Just to let you know that this will be my last post.

I've discussed my "case" with the manager of the coaching departement and sent him a report on my master coaching. After examining the whole thing, he granted me with a partial refund which I found fair and acceptable.

This puts an end to my relation with AR coaching services and of course with the forum from which I have been banned. I recently sent another post but it was also banned... here it is :

[i:d25d23960a]To the Webmaster.

By opening a forum, you expose yourself to the good and to the less good. If you only want good reports, why not just open a testimonial area or a F.A.Q. section to discuss the matter ?

My intention is not to go to war with the AR organisation or with anyone. I am not interested in that at all. I started with a lot of enthusiasm. I was of course cautious to see what I was buying and I received all the advertisment and documents to prove to me that this was an intelligent thing to do. After signing the contract, I was sent a document that stated all the benefits I would get from the coaching and this of course did reassure me about my decision. But I fell from high when I saw the service I got for so much money. I'm not a beginner and I expected a high value but I was deeply disappointed. This is not to say it cannot benefit other people but for me, it was far below my standards.

Innocently, I was earger to share the process on this forum as I thought it would help others and show them practically how a master coaching evolves with a practical exemple. I did this honnestly with the intention to serve whoever was still hesitating to make the step. But when I saw how it turned out for me, I was placed in a dilema. Either I had to stop sharing and putting posts on the forum or I could just say how it was for me. I chose the second option. What happened after that says more about you than you can imagine and I'm sure you would have been benefited by exposing the whole thing, ask questions than censoring the posts or even erasing them.

In one way or another, what happened will be know widely. As far as I am concerned, I will tell exactly things as they are for me or as they have been during the coaching.

Today I got a call from a staff member and I shall write a report to him. If he is open and see the situation, he will give a refund and settle the matter and I will be the first to mention that in this forum. I'll be fair. (In any store here in Switzerland, you get a full refund if you are not satisfied for whatever reason with your purchase and have a month to do so)

Be honnest, talk with your client, see why he or she is unhappy. Check if there was any mistake, check the evidence and if what he or she says is right, apologize and give a refund. It is as simple as that. Make your customers happy not just with the advertisment but also with the content and the "after-sale" service.

In my case, after I cancelled the contract, I would still have bought products from AR or asked for a refund under the form of some vouchers but with your attitude I have come to a point where I just want to make a clean and clear cut with the whole organization. What a pitiy ! I don't know any organisation or shop who treat their clients in this way. But be sure that a disatisfied or angry client will discourage more people than a happy one. (Do they not explain this to you in your selling courses ?) I can already see the effects of that with my own case. I have 14 people writing to me directly on my private e-mail address and I can tell you that they are all waiting to see how you will handle the situation. 14 people who where still hesitating to do a master coaching. What do you think they are going to do if you treat your customer like this ?

You put such an amount of energy before and during the sale that there is nothing left for those who are not happy afterwards. They are even ignored !

Now get on with it! Consider the matter, see the facts and treat your clients like they deserve otherwise you will turn them against you and make them enemies. How much money and image will you loose by doing so ? Certainly much more than giving a refund.

If you allow me, I will continue to explain how the matter will be settled in my case. If it is done professionnally and ethically, I shall write it here to show everyone that you are not obsessed with money and that you know how to handle your clients.

Sincerely

Beyond & Deeper[/i:d25d23960a]

This letter was not posted on the forum so they did not even give me the chance to say that I got a refund ! Too bad for them ! They could have shown that the case had been correctly managed but that's up to them now anyway.

Did I get a refund because I was one of these unhappy customers who doesn't accept to be befooled and shouts on the rooftops ? Or was it because I got to talk with an open and honnest manager ? I'll never know, nevertheless the matter is settled for me and I leave behind the whole thing.

Thanks for opening your forum to these lines. I wish you peace and contentment.

Beyond & Deeper :wink:

JohnK, nice to hear your wise voice of clarity again!
Simple and to the point.

Its as if this thread is becoming a refuge for some of the banned, censored, and deleted former Robbins forumites, who dared to have an independent thought in their brain.

What a Thought Crime.
To think for yourself, and draw your own conclusions.

Call in Tony's Thought Police!!! Emergency!
Sales process is being interrupted!
Could lose a commission for referring and signing someone up for Mastery University or Date With Destiny!
Warning, Warning, Danger, Danger!!

Coz

B & D,
Congrats on getting some of your money back! Hopefully your further negotiations will result in a full refund, based on the poor performance of the coach. Using the "leverage" of the "stick" of pushing to "binding arbitration" just might do the trick.

Getting money back in this type of situation, considering the contracts, and the fact you are in another country, is quite an achievement! Good work at asserting yourself! Now THAT'S real personal power in action.

It is hard to know for certain if shouting from the rooftops was the thing that did it.

But when a company behaves with a consistent, systematic, specifically designed pattern of extreme hardball super-manipulative sales tactics since day 1, and even uses [i:80d6c372b9]powerful techniques of Unconscious Persuasion[/i:80d6c372b9], and does this for over 20 years, then one might be quite certain that is just the way they do business.
Perhaps their beliefs state that if they did things without all of the extreme manipulation and sales tricks, that their business could drop by 90%?
Maybe it would! Its difficult to get people to part with 10+ grand for a few days at a "mass seminar". Most people need to be quite "coachable" to get "coached" into doing that.

Lets not forget the power of the internet as well.
Before the internet, customers were alone, without external support or perhaps even knowledge of what was happening to them. Most would just walk away, lose their money, and blame themselves for getting duped.
Now with the internet, people from different countries can support each other, and learn from each others experiences.
I have learned a lot from your experience, and dozens of other people have appeared to as well.

There is a PROFOUND lesson in this for all of us.
A lesson we can carry with us for the rest of our lives.

To me, its about looking behind the [b:80d6c372b9] Magic Curtain in the Merry Merry Land Of Oz[/b:80d6c372b9], looking behind the show-biz, manipulation, and sales-hype.
Some people present themselves as sweet little puppy dogs or Mother Theresa in a business suit, but right under the surface, they are hungry sharks with big sharp teeth. Behind the curtain one might find a horde of hungry 100% commissioned based highly-trained salespeople, hungry and STARVING for those commissions, and their insatiable desire to get rich as quick as possible, so they can be a Big Shot like their Guru.

Some people have set up "sales machines" that are NOT based on long-term customer satisfaction, but on a scorched-earth policy of grab what you can right now up front. After all, someone once said, there is a "sucker" born every minute, and some people make lots of money scouring the earth looking for "suckers".

But when people stand up for their rights, assert themselves, read their contracts carefully, refuse to sign unfair contracts, force the company to amend the contract if they want their business, and use their skills to [i:80d6c372b9]interrupt the Sales Process, [/i:80d6c372b9]then these companies have to respond.

The sad thing is that, in my experience, there seems to be an endless stream of folks who just seem to want to believe what they are told by some super-salesperson. And these salespeople ride that bandit horse all the way to the bank.
For them its like taking candy from a baby.

Buyer Be Very Aware, and Awake.

Coz

Hi Aurora and others.
Aurora's post about Firewalking seminars, made me go back and look at some of my old notes about a "firewalking" seminar.
These firewalking seminars, are very dangerous seminars, in my view, for many many reasons. Dozens, if not hundreds of reasons.

Firstly, doing the Firewalk in the presence of the Super-Guru is something you can almost never take back. They have designed it as an event that will PERMANENTLY change who you are. That is its literal stated intent. They are going to put people into a Peak State, and then FUSE that with peoples most sacred and Peak Experiences from their lives, and then this gets interwoven and FUSED with the Guru. He enters the most sacred spaces in your psyche, perhaps for the rest of your life. He wants to change who you are, literally, by creating an event that is a turning point in your life, something you will never forget.

Also, the seminar is full of Embedded Commands, and he is directly Influencing your Unconscious mind. The Guru defines what "success" is for you (even though he might claim he is doing the opposite of this), he talks (or talked) about how he is not doing hypnosis, but is rather "de-hypnotizing" you. Its full of group call and responses, and yelling "YES!" to the commands of the Guru, followed by commands to "write this down". You can just hear people on the tapes start falling into Groupthink, and begin to "follow the leader", as each layer of these "commands" is layered in.

Its full of his "stories", which are designed to manipulate you. He is doing Eriksonian Hypnosis on you, which is almost irresistible. He is deliberately CONFUSING you. This is very powerful psychological stuff, and its being misused for sales purposes.

At this point, the SuperGuru has hundreds of different aspects of Influence all overlaid in this seminar, from doing it for so many years, so they all hit you at once, like a Mac truck.

I could go on for 100 pages here.
The more I look at this stuff, the more damaging I see it as being for people.

Of course, the Sales-pitch is that the Guru is doing all this, "for your own good". He is "changing you to be more successful", etc.
Who's "good" is being served here?
Who is being served up on a platter, and for what purpose?

From where I stand right now, I see it as nothing less than an extreme psychosocial abuse of power. I can see what's behind the design of these seminars more and more, each year I look at them.

LGAT's are bad news, due to their extreme coercive nature.

I could imagine a type of open seminar, that could give out useful psychological info, and have open discussions, but doesn't mess with your mind. But an LGAT is the opposite of that. It is a terrible learning environment, even as they claim it is a wonderful learning environment. Its a great environment for coercive indoctrination, not learning.

But, the Firewalking seminar is literally meant to mess with your mind, so that you are never the same person again, in certain ways. This is why if you look at what people write after these seminars, you will see its extreme short-term effects on people.
Watch what people write on that "other" forum after they get back from these seminars. Look for the distorted, grandiose thinking, and mania that has been created. Ask them questions, and you might see some very bizarre answers, that are out of touch with "reality".

As I have said, the more I look into this stuff, the more powerful and dangerous I see it as being.

I will never allow myself for the rest of my life to "give myself away" at an LGAT seminar. I might attend some for research purposes, but I will sit near the back, and guard my psyche from these terrible manipulations. I would also NEVER do something really "extreme" there, like Firewalking. This will IMPRINT the seminar, and the FUSE the Guru into your psyche, maybe for the rest of your life.

These LGAT's are extremely sinister and terribly powerful. They are not what they seem, and they do not do what they are advertised to do. They seem to do the opposite.


Coz

[www.anthonyrobbinsny.com]

I wonder if these other AR seminars utilize the LGAT strategies? Imagine a corporate LGAT?

These are for the most part not advertised on the AR website. I just found them thru a link from www.skepdic.com

"These LGAT's are extremely sinister and terribly powerful. They are not what they seem, and they do not do what they are advertised to do. They seem to do the opposite."


Coz[/quote]



If you're an irony fan, ya gotta love it! What they deliver is, in actuality, the opposite of what they claim. But their customers still "think" they got ~value.~ An irony inside an irony. It's too easy. No wonder they seem to be a permanent part of the landscape. There is never a shortage of con-men willing to pick up the banner and sing along to this tired old saw...


Power? How about mental enslavement? Paying big bucks to have 20 points shaved off your IQ? Acting as a servant to a few "top dogs?"

Possibilities? Yeah, the snowball-in-hell-type. How is it that so many people are put into a trance with this word? If doesn't mean much. A thousand scammers have cashed in on this offering.

Extraordinariness? More like one of thousands of robotic sales-machines. Jargon-spewing nitwits all full of themselves who mostly just piss-off the rest of society.

Success? Depends, I guess. Success for them. Success for a few. Most of the bottom tiers end up with the 3,000 quarts of Sta-Pro motor oil in their garage. Or a library shelf full of expensive tapes and books.

Relationships? Yikes! Yes, predator/prey type, victimizer/victim, rube and con, traveling salesman and farmer's daughter. Don't you just love it when someone pulls a fast one on you? There's a reason people got out the tar and feathers.

Oh, and now Miracles? Just like in olden times. What hare-brain came up with this ploy? I've speculated that they've hired some religios, or some more scientologists. (I'm not kidding, check the website.)



Too much,


Ellen

Ah yes, Elena, the miracles. I received my post card in the mail from Landmark, inviting me (for $40) to "Causing the Miraculous" A Breakthrough Event. This is an all-new 3-hour graduate event.

"In this event, you will create"
* A direct path to causing an environment where the miraculous can occur
* The miraculous - as distinct from serendipity, chance or luck
* The miraculous as a real and authentic possibility for yourself and your life.

All this from a 3-hour seminar. They want us lapsed graduates back!!

Here is an excerpt from another Coaching forum, to illustrate more lame attempts at lame coaching sales tomfoolery.

[A smart guy asked...][/color:65690ac00c]

ok....why would anyone with at least a peanut for a brain pay $200/hr for a life coach?
-------------------------------------------------------------
[Then some type of probable "salesperson" or "supporter" name Manta doing their sales-pitch answers][/color:65690ac00c]
Because many can show dramatic enhancements in their lives?
Because many can point to Coaching to their continued success?
Because many can say without a shred of doubt that their latest book came from Coaching?
Because many know that because of Coaching, they are now ina position that they are earning an aditional $75,000 a year?
Why would you not?

[then an actual "coach" replies to this.][/color:65690ac00c]
Thanks MantaRay
On behalf of the Anthony Robbins Coaching thanks for all your support and honesty. I appreciate it.
-Anthony Robbins Coaching Consultant and Client
Craig
--------------------

HONESTY???? What a total joke!!
That is honesty? To say something that is invalidated by a contract?
Read the portion of the contract relating to making these types of promises and representations[/color:65690ac00c]

A. Warranties: You acknowledge that you are not relying upon any warranties, promises, guarantees or representations made by RRI us or anyone acting or claiming to act on behalf of RRI us unless it is in writing and made a part of this agreement. All advertising material and all prior representations or agreements, if any, whether oral or written, are hereby superseded by this Agreement. This agreement contains the entire understanding and agreement between you and RRI us, and no addition or modification of any terms shall be effective unless set forth in writing and signed by you and RRI us. No sales representative of RRI has the authority to modify the terms of this Agreement.

So here you have people making "representations" about coaching, and ALL of these claims are invalidated by the contract. Who is being HONEST here? Who is making representations that are invalidated by the contract?
Some of these alleged "coaches" do not even seem have the personal Integrity to STAND BEHIND THEIR WORDS 100%. They make these over the top sales-pitches, and then invalidate ALL of them through their sneaky contracts.
What ever happened to "walking your talk" and living up to your commitments?
The cynicism and sleaze-ball sneaky sales techniques seem to know no bounds whatsoever.[/color:65690ac00c]

Coz

Quote
Hope
Ah yes, Elena, the miracles. I received my post card in the mail from Landmark, inviting me (for $40) to "Causing the Miraculous" A Breakthrough Event. This is an all-new 3-hour graduate event.

"In this event, you will create"
* A direct path to causing an environment where the miraculous can occur
* The miraculous - as distinct from serendipity, chance or luck
* The miraculous as a real and authentic possibility for yourself and your life.

All this from a 3-hour seminar. They want us lapsed graduates back!!

Guess they figure if they've burned you out on the ~empowerment~ and the ~possibilities,~ they might get you going again by proferring a few "miracles." Well, this works for plenty of televangelists. Why not Landmark? Desperate people will grasp at straws. (Werner can't be pleased. Either that or he's gone soft in the head. Or softer - there wasn't that much there to begin with.)

Oh, I notice they've retained the old chestnut, ~breakthrough.~ That one must still be working though, Lord knows, L. Ron Hubbard wore it into the ground. Hah, the only old scientological "concepts" missing from this ploy are something to do with ~clear~ or ~complete.~ Maybe they're inside the "program(ming)." Notice ~create~ and ~cause~ are in the ad.


Ellen

This week on one of the major FM stations Robbins was advertised as coming to Sydney in September.

He seems to come here every 2nd or so year. Soon we will see the TV adverts for him. He does not seem to age or is it the same old film clip from the '80s.

I dread more of my country folk falling for his traps. What can we do?

Seriously - How can we stop these LGAT and cult guys. As I write this, innocent people who are now thinking rationally and are emotively healthy, will never be the same again come September. Their relationships will break up, some will quit their jobs, lose friends and family and make poor financial decisions - not to mention enroll in the AR Marketing cycle.

What can we do to prevent this?

Oz