How to Ruin Hundreds of Online Reputations at Once
We’ve just seen three ways to ruin an online reputation. It is just that easy: take a wrong step and you’re lost. Sometimes, one doesn’t even need to lie, cheat or hack your readers. Sometimes, a small “detail” like telling something really important for the readers in a small phrase hidden inside a very long sales letter can bring one down in a matter of days, if not hours. This was the case of Joel Comm, who was selling an ebook for $9 and had all buyers automatically subscribed to a $29.9 monthly membership.
Seeing his reputation endangered by greed, Mr. Joel Comm saw himself in the position of running from blog to blog and saying how sorry he is, and how he is going to fix that issue by changing the sales page, so people can clearly see and opt for one of the variants: buy only the book, or buy the book plus the subscription.
Surely, Joel’s reputation had to suffer. But what about the reputation of all bloggers, like Darren Rowse of Problogger who promoted his ebook via affiliate links? Maybe they didn’t notice the scam, like many buyers of the book. Or maybe they’ve seen that, but they kept their mouth shout, in order to get the commissions. There was a lot of money at stake, as the previous version of AdSense Secrets (the ebook in question) sold for $97, and now there was an updated version available at only $9. Quite a bargain for the naive buyers!
Quite a surprise for all bloggers who promoted the book, to find their online reputation endangered by the simple fact that they promoted a product they thought to be good.
What do you think? Did the affiliate bloggers’ reputation also suffer from Joel’s scam or not?
Ronald Huereca says...
Simonne,
It’s just one of those things: be careful what you recommend, whether it is an e-book, product, theme, plugin, or even a movie or music.
I’d like to think people don’t judge by what others recommend, but unfortunately people do. What would happen if I recommended to a friend a particular brand of computer, and the computer died within a few months? The friend would very likely never trust me again on computer purchases.
The same with bloggers… if a blogger recommends something that I personally think is garbage, then the chances of me trusting whatever that person has to say in the future is minimal.
Andrew says...
I imagine this was one option as part of the sales process and not really marketed up front. In that case it is hard to blame someone for passing on information about the deal as they had it. If it wasn’t clear enough for people to understand what they signing up for though that is thoroughly misleading. I hope he wrote to every single person who purchased it and offered their money back for the subscription if they weren’t interested.
Ronald Huereca says...
@Andrew,
I get what you’re saying. I suppose I’m looking at it from a political standpoint. I don’t blame bloggers for passing on bad information, it’s just sad that they took the person at face value and helped spread the scam so-to-speak.
Simonne says...
This case was somehow special, because the subscription was actually mentioned on the sales page, but it was not emphasized, so it passed unnoticed by many people. Who reads everything on a long sales page? I never do, and I suppose there are many people who don’t either. So I’m sure many bloggers promoted the book believing that it was just a $9 product, and not a monthly subscription.
Andrew, I suppose the guy fixed the problem. I haven’t bought the book, so I don’t know what he wrote to his customers. But he seems like not being stupid at all, so he realized his mistake.
Trisha says...
There are so many varying situations in which bloggers wind up promoting such deals without knowing all of the details, for example;
1. They were given the eBook to promote, and had no knowledge of the hidden subscription;
2. They bought the eBook, but hadn’t yet discovered the subscription charge on their credit card;
3. They did not receive (or read) the eBook, but heard about the great price and wanted to pass it on;
4. They just heard about the affiliate deal (a few buck for every eBook they helped sell) and wanted to make some money;
Although each of these involves a different motivation for passing on a promotion to their readers, most of them forgivable, ultimately the blame rests as much on the buyer as the seller (in this case Joel). When a deal seems to good to be true, it usually isn’t. A price drop from $97 to $9? I’d read every word of the fine print before parting with my $9, or more importantly, before giving up my credit card number online.
However forgivable as the other bloggers who promoted the deal may be, I still think it would be wise for them to post an apology or explanation for promoting it - it would go a long way toward earning back the trust of their readers.
Simonne says...
Hey, Trisha, you are a smart shopper. Actually I’ve read the book in question, and I have to say that its value is much closer to $9 than to $97. For a person who is totally new to AdSense it is cool but useless, and for somebody who’s already experienced, most part of it is obsolete.
This makes me pretty sure that most of the bloggers who promoted it haven’t read it. Otherwise, many of them wouldn’t have recommended it anymore to their readers, unless they didn’t care about them.
Trisha says...
Thanks, Simonne! Of course I’ve learned how to be a smart shopper the hard way - I’ve bought more than my share of useless pooh over the years. And I’m sure you’re right - if the book is that poor then I’d have to agree that most, if not all, of them must have not read it. A shame, and even more reason why they should definitely apologize to their readers. I can’t even imagine promoting something of which I have no knowledge.
I’m very careful to only recommend products or services that I’ve personally used and approve of on my own blog, or when I pass on information about a sale it is only for companies I’ve dealt with on a number of occasions and been pleased with. Even the very few affiliate ads I have are for companies of which I am a happy customer. I’ll never get rich that way, but at least I feel good about what I’m passing on to my readers.
Jeffro2pt0 says...
Well, as far as I’m concerned, if I click on a link on a trusted blog and that link infects me with spyware or some other malicious software, not only am I going to be extremely upset at myself, but I’ll be sending the blog author a pretty nasty email asking them what the heck just happened. I would lay at least some of the blame on the blog author which is why everyone has to take the responsibility of ensuring the recommendations provided on a blog are trustworthy non damaging links. I mean cmon, we’re talking about user trust here. On the net, if you lose trust, 99% of the time you don’t gain it back, at least not from those that got the short end of the stick.
Simonne says...
That’s right, Jeff, I’m sure many people do the same, in such cases. Too bad that new people become victims, so this is why spreading the word about all kind of scams and misleading things is important.