I’m wondering if you can enumerate some specific take-aways that might benefit online marketers. You can ignore the obvious (don’t make claims that can be easily proven wrong, don’t make up testimonials, avoid “miracle” type claims, etc.).

I wonder sometimes if even the average aggressive marketer with a good (honest) product had not better watch his p’s and q’s as well. As we all know, there is no shortage of entrepreneurial types who are good with their product and sales but poor with record keeping, administration, follow up, etc. As they say the devil is in the details and sometimes people pay heavily for sloppiness or lack of organization as much as wrong intent.

Perhaps a little primer for keeping on the straight and narrow would be useful here.

I am not going to go into the legal nuances about how and to what extent government should interfere with business, or quibble over the words ‘medical researcher’ and ’supplement’. Also I am not interested in Belcher’s personal life. As far as I’m concerned it is irrelevant whether he is a good family man supporting an ailing grandmother and a tribe of pygmies in the rainforest, or whether he spends all his money on sports-cars and whores. I just want to nail one particular point. BELCHER CAME BY HIS MONEY DISHONESTLY.

Austin, you seem to want to shrug and say “Caveat emptor”. True, a fool and his money are soon parted, and I am not my brother’s keeper, still less a moral crusader. But Belcher went into dangerous territory in healthcare. You are dealing with sick people who might act in ways they normally wouldn’t, out of desperation. What if someone had died from taking his pills? Not likely, but possible. How would your shrug feel then?

Incidentally, I happened to type his name into eBay a while back and he was auctioning business consultations for $1000 an hour. If he really has all the money that he is supposed to, then I can only assume that it is not liquid. I speculate that he may have cut even more corners than usual to resolve some cash flow problem, hence the comparatively trivial amounts that he is charged with getting illegally, and got caught.

Now, perhaps Belcher may have successfully tiptoed around the law by calling the writers ‘medical researchers’. But customers who buy these things are expecting expert opinion, and indeed they are marketed as ‘insider knowledge’. It is at the very least dishonest to sell these things when nobody involved has ANY KIND OF MEDICAL QUALIFICATION WHATSOEVER. It is also dishonest, in my view, to make out that Filipino + Google = “medical researcher”.

Was Increase Media a terrible place to work? No. Are all its employees the scum of the earth? No. A little hypocritical perhaps in that they failed (and by the looks of it still do fail) to accept the fact that what they were doing is dishonest, and keeping themselves in deliberate ignorance of the rest of Belcher’s activities. I realized at my initial interview that Belcher was an fraudster, and you only have to Google his and Selmedica’s name to confirm it. There used to be a notice on the office wall which ended “We are not telling our customers about this.” Does this sound like an honest businessman?

The fact that he may have been a decent employer is as irrelevant as whether or not he is a good “family man”. He doesn’t profit by ripping off his employees or family, he profits by ripping off the public. The e-books are the tip of the iceberg.

I never siad you worked to help build any case. I was asking you (although in a sarcastic way) to bring into light that former disgruntled employees were a part of the campaign against belcher. Thats what I was asking. I never implicated you, sir. I was merely asking you to expose that.

Sorry if my statement was misunderstood. I apologize for that. Sorry for offending you, sir.

While I appreciate positive PR spin, blaming Perry Belcher’s current legal situation in the United States solely on disgruntled former employees in the Philippines calls for willing suspension of disbelief. There was a lot more at issue than an employment dispute — and anyone who has actually looked at the case would know that.

Perry Belcher could be the next Mother Teresa or Marquis de Sade. It wouldn’t matter. The purpose of this post and thread is to warn other Internet marketers about the type of conduct that makes one a government target in an effort to prevent future prosecutions.

If disgruntled former employees were part of Belcher’s problem, that’s just one more lesson to be learned.

As for your accusation that I have somehow worked with the government to make a “fraudulent case” against Belcher, either provide factual evidence to support your claim or retract it.

Regardless of the merits of what the government has done in this case, I played no part in Belcher’s prosecution. That you posted a personal attack on me here using a fake name speaks volumes about your character. Not mine.

And as for your attack on my “vaunted government,” let me just remind you that many American lives were lost saving the Philippines from Japanese occupation in World War II. Ingrate.

-Mike