The El Passo Blog

Yes….I’ve turned American, I said suck

As I’m sure long time readers of the blog know, it takes a lot to get me “wound up” but something happened yesterday that got my blood boiling, and from the title of this blog post you can probably guess which company I had the misfortune of dealing with.

Here’s the story:

A couple of years ago I created a website for one of my relatives, I registered the domain name for the website over at 1&1, I created a new account for my relative so she could manage the domain.

Back at the start of the year I did an internal domain transfer and moved the domain name from her 1&1 package to my own, so her package now contained no domains.

All well and good, but then my relative received this through the post:

It was a letter from a debt collection agency called Arvato Finance acting on behalf of 1&1, they demanding the huge sum of £4.68 for a domain name that they claimed had not been paid for. The domain HAD been paid for, but it had been paid for through my own 1&1 account (where the domain now “lives”), yet they still demanded paying for the domain.

I logged into my aunts account and there was no domain name listed in the package, so why were we being charged twice for the same domain?

A phone call to both 1&1 and Arvato was about as helpful as BA on a long haul flight with both passing us back and forth between each other. After a search on google for “1&1 Arvato Finance” it seems to be a common practice for 1&1 to charge customers for domains they no longer have with the company.

In the end we decided to just pay the bill, for under £10 it really wasn’t worth the hassle.

But let this be a lesson to all of you, think twice before you purchase your domain name with 1&1!

You can read my 1and1 Review by clicking here.

Date: 29th April
Time: Lunch
Location: My Bedroom

Subject:

Dear Mr Thompson,
It has come to our attention that you have committed a sin against the e of bay, we have no choice but to  discontinue our association with you for a minimum of 30 days, or 720 hours.

Complaining about this suspension before the 30 days are up would be futile.

Yours in service,
Roger eBay (Head of eBay)

So the scene was set ladies and gentlemen, my eBay account had been suspended just as I was getting ready to re-launch my shop for the CD digital media revolution.

I was actually suspended for “Feedback Manipulation” which was very strange, the feedback and the item for sale that “breached” the rule received and listed before the digital ban came in place, but I was banned when the digital item ban came into play – confused? So am I!

The listing that caused the problem was associated with the EW portal delivery script that I sell. The script works with eBay, so I had a listing in my shop called the “EW Portal Demo Auction”. When someone purchased the item, the script would deliver a file to the customer. It was a great way of showing potential customers what the script could do, but unfortunately Roger eBay didn’t like it.

So now I’m banned from eBay until at least the 29th May – I’m a modern day Ronnie Kray. (A famous criminal here in the UK)

However, every cloud has a silver lining as they (who are these they’s we hear so much about?) say. My eBay suspension means I can’t list any of my new multimedia CD’s on there until my account is reinstated, so whilst it’s bad news for me, it’s great news for you!

On Monday I showed you my brand new Basic HTML Multimedia CD ROM designed to sell on your website and on eBay.

The only place you can get the CD from at present is from me, so if you act fast there will be virtually no competition on eBay for that item!

The price is still only $10 and shipping is only $2.50 no matter where abouts in the world you are located.

So get those listings up before my account is reinstated! You can check out the CD by clicking on the image below, and if you plan to resell it, you can download the sales page to use on your website, or on eBay by clicking here.

As always thanks for reading, and when you get your hands on the CD do let me know what you think about it!

Cheers,
Dan

I’m pleased to announce that my very first eBook - Basic HTML has been
upgraded into a brand new Multimedia CD-ROM.

The upgrade was inspired by the eBay policy changes that meant no
down-loadable products could be offered for sale via eBay, so
everyone now has to ship their items on a CD or list them as
classified ad’s. Now a lot of people have decided to just stick an
old eBook onto a CD and send it off, but I thought I’d try
something different!

With a CD, you are no longer confined by large files. In the “old
days” you had to think about file sizes as people would be
downloading the items, and those with slow Internet connections or
bandwidth caps would have problems, but Cd’s ELIMINATE (been
watching too much Gladiators!) these problems.

So I’ve created some brand new videos and made the Basic HTML eBook
a component of a brand new multimedia course, aimed at showing
novices how to build their own websites.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but if you want to take a
look at how I’ve put the CD together, and how I’m handling the
delivery side of things why not take a look at the CD:

http://www.basic-css.com/basic_html/

You’ll probably remember that around 16 weeks ago, John “PlanetSMS” Thornhill launched his own personal coaching program, the number of places was strictly limited and the price tag was into hundreds of dollars. I know from some feedback I’ve received that a lot of you were unsure about joining up as you didn’t know quite what to expect.

Well, with around 2 weeks left to go, John’s students are coming to the end of the course and they are starting to produce their own quality products.

I don’t know this through (thru for the Americans amongst us!) some “insider information”, I know this because I got an email a couple of weeks ago from one of John’s students who is also a member of my mailing list and an avid newsletter reader - Omar Martin. Omar asked if I’d be interested in helping him out with his very first product launch, without hesitation I agreed.

Now I don’t need to give you any type of hard sell here, why not?

Because Omar is one of the nicest guys you will find online!

Not only is he a great person, he also has vast experience when it comes to sales. With over 8 years of offline sales experience, working as a sales trainer and manager, Omar decided to try his hand at internet marketing. He didn’t really know where to start so he took the plunge and joined John’s coaching program.

With John’s help, Omar has brought all of his offline knowledge together and used it to create his very own product - “High Performance Sale Secrets“.

Not only does Omar provide you with a brilliant written guide to capturing the sale, he also provides you with “real” videos - not camtasia screen recordings but “real” videos with Omar showing you on his white-board exactly what you need to do to make sure you turn a visitor into a buyer.

That’s all I need to say about the product, I’m not bluffing when I say that the quality provided really does sell itself, I love it when something like this comes along, it makes me realize that there are still genuine people out there, willing to share their knowledge for practically nothing…

Yeah, I said practically nothing!

What would you expect to pay for a product that provides you with a huge written guide, and loads of video guides thrown in for good measure? You are probably thinking it’s going to be one of those “special” offers where the $197 price has been lowered to $97 for A LIMITED TIME ONLY” (yeah, right!)

Sorry to disappoint, but Omar is delivering incredible value by selling it all, the videos, the guide, the bonuses for only $37! So what are you waiting for?

http://elpassoblog.com/recs/omars_sales_secrets.php

As I said right at the start of the email, Omar really is one of the “good guys” and I had no reservations about helping him out with his very first product launch. So please, if you do have a spare 5 minutes do head on over and take a look at what Omar is offering.

It’s a great example of how any newbie can break into the world of Internet marketing, a real success story if you’ll excuse the cheesy pun

http://elpassoblog.com/recs/omars_sales_secrets.php

Hello and welcome to something strange…it’s another Friday blog posting!

Today I don’t have a newsletter for you, but I do have something just as good. A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Graham Cox as part of his “Auction Aces” series of eBooks.

I won’t spoil it for you but we discussed everything from List Building to Attending Seminars. I don’t want to sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet but I do think it’s a very good read, and to be honest, there’s a lot more content in there than you’d find in one of my newsletters - My newsletters are usually 2 pages in MS Word, this interview is 14 pages in length.

The eBook is free, but best of all it comes with resale rights and is totally re-brandable! That means you can brand the links within the eBook to earn you commissions for my Boomerang List Builder software, and my D9 Hosting service.

Click here to download the brandable version - I don’t even need you to opt-in

Click here to download the normal (non-brandable) version

Let me know what you think of the interview!