The Apply Knowledge Institute claims they are a coaching and mentoring program to help you create your own website and turn it into a home business that can easily earn you $1000.00 - $2000.00 per month.
They call and set up an appointment with you, telling you that they don't just let anyone into their program, that you have to be the right fit and a select few that they will even take the time to speak with. Their sales pitch is a 3 hour by phone presentation that promises you the moon and delivers nothing but a loss. They tell you that with their coaching program you will see a return on your investment of $8,300.00 or more (their cost for the program) sometimes within one month. That you will easily be earning $1000. 00 or more within 3-6 months with which you can use to pay off your credit card that you use to purchase their program even with no internet experience at all.
The sales pitch is a great script loaded with pie-the-sky information, making you feel like this is easily attainable income that will take a time investment of only 5-10 hours per week, you will have weekly phone and online interactive coaching sessions lasting 30-60 minutes. Pre-recorded webinars that you can access and unlimited contact with their coaches if you need them. That you cannot loose with their program and that they will work with you until you re-coupe your initial investment. That you will be able to make you credit card payments with other peoples money, so its really not costing you. That they have no complaints through the BBB that have not been resolved and that you should check them out there.
Let me tell you how it really works.
They get your money and its nothing but heartache.
First, expect to be on the internet for 3,4,5 or more hours per day not per week. If you are not familiar with the internet , the work that they tell you need to do takes hours of research. Even with some internet experience there is alot of time needed to do the work neccessary to get a website up and running.
The coaching appointments last about 5-10 minutes by phone, no iteractive online working together, no 30-60 minutes long. The coach says do this and this and if you don't know what he's talking about, good luck. Prepare to research the answers yourself. If you have questions they don't get back to you for days or even until the following week. I went through 2 coaches and they wanted to issue me a third when I said enough is enough. With my first coach, most of our sessions consisted of him telling me "Just keep on doing what you are doing." That was it , "it will happen eventually". After complaining and wanting my money back, they told me they couldn't return my money, but would give me another coach. My next coach, who was said to be their best, after a few weeks of sessions with him (he rarely returned any of my questions through e-mail) would set up appointments with me for the following week and then would never call. After I didn't hear from him for weeks, I find out that he quit the company for another job and he or no-one else found it neccessary to tell me. He just quit calling. With that I contacted them again wanting a refund and again they said no and wanted to give me yet another coach.
The pre-recorded webinars that they told you use either had an audio problem or a video problem, that more often than not, they were not useable or helpful.
After using their program for 8 months, following everything they told me to do exactly and more, putting in more than triple the time they said it would take, investing even more money for the monthly fee of $39.95 that you have to pay for their web builder, the merchant and credit card fees, the liscensing fees, all of which totals $100.00 or more dollars per month, I did not make a dime. Nothing! I had to take out a personal loan to pay off the credit card so as not to pay the high interest rate.
I filed a complaint with the BBB that is un-resolved because they would not do anything and did not respond as they said they would. I have come to find out that they use different front end companys, ours was Evolution Management Systems so that The BBB reports don't show that there are unresolved cases against them. Our phone presentation came through Evolution Managment Systems, but the coaching department is The Apply Knowledge Institute.
There are tons of other issues I had with company, this is just a piece of it.
Don't be scammed by this company, none of what they tell you is real, their program does not work, you can do everything they tell you that needs to be done on your own, and you actually do. Once they get your money they really don't care about how it goes for you. When I told them that I was filing compaints with the BBB and the FTC, ther response was, that "it will just come back to where we are now" and that was it. Apparently they have been down this road before and knew how it would end.
Please save yourself heartache and lots of time and money if this company contacts you, run...run...run!!
If anyone else has had issues I would be interested in hearing from you.
