How Steve Porter from BloggingMaster scammed me and stole me $497

Hi,

For those considering using any service from Steve Porter from Blogging Master, STAY AWAY ! Here is what happened to me.

Some time ago I was really into blogging and black hat marketing, and I found blogging master to be very appealing, but unfortunately VERY expensive. However, I found another bloggingmaster offer called the "BloggingMaster Club" (which seems to be down now !). Basically this was a - very expensive - subscription based program where Steve Porter and his team offered to build your entire blog network with the BloggingMaster program, and do a lot of auto-promotion with the built-in tools of the program. So I took up on the offer and decided to go for the $497 monthly subscription for a 1000 blogs network.

I paid via Google checkout and Stever Porter at first was very responsive. One of the first things he said is that Google would send me an email and I had to let them know that the product had been "shipped". I trusted him, so I did. He said I had to purchase my domain names and then update the dns to his servers. So I spent countless hours looking for 100 good .info domain names, and then countless hours looking for 1000 good subdomains for these domains. I also sent Steve Porter the specific instructions he needed to build the network, and exchanged a few more emails with him until he asked me to update my dns so he can upload the blogs. According to him the blog network had been built completely locally, and was ready to be moved to my domains.

I updated my dns and after some time Steve Porter said that something was wrong with GoDaddy, and that although the dns had been updated properly, he couldn't make it work. So he said he would create a new server "just for me". And he asked me to update my dns again. I did. Between every email we would exchange, a lot of time would pass, like one week, two weeks, three weeks...

And some day this guy sends me an email saying that he would like to talk on the phone because a "problem had occurred with Google checkout". I don't really see what problem could have occurred since I had already paid the huge $497 subscription (for the first month), and he said he would obviously not charge me another month before 30 days have passed after my network is live. But anyway I told him that it was more convenient for me to use an instant messenger - any IM would do it - because I am not an english speaker and I am definitely not comfortable on the phone.

From this day I never heard from him again. I tried everything, sent him like a dozen emails to all his email accounts, contacted him through Google checkout, but nothing. And then I understood... this f...ing scammer lied to me for 3 months and bought some time because after 3 months, you're basically fucked. You can't get a chargeback from your bank, you can't get a refund from Google checkout... You can't do shit. Total cost of the operation: dozens of hours of my time, $200 worth of domain names, $497 BloggingMaster subscription.

So as I promised to this douchebag, the least I can do is try to spread the information so that nobody else falls in the trap, and if someone has an idea to help me get back what this guy owes me... please let me know. Oh and it would be great if people could comment about this and keep this thread alive so that when people look for bloggingmaster or Steve Porter, they find this thread and see what a liar and a thief he is.

Thank you all !

Thomas

 

Interesting am thinking of buying this ... Now I wonder ...

 

Well I wouldn't be interested after reading that. Thanks for blowing the whistle. Sounds like a thought out, well- constructed scam. That sucks.

 

I agree with madddigga, definitely don't buy this unless you are planning to waste your time and your money. Yes this was definitely a well constructed scam. I am not new to Internet marketing at all and have been doing business online for years. I have always been able to see scams coming, but not this one. Until the guy completely stopped answering my mails, I still thought he was a genuine person. But after being defrauded and wasting countless hours of your time and hundreds of dollars... you think again.


INTERESTING: Now the website of this guy is down....


The ad of the website says: "Fully Automated Income Machines Pumping Money Into Your Bank Account On Virtual Autopilot...Even If You Do Next To Nothing, Ever!"

I would say "Fully Automated Income Machines Pumping Money OUT OF Your Bank Account On Virtual Autopilot...Even If You Do Next To Nothing, Ever!"

 

Amazing! Hold out for just enough time to screw your customer. Surely he can't think this would last long?

 

He did more work stringing you along than making the network. Have there been any good reviews?

 

You can't get a refund, but that kind of time and money is definitely actionable. Are you both operating within the US?

 

I've seen this type of scam more than I would like. With PayPal I think it's a 45 day period for a refund/dispute, so a lot of sellers/merchants/freelancers using PP delay for the 45 days before you find out it's a scam.

 

I can't understand how could you pay such huge amount on the internet? You must first see the reviews, do research and then invest. Secondly, internet gives you most things free and anything that isn't free and promises huge fat free income is always a scam!

 

Lifes about learning from your mistakes.


I am very sad to read your story and hope you soon remake the money you lost!

 

Sorry to say that, but sending money to someone who operates a "black hat marketing" operation is asking to be scammed. If someone is involved in black hat activities, it means they do not like to put quality work to see results, instead they always look for shortcuts to get benefits without work. Scammers and fraudsters - that's about a sum up of people who engage in black hat and that's about who you deal with when you take it to the next level. I'm always happy to see fake webmasters getting scammed. Cause the more they get hit, the less headache for us serious webmasters who base their business model on the "sweat of their brow" principle, rather than short term gain at any cost to society as a whole. You get what you pay for. Time to look in the mirror and act like a man, not a sissy. Wait - this is DP, right? Nevermind. Wrong place to bring up serious webmastering...

 

I have been looking for his website but I cannot find Steve Porter's site. Sounds like he ran away after his scam was exposed here.

 

Has anyone else reported this to be a scam?

 

So sorry to hear that. Anyway, with all the domain name, I think you can set up many autoblogs to recover the cost.

 

it sucks!!!!!

 

OK, I'm a newbie. Just one more thing to watch out for. Thnx.

 

I never pay for such things unless I received the product.Oh mate thanks for making me aware of this.

 

You must be pretty rich to pay $497

 

I bet you its probably not his real name either
oh and you were asking for it. ... i mean come one...really? 100 domains

 

Can someone prove this happened?