Have I been scammed???? Help me test it out, please.

I mentioned in my first blog post how I had signed up with some affiliate programs. I am now seriously worried that I have been scammed and am out about $3000. The only saving grace being that I couldn't spend more because I didn't ave any additional room on my credit cards.

Here's the deal. I initially signed up for a Free stuff in Canada email newsletter. Which is itself legit. Every once in a while it sends links to offers and promos companies are running.

I forget exactly where, but at one point there was a sign up for info on home based businesses. I'm usually very wary of these knowing that 99% of them are scams. But I was only signing up for info, so I figured no harm done.

Then I started getting calls from some companies offering work-at-home business opportunities. Some were obviously stupid and I paid them no attention, or hung-up, or whatever. Some I would Google while on the phone and see reviews saying they were scams, etc.

Then one caught me off guard. It's called U.S. Online group. I don't know how but initially my searches on Google didn't show any indication it was a scam. Maybe I searched US online instead of U.S. Online - I don't know.
Anyway - it sounded legit and simple. You pay about $100, plus a hosting fee per month - and they give you these ready made web sites for DISH Network and Direct TV. Well, these are big legit companies and I know that affiliate marketing in general is legit having researched it before. Plus, how could big companies like that ignore a company using their names in a scam, right?
So I signed up - then the first up-sell - for more money I would get 3 bonuses - a comparison web site that shows DISH and Direct TV side by side, an Amazon affiliate web site, and the big one - an ADT affiliate web site that pays $350 for a sign up to have a free installation of an alarm system.

Here are the sites:
• Dish Network www.freedishprogram.com/34012 (Offer valid USA only)
• DIRECTV www.usdirectdish.com/34012 (Offer valid USA only)
• Comparison www.mydishonline.com/34012 (Offer valid USA only)
• ADT www.myusalarm.com/34012 (Offer valid USA only)
• Amazon www.shopitonline.com/34012 (Offer valid worldwide - redirects to contry specific Amazon by detecting your IP address)

So the sites go up, the look legit, etc. I start trying to get some traffic to them through Google ads etc. Just a few hits. It's hard work. The send some email newsletters with "advice" etc, mostly just a bunch of random articles, nothing too concrete or helpful.
Then, after an appropriate amount of time for you to become frustrated they call with their "free training session", which is really the big sale where they make their money. Basically, this "free training" is a lengthy and very well rehearsed sales pitch to sell you a targeted ad campaign for your DISH and Direct TV sites. Depending on what package you buy, they'll provide however many thousand of pop-under ads on large sites like Best-Buy etc. targeted at people who've just bought TVs for example. How could I lose? Really, you only need to sell like 1 out of 500 hits to make a good profit. It should pay for itself quickly. They evenm ask you to calculate your break-even sales number (the whole time I'm smiling at how polished this sales presentation is, but if the info is accurate, then it is definitely a good deal!) I wanted the larger package, but only had room to get the smallest package - 15,000 ads over a year. Still, I figured if it worked I could upgrade later. Oh, and the even tried to get me to upgrade with a further discount by claiming his supervisor was using his discretionary promotional budget to get me a better deal. Very slick. Hook, line and sinker - I was sold! Trust me - I'm generally a fairly intelligent guy. The numbers made sense and everything they were telling me jived with what I knew from reputable sources about internet marketing etc.
The guy was telling me people made 50k+ on this. I instead based my decision on a conservative 0.5% conversion rate. If just one out of 200 people signed up for a free dish - I'd make thousands of dollars in my sleep!

But, here we are about a month later. According to my U.S. Online "back office" page, I've registered well over 3000 hits between the two satellite TV pages. But, to my surprise, not one single sale. Now, there's also a page showing how many of the op-under ads have been delivered, and it's less than the total. Which means that if there's real people looking at this ad, many of them are taking the time to look at BOTH the DISH and the Direct TV ads. Now, you tell me - thousands of people interested enough to take the time to compare both of these reputable companies and not a single one of them signs up for a FREE dish? Does that seem even remotely mathematically possible? I don't think so!!! I mean, I've switched TV providers myself a half-dozen times in the last decade if one offers a better deal, etc.
So, there's only a few possibilities that occur to me.
1 - it's a scam. There are no real dish sign-ups going on. The signs ups either go to never-never land or are put into some marketing database
2 - There's a technical glitch and my sites aren't functioning properly.
3 - Something that I'm not able to see on the web sites is terribly offensive and drives all the potential customers away.

So have of course written to the company asking for an explanation. They just tell me to be patient and say some BS about the ad campaign needing to generate "momentum". Excuse me? Momentum? C'mon. You've got how many hundreds or thousands of affiliates using the same ad campaign - the momentum is already there!!!
It's just luck of the draw they say. Law of large numbers says that's pretty much impossible. Everyone's on the same ad campaign, there has to be an average conversion rate for the overall campaign that holds true for any given particular affiliate over a large enough sample - and I think 3000 is likely large enough. I'm no actuary, but that's some pretty basic math concepts.

So what's going on?

Want to help me test it? If by some chance you're in the market for a TV dish, an alarm system, or whatever Amazon is selling these days, please try one of the links and let me know so I can see if a sale happens.

If it doesn't work and we get some proof that this is a scam an illegitimate, then maybe I can report them to the proper authorities - I guess that would be the RCMP for starters who's likely coordinate with the FBI. etc.

Lets see where this goes.