Glen Gould Online

Category: My Online Business

  • MOBE Closed Down by FTC – To be Contined

    So just like MOBE affiliates, members and employees we have been waiting for today to hear what will be the faith of MOBE (My Online Business Empire). The company has been closed down by the FTC since June 4th and many affiliates are financially and emotionally hurt by the sudden closure of the company. There was a court hearing that was scheduled to take place today June 26th 2018 to address the complaints:
    • Deceptive Recruiting Materials
    • Defendants’ Live Events
    • Consumers Do Not Make Substantial Income from the MOBE Program
    • Deceptive Refund Practices
    According to Mark J. Bernet, Receiver  
    The lawsuit is pending in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division. A copy of the Complaint is posted on this website. In the lawsuit, the FTC alleged that the defendants operated a fraudulent internet business education program called “My Online Business Education,” or “MOBE,” through which the Defendants claimed they would reveal a “simple 21-step system that will show consumers how to quickly and easily start their own online business and make substantial income.” However, the FTC further alleged that, contrary to the Defendants’ representations, “the vast majority of consumers who join the MOBE program and purchase . . . costly MOBE memberships lose money.” According to the FTC, this “internet business” that consumers are taught to launch in Defendants’ program is nothing more than buying costly MOBE memberships for thousands of dollars and recruiting other consumers to pay thousands of dollars to purchase those same memberships. The FTC further alleged that by operating the business in the fashion they operated it, the Defendants violated Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C.A. §45(a).
    Among other things, the TRO:
    • Enjoins the Defendants from making false representations concerning what consumers are likely to earn through the MOBE system, or concerning consumers ability to obtain refunds from Defendants without conditions;
    • Enjoins the Defendants from making false representations concerning the Defendants’ refund policies;
    • Enjoins the Defendants from selling, copying, releasing or disposing of any customer information, including customer names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, etc.; and
    • Freezes the assets of the Defendants and enjoins them from transferring, selling, or otherwise disposing of any of their assets.
    The official court date was reschedule on June 18th and has pushed back the  preliminary Injunction hearing from June 26, 2018, until 1:30 p.m. on July 17, 2018.  

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  • Is the MOBE system a scam?

    Is the MOBE system a scam?

    Short answer: yes. The Federal Trade Commission shut MOBE down in June 2018, a federal court froze its assets, and the court-appointed receiver concluded the business could not be operated legally. This post is the full story — what MOBE was, how it collapsed, and what happened to the money — compiled from my original reporting as the case unfolded.

    What Was MOBE?

    MOBE (“My Online Business Education”) sold itself as a business education program run by founder Matt Lloyd. The pitch was simple: a “proven” 21-step system for making money online. Entry cost just $49 — but that was the top of a very expensive funnel. Members were pushed toward escalating “license rights” packages starting at $2,497 and climbing into the tens of thousands of dollars, each sold with the promise of bigger commissions and faster returns.

    The model looked attractive for the same reasons every online business opportunity does: work from home, no storefront, no inventory. But the income came almost entirely from recruiting other people into the same expensive packages — not from any real product or service.

    June 2018: The FTC Steps In

    In June 2018 the FTC filed suit against MOBE Ltd, Matt Lloyd, and related entities, alleging the operation had taken more than $125 million from consumers. All MOBE websites were seized and business was halted overnight. Affiliates initially protested and hoped for a quick resolution at the June 26th hearing — it never came. From the FTC’s complaint:

    “Once consumers are lured into joining the program for a modest entry fee of $49, Defendants apply a series of high-pressure tactics to induce consumers to buy their various membership level packages – starting at $2,497 and progressively becoming more expensive – with the false promise that consumers will reap substantial returns on these ‘investments.’”

    The Shutdown Was Permanent

    The court-appointed receiver, Mark Bernet, investigated whether MOBE could be reformed and operated legally. His conclusion: it could not. MOBE was completely and permanently shut down. His investigation confirmed the core allegation — virtually all of the consumers he communicated with never earned back what they paid for their MOBE memberships.

    Following the Money: The $6.3 Million Reserve Raid

    One of the more dramatic chapters was the fight over MOBE’s payment processing reserves. Payment processor Qualpay Inc. and Synovus Bank held over $6.3 million in MOBE reserve accounts and argued their merchant agreements let them keep it. Judge Dalton disagreed: the money belonged to MOBE, so it belonged to the receivership. The companies were ordered to turn over $6,314,342.09 by August 16, 2018. All told, the receiver recovered more than $14.3 million in the early phase of the case, with additional lawsuits against third parties on the table.

    Did MOBE Victims Get Refunds?

    Eventually, yes — through the FTC, not through any “claims service.” In 2020 the FTC began returning money to MOBE victims, ultimately distributing more than $23 million in refunds. Two lessons from that process are still worth repeating:

    • Real refunds never require an upfront request or fee. After the shutdown, scammers targeted MOBE victims a second time with fake “refund processing” offers. The FTC identified eligible customers from MOBE’s own database.
    • Report, don’t wait. Filing a complaint at ftc.gov/complaint is what builds these cases and gets people paid.

    How to Spot the Next MOBE

    MOBE wasn’t the first program of its kind and it won’t be the last. The warning signs are consistent:

    • Income claims based on selling the same opportunity to others, rather than a real product or customer
    • A cheap entry point that funnels into “levels” costing thousands
    • Pressure to upgrade before you’ve earned anything
    • Testimonials about lifestyle instead of verifiable business results

    A legitimate business education program makes its money teaching skills that work whether or not you ever buy another thing from them.

    Building Something Real Instead

    If the reason you looked at MOBE in the first place was to build income on your own terms, the honest path is a real business with real customers — and capital when you need it. If you own a business and need working capital, equipment financing, or funding to grow, start at Funding-Advisor.com and I’ll tell you straight what you qualify for.

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  • Is MOBE Closed? Look at the Signs!

    Sign #1 – MOBE’s Official Website Is Not Working

    You can’t go to mobe.com anymore and all their major domains are also down. All of Matt Llyod’s personal sites are also down, namely mattlloydsblog.com and askmattlloyd.com.
    Their official MOBE Facebook page hasn’t had any posts on it since June 7, 2018, and they usually post something daily. In their latest post, someone commented and asked if mobe.com is down and MOBE responded saying “Yes it’s down – tech is working on it.” To have their entire company suite of products down for 3 days is highly suspicious. This could result in millions of dollars in revenue being lost. Let not forget the members of MOBE that are sending traffic or need support. This is a major sign that MOBE is Closed.

    Sign #2 Top Earners Michael Williams and Michael Giannulis Left MOBE 2 Days Ago

    Michael Williams and Michael Giannulis just celebrated with Matt Llyod last month on the millions they have earned from the MOBE program.

    Then 2 days ago, these two sent their downline this message that was found by behindmlm.com:

    This is a bitter sweet moment for BPO that we must inform you of. As of now, we are no longer affiliated with MOBE at all.

    As we move forward onto bigger and better things we want to let you know where we are with MOBE.

    Any members that you were working with to sell them MOBE must stop immediately.

    This also means that any sales that we have made that are not paid will have to stay that way.

    The FTC has brought the hammer down upon MOBE and we have to cut ties with them 100%.

    If we do not we could also find ourselves stuck in a sticky situation.

    We know the loss of sales hurts, it hurts all of us as a whole, but we know that BPO is going in a great direction and is making this move to protect us.

    Thank you for your understand in this moment and thank you for making BPO great.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    When top earners are leaving like this it is a good indicator that trouble is on the rise. Contrary to that John Chow revealed his MOBE Income last week so this tells you that what has happened to the company was sudden and unexpected occurrence for the company to go dark in a matter of days. As of June 11th 2018, the video is no longer available so I think this is an indicator that things are really going south.

     

    As of June 11th, 2018, John Chow is now promoting Click Funnels as his next Online Business Program. This is a huge shift in the Online Business Arena. Stay tuned I will continue to update this blog as stories developed.

    John Chow Joins ClickFunnels

    Sign #3 – All MOBE Events Cancelled

    There was a Home Business Summit event scheduled for June 8 – 10, 2018 that was abruptly canceled. These are events that come with the digital marketing packages that you buy into so these events would not be canceled so hastily unless it was for major reasons like being shut down! Some other partners of MOBE have canceled all cross-promotion programs as well.

     

    What’s Next?

    Hopefully, you are not involved with My Online Business Empire (MOBE) but if you are it’s not the end of the world. It’s just a hard time to believe in the system. Things like this are common in big business because laws are different in each country and that’s where things can get tricky. At one point in time, Herbalife was under investigation for several years and could not operate in certain countries. Most people believed they were operating unethically. Their stock market value tanked during this time and once they were clear the stock regained its value.

    Control Your Online Business

    When you join a high ticket program such as MOBE where everything is done-for-you its a blessing but the curse is that a lot of things are out of your control. You can’t control the hosting, the website, the traffic, the company, their practices and so many other variables. So my advice would be to put some processes in place where you have some control over your business where you can control the website, control the traffic and choose the processes for which your business will operate.  You can do this by starting your own online business empire, and it’s not as hard as you would think.  You can use my Affiliate Business Toolkit to get started. The information is free and if you would like to copy the program there are some associated dues.

    Another route you can take is becoming an affiliate for independent companies such as Amazon, Clickbank, JVZoo, BookVip,  Advertising Bait, ClickFunnels, and just about any online company you can think of. For most companies that manage their own affiliate programs, you can scroll to the bottom of the page and sign up. Other may have exclusive programs with preferred advertisers. Bottom line is that they are out there and available as an option for you when building your online business. If you are new to the online business then I recommend you take the Affiliate marketing Bootcamp to learn the in’s and out’s of online business and affiliate marketing.  Lastly, as message below suggest you can innovate out of any situation.

     

     

  • 8 quick tips to improve your copywriting skills. 

    I am about to share with you 8 quick ideas and suggestions to dramatically help you improve your copywriting skills as you get going. You can use these tips when it comes to creating offers, E-mails and sales letters that grab people’s attention. So without further ado, here they are! Number one: Always write your sales letter with the individual in mind. Whenever you’re writing a sales letter or an E-mail, you want to write that E-mail or sales letter as though you were talking to one person. Number two: Pull them in with the first line. You’ve got to create interest with the reader, the very first line that they read. Number three: Use bullets. People like to scan, they like to quickly read things as fast as they can, and using bullets makes that whole process a heck of a lot easier. So use them. Number four: Just let it flow. When you’re starting to write a letter, it is very difficult to just start from top to bottom and write everything. When it comes to writing it and actually putting everything down in order, I want you to just write as it’s coming out.
    You’re going to have moments when inspiration hits you and your pen is going to go like crazy or your fingers are going to go like crazy on the computer keyboard, and I want you to just let it flow. Number five: Write like you speak. I briefly touched on this in one of the earlier points. But it’s much easier for you to envision that you’re communicating with one individual as though you’re having a conversation with that person, because when that person reads your sales letter or your E-mail, they’re going to feel like you’re talking right to them, and that’s exactly what you want. Number six: Make your communication easy to read. What I mean by that is use short paragraphs. Use pictures. I want you to bold certain things. I want you to highlight important areas. Number seven: I want you to stress the benefits and not the features. I want you to put yourself in the shoes of the person reading your communication piece The number one question that they’re going to be asking is: What’s in it for me? You have to address those things, and you’ve got to stress the benefits of your particular communication piece that you’re trying to use. Number eight: I want you to keep the reader interested. How do you do that? On a sales letter there are a ton of ways that you can keep the reader interested, and I’m going to give you a few of them right now. – You can use graphs. – You can use pictures. – You can use audio. – You can use video. – Another one that people love to see are testimonials. – Another one that you can always use is giving examples of proof. – Do you have checks? – Do you have screen shots of people registering for certain things? Whatever you’re trying to sell or promote, I want you to give proof that it works or that it would provide benefit to the person that is reading it – screen shots, pictures, testimonials – these are all great things of proof. So there you have it… 8 quick tips to improve your copywriting skills.
    This is not the be all and end all of copywriting techniques but they will definitely help you jump over some of the hurdles that are standing in your way!

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