Bright Builders ripoff of $2,801 Since December of 2004! My Website did nothing, training was barely more than elementary, I lost money by having to refund a poor product from Bright Builders' supplier Wholesale Marketer.com. Orem Utah

Just a note in response to the complaint about Bright Builders. I have had an account with them for over a year now. I have had nothing but excellent service for a very reasonable price. My website has been a terrific success. I have had to do some marketing for the site on my own but that is normal with any new web site. You can not put a web site on the net and just sit back and wait for the money to roll in. It just does not happen that way with any organization. Hope it works out for you. Good luck with your web site.

I have been with bright builders for a couple of months now, and I have sales coming in no problem. Call me funny, but I actually got off my ass and did some work to promote it. That seems to work.

You are going to do a chargeback? All because your not making any money due to your own error. I can't stand people like you and I am going to file a "Rip-off" report on you for doing that. People who would do a "Charge-back" just because they are to ignorant to do the research and actual work. See there once was a time when people actually had to work to make money. Not just sit back and pray that people from EBAY would come to their site. Come on, you need to do more than that. You need to do SEO (Search Engine Optimization.), Advertising and more.

NOTHING IN LIFE IS FREE, even the FREE things want you to pay Shipping & Handling. :P Just higher shipping and handling than someone who paid for the item. :P

Although I do agree that Bright Builders is a bit expensive, I can honestly say their customer support has been 200% above what I expected. But then again, it should be for what they charge. :P
As far as wholesale marketer goes, its a crap-shoot. Some items you get a crappy. I mean even the big companies "Overstock.com" (The O) sell the same items that you get from WM. I know, I sell them also and have had great customer feedback.

I am guessing you have never gone in a store, bought something to find that it had a defect or been broken before. It happens. Usually its the shipping companies fault.

Please take the time to do research & WORK before bashing hard working companies like Bright Builder.

PS: I do not represent Bright Builders. I am just a happy customer with them. (ALTHOUGH BRING DOWN YOUR PRICES.) :)

I see these happy Bright Builders customers and I just want to note. I have worked on our website for almost 1 year. Getting submitted to search engines and paying extra for extra submissions. Lots of links, ebay pages to bring up our rankings a little, key word optimization and all to no avail. The crime is how easy the other companies are making it sound to be like IDI. They don't tell you how hard it really is or most people really don't make it. I have done nothing but work for almost 1 year after working 10 hour days at work. I don't appreciate several customers doing well, the few compared to all the complaints, saying everyone doing poorly is lazy. You don't know these people at all and really should not be giving grief for something you don't know about. You don't know if these people went the extra mile, I actually did and have had a few sales. Not enough to cover the $600-700 a month in bills this nightmare caused me.

This web site counseling scam flourishes because of naive people. People who actually think they can make money from the internet. Desperate people. People who have been laid off or who have lost good jobs.

Years ago, maybe it was possible to make money from the internet. Today, you have a better chance of hitting an oil well by drilling in your back yard. There are millions of sites now. More come online everyday. Everything that needs to be sold already has thousands of sites to offer the items.

People compete by offering lower prices. They underbid each other until there is simply no profit left. Once you add in all the costs to attract people to the sites in the first place, you will end up working long and hard for next to nothing.

There is no internet gold mine just waiting for people to come and discover it.

Of course, naive new people have no idea of any of this. They are basing their expectations on things they heard about 10 years ago. When the internet first got started, a handful of people got rich from it. That's what leads new suckers to try their hand at the e-commerce business.

These web counseling cons know all this. If there was any money to make, they would be running the sites themselves. But, there is no money in web sites. The real money is in conning naive, desperate suckers into thinking there is money. That's how these counseling cons make their money.

If you bought a site, or bought into the con, chances are you will not get anything back. There is one way. You could find out who has your money and torture them until they give it back. It's not like you'd be hurting a real person or anything. These counseling cons are all trash. Nobody would ever miss them.

The last thing you want to do is waste your time chasing your tail by working the program. You have no possibility of ever succeeding. Remember, this was a fraud from the very start. Once they get your money, they are done with you.

Anybody who comes here and tries to tell you they have a successful site is a company shill. Simple as that.

In doing some research on this company, I have a hard time believing that all the good reviews are just shills. On there's a link to literally thousands of positive comments about the service people have gotten from this company. There's also a link to a page that gives the names of several very successful clients, and what they do.

So what do you believe, then?

As far as I can tell from that website, what they offer is a website tool that lets you build your own website. I don't see where it says that they'll do everything for you. In fact, it talks a lot about the responsibility of the business owner.

I think the problem is that a lot of people think that because the business is web-based, that it's magic. It's not. You have to do all the same stuff for an online business that you have to do for a regular business. It's called hard work, folks.

So what's the problem?

I've been doing a lot of research about online business. A report from AC Nielson says that Internet sales are soaring. So, if I go out and get an online business and I don't do spectacularly well during the next few months, does that mean I should go after CNN now? Their money report said that holidays are hot--people are making a lot of money. I think it's the same principle here.

I'd like to know how long the customers who are complaining here tried to make their businesses work.

If you want to get what you pay for, you have to do the work. The Internet isn't magic. It's real business. It's competitive. And it takes a little time--just like any other business. Do you fire the landlord, throw up your hands, and quit your physical business if you're not making money hand-over-fist in the first two months? Whose responsibility is it?

Here's the report I was talking about:

I read somewhere in this forum that people aren't shopping online and that there's no opportunity. So, are major, reputable market research companies like AC Nielsen just making stuff up? I'm not saying it's magic. It's really hard work and you have to know what you're doing.

Here's that AC Nielsen report:

ACNielsen Announces One-Tenth of the World's Population Shopping Online: 627 Million People Have, including 325 Million in the Last Month
More than 627 million people have shopped online, including over 325 million within the last month, according to a study released today by ACNielsen, the world's leading provider of consumer and marketplace information. Over 212 million online shoppers mention books as among the last 3 items they purchased online. In addition:
• Over 135 million people purchased DVDs and/or video games;
• Close to 135 million made plane reservations;
• Over 128 million purchased articles of clothing/accessories/shoes;
• Over 112 million paid for music downloads and/or CDs;
• Over 106 million purchased electronic devices (including cameras, etc);
• Close to 98 million bought computer hardware; and
• Over 86 million made hotel and/or tour bookings.

The twice-yearly global ACNielsen Online Consumer Opinion Survey, the largest of its kind, polled over 21,100 respondents in 38 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America and South Africa (See Table 1 for market breakdown). The study asked Internet users around the world about their online shopping experiences, including when they last made an online purchase, what items were last purchased (see Table 2 for a list of items covered), the method(s) of payment used, what payment card was used the most for online purchases, and the most preferred payment method when shopping online.

“The findings reinforce the work we already do in the different industries – Consumer Products, Finance, Internet, Technology & IT – showing that consumers behave differently depending not only where they are buying (online vs offline) but also the category they are buying. Therefore retailers in each category need to develop a clear understanding of how consumers behave and interact with their specific category and with their brand in order to successfully drive online sales,” said Deepak Varma, senior vice president, ACNielsen International (Customized) Research.

Not surprisingly, Europe and North America have the highest incidence of online shoppers, with Germany, Austria and the UK topping the list, with at least 95 percent of Internet users having purchased online. In the UK and Germany, about two-thirds of these web users have made a purchase within the last month.

In Asia Pacific, South Korea and Taiwan rank highest, with at least 90 percent of respondents claiming to have ever made a purchase online, at least six in 10 of whom have done so within the last month.

The world's biggest online shoppers are in Germany and the UK, averaging seven and six purchases respectively in the past month. As a region, online shoppers in Europe made an average of five purchases in the last month. In fact, most of the markets in Europe display higher average purchases than North America, which showed an average of four purchases last month.

In Asia Pacific, where the average number of purchases in the past month is five, online shoppers in markets like Singapore, Taiwan, Australia and China, made an average of five to six purchases in the past month. South Korea, despite its high proportion of online shoppers, generated an average of only four purchases last month.

It is Latin America, however, which registers the lowest past month purchasing, with an average of only three purchases.

“Our recent e-commerce studies clearly show an upward trend in global online shopping,” said David Boyd, vice president of Internet Industry Research at ACNielsen. “While there is growth in nearly all global markets, we see that the lesser developed markets are maturing faster than many of their more developed counterparts. It will not be long before we have a nearly level playing field across the globe.”

CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.

I am a computer programmer and develop my own web sites for various things. I believe I am sufficiently competent not only in the internet, but also, fortunately in scams like the one reported.

The names of the companies change, but the basic players behind the scenes remain the same all the time. Some unscrupulous people have figured out that if they run "2 hour seminars" with free food that they can lure people to come see what it's about.

Then if they give you a bunch of patter, plus some "Outstanding Success Stories!" they can get you to come to an all-day seminar "Your $75 fee will be refunded back to you!"

Then at this all-day seminar, with free food, plus a door gift (worth perhaps $15) they relentlessly bombard you with success stories interwoven with a few actual tricks for getting web traffic.

And like all good salesman, they start with the high prices at the beginning, totalling up to perhaps $8, 9 or ten thousand dollars, then gradually lower it as they go along to make you think they are giving you a great deal.

The final ingredient of course, is that "we can only offer this right now today". No product that is worthwhile has a time limit. When you here "this is the price today", do not buy it, it's a scam.

I agree that the positives above are most likely placed by the company themselves, but it's rather pointless as the company will simply change their name tomorrow and try again as Super Marketers! or Amazing Web Service! or New and Improved Hunky-Dory Eggheads!

The point is, to understand the concepts. Bombardment with positive stories, High price lowered drastically, and You can only buy it today.

Run don't walk from anything that smells like that. Whether it's a used car or a web service.

...and Bright Builders is a the middlemen of a middleman called Wholesale Marketer! If you want the real deal, sign up with a wholeseller/dropshipper that requires a business license and ones that have actual warehouses! It is not easy to start an online business, you have to get ripped off first and survive many bad things, including financial losses, fraud, chargebacks, overdraft fees, bad merchandise, eBay, middlemen, customers.. etc, Once you pass and survive these hard tests (usually in a year or two - depends on your IQ ) you will become an expert and you will not tell anyone about your hard earned expertise. That's what really happens, that's how internet business works.. really.

I am a real customer, I live in the UK and contract for the company in South Africa that employed me when I lived there, up until a year ago. The Director asked me to do my job remotely becasue they could not replace me at the time. This gave me the opportunity to investigate internet businesses. I signed up with Bright Builders recently and paid them a lot of money. I have found them helpful and very proffessional. I find the course intense, the homework is a lot of work. You have to do the research and homework before the next coaching lesson or else you loose the benefit of the lesson.

I put in a lot of hours research to find my "niche" and then to find wholesalers and Dropshippers. Market research was especially hard because it is geared mostly for USA and I am from the UK so some of the tools supplied are not so useful, but I found other ways. Also designing a logo was a challenge, but I managed to do one on MS Publisher. I also found out that you can pay for a proffessional company to make you one at a low cost.

I have learned a tremendous amount and have just started out with my business and am confident of giving up my day job by the end of the year. Without this course I would not have gained the knowledge and confidence I have now. Success is not a quick process, it takes a lot of research and hardwork. The Bright Builders programme also provides e-books by the internet business Guru's which have also been extremely useful. I was expecting the hidden costs because of previous experience of starting up my own business when I lived in Zimbabwe. I do my day job from 8am to 5pm and my Bright Builders from 5:30pm to 2am and on weekends. Gruelling I know, but I am nearly there. Once the initial lot is set up I can start working more reasonable hours.

I have learned that there are a lot of pitfalls for anyone wanting to start up a business and to do a training course like Bright Builders helps you to avoid many of them and also to start up the right way and a lot quicker. It gives you a lot of know how from the start, knowledge that would otherwise take years to accummalte. My suggestion to anybody who invested in this course is - stick with it, do the homework, read the extra workbooks, do the turorials and lessons. Do the turorials on ebay as well. The more you read and learn, the more of a success you will be. Use the search engines to investigate and research further.

There are many ways to earn money with the internet and thanks to Bright Builders I am in the process of setting up several sources of income and the ideas are flowing in as I do more of the course and assignments. Each idea will be investigated, and if good, it will be set up. This takes time and hard work. This is just the beginning, internet will change and new sources of income will pop up and I intend to keep up with the times. This will keep my brain going once we retire. I will keep you posted.