HAPPY 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY MY IBIZ WEEKLY!!!
MIBW
Archives
November 18, 2003
Please
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MY IBIZ WEEKLY
Vol.11, Issue 5
November 18, 2003
Editor : Donesia Muhammad
Copyright (c) 2003 KDM Publishing
Brought To You By
http://EzineAdHelper.com
View Our Past Issues Online
http://MyIBizWeekly.com
Reaching over 19,000 Readers and Growing Daily
===========================================================
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===============================================================
Table Of Contents
===============================================================
>> Editors' Notes.....
>> Reflections Of The Past Year
>> Looking Ahead To The New Year
>> The Best Of MIBW 2003
>> List Maintenance and Ad Rates for My IBiz Weekly
>> Contact Information
===============================================================
Welcome From Your Publisher...
===============================================================
Hi Donesia and Happy Anniversary MIBW. Another year has come
and gone. I can't even believe where the time has gone. Now I am
moving into year Three. I have learned so much and that is
mostly due to so much trial and error.
When January 1st hits and if those new laws go into effect. I
will definitely become a web based membership site. I no longer
have the time or energy to keep wondering what is around the
corner.
Life is too short to worry about the small stuff.
What can I tell you.......
What I have learned is that I am just not ready to become a
household name online. There are still too many things to do
offline first before I can do anything else.
There are no articles in today's edition. No ads with the
exception of the top sponsor ad above, and of course the ad for
the MIBW ad sale below:) Today's issue has some of my thoughts
for the year.
I also included some links back to some of the best issues and
columns this year.
Bear in mind that I do not have November's archives online yet as
I am still doing my redesign of Ezine Ad Helper and one day when I
actually have the time I will redesign My IBiz Weekly.com but
that is definitely a long way off. Right now there is no need to
add on extra work when there is barely enough time to handle any
of the old work :)
Oh I have learned so much about wasting time.
I don't have the actual concept of time management perfected but
I do know about wasting time LOL
So while I originally planned to make this a longer issue filled
with a bunch of reflections and hilarious stories, I can save
those for future issues.
Enjoy your day everyone.
Most importantly enjoy life......................
Send me any feedback or comments here
mailto:donesia@ezineadhelper.com?subject=anniversary
Below is this week's contest winners.
CONTEST WINNERS
Free Solo Ad to MIBW
Winner: Joni Groves
Congratulations Joni
All you have to do to enter is to look out for the solo ads that
arrive Monday through Friday.
Don't forget about the anniversary special ad sale going on
between now and November 23rd. Get your order in now.
Details are below and you can order here
http://ezineadhelper.com/ezine/mibwdiscount.htm
===============================
ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL AD SALE
EZINE AD HELPER COOP ADS ON SALE FOR MIBW READERS ONLY........
One Budget Ad to the Budget Ad Coop : $15.00
One Solo Ad to the Solo Ad Coop $55.00
One Top Sponsor Ad to The Top Sponsor Coop $30.00
2,000 Visitors Included With Each Solo and Top Sponsor Ad Order
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AD SALE FOR MIBW ONLY
$20 Special
One Solo, Top Sponsor, and Spotlight Ad
$10.00 Special
Buy One Get One Free Spotlight Ads
Order now
http://ezineadhelper.com/ezine/mibwdiscount.htm
===============================
==============================================================
Reflections From One Of My Favorite Readers
==============================================================
"Congratulations on moving into year two, Donesia!
You already know that I won't be without my subscription to My
IBiz Weekly but maybe I've never told you why. I've been a
reader for almost 19 months now and I've never been bored yet.
Not with one issue, ever.
Maybe it's because we started our publishing careers at about the
same time or maybe it's because we're a lot alike but many weeks
I've changed my weekly article simply because you already wrote
what I was thinking. Probably better than I would have written
it, too! So basically, you're about a step ahead of me most of
the time. You keep up the good work, girl!
Definitely your fan,
Wonder "
<<< GEEKS, FREAKS AND BAMBOOZLES FREE GAZETTE >>>
Have you been scammed so many times you quit trying?
Are you tired of ezines where the marketing advice is "buy my
product"? Do you ever wonder what the Internet "gurus"
do for entertainment? Then it's time to sign up for
Geeks, Freaks and Bamboozles Free Gazette
published by Wonder a/k/a the ol' carny lady
mailto:wondersubscribe@freeautobot.com
This is why I love my newsletter....... Thank you Wonder
==============================================================
Reflections Of The Past Year
==============================================================
In year one, I learned the in's and out's of this business. I got
my business license, I finally settled on a web host and a list
host and I was happy.
I was so determined to make money, and I was ready to go.
But one thing got in the way.
Life.
Children, bills, spouses, day to day life.
I forgot to smell the roses.
You see I finally realized that I had to
GET A LIFE
In order for me to become a true business person and understand
the business, I had to learn when to let go.
You think I have all day to spend worrying about spam filters and
how many people unsubscribe from my list every day?
You think I have all day to worry about setting up the best joint
ventures and making sure I don't get screwed somewhere down the
line when I have homework to supervise.
How many times has dinner been burned worrying about things you
can't control.
The internet is as human as we are. It makes mistakes and we have
to learn to roll with it.
What it all boiled down to was my priorities. Certain people can
succeed online because there situation is better than others.
When you have a lot of young children in the house, it is not the
easiest thing to do as opposed to having older children who may
be able to help you down the line.
But that always necessarily true as well.
Some people have extra help so they can do what they want to do.
Some people are already financially stable and not dependent on
anything they earn online.
Until I know your situation that is when I can look to you as
someone to follow on the road to success.
The grass is never greener on the other side.
================================================================
Looking Ahead To The New Year
================================================================
Some of my first loves include writing and teaching. I plan to
use that to my best advantage.
I am also not stupid. I wanted to make sure that I learn the
skills that will make money for me a thousand times over.
I have learned so much online alone. This has helped me motivate
myself into doing what I need to do to survive.
As of last week I became a college student again.
I am now working towards my bachelor of science in IT
(information technology)
I can finally learn the true basics of the internet and work
towards creating software in the future.
I always had a plan for life and now I can achieve it.
I also am in the process of doing something else.
Getting out of the house and getting a good old fashioned 9 to 5.
What,but I thought working at home was the thing to do and the
best option towards financial freedom?
Maybe it is for some, but not for me.
I need steady money. I can not rely on what I call Maybe, Maybe
Not money.
Whatever I make online is what I consider Extra Money, nothing to
rely on. While I obviously rely on my online income to pay for
all my internet services ( hosting, etc) that is still not
guaranteed money.
Maybe, Maybe Not
So I am going to get a regular job. My online life is about to
become part time.
I learned to stop accepting every joint venture offer that flies
my way. Not to jump on every new program stuck in Pre-launch
mania.
To not feel bad if it seems as if everyone is making money and
you are not. ( It's just hype by the way when everyone tells you
they are making loads of cash, most of the time they just want
you to join their program)
I have taken the time to automate most of my day to day duties so
I am not a slave to the computer anymore.
This is my choice. I don't recommend you do exactly as what I am
doing but this is the best choice for me.
We all can't do as we think everyone else is doing.
So while this time should have been spent working on my ebook I
am working on school. Oh I still plan to write my ebook and
others in the future but that will be on my time schedule and I
won't be pressured by anyone to succeed.
Does all of this sound strange or am I the only one who
experienced so much internet burn out this year??
So while I am not yearning to become the biggest name online
anymore, just another ethical marketer in the mix....
I guess I won't become a millionaire online,
But I will be happy...................
===============================================================
The Best Of MIBW 2003
===============================================================
From
http://www.myibizweekly.com/2003/feb/022503.htm
QUICK THOUGHTS FROM YOUR PUBLISHER
On the subject of scam refunds, and credit card fraud, I
discussed this issue over the weekend with the publishers in my
ad coop.
I also realized that it is an important issue and I am reprinting
the information I gave them which includes some important phone
numbers to some of the leading payment processing companies that
95% of all the online marketers use for their ecommerce payments.
When you are new, you tend to forget that people who view you as
a business will also scam you as such because they figure " "Oh
these companies have the insurance to cover this fraud, they
won't miss a thing"
Not when the company is you and your pc. That is when reality
hits you.
I hope this helps at least one person who has any problem with
their ecommerce and get frustrated looking all over the place for
one silly phone number. Learn from my errors..
THE UP AND DOWN SALES SCAMS
Nothing is more exciting to us than to see that email which lets
us know that we have a sale. Whether it is for an ebook, or an
ad, we are jumping for joy.
You promptly send them an email to thank them and give them
their product or service that they paid for.
You don't hear from them about any problems so you assume all is
well.
Then a few months down the line, you get an email from the
payment processing company that the customer has requested a
refund and the funds will be deducted from your account...
No questions asked....
Now hold up, wait a minute... Why does he/she need a refund?
They acted as though they were satisfied with the product and
never sent you so much as an email to tell you they were
dissatisfied with the product, so what gives..
Well guess what, chances are you have been scammed.
This is a growing problem. You see it really doesn't matter what
type of refund policy we have on our websites. As long as they
paid through a payment processing company such as Paypal,
Clickbank, or any merchant account where a credit card is used,
all they have to do is contact their bank where their credit
card was issued or Paypal ( for example) directly and they are
refunded their money, no questions asked.
You see sometimes you have to be leery, especially with large
orders.
A person has 90 days to dispute a charge on their credit card.
Last week I had one advertiser request a refund from Clickbank
for an ad he purchased for $110.00
He purchased these ads on December 5th.
Oh so now he has a problem with his ad that ran 3 months ago.
He told Clickbank that is was an unauthorized transaction.
Now either that means if this was true that he was not supposed
to use that card at all , or plain and simple, he was scamming.
He filled out my ad form, received confirmations from the
publishers and all of a sudden now you have a problem.
Now since I was waiting for Clickbank to send me their latest
affiliate check, they took the money out of my pending funds,
and their administrative fee and bam, there goes your commission.
Come on. Most people when they have a problem with your product
or service, they make an attempt to contact you first either by
email, phone, letter.
I mean really... tie a note to a pigeon if you really want to
get in touch with someone.
I knew then that I was scammed for basically a free ad. We are
so happy to see a large ad order, we will bend over backwards
for them and that is good but sometimes it can hurt you in the
long run. Sometimes you just have to weed them out and see how
sincere each advertiser is before you chalk them all off as
scammers.
PROS AND CONS TO THIS STORY
Now I am not saying that we shouldn't have this type of Buyer
Protection plan. I myself have gone through Clickbank to request
a refund, and this was after repeated attempts to contact the
website owner, so it's not as if I didn't try to reach them.
Unfortunately once you have been online for a period of time,
you may experience some type of fraud involving your credit
card, or the ecommerce solution that you use.
Everyone should be allowed to get a refund whenever they want
to, but good grief at what cost to us??
I have seen customers request refunds and then I would ask other
coop owners if they dealt with this customer and they would tell
me that the person scammed them as well.
So you have to be aware of what is going on out there.
Don't be afraid to ask other publishers or web site owners if
they have dealt with a shady customer.
How else will we know if we don't ask.
I wish there was a list that would let you know of some of these
payment scammers. If someone knows of a list, please send me the
link.
PHONE NUMBERS
You know what also bothers me. How hard it is to find a phone
number with Paypal or Clickbank.
It's not like they are selling some 10 dollar ebooks or a 20
dollar ad for crying out loud. They hold millions of dollars a
year, you would think there would be a prominent display of a
phone number.
Hey if they don't want all the phone calls, then stay out of
that type of business.
CLICKBANK: (208) 345-4245
Monday-Friday Mountain Standard U.S. Time 8am-5pm
What is a shame is that I had to go through my directory
assistance just to get this number
I know they have an 800 number but that is mostly for those who
have credit card disputes and nothing else.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
PAYPAL:
NOTE: what is even more pitiful is this information from Paypal
had to be found on one of those anti-paypal sites
http://paypalsucks.com Now that is a shame.
Their toll free number is (888) 221-1161
Another toll free number is (800) 836-1859
Yet another toll free number is (877)672-9725
Their NEW regular telephone number is: (650) 864-8000
Their regular phone number is: (650) 251-1100
Their fax number is: (650) 251-1101
Their mailing address is:
PayPal
P.O. Box 45950
Omaha, NE 68145
Their corporate offices are at:
1840 Embarcadero Rd.
Palo Alto, CA 94303
US
The Nebraska office is at:
Paypal
11128 John Galt Boulevard
Omaha, NE 68137
(402) 935-2000
(402) 935-7733
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
EGOLD:
At least their info can be easily found on their site.
+1 321-956-1200 or fax at +1 321-951-0790.
service@e-gold.com
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
STORM PAY:
I am currently unaware of a direct phone number for Storm Pay
but if someone has it, please let me know.
StormPay.com
Copthall, PO Box 2331
Roseau, Common Wealth of Dominica
West Indies
For Sales Please send an email to:
sale@stormpay.com
For General Support Issues:
help@stormpay.com
For Fee Related Questions:
fees@stormpay.com
For Funding and Transfers:
transfers@stormpay.com
For Website Problems or Questions:
website@stormpay.com
For Login and Password Issues:
login@stormpay.com
For Account questions or Issues:
account@stormpay.com
For Technical Support/Website Integration and scripting:
tech@stormpay.com
For Affiliate questions or problems:
affiliates@stormpay.com
To Report Spam: spam@stormpay.com
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
2 CHECKOUT.COM
Mailing Address:
2Checkout.com Inc.
3974 Brown Park Dr.
Suite I
Hilliard, OH 43026
Email:
Sales and support questions are handled expediently, at all
hours, on a first come first serve basis via email.
Tech Support -
support@2checkout.com
Customer Service -
service@2checkout.com
New Sales -
sales@2checkout.com
Phone:
The number appears on each credit card statement and is reserved
primarily for buyer's questioning charges on their credit card
statements
PAYSYSTEMS:
PaySystems.com Inc.
575 Madison Avenue
10th floor
New York, NY
10022-2511, USA
PaySystems Corporation
1500 University Street
Suite 920
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 3S7, Canada
PaySystems Limited
Dauntsey House
4B Fredericks Place
London EC2R 8AB, England
Sales/General Information:
Tel. (514) 227-6868
Fax. (514) 227-6869
Toll-free. (866) 699-9022
sales@paysystems.com
International Toll-Free
++ 0 800 3000 - 0030 Corporate Office
Tel. (212) 605-0529
Tel. (514) 227-6868
Fax. (514) 227-6869
Toll-free. (866) 699-9021
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS ISSUE?
What can we do to prevent these type of scams or refunds in
general??
mailto:donesia@ezineadhelper.com?subject=onlinescams
===============================================================
FAVORITE ARTICLES AND TUTORIALS
===============================================================
Why I Love Newbie Publishers
http://www.myibizweekly.com/2003/feb/021103.htm
Expect Nothing, Stay Happy
http://www.myibizweekly.com/2003/mar/032803.htm
Tutorials
How To Write an Ebook Series
http://www.myibizweekly.com/2003/apr/041503.htm
Help! I'm Married To The Computer Series
http://www.myibizweekly.com/2003/july/072903.htm
This past year I had two readers contribute weekly to MIBW.
Virginia Rounding from
http://virginiarounding.com and Ameenah
Lutfee from
http://healthyagenda.com
You can read their columns here.
Virginia Rounding
Weave Well: Writing Tips For The Web
http://www.myibizweekly.com/2003/feb/021103.htm
Ameenah Lutfee
Maria's Healthy Agenda's
http://www.myibizweekly.com/2003/may/050203.htm
I thank them so much for adding so much value and knowledge to
MIBW.
===============================================================
FAVORITE "QUICK THOUGHTS" COLUMN
===============================================================
=====================================
QUICK THOUGHTS FROM YOUR PUBLISHER
Always Two Sides to Every Issue
=====================================
After I read the letter Valerie sent me,
http://www.myibizweekly.com/2003/mar/030403.htm
I thought to myself, that Publishers and Webmasters have to be
careful who we do business with. Don't accept every Joint Venture
that comes your way.
Don't be afraid to say " I would like to review the product
before I consider associating my name with your product."
I think we are so happy to see a 50% commission or a copy of an
ebook and we don't even consider the possibilities of any future
errors.
I also think we tend to get so flattered that we were chosen to
take part of a joint venture, we don't even think twice about it,
especially for the new publishers. Trust me, many joint ventures
are not hand picked. Some just collect the email addresses, and a
publishers first name and ezine name for personalization, and
then there is a mass mailing.
When I see joint venture offers go to my very old myibizhelper
address, then I know it's junk.
Now I have enjoyed great success with many joint ventures with
Kevin Bidwell, Doc Phelps, Anand Iyer, Diane Hughes, Glenn
Gordon, Dean Brenner and many more. They took the time to answer
all my questions, they tailored things according to my site, my
ezine, etc.
I have seen so many publishers spend so much time endorsing
someone else's product, you swear it is their product.
Now I love their dedication and their drive. Every Affiliate
owner wants someone like that in their program but what if all
those efforts are for nothing. What if that program is gone, what
do you do.
That is why I wrote the article Stop Renting Your Profits to get
some people to understand that you should look at affiliate
income as a benefit, not a necessity.
Last week we discussed all those refund scammers out there and
why the payment companies always seem to believe we are guilty
before we even have a chance to explain.
Well maybe that is a good thing....
We tend to forget that if these rules were not in place to begin
with, then all the scammers would have a field day with us.
What I would like to see is a better system to check the validity
of a buyer complaint similar to offline stores.
I know it is easier dealing with complaints offline since there
is human interaction and technically we are just known by our IP
addresses online.
We already have enough on our plates as is, why make it harder.
There has to be a balance for us, the small business person who
already knows how hard it is for us online.
Sp^m filters, refund scams, junk email, pay to send email
companies hounding us down
Always trying to keep up with the Internet Jones'
Trying to keep the customer happy while maintaining a profit.
Bouncing emails, search engines, affiliate programs
Paypal, Clickbank, merchant accounts.
Writing articles, writing ebooks, finding a list host
Grabbing a Sale on Monday, Broke By Tuesday.
Finding a web host.
Pay per click, Pay per lead, safe lists, downlines, forced
matrixes, sales copy. Cgi scripts,php scripts.
Promotion, promotion, marketing, and more promotion.
All in a day's work for the Blue Collar Entrepreneur.
You either play to win, or stay on the sidelines.
You be the judge.
That's my two cents for today. What's your opinion??
mailto:donesia@ezineadhelper.com
===============================================================
Closing Thoughts
===============================================================
As much as I have stressed over the past two years, I love this
business. 2004 is a new horizon that I am ready to take on.
I will become more web based and realize the importance of
readership, not the numbers just for a high ad rate.
Join me into the 2004 journey.
Enjoy Your Day
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