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Review 3/18/2010
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I have dealt with Strategic Profits since Fall 2007. They provide various information products and tools/services to entrepreneurs on tips, techniques, and strategies for optimizing one's business, and making it more profitable and fun, and less stressful.
They provide coaching/guidance programs, a number of very comprehensive intensive home-study programs, etc.
The quality of the information is definitely very high.
However, I would like to caution people dealing with this company on the following counts:
i) Carefully, and repeatedly, verify that they have received all of the contents/bonuses promised in
sales letters to products (the company has a tendency to not fulfill on
the bonuses -- this often could go unrealized since their programs are
pretty "heavy duty" and they bombard you with so much content, you may
lose track of exactly all of what was promised in the noise)
ii) To be very careful when giving our their credit card information to them, since once they get it, they continue to abuse it, and ignore all requests for refunds (even when they fail to provide products/services), and make it very difficult to communicate with them (despite having a "Zero-hassle refund" policy explicitly mentioned at multiple points on their web pages, and sales
pages).
This has been a consistent issue with this organization, recognized at multiple forums elsewhere on the web, and in Forums on their own
web site (but, unfortunately, happily ignored, and in my view, deliberately
so for reasons explained ahead). Personally, it has happened to me on 3 occasions since late 2007.
i) In early 2008, I was one of the first 75 people to purchase in full their
BAP (Business Acceleration Programs) for $2000, in which a number of their promised
bonuses (e.g. hardcopies of books, transcripts/mp3's of a number of webinars,
etc.) were never received by me, nor found on the back-end product login site.
Repeated emails to them over 6 months produced slow, wishy-washy, unsatisfactory responses, and did not finally produce the product at all.
ii) I purchased in end 2008, for $480 their CashMaps program, under which I was to receive a monthly newsletter etc., which never arrived, ever.
I began contacting them in May 2008, and was given the run around (they kept me in a loop asking for my Paypal account even after I informed them
that I do not have one, and did not pay through it), until
finally, they agreed after much pushing to refund the amount (for a product not provided, mind you) via a check.
iii) Then in Nov. 2009, I signed up for $49 (actually, I believe it should
have been $69, but they changed the initial fee to $49 post-the-fact, and
put me on a forced continuity program that I am positive I did not consent to) for recordings of their League of Extraordinary Minds webinar series.
To my surprise, they put me on a forced $49 a month continuity program, and have been charging my credit card regularly, wasting a lot of my time in writing to them, emailing through support suite, and even leaving a messages
for them. Yet, my card continues to be charged, and I have now had to ask my CC company to intervene.
This to me is a major problem. Rich Schefren, the Founder of Strategic Profits, is such a highly organized individual that the loathes wasting even 15 seconds opening browser windows, and optimizes that time (by his own admission on DVDs I have from the BAP program) by having multiple screens
and windows open etc. And, his company his highly profitable. Yet, in over 3 years and after a number of complaints, they have been unable to put a simple refund system in place -- today that can be very inexpensively done using software on pretty much autopilot!
That I find a bit hard to believe, and definitely want to bring that to the attention of other entrepreneurs, like myself, thinking of doing business with this organization.
I have had to reluctantly turn away from their content, for fear that once they put their hands into my coat pocket, they will continue taking dollar bills from me, without my permission!
Thank you.
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