mailing there is a convenient Unsubscribe link where they can do it with one Click. Yet they prefer to lose more time going around writing all these complaints no matter your mailing list is managed by the Paid 3rd party professional company!

I personally believe one Can make money on the Net even without “squeezing” people for their email.

Which is Exactly what Jeremy Palmer – the man behind PPC Classroom and High Performance Affiliate Marketing - Quit Your Day Job did!

#2.)
I am getting tired of selling all these intangible = ‘unreal’ products Internet Marketing world is full of. I want to try to sell the ‘Real world’ physical products.

I see it all around me: still 95-99% of my friends, or people I meet, have No interest about some “info” products, nor do they even know about them. Yes, they Do go on the Net and Buy – actually some of my friends are quite ‘heavy’ users of Online shopping, but they buy computer accessories, DVDs, computers, health products, electronics, home improvement, even cars!

I have an experience in Online products but not very much of those ‘tangible’ items 95% of the people online are interested in.

And I don’t know about anybody else who is a better master like Jeremy Palmer who made all his hundreds of thousands a year Profits promoting these types of products.

#3.)
And so far I also have no interest at all to increase the amount of own info products. Opposite: I Want to Get rid of all My Own Products!

It used to be ok and fun to have own product, but since about a year ago I have such a bad experience with ‘customers’ who found out they can “have their cake and eat it too” that I want to get rid of the people who don’t value other person’s hard work. Nor do I have the nerves to deal with  Online Payment processors who issue the refund even when it’s clear it’s a scam. I don’t have such a Thick skin which is needed for Online selling of info-products these days.

Just an example of 1 of my products: It is a package which has nothing to do with Internet marketing. For couple of years I’ve been selling this package my ‘return rate’ has been around 0.5 – 1 % Max! Mostly for the technical inability of this market to deal/manage Online products. Ever since about 2006 the ‘refund’ rate jumped suddenly up to 13%! Although I haven’t changed anything, quite opposite I even Added to that package which is selling for such a ridiculous price you probably wouldn’t be able to find One book in an Offline store for such a price. Yet I get people requesting a refund 20 minutes after they downloaded the package with 10 products incl. market specific ebooks, scripts, games even videos!

So why should I go through these headaches?

Here again, Jeremy Palmer is a person who did all those big $$ Without his own product!

Yes, yes, I know he used to have (still has) one Info product: High Performance Affiliate Marketing - Quit Your Day Job ebook, but that was NOT how he made his big money. When he released his High Performance Affiliate Marketing e-book his gross sales already have been over a million dollars a year selling other peoples products as an affiliate!

BTW: High Performance Affiliate Marketing is one of the Very few e-books I’d given rating 5 out of 5!

There are also couple more of the other reasons I joined PPC Classroom but these are the Big 3 for me.

The answer is simple:

Because they have Absolutely Miserable Support service!

I’ve spent many hours trying to submit a request for Cancellation of a monthly subscription service - never able to submit even I used 2 different browsers, only to have my computer Crash at the end!

So from now on no matter Who or What is it I am Never Ever going to subscribe to anything which has a Clickbank recurring billing!

Of course I couldn’t find any phone number for CS listed on their Customer support pages.

Interestingly enough when you are a merchant who is selling just the one time offer they are extremely quick of issuing refund even if the ‘customer’ purchased the item 10 minutes ago, or regardless you can Prove you’ve sent that ‘customer’ 5+ support emails helping them with their ’supposed’ problems to which they never ever replied!

Ok, seems like my troubles with PPC Classroom product are Not over yet!

Ever since I went for the purchase on Sept 25, there have been problems I’ve never encountered before Online.

Just as for the recall of events:

• I’ve tried to order basically right when the site went Online on Sept 25, 2007. Had money taken from my CC twice, although supposedly no payment got to PPCC (read my first post)
• after a week of exchanging emails with Affiliate Classroom billing support and numerous phone calls to my bank the over $1,100 came back to my account
• I’ve bought again and got the 2nd confirmation of payment on Oct 4, 2007.
• Having not getting any info about the physical shipment of the product I’ve sent the email re: My Tracking ID from UPS to a Specified member of Customer service on Oct.9, 2007 as it has been recommended on PPC Classroom forum.
• Today is Oct 18, 2007 and I still haven’t gotten nor course nor ANY reply from Affiliate Classroom support.

And I live in Canada. Snail Mail from Central Europe comes to Canada in 1 week!
Yet it’s 2 weeks since they have taken money from my CC and No word from PPCC/AC

Yet according to the statement on their sales page:
“If after 30 days, you don’t find incredible value in PPC Classroom, you can return this product for a complete refund. No questions asked and no hard feelings. Take 30 days, test drive it, implement its powerful strategies - we know you won’t be sorry.”

So When exactly this 1 month period starts and ends? When they took money from my CC or when I actually get the Whole package I paid for?
Is This a PPC Classroom strategy how to reduce requests for refunds?

Not to mention it does get on my nerves losing the TIME Constantly having to login first into their website and then the forum to look for info and update, having to write posts about my experience, so Maybe - just “maybe” somebody would actually read and do something about it! (as I am Not the only one having these problems)
- not to mention losing the time of my life with customer support since Sept 25, - which makes 23 days already!

I’ve never lost so Much Time of my life with totally unproductive frustrating tasks

I Am Seriously Considering for asking my money back - since it seems I will not even get the chance to actually See and ‘Test drive’ the full product before my ‘trial’ period expires.

This is not the first time I had this miserable experience with Affiliate Classroom Customer “support”. [For those of you who are members of Wealthy Affiliate can read about my experience at their forum in my post from December 2006]

I bought this course because I Believe in Jeremy Palmer delivering - no, actually Over-delivering for his customers and subscribers. And for what I have had the opportunity to download for now, it’s Very very Good!

But I would be damned If I Ever buy anything from Affiliate Classroom nor would I recommend it to someone no matter “Who” is the author of the product “They” market!

As for the cont. of my story with PPC Classroom:

I called the CS department of TD Bank Visa couple of times the last week. Every time I got a different rep on line there was a different answer to my question: How could they take money from my account IF there was - supposedly - an issue with the merchant?

Finally, After over a Week! I got all the money back to my account!
But because the bank rep told me that they are ‘not sure’ if this won’t happen again I used another Credit card, and the order went through without a glitch.

As I mentioned in my previous post the lady at Affiliate Classroom support was very understanding and helpful, quick to reply to all my emails.

I am just still waiting for the extra bonus from the Affiliate whose link I have used to purchase PPC Classroom.

Well, and of course to catch up with the rest of the gang who was lucky their order went through in proper manner.