The letter is direct and plain.  Having spoken to Bob in the past, it appears to be inconsistent with his writing style.  It looks like someone wrote a letter and, at best, told him to sign it.

After all the time and energy Bob has given, why a retraction now?  From my understanding, neither party is allowed to discuss it.

Having dealt with the court system myself as a plaintiff, it sounds like a settlement was reached.  The “only” thing Bob has to do is agree to sign to the contents of the letter which says he was a disgruntled employee and other descriptions and Incredible Discoveries would drop all lawsuits against him.  That is only an educated guess on my part and I had thought this might eventually happen.

Having learned a little bit about his personal situation over the past few months, I suppose it was inevitable this would happen.  After all, why would he want to continue to fight this?  He had very little to gain monetarily.  It is way easier to simply stop fighting.  And if that is the case, so be it.

To be clear, I have no dog in this fight at all.  What I dislike is having my time wasted and having someone or some company solicit my business and asking $75,000 from me with little more than an attractive website.  Are you kidding me?  It takes nerve to do so.  I also find it very suspicious that I have seen in Florida public records a variety of lawsuits filed against or by the parent company of Incredible Discoveries vs. various individuals.  Basically, I tend to think “where there is smoke, there is fire”.

Having spoken to an employee within a direct response publication, a fellow entrepreneur friend who was also approached by Incredible Discoveries, and a couple of other entrepreneurs whom I do not know that complained, other people clearly share a similar distrust and suspicion of the Incredible Discoveries operation.

In the interest of fairness, from my singular perspective, this is mostly my opinion.  However, it is not entirely unfounded.  I have found enough information in the Florida public records that would make me say to people “let the buyer beware” or “go find another company and listen to their pitch”.  I have also kept all the communications of those who have complained or communicated with me regarding Incredible Discoveries.

It also does not help when I ask the public relations person about whether other people were unhappy, she was in denial of it.  Clearly, she did not want to talk about it and basically I could care less because I don’t want to waste time digging.  So I let it go.  My antenna is up and my gut instincts screams loudly regarding them.

I have no interest whatsoever to dig or find any more information within the public records.  There is no reason for me to do so.  I did find the public relations woman I spoke to to be relatively professional, polite, pleasant, and respectful.  Good thing because I was expecting some ugliness.  I was happy I was wrong.  I must admit I did ask her, “Are you going to threaten to sue me now?”  I told her I half expected it.  She said they were not that way.

And so, I hope I do not have to write any more about Incredible Discoveries.  I know those folks have communicated to me that they would be quite happy for me to delete all postings relating to them.  But, they did contact me first even when I told them I wasn’t interested.  And I do document interesting business interactions.  They certainly qualify.

I may eventually remove my opinions of Incredible Discoveries and their disputes with others if things stay quiet long enough.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.

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In looking over the Plaintiff’s Petition, I tried to keep an objective eye and see it from Immediate Capital Group dba Incredible Discoveries (ICG) point of view but it is difficult because I have such differing opinions and philosophy of doing business.

And I have to say, if ICG is a legitimate business as they claim, it strikes to me they are being a bit paranoid and pointing out things that, in my opinion, are very weak.

In reviewing the points ICG made, these are my impressions.

Point 2 – ICG appears to be playing the sympathy card by phrasing their employees as “50 Florida residents…. with their families.” Well, how are they different from any other company that have layoffs, downsizes, or goes out of business? Very few people talk about the family situations and it is not really relevant to the case. It is a sympathy play.

Point 3 – There is probably some truth to Bob Danoff being a disgruntled, former employee that happens to know how to use the Internet. However, it is a bit melodramatic to believe that any one disgruntled employee can bring down an entire company and business. If that is in fact the case, you have to wonder about how strong and solid the business was to begin with.

Having dealt first-hand with the Cobra Collection Scam, people give me credit for helping them shut down. And yet, it really wasn’t me alone. It was the waves of angry, disgusted, and frustrated ex-employees, ex-clients, and ex-debtors that came out and rallied around the website I had created. Likewise, I don’t think Bob is that “powerful” by himself. There has to be a lot of negative karma going on for Bob to have any real power as was the case with the Cobra Collection Scam. There was so much negative karma going on, it hit a boiling point. Is there negative karma going on with ICG / Incredible Discoveries? I simply don’t know.

Point 4 – There are negative comments for almost every established company and product in the Google search engine. There are also disgruntled employees in every company that has been in business any number of years. I have negative reviews on my books but that does not put my publishing company out of business. I have unhappy ex-tenants whom I evicted, sued, and garnished for non-payment. I also have some people who I have fired who might be unhappy with me.

Fundamentally, no one can please 100% of the people but I strive to run my business well. That goodwill and success more than offsets the small number of complaints I get from customers or ex-employees. I also issue credit or refunds if I need to unhappy customers. What I do is no different than what most reputable businesses do. But most companies will not be brought down by this small amount of negative karma. How can Bob’s lone comments (if any) on Google bring any one company down? Give me a break. If ICG has truly been damaged, they need to look elsewhere and not a scapegoat.

Point 5 – ICG is upset with Bob for asking for legal assistance on the Internet. So what? Asking does not mean he will get it. And if he does get the help he wants, we have to assume that Bob and the attorney agreed to it. If ICG is afraid of being perceived as litigious, then maybe they should stop suing so much.

Personally, I don’t mind having the reputation of being a bit litigious. It tells people I am not goofing around when I do business. If you do wrong by me, I will not sit back and be silent. I have sued and will continue to sue if it is absolutely necessary. I also do not like going to court but I do what is necessary to protect our interests.

In browsing through the Broward County Courthouse records searching “Incredible Discoveries” and “Immediate Capital Group”, ICG does seem to indicate they do sue a fair amount of people. But then again, so do we. We have successfully sued lots of deadbeat tenants and we win all our cases. It does not hurt our feelings that if it our newer tenants know we will sue anyone who does not pay. It keeps the deadbeat types away and the others in line.

Last thing, ICG wants to go after Bob because he does not want to list his home phone or cell phone publicly on the Internet? How ridiculous is that? If I was a private citizen and did not have a business, the only way I would want incoming communication is email. Giving out your personal phone number is too risky today. Too many kooks on the Internet. And who wants strangers to burn up their cell phone minutes or fill up their voicemails with junk? Certainly, not me.

Point 6 – I have nothing to say on that as I cannot even find Bob’s Myspace page. I am a pretty good Google user and I couldn’t find it. Again, I think ICG is being a bit paranoid here. Besides, who would seriously pay attention to the content on most Myspace pages?  I have seen many Myspace pages.  They are either goofy personal stuff or blatant advertisements.

Point 7 – This is the one most relevant to me as parts of my blog are being used as a court Exhibit. I do take exception to this as ICG never asked my permission to reprint the contents of my blog for use besides personal reading.  Do they not know that the contents of my blog is copyrighted?

ICG is most focused on the comment by “AndJusticeForSome”. ICG has clearly made the wrong assumption on the true identity of “AndJusticeForSome”. I know for a fact it is not Bob. It is a woman who contacted me through private email. And if it is Bob, he is one hell of an actor capable of a gender change. I have also compared the writing styles of Bob’s public articles and “Justice”. “Justice” writes very well. Bob simply writes adequately on the articles I have seen.

Points 8 to 11 – I have no specific comments on these items.

Bottom line: I think that ICG just needs to let this case go. They are spending way too much time and energy over one ex-employee that I believe has marginal impact on the world at large.  If ICG is supposedly as successful as they claim, one disgruntled employee should not be able to bring them down. They are being paranoid. And if one disgruntled employee can bring their business down, they need to see what is wrong with their business model and operations that is so vulnerable to a “few” customer complaints and negative comments.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.

Nevertheless, I was quite curious about how and why my name and words were being used as Exhibits in a court case.

Bob felt that I should be informed of an upcoming court hearing he had to attend because parts of my blog were going to be presented in a court case. I think Bob was concerned that if for some unforeseen reason I somehow had to go to court, I would be upset. As I am protective of my reputation, Bob would be right. It is strange because I have nothing to do with the dispute between Incredible Discoveries and Bob.

I have only written about my few interactions with Incredible Discoveries. As a whole, they seemed respectful and professional to me. The only reason I wrote about them at all was the fact that it seemed interesting that an infomercial company would want to talk to me. After all, I have no illusions of being anywhere close to a best-selling author (at least for now). At the end of the day, I am still very skeptical of the infomercial industry as a whole. And when someone asks me to pay money to the tune of $75,000, I am very, very wary and suspicious.

I happen to know a couple of people who were part of nationwide infomercials and I know they did not pay anything as the production companies believed in the individuals and the products they were selling. In any case, even if I was going to cough up that kind of money, I would use it as down payment to buy a smaller commercial real estate property in our local area, not spend it on an infomercial.

I asked Bob to fax over his paperwork so I could see how my name and content was being used. The fax included the Certificate of Service and Plaintiff Petition. Surprisingly, the documents were written in a direct, easy to read and understand format.

It appears that I have to set the record straight before this gets out of hand. First, it appears that the folks at Immediate Capital Group Inc. dba Incredible Discoveries (ICG ) appear to be giving Bob Danoff way too much credit for the alleged damage against Incredible Discoveries.

Second, I know very little about Bob to this day because he has been very guarded in what he says regarding Incredible Discoveries. He simply encourages me to do due diligence. Sometimes, when someone is very careful in what and how he speaks, it tells way more than anything he might say. However, if he is telling the truth, that is a whole different story. Bob clearly wants this conflict to end and he does not want to be accused of saying things he did not say. I cannot say I blame him.

I told Bob to not worry since his advice came too late. I have been naturally skeptical of the infomercial industry as a whole. And as a matter of course, I do a Google search on any company or individual I intend to do business with. I read what interests me and form my own opinions. If Incredible Discoveries feels I formed a negative opinion of them because of Bob, they are greatly mistaken. There were other sources involved.

In Part 2, I will give my comments on the Plaintiff’s Petition. It was very interesting reading.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.

I did some Google research about “Incredible Discoveries” allegedly owned by Mark Alfieri since my first posting but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.  I had also done some independent research on Google regarding the infomercial business and possible scams.

I repeatedly said that I really couldn’t see my products being in an infomercial but the guy I spoke to persisted, although he was polite.

In any case, I’ve had the benefit of knowing a couple of people who have done infomercials in years past and they never paid any fee.  They also had mixed results.  If someone believes in your product enough, I believe they will generally front production costs.

When the $75,000 fee was brought up, I knew the phone call was going to end very soon.  It was time to end the conversation.  I did tell them the truth regarding how I don’t trust most infomercial companies and I don’t see my products being sold by them.  It was pointless to talk anymore.

I am sure there are many uninformed entrepreneurs who so desperately want to sell their product by TV, they are willing to mortgage their house to do it.  I believe I can put to use my $75,000 much better than they can.

I would say to anyone before you fork over any large amount of money to a faceless person working for a company with a pretty website, you should check things out very carefully.  I am not accusing “Incredible Discoveries” of any wrong-doing because I do not know.  But I know when to cool my heels because I believe there is an abundance of opportunity in the world.  And I cannot see myself forking over $75,000 to anyone without my having a great deal of assurances and control.

Fair or not, I am staying far away from any company claiming to do infomercials.  It may be extreme and I may be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  But it is the safe thing for me to do.  I need to keep my credibility high and not go down this very “icky” road.

I have no intentions of spending any more time talking to “Incredible Discoveries“.  They were polite and cordial and it was enlightening.  But they simply tried to sell a guy who really doesn’t care to be part of the infomercial industry.

For me, there are lots of ways to get on TV without going down that road.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.

Having seen many education product infomercials over the years, I found most of them sleazy, unrealistic, and simply pandering to what people want to hear.  And most people associated with an infomercial came out the other side with their reputation and credibility somewhat bruised.

In fact, I tried to contact the person who called me and wanted clarification before speaking to the Senior Director.  And if I couldn’t get some clarity or an answer, I certainly wasn’t going to waste their time or my time having a discussion.  I didn’t hear anything, so I simply canceled the call.

Well, I have to give “Incredible Discoveries” credit for persistence.  The Senior Director of New Product Development called me on my cell phone anyway while I was with Wes Weaver, my biz partner, and Nathan, our intern, touring our vacant properties and handling various issues.  And so, I had to politely put him off since I was in no position to concentrate and talk with him at that moment.  I told him I would try to call him back before the day ended.

Around 4:30pm, it was clear my day was not going to end early and would continue into the evening.  However, I wanted to keep my promise so I called the Director back and asked him for a basic overview of what he was interested in and, most importantly, why.

I have to give him credit.  He was not at all the person I had expected.  He was careful in his words and the expectations he was setting with me.  I think he had a hint, my approach is very matter-of-fact and not always talking about sunshine.  I tell both the good side and bad side.  None of the pie-in-the-sky nonsense that is so common in the real estate courses and seminar circuit.

I made a point to politely let him know my biases against most infomercials and many of the real estate education materials I see today.  Surprisingly, he took it well and acknowledged my concerns.

He made a reference that he knew of my involvement with The Investors Roundtable.  He mentioned how I seemed to focus on “independent-minded investors” (which indicates he visited my real estate investing publication website, TurnKeyInvesting.com.  He remembered that I had left Corporate America and wrote a book on it (The Intrepid Way).

I have to admit, he impressed me with those 4 references.  It showed me that he had done some research on me and what I do.  He did enough homework to let me know he was paying attention to details.

In any case, I still have many questions.  However, my questions are moot at this point.  The biggest thing on my mind right now is that infomercials have to cater to the general public.  That generally means a presentation has to be hyped up and dumbed down a bit to cater to the masses.  I tend to believe (from a marketing point of view) when you try to please everyone, you please no one.  With every project I launch, I am careful to think about who I want to target, not simply pop out a generic product that excites no one.

We are supposed to get back together by phone next week.  I have to admit I was not very interested to the point I canceled the first phone appointment.  But now, I am intrigued to find out more what is on their mind.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.

It is strictly an initial first-contact, exploratory call.  The conversation went quickly where the purpose was to set up an appointment to discuss further with a “Senior Director of New Product Development”.

I am certainly intrigued with what they have in mind.  However, at this point, I am unclear.  The call was a bit of a blur and I think they mentioned something about “lease-options”.

I am guessing they noticed some of my lease-option books and they want to explore the idea of a new lease-options product and see if it is feasible for an infomercial.

I am not overwhelmingly optimistic because I think most infomercials don’t really tell it like it is and it is overwhelmingly salesy.  I really don’t want or need the “ick” factor attached to my name.

Update: You can read my impression of the subsequent phone calls.  Basically, Incredible Discoveries wanted $75,000 from me to “get started”. I got very suspicious and quickly said, “No thank you”.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.