Someone recently asked about Tyler Koling’s Quick Profit Formula, so I took a look for potential red flags. Did I find them?

Yes, there are red flags galore for Tyler Koling’s Quick Profit Formula. Here are a few:

Red Flag #1: QuickProfitFormula use of an “As Seen In” logo with unclickable links.

QuickProfitFormula.com claims to have been seen in Entrepreneur, Money, CNNMoney, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal yet even extensive searches on Google show NO evidence to support the claim. Plus most legitimate site that make these types of claims will make the logos clickable out to the actual news stories.

Red Flag #2: Quick Profit Formula uses stock photos for testimonials

Note: I provided extensive documentation directly to the FTC in the In Deep Services case in 2009 and also signed an affidivat concerning the documentation agreeing to testify. Some of that involved that company’s use of stock photos for their testimonials.

At least two of the testimonial photos on the QuickProfitFormula.com site are from iStockPhoto as you can see below:

• “Maria Neighstrom” at iStockPhoto
• Marcia Shellbourne iStockPhoto

Those particular stock photos have been used by MANY companies. Here’s an example of one at Sam’s Club:

Mom and Daughter at Sam’s Club

Now, what typically happens after a company is “outed” for using stock photos for testimonials is that they will suddenly put in a disclaimer somewhat like the following:

“*TESTIMONIALS – All Testimonials are 100% Real and Accurate and the attestants have been remunerated for allowing [Company Name's] use of the same. For the sake of customer privacy, [Company Name] reserves the right to protect and/or substitute the images of attestants. The images displayed hereon are not the actual images of the attestants. The images displayed hereon have been supplied by [Company Name] and are the copyrighted property of Work At Home Position Placement.”

There are variations of that, but the idea is the same – to present a reason why the company is using stock photos for their testimonials.

Red Flag #3 – The claim to be part of an “exclusive money making group”

There are two elements to this red flag. The first is the need to have a “story” that explains why you’ve never heard of Tyler Koling. Also, the claim to be part of an “exclusive money making group”.

The second element to this red flag has to do with the fact that this claim has been used so many times in the past by extremely questionable opportunities as well as outright scams. The claim of being part of an “exlusive money making group” is designed to capitalize on many people’s belief that the rich don’t want the poor to become wealthy.

Red Flag #4 – Downsells all the way down to $11.95

If you exit out of QuickProfitFormula.com two times then you are presented with the opportunity purchase Tyler Koling’s Quick Profit Formula for just $11.95.

While downsells are nothing unusual, when something gets downsold from a claimed original price of $76.95 all the way down to $11.95 it seems as if the person is desperate to sell at ANY price – certainly NOT something you would expect from someone who claims to have charged people as much as $2750 per ticket for a workshop that had a “waiting list a mile long”.

Doesn’t it seem like BAD business sense to charge $11.95 if you have miles and miles of people allegedly waiting to hand you $2,750?

While it may seem like he’s being generous it’s actually a HUGE red flag.

Red Flag #5 – Potential violation of FTCs’ recent “No Safe Harbor” rule

This could very well just be a case of legal sloppiness.  The problem is that the FTC recently implemented the “No Safe Harbor” rule for testimonials which David C. Vladeck – Director, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection – stated in this presentation to the Electronic Retailing Association that:

“…the use of a disclaimer such as “results not typical” is no longer a safe harbor for the claims made in testimonials. Third, while you may use atypical or best-case testimonials, if you do, you should clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected
results consumers can expect in the depicted circumstances. Of course, the best practice, and the less risky practice, is to use testimonials that actually reflect what your product or services is likely to deliver. In other words, rather than run ads that give with one hand but take away with the other, it would be better for your ads to give a clear picture of the results a consumer will
actually get.”

As commercial litigation attorney Michael Webster pointed out in this post about Testimonials and Disclaimers:

“But after today, the FTC has removed this safe harbor for disclaimers.  If the testimonial is an outlier, then the company has to report “the typical consumer experience”.

For most marketers, they have no idea about the “typical consumer experience” because they don’t keep any data about their sucker’s, I mean, customer’s profit after taking their marketing course.

This means that they cannot make any earnings claim because they don’t have any typical consumer experience data.

But they will continue to make these claims, making it an easy case for the FTC to prosecute.”

Yet, the disclaimer at Tyler Koling’s Quick Profit Formula states:

“ANY CLAIMS MADE OF ACTUAL EARNINGS OR EXAMPLES OF ACTUAL RESULTS ARE NOT TYPICAL. YOUR LEVEL OF SUCCESS IN ATTAINING THE RESULTS CLAIMED IN OUR MATERIALS DEPENDS ON THE TIME YOU DEVOTE TO THE PROGRAM, IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES MENTIONED, YOUR FINANCES, KNOWLEDGE AND VARIOUS SKILLS. SINCE THESE FACTORS DIFFER ACCORDING TO INDIVIDUALS, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE YOUR SUCCESS OR INCOME LEVEL. NOR ARE WE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OF YOUR ACTIONS.”

You would think that a guy making $50,000+ per month would be able to hire an attorney to keep him FTC compliant.

Despite the detail I’ve gone into on this I actually consider this a very minor red flag for consumers – because decisions about opportunities should be based on at least some understanding of the system and not on testimonials.

Red Flag #5 – Quick Profit Formula is possibly owned by the same company that owns AutoCashSystem

Of possible interest is the fact that QuickIncomeFormula.com and AutoCashSystem.com are the only two sites hosted on the same IP as you can see below:

Why is that important? Because often when there are a limited number of websites on the same IP address, it can be an indicator that the websites are owned by the same company or person.

Using the historical WhoIs data from DomainTools.com I was able to determine that AutoCashSystem.com had the following registrant information:

Another indicator that AutoCashSystem.com and QuickProfitFormula.com are related has to do with the naming convention used in each site’s optin form:

Notice that both forms use the same naming convention for the “value field” – both use the beginning part of the site name and end with the word “news”. Since that naming convention is determined by the individual setting up the form it is another indicator that the two sites are owned by the same individual or company.

Note: You can view the BBB report of  another site that owned by the same owner of Your Affiliate Site, LLC here

One thing to keep in mind is that BBB complaints may or may not mean anything – because it is often difficult to know how much business a company is doing.

However, what’s interesting in this BBB report is the following information:

“The address the firm is using in Akron, OH belongs to THE UPS STORE at 3867 W MARKET ST, AKRON, OH 44333.

The address the firm is using in Scottsdale, AZ belongs to The UPS Store at 4400 N Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85251.

The address the firm is using in Fallbrook, CA is that of The UPS Store at 1119 S Mission Rd
Fallbrook, CA 92028-3298.

The actual location of the company is not known to the BBB.”

Verdict? Thumbs WAY down regarding the credibility of the QuickProfitFormula.com sales page for Tyler Koling’s Quick Profit Formula.

Note: Keep in mind that this is a review of the Quick Profit Formula sales letter only.