Say NO To The Wolves Disguised as Sheep Among Us

bySondraM

3K followers

Updated 5 years ago

This post is not a rant. Unfortunately, I have discovered that here, in the WA community, that I cherish so much, there a few wolves disguised as sheep among us. Trust but verify.

A community is only as strong as it's weakest links. Neither WA nor the affiliate marketing industry, as a whole, can afford to ignore people that choose to lie, scam or commit fraud in order to gain a few extra dollars. The credibility of an entire industry is at stake. Wolves also destroy the credibility of WA.

In fact, I've even let this post sit in my draft box several days. I had to take the time to seriously evaluate whether I even wanted to continue to be a member of WA. I can not afford my reputation to get messed up by the wolves, over which I have no control. I do a good enough job of making my own stupid mistakes.... I don't need to be trying to explain why I am affiliated with people, indirectly that are intentionally deceiving others. Destroying people's trust and dreams in the process.

I also feel the need to educate you so that you don't become a victim of the wolves. Trust but Verify. Most people are inherently good. If you can't trust people in general, you are going to be a very miserable person. Somewhere I have heard many times that rules are to help keep honest people honest. Sometimes good people make mistakes and do stupid things. Evil people just do evil things. Regardless, it is important to be in the habit of verifying. Trust but verify.

I will not give you the names of the wolves in WA that I am aware of. They may be unethical or confused. They may be scamming people. Yet, as of now, I have not seen evidence of a criminal offense that could clearly be prosecuted in a court.

Scams and fraud are slightly different. Additionally, I do not want to start witch hunts within WA with people publicly making false accusations. That said, YOU need to learn to trust but verify.

Plus, if you are in the business of doing reviews - you better learn how to verify information you really on.

This is a snap shot from a WA member's website. This person shared their success story recently. Well only part of it the story.....

Pretty darned good results from a newer WA member, don't you say? Granted, this person only shared "$1,174.09 of the success story" with us recently. Just below this on the website was a link to WA review that will teach people how to do this for themselves. I didn't look through every singe page of the website, but most items being reviewed, aside from WA - cost under $50.

I found this to be very confusing.

Little background about me first:

I am not a type to just make wild accusations. Over the last couple of years, despite my background, I have chosen to do everything possible to avoid even thinking about all the online scams.

Years ago, when I first became a certified public accountant, I spent several years of experience investigating allegations of wrong doing. White collar crime. Embezzlement mostly. I was very good at it. Yet, after three years, I decided I didn't want to spend my life dealing with crime. So, I got my real estate license.

When I joined WA, I figured that I would let other people expose the scams. After all many of the guys seems to be good at it. They also seem to enjoy it. In fact, it almost seems like exposing scams is another version of a contact sport. (Thus my theory of why there not as many women in Vegas as compared to guys. Women don't enjoy exposing the scams as much.)

Me.... I chose to focus on LaLa Land. (I've talked about La, La land in one of my other posts.) In Sondra's world of La La Land, everything is beautiful. I spend hours each day thinking of new niche ideas, unicorns and handsome knights in shining armor.

In addition to my affiliate marketing websites, I sell pretty houses. I also have a lifestyle shop that allows me to consider shopping for new inventory as "work." In my free time, I write blog posts that I hope to monetize talking about all the fun things that I have learned. Ah, life is good in La La land.

At the same time, I know that my life will be even better. I just need to keep working hard. In time my affiliate marketing websites and my new businesses will gain traction and become profitable.

Yet, I've been in the business world long enough to know that it takes months, maybe even years, to become truly profitable. That is why some WA success stories that I have read confuse me. Some seem to be happening unusually fast. So, last week, I started doing a bit more verifying. Using Google, my trusty friend.

WA has some wolves pretending to be sheep in our ranks

I don't know how many. The wolves are a small minority of WA members. If the majority of members were unethical wolves, I would have left the community a long time ago.

For this purpose, I will compare Wealthy Affiliate members to sheep and goats.

• The sheep are people that are 100% focused on building a growing a sustainable affiliate marketing business.
• The goats are interested in building and creating a business that include affiliate marketing and other online businesses as a component.
• The most dangerous wolves are wolves that do not look or act like wolves. The most dangerous wolves are those that disguise themselves as sheep or goats.
• In the real world, it can sometimes be heard too hard to tell the difference between some types of goats and hair sheep. Hair sheep are not used for wool.) Likewise, it can be hard to tell the difference between people that are affiliate marketers and those that do other types of online marketing. (In this case, I am a goat that hopes to have a solid affiliate marketing business also.)
• Then you have wolves. Wolves eat sheep and goats. Their favorite goats and sheep are those that are financially broke and the young innocent babies to the online world. Both groups are easier to catch.

About Wolves - Trust but Verify

According the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, a small percentage of people are born to be, what I am calling wolves. A small percentage of people are going to steal or scam others no matter what. Likewise, a small percentage of people will never, ever steal.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people fall in the group that could become a scammer or thieves depending on circumstances.

Before you say, "Oh no...not me." Consider this. If you found yourself in a tough spot and the only way to save a loved one's life was drive over the speed limit and run stop signs on the way to the hospital, would you? Would you steal something if that was the only way possible to save a loved one?

Every single day, you probably do many, many things that may not be the best for your health, your family or your pocket book. I am about to pour myself another cup of coffee flavored sugar. I drink it even though I know that it is not good for my health, my teeth or my bank account. (The money I spend on coffee, chocolate syrup, caramel syrup and creamer could be better spent elsewhere.) Yet, I could bore you by justifying why I need my coffee.

All of us have the ability to rationalize the decisions we make. Life can put pressures on people to make unwise decisions.

So, what I am trying to nicely say is that just because our WA community has some dangerous wolves lurking among to us; that does not mean they are horrible, awful people that can not be redeemed.

Someday, they might wake up and realize they want to learn how to create a business that does not involve scamming people.

Yet, until they do - these wolves are dangerous.

If you choose to start following a wolf, their actions can result in:

1. The death of your dreams. Wolves do not care if their actions kill your hopes, ambitions and trust in people. All they care about is the few dollars they earned off of you - because you trusted them.

2. They can cause you to lose money. Maybe you can afford to lose the money. Maybe not...

3. They waste your time.

4. They will destroy your confidence and moral. You will be mad at yourself for having been "foolish" enough to have trusted them. You will be mad at yourself for having overlooked the warning signs.

5. You might start acting like them. You could become a wolf. Their actions could leave you so financially desperate that you find yourself thinking, "Maybe I should try that." "I know it is not really right, but...." "I will do things differently once I can pay my bills." "This is temporary. I only need to do it this once...or twice..."

Ladies and gentlemen - if you want to validate this, let me know and I'll look through my files and send you links to stories of people that got caught after embezzling huge amounts of money from their churches, charitable organizations or their employers.

They were able to get by with stealing the money because they were nice people. They were trusted.

Now I am not so sure that many of the scammers online have ever been trusted with lots of money. The amounts they scam from people are tiny comparatively.

Some online scammers are the easily recognizable as wolves. They act like wolves, they look like wolves, they smell like wolves. Only the most desperate people, at the lowest points in the lives will fall for the easily recognizable wolves.

The Wolves that look and act like Sheep are the Dangerous Ones - Trust but Verify

At the beginning, they do everything possible to relate to you. They want you to like them and trust them. After all, if you don't like them - they won't be able to get close enough to you to get to your money.

From what I have seen so far, it appears that these wolves want to be associated with WA because Kyle & Carson has created an online training community for affiliate marketers that will work - if people follow the training and invest the time.

So, if people "Google" Wealthy Affiliate, they will see the positive reviews." Innocent sheep will overlook the wolves's claims to this being a way to get-rich-quick or a system that will work faster if you will "invest x number of dollars in xxx product or service they are selling.

You should not automatically trust someone because they are a WA member or because they have a ton of online friends or likes.

WA is a great platform. Yet, WA does not do criminal background checks, credit checks or reference checks on people that join. WA does not have a system to check if what people write about in their WA blog posts is true. Even organizations that do employ fact checkers still let some erroneous information published.

Kyle and Carson have created an organization that operates with integrity. WA, as an organization, is truly committed to helping its members succeed in building and growing online businesses. Yet, wolves pretending to be "normal" WA members do slip into our ranks. You should not automatically trust someone because they are a WA member.

Some wolves view WA community as a set of prospects for scams that are operated outside of WA.

In the last couple of years, I am aware of multiple WA members that got conned into some sort of business idea that was supposedly designed to make you successful faster. Or to join some sort of affiliate program or MLM scheme that will be more profitable than affiliate marketing. (I am not saying all MLM programs are scams. Some are, some are not.)

Example of a WA Wolf: Trust yet verify

Just this weekend, I read the success story of a newer member. The member was excited to get some WA referrals and to have earned a big affiliate commission. The new member also mentioned some smaller sales. I was happy for the person and congratulated them.

Yet in the back of my mind, I kept asking myself, "What were they selling to earn over a $1,000 in affiliate commissions?" "If I am ready to start getting WA referrals, what do I need to do immediately." That person seems to know.

So, I went and looked at the person's website for about 15 minutes or so. I was very sad to discover that this member seemed like a dangerous wolf. Granted, this person is not being consistent with what is being published online.

According to the person's website, this person made over $8,000 doing product reviews between January 20 and February 3, 2019. Guess what? There was even a Clickbank earning summary to support the numbers. That is the snapshot from above.

This morning, 2/27/19, after I origionaly posted this - I have found out more. This person is not as new affiliate marketing as I (we) might have thought.

This person told a friend of mine that they have been working online businesses since 2009. They are not new to affiliate marketing. They did leave part out.

On the website Clickbank report, it also includes results from multiple websites.

So, to a newcomer, the results could really confuse someone. Leaving parts of the story out confused me. People also need to be consistent with what they say online. When you say something on one place and then something in another place, it can be viewed as being deceptive. This is why I say, trust but verify.

This is just one example of WA members that's actions have created concerns in the last week. I have three other examples that are a bit more subtle but possibly worse. Overall, these people have left me worried and disappointed.

IF new referrals take a few moments to Google "Wealthy Affiliate," they would have find lots of great reviews that say WA is NOT a scam. After all, those of us that have been around a while know that WA is not a scam.

No wonder we have so many starter members that are truly confused.... And mad...

Trust But Verify: Some wolves in WA are silent

Last week, while trying to understand one of member's frustrations about feeling scammed, I came across the profile of one of the silent wolves.

I nearly threw up. I nearly barfed, when I saw one of their customers comments on their profile. I am assuming the person was a customer from elsewhere. The sheep left a comment on the wolf's profile, "I am glad to see you are a Wealthy Affiliate member. That means I can trust you."

The sad thing is that when I did a quick Google search, I thought it was pretty clear that this person is a wolf. This person's actions may not qualify a big time fraud that could result in jail time. Yet the Google search clearly showed that lots "wolf traits" If there is a record of the person talking like a wolf, acting like a wolf and smelling like a wolf; the person is probably a wolf.

In the online arena, the most dangerous wolves know how to avoid being convicted of fraud.

I have noticed that a common trait among the most "successful" scammers is that they know how to scam people yet not actually do anything that would allow them to be convicted of a criminal fraud charge. Legally, criminal behavior and unethical behavior are not always the same. From what I see, most scams are unethical yet not illegal.

Wolves engaged in scamming tend to be likable people. They may pretend to be devout, religious people. Yet, they are expert sales people / cons that get you to focus on the unrealistic benefits that they repeat over and over gain while getting you to forget about the "fine print" that contains the truth.

Thus, when you complain - they point to the fine print. It was you that got so wrapped up in their "sales" that you ignored their warnings. It's not their fault.... It is yours. Of course, these wolves are no longer your friend anymore either. They already got what they wanted from you.

They have already moved on to their victim.

Trust But Verify: Google is your friend in doing this....

If someone claims to be an expert with lots of years experience, Google them. In all probability, it won't take long to determine whether they are a pile of bull poop or the real deal.

For those of you that live in the city - this is what bull poop looks like. Granted it is commonly known as B.S.

For example, if someone was to Google me, they will see that I'm just as scattered and unfocused in real life as I tell you that I am here. It will be very evident that I spread myself out too thin and as result don't always have my priorities in order.

In other words, instead of writing this post, I probably should be taking the time to update my different real estate profiles to show that I have my own company now. I should be posting more consistently on the platforms that show up on the first page. Yet, I am who I am. I am also NOT claiming to be an expert at SEO. If anything, I am the poster child for what happens if you don't focus.

That said - I do know how to recognize B.S. I also am comfortable about preaching the importance of trusting yet verifying.

You have to learn to trust yet verify. Your long term financial success in the online world depends upon it.

If we are truly dedicated to the affiliate marketing industry as a whole, and WA, the wolves among us have to learn that their behavior is NOT acceptable.

--Sondra