On 4/26/03 I got an email from a person who said they were an employee of Russ Whitney. They further said that on 4/18/03, Russ had all his employees go on Amazon.com and buy two copies of his book between 1PM and 2PM. The employees then turned their Amazon print this for your records receipt into accounting and got reimbursed for the full amount. Some were reportedly urged to buy five copies.
The purpose of this exercise was to drive the book sales ranking up to number one. The book reportedly was number one in the Business & Investing category and achieved number two overall on Amazonat least for one hour. Whitney now brags about his high Amazon ranking on his Web site. I checked on 4/29/03. The overall Amazon ranking of the book was 276, not 2.
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can corroborate or disprove this.
I note that when you try to order Whitneys book at Whitneys Web site, you are sent to the Amazon site. I am a book publisher. It is far more profitable to sell a book direct than to sell it through Amazon. Whitney sells his other books at his Web site. No publisher in his right mind would refer a book buyer to Amazon when he also sold his own books from his own Web sitefrom a profit standpoint. Apparently, Whitney is more interested in achieving a high Amazon ranking than optimizing profit on the book.
In addition to ordering his employees to buy the book between 1 and 2 PM EST on 4/18/03, Whitney also urged his customers to buy it from Amazon.com during the same one-hour time period offering them 11 FREE Special Reports (valued at $29 each, a total of $319).Whitney stated openly that the purpose of this was to drive Millionaire Real Estate Mentor to the top of the Amazon.com Best Seller List.
I am flabbergasted at Whitneys ethics. By definition, a best-seller is supposed to be a book that is bought in arms-length transactions and is popular with those who bought it because of its content. Whitney appears to be unclear on the concept, as the saying goes. He seems to regard a best-seller list as some sort of game. Thats not surprising when you read his books and see that he talks about misleading lenders as playing the game. See my article on his overfinancing. He seems to believe that all that matters is being on the listthat how you got on the list is utterly irrelevant. Based on all the research I have done on him, I would say that sums up what Russ Whitney is about as well as any single sentiment can. Real achievement means nothing. Only the appearance of achievement matters.
I have often noted that, nowadays, many books written by real estate gurus are really just advertising brochures designed to generate leads for the gurus telephone boiler room sales operations that try to pressure you into signing up for his expensive seminars. I have not yet read Whitneys latest book, but some who have told me it is nothing but an advertising brochure for his seminars and mentoring services.
I note that the back cover says he was a self-made millionaire at age 27. According to my research, he was no such thing. Not even close. See my articles on Whitneys claims versus my research and on his first fortune. If he was not a self-made millionaire at age 27, putting that on the back cover is illegal for both Whitney and his publisher Dearborn Trade Publishing. It would violate the Federal Trade Commission Act 15 USC §52 and California Business & Professions Code 17500 among other laws.
In addition, if the reports I got that he had his employees buying multiple copies with Whitneys money and he was bribing customers to buy it during a one-hour period is true, those are material facts which the Federal Trade Commission Act and the California law require disclosure of in any ad bragging about the Amazon ranking of Whitneys book.
The book may be a best seller other than on April 18 between 1 PM and 2PM EST, but the fact that it had relatively high sales numbers of Amazon during that hour means nothing. Essentially, Russ Whitneys book was popular with Russ Whitney during that hour. Other, real customers may buy it later, perhaps because they hear it is a best seller.
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