The Internet Marketing Spy

A few years ago, I was interested in segueing my home-based business into an online venture when a friend of mine introduced me to a woman named Gina Ratliffe, a.k.a. Gina DeVee (yes, she now uses an alias like the criminal she is), who was supposedly doing this already and quite successfully. Unfortunately, it was a major rip off.

Gina tells her tale by explaining that she was a therapist who was barely making ends meet because of the long hours involved in her profession. Today (she claimed), she makes more money in one month than she used to in an entire year working less than half the hours she used to. For $6,000, she promised to teach me (and 29 other women) not only what she did to change her business model, but how to implement these strategies effectively and somehow get in touch with our feminine side at the same time.

Against my better judgment, I fell for it (except the ridiculous feminine crap).

After $6,000, I was not making a dime using her system while working at least double what I did before. Why? Because she could never explain <em>how</em> to get traffic to my site. Gina didn’t know how. Her concept of making money on the net is to hand out business cards. In fact, the friends I made in the course (the <em>only</em> good thing to come out of the class) and I realize now that she probably didn’t get any people in the class from the internet, but through her friends to whom she promised somewhere between $500 and $1200 to sign the rest of us up.

The only change I could see that this woman possibly made to her business was to gouge her clients for every last cent that they had. Once you’re in the course, you will be urged to get everything set up quickly (and sloppily, like her system) and to join affiliate programs under her for everything from your $100/mo shopping cart to your $20/mo ezine program. And if you can’t get it all done yourself, don’t worry. She also sells expensive VA services to the tune of $43/hour! I recently learned that her VAs sued her.

The saddest part is that I have since found various permutations of her course costing anywhere from nothing to $7 on the internet. Internet marketing gurus who have been around far longer with much higher profits than her are teaching this course with far more support and detail for only $500 or less. I have taken several of their courses because they actually give away more information than her in their <strong>free</strong> seminars! These guys aren’t promising to help you get in touch with your feminine side and quite frankly, this slant she had never made any sense to me.

This experience taught me a lot.

1) Never pay more than $2000 for an internet marketing program unless the person has already delivered increased income with their lower end products.

2) Read the fine print. This woman’s money-back guarantee was steeped in scarcity tactics. All she was ultimately offering was a rolodex. No promises that she’d show you how to make that rolodex work. Oh, and her money-back guarantee doesn’t exist. She has not honored it for even one of the people who has complained and is likely to be facing a class-action law suit.

3) Proceed very cautiously with these systems. Don’t fall for overnight success stories. Make sure your guru has been around for at least 5 years.

4) Make sure free info gathered from these marketing gurus actually delivers more than just some theory. If these guys really have something to teach you, they will offer you something to get you started up front. If you can make a little money with their free systems, it will finance you laying out bigger cash for their higher end products.

5) There is a lot of money to be made online <strong>honestly</strong>! Don’t feel you have to gouge a few people for whatever it is you have to offer. E-books and other digital download products sell like hot cakes. There are several products that show you how to deliver products that people wouldn’t mind paying for and in a way that doesn’t leave them feeling cheated.

None of the women who have signed up for Gina’s classes have seen an increase in revenues. In fact, many of us have seen our businesses lose momentum and several have even have gone out of business due to having lost credibility with our clientele by using her crooked tactics. If you don’t believe me, see what other class participants are saying. There’s also more about her here.

So just know that there are legitimate ways of making money online and I will do my best to provide you with what I have found to be the most legitimate programs available as well as the least expensive options for getting everything you might need to set up your business from free stock photography for your site and web hosting to inexpensive e-mail marketing products, shopping carts, voice recorders and more!

If you have also been ripped off by Gina Ratliffe DeVee, please share your experiences here. Together we can protect other women who might fall prey to this horrible woman.