So you want to start an ECOMMERCE web site. I''m going to tell you a sad, but true story of a courageous individual who wanted his own ecommence web site. This individual didn''t want to set the world on fire. He just wanted to make a modest income to offset his retirement. A couple thousand dollars a month is all he wanted. Not a lot of money according to all the people he talked to. In fact this was chicken feed. He was told that he could makes twenty even thirty thousand a month, by those who were trying to sell him information, but they were not truthful. I''m not going to say that they lied they just omitted, left out, forgot to tell him everything he needed to know about e-commerce web sites. If they had he would never have started one. Who is this poor and courageous individual? This courageous individual who represents thousand upon thousand of others just like him. We all know who this person is. It''s me the author of this article James Nelson, but please call me Jim I never did like the name James. I don''t know how courageous I am. In fact, I think the word stupid would better describe my action. I use the word stupid only to describe the fact that I have a tendency to trust people a little to much. I want to believe what they tell me. Like I said, stupid. We all know that everybody in the business world lies. Not all are big lies, but they all lie about something. Now that I have admitted, that I am not the smartest person in the gene pool. I would like to say that I''m not the dumbest either, but I was still ""had"" big time. Here is my story. It all started with an e-mail, from a company named (Fast Web Profit), saying that I could make a lot of money with my own e-commerce web site. For only thirty dollars ($30) a month I could have my own web site. Now this sounded pretty good. I figured this was a small cost to see what it was all about. So I signed up and got my site. After viewing the site. I realized I had know Idea what to do next, so I started to do some research, problem was I didn''t know what information to look up. The Internet is big and if you don''t know what you are looking for you wont find it. I admit it had only been a few days, but I was getting a little frustrated not knowing what to do, but then fait intervened. I got a phone call from a company know as (Educational Sales and Marketing, LLC). I latter learned that they were part of a larger company by the name of (Strategic Financial Services INC.). Before I go any further I want to make something clear. I am not indorsing any companies that I mention in this article nor have I received any money to mention their names. In fact, most would rather not have their names mentioned. I am not going to demean any companies either. I''m just going to tell you my story and let you make up your own mind. Which won''t be hard for you to do. OK! I get this phone call from ESM asking me if I could use some help getting my web site started, stupid question of course I did. I have to admit that I was a little leery, because there was a lot of noise in the background. MY first impression was a boiler room operation. I should have went with my first impression, but I didn''t. We talked for a wile, but I was still leery. He said that he was not trying to sell me anything all he wanted to do was set up an appointment with someone else for me to talk to. So I said OK. A couple of days later I talked to a gentlemen, I think his name was Jason. who told me what his company could do for me. It took him about forty minutes to convince me that an investment of Three Thousand Seventy Five Dollars ($3075) would put my web site on the map, and I would make my initial investment back in six months or they would continue to help me for free. Now this doesn''t sound to bad. I mean they almost guaranteed I would make my money back in six month. The key word here is almost. They never actually guaranteed me anything but free help after the six month period. I want to show you a portion of the contract that they sent me. .. 1. GENERAL STATEMENTS: ESM invests substantial amounts of time and funds in the research and development of its technologies, proprietary trade secrets, educational J systems, software, hardware, business, and marketing solutions (hereinafter "Trade Secrets" shall be used to represent any or all of the proceeding items.) As such, ESM shall at all times maintain ownership of Trade Secrets and only grants use of them to the User under the scope of this agreement. a. TRADE SECRET PRODUCTS AND/OR SERVICES: In exchange for the consideration of $3,075.00 USD the User shall receive the following custom designed trade secrets products and/or service. b. GUARANTEE We fully expect all of our clients to recoup their full initial investment inside of 6 months, if for some reason: it isn't, we will continue to work with the client until they recoup their initial investment. c. Package Description . Advanced Training . link Software . Website & Keyword Analysis As you can see they expect me to make my initial investment back in six months. Three thousand seventy five dollars is a lot of money for me, but with that kind of assurance I took the plunge, head first I may add. Again I use the word stupid. If you read the contract you will see that the only guarantee is free help after six months. Which I''m sure they give a lot of. There are no other guarantees, none, but they lead you to believe that you will get your money back in six months. Nothing could be further from the truth. They told me that they would help me get my web site up and running and give me all the information I would need to make it a success. Again only half truths, not out right lies just not the whole truth. Look at the top of the contract. The part about it''s ""Trade Secrets"". This sounds impressive doesn''t it. You think they are going to give you some secret information. Something to help you make money with your site. Something the competition wont have. False! This was so far from the truth that it''s hard to even call it a lie. There was not one peace of information they gave me that you could not get on the Internet at a nominal cost or for free. Of course I didn''t know that at the time and they forgot to tell me. I suppose it was just a lapse of memory on their part. Who ever wrote the contract was good, because it says a lot but doesn''t promise anything worth wile. Lets drop down to the bottom part. Advanced Training. I got advanced training all right the problem was, I never received any basic training. So the advanced stuff went right over my head. The Link Software: They gave me one program which I could have bought for around Seventy Dollars. Web site & Keyword Analysis: They had me do this all my self, even though I told them I didn''t understand what I was doing. As you can see the contract says a lot, but promises nothing except for the free help after six month. I''m going to start giving you some good advice right now. Not only read a contract well, but make sure you understand it thoroughly. Ask a lot of question and make them tell you exactly what they will give you for your money. I''m going to tell you what I got for my Three Thousand Seventy Five Dollars. It started with a phone call from a gentleman who''s name was Danny. Danny started off using words and phrase that had absolutely no meaning to me at all, and I told him so. Words like Meta Tags, Key Word Analysis, Spiders, Search Engines and many others. At the end of thirty minutes (30) I was asked if I understood what we had just discussed? I said no. I was also informed that the first lesson was over, and I could go to a specific web site and listen to our conversation all over again and if I had any question I could e-mail him. He also stated that he would get back to me as quickly as possible, which wasn''t very quick, with the answers. He told me that I had to come up with some Key Want to read more click on Buy Now