Slashdot Mirror
Calling Video Professor a Scam
palmerj3 writes in to give some wider attention to a piece on Techcrunch today in which Michael Arrington reacts to Video Professor's desperate attempts to shut him up after he called Video Professor a scam in a piece syndicated by the Washington Post. As described by Arrington, the ways the company's site operates (differently depending on where a visitor comes from) are strongly reminiscent of the practices a Senate committee recently condemned. (Here is a detailed example of another, similar scam, from a not-naive victim. Video Professor's tactics sound even more deceptive.) Video Professor seems to react with belligerence, not to mention legal threats, towards any hint of criticism. Please share any direct experiences you have with this outfit.
Eat my shorts slashdot !!
you too prof.
He's bringing his Chicago game!
who ends every commercial with a pleading "Try my product?"
if you ask me, a tacky name like "video professor" is more than enough evidence of a scam.
weinersmith
For those who aren't going to RTFA... The article is about Facebook/MySpace games and the deceptive practices used to entice users to buy into offers for in game currency. Not that the actual Video Professor teaching tool is a scam.
not only is there a *Pay up to $9.95 USD for shipping & processing and they act like the old CD music clubs.
Ordered a disk from them in 2005 as part of another promotion I think (one of those complete X deals). I never got the disk as it was improperly addressed, they dropped off my apartment number, so it was returned to sender, but I got a lovely $70 charge on my CC a month later. I called to complain and they offered to resend out the disk at first, but I finally got them to refund the charge. Ended up working out OK, but again, that was a few years ago.
Seriously, I know I could just google it but damnit slashdot, this sounds like a typical example of an editor knowing about a subject that a submission happens to be about yet most likely the average slashdot users doesn't have a clue as to what/who the fuck "Video professor" is.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
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Is that gaming market is doing a great job of trying to implode on itself. Seriously, if the way it works is the games that participate in offerbot scams are the successful ones... Well then I don't see it having a long term future. After all, there are TONS of PC games that are not that way, be they web based Flash games or retail games or whatever. There are more games than you can play in a lifetime out there that aren't like this. If this is what the gaming scene on Facebook is, my guess is that it'll implode and disappear in a couple years.
When I complained, they gave me a free credit report from their partners at freecreditreport.com. I don't know what this guy is complaining about.
What the fuck are you blathering about? This summary makes as much sense as a christian.
They used to show V/P ads a lot during the 1 to 2 AM slot when South Park airs here. I've never thought much about these ads, because I'm a Linux user and they would probably be of 0 use to me.
I would however question any ads that run in the middle of the night. Most of them seem sleazy, especially those ones about calling to "hook up with singles". Some of us stay up all night to avoid having to deal with people, ya' know? :)
Yes, the idiot is known to do bad business. Sadly if we start shutting down corrupt businesses we will shut down the American economy. We might have to shut down most state governments as well.
What a great idea.
Lets do it!
I tried out the Photoshop package. It actually has a lot of info and tutorials in there. However, from watching and reading ads, it seemed that it would be a reasonable price. I wasn't notified of the nearly $200 charge for it. I called theem and told them it was a rip-off and false advertising. They gave me my money back AND let me keep the course. That really surprised me.
I'm actually in the middle of trying to figure out if an offer I recently received is genuine. I've not been asked to send out money, just use my brain and solve a problem involving lighting. Couple of guys from the UK and AUS found some postings of mine on a horticultural website, sent me an e-mail about a week ago, and now I've got all sorts of documents and photographs of the stuff they're wanting to do but need an acting lighting engineer for.
I've had e-mail, I've had phone conversations. I'm asking for a face-to-face now. I'd find it hard to believe that scammers would spend so much money, especially when there are far easier fish to catch. Flying from both AUS and UK would be rather expensive, I'd imagine, and well outside of a typical scammer's pocket potential. I also find it hard to believe that any scammer would send me so much valuable information, either. Unfinished facilities, experimental setups, etc.
Of course, this could be a pretty ballsy high-level scam. But then the guys say they've got an NDA for me to sign for the face-to-face with them and a contract manager.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
His appeal is that he makes a complicated machine, a computer, seem easy to use and he'll make it easy for you. I actually have talked a couple of people who have done business with these folks (I'd elaborate but Slashdot has a problem with anonymous proxies - yeah, like posting as an AC cuts it). They are high school graduates at best, very intimidated by computers, and many times, they have to use a computer at work and they're scared of losing their jobs over it or they're older people who want to keep in touch with kids and grandkids over the internet. Keep in mind that not everyone out there is as comfortable with computers as we are.
As aside note, I woner if this was there when the lournalists looked at the site..
After your 10-day free trial, if you decide to keep the complete set, we'll conveniently bill your credit card just $289.95.
- this is on the fron page of his site.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
type business. Now Video Professor sells a series of Tutorial Movies on CDs that show how to use a Windows software product or Windows itself or some Web Site like eBay. Like the "X of the Month Club"s the first one is free for X days and if not sent back and order is canceled new Video CDs are sent and the person's credit card is charged.
Calling it a "scam" is very strong words, and they have sued people who say that. It is a business and the terms on the TV commercials are in small print, and the EULA the user clicks on explains it is a membership in a club to purchase Video CDs for various software products.
The Average Slashdot member doesn't need Video Professor because we usually just use search engines like Google to figure out how software or web sites work. These Video Professor CDs are marketed towards the luddites and people with little to no computer skills and open up a video in Microsoft Media Player. The type of people who don't bother to read the EULA or know that it is a membership or trial offer. So you could say that Video Professor preys on the unskilled and the weak, but legally they have a legal contract with them via the EULA they click agree on via their web site or via the Phone Orders. If it is a legal agreement and legitimate business it is not necessarily a scam, it might be unethical or immoral or appear to be wrong in some way but it is still legal. It is as legal as those "Book of the Month" or "CD of the Month" businesses.
You'll actually find the Internet full of such offers and such companies. But Video Professor airs TV commercials targeted at people who don't seem to understand how a computer works much less how a trial membership works.
I hereby challenge the free and open source community to make a serials of software tutorials for various Windows operating systems, Windows software, web sites, etc and provide those videos free via downloads or web site streaming to engage and or challenge the Video Professor company, and provide free alternatives that people on Slashdot and other technical web sites can refer to our friends and relatives who might get taken in via Video Professor, and instead we can redirect them to the FOSS web site of software tutorial videos or download them and burn our own FOSS Software Professor CD-R disks and give them to them for free.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
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Honest, I used video professor to learn to sell on Ebay and not I am making $10,000 a month and living the life I have always dreamed of. Thanks video professor!
If it isn't broke, tinker with it till it is!
I hereby challenge the free and open source community to make a serials of software tutorials for various Windows operating systems, Windows software, web sites, etc and provide those videos free via downloads or web site streaming to engage and or challenge the Video Professor company, and provide free alternatives that people on Slashdot and other technical web sites can refer to our friends and relatives who might get taken in via Video Professor, and instead we can redirect them to the FOSS web site of software tutorial videos or download them and burn our own FOSS Software Professor CD-R disks and give them to them for free.
The F/OSS community doing a Windows training video? Ahahah ....OK, wavy lines...wavy line....wavy line,,,,,
Start of video....
Enter guy with black hair, black goatee, horns, pitchfork, and dressed in red.
"Hi, I'm Satan and I'm here to teach you about my Operating System : Windows. Using this OS will automatically give your everlasting soul to me. Now to begin....."
Every other frame will be a quick frame that says:
F/OSS is the GOOD in the World. Linux is your salvation!
Please excuse the typos. For some reason my spell check on Firefox isn't working on this Fedora 12 box. ????
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
This reminds me of all those High School car washes you see. They have sings that say "Free Car Wash", but then they usually have another sign sitting there saying "All Proceeds go to Couger High Cheerleaders!" and it like, uh what proceeds, it's free!
But I go anyway and "PAY" for my "Free" car wash. If only because I'll never got that close to actual boobs in my real life.
Hold on a second.... "Mom! Poop bucket!!"
Ok, I have to go. But, yeah total scam.
My ex tried this a while back without asking me.
She started trying to cancel it within two weeks.
It took over 3 months before they would actually cancel it, and that was like pulling teeth with tweezers.
She must have sent 20 emails and spent 40 hours on the phone trying to get them to cancel.
That is either Massive incompetence, or total scam.
I really don't care which, but I'd advise you to not use Video Professor.
Besides, their stuff is really basic. You'd be better off taking an introductory course at your local college, or just checking out stuff at your local library.
(Either of those options will be cheaper as well.)
Video Professor sounds like a perfectly viable product without resorting to tactics like these. Loads of people are scared of computers. Why make a bad name for yourself with scammy practices when you actually have something to sell?
NoYob quoted text from www.videoprofessor.com and wrote "this is on the front page of his site". Apparently one of the tricks of the trade is to vary the nature and composition of the landing page, depending on how you got there (referrer) and/or by geolocation of your IP address. If this is the case, we can't reliably tell somebody what they'll see on the front page of the site, can we?
on the ball with another useless who gives a FUCK story. That if your on slashdot, you better already be well aware this shit is a scam. If you don't know well hand in your card.
There's an alternative: Professor Wikipedia is not a scam.
This man, in my book, isn't much better than the Video Professor in the ethics department.
With a southern drawl...
Buy muh product
According to many accounts posted on the web, it's difficult/impossible to cancel, and it takes months to receive your $80+ refund for a returned DVD.
uh, parent is unintentionally NOT OFFTOPIC this time
He works for Claria
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
From one of the related articles:
""I personally do not believe that you can be anonymous and bash people and get away with it under the First Amendment," he said. "I will stay with this case, and I will get the names that I am requesting. I will pursue this until the Supreme Court tells me I can't get them."" -John Scherer, President & CEO of Video Professor.
-Sounds like another Bill Gates in the making.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
It's a TERRIBLE fucking scam.
It does detail in explicit detail everything they're doing. You have unlimited time to review the conditions. So scam? No not really. Deceptive marketing? Absolutely.
"Deals" like these have been the status quo for decades. Should they be illegal? Yes, but given current contract law, try and figure out a way to band them, win a nobel prize.
Consumers who ignore the find print deserve what they get, and get what they deserve.
And I am not a scam. The scam is the real estate branch of the business dept. Those fuckers should be in jail.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
s/band/ban/
First of all, your ignorance is downright supernatural in itself. Very VERY few Christians believe that the Earth is 6000 years old. But since you seem to think that Christians are so ignorant, maybe you should tell the modern scientists that base their knowledge on the science that came from these guys:
Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1627)
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
Robert Boyle (1791-1867)
Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907)
Max Planck (1858-1947)
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
All believed in God, many were devout Christians. Of course, that is a very partial list. Do you really think that you are smart enough to you say that these guys are unable to "can apply a modicum of critical thinking to remedy their condition." Sorry, but until modern astronomy, physics, philosophy, or even the scientific basis for temperature are based on your work, you are unqualified to criticize these guys.
(if you are to mod this off topic, it's only fair to mod the parent OT first)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Apparently, this guy's lawyers can't take a joke (then again, no laywer can), Last year, Video Professor's legal department sent an email to Wikia, a wiki hosting company, concerning this article about John Scherer on Uncyclopedia, a satirical parody of WIkipedia. They requested removal of the article. However, the article in question and the pictures on it were used for the purposes of parody and humor and thus are likely protected under fair use. Instead of deleting the article, the community decided to take the opportunity to make fun of the lawsuit as well. The email sent to Wiki (and the associated drama) can be found here.
Slashdot posted this story in 2007 about Video Professor sueing to get critical reviews off the internet.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/24/1619240
Yeah, that worked out well for them, didn't it?
This is just another reason why I use temporary credit card numbers for online purchases. They're only good for a set period of time and you set the maximum chargeable amount.
The end result is that they never actually have your credit card number.
Of course a better solution is to read the fine print, both online and on your packing slip, so you know the deal. I too had one of those 'free offers' that was really a 'free trial'. Luckily I read my packing slip which had all the details on how to cancel it. Followed the instructions, no problem. But they were also pretty up-front about it.
Any company that buries a subscription or a situation where you have to pay for things you never thought you ordered is a scam. Period. End of story. They're counting on the fact that most people won't understand or read the agreement. Trying to squash negative commentary is just more proof that they know what they're doing is wrong.
I ordered a 'free' Video Professor Access learning set about 10 years ago. The set came with 3 discs in a single package. 2 of the discs were free, but in order to keep the 3rd, the last lessons, I would have had to pay the $29.95 for the set. In other words, if you want the free part, it's only the introductory and intermediate lessons. Additionally, each disc installed several programs I would have to characterize as spyware. Not just the first, but each disc. Before they would run any lessons. So, I sent the 'free' software back. And then I got to struggle with their hands in my pocket through 3 more 'free' (unordered) sets, each of which showed up on my credit card statement before the (unordered) sets arrived. Each subsequent time I called to protest I was told to keep the discs. Of course, they were worth more as infections than as product. I finally canceled the credit card to stem the pilfering. 'Scam' is kind.
I, like many on here, have often been wrangled into doing tech support for friends and family and one thing that drives me nuts is when one of my loved ones blames the computer when things don't go right. They'll say, "My computer just deleted my e-mail!", when in actuality, they hit the back button. They see no connection between the actions they takes and the results they get.
But what's worse is when they go around clicking "OK" to just about anything that popped up on their computer. Why? Because clicking "OK" made the box go away. Never mind that now they're signed up for every "Internet Accelerator" and their computers are completely bogged down with garbage. But hey! The "OK" box went away.
Now that I am a lawyer, I find that people do the same thing all the time with all sorts of things. This situation is no different. Would you go around clicking "OK" on any and every box that pops up on your computer? No?!? Why not? Because you realize that clicking "OK" MEANS something to the computer and it will go right ahead and DO whatever you Okayed.
Well, giving out your CC# is the same thing. So when you give your CC# or sign up for something "free" (didn't your mom ever tell you that there's no such thing as a free lunch?), why would you not look carefully at what you're agreeing to? That's like clicking OK without reading the box.
This is the precise reason that we have the phrase "Caveat Emptor."
But now we want government to protect us from our own stupidity? I say let people get screwed over. They'll be smarter next time.
I hereby challenge the free and open source community to make a serials of software tutorials for various Windows operating systems, Windows software, web sites, etc and provide those videos free via downloads or web site streaming
I'm not so sure that'd be practical. How easy is it for "the free and open source community" to afford to advertise the availability of the free tutorial distributions on national television?
Besides, their stuff is really basic. You'd be better off taking an introductory course at your local college, or just checking out stuff at your local library.
But someone in each county still needs to spend the $300 on the Video Professor box set in order to donate it to the library in the first place.
Snake oil salesman still sell snake oil.
I doubt seriously if there are any users of the product here on /. That's like offering driver's ed. to NASCAR drivers.
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
You are all just mad because you did not think of it first.
Don't hate congratulate!
Ask your mom what's for dinner.
Unfortunately, the TechCrunch article and this entire discussion only deals with the online aspects of ordering from Video Professor. Many computer novices will be ordering from a toll-free number, as advertised on TV. How much is disclosed to those customers?
I knew about the 10 day deadline to stop the extra charges and made it in time. I also called the customer service line to inform them that I had sent in the refusal notice. But they charged me anyway. So I called them to ask what was up and they said it would be taken care of in five days. So in seven days I called them again to ask where was my refund. Once again, they said it was a mix up or a clerical error and it would be processed in five days. This process repeated over and over. Each time they apologized and said it was a clerical error and would be taken care of within five days. But it never was. It was just one lie after another. It went on for months before I finally wrote to the Denver Better Business Bureau. Only then did they actually refund the money that they had no right to take from me in the first place. John Scherer (the video professor) is as dishonest as they come. They might not be breaking the law but if you have an ounce of sense in your head, you will never do business with this crook. (I called him much worse when I was fighting to get my money back.)
Hey look, my family has run all kinds of private companies in their history of this continent. When you are selling a product that is fragile if not handled properly through the customer's own diligence, then you are always going to be dis-satisfied not from any fault in the product but by your own unwillingness. I can't tell you how many times someone from my family sold and installed a retro-fit Window into someone's goddamn house and then they brake the window in some stupid incident of their mis-use. Every window comes with a pamphlet on it's operation, but there is just a mental barrier between technical knowledge of a glazier to a computer support specialist that is only compounded with their lack of manners and aspiration to study more than what is in the very product itself. A dictionary would do more in all these matters, Video Professor included. I haven't found an etymological dictionary that failed.
Of'course this is the same parentage and children of said parentage that would choose indoctrination of artificial and theoretical knowledge from specialists skilled in teaching what they themselves eschewed because of too great liability but profitable in pushing their theories into the failure of unstudied students not born into the profession by blood. Live in Hell: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, et al.
Your choice of failure is happily determined by the purse; do you want to work construction or labor with an unpaid College loan of $10K, $20k, $50K, or $150K while being the scourge of devalued labor to pave the way in removing the gap of middle class and low-class to those few Fortune-100 managers that generate more usury of wealth in a single breath while sleeping? In all my experiences, it's the State that destroys all matter of intellect, to recollect the pioneers that it allows or slays directly to maintane monopolies for others and hinder inflation of progress for a demurred harvest in a slow gradual harnessing of tax to an artificially stretched product shelf-life.
If your Credit Card doesn't have the same billing address, then perhaps you should give notification next time to treat the package as a presentment of gift from the Account Adressee to that Credit Card for whomever is receiving at the Billing Address.
So if I steal a Credit Card account Number, order all kinds of crap, and complain that Video Professor sent it to the Billing Address should I complain on Slashdot rather than their Customer Support? Maybe this is just another example of a thief (Video Professor) robbing another thief by not proving delivery by a certificate or registering for such insurance?
The problem is, there are a ton of articles. The point of a summary is to provide enough information to help me decide if I want to bother RTFA. Having an interesting headline and a bad summary is just irritating. If the Slashdot editors want to make money selling ads, then they need to make the site useful and compelling. Irritating their readers is a bad business model.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
In short, Orion Blastar's URL made sense; you have an employee of a corporation delivering discussion of reasoning and conclusion in a subject that his is not allowed, forcing association of character to those not in the same. This is why I myself wouldn't trust anyone to teach someone fully capable of learning such useful subject from a Noose-paper or periodical. More memorization of useless unanswered statements rolled into fact because the dispute resolved to the unwritten Last Man Standing rule. Let him continue teaching the one-sided Hist-Story and forcing the waste of hours in one's youth. By the way, is it American History or U.S. History?
Mis-filing a case is a libel in itself, a mis-representation publicized. Your recommendation for a government official to become a teacher is intriguing, because government is only allowed to regulate a criminal's activities; what kind skill or usefulness of subject matter do you expect a teacher to dispense in form of a crime? How you speak of there being a judge, there must be an oath accepted per the transcript of every individual case because of the bicameral nature of a judiciary or employed trustees of the Judicial Department taking turns in the mode of conduct expressed in turn on the bench when moving on principles espoused of a legislated democracy or a Republic. So don't give me any of that horseshit of an impartial judge when I expect them all to be biased in my favor or another's based on pre-ordained principles in favor of whomever has the controlling interest in the matter not as a supposed testator to receive some effect or thing to their full advantage without being versed in its ability and use in their properties. All the truely ordained judges I ever met were at a County Fair, not honored solicitors employed in execution of a Trust at an auction house (what your courthouse behaves under). Are you saying he is a History teacher that doesn't mud the water with His-Story now? Did he come to these religious conclusions of Hist-Story based on his observations or some-one else's point of view that was uncontested after having disemboweled their opponent that didn't agree with him? I find it even more laughable how a college-educated "teacher" would argue their unlearned conclusion to a student only by rank of privilege to teach a captive audience. In such session, you'ld think this is a bonus when contracting a disease through the ventilation system or cafeteria if not a contractual disease in the courts forcing children into such second-class standing to second-class parents while under the threat of legal harassment and intimidation.
You choose the wrong line of work to defend and the wrong way about writing your criticism. That's the main reason I came into this discussion; you want to write about something you might have experience in, but I just don't know if you are using the right words because this kind of discussion only breeds in-fighting. Consider that all topic of religion is a Style of history only discerned by those that comprehend it to their use and advantage of others. Fellas, do you trust another man you haven't met and unknown to
without prejudice
...can share his cell with the Blue Hippo
Recently heard this from The hu-Man Video Professor himself on a tapped cellphone above 30,000 feet in a Commercial Airline just before the Drop Shipment was hijacked to take-out a competitor's building (those 9/11 hijackers and Video Professor somehow get cell-phone use outside coverage hmmmm):
Hey, come-on guys, you can't cancel my shipments just because they are misdelivered; that's the customer's fault for a wrong address, when they intended to buy and then deprive me of the service in my liability. This is the Video Professor you are talking about. I spent all that time customizing a lesson for them and you, Mr. (robotvoice) John Doughboy (/robotvoice) so you can learn to do something that is only useful in efficiently counting beans in a corporation. If you, Mr. (robotvoice) John Doughboy (/robotvoice) are not satisfied with my product then I'll give you an "F" on your report card and recommend you for special-needs training in your Government-approved secret Disability Portfolio. I use to be a Public School teacher and I know how to deal with those students that want to come to my class prepared to insult the Video Professor rather than learn. Oh you bet you will learn something if it's not on-topic to what I'm teaching.
This guy is Hell on Earth, good thing I know some Hell's Angels like me that won't learn to accept an F grade.
The IRS when challenged will actually post-pone all prosecution as strategy to treat dissenters as an investment. Just like the Video Professor refunded the $200 to the parent poster, then let the parent poster keep the CD, so then they can charge twice the cost as damages when taken to court. I actually learned more in the commercial than my 5-year old daughter! I would only be surprised if subscribers to Dish Network get a bill too, seeing how the Video Professor can teach how to navigate windows and widgets on-screen in the commercial to whomever is caught watching that channel as determined by the surveilance software that reports the viewing logs through the phone line as a Quality Assurance feature. durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzyte
Computer aided learning has many excellent products. This guy, once upon a time 20 years ago, would sell video tapes of the functions and use of current OSs and applications designed to take the computer illiterate to the barely computer literate.
He has made millions - legitimately, and now he seeks to take advantage of the Bushies having put all Consumer Protection on hold, including the CPSC that just admitted they were not following cribs that strangle children, so he can put a long-term drain on your debit/credit/ACH account.
In a just world, he would be front-line fodder on some peak in one of Bush's wars of opportunity. He's taking money away from the people that is needed to bail out the banks.
Sorry, no can do on ignoring that. Posters on Slashdot who ignore their typos deserve what they get, and get what they deserve.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
I tried the Access series to see what their CBT was like and to see if I could recommend the product to others. I thought the actual product was okay. If they cut the price by a factor of 10 and stopped the deceptive crap I think they might have something.
Well, "her" book was ghostwritten by Lynn Vincent, that's kinda like the book world's equivalent of lip-syncing.
Suppose it's a good thing for her, so she doesn't lose too much street cred with that subset of her fans who think it's awfully elite to be readin' and writin'.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Typical subscription product pitch:
Try our product. If you don't like it, CANCEL ANYTIME.
Video Professor pitch:
Try our product. You'll like it so much that YOU WILL ORDER MORE.
I've seen the VP ads for years. I had no idea it was a subscription service.
Or, let me Google that for you. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=professor+video
Google this :-P
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
you don't even have to reincorporate somewhere else to pull that scam off. The BBB makes money from businesses paying them for "accreditation" and they don't make money from consumers. Their bias is obvious.
Here in SoCal there is a construction fraud gang that seems to mostly be run by a Moroccan/Israeli family named Ben Shulsh. I tried to report their most recent front company (Erco Construction) to the BBB and they would even bother to even look at it. They publicly list the same front people, and they are at the same business address as their last front company (Highrise construction) and 2 miles from the front companies before that (BC Specialty Construction, Bashan and Allied). The BBB only changed the the rating on BC from A+ to F *after* they had robbed everybody, folded up shop and when into hiding for a few weeks. This despite complaints going back months.
I wouldn't put any stock in the BBB or its rating of anything. They are just there to collect the accreditation fees.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Can I get one for "Pirating software for beginners"?
I agree. And they are hell to work with. It took me about 3 months of constantly nagging them to get them to work with me at all. I am very anti video prof!!!!
After knowing how the Columbia record club has operated for the last 50 years, I don't know why this "scam" isn't obvious. I knew the first time I saw one of his commercials that you were going to keep receiving these discs. WHY? Simple common sense. ANY place that offers a variety of products that they advertise in one commercial is going to try to get you to buy them on a monthly basis. Like I said, it's just common sense... something that more and more people seem to be lacking these days.
You mean like this:
http://www.archive.org/details/IntroductionToPythonUsingTurtleGraphics
I had a similar incident with "The Ladder". I signed up for their free one month trial. As soon as the month was coming to an end, I noticed that their "cancel service" button was "not working". I quickly canceled my credit card, only to be charged anyway. I had to fight to get this charge removed. My credit card did not just cide with me. They instructed me to "work this out with the merchant". Finally, after much haggeling and telephone calls, I got them to stop charging me.
In the end, this free service cost me lost of time and aggrevation. As they say, there is not such thing as a free lunch!
it's perfectly normal to exploit the stupid. how many slashdotters "exploit" their PHB overlords' stupidity into paying them salaries for a full-time job, when said "employees" read and post at slashdot and technorati and digg 1/2 the day, and whack off at redtube or piss around in WoW for the rest of the time? Exploiting the stupid is as American as apple pie and invading foreign countries - we do it cause we can, and because everyone else is too fucking wet and STUPID to stop us. Bwahahahaha -- all your sowiet wessels and everything are belong to us !
"Value for money"? "Quality products"? You fucking commie, I didn't get to where I am today by producing quality products that were value for money!!! Good grief, no, I got where I am today because you're all too stupid to know that you're wasting your money and time and lives and energy and SOULS trying to look like everyone else but just a little bit slicker than the next Joe or Jane. The masses are fair game, and I'll fleece them as long as I can, and you morons will support me every step of the way, cause you think I'm cool with my "ill-gotten gains" and sports car, private jet, and polyester bimbos on my arm.
"Hi, I'm John Scherer, founder and CEO of Video Professor. I'm so confident that you'll love my lesson on Scamming People, that I'm letting you try it for free!"
Besides, video professor's products are for retards who use their mouse as a foot pedal. The sad truth it, however, most computer users besides us geeks (the wintards) probably wonder where solitaire keeps the cards. I had to deal with a retard a few months ago who let his ferret play in his stack. I had to replace his motherboard, the ferret had gotten enough static to make it not even try to load the BIOS, just sit there at a black screen, and the ferret also chewed a hole in the SATA cable going to his hard disk. I get a call a few weeks later with him saying I did a bad job, until I got him to confess he let his ferret play in it again.