Tag Archives: Video Secrets

Video Secrets Caught Being Shady Again

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While not a shock to most people who know Video Secrets, as for years now they have been found time and again scamming and cheating but for those of you dumb asses still stupid enough to do business with them or associate yourself with them in any way HINT FUCKING HINT XBIZ here is a nifty little story I found for you fuckers today from GFY.

 

Video Secrets Cookies = 0 days?
From a post on the pond, it was brought up that VS TOS shows a 0 day cookie. The affiliate then allegedly emailed VS and was told there is a 30 day cookie. However, when I just checked VS TOS, that section still appears: 

6.5

(iii) A person shall not be deemed a “referral” entitling You to any commission or referral fee of any kind if that person leaves the Company site after having been directed there through the hyperlink banner ad or other promotional link (which has been supplied to You by Company) on Your website, without becoming an Company subscriber or purchaser of services of a type that entitles You to a commission or referral fee, even if at some later time that same person returns to the Company website(s), not through the banner ad or other promotional link (which has been supplied to You by Company) on Your website, and at that later time becomes a subscriber to the Company site or a purchaser of services from the Company.

If it was truly a 30 day cookie, why would the TOS not be changed in order to reflect that 30 day cookie?

In short, it says if a person clicks your banner and is taken to their site, and then leaves their site without making a purchase, even if that same user returns to the website later, it’s not a referral and we get no commission. 

So, a user has to make a purchase while they are on the site the very first time or we get dicked.

Video Secrets Caught Scamming Again

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Although this probably won’t be a surprise to many, Video Secrets is yet again at it and here is what pisses me off about this industry — this company pays big bucks to advertise on certain boards so that if anything is said about them negatively, those posts are removed and the person who dared to speak up is punished.   Well to bad for you fuckers because my little spy sent me a copy of the original post from GFY.com before they deleted it.

The long and short of it is, if you promise someone REVSHARE FOR LIFE, than that means “for the entire life of the account”.   You can’t later go and change the rules.  You made a deal with your affiliate and if you go changing it now, then that’s fucked up.  Remember, a person is only as good as their word so if you don’t stick with your word, then what does that say about you?  I’ll tell you, it says you are a shady bunch of fucks!!

REVSHARE FOR LIFE MEANS FOR LIFE, not for a few weeks or months but forever and ever.  If that customer who an affiliate referred to you stays with you 17 years then for 17 years you owe that affiliate money.  You are the ones who set these terms in the first place fuckers to attract affiliates, now you are going to go back on your word and fuck them out of money YOU promised them?

You will find the post (that originally appeared on GFY.com but was pulled) in full below but before you get to the post, which includes the same fucking story as always VIDEO SECRETS SUCKS BALLS AND SCAMS THE FUCK OUT OF PEOPLE, here are some interesting comments about it, you can read for yourself HERE all of them but here are some highlights ….

  • This could happen to you!!
  • That is seriously fucked up.
  • Screw those thieves. Lifetime does mean lifetime, without evidence of fraud…
  • Fuck that program.
  • VideoSecrets can go fuck themselves along with AFF/Cams…
  • To offer revshare and then treat a revshare affiliate like that is nuts. The whole thing about attempting to contact him is irrelevant; the checks were being banked, no fraud was suspected. You have to assume the purpose of the contact was purely to inform him that if he didn’t send more traffic the account would be pulled. There’s a word for that kind of behavior.

VIDEO SECRETS AKA VS MEDIA SCAMMED ME AND DON’T PAY!

I’m posting my experience with Video Secrets aka VS Media to let other webmasters know what type of company they truly are and hopefully prevent others from experiencing the same bullshit I just went through with them. FYI, I welcome Video Secrets to comment and respond to this thread and should they choose to do the right thing and reinstate my account and pay me the back money they owe me, I will certainly post on here that they chose to do the right thing and did indeed pay me. Here’s the story:

I had several adult sites back 02-05. I joined the “lifetime” rev-share program with Video Secrets as an up sell in my members area and began sending them traffic. I did very well with them and was averaging about $20k per year (my cut). In 2005, I closed down the websites and left the industry to pursue other ventures. Video Secrets along with several other companies I had sent members to, kept sending me checks for years to come (as they should). Year to date from 2005 when I closed down the website, Video Secrets paid nearly 30k to me since I closed down the website. They paid like clockwork every month and I never had any issues with them until recently. In November of 2007, the checks stopped coming. I was checking an old e-mail account that I used years back and found an e-mail sent to me in March of this year from Eddie Bastian asking me to please get in touch with them regarding my account. I then e-mailed him back
last week when I finally found the e-mail letting him know that this was an old e-mail address and to please contact me at my new e-mail. He responded back to the old e-mail address and said “Unfortunately your account has been deactivated as of March 18, 2008. We did or due diligence to get a hold of you for months but could never reach you. You’re more than welcome to sign up for a new account if you want to give us another chance.”

I wrote him back of course upset wondering what level of “diligence” was done to cancel this large of an account since I never once received one physical letter via mail to the address they had been mailing the checks to that had been getting cashed monthly for the past 5 years. He never responded to that e-mail.
I e-mailed him several more times and got no response. So finally I called their corporate offices and left a voice mail for Eddie Bastian, Tim Siner, Jeff Kozlov, and Brad Estes. I finally got a hold of someone in accounting named Monet and she informed me that the account and funds were put on hold in
November 2007. She Informed me that in November and December in 2007 alone I was owed $5,014.50. She said she was not able to see how much was owed up until March 18th, when Eddie said the account was deactivated. She was very nice and said she would have Jeff call me back and personally give him the note.

I spoke to Jeff several days ago and he said that they had been trying to get a hold of me for about a year via e-mail and my out-dated cell phone number on the account but were unsuccessful in reaching me. He then told me that they decided to terminate the account because they noticed I hadn’t sent them any
traffic since 2005. I asked him why they never thought to mail me a physical letter stating the account was in jeopardy of being cancelled and he told me that one time (he doesn’t know when), that he put a business card in with the check. If any of you get VS Media checks, you’ll know that they litter them with flyers on new promotions, programs, etc. (most of it just shit you throw away). He claims he put a “note” in there asking me to call him. I can assure everyone here on my parents grave I never received a physical note in with one of the checks. I do believe I did receive a business card one time, but since I’m out of the industry with no current plans of returning….honestly what is the point of contacting a sales rep who’s going to want to talk about sending more traffic, etc… I had no idea at any time that if I did not contact a sales rep that my account could and would be killed! At no time, did I every receive any notification even in my old e-mails that I can see back up to one year stating the account was at risk of being closed.

So basically as it sits now…..I had an account with Video Secrets that made me about $15k per year and am currently owed probably about $7k-$10k in past due payments. Jeff has been a complete jerk and keeps informing me that it’s in their terms that they can cancel an account if they ever choose to for any reason. I of course believe this is completely breaking the lifetime commitment revshare program that I sent them customers that made them a great deal of money and are continuing to make them a great deal of money and what they are doing is ethically wrong. They’re basically pouting because I stopped doing business with
them and are selfishly stealing my money and telling me to “go fuck yourself” because they believe I will never send them any new business. My final offer to Jeff to settle this issue (which is still a bullshit deal for me), was simply pay me the money that I was owed from November of 2007 when they started holding the money and through March 18th 2008, when Eddie informed me the account was officially deactivated. Jeff said OK (as if he seemed to agree that was a fair settlement) and would get back to me with the amount of the check. Several more days went by and I never heard back from him so I called him today to see if the check was mailed out and he then informed me that his boss didn’t feel that they had to even pay me that money (even though the account was active when I earned that money) because of their terms that allow them to cancel an account for any reason. SCAMMERS!!!

I’ve always respected this board and remember it was always good to me and my fellow webmasters back in the day and hope that fellow webmasters will chime in along with me and encourage VS Media to do the right thing and re-instate my account, pay me the back owed money and always honor the “lifetime” rev-share
program they pitch. Trust me, I’m sure if this happened to anyone of you, you would feel the same about earning money off customers you referred to them. Remember, they wouldn’t be getting that money if I never sent them the traffic in the first place. Thanks for your help guys! I am also posting this on several other boards and contacting my attorney’s. My advice until this is resolved is NOT TO DO BUSINESS WITH VIDEO SECRETS AKA VS MEDIA! I will post any developments here on this thread.

Damn Video Secrets is more shady than I thought

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Since I originally posted my story about the unethical and shady business practices of Video Secrets I have been getting email after email of people telling me their stories.  I knew with so many rumors going around about these guys they had to be bad news but damn after reading all these emails, I don’t know what to say.  How the fuck do companies still keep doing business with them?

Here is an interesting email I got yesterday.

After reading the article you wrote concerning Video Secrets and what they get away with.  We helped to set up individual studios in Europe for years.   We would hire managers for each studio, train them and the girls on how the entire business worked and everything was going great.  That was until I met Chuck, one of the owners of Video Secrets.

He convinced us to move over to his network and at first it was great but eventually Video Secrets decided they didn’t need us anymore.  They would instead go out and offer secret and back door deals to these managers who were running each of the individual studios in Europe.  They would lure them away from us with the lure of large amounts of cash.

We tried to complain but all we got was the runaround.  Eventually they took away all of our studios and we were left with nothing.  We were out of business.  I did eventually get a hold of one of the owners of Video Secrets and all he really had to say was “What do you expect us to do?  Turn a blind eye on a chance to make more money?  Dumb ass!”  and then he laughed and hung up the phone.

The only real sense of justice we got out of all of this is that as soon as we were out of business the studios they lured away from us with promises of big amounts of cash all ended up getting screwed and since we weren’t in business anymore they couldn’t come running back to us.  I guess it’s true, you reap what you sow.

So my friends next time you want to do business with Video Secrets, you might want to remember this story or one of the hundreds of other ones going around about people screwed by Video Secrets.  And do keep in mind that it was this company, Video Secrets that the Free Speech Coalition named ethical and the Internet business of the year.  What the hell where they thinking?

I got another email about two days ago from a young man who wishes that we don’t identify him because he is still in the adult industry and doesn’t want to risk being blackballed because he came out and told the truth about what he knows about Video Secrets.  But what he told me in his email is that he worked for them for three years and seen with his own eyes the things that go on behind closed doors and said he knows for a fact that Video Secrets is a bunch of really shady fucks.  Some of the things such as shaving sales and duplicate billings of customers is true, or at least it was when he worked there.  When he left the company he was told that if he ever opens his mouth he would never have another job in this industry again and for years and years he has stayed quiet about all he knew.

I tried to convince the guy to go on record and work with attorneys for some kind of class action lawsuit but no such luck.

FSC Openly Promotes Shady Company

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I am sure your parents have told you that it isn’t what you know but who you know and apparently that really holds true for the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) and who they decide to hand out their awards to.

For awhile now Mike South has been saying they have issues over there but fuck, who knew that meant they down right smoked fucking crack and took bribes.  Well that has to be the case because it would be the only thing that could possibly explain what I seen today.

In this month’s issue of XBIZ World we find out that the FSC named Video Secrets their Top Internet Business of the Year.  Not get this part of the award ……  they give the award out based on the efforts of the company  to provide consumers, merchants and affiliates and the public at large with an ethical product.  I never thought I would hear the word “ethical” associated with Video Secrets unless it was something like name something they aren’t.   No but seriously, how much fucking crack do the people over at the FTC really smoke?  Video Secrets?  Seriously?

So what we’ve learned today, you don’t have to actually be ethical to get awards for good business practices …. just know the right people.  Damn good to know that the company who claims to be working for our best interest has no problem promoting a company that has had such a shady past.

video-secrets

Video Secrets has been around a long time.  About 13 years I suppose.   If nothing else, you can at least give them that.  Throughout the years they have weathered problems with ownership, employees and rumors of shady dealings and things like very bad conversion ratios, double billing and shaving sales or stealing traffic through leaks.  The rumor of shaving sales has actually come up a lot over the years for Video Secrets.  I don’t know if anyone has ever proven they are screwing people but the rumor has been around long enough and comes up often enough to really make you wonder.

On the popular Playboy owned “GFY” or Go Fuck Yourself adult forums, a webmaster asked ” Which programs AREN’T worth signing up to?  I wanna know which cash programs that have screwed people over and haven’t paid them. Or shave from your sales.“

video-secrets-gfy

The very first post in response included Video Secrets.  But the thread didn’t just stop there.  Other webmasters would eventually chime in and say things like ….

“Amen brother, I would soon 404 all my sites and send the traffic to Google than send a single click to Video Secrets.”  That’s pretty harsh for a program who just won a awards based on the ethics of their business practices don’t you think?

video-secrets-gfy-2

And yet another webmaster said “Ain’t that the truth …. these guys are scum“.

These guys are scum?  Do you think that the people over at the Free Speech Coalition bothered to check into the years and years of accusations of wrongdoings by countless affiliates and consumers?  I don’t personally know if any one claim of fraud or unethical behavior has ever been proven to be true, including the one time rumor that Video Secrets back end affiliate software was created with the ability to manually manipulate affiliates accounts giving them the ability to shave sales, meaning we would just have to trust them not to do it …. but what I do know for a fact is that after so many years of hearing the same rumors and problems, even if they aren’t provable, I would think twice before associating myself with these people.   There have just been far to many complaints for there not to be a problem somewhere.

video-secrets-gfy-3

But hey, maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe after all of these years and all of these different complaints by countless affiliates and consumers, they – the consumers and affiliates are the wrong wrong and maybe Video Secrets really isn’t guilty of all those things people say about them.  I mean, seriously … what the hell do I know?

I know these fuckers never did send me my $1200, after my payment supposedly got lost in the mail not once, not twice but an amazing three times … but whatever.  Good luck FSC with your ethical company of the year.  It only goes to show, that Mike South apparently was on to something about you guys.