Ever heard of a certain Matt Harward? of IMWarfare/Braintrust fame?
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Well if you have not come across him then count yourself lucky, very very lucky indeed.
This post is made in the hope that it saves at least one person and hopefully many more from making a big mistake. That would be handing over any of your hard earned dollars over to him in exchange for any form of training system he already does or may venture to offer in the future.
Back in November 2009 I was invited by a friend to visit Mr Harwards blog in order to take advantage of what was going to be a ground breaking and different internet training course and ongoing lifetime membership of Mr Harwards newly formed BrainTrust. I have known my friend for some time and despite what has happened (yes it is bad… very bad) he is still my friend, you see, I choose my friends carefully, they must be honest, truthful and decent in the way they conduct themselves.
You may have gathered that Matt Harward is most certainly not my friend! He does not come remotely close to qualifying as one.
This two faced charlatan comes across as a great guy, offering to help teach internet marketing the way it should be taught…Man if ever there was a title at the Oscars directly applicable to him he would win hands down… so perhaps he will get nominated for ‘Best Actor’ as the script he performs to, bears absolutely no relation to the promises in what he called his Birthday video.
When I and around 300+ people signed up depositing into his account somewhere most likely between $300,000 and $350,000 we were all blissfully unaware of what was to follow. Well we all got one hell of an education, that’s for sure, but not that which we all signed up for.
Things started off very well and the forum quickly demonstrated the quality of it’s members (with one exception of course) although initially Harward was revered almost as some kind of messiah. I had never ever seen so many thankful, grateful comments in a forum before, the excitement and anticipation was off the scale…but that would not last long.
If only you could read them now!
I am personally $990 out of pocket (I got suckered into his Birthday special)
whilst others delayed a short while and stomped up the full price of $1482 (instalments) for what turned out to be the most shambolic, amateurish bag of poo ever to misrepresent itself on the internet! I should have known better and feel quite the fool (now) as do many many more members who in good faith handed over their cash.
Well what exactly did he offer?
In case you’re interested you can read his blog entry here.
(Update): It seems he has taken his blog down… can’t guess why! for now here is Googles cache (End Update).
The video that followed is here.
What did he deliver to date?
The answer to this one is easy. Little, very very little indeed.
He got through his AmazonGrabber. If you’ve watched the video this was the one that would likely pay for the course, has made him a fortune when he never advertised it except for a brief one-off campaign on the big G.
Well a member did manage around $200 after a hell of a lot of effort.
I managed a big fat zero after putting in more hours than I care to mention which were mainly spent getting it working (it had plenty of issues when first released and has never been officially finalised). I also ended up helping a few members get their version installed and working, as they had difficulties with the techy stuff which according to Harwards original statements would not be the case.
We were going to absolutely dominate clickbank! in January. Hah! we never got started except for an initial draft document (never finalised).
We were going to get into cheater landing pages…. I think I get the pun (NOW) – cheater….. yeah right (thanks Matt – for nothing). They are (you guessed it still not delivered).
He also was giving us his fantastic REAL TIME tracking tools. Well first off we all wasted weeks and weeks trying over and over again to get use out of his web only version, only to have him throw in the towel because he just couldn’t get it to work…. This from a guy who in one of the very few webinars proclaimed himself as a software genius (Seriously! he actually used those words). He then brought out a desktop client that still has issues and is incomplete in terms of functionality and delivered training. The guy clearly has no concept of what a help file is either!
Some of us were ‘promoted‘ to a special team (that was to have more direct to Harward contact, gifts for work done [ipads etc] and other stuff too) we were and still are tagged as ‘Delta Force‘, which was a result of our contribution to the BrainTrust.
Some people in the Delta Force team have put in a huge amount of time and effort trying to prop up the Harward debacle. The forum has been completely rebuilt and re-organised and to those involved a BIG THANK YOU! but guess what? UPDATE: Harward has now taken the forum off-line due I guess to the volume of -ve comments he was receiving. The forum (arguably) was the most useful part and also contracted as available for life in his sales pitch – contract once again broken. (End Update).
Better contact? Nope ( For that to happen Harward has to be around) he simply is no longer available. I have emailed him, pm’d him and telephoned him as have many others. (You really should hear his greeting voice mail message, it’s a peach!) [+1 602-214-4075]. Go on it’s worth the cost of the call just to hear the sheer arrogance of the man.
No replies, no return calls, appointments missed, same old story from the guy who spends his life in ‘Cave Mode‘ a favourite phrase of his.
As it stands he seems to have vanished (he did have a IMWarfare special get together planned for June/July in Hawaii where among other things we would get to walk across glowing coals! – (A tad too ‘out there’ for me.)
So perhaps he is on the beach in Hawaii – who knows? because none of the members do thats for sure.
If I could only get his home address I would be trying to get the FTC and the BBB involved in order to attempt to recover a 100% refund for everyone.
Damn, he covered that stating no refunds once he had revealed his Amazon secret and software source code….. that might even be fair were it not for the fact that he has not delivered the remaining 90% of the course we all signed up for and paid for!
Well thats all I have to say… before I write a novel (which I could do if detailing all the promises made and not delivered – quite easily).
In the meantime the Harward family get to enjoy their ill gotten gains. I feel sorry for his wife and family who I feel sure are blissfully unaware of what a toerag this guy is. (Yep I am annoyed…. you can tell i’m sure).
If you have any comments please leave them below and if a Braintrust member please email me [contact form above] so that if we ever get a chance of retrieving our money, I can let you know what you need to do as soon as possible.
So I guess you get the message? Give Matt Harward a wide berth and save yourself $$$ and a whole lot of grief in the process.
Yup, as another victim of the scam I can verify that the original post and the comments are 100% accurate.
What was shocking to me was to see this unfold in a guy who previously had one of the highest levels of respect I’d seen from super-high-achievers in the market. Guys like Gauher C., Jon VC, Amish S… guys who I trust, who knew Matt very well and who gave him unconditional recommendations.
Frankly, I’ve never seen somebody go from “revered as a genius by guys who know quality” to the brutally accurate depiction in this thread. What an amazing flame-out!
As an advanced marketer, I was hoping to gain a few “golden nuggets” and came up empty. While that’s a bummer and the time wasted sucks, I feel especially bad for the folks that stretched to invest in the course based on what they’d heard about Matt and then got burned.
Shame on you, Matt!
Allen
Hi Miles,
Thanks for your efforts.
Posted message yesterday under G. Didn’t get you email. I thought you need some additional information for filing.
Would you please contact me via email I just placed into email area again?
yes, another victim here.
what i can’t believe is how he is letting everyone down, even his friends who helped him promote imw in the first place.
thank you for putting this page up Miles, as i think this should be a lesson to other people who are planning to buy internet marketing products from these big time gurus. even ones with good reputations might end up in this manner as well…
Would also like refund of Total $1,275.00 USD.
Report Him to the I R S.
You can be sure if he has scammed you
He is not going to declare His ill-gotten gains.
http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=106778,00.html
According to the original timeframe of the training we should have gotten 100% of what was promised by now. Unfortunately, about 10% of the product has been delivered and there is no communication whatsoever from Matt Harward.
Miles, have you tried to contact Matt’s merchant account/shopping cart? They may have some leverage and experience to help us out…
As of yet, no.
As I understand it he used Paypal and that all protests toward paypal have been rejected.
However I am more than willing to give it a try especially as they just might freeze any funds he has in his account with them.
Thanks for the suggestion
Here’s where a lot of us members and former members are hanging out discussing issues re IMWarfare and refunds etc.
This group is NOT controlled by Matt Harward:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=321595844869
I too am a victim of Matt’s supposed “IMWarfare Braintrust”. I have never been in any type of instructional program that delivered less (and promised so much)!! I think all measures should be taken to give all of us a refund and to label Matt as a fraud to the rest of the internet marketing community. I have asked for a refund on two occasions and have never heard anything from him. The callousness and disrespect he has shown to this group of “followers” is completely inexcuseable!!
Please keep me informed of ongoing measures to remedy this.
Thanks again Miles for your efforts on our behalf.
May justice be done,
Danell
Finally the interview that we did on Matt Harward and his IM Warfare scandal has aired tonight!
http://www.azfamily.com/news/consumer/Online-marketing-guru-accused-of-ripping-off-customers-106654718.html
Twitter, Facebook, And Comment! Share The HELL Out Of That Link!
Never give a sucker an even break!
Hi,
I too another let-down customer and one of the original Delta Force members who put in my time and energy to add value and content to the IM Warfare BrainTrust, only to see the braintrust vaporize with Matt’s continued absence and lack of promised training.
And the real shame is; I talked an internet friend into joining the IM Warfare. This was guy who was desperate to get out of a job that was working him to death and with the threat of getting layed off at the same time. This guy spent his hard-earned money because I convinced him Matt Harward was the real deal and we would both become financially independent with the Internet marketing strategies Matt would teach us. Now, this friend thinks I was a Matt Harward confederate to deliberately suck him into the program just to get a commission or something. Nothing was further from the truth. I genuinely thought I was helping this guy.
I think most of the IM Warfare members would agree; Matt provided about only 10% of what was detailed in the pre-sales blog post. Just enough to get past the point of the refund deadline, by-the-way. Coincidence, I don’t know. But if any merchant or vendor only gave me 10% of what I paid for, I would expect a refund. In good conscious, I don’t know how anyone would think otherwise; well, except Matt of course.
Will
[...] post on Miles Pearson’s blog :: Matt Harward IM Warfare Braintrust [...]
Many thanks to Chris Morris for all of his effort in seeing that justice is served. If it weren’t for Chris, we’d all be sitting here with our thumb up our ass in addition to having a flat wallet. At least now we can do something about it(PLEASE pass the above link to all your friends!).
In the TV interview, Matt states: “A small group of people think I’m the devil”. No, Matt: All of us think that you’re just a crook.
Not much more to add about this crook.
http://saltydroid.info/matt-harwards-fifteen-minutes/
Hey Matt, we’re an American Band. We’re coming to your town. We’ll help you party it down.
Hooray, thanks to Chris and Larry for going on the air and telling the truth! Way to stick with it…. we all appreciate it!
What shame is Matt.
Just can’t believe that guy. He didn’t have ball to deliver things and fill his words, but he did have ball to lie in the front of camera.
What I can say, he doesn’t deserve sympathy anymore. It is not “small group of people think I am a devil”. No we think you are lier, crook, Con!
You will get what you deserve Sooner or Later!
I also post my responses at http://www.ppc.bz/people-that-suck/matt-harward-why-for-you-do-this/comment-page-1#comment-77525
[...] http://milessentme.com/buzz-about/matt-harward-braintrust-imwarfare/ [...]
[...] content to rip IMWarfare members off to the tune of $300,000 (see the detailed article and comments here within which he developed the polished version of his tracker it does look like he now intends to [...]
I only learned about Matt Harward through the Salty Droid blog. My condolences to those that lost money.
Question for those that lost money: Have you considered small claims court? No doubt you will win a judgement against Matt although getting the money out of him is another story. Garnish wages?? Hmmm.
Wouldn’t it be great to clog the Phoenix, AZ court system with a number of small claims cases all for the same thing but brought by independent parties? I would think a judge or two would get sick of it and take some sort of punitive action.
A question for Matt: If you were overwhelmed by the response to IM Warfare, why didn’t you work with the first couple dozen and simply refund everyone else’s money??? You easily could have done so instead of “being overwhelmed.”
Now it seems that Harward has “hijacked” the (super-cool uber-valuable) Amazon software that he gave us, and is now injecting HIS affiliate ID across all of the active amazon affiliate sites.
So, Matt give us the software (worth $1000?s – his words), then tells everyone that they can’t have a refund, ‘cos we got this software.
Then, a year afterwards, he swaps out everyone’s affiliate id, and uses his own – presumably ‘cos his ‘authentication’ site, is gone / deleted.
Short story: He’s now collecting OUR affiliate commissions from our websites, as each customer is being stamped with his own Amazon ID instead of ours.
What an absolute c*nt this guy is.
Anyone know about his brother? Brett Harward? He’s in Utah selling his coaching techniques for about 2,500.00.
Yep, the Harward name isn’t too good in this town any more, even with the mormons. His brother Brett used to be my boss, and he was quite the little go-getter back then, always looking out for himself. I wouldn’t trust either one of them with the keys to my lawn mower. Karma…..not only will Christ deny you, your family will too.
I came across this thread after seeing a review Miles did on JVC, who I’ve known for many years. However, I never did send in any cash to Harward though I did try out his ad builder in beta. But, there must be something wrong with my computers because every url I try that goes to any Harward site, gives me an “Error establishing a database connection” message. Darn computer viruses…