I received an invitation in the mail this week. It was from the US and is for a free Internet Income Training conference for me and a guest.

The letter informed me how i can make money online using Google, Yahoo, eBay and msn. The course is run by StoresOnline.com. It includes a 90 minute conference followed by a dinner and a free business organizer for me and my guest. A $120 value.

OK, i never been to one of these so what have i got to lose.

Not so fast!

Maybe i should do a search first and find out a bit more about StoresOnline.com

Lucky i did. Here is just a little of what i found.

Apparently it is just a scam. It is just a hard sell for the internet. They claimed e-commerce software costs 10’s of thousands of dollars. Well I know some that are open source and some that are maybe $500 or so but 10’s of thousands. I don’t think so. They charge $2800 a year to run your web site but of course there is no talk of the other charges and fees when you sell something.

Here is a sample of what StoresOnline.com offer,

SINGLE OFFER:

1 Stores Online Pro Web Site
Merchant Services
E-Store Toolkit $3199
ECI Merchant Account $1800
Bootcamp $399

Total $5399 (this amount had a line through it)

Today’s offer ONLY $2700*

Plus Hosting and Support $29.95/Month

PLATINUM OFFER:

6 Stores Online Pro Web Sites
Merchant Services
6 E-Store Toolkit
**First Site programmed - No Cost
6 ECI Merchant Accounts
Bootcamp

Today’s offer ONLY $5998*

Plus Hosting and Support $29.95/Month per ACTIVE Web Site

Here is some more info i found on http://forums.whirlpool.net.au.

I would like to know what had changed from last year when the ACCC made Stores Online pay back the money they took from people in Adelaide when there was a class action taken against them. Just do a ‘google’ on ACCC and Stores Online and you will see what I mean. They try and trade and ecomm trainers but when you get there the whole presentation is for Stores Online.

To cap it off, we received a 3 course meal, yes I suppose you would call it 3 course. It was a rock hard pear (1 course), 1 dry sandwich (1 course) and 1 chocolate brownie (1 course) served on a plate in your chair where you pass the plates along the row. I cannot see how this equated to $50 and I must say that this was not only a bad reflection of Stores Online being stingy but also a very poor advert for the quality of food at the Hilton.

Now do i go and tell them i do exactly the same thing with my online zippo store FREE, make $200 profit a month and all it costs is $7AU for hosting. I would love to go to something like this and really piss of these scammers trainers.

And if anyone wants to do the same thing free, just try joomla and virtuemart.