ArticleMarketer.com stole money out of my Paypal account and refused to give it back — Let me tell you how it happened.

Article Marketer is an article distribution service that I used to use last year.  I was pretty happy with the service, but they discontinued their service last October and split into two different services:  ContentCrooner.com and DistributeYourArticles.com

Now I use DistributeYourArticles.com… the service is pretty okay, and I pay a separate monthly fee for it.

So here’s the rub on how they ripped me off…

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A few weeks ago I was talking to a client about his website and had agreed to take a brief look at it to give my overall opinion.  I happened to be on my Mac and using the Safari browser at the time, and when I clicked on to the site it was a complete mess!

Tables were skewed, pictures half covered up, the drop down navigation didn’t work, etc.

I actually thought this guy was playing a trick on me — no one would EVER take this site seriously. Read the rest of this entry

When you start a new online business and sell a product or service of your own, one of the things the experts often tell you that you need a merchant account to do business online.

Well, that’s simply not true.

While there are certain circumstances where a merchant account may be necessary, for the majority of online businesses, it’s just an unnecessary expense… especially when’ you’re first starting out.  I’m going to tell you why you don’t have to have a merchant account.

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Last week I signed up for a second autoresponder account over at 1ShoppingCart.com (my main autoresponder is hosted at Aweber). I had a shopping cart set up through them about a year ago, but have since changed how I take credit cards and canceled the service. So, when I needed a second autoresponder, they were my first stop.

I needed the new autoresponder for a new list building method that I’m testing out and I wanted to keep the test separate from my other lists. I’ll tell you all about the list building test that I’m doing when my testing is complete… in about three weeks.

To make a long story short, I ended up having to close the 1ShoppingCart autoresponder because it wasn’t compatible with the test… through no fault on the 1ShoppingCart side.

In order to close the account, I had to actually call them on the phone and cancel. I’m normally not crazy about having to call to cancel because I like to do everything online. It’s usually much faster and less frustrating.

Well, the customer service people at 1ShoppingCart really surprised me!

They were courteous, professional, and very friendly. In fact, I’d have to say that it was a downright pleasure to speak to them!

With good customer service at such a premium in so many businesses, I thought it was worth mentioning a pleasant encounter with 1ShoppingCart.