Over the past couple of hours, I’ve been doing some digging to get the “real inside scoop” on why Perry Belcher “decided” to get out of Internet Marketing Training and the truth behind Andy Jenkins exit from Stompernet.

I’ll get to the latter first . . . Andy’s exit from Stompernet wasn’t as amicable as they’ve tried (poorly) to suggest publicly.  There was a lawsuit between Andy, Stompernet, and Brad Fallon–not exactly the way to part “amicably.” It appears that Brad bought Andy out to avoid facing a lengthy and likely ugly trial. You can look at Andy Jenkins’ claim filed with a Georgia court by clicking on the link. Turns out Brad Fallon wasn’t doing a whole lot behind the scenes except spending money so Jenkins’ hand was somewhat forced, and I always thought I smelled a rat when they made the hasty change announcement back in July.

For full disclosure: I have the StomperNet “Stomping the Search Engines” DVDs, and count me as unimpressed.  Not to be a honk, but my Search Engine Ninja program gives you much more SEO training for a lot less, and there isn’t as much fluff, flare, and theory involved . . . just good old step-by-step stuff you can implement, but I digress.

My personal prediction is StomperNet will die a slow but painful death over the next 12-18 months. If you read the filed complaint, you’ll see some verbiage that suggests the company is in serious financial trouble already so I don’t feel like that prediction is too “risky.”

As an aside: I hope Paul Lemberg keeps doing his thing . . . just with a different organization behind him because Paul’s stuff is really good.  I hated to see that he aligned with StomperNet for his Formula 5 training program, and that is the primary reason I didn’t get it although I always enjoy learning from Paul.

Perry’s “demise” is more of a matter of massively over promoting and over pricing an absolute garbage product (as it turns out).  There is another similar product currently being offered in the Internet Marketing space that hopefully will be next on the “fraud” hit-list.

Before you think I’m piling on Perry, I came to “like” Perry through our occasional interactions on Twitter (which his account is completely gone by the way . . . all 110,000 followers worth), and I THOUGHT he was a “good guy.” Then I started doing my private investigator work to find that he is a convicted felon for defrauding people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past 10 years for bogus medical products. I’m not one to cast stones at others that I don’t know unless it’s warranted, and it’s warranted here.  Anytime you take advantage of people to that degree, get caught then go back for more . . . you ain’t a “good guy!” Sorry, Per.

As for the lessons to be learned from these cases . . . social media can build you up rapidly, but it can rip you down even faster. Think of all the time and energy Perry put into building a following of 110,000 on Twitter, the countless blogs he setup to rebuild his “reputation,” myriad videos, and all the exposure social media gained him as he was promoting his “Social Media Money System.” His “system” simply didn’t deliver on the promise to show people how to make money with social media or grow a business for it’s $997 minimum price tag. People probably wouldn’t have been that upset with him if the price tag were something more reasonable like $97 or $197.

Bottom line: it only took about a month to tear everything down that took years to build . . . thanks to social media.

Perry now has a metric ton of guilt to carry around . . . knowingly defrauding people out of millions of dollars as he masqueraded around as this “great guy.” As I always say, you can lie to others, but you can’t lie to yourself. Now Perry can’t even lie to others . . . he’s been branded as a fraud twice in very public forums. The very forums he used to rebuild his reputation from the last fiasco. That brings me to this: what would you do if you were in his shoes?

Final point: If you’re looking for help with social media for growing your BUSINESS, seek out those that are using it to grow their businesses today . . . not somebody who can show you how to win an online popularity contest. Advertising firms aren’t the answer either because they haven’t figured out how to monetize social media for their own firms so there is a lot of blind leading the blind right now.

Don’t get ripped off!!!