The Summit Group - Brightbuilders 5,000 Rip-Off of Single Mum: Hard sell & False Promises, Weak Coaching & debits for Website I couldn't use American Fork Utah

I signed up, in July 2007, to an internet web-site business. It requested a small fee, but promised that one lucky person, if successful, would win professional coaching to be a successful internet trader. Within a week, I had received an international call explaining that 'they' had received my request (at this point, 'they' did not seem to be the company I had subscribed to), and that they wanted to help me.

They had read my profile and the reasons why I needed to be in control of my financial destiny, my single-parenthood being of paramount significance in this, and had essentially 'come to my rescue'. They operated with an amazing strategy: they called and advised that 'someone' - one of their executives - was going to call me tomorrow to talk through how they were going to help ME exactly.

It all sounded very strategic. I was then called, the next day as arranged, by Brian Church, apparently of the Summit Group, who talked an amazing talk, and never having invested in anything involving the internet, or understanding one iota about e-commerce, he convinced me that they would be 'military' like in making sure that I achieved success. All I needed was capital.

He asked me how many credit cards I had and the financial limits on each, and talked at length about the power of OPM (other people's money) and how you could use it to start a business of your own that would quickly make enough money to pay the interest on the subsequent repayment, stressing that we had to move quickly in order to have made some money by the time that repayment was due.

What absolute rubbish!!!! There was NO WAY ON EARTH that I could have then gone on to attempt to make money the way they suggested, by taking Bright-Builders tutorials, learning how to sell on e-bay, and then selling my own stuff, or stuff gleaned from car-boot sales, or thrift shops, and make enough money in time to pay my first repayments!!!! Interestingly, he let me know that if I had had more money, I could have 'invested' in an even bigger way. I realise now, that what he meant was that I could have purchased more coaching sessions! But having no knowledge of this, or truly what I was purchasing, (what I was told, however, was that I would be receiving expert coaching, and a host of tools to help me,) I invested in the 'smaller package' that he offered for what I could invest with my 'other people's money' - all 5,000 GBP of it. .

In addition to this, I signed up to a hosting fee for a website that they would help me build my business. Given that 'help' with setting up the website would come close to the end of the coaching sessions, it would seem appropriate that they charge you for hosting WHEN you are ready to set up your web-site to start selling your products, whenever that might be. But No, they started to charge you immediately.

Now I was led to believe that this fee was solely for the internet hosting. When I recently requested a re-imbursement of this fee, only then was I told that the fee had actually been for all the 'tools' that they had supplied (various computer programmes to capitalise on ebay, and access to the BrightBuilders web-site with their pre-recorded tutorials). So they had mislead me: the 5,000 GBP had been SOLELY for the coaching sessions!!! They were the most expensive coaching sessions in the world! - 12 1/2 hour sessions at a cost of 832GBP PER HOUR!!! Unbelievable.

I have not been helped to become a business owner as I had hoped and expected, neither have I been supported to rise to a position where I could have become such. The coaching I was given was merely 'hand-holding'. After 12 sessions, I am still utterly bewildered as to how to get a business off the ground. What's even worse about this is that when I asked what coaching might entail, having never been coached in anything, Brian's response was a warning that they would AGGRESSIVELY help me advance my business, but if their aggression made me uncomfortable, I only needed to tell them to back off. I feel that I was rail-roaded into purchasing the programme without having what I paid for explained to me. I fully believed that I was purchasing products as part of the deal. It was only made clear that products to sell were not included in the purchase AFTER I had paid.

I felt coerced, with nothing to show for it except for a programme (deep analysis) that I was only shown how to use in any significant way in my ELEVENTH session. Indeed, none of the several 'free' PC products I was given access to included any instructions on how to use them. Indeed the only thing AGGRESSIVE was their endeavours to sell this package to me. I am seriously not pleased.

It was expressed in my initial phonecall with Brian Church and in my set up sessions with Brightbuilders, that I would need to make some money quickly or I wouldn't be able to afford my Credit Card repayments. Brian had assured me that this would be do-able. Lori, however, being more realistic, stated that I wouldn't expect to make any money in the first month. However, this 'realistic' perspective was only raised AFTER I'd already paid.

I made a real go of this business, putting in as much as I could, and spent SO MUCH TIME trying to make it work. To say that I am disappointed is an understatement.

What makes me unhappier is that I am a single parent. I didn't have the money in the first place. Brian knew this. Yet he convinced me to pay out of my two credit cards. I wanted so much to believe him. But to what end? I am now penniless, with nothing but the sale of a few items on eBay to show for it. Not only that but I ended up having to borrow additional monies in an effort to make it work, and spent so much just trying to keep my head and family afloat, without success.

Brian Church stated in his first phonecall that you don't see a dime out of me until I get to see success. Well that, so far, has been completely untrue: They've taken 5,000 sterling from me (which isn't mine and I have to pay back to credit cards), and I haven't seen success at all.

After my coaching 'graduation', I wrote several emails to Brightbuilders to ask for a refund, as promised by Brian Church if I had not had success, and was told by billing that they were simply a fulfilment company for another, and that they could not offer me a refund on my investment. I asked who I could speak to about getting a refund, and she suggested Eric Largen. To date I have not been able to find any contact details for this person.

I do hope to get somewhere toward achieving a refund because I'm STILL paying off my credit cards!!! How can they do this to people?? How can they be so unscrupulous???

Ruth
London
United Kingdom

Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Summit Group Publications