Ever heard of a certain Matt Harward? of IMWarfare/Braintrust fame?
By
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.
I am a member of the Harward “Brain Trust,” and I can completely back up what Miles has stated. None of it has been exaggerated. Matt Harward has stolen my money.
Convulted webinars, missed appointments, empty promises, all adding up to nothing.
Matt Harward is a thief.
Matt Harward
19620 N 36th Way
Phoenix Arizona 85050
United States of America
Phone: 602-214-4075
Skype: squark192
Web Address: http://www.mattharward.com/
Better Business Bureau online:
http://www.bbb.org/online/
Sounds like a trip to the see the Grand Canyon is in order.
Hey Miles I want to thank you for taking the time to post about this Matt Harward Scam. Matt Harward should be ashamed of himself, stealing $300,000+ from over 300 people is ridiculous. I hope his wife and 3 girls find out the truth about him…
Matt Harward is definitely a thief.
I, too, am a member of Harward’s so-called “IM Warfare Brain Trust,” and can attest to Miles and Stan’s statements about the paucity of content, the hollow promises, and ultimate lack of respect that Matt delivered to his members. Because the members trusted in his self-designated “genius” brain, we and our wallets were the only ones targeted by Matt’s warfare campaign.
In addition to Stan’s info above, here is some additional info about Matt that I gleaned from the web:
6629 ROSE GARDEN LN
GLENDALE, AZ 85308
(not sure if this address and phone are outdated, but I thought I’d include it)
(602) 485-1262
matt@mattharward.com
mharward@phatrock.com
mharward@manifestaz.com
Thanks for the post Miles, and please keep me informed of any updates in terms of measures members are taking to get a refund.
John
Matt Harward is nothing more than a scammer. and the Braintrust scam is his latest con.
I was alerted to the course by Gauher Chaudry who is a sound guy and would absolutely freak out if he knew at the time that he was recommending such a scam.
I am hoping that a legal action will now be taken against Matt Harward by the members of the Brain Trust Scam so that Matt Harward can be made to pay back the stolen money, even if it means he loses his assetts. Life is hard enough without people like Matt Harward making it worse by conning good citizens out of their hard earned money.
I hope others will post on various websites, their honest experiences of the scam so that ohteres will not secombe to Matt Harwards scams. Remember truth cannoto be libel.
Same here, member of the so called “IMW Brain Trust” sitting here with “nothing” delivered. I am fully supporting Miles in case we have to take further action.
what a waste of money for $999 imwarfare has to be the biggest dissapointment if only he could communicate and say something but no he hides away and says nothing to know one. is he dead is he alive who knows but hes difinately $350,000 richer i think am in the wrong business.
The best possible point of pain for a person like this is to notify his friends and family of what has been done. I’m sure in this situation he has managed to keep this entire reputation-buster covered from them. His wife and daughters are enjoying the sudden windfall unaware of the lives that have been affected. A simple refund to the entire group would be the easiest way out.
Matt failed to deliver on just about every promise made in the sales presentation and during imwarfare. The organization and presentation were scatter brained and beyond confusing. He also will not respond to refund requests.
Please read and add to the reports in the Rip off Report site.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/matt-harward.aspx
As a member of the IMWarfare “Brain Trust”, I can confirm the facts as reported in Miles’s post. Lots of promises, several declarations by Matt of his own genius, but no delivery on the promises in over 8 months. The man is apparently all mouth – no backbone.
My Opinion of the entire experience was for the most part a complete waste of time, in my opinion we got a lot of chatter and webinars but no real training, I would consider myself intermediate Marketer and I didn’t get anything close to $1,487.00 dollars worth of training, the only real value was some of the things I learned from other members out of his forum, which wasn’t what I paid for, it was up to the members to search the forum for any upcoming training there were almost never any E-mail notifications when a new training was happening, as far as the promised tools that were suppose to be included with the training we all we received is FREE tools that he gave away over the last several years. and a 33pg PDF brain dump on paper about clickbank that didn’t help me in the least, I’m sure he thought it was valuable but there was again no visual training, same old story
I could go on and on, the biggest problem was arrogance of no communication and the vanishing act that happened every couple of weeks or so, I’ll stop there for now, all I want is my money back, not to mention the $50 bucks a month for the VPS server with is up to $400.
Here are some place online we might be able to post a complaint to
http://www.onguardonline.gov/file-complaint.aspx
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/
https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/getstarted.aspx
http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm
http://www.sec.gov/complaint.shtml
http://www.bbbonline.org/consumer/complaint.asp
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
http://www.419legal.org/
Hi Miles,
I’m also an a member of the official “Gotten screwed by Matt Harward” club.
Your post is excellent and 100% accurate.
1) We need to create a bunch more or these posts on all of our blogs and all link to them so we completely ruin his reputation online.
Matt Harward, Matt Harward Scam, and all his product names.
2) We also need to organize a group to legally go after this scum bag. Perhaps contacting a local prosecutor to go after him for fraud.
Anyone putting any groups together …. thoughts on how to do this?
I’m also a member of Matt Harward’s IMWarefare BrainTrust and spent over $1400 for this course.
I can confirm the facts you mentioned in your post. Matt always said he would deliver even if it takes longer as planned. But this never happened. He just disappeared without any communication.
I bought many IM courses but I have never seen a marketer that treats his clients with such a disrespect.
All the big gurus who promoted this should give their commissions earned from this back to us. Their reputation is damaged as well.
The only solution I see is refund to the entire group or taking legal actions. What do we need to do to get FTC involved?
Hi Miles – thanks for the post. I am another one of the many who were taken for a ride.
I too was referred by someone I trust and admire. Still do – but we all get taken in sometimes. Without a doubt – my worst IM experience ever! So many valuable tools available to spend limited funds on – and to waste it on this. Painful!!
Unfortunately everything everyone has said is true. I’m not going to reiterate the comments here as they’ve been said before.
But I hope that legal action is really taken because it is deserved. A lot of people lost $1300 who couldn’t afford to lose it and he should be ashamed of himself.
Hi Miles,
I too was expecting an actual organized course.
I am a very inactive member of the braintrust… I’ve posted just a couple of times. Every time I log to the forums, I waste my time trying to figure out where to start. I am very disappointed.
We need to regroup. Fast.
Thank you Miles for highlighting this issue. I was also a disapointed member of the IMWarfare course. All I recall is empty promises and lots of waffle, excuses and empty promises of future fulfillment.
For my hard earned money I have received nothing of any value and certainly not what was offered in the agreement. I have previously a requested clarification on refund policy which went unanswered, I also saw many othere such requests on the fourm for refunds which were also not met.
I would caution anyone who is thinking of doing business with Matt Harward, whether this is in return for promised services or products as he has failed to deliver both on this occasion to hundreds of people.
When I read that Matt Harward was doing a private coaching forum, I jumped at the chance, as the guy was well respected in the IM community, and had given away so much value with his free products such as sitesniperpro etc.
From Matt’s original sales letter, it sounded like a no brainer! We were going to get inside the mind of the legendary Matt Harward, and learn how to destroy the competition using:
- Advanced Tracking
- Explode winning Campaigns
- Wicked Sneaky ClickBank tricks
- Landing Page tricks & templates
- Bots & Data Scraping
etc. etc.
It goes on to cover 17 areas that we were to cover in detail.
To date though (7 months in), we still haven’t got the Advanced Tracking working! The guys bills himself as a “software genius”, but has re-started from scratch twice already, and still we are left with a system that I wouldn’t trust on any of my campaigns.
Its also given us a insight into how Matt treats his new customers, as I’ve seen email after email from people in the forum who have tried to register his (paid) software, only to find that he (Matt) is no where to be found – meaning their purchase is unable to be activated until he re-appears.
From a guy that offers great value in his free marketing software, and contributes highly in various IM forums, I am totally SHOCKED at the way he has destroyed his own reputation by handling this group of ~300 people, who paid him around $1.4k each to be coached.
He has continually failed to deliver content. Apparently broken his wrist / spine / dislocated his eye socket, all within the space of 7 months. Has failed to communicate any of this weeks of “downtime” to ANYONE, instead just saying that it’s a short coming he’s aware of!!!! Unbelievable!!
I really wanted this course to succeed, and like most in the group was willing to ignore the constantly sliding time line, but when the guy doesn’t log into the forum for 30 DAYS, enough is enough.
In a nutshell, Matt you stole our money. You might have had good intentions (but nothing ready to deliver) in the beginning – but now its gone on too long, with little to nothing delivered!
Like all my fellow IMW-members I very critical to the deceiption of Matt Harward. Also excuse my english since I am not native english in any way.
Appart from all the above it´s also important to understand the background that many of the customers for this course/program have. Some beginners that put a lot of hope and capital but received only lies and watered down versions of Matts promises. There is also lots of successfull and very skilled and competent members who have put in long hours to make Matts forum work. The sharing and generosity amongst members have been nothing short of amazing.
But…this has nothing to do with Matt Harward. He has repeatedly been absent and not produced anything near what we paid a lot for. This is without doubt illegal, wrong and immoral. The ones who promoted him and his course probably did not know what this man had in mind or what he was lacking in. Truth is that some refunds actually was “honored” by Matt, well let´s say he did not have any choice. Therefore admitting that his course was horrible and without value.
I chose to believe that something has happened to Matt that prevented him from delivering what he first intended. Be it workload, time, health, personal problems, bad business, family problems. What is unforgivable and illegal in my opinion is not to come clean and provide refunds for any one wanted them. Instead he is hiding. Most seems to take the opposite view, that he actually planned this from the start and knew he never could deliver or would not do it. Definition: stealing!!
What is next is either Matt stepping up to the plate, taking responsability for his actions or lack there of, refunding all members in full and then starting his business rehab, and with luck and hard work saving his own family name. If not, and most likely that is, this “movement” with savvy and very commited and angry IM-marketers, will continue to join forces, press legal charges, broadcast the truth about Matt Harward all over the internet and in the IM arena, to his family, friends and, yes, church members.
Matt Harward do yourself a favour and clean up your mess before it´s to late. Clock is ticking you know!!
Steve G. just to clarify one thing in your post – he never gave away Site Sniper. It was promised to us as members of Imwarfare but never delivered. Well before Imwarfare he gave away a few simple keyword tools and an image creator. Good post. Thks
I cant agree more with Miles and the rest of the IMW members who have voiced their opinions here.
Although Matt Harward touted the course as a groundbreaking endeavor, IMWarfare has been the most disorganized, overhyped, overpriced and irresponsible piece of online training I have ever participated in. And believe me I have seen them all, from high end Frank Kern and Gauher Chaudhry to rinky dink $19 Clickbank courses.
IMWarfare is by far the ONLY experience that I feel very, very, very badly about. I mean… I have been disappointed by online training courses before, but this is just ridiculous.
-Long periods of no communication.
-Months off schedule.
-No remorse or compensation when deviations from what was promised occur.
-Half baked technical tools that work sporadically and with low support levels.
-Recruiting (and defrauding) members of the team to provide help in delivering content when it was not their responsibility. Imagine paying for a course where you have to help the promoter/teacher with the materials, organization and delivery!
Just plain unacceptable business practices.
I hope we find a way to satisfy the want for justice of the group.
Regards,
JP
Yes I agree, and i have lost hope for this course in January when Matt stopped producing anything. The content was all basic and boring and we never got into any of the meat of the course. Also he constantly lied about his Health because I bet he is enjoying having stolen 350000 + of our hard earned money. This piece of dog crap calls himself a Church man while he is only one in church who never drops a cent in the charity box, he probably pulls money out for God’s sake.
I hope we can get a full refund as I had high hopes and invested money that I should not have but I thought with the hard work of his teachings I would recover the loss.
I am also a member of IM Warfare and paid $1,275 to be in it. I was very, very patient and did not take part in any of the Matt-bashing the first few times Matt disappeared and made excuses. But now, 7 months later, I have lost all confidence. Even if Matt did show up and deliver on his promises, I don’t feel like I can trust in his tools and support. I have asked for a full refund but recieved no answer (like so many others). Paypal will not help because it was too long ago. I am now disputing the charges with my credit card. I have been involved with many “gurus” in the Internet Marketing world, but this is the first time I have ever been ripped off.
I am also a member of the Harward “braintrust”, and agree wholeheartedly with every comment posted here. Although I have a hard time believing this was a true scam, it certainly feels like one. Every time I checked the forum, I secretly hoped — actually, I pretty much convinced myself — that matt was going to show up one day, apologize, and start up again. But it never happened.
$990 is a hell of a lot of money to pay for nothing, and nothing is essentially what we got. Broken promises and a lot of hot air. And to think that we all just trusted matt because of his soft sell, his wholesome religious background, his family values, and his promise to teach us exclusive IM strategies.
Wow. I’m amazed it’s come to this. And sorely disappointed too. Overall, I can’t believe that Matt is *still* nowhere to be found and not at all interested in protecting his name. How can he just sit silent and let all this happen. Maybe it just proves our point that he’s a scammer…
I sure hope we can get a refund.
Sad but it’s true.
I had huge regard for Matt.
I thought highly enough of him to go into credit card debt to get on this course. I was retrenched towards the end of 2008 and am still unemployed…. and still have to pay the bank back.
He’s really disappointed us beyond description.
I remained quiet in the forums but will lend my voice here. Everything said is true. A complete non-delivery of promised content and a litany of lies to keep people from refunding.
Matt Harward is a thief, plain and simple.
I fell into the trap and lost over $1k. Matt’s software will not even start, because Matt has not paid his third party licensing people.
He should just refund those of us who want him to be a man and do exactly what he told us he would do.
It appears that he got the money and started going on vacations and getting hurt in the process.
I was very disappointed to find that NO content had been organized or anything ready for reading and understanding.
Apparently his most profitable means of making money have been on the dark side of scams and rip offs – as he has still not told us how it is supposed to be done.
Well, one day – that stolen money will run out and he will need to feed his desire again. This is a fair warning to those who read – Matt has no honor and will NOT serve anyone.
Even for money.
Looking for a class action law suit. Let’s put it in motion.
Miles, thanks for the detailed post, a very accurate account of the misery that Matt has caused to his Brain Trust members.
The members are a great group of people who help each other out on a daily basis, the exception being of course Matt Harward, who has consistently failed to deliver on promise after promise.
Matt stated very early on that tracking was the most critical element of a successful online business and I fully agree with that. It is the key foundation and if you cannot track properly, you are dead in the water.
I find it shocking and beyond belief that the self proclaimed software genius has still not delivered a working tracking system after 8 months.
I remember on one of the very few Q&A webinars that Matt organized, Nick asked “So Matt, when are we going to be able to make some money?” Matt’s response from what I remember was “well, Nick, with the tracking system and everything else I am going to give you, it will be a couple of weeks”.
Well that was back in Feb/Mar and we are still waiting.
The Delta Force members, including yourself, have really stepped up to help Matt overcome some of his challenges with delivery but he does not have the foresight to accept the help. He just ignores it.
One of the most appalling features of Matt’s behaviour is the complete lack of communication and contempt shown to the members.
All the members deserve a FULL REFUND for the disorganized dross that has been presented and the vast amount of time wasted.
I think Matt believes that if he keeps quiet, we will go away and forget about it. Well we will not go away and we will not keep quiet until we get a FULL REFUND.
For any readers of this post, if you do happen to attend an event where he is speaking, ask him why he failed to deliver to his Brain Trust members and why he has not provided a refund.
My recommendation for anyone reading this post is DO NOT conduct any business with Matt Harward. DO NOT waste your money on any of his software products. DO NOT listen to any advice that he writes on his blog or elsewhere.
Nothing more to add to what have been said by other braintrust members. The course was supposed to end in 6 months, but we haven’t received a fraction of what Matt promised after more than 7 months. He wasn’t around most of the time. So the course was a total disappointment.
Shock and Awe was right. (The heading on the IMWarfare forums.) I am still in shock that I forked over $1000 and in awe that anyone could just walk away with peoples money like that.
I made $0.49 on a collapsible dog bowl. That’s it. I spent not only money but masses of time reading around on there, trying to grasp where things were, when the next module was coming out, fighting tracking scripts and the amazon thing – but nothing was ever clear. In fact the only clear thread as to where things were was started by someone other than Matt. And the only value received, was also, as some have stated, from people other than Matt.
Perhaps worse than the financial loss is that “sick to the stomach” feeling of having been let down from someone, that although I didn’t know personally, I felt like I trusted implicitly because of being on his list and playing with the free software etc. and the high recommendation of others with status in the industry. It’s embarrassing and it calls into question why I trust anyone online.
I was so EXCITED! that this was it. I packed up all the other courses I had bought and vowed to concentrate on these methods, quit the day job eventually. Should have stuck with another plan.
I don’t hold out much hope of a refund. It would be nice because we could use the money but I do hope that Matt will answer for himself and his scheme.
Strangely enough, I still have to wonder whether we were all 300+ people bad character judges? or what went so grossly wrong in his life and business to do something like this. It’s incomprehensible to me. Maybe that’s why we all waited so long and made excuses for him. I’m still kind of waiting for him to redeem himself but am done with trusting him.
Thanks for the venue to vent!
Not sure what else could be said that hasn’t already been said.
What been said all ready is all the truth .
From day one of launch nothing was ready to go or was there ever any intention to get things ready for us.
Matt as been giving us false or high hopes all the way , disappear for week at a time,then reappear only to reassure and give a new time line for delivery then believe it or not disappear again
Matt you should be ashamed of yourself and your family and church going friends should get to know the real Matt and what he has done to people that believed and in trusted him to deliver on what was promised .
I hope one day Matt that it all catches up to you , as the saying does what comes around goes around…
What I don’t know:
I have NO IDEA what the hell happened to Matt Harward. He is skilled no doubt. He is one smart puppy. Not nearly as smart as he THINKS he is since he has ZERO people skills. I have (in the past) seen good things from him. I have admired his work (in the past). However, something has gone wrong. Whether it be family related, health, personal problems or just plain flipped out, I couldn’t tell ya. How could any of us know since communications gets cut off for over a month at a time.
What I do know:
I paid about a grand UPFRONT and figure I got about $97 value TOPS out of this so far. And that is very generous considering my expenses to implement the non-functional tracking software total in hundreds now many months down the road. We are now past what was supposed to be the end of the program and have not even been given the content that was supposed to be delivered in the first month (November of 2009).
What I feel:
I am very frustrated. I entered this thinking that this was going to be “the one”. It was taught by an EXPERIENCED marketer who was going to cover ADVANCED tactics. This showed the promise in the forum of being the “best ever”. But it never developed. People who knew him vouched for his abilities and told us the course would be great. And now in his absence other internet marketers are starting to come in and offer to replace the content that never materialized. How EMBARRASING that should be for Matt Harward.
I can’t help but feel sorry for everyone involved. Some of us were(are) unemployed and gave VERY precious money to someone who did not deliver nor (& most importantly) appear to care what this meant to us. Most all of us were excited and happy to be here only to be dropped on our head. I am even worried for Matt Harward because unlike others, I don’t believe this to be a simple scam, I believe that there is a breakdown of some kind… my mind wanders from drugs, alcohol, divorce, health issues, you name it. I do not wish Matt harm, but I would like the content or my money. Right now I have neither.
But my confusion and sympathy does not change the facts.
We have given money to someone who did not deliver. I don’t care if it is digital goods or a washing machine. If you say you are going to provide equipment or services for money and the goods are not given, then the customer should be able to get their money back.
Ironically, I would MUCH, MUCH rather have the content than my money. But since that won’t happen as proved by months of false and broken promises while Matt went on vacations. I could put the money to good use to benefit my family instead of funding his vacation to Hawaii I can tell you that.
I wonder how Matt would feel if I sold him a car that he paid for but I never delivered the car? Then what would he think if he heard about my vacations and business trips but I was always too busy to deliver his car? Regardless of if I was DEAD he would think he got screwed because he was out money and didn’t get the car.
So I guess you could say I feel screwed.
On top of this I feel sorry for Matt Harward. I know my mother would not approve of his behavior, God rest her soul.
Best to all.
RT
Hey Heather & RT,
Great Posts!!
You manged to put into words much more eloquently, than what I was trying to convey earlier. Given the choice, I believe everyone would prefer the CONTENT over a REFUND.
But, knowing what we do of Matt Harward, and the way he has conducted himself within the group, it just seems improbable that he will deliver what he promised upon payment.
The fact that Matt logged into the forums yesterday, got wind of the refund / lawsuit threads etc., and then just disappeared without even posting anything speaks volumes of his currently mindset.
Time to grow some balls Matt Harward, and speak to the ~300 people who think you ROBBED them of their hard earned money.
Time is running out for you to put things right… seriously!
QUOTE:
“”Perhaps worse than the financial loss is that “sick to the stomach” feeling of having been let down from someone, that although I didn’t know personally, I felt like I trusted implicitly because of being on his list and playing with the free software etc. and the high recommendation of others with status in the industry. It’s embarrassing and it calls into question why I trust anyone online.”"
EXACTLY how I feel! I am also a member, having lost $1275. But as you say in your comment, the sick feeling, and the burned trust, is worse. And moreso for me because I lost $20,000 a few years ago from another scammer named Tommy Liantonio, (who coincidentally built a reputation and list by providing helpful comments in a different person’s forum before launching his own ripoff scheme).
I am sad that IMWarFare was a ripoff, and I am sad that my trust is again hurt.
I too am a member of the so called “Brain Trust”
I’ve spent a lot of money over the years on internet marketing, and this $1250 investment has to be the worst, considering that Matt is smart marketer who used his credibility he got from other Super Affiliates to suck people into his “scheme” and share his “secret” sauce.
Well, 8 months later and a few shabby webinars where absolutely nothing was revealed, there’s nothing to show for.
His keyword tool is good, but I got a better keyword tool for $97 and his tracking software is nightmare to figure out.
Whether intentionally or unintentionally Matt Harward totally scammed 300+ people and keeps acting like everything’s wonderful and he has this great private forum, which is all crap.
I know that Gauher Chaudrey who I respect a lot, speaks highly of him, but if I run into him at an affiliate summit or some other seminar, it will not be pleasant.
Hey Miles,
I’m another that got suckered into what was supposed to be ground breaking internet marketing techniques.
What a load of crap!
The best thing to come out of it for me was the fact that my Brain Trust account was suspended because my final payment didn’t go through my Pay Pal account. I contacted Matt to find out how I could make the final payment.
After contacting Matt by email he responded by telling me that we would resolve the issue after he got back from the Magic Bullet Seminar. Well after several more emails and tickets left at the IM Warfare site I still haven’t heard back from the guy.
So I lost a lot of money also but at least I’m glad that I didn’t get to make that payment, especially after reading all these other people’s horror stories.
I agree that something should be done legally!
Hi Miles,
Being late to the ‘party’ back in November – when the membership had officially closed – Matt was more than happy to take an additional $1,250 from yet another unsuspecting new joiner (he was no longer offering the payment plan).
Like most, I had very high hopes for the Brain Trust but feel massively let down. I figured if Matt was providing huge amounts of value in the tools he gives away for free – then the paid stuff must be awesome! How wrong I was!
Since I cannot see Matt delivering the content he promised, he should just provide every member with a full refund. If he wants to salvage any dignity at all, then this is the very least he should do. Obviously, he’ll never be able to repay all the time we’ve lost on tools that have never worked properly nor compensate us for the humiliation we’ve faced when explaining to our families that we’d been scammed out of $1,250.
If he’s man enough, together with the refund, he should also provide us with some sort of explanation as closure of this sorry saga – rather than just hide away in his cave hoping we’ll all just go away quietly.
I too was a member of the brain trust. After 8 months of delays and promises, nothing of real substance has been delivered to date.
Matt even received assistance from a team of dedicated members to help role out the course material and push things along. After a lot of effort from these members, Matt just went silent and never spoke to this team again.
It is a shame that things went this way, it just seems as none of the promises from the Brain Trust ever panned out since December.
At a minimum Matt should resurface and speak to the members of the trust directly to let them know what the situation is.
The silence is deafening.
I purchased IMWarfare course last year with high hope that it will give me tools and knowledge to conquer Internet marketing. Furthermore, IMWarfare is promoted by big gurus that I trust.
Sadly, it turns out to be my biggest nightmare as I paid full amount and Matt Harward didn’t fulfill his promise. The course is way behind schedule and the tracking tool still doesn’t work reliably. Not to mention that another bunch of tools and knowledge has yet to be delivered! He can just disappear for weeks as-and-when he likes it without communicating to his members in IMWarfare.
Matt may be a successful Internet marketer, but for sure he is a lousy coach, lack of professionalism, and has zero ethics.
I have nothing more to add to this, except to confirm everything that has been said here. Matt Harward has not delivered what I was charged for, not even close.
Unfortunately, this is all too true. Matt Harward turned into a real flake and did not deliver nearly all that was promised. He did make initial efforts but did not come close to completing his offer.
Additionally, his refusal to communicate with paid members borders on psychotic and is no less than extremely weird. Now it appears as though he is too much of a chicken-s**t to man up and face the inevitable music. Instead, he’ll have his once good name dragged through the mud, and deservedly so.
Add me to the list of those suckered by Matt Harward.
I also asked for a refund (past the refund period) the only reply I got was silence…not even a “what can I do to make it right” or “sorry times up”, I think Matt is hiding in a hole waiting for the next group of suckers to fleece. It is truly a shame how people like this give the IM community a bad name. Hell I would have been happy if he would have said he messed up and he would make it right, or even heres half your money back. whatever. I visited the forum today and was suprised to see it is still there, Matt actually made a post on 5/19/2010 (his last one), it was about a webinar password I wonder how many people attended?
Anyway add me to your list miles.
Martin
Hi Miles, I appreciate your efforts in trying to get a refund for us all.
Much was promised and little delivered so I too am looking for a refund.
Thanks.
Miles, thanks for putting this up. I’m also a part of the Imwarfare group and really feel cheated. I really trusted Matt Harward and accepted all his excuses for the constant delay in delivering the course. But this is too much. Not only has he failed to deliver the material, he has now gone incommunicado as well and doesn’t reply to any mails/posts on the forum – despite logging in to the forum every now and then. I’m also looking for a refund from Matt.
Miles, many thanks for putting this page up and letting people know how unprofessional Matt’s behaviour has been.
I agree with everything that has been written, and have to say that the really irritating thing about this whole sorry saga has been the silence from him in the last two to three months. The lack of an explanation is arrogant and rude … just about sums him up really.
A refund would be some small repayment of the time and energy we have wasted over the last 9 months.
This is an unfortunate situation that could have easily been avoided had Matt actually come close to what he committed to. Miles, I appreciate the effort you are putting into securing a refund. Thanks.
Dave
I would like to echo the comments and sentiments of the other IMWarfare members here.
Matt Harward’s Braintrust has been a total letdown due to Matt’s inability to deliver the promised training and tools and from the disappearance of Matt Harward himself.
Hey Miles,
thanks for posting this expose on the truth behind the scam that has been operated by Matt Harward in the IM Warfare.
We all know in business, we can buy good products and bad products and the customer is always protected by a money back guarantee.
This is the first and I’m sure only time where I have experienced what I can only describe as an act of very cunning burglery. At least that’s what it feels like.
I agree with everyone above and what they have said. There has been nothing but promises and hardly anything delivered. And even the tiny amount of what has been delivered fails to work and has bugs, no support and no explanation of anything.
It beggars belief why someone would treat 300 people who not only trusted him, but continued to place faith in him and hoped that he would deliever on what he “advertised” for.
This is NOT a subjective opinion, but a statement of fact. Matt has delivered 10% of what he promised…and even the 10% of what he delivered for all intents and purposes are unusable.
I don’t understand why he can’t be honest and simply refund the money to the members and chalk it up as a failed project instead of causing such an uproar and destroying his name permanently.
What can I say about Matt Harward? or Matt Coward or Matt Scammer
I have reserved my words until now. The reason is because I wished he would deliver what he promised in black and white at http://www.mattharward.com/2009/11/10/whoa-this-is-a-lot-of-work/ and at IMWarfare private forum. But nothing, exception one tool (Amazon grabber), one non-functional tracking software, couple of useless webinars. His Amazon grabber claimed to make us tons of money. I made zero after implementing into dozen websites. Wasting lot of times to implement his tracking tool. Not Working.
He never delivered anything he promised below in 6 month frame:
* Bots and data scraping.
* Advanced javascript tricks.
* Advanced iframe magic.
* Using offline marketing to drive online sales (a pre-requisite for the mobile marketing module that I will end with).
* Video and multi-media.
* Creating your own free ad network (ridiculously cool).
* Social networking (not my string suit… but I do have a couple tricks that work really well).
* White-hat (gray-hat) cookie stuffing and other aggressive techniques.
* CPA domination.
* Various other technical tidbits and magic little scripts and utilities.
* Using software distribution networks for free traffic.
He also promised to give us all software he created for IMWarfare Members. But Nothing besides Amazon and non-working tracking tool.
I am a member of BrainTrust in IM Warfare. All comments in the blog related to Matt is true. I have been doing online business for 7 years. Never knew anyone who SCAM his fellow members like matt did. Never knew anyone who repetitively lied and lied to 300 members. Each member paid him about $970 – $1482. I am one of them that paid $1482 to him. What we got return for that value? Lies. Fraud. Scams.
I can’t imagine someone like Matt how evil mind is. Such type of person deserve to be punished in financially and legally!
We as IMWarfare Members together should teach him a big lesson. We can’t allow Matt who is like a wolf wearing sheep skin to cheat on more people!
Being a member of IMW feel the same way, Matt didn’t kept his promise and being for almost 9 month’s what a waste of time.
Still can’t believe Matt can do that