]]>
We would call him a “Miracle man”, one who is so famous that Wikipedia has a page all about him including his biography. And despite all his charges, all the bad reviews, all the bad reports, he is still running around, kicking and selling his stuff on what appears to be a version 2 of this earlier website.
However, his book “Debt Cure” seems to be far from miraculous
1) Book Content:
We went on to check the page at Amazon.com for the book “Debt Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About”, where a customer wrote,
“…he writes a book of twenty-four chapters of mostly repeat information. About sixty percent of the book is repeated over and over. What are usable lies in about thirty pages of this three hundred page book which can be found in other sources…”.
In fact, we recommend reading more about the review above as it contains a run-through of the various chapters. Chuck Jaffe of Marketwatch.com also had a similar conclusion in his article at marketwatch.com about Debt Cure, which he added that some of the cures are outdated.
“if buying “Debt Cures” doesn’t kill you (financially speaking) it can save you, as the information it contains is fine.
Alas, there are no easy “cures” to an individual’s debt problems. Truth be told, most of the information is readily available in personal finance columns you can find online or in books that are readily available in your local library… What’s more, some of Trudeau’s cures have actually reached their expiration date, such as his first suggestion for rebuilding credit: “piggybacking.”
This reminds us of the Rich Jerk program. Someone just had to come up with a bright idea to piece together all the free advice/information over the internet, give the book a name, and sell it. The only thing that is original is probably the marketing strategy or presentation, both of which does not benefit the consumer.
While a compilation of “free advice”, repackaging and reselling is not entirely new, what a good seller would do is to state clearly that this is a compilation of good and free advice. I mean, a good compilation of freely available information does help to save our time to search, classify and recompile them into a useful set of personal notes. However, it is a scam if the “repackaged” book is sold by calling it “a secret that no one knows about”. They are exploiting the group of people who are less informed, who are unaware that these information are just a few keystrokes away – and that the secrets are far less effective than it promised.
This reminds me of a case long time ago when I bought a customised cheat book from a seller at ebay.com with magic words such, “secret cheats” and a whole list of benefits. After buying the book, I realised that its in fact a compilation of public cheats available at the gaming forums. (note: Game cheats are Not scams :-P) So we could understand why the many readers are pissed off when they paid for “secrets”, but received “public information” instead.
2) Hard Selling:
Chuck Jaffe also mentioned about the buying process, which is echoed by other reviewers:
“…if you call for the book, you will be offered a whole lot of other goods and services, and you’ll be expected to subscribe to the monthly Debt Cures newsletter for $9.95 per month. By the time you get off the phone, if you fall for the wide range of sales pitches, you’ll be about $250 deeper in debt and will add to that debt every succeeding month.”
And ripoffreport.com has several reviews, such as this:
“I called to order 2 books for relatives who are struggling with their debt and when I called the operator was like a hard core sales person trying to get me to order a lot more stuff to help folks to get out of debt, it was like she was twisting my arm.” (ripoffreport link)
These are marketing tactics that everybody hates. We would have done the same as one of the reviewers wrote, and say, “No we only want the book or we don’t buy. Oh, its already shipped? Thanks.” Hang up the phone, there are better things to do. That is polite enough for a hard selling marketer, so you don’t have to feel bad about it. As we always say, always be ready to apply the most effective anti-scam tactic – walk away or put down the phone. They want something that we don’t want to give, so just shut the door and move on instead of wasting time.
3) Credit Card Fraud
Also, immediately after ordering the book, I started receiving an enormous amount of telemarketing calls from other companies. These companies claimed to be awarding some prize because I was a good Master Card Customer. How did they know I was a Master Card customer? Because they had all of my credit card info including number. They offered to sign me up for their offer and charge my card without needing me to tell them my info. I also received a couple charges to my card after declining their offers. These charges I have contested and initiated a chargeback.
Damage Resulting: They have caused me an enormous amount of stress and agravation through telemarketing calls, loss of privacy, and credit card fraud as well as the cash that was fraudulently taken from me. I lament the day I ever agreed to give these people my information and my money!!(ripoffreport link)
With so many complaints and past records of fraud, we believe that the credit card fraud mentioned in the report is true and related to the site.
Finally, we did a quick check at Youtube – there appears to be more Kevin Treadu’s own videos than complaints. Looks like the Kevin’s tribe is winning over there. We have no direct experience dealing of this company, so please read the compilation of reports at the collection of links below… and this compilation is free.
