I purchased a program called the Product Creation Lab (PCL) from Stephen Pierce (trading as Stephen Pierce International and/or Impulsive Profits) in March 2008. I made this purchase at his live training event, known as Unleash Your Marketing Genius (UYMG), which was being held in Sydney, Australia. I paid a total of $20,000 for the PCL, which was promoted as being a program whereby you would visit Stephen Pierce’s home in Texas and spend 3 days working with him on developing a complete internet marketing business. He would do the market research, work with you on designing the product, business plan and website, and then launch the product using his extensive list of contacts. In return he would ask for a set percentage of your profits for the first year after the business launch.
I am writing this to express my extreme dissatisfaction with the level of service I received from Stephen Pierce, which has resulted in only a small fraction of the promised program actually being delivered. I will proceed to outline the events that have occurred since March 2008, and my repeated attempts to work with Stephen Pierce and his staff in order to realise the promises of the PCL program. I will also explain the negative impacts that this experience has had on my personal circumstances. My claim for a refund will be based on the clear gap between what was promised and what was delivered, and I will also make the case for an additional payment for personal damages.
After the UYMG event in March 2008, I made arrangements with Stephen Pierce’s staff to travel to Stephen Pierce’s home in Texas in June 2008. I was provided with a detailed schedule that outlined what would happen during the 3 days. Based on this document, I reasonably expected that the majority of the time would be spent working personally with Stephen Pierce on developing my product. The schedule certainly concurred with the original verbal briefing and written document that Stephen Pierce gave at UYMG.
Unfortunately, my experience at Stephen Pierce’s home was vastly different to what I expected. During the 3 days, I spoke with Stephen Pierce on just 2 occasions, each conversation lasting for no more than 5 minutes. On the first day, he sat down with me and asked me what topic I had chosen for my product. I told him my idea of something related to low carb vegetarian cooking and education. He said he thought it was a good topic, threw around some ideas of a business name and what services I might be able to offer, and that was it. To my knowledge, he never did any market research to confirm that there was a market for my intended topic.
The second time I spoke with Stephen Pierce was on the final day, just before I left. I met him in his home recording studio and he briefed me on what would happen next and what would be expected from me in terms of my promotion of my website. This conversation was recorded, but unfortunately I did not receive the recording, as I was told that I would.
During my time at Stephen Pierce’s house it was in fact his wife, Alicia, who showed the most interest in me and my business. I estimate my total contact time with her to be no more than 2 hours. In my initial meeting with her, she explained that I would be developing a membership based website, delivering content to customers on a monthly basis. She sketched out a basic plan for the business, with ideas for topics for each month. I then met with her in the studio and we recorded the audio interviews that would be used for the website. There were 3 longer interviews, of around 15 minutes each, and 8 shorter ones of just a couple of minutes each. The three longer ones were later transcribed.
Alicia also set me up with one of the staff members, who made videos of me in the kitchen, cooking low carb vegetarian meals. There were approximately 5 or 6 short videos recorded, also intended to go on the website. Unfortunately, these videos went missing and I never received them. So it was essentially a wasted effort, although it did fill in a few hours.
For the majority of my 3 days at Stephen Pierce’s home, I was left to my own devices. I was given a desk where I could set up my laptop and I was expected to remain there and research my topic on my own. This was clearly different from the initial promise of full mornings and afternoons spent working personally with Stephen Pierce.
So, I walked away at the end of the 3 days with no more than an hour’s worth of audio content for my website and transcripts of 3 of the audios. This was not even close to being enough material to get a website started. The impression given during Stephen Pierce’s initial sales presentation at UYMG was that the entire business would be almost ready to go after spending 3 days working with him. A reasonable person would have expected that someone of Stephen Pierce’s expertise, experience and industry contacts could definitely make this happen. So, it would be fair to say that I felt very disappointed with the experience at Stephen Pierce’s home.
During the following 6 months, there was very limited progress made on my website. I received an email from one of Stephen Pierce’s staff members that listed the names the many different staff that would be taking charge of each aspect of my website. There would be a graphic designer, copywriter, audio person, transcriptionist, web designer, researcher, and someone who would put it all onto the website at the end. I was told to expect many emails to be sent back and forth. I was given no clear direction as to what I was meant to be doing or what would be involved in the process of launching my business. Therefore, I felt very confused and quite helpless in the whole situation, particularly since it was not even clear which of Stephen Pierce’s staff members was actually in charge and who was supposed to be my main point of contact.
Despite the confusion and lack of direction, I managed to get a few options for a logo sent from the graphic designer, and the audio person added some music to the start and end of a few of my audio recordings. That was the extent of the progress made during that time. Hardly impressive considering my expectation that the business would be well and truly up and running by that time.
Thankfully, in January 2009, I was contacted by one of Stephen Pierce’s staff members, called Marie. Marie informed me that she would take on the role of my Project Manager, and would be acting as an intermediary between myself and the various designers and writers, effectively overseeing and co-ordinating the completion of my website. This was exciting news, as I now had a point of contact and someone in charge. Plus, unlike me, Marie was familiar with the internet marketing industry and the process of getting a website ready to launch.
Over the next 7 months, I worked with Marie and was able to make a little headway. The logo for my business was finalised, although it had to be done by a different designer, because the one I dealt with initially had already moved on. I was put in contact with Stephen Pierce’s copywriter, who produced the copy for an opt-in page, a sales page and a 5-part email series. Marie was then able to set up a basic opt-in page for me (this can still be seen on the web by visiting http://www.lowcarbvegetarianliving.com), which then enabled me to begin collecting names and email addresses of people who could be potential customers for my future business.
Unfortunately, Marie resigned from Stephen Pierce’s company in August 2009, which was disappointing because she was actually making some progress for me. I was told that another staff member, called Chipo, would be taking over. Chipo already had a role within Stephen Pierce’s company, and it seemed as though her responsibilities for PCL were simply added on top of her existing workload. Also, a fashion designer by trade, it seemed as though she did not have the required technical or marketing skills to suit the added work she had been given.
Regardless, I emailed her immediately as soon as I found out Marie was leaving. I also sent her copies of some of my previous email correspondence with Marie, and some outstanding questions that Marie did not respond to before she left. Unfortunately, maybe due to her high workload, or lack of knowledge, it took nearly 2 months to receive a response. During that time I had to resend my email and remind her that she had not responded. So, my questions were finally answered, however it was now late September 2009. As well as responding to my questions, Chipo asked to have a Skype phone call with me, so that I could bring her up to speed on my project and the overall structure and plan for my business.
This call took place in early October 2009, and I had to basically explain my project from the beginning. By that time, I had completed a full 8 months worth of content for my site. Through my own independent efforts, I had prepared a mini e-cookbook which included written versions of my own recipes, 14 in total, along with photos and video demonstrations for each. I also had prepared 8 lessons with worksheets and resources to go with each month’s topic, plus a further 16 written recipes with photos and a video demonstration of each. I told Chipo that I needed help with the graphical and technical design of the e-cookbook. We also identified that the sales page would need to be graphically designed and then made live on the internet.
Over the next 2 months, Chipo worked with the web designer, Karole, on the e-cookbook and the sales page. The work on the e-cookbook was less than impressive. All they did was combine my 14 Word documents (one for each recipe) into a single Adobe PDF document. No changes were made to the graphical presentation of the recipes, so the appearance remained very basic and unprofessional. In this PDF they added links which were intended to lead to the video demonstrations of the recipes. These links did not work and the problem was never resolved.
Likewise, their work on the sales letter was also underwhelming. Using the sales copy that I had obtained previously from Stephen Pierce’s copywriter, a basic webpage was produced, with various colours and photos added throughout. Unfortunately the links in this webpage did not work, in particular the “buy now” link, and the page never went live on the internet. The beta version of this page can be viewed at http://www.lowcarbvegetarianliving.com/beta.
During December 2009, I had 2 conference calls with both Chipo and Karole. They explained to me that they wanted to have my website completed and ready to launch by the end of the year, because they had many other projects due to start early in the new year and would have very limited time available once these started. So, I worked with them and made sure they had everything that they needed to complete my website before the deadline. Since I had provided everything they requested, I assumed that I would receive notification of my completed website very shortly thereafter.
However, in early January 2010, I received an email from Karole who told me that my videos were in the wrong format, and that I would have to convert them to the correct format and upload them all again. This email surprised me a lot, because I had already discussed this issue with Karole, and she said it was okay for me to continue with the format I was using, and that she would organise for them to be converted. So, I replied to her email and reminded her of our previous discussions. She said that she would look into it and get back to me.
Another month passed and I did not hear anything. I sent repeated emails in February 2010, asking for an update on the progress of my website. By the end of the month I received a response stating that they were waiting on further information from me. Karole said she needed a full 12 months worth of content, testimonials, the monthly price, and what payment processing method I would be using. I was very surprised at this because I had already given answers to these questions. We had already resolved that 8 months of content would be enough, and that the remaining 4 months would be uploaded at a later stage. In fact, Stephen Pierce’s wife Alicia told Chipo, Karole and I, that I only required 3 months of content in order to launch the website. Furthermore, I had already provided testimonials, and I had told them I would charge $9.97 per month and would be using Clickbank for my payment processing. Despite this, I patiently responded and reminded them of this information.
A month later and I received an email from Chipo, stating that she was leaving her job with Stephen Pierce’s company in order to pursue a career in fashion design. She left at the end of March 2010, and Karole took over full responsibility for my website.
I finally heard from Karole again in mid April 2010, only after sending her repeated emails to see how things were going. I was shocked at the response. She told me she needed the exact same information that I had already provided to her back in February. I couldn’t quite believe it, but I recounted the same details, for the third time. And again I waited for my completed website. There was nothing more for me to do at that point, because I had provided everything she needed, and more.
As time wore on, it became increasingly difficult to communicate with Karole. Over the next 6 months I sent numerous emails to her, whereby I would resend previous emails and ask for a response, sometimes adding in new questions for her. Over that time, I heard from her on just 3 occasions. I received one response in July, another in September, and the last email from her was at the end of October 2010. This final response was only achieved after sending a support ticket to Stephen Pierce’s customer service website, in an act of desperation. Each email response simply stated that she was working on my website and that she would get back to me soon. My questions were barely addressed, and it really seemed like she was not doing any work at all on my website. Furthermore, it had become apparent that Stephen Pierce’s company had suffered further staffing losses, including key web design and technical staff.
By this stage I had started to become highly concerned about the progress of my website and was having serious doubts as to whether my internet business would ever come to fruition. I discussed my concerns with my family, and after explaining the situation and how frustrated and worried I was becoming, my father offered to take over the task of sending repeated emails. He sent two emails to Karole during early December 2010, and copied these to Stephen Pierce’s customer support email address. A third email, this one sent to Impulsive Profits’ customer support email, finally got a response. My father received an email from a staff member called Francis, who introduced himself as being the new Customer Support Manager. Unfortunately it appeared that Karole had left the company, without letting me know, which would explain why she was no longer responding to my emails.
Francis promised to look into my case and to have my website completed within 7 days, giving a deadline of 17th December 2010. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be an empty promise. He did however assign a member of his “blog building team”, called Duane, to take charge of the completion of my website.
Shortly thereafter, I received an introductory email from Duane. He requested me to fill out a form with details relating to my website, which I completed and sent back to him. Over the next 3 months, we exchanged about a dozen emails, and also had one phone conversation via Skype. I had to start again from the very beginning. As Duane was very new to Stephen Pierce’s company, he was not aware of the PCL program. So I had to explain to him what it involved and what Stephen Pierce had promised to deliver. I gave him a bit of background of the various staff members I had worked with and what progress had been made. I also had to explain about my intended business, how the website would be set up and how my product would be delivered to my customers. This was yet another setback for me as it took a good couple of months for him to get a grasp of where I was at and all of the work that still needed to be completed.
During this time, there were a few occasions where I did not hear from Duane for significant periods of time, which meant I was forced to again start resending emails and requesting a response. My father also continued his discussions with Stephen Pierce’s office, maintaining pressure on them to continue responding to me and trying to confirm that I would receive all that I was promised. In amongst his discussions came an admission from Francis, the Customer Support Manager, that my case had indeed been mishandled.
By mid February 2011 however, Francis had left the company and a new staff member, called Todd, was brought in to take over his responsibilities. Todd confirmed that my website was ready to be built and they had everything they required from me in order to get it going. He also confirmed that he had spoken with Stephen Pierce, and that Stephen Pierce was aware of what he promised as part of the PCL program and would be assisting and advising on marketing and promotions once the website was launched.
By March 2011, I had finally reached the stage with Duane where he understood what had to be done and was ready to begin working on my website. I had some longstanding issues with my opt-in page that I really wanted fixed. I had brought up these issues in the past but nothing had ever been done. So Duane started making some changes, in beta form, he didn’t change the live site. Things were starting to move along slowly, however by the end of that month, Duane was no longer responding to my emails. It seemed that he too had disappeared.
By May 2011, I had started to become even more concerned. I sent emails to both Duane and Todd in which I expressed my dissatisfaction with the level of progress on my website over the last 3 years, and stated that if the website was not complete within the next month then I would like a refund.
My father was also deeply concerned at this stage and was similarly frustrated by the lack of progress and the extreme difficulty in communicating with staff. Later the same month, he posted a negative comment on one of Stephen Pierce’s promotional websites. To his surprise, my father received an email from Stephen Pierce himself, shortly after posting the comment. Stephen Pierce stated that he was not aware of any websites that hadn’t been delivered. He asked for all the details and said that he would personally take charge of making sure my website was completed.
My father responded immediately and filled Stephen Pierce in on the events of the previous 3 years. A week later, there was no response back from Stephen Pierce, so I then wrote to him and gave my own account of the main events of the last 3 years, the various staff members I had tried to work with, and the meagre progress that that they had made. Fortunately, I received a reply to this email. Stephen Pierce asked me if I had any existing material or websites that he could take a look at. It was clear that he had no idea what the topic of my website was, or what had been planned in relation to the structure of my business. So, I told him about the website content that I had personally prepared, including the recipes, videos, lessons and worksheets, all completed on my own with no assistance from his company. He responded straight away, saying he would take a look, and requesting access details to my website so that he would be able to complete the work on it.
I gave Stephen Pierce the requested details straight away, and yet another week passed without a word. This time, my father emailed him, requesting a deadline for completion of my website, and also asking about Duane and Todd. Stephen Pierce responded that he was working on “market details”. I assumed by this he meant that he was completing the market research that should have been completed 3 years ago while I was at his home in Texas! He refused to give a time frame for completion of the market research. In addition, it appeared from his response that both Duane and Todd had left the company, and that Stephen Pierce was now basically working alone.
After another 10 days of silence, and now approaching the end of June 2011, my father once again emailed Stephen Pierce, asking for the progress of the market research and repeating his requests for a deadline when my website would be finished. This email received quite an aggressive response from Stephen Pierce, and he again refused to give a completion deadline.
A month later, nearing the end of July 2011, I received an email from Stephen Pierce. He said that he would start by creating a Facebook page on the topic of “vegetarian cooking” and, by placing an opt-in form on this page, I could then start to gather up names and email addresses of people interested in this topic. He suggested that I could then branch out into my intended topic of “low carb vegetarian” at a later date. I was a little confused by this, because I had already created a Facebook page on my own, relating to my low carb vegetarian topic. Plus my existing opt-in page, that was created some 2 and a half years ago, had yielded a significant list of names already, all specifically interested in the topic of low carb vegetarian. I had told Stephen Pierce previously about my existing Facebook page and email list.
Regardless, I agreed to go ahead with the vegetarian Facebook page, since Stephen Pierce promised it would be of a similar standard to his own pages, which I thought looked very good. I suggested that we could use the cookbook that I created as an incentive for people to opt in. He thought that was a great idea, so I sent him my cookbook.
Unfortunately, I did not hear from Stephen Pierce again for another 3 months. I waited patiently for nearly 2 months, but by late September 2011, my patience ran out and I had to begin emailing to find out what was happening. My father also sent him some emails, stating that he thought a refund and compensation were due, and eluded to the fact that he had begun discussions with a Dallas based legal service and the local police department.
I would assume that the threat of legal action had some impact on Stephen Pierce, because shortly thereafter, I finally received a response. He emailed me a list of close to 20 different website components that he said were currently in production for me, and gave a completion date of mid to late November 2011. He then rudely stated that if this was not good enough then he would give my father and I his attorney’s contact details, and we could try our best to get my money back.
I browsed through the list and it appeared that what he now had in mind was that I would be marketing and selling a simple e-book. It was unclear as to whether he was still intending to produce the vegetarian Facebook page he talked about previously. Whilst this would still be something, it was vastly different from the membership based website that I had been working towards from the beginning. And it was certainly nowhere near close to being everything that he promised me as part of the PCL program. So, I emailed him back and said that it sounded like a great start, and questioned him as to whether my originally intended membership website would still be going ahead. I also attached a copy of his PCL handout from 2008 (see Attachment 1), and I asked him if he still intended to provide everything that was promised at that time. I requested that he get back to me by the end of November 2011, which was when he said that the 20 listed items would be completed.
Another month went by after that, but fortunately he did contact me again at the end of November 2011, as I had asked. He gave no indication that any of the items on his previous list had been completed, nor did he respond to my questions regarding my membership website and the rest of the PCL promises. All that was contained in his email was an outline of the low carb vegetarian e-book that he was having written. Whilst I felt somewhat encouraged at the appearance of progress, he had still not answered my bigger questions. So, I was forced to write back and again re-iterate my concerns.
About a week later, Stephen Pierce emailed me again, this time attaching the e-book, and a sales letter to go with it. He said an audio version of the e-book was also being created. Unfortunately, he ignored my earlier questions yet again, so I still had no idea if he intended completing my membership site, or delivering on any other of his promises.
I waited for a further month, however I received no further contact from Stephen Pierce. So, I decided to send him one final email. In this email, I asked him the progress of the audio book and reminded him of the list of 20 website components which, apart from the provided e-book and sales letter, all remained outstanding. I then told him that, since I asked him twice about my PCL purchase with no response, I was forced to assume that he would not be providing my PCL program in full, and that he had no intentions of providing anything beyond the e-book and related materials. I therefore informed him that I would be commencing action to recover the money that I paid to him.
I am writing this letter now as a first step in the process of recovering this money. Clearly, I have paid for something that I have not received, nor have I any reasonable expectation of receiving it. It has now been almost 4 years since my purchase from Stephen Pierce, in March 2008. I would refer you again to the original promise (see image below). This document outlines the plan for each of the 3 days at Stephen Pierce’s home in Texas. There is a list of 12 items that are included in the PCL experience, and there are 3 bonus items also listed. I would now like to recap the items that I did receive, in relation to what was promised in this original document. It will then be absolutely clear that I only received a very small portion of the program that I purchased, and that most of the items remain undelivered.
In respect of the 3 days at Stephen’s home, it should be clear from my previous explanation that my experience was quite different to that promised.
In regards to the 12 elements of the PCL program, items 6 through 12 were certainly not delivered, nor were they ever contemplated. Items 1 through 5 were only partially addressed, however none were fully completed.
As per item 1, I received the outline of my product content. This outline was completed by Stephen Pierces’ wife whilst at their home, at which time it was established that I would be creating a membership based website that would deliver content on a monthly basis. The topics for each month were planned out whilst I was there. In terms of developing the content, after the audio content was recorded, I was left entirely on my own. I received no assistance in any of the further work that I did, which included the recording and production of video content, design of written recipes, and research and writing of lessons and worksheets. Furthermore, the outline and all the work that I put towards it were basically cast aside when Stephen Pierce finally became involved, some 3 years later.
Regarding items 2, 3 and 4, the audios were indeed produced. However, they were recorded with the assistance of Stephen Pierce’s wife, Alicia. I certainly did not have Stephen Pierce as my coach, engineer or producer at any stage of the process, let alone the whole time! All that was done in terms of “professional final mixing” was that a short verse of royalty free music was added to the start and end of a few of the audios. I received the audios in MP3 format, they were never produced in a physical CD format.
As for item 5, all that I received in terms of “professional product design” was an extremely basic and visually offensive opt-in page, an equally ugly sales letter, and a rudimentary attempt at production of my e-cookbook. Thankfully, the opt-in page was fully functional. However the sales letter never saw the light of day on the internet. And the effort they put towards my e-cookbook is really not worth mentioning, because all they did was convert the original Word documents I had produced myself into PDF format, without applying any professional graphical design to it whatsoever.
And that is the sum total of what I received. My product was never made into physical form, never put on eBay or Amazon, and obviously no fulfilment house services were ever employed. I did not even receive a completed website from which I could sell and deliver my electronic content to customers, so therefore I could never receive any marketing services from Stephen Pierce such as mailings to his list, or consultations on how to generate 6 or 7 figure sales from my new product.
Finally with regards to the bonus items mentioned in Attachment 1, I did receive access to the Instant Traffic Expert System (ITES), which was a series of videos and process maps describing different methods of getting traffic to a website. Stephen Pierce’s staff began setting up a site for me to allow me to resell this information, however they stopped working on it as they claimed it would be a distraction to my work on my PCL program. So, I never had the opportunity to make any income from this.
The other bonus item was Myspace marketing, whereby Stephen Pierce would design and produce a Myspace page to assist in the marketing of your business. This never happened, because at that time, Myspace was starting to wane in its popularity. I believe that Stephen Pierce was going to set up a Facebook page instead place of the Myspace one. This unfortunately never went ahead either.
I have worked very hard over the last 4 years to try to get my project completed. Over this time, I have experienced constant emotional stress due to the uncertainty and the doubts over whether my internet business would ever come to life, and whether or not I would receive any outcome from the significant financial investment that I made. This emotional stress and anxiety has taken a heavy toll on my physical health, and I now suffer with chronic fatigue syndrome as a result. Due to my illness, I lost my job nearly 2 years ago, and have been unemployed and unable to work ever since. I am certain that the experience of dealing Stephen Pierce’s organisation has been the main cause of the decline of my health and the loss of my job. I believe that if Stephen Pierce had properly managed his staff, and put a solid process in place to efficiently deliver the PCL program, then my business could have been launched within a matter of months. This would have allowed me to start making an income, possibly even replacing my employment income, which would have preserved my state of health, and could even have allowed me to resign from my job if I chose to do so.
Please do not hesitate to contact me (stephenpiercescam.101@gmail.com) should you need any further information. I have maintained a full and complete record of all email correspondence that has occurred over the last 4 years, so I am perfectly able to back up any of the claims I have made in this letter.
PCL Program 2008
