Forget Coffee Shop Millionaire course. It's time to move on.

That's my conclusion now.

I got this response from their customer support:

Robert Worstell, Mar-11 09:33 (SST):

Thanks for your response. 

As I mentioned above, it was another payment to CSM that occurred -prior- to my restarting the original refund request. 

That refund has now shown up in my PayPal account. 

But I take it from what you said that CSM cannot initiate a refund for any of it's customers, but instead it is up to the customer to actually push through their own refund?

Anthony Trister, Mar-11 09:55 (SST): 

Hi, 

Unfortunately, we only offer the program. 

We outsourced the billing and financing to Clickbank, because they are a very secure trustworthy company. We personally do not have customer finance information. It is all located at Clickbank. 

Thank you, 

Customer Care 

Mandy

CSM customers have to push through their own refund. "Customer Care" doesn't, actually. They can't originate to Clickbank and get them to refund when they goof up. So if you don't push it through - guess what? You get billed again and again.

I've gone over before that this stuff Trister offers won't even get you started with any additional income on it's own. It's more Internet Marketing Hype - just a hair above a scam. Sure, there are some specific video's which have some good tips. For instance, I like the ones on how to earn an income by writing. (Just don't sign up for her list - it's not run to give you more value, just more of the same offer over and over.)

What you will find over and over is that whatever they talk about, it's insufficient. If you already have a background in marketing or sales, then it fits into other frameworks and you can get an idea what to do. But you can't take their material and actually start from scratch and make any money online. 

My advice is to simply scrape all the videos and materials you can off their site and move on. You can study it later in comparison to other materials. If you haven't signed up for CSM - don't.

The only workable system I personally know of is Site Build It. They have a track record since the early 1990's and the majority of their clients actually succeed. But in scratching my head about this, that was the only program in all my years of study that I could recommend to someone starting out.

But take what you learned from CSM, realize that it's insufficient, and move on.

I'm writing this as the tail end of what I learned from all this. I started this blog and got into CSM as a learning experience. And I just found out today that I actually made 2 affiliate sales from all this. Total of about $40. Of course, it took me far more than 40 hours to create this blog and promote it. So I basically earned my money back for paying for the course? Not so fast. It seems that Clickbank won't pay me that money until I get to $100 total - even though it's just transferred to PayPal.  And if it sits there too long, they simply start deducting "maintenance fees" from it until it disappears. Been there, done that.

Cute.

But then, I came in this to see what I could learn. So I learned a lot about Anthony Trister, his Coffee Shop Millionaire, and Clickbank.

And so I don't recommend any of them to anyone anymore. Once burned, twice shy.

My advice here: don't pay for anything about Internet Marketing - look it up and test it for yourself. You can find and test everything that's being sold - it's all online.

Everything.

If you buy real coaching and instruction (like Site Build It!), then hold their feet to the fire and make them teach you. Otherwise, demand and get a refund.

All these gimmicks are just that. They are fly-by-night schemes. They make their originators money. But are otherwise worthless.

The best things in life are free. Or appear that way. Really, you invest your time to earn more money. You leverage what you understand and know that you can make work. That is what brings you a return on the time invested. You only get money back, however, never time. So invest wisely.

You won't find any of these Internet Marketing gurus hanging around much after they make their release. They are onto their next project. That's Anthony's lesson in this. He wanted to break into the "big money" from running a membership site - but had never run one before. So now, instead of giving the value he promised, he's just tied up into handling all the bombs which are going off in his face. Which of course just lights more fuses.

But don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself - and if it works, you're welcome. If not, thanks for listening.

- - --

PS: I've now included videos and other ads on Site Build It - all over on your right - if you're interested.