Last week, I attended a two hour seminar held by EmPwrOnline in Brighton called ‘The secrets of proven eBay selling success.’ If you are interested in selling on eBay or want to improve your eBay selling skills, I would strongly advise that you don’t attend these events. The event has been publicised with newspaper adverts like this one from the Brighton Argus. Isn’t it strange that an advert promoting online selling seminars doesn’t include a web address?
Empwronline’s session is not about selling products on eBay
The session kicked off with ‘Richard Hofmann, Executive’ saying that he would not be talking about how to list on eBay. He would, however, be concentrating on how to make money from eBay. At no point were selling strategies or listing tactics substantively discussed. There was some material about drop-shipping services and sourcing product using Google and ‘online discount warehouses’ as well as a brief overview of PayPal but many details provided regarding policies, postage and eBay in general were erroneous.
The ‘giving away free websites’ scheme
The seminar concentrated on a scheme the presenter claimed would be more lucrative that selling products on eBay. The presenter claimed to make a ‘six figure income’ in this way.
This is the scheme the seminar promoted:
- First, harvest email addresses on eBay. Look for eBay sellers who will likely want a website that they can sell from off-eBay.
- Daily, email ten likely eBay sellers through eBay’s messaging system and give them a free EmPwrOnline website.
- Once your seller has set up their website, EmPwrOnline will weave their magic and when one of your recruits buys an upgraded website, you will receive £450.
To assist you, you could buy access to a ‘portal that has all the information and support you need. This portal wasn’t demonstrated and the contents were not explained. Access to this ‘portal’ costs £10 a month.
Who is Michael James?
To get in on this scheme, you were required to cough up £20 for a four hour seminar with Michael James. Michael James, referred to accidentally by the presenter as Michael Symes/Cymes at one point, is a millionaire desperate to share his lucrative secrets with you. Michael James is the keynote speaker at eBay’s annual convention, ‘eBay Expo’ and, such is his celebrity, tickets for that event cost $2000. We were told.
I have never heard of ‘eBay Expo’ or Michael James and a quick online search reveals little concrete information about this apparently famous man. Attendees were invited to buy his book and CD for £20. I asked to examine the book before I bought it. The request was refused.
I wouldn’t spend a penny with EmPwrOnline:
From what I saw at the seminar, this company has very little specialist knowledge regarding eBay and eBay selling. Equally, EmPwrOnline representatives (who were all American) seem ignorant about online trading in the UK.
Bottom line: EmPwrOnline is selling access to an expert whose credentials cannot be verified with an online search. They are promoting a money-making scheme that is unlikely to work. It is also categorically against eBay’s rules to do what EmPwrOnline suggests. In my opinion, the scheme (which encourages you to harvest email addresses using the eBay system) will not net you or anyone a ‘six figure income’.
Frankly, and totally subjectively, there’s something a bit shifty about these guys. I personally don’t trust them. I kept my money very firmly in my pocket and I advise everyone else to do the same.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with EmPwrOnline (good and bad), so feel free to comment below.
19 Comments on "My concerns about EmPwrOnline"
Hi I went to the empwronline and did pay out on my credit card. I was a bit uneasy about how they were slagging ebay??
Tonight I had a call which was obviously finding out how much “MORE” money I had to spend in order to make big money. I began to realy get worried then and did a search on the web. I came up with “rip-off-report” I will be going to my bank first thing in the morning Thanks for your info Andrea Webber
The other thing I was worried about that all the copywrite signs are 2008 ….????
Andrea: thanks for the comment. Where did you see the empwronline seminar?
A Mike Symes was promoted as ebays #1 seller by a bunch of crooks called Clickincome who used to ( not sure if they still do) run very similar sounding seminars in the US.
It is a total con, it sounds like a pyramid scheme but is pretty much a straight sting to simply rip you off
Clickincome have a few “sister” companies and all of them a probably to be avoided too.
Dan, If you had signed up for what was said to be the seminar with Michal James [ AKA Michael Symes, you will have also signed a contract costing you £10-00 a month. Then try looking at the Empwronline.co.uk website returns and cancelation policy, Http://empwronline.co.uk/pop_return_policy.php
You can not return/cancel without ‘phoning them first. The telephone number on the website is a private number, nothing to do with Empweronline.
Try “Clickincome” in Google, same people.
Both companies apear to be in the business of selling websites, only £4,500 each. The role of the seminar attendees is to do the selling for them, only having bought their own website first.
Geoff: Well, a £4500 ecommerce website suitable for even a very big eBay seller would have to be seriously good. Stratospherically brilliant and from a really great company.
It’s a huge expense and I personally believe that most people could sort themselves out with a very whizzy website for a fraction of that. I understand that frooition charge somewhere in the region of £1200.
Sorry, the “only” should have been italics. Apparantly, you then get sucked into their “merchant payment” scheme and other bolt-ons, all at an upgrade cost for each one.
[...] EmPwrOnline has been advertising seminars in the media in the last month or so and I recently attended one of them in Brighton. Rather than providing ‘the secrets of proven eBay selling success’, they offered some basic and insubstantial eBay selling knowledge and then pitched a scheme whereby eager attendees could give away free websites to apparently eager eBay sellers and receive a commission when sellers upgraded to a paid-for website. This scheme, claimed the presenter, netted him an annual ’six figure salary’ for a few hour’s work a day. [...]
Agree with previous comments. I think ebay would love to sue them for printing their logo (i assume) without permission.
I would pass these details to ebay’s corporate team to deal with…I am sure they will be impress with all their association (NOT) with the company!
[...] also posted a useful warning on his own blog about a crowd called EmPwrOnline purporting to run eBay training seminars, but actually running “scrape & bait” pyramid-selling operations for website [...]
I have just returned from one of those Empwronline seminars in London. And As I had a bad feeling, I checked about the company online. But it was too late… I did not pay huge sums for their products, but as I attended a seminar, I was also automatically signed for monthly fee to access member’s area. I have asked to cancel this fee. And here they started the circus: one guy said he cannot do this, the other claimed he has nothing to do with Empwronline, he is just using their system… Then I questioned whether all this was legal. That was a real warning: the guy just said he had no problems so far, and just walked away stating that he needs to spend time with those who really want to do business…
Jolanta,
The triplicate form you provided your card details on has the information for ending the £10 monthly payment.
You have to do it by letter and provide some details Not by phone or email. But the instructions are on the reciept.
I think Jolanta also needs to call her bank and let them know what’s going on. The problem with recurring card transactions (assuming that’s what it is) is that misuse isn’t underwritten by the banks as direct debits are.
I went to Empwronline seminar yesterday 23/11/2008 have a very GOOD
LOOK AT EVERY ONE OF THEM (I mean the Americans)if you look carefully you will see that they are all website designer they are trying to get as much people to buy their website.
1. did you notice that almost all use glasses
2. did you notice that almost all have pot belly or overweight(seating by the computer eating a lot to keep the mind going)
3. did you notice that they were poorly dress for a prof. sale person or a prof. spoke man (just look at those moustache)
4. Did you notice that there were not very well spoken
well think twice!
[...] other news. The smallbizpod piece and my own post regarding empwronline was picked up by buildaskill. Buildaskill bills itself a site dedicated to small and home-based [...]
Dear All
Also went to the information session at the hilton in London - also got a gut feeling all was not well for someone who is purportedly such a successful businessman he was not suited appropriately.
Have reported it to the general manager of Hilton and the Hilton Sales team and have sent your website to their sales manager so they are aware. Also picked up the fact he used two names and also everyone who went yesterday there is UK law to protect you that is you have the right to cancel in the first 7 days and no payment is necessary not sure if they are quite as clued up about UK law as US law seems very lax.
Best regards
Vanessa
[...] empwronline post, regarding seminars about eBay selling (which I strongly advise you don’t waste your time [...]
i went to one of these seminars and in ours the guy was offering £950 pounds for every upgrade to one of the paid websites. I rang the office to discover it is a rented office you know one of those companies you rent the secretary so they don’t actually have their own office at all here is the number for anyone who wishes to ring 01474874888 they were to ring me on friday for a paymeny but did not and when i rang on monday the lady in charge of this had a day of . Thats a Friday and a Monday off. i will be checking my cards in the morning luckily i gave them some wrong details with a maxed out credit card anyway
[...] EmPwrOnline where I’ve gathered together a slection of links regarding this company as per my previous post. I’m concerned that people are being mislead, attending these seminars and getting sucked in [...]
You have the conch: