Warning - Turnkey Flipping can Kill

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Firstly, I have very little knowledge of US law, so this could possibly be a dumb post to make, but I've been following the Donald Lapre case and find the actual charges interesting

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In June 2011, Lapre was charged with conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. The indictment alleges:

• Lapre's sales pitches for the Greatest Vitamin program greatly exaggerated its income potential.
• Buyers were never told that their Internet-based businesses would ultimately be competing against more than 200,000 other "businesses" offering the exact same limited number of products in essentially the same manner.
• Although their initial investments were small, buyers were sold expensive marketing programs that had little or no potential for generating sales.
• From 2004 to 2007, 226,794 people invested more than $51.8 million and received just $6.3 million in commissions [24].

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He was recently found hanged in his cell:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/447634...ead-jail-cell/

(Officially, he comitted suicide. He was previously found in a gym with stab wounds in his groin days before he was arrested ... they also chalked this up to attempted suicide (!), but unofficially he owed money to the wrong people, who apparently had some influence inside prison!)

Does anyone know what part of selling an effectively turnkey site, similar to hundreds of others currently being sold, is the part that found him on the wrong side of the law?

[benitez17]

I don't know where the money laundering charges came into play, but the other charges stem from the scam you described.

Every dishonest website flipper could be accused of this in the US and probably convicted. The issue is that most of them aren't in the US, and/or they are too small to attract attention.

His problem is that his scam was too successful.

[Clinton]

Well spotted, Justin, and thanks for starting this thread.

As benitez17 says, it's about scale. There are numerous such scammers in Flippa, but they get away with it. And they're outside Flippa as well. How often have you heard a pitch containing a hard luck story, followed by a revelation of a secret discovered, then reassurance that it's very easy to implement and finally the Paypal button so you can get in on it too? That was Lupre's game, just like it is so many others. It's only $39.95 (the price of Lupre's "secret"), and he made $52M out of it!

Lupre's partner, Doug Grant, was a convicted murdered (he "terminated" his wife).

Lupre had a long list of scams behind him. Here are some of them. I'm not surprised he had some enemies in prison.

I'm glad the feds got him. Now if they can only get some more....

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How often have you heard a pitch containing a hard luck story, followed by a revelation of a secret discovered, then reassurance that it's very easy to implement and finally the Paypal button so you can get in on it too?

That's actually the foundation of many courses on how to write product launch copy. I love reading Salty Droid (...although at times it reminds me of someone here .... ) and also keeping up on the latest from the 'syndicate'.

IMO they are very good at getting people to buy stuff and teaching others how to do the same. If they only had a little more ethics about it and applied their skills in a less 'fraudy' manner, they would probably take over the world .. at least be more widely respected.

[Clinton]

I'll take that as a big compliment

I seriously doubt though whether someone with "ethics" could succeed in a market where most marketing uses fraudulent, dishonest or slippery measures to make sales.

Who would you say are "ethical" marketers in the MMO industry? The "syndicate" certainly ain't it.

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I dont want to say I dont know any, because that would suggest there are none, but at this point I genuinely cant think of anyone who I would use as a shining example.

Ethical is a grey area, and we ALL sail a little close to the wind at times when we're being judged by other people's standards of what's right. I do it, when I choose a link baity headline over a straight one, simply because I know more people will read the article. I hate myself for doing it, but it's the lesser of two evils if the content is good.

Likewise, using psychology to sell IMO is ok, providing people dont lie or deceive. So faux scarcity in the form of "the last launch sold out in three hours so dont waste anytime" is ok (when referring to a physical product that actually sold out) versus "the last launch sold out in three hours so dont waste anytime" which isnt (when referring to an ebook that doesnt have a physical limit).

It's the old dilema; if there was a scale of MMO sleaze with 1 being squeaky clean and 10 being Mr Lapre, most of us would like to be 1, but realistically would sell much more at 5, so choose to be 3 because we get paid whilst being able to sleep well at night.