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5 Reservations I Have About Purchasing Affiliate Academics
This post may contain affiliate links. For more info, visit the disclosure page.
I got an email today from Steve at Steal My System with the subject line “I want this program so freakin bad”.
I have to admit that the subject line got me so I opened the email and checked out the program he was talking about. It was for an affiliate training program called Affiliate Academics by Alan Magliocca who I recently mentioned in my review for his program Easy Clone System.
The weird thing is that after viewing the video for Affiliate Academics is that the order page was for a program called Easy Clone System that appeared to be very different from the other Easy Clone System Magliocca released last year.
There were a few other things that had me on alert. In the end, I decided not to purchase Affiliate Academics because of all these flags that I was getting.
This isn’t a review of the system (because I didn’t get it) but rather 5 reasons why I didn’t bother purchasing Affiliate Academics. If you agree then you might want to skip Affiliate Academics as well.
What Is Affiliate Academics?
After clicking on the link from the email I was taken to a page where I viewed a video then taken to the order page for Easy Clone System.
This was a special landing page for Affiliate Academics it appears since there is also another page where you’re offered a free printed book by Alan Magliocca called From Misery to Millions: The Power of Payoff Through Persistence.
After a little research, it seems Affiliate Academics is a membership site that is modeled after a college type course with member levels such as ‘Freshman’, ‘Sophomore’ and so on.
The site teaches you how to set up an online business “fast and easy”.
I was interested to see how it compared with Wealthy Affiliate but I had some reservations after running into a few red flags.
5 Reasons I Didn’t Bother Getting Affiliate Academics by Alan Magliocca
It’s just a $1 trial but still, I didn’t get Affiliate Academics for at least 5 reasons. Here they are.
(1) Scammers rarely recommend anything legit
This is an observation I made after sticking around on a few email lists of gurus who I’ve deemed to be scammers. Steve (not his real name) at Steal My System is one of them and I’ve never gotten an email from him recommending anything legitimate.
There are a few others like Mike from Rich Janitor just to name one other example. They never ever recommend anything legit.
So when I get an email from Steve pushing this Affiliate Academics thing from Alan Magliocca, even if it is good, it’s hard not to feel uneasy about it.
(2) Alan Magliocca’s reputation
Then there’s Alan Magliocca, who doesn’t have a very good reputation as an internet marketer.
I’ve reviewed a number of products by him over the years and I can’t name one that I’ve found to be of any good. I’ve reviewed the aforementioned Easy Clone System and that was a funnel for Aspire/Digital Altitude which is an expensive digital MLM that I’ve asked readers to beware of.
He also had Banks Experiment a couple years back on Clicksure, a network infested by scammers and gurus who do not care about anyone’s success but their own. I gave that a negative rating also for good reason.
On his Affiliate Academics website, Magliocca appears to have cleaned up his act, no longer hiding behind characters like Ron Banks and blasting internet gurus who “set traps”. But this is sales copy. Only the product, it’s quality and his actions as a “mentor” going forward can redeem him.
(3) They’ll Do All the Work for Me?
The headline on the sales page made me very uncomfortable. “Fastest and Easiest Automatic Money System” it says.
Then it goes on – “We’ll Do All the Work for You”.
This might be what some people want to hear but this isn’t how things work. You don’t just pay a fee and some company does all the work for you so you can make buckets of cash. This just seems like one of those internet guru’s “traps” being set.
What you might want to hear is “We’ll do all the work for you” but the reality is that no one is going to do the work for you. They might offer you shortcuts (such as keyword lists, PLR content, etc) but it’s up to you to put it all together, to put in the effort and make it work.
Failure is inevitable if you believe that anyone is going to do ALL the work for you.
(4) What Easy Clone System?
The fact that I’d seen the product title before and that it was associated with Alan Magliocca and that I’d given it a negative review, made it tough for me to think that this could be anything good.
Furthermore, as both versions have a $1 trial, I wasn’t too sure what this system was all about. Were you going to get the same Aspire/Digital Altitude program? Didn’t seem like it as this system seemed to have video training by Alan himself.
And then there was the monthly fee after the trial which is $34.95 – nothing like that in Digital Altitude.
Re-using the same product name confused me and I’m not going to make a purchase of something with a confused mind.
(5) Please Don’t Threaten Me
The $1 trial is for 10 days of access to Affiliate Academics. After that you’re charged $34.95 every month until you cancel.
To cancel, you have to email the support desk. You cannot do it any other way otherwise there are going to be consequences.
On the order form, there is short passage outlining an agreement you’re making with Affiliate Academics before you hit the order button.
“By placing my order, I agree that I fully understand what I am purchasing, and if I have ANY problems or questions whatsoever, I can contact Affiliate Academics support team at the dedicated support desk here. Also, I agree that if I decide the product is not for me, I will NOT contact my bank, PayPal or credit card company, as this will result in being contacted by the attorney for Affiliate Academics, Inc to begin legal action against me for my actions. INSTEAD, I will contact support HERE to cancel my members area account and get a full refund within 48 hours or less. Please type your two initials in this box to agree:”
In the highlighted portion above, it seems as though they do not want to get chargebacks due to buyers contacting Paypal, their bank or credit card company so they decide to threaten legal action if you do. Instead they’re encouraging you to contact their support to cancel.
I don’t like the idea of being threatened before I make a purchase of anything. If they had a clear refund policy, then I’m willing to bet that most rational thinking persons would follow it and get a refund rather than give themselves the hassle of contacting their bank.
People only usually use chargebacks as a last resort after they’ve tried getting a refund online to no avail. What happens if they decide to ignore your refund requests during the trial period but you want your trial canceled before they bill you the full amount?
I don’t like threats. A clear refund policy would have been the better way to go.
Does Affiliate Academics Work?
I can’t say but I might still try to get it just to review it and compare it to Wealthy Affiliate, my number one affiliate marketing training recommendation.
There might be some value but I can’t ignore the 5 points I mentioned above.
If you have any experience with Affiliate Academics, been a member of the site, read the Misery to Millions book or tried the Easy Clone System, I would really appreciate your feedback below, whether positive or negative just so others can decide whether to try it or not.
Hey I cam across the email also, I have being researching to find out more, glad I just found your comments. For $1 which obviously it’s a trap so I would say fuck him..not for me…
So what do you think about binary options….
Yes the $1 thing is a trap exactly. You get sucked in and then you’ll have a bunch of surprise charges on your credit card.
What do I think about binary options? Well, I’ve reviewed some of the programs that claim you can make thousands and even millions overnight with binary options. What I’ve found out is that many of these are just out to get you to deposit $250 to start trading and then they’ll try to suck you dry. They’re basically more akin to gambling organizations than financial trading.
I’ve written about binary options here as well: Avoid These Two Popular Scams
I don’t know where to start in addressing all of your lies and misconceptions, just to have another “review” post that promotes an affiliate product while bashing a product that you were never even a part of.
So let me just start at the top and work my way down with the major issues here:
1. You never bought my product. Yet you write a blog post about it and call it a scam? How does this page even exist when your blog is about reviewing products? What are you basing your facts on? That’s a terrible and dishonest way to get affiliate sales my man. But maybe it makes you feel better about yourself to bash others for a living just for your own gain in affiliate commissions. I hope you’re getting fat paychecks from bashing my system that you never even paid $1 to see.
2. The $1 Trial – I did this for a trap? Absolutely not. It was never in my mind to “trap” anyone into taking action. As a matter of fact, that actually creates more issues in the long run for me internally to deal with people who are hit with charges they are unaware of. This is why I have an agreement on the checkout page (which you also bashed as a “threat”), and in reality it’s to protect my business’ reputation and also makes people aware that we have an extremely easy refund/cancellation process. We have our support email posted all over the place and on every single page, not to mention in 2-3 different places within the members area. We are VERY clear on what the customer is paying for, as it doesn’t benefit us to lie or be misleading in any way. Besides all of that, my goal was to provide tons of value to the customer up front for the lowest entry price possible. Not everyone has $2000 to spend on my training or $6,000 for my coaching and I wanted to make it available at a much lower monthly service with only $1 to try it out for 10 days to see if it was for them. This “trap” idea that you have is completely false and you should be ashamed of yourself to share lies with your readers. Sadly (as seen from the jerk who cursed me in the comment above), they are actually taking your word seriously.
So here’s what we got.. we have a review blogger writing reviews on a product they never bought and call it a review saying “here’s why I didn’t buy it”, just to get another page indexed in the search engines to piggyback traffic from my product to promote their own.
Then we have an inconsistent “review” of my disclaimers and my pricing, saying my product is a scam because I’m clear and honest up front with the customer BEFORE they spend any money, and try to offer it at an affordable price for them? I don’t even know what to say about this one.
So my final review of your blog? I think you need to write poems or something, you’re probably much better at it than writing reviews. This is the most comical site I’ve seen in a looong time..
Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll go back to helping others and focusing on the people making money from my system and putting in the work to build their online businesses while you blog about products that you have no idea about so that your poor readers will believe you and buy whatever affiliate product you’re promoting.
Kindly,
– Alan Magliocca
Thank you Mr. Alan Magliocca for getting in touch concerning this “review” that I wrote on your product. I know it’s frustrating to read the things I wrote here but I can assure you that they’re not lies – just my perspective.
First of all, this isn’t a review at all. And I don’t think I called Affiliate Academics a scam at anytime in the article.
It is true that I didn’t buy the product and I make that very clear in the article. I also said at the end of the first paragraph that “This isn’t a review of the system (because I didn’t get it) but rather 5 reasons why I didn’t bother purchasing Affiliate Academics.”
Then I proceeded to lay out 5 reasons why I didn’t bother buying your product. The title of the post also implies that I didn’t buy the product, never says anything about it being a review and doesn’t call your product a scam.
The reasons are based on some experience with your previous products and on some observations I made during the pre-purchase experience. I ended up not purchasing mainly because of the “agreement” on the order page. It just made me uncomfortable.
The $1 trial thing gets a lot of people because they don’t read the order page properly I guess. Forced continuity or hidden continuity isn’t good. I had one of your customers emailing me asking me to kindly refund her money because she got about 5 charges to her credit card that she claims she didn’t authorize. But of course we know she authorized the $1 charge. I had to direct her to the support email because she was obviously looking in the wrong place for a refund. I’m sure there are others who are in a similar position. To me, if someone is getting their card charged multiple times when they only signed up for a $1 then they’re getting caught in a trap. I know it says on the order page that they will be billed $30+ after the trial period ends but that doesn’t seem to be the case of the customer who contacted me.
Again, this isn’t a review and I’m clear on that. Kinda like what tech blogs do when the new Iphone is coming out. They’d do a piece like “5 Features We’d Like to See in the Iphone 10” or “Why I’m Not Going to Buy the Iphone 10”.
My goal with this website, however comical you might find it, is to help people who take the time to do their due diligence.
If you’ve ever owned/launched a product you will know that some people don’t pay attention to terms or anything before making a purchase. They buy impulsively and then look for a reason to quit before they even login or go through any training. It surprises me that someone was able to find your support before ours considering it’s clearly at the bottom of every single page in addition to all other disclaimers, and in the members area as shown here:
If you wanted a demo review all you had to do is ask and you could give it an objective review.
I actually just spoke to one guy today and he’s seeing results and was happy about it
Another woman recently posted this in our group
I blurred out names and pics for obvious reasons, but the point is my system actually works, and people are seeing that first hand when they trust me and take the first step.
I just feel this article, although not a “review”, has a negative tone to it when you don’t know what this program is or what it does. The value is higher on this than anything out there imo, although I’m sure my view is biased 🙂
I assume my goal is very similar to yours in the fact I just want to help people, teach them properly, and wow them so much that they never buy another product again unless it’s another product by me, because of the value and knowledge I’ve put into this program and given to them.
Hope this helps and thanks for at least replying and allowing my comment to show in this thread.
– Alan
It’s good to know that people are actually having success with Affiliate Academics. I don’t have a problem giving a program a positive review if it’s actually good. I just want my audience to find stuff that actually helps them which is why I point them in the direction of the program that I’ve been using since 2007.
Of course my post is going to have a negative tone – it’s 5 reasons why I DIDN’T buy Affiliate Academics. It’s based on past experience and observation. Since you’re basically challenging my view of your program, I think I’ll pay for it and do an actual review sometime in the near future. The dashboard from the screenshot looks like it might actually have some value.
HAVE BEEN TRYING ALL DAY TO CANCEL MY INITIAL PAYMENTS OF $19,95 & $27 PLUS THE $500 FOER WATCHING THE VIDEO TO THE END. WHEN I TRY TO SEND EMAIL A POP NOTICE SAYS I HAVE TO SEND EMAIL BY “WINDOWS ALIVE”. I HAVE SEND THIS POP UP A FEW TIMES BUT IT WAS SO COMPLICATED TO SET UP I HAD TO FIND OTHER WAYS TO COMMUNITE. ABOUT 20 MINS. AGO, I GOOGLED AFFILIATED ACADEMICS HOPING TO FIND A PHONE#. DO YOU HAVE A PHONE # TO GET A REFUND AND STOP CHARGES. ANY SUGGESTIONS? THANK YOU, ANN PRESSLEY [admin edit: personal info removed yo protect privacy]
do you have a phone# for this group? legitimate businesses do not make it so difficult to get in touch with them.
Hello Ann, I don’t know about a phone number for this company but the support email is support@affiliateacademics.com. All you need to do to contact them is to start a new message in gmail and put their email as the person you’re sending the message to.
I just joined this and now wonder what I got myself into. I am going to try it for a few days and see how it go’s. I also joined Wealthy Affiliates and am going to cancel it. It may be ok but it also charges a monthly fee of I believe $49.00 and also gives the idea it is done for you. It makes you think you will be making money right off but when you get in to it says it could take a year to start making money and in the mean time your paying $49.00 per month I think. It doesn’t sound as good to me as it did when I first signed up. I may give both these a try for a month or two to see which one if either wins out I’m just not sure yet. If anyone else has any feed back about either one I would love to here what you have to say.
What are you looking for when it comes to affiliate training? Is it that you want something done for you where you have to do minimal work? Is it something that doesn’t charge you a fee? Just trying to figure it out so that I maybe able to find something that’s perfect for you.
I would be greatful to hear what company you might recommend as far as an easy set-up at a very small cost, and low monthly payments for training. I am more than willing to learn and do the work! Is that not how the income is based? Anyone that thinks that someone is going to COMPLETELY do the work for them is just crazy! The more you put into it, the more you make, that should be a given. A smart person could never think $34.95/month would give them unimaginable income and without lifting a finger??? I do think that all costs associated with the program after the trial should be laid out up front and on the agreement 1st and foremost. NO HIDDEN FEES. Like your original post, I believe a lawyer threat is a scary, unwelcoming feeling. Why not just explain the costs instead, if an agreement is broken?
I’d also like to know if there is a program where maybe the training would be offered at different prices for the level that you receive? There are people that may not need the extensive training others might. Not speaking for myself because I would definitely need all the help I could get, but could and would appreciate a reduction in the systems cost after I was well adjusted and no longer needed as much assistance. Does that make sense? I don’t know how difficult running an online business is or what it would take to adopt an idea like this would cost, but I know that everyone is different and having the option would be nice.
Please send or post the companies you would use…..of course the most reputable as well.
Thank you!
You are absolutely right Brandy. You have to learn and apply those lessons in order to build a worthwhile income and this is something a lot of people just forget because they’re on the internet for some reason.
I would recommend that you check out Wealthy Affiliate which I’m also a member of. I’m recommending them based on what you want and based on the value they provide.
I’ve put together a review of the system so you can see what is offered and you can also sign up for free (without credit card) to check out the training and decide if it’s of any benefit to you.