Thora Wrote:He started a blog with the intention of eventually monetizing it.

Any evidence for this? I get the impression that he tried a method to learn Japanese, it worked so he just wanted to share it with the world. It became popular and now he has no job he's trying to monetise it.

Remember this is just an additional service he's offering, the main blog content (stretching back to 2006) is still free..so whatever..

thurd Wrote:He keeps his day job (not to shabby if he's a programmer in Japan) and gets additional 2k$ (no-tax) for 5minutes of work a day, its completely brilliant.

Pretty sure he said he quit his job, hence coming out with SS. Why wouldn't he pay tax on the sign-up fees?!

I don't really get what Khatz's financial situation has got to do with anything anyway? If you're against the product, state your case; but no need to make it personal.

bodhisamaya Wrote:It is not good business ethics to delete a page that has nothing but overwhelming negative reviews and post only glowing comments on the alternate page from people who just signed up.

Maybe he just deleted the signup post because the sign-up round is over, and it served no further function? He also deleted the sign-up posts for most previous SS rounds, so no big conspiracy.

Then again maybe the comments made him look bad, so who knows. Wish i could read them..!

aphasiac Wrote:Pretty sure he said he quit his job, hence coming out with SS. Why wouldn't he pay tax on the sign-up fees?!

I doubt he is registered as a business since he isn't filling any of the legal requirements (privacy policy, contact information, business registration etc on public display on the page). I don't think SS users receive a service contract either and I really doubt the 18 month refund policy is legal. I believe it isn't possible to start a business in Japan without a Japanese partner either, but maybe that is just paranoia from the Debito camp. I do know through my work that you cannot start a company in Thailand (or even a branch of your overseas company) without x% of employees being Thai nationals and there are similar issues in China.

Running a business (especially services) is a lot more complicated than accepting money and saying "I'm a business now!".

He would also lose his visa if he quit his job (unless he's married now or has PR). You can self-sponsor, but you need proof of profits etc from the previous year. Since SS didn't exist last year that wouldn't be possible. If he IS quitting, I guess he's riding out whatever visa he had from his last job, which is a gray area.

That's all besides the point though because it has nothing to do with SS itself (aside from maybe influencing the decision if you can trust him enough to hold on to your $2k+ and honor the refund policy).

All pure speculation. I'm sure he's thought carefully about the legalities of offering such a service.

Jarvik7 Wrote:That's all besides the point though because it has nothing to do with SS itself (aside from maybe influencing the decision if you can trust him enough to hold on to your $2k+ and honor the refund policy).

My point exactly. So why keep making these libellous accusations?

No he hasn't because the information is not on his site (or otherwise offered). Considering the difficulty of starting a business in a foreign country and the lack of filling any of the public requirements, it's a pretty safe assumption to make that he's operating all of this under the table.

People are making these accusations as a bonus to the meatier ones.

aphasiac Wrote:So why keep making these libellous accusations?

Please tell me you are a law student and are simply getting practice arguing impossibly unwinnable cases.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Why was the page deleted?

The page was deleted because this round is full.

tokyostyle Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:Why was the page deleted?

The page was deleted because this round is full.

Yea. That's likely.

Okay, I am going back to the Benny Hinn forum.
Those guys are starting to sound sane by comparison now.

tokyostyle Wrote:The page was deleted because this round is full.

Why does the banner still say Round 11 opening in 2 days?
The original launch date was meant to be Sept 1, but the advertisement and sign up I linked were dated Sept 2. Why would he post the terms after the opening?

bodhisamaya Wrote:@Ice Cream. I hate to put this in such crude terms, but...
You gotta be shittin' me!

huh? why?

all i'm saying is, like, people should try looking at it from his point of view before they rip everything he does to pieces.

So, put yourself in his shoes for a minute. You have a working website blog, and thought of this service and you'd like to make enough money from it to support yourself. What's your next step? Is it really to price it at $20 for 18 months worth of emails? Sure, if you get enough customers, you might be able to support yourself, but that would involve 1000's of customers, all starting at different points in time, all of which you'll have to deal with questions and changes to subscriptions and cancellations and refunds, and basically it's going to end up impossible as a one person job, and more like an admin job than like the job you wanted in the 1st place... to help people learn Japanese.

i could carry on, but i'm sure you get the idea. At the end of the day, no, it's not a professional business yet, he's just a guy trying to do what he wants to do, and experimenting with different things as learns the best way to do things. Personally, i don't think there's any shame in experimenting and changing things, and learning, even making mistakes along the way. If you think about the things he does from his perspective, a lot of the supposed evilness falls apart really, i think. Pretty much all of it has a rational reason, if you try to see things from his perspective 1st...

Thora Wrote:He started a blog with the intention of eventually monetizing it.

aphasiac Wrote:Any evidence for this?

This came up in an earlier AJATT thread and someone here referenced a couple very early articles on the ajatt blog.

Quote:Remember this is just an additional service he's offering, the main blog content (stretching back to 2006) is still free..so whatever..

"so whatever" what? He wouldn't be able to sell any of the products or services without the blog. He's monetizing the blog in different ways. It's not necessary to remove all previously free content. There's been consulting (for $190/hr), QRG, sentence packs, [recordings of him chatting with friends (?), ajattplus, SS, etc. He's seems to be starting similar stuff for Chinese (at least Chinese QRG). He's had advertising and affiliates on the blog.]

Quote:Then again maybe the comments made him look bad, so who knows. Wish i could read them..!

I think the page is still available to SS(BB?) users. If you're that interested, you could ask someone. The 10th comment was "lol". :-)

edit in [ ]

IceCream Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:@Ice Cream. I hate to put this in such crude terms, but...
You gotta be shittin' me!

huh? why?

all i'm saying is, like, people should try looking at it from his point of view before they rip everything he does to pieces.

I know you have experience as a researcher; your mind is used to thinking critically about a situation. People who fall for this scam aren't really putting all the pieces together to see the big picture. You have been trained to know better.

Thora Wrote:

tokyostyle Wrote:The page was deleted because this round is full.

Why does the banner still say Round 11 opening in 2 days?

SilverSpoon and SilverSpoon BigBoi are not the same things. Round 11 would be for SilverSpoon. SSBB's next round would be 2.

Why would a round be full? How much harder is it to send bulk emails to 1,000 people as opposed to 10?

I am really curious as to how many make a round full. If he is getting 10 people each paying $1,500 each, every month, with no possibility for a refund until almost 2013...
Dude is going to be sipping all margaritas all the time on a beach in Thailand laughing his #$@* off at everyone.

Exactly. There is no personalization or REAL hand holding, so there is no reason to limit entry.

Rounds become full to create a false shortage, thus increasing pressure on people to buy if they are on the fence. It also helps people justify the extortionate price to themselves, since if they wait it'll get even MORE expensive.

bodhi, dude...
personally i see r kelly's peeing on 14-year-olds and billie's antics as more serious than khatz grossly overcharging people for a product that they willingly buy on the internet, but maybe that's subjective. I agree that the cult of personality leading to sales is kind of a bait-and-switch there, and am classifying that as personal foibles... definitely not ethical, but also not criminal and irrelevant to the original methodology.

do you ever listen to right-wing talk radio? i abhor their politics but gosh, sean hannity... brilliantly evil, rush limbaugh... stupid but also entertaining. anyways they do something kind of similar to what's happening here. they'll be talking in their sarcastic, cynical "what else are liberals doing to f-up the world today?" tone, and then without a break they'll start talking about the mother's day 'flowers-plus-chocolate-dipped cherries' package that they got from 1-800-FLOWERS, and how amazing it was and what a good deal. And then they go to a proper commercial break.

similar idea... i say something serious in an entertaining way, you understand it's weight and relevance, and start to like me personally because of my delivery... AND YOU CONFUSE THE TWO... the humor glosses over into the content. then i start talking in the same exact tone about what you ought to buy and how great it is. bait and switch. khatz's is way better than the radio version btw imho.

listen there are people with holes in their lives and they piss their money away to fill those holes... some people shoot smack, some people have meaningless sex, apparently now some people have expensive futile efforts at language study.

i kind of admire khatz's method of doing so, as it is way more subtle and believable than sean hannity's mother's day present. and yet it would be impossible without the cleverness of the original site as the crutch that everything hangs on. i never said i liked him personally... just his methods.

tokyostyle Wrote:SilverSpoon and SilverSpoon BigBoi are not the same things. Round 11 would be for SilverSpoon. SSBB's next round would be 2.

Ah, I see. So he's already selling more SS. :-) [edt: He's going to keep this thread alive.] ;p Any idea why the ad and sign up were dated the day after the sales opening?

[deleted comment already made by others]

Jarvik7 Wrote:That's all besides the point though because it has nothing to do with SS itself (aside from maybe influencing the decision if you can trust him enough to hold on to your $2k+ and honor the refund policy).

aphasia Wrote:My point exactly. So why keep making these libellous accusations?

It's pretty normal to check out the person or company when considering a large advance payment for services. Especially for continuous services. Khatzu isn't a famous university. It seems weird to me that people would send $1200 and not know who they're sending it to. Doesn't paypal provide the name?

(You can always go with the under-the-table renovation dude with no license, permits, insurance or references, but if the work is defective, the city fines you, a worker gets injured and you're liable or the dude disappears or goes bankrupt, you really can't complain. Lots of people check for all that stuff beforehand.)

Khatzu shouldn't be offended if buyers want greater assurance that it's safe to leave $1500 with him. [If it's a business. for eg, there will be restrictions on what the money can be used for.](If he repeatedly pulls in chunks of cash with absolutely no controls, nobody will want to be the last buyer in that kind of scheme. haha) In fact, I think he's required to provide certain information to protect consumers (being an e-commerce, distant sales and continuous service contract business.)

18 months is a heck of a long time. What about exchange rates? (I once applied to univ in Japan and by the time I paid tuition it had nearly doubled!) I wonder in the funds are kept in a $US dollar account (Khatz would be the one most likely to lose out.)

Speaking of paypal, I recall that Damien had to stop accepting donation via paypal in 2010 because paypal stopped stopped accepting donations in Asia. If that's still the case, how is ajatt still receiving donations? Also, I see paypal offers a money market account. Do regular paypal accounts pay interest?

[edit: I had deleted the part about accounts, but decided to leave it in as it relates to the question of unknown location.]

Another possibility for Khatzumoto's worthless scam having limited openings is to create the illusion that people are actually letting themselves get ripped off. I find it hard to believe more than a few people are actually paying for it. There's probably more people paying for the privilege of reading his bad ideas in post format.

Apologies for the wall of factoids below. Maybe it will turn out to be useful for someone. :-)

aphasiac Wrote:All pure speculation. I'm sure he's thought carefully about the legalities of offering such a service.

What makes you sure? No one's sure. I find it hard to imagine someone would engage in this kind of business without setting themselves up properly (too easily noticed), but if the provisions below apply to SS, Khatzu doesn't seem to be paying much attention to the sales aspect.

Khatz is generous to offer a full refund for any reason, but I think he should improve his marketing and selling. As I said at the beginning of this thread, I think that would benefit both learners and Khatz. This is new, maybe he will.

* * * * * *

According to my friend Mr Google (ie. do not rely on this): :-)

Sending unsolicited marketing emails in Japan is illegal unless recipients have opted in. Had all the people who received SS marketing emails opted in at some point? Hefty fines. (I didn't check the actual text to see if there are any exemptions or thresholds.)

There's a Japanese law which protects consumers in Japan in continuous service contracts b/c they're required to prepay large sums and are at a bargaining disadvantage, have less information, cannot easily assessing the quality of future services, and have been subject to unfair cancellation policies and undue influence. Language schools, in particular, have a been a problem.

- Continuous service contract offers must provide certain info. There must also be a contract which includes more detailed specified information. There are sanctions for failure to provide these.

- These sellers need to notify buyers of mandatory cooling off periods. If they don't, the cooling off period extends and buyers can rescind the contract and get a full refund with no cancellation fees. So it's possible SS users in Japan could demand an immediate refund at any time.

- Language schools are required to allow termination part-way through and limits are set on cancellation fees. Buyers are entitled to rescind the contract for full repayment if they are not notified of their termination rights. If buyers terminate pursuant to this law, seller is required to refund funds immediately.

- Misleading advertising for continuous service contracts: the onus is on the seller to provide reasonable grounds to support any representations, if asked. There is no way Khatz could prove that in 18 months his buyers will be reading, writing and understanding whatever a high school students or professional can. The question, then, is whether or not what buyers are misled to believe about the service or its results is significantly (著しく) better than what it actually is or is achievable. I have no idea how they'd interpret 著しく here. If the difference is significant, there are penalties. A buyer would be entitled to a full refund immediately without any cancellation fees.

(Here's one eg: A company was penalized for exaggerating the number of pounds one could lose with an exercise machine advertised on TV. The difference was something like 8 vs 2 lbs, but it turns out the 8 lb losers (lol) were also dieting. )

- For prepaid service contracts over a certain amount (listed separately, didn't check), seller is required to keep certain information about the business and its assets (at a registered business location) and buyers are entitled to access them.

There are various consumer agencies that buyers with question or problems in Japan can contact for advice, mediation, arbitration, etc.

* * * * * *

Yea, but he is funny, and inspiring, and, well...
He has a video on Youtube talking in Japanese... some,
And he isn't charging $60,000 like universities, and ah...
Chinese girls sell their kidneys to buy ipods, and hmmm...
Eminem and Lil Wayne pee on 14 year old girls, and ya know...

You are just jealous. Stop being a hater!

I'm just jealous of the peeing on jailbait.

[ファブリス]

Are you guys done with the missionary service yet? Saving all the poor souls from the tentacles of evil? Can we go back to more productive topics?

Can we get a sticky?

Interesting

edit: Nothing to do with evil for me. Maybe carelessness.

As lounge topics go, I had it more on the potentially productive end. ;p
(I kinda suspect someone is uncomfortable with certain language/comments.)

Would a couple more responses be okay, Our Benevolent and Great Fabrice? (IceCream doesn't like to be ignored.) ;-)

bodhisamaya Wrote:Can we get a sticky?

R Kelly is already sticky.