Vick Strizheus wants you to believe that his criminal history is just a tiny mistake he made as a young adult and that all he cares about is your success. Sure he was convicted of grand theft, thereby making him a literal ex-con (I’m not just saying that for dramatic effect; I’ll detail his past in this review) but he claims he’s turned over a new leaf and now he’s going to teach you how to make millions in internet marketing. In this Vick Strizheus review I’ll tell you everything you need to know about Vitaly “Vick” Strizheus, and why even science suggests that you should avoid him and everything he touches at all costs.

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Let’s Jump Right In: Vick’s Grand Theft Felony Conviction

In 2009, Vick Strizheus was convicted of grand theft for commissions he collected on make-believe people he created and filed applications for. He was in his early twenties, and he didn’t want to drive all over North Dakota in the snow and be away from his family, so he just… made people up. The insurance company that he was selling life insurance for paid him one year’s worth of commissions in advance for every application he filed, so every fake person he created and “sold” life insurance to was worth a few hundred dollars. As a result, he ended up on his local news!

Ahh… there’s nothing quite like becoming a local celebrity. Vick finally addressed all of this in late 2013 with a video of his own, which spans about 30 minutes:

In case you don’t have 30 minutes to watch this video, here’s a summary:

  • Vick Strizheus was a life insurance salesperson in 2003
  • He claims he had “the stupidest idea” – his own words
  • He started falsifying insurance applications and collecting commissions for people that he made up
  • A couple of years later, police knocked on his door and said they had a warrant for his arrest. Apparently the insurance company had randomly audited one of the fake applications Vick had created and arrested him for grand theft for collecting approximately $30,000 in commissions using fake applications
  • Strizheus claims he did a lot of thinking in jail, and that he’s grateful for the experience because what he has created today wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for that experience
  • Finally, at 24:25 Vick claims that any of his “haters” trying to expose him are “jealous” but that he’s cool with it because he’s successful, and anyone bringing up his past will always fail and never be successful (I guess that’s really, really bad news for me)

 

Present Day Vick Strizheus – What He’s Up To Now

Let’s choose to ignore the coincidence that Strizheus was convicted in 2009 and put on five years’ probation where all of his actions and finances were monitored closely, and now it’s 2014 (exactly five years later) and Vick just so happens to be almost everywhere you look in the internet marketing industry. Here are the main places you’ll find Vick hanging out these days:

 

Vick Strizheus’ Big Idea Mastermind (BIM)

Vick’s flagship project is the “Big Idea Mastermind” (abbreviated BIM) in Empower Network. Vick promotes Big Idea Mastermind as its own brand/product, but in reality it’s just one of the many groups within Empower Network, where Vick Strizheus is currently the top affiliate. He makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year referring people into Empower Network, which is a product that I have reviewed very, very negatively for multiple reasons.

Vick receiving a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars from Empower Network

Anyone promoting Empower Network doesn’t care about how well their referrals will be taken care of because almost 100% of the people they convince to join will fail. The internet marketing training in EN is extraordinarily thin and mostly out-of-date. People like Vick that are referring massive amounts of people into Empower Network care about one thing and one thing only – making as much money as possible.

Some people that joined the Big Idea Mastermind have publicly outed Vick Strizheus for stealing their Empower Network referrals. The videos are kind of long and drawn-out, but if you want to watch them yourself here are the links:

Looks like Vick is up to his same ol’ scheming, and that’s the hard evidence to prove it. He stole from the insurance company he worked for, and now he’s promising people within the Big Idea Mastermind that he’ll help them close sales and be successful in Empower Network, when really he’s just scalping their referrals by swapping their links out for his whenever he gets the chance.

 

Vick Strizheus’ High Traffic Academy

Vick Strizheus' High Traffic Academy website

High Traffic Academy is a product that Vick used to sell on his own before becoming an affiliate for Empower Network, but now it’s a series of four very long videos where he claims he’s going to teach you everything for free. In the end, it’s just another way to get you on his email list and ultimately funnel you Vick’s Big Idea Mastermind group. Everything Vick promises in the first video of High Traffic Academy sounds really great – claiming that you can virtually print money using these methods.

He tells you in the first video that you’ll be doing all of this using paid traffic. He doesn’t mention that most new internet marketers starting out with paid traffic lose hundreds, if not thousands of dollars before giving up. He just talks about how bad free traffic is (which, as the title implies, is free) and how great his paid traffic methods are (which you’ll likely lose hundreds or thousands of dollars experimenting with).

Vick claims that paid traffic is the only kind of traffic

Which do you think sells better? Being honest with people up-front and telling them that free traffic is the best route for internet marketers to learn with, because everyone makes several mistakes and it’s best that you learn from those mistakes with free traffic? Or promising to show them how to turn every dime into a dollar, and explaining that all of this can be done virtually overnight? One is honest and doesn’t sell well, and one conceals most of the facts about the dangers of paid traffic but is a much, much better way to get people to sign up. Strizheus chooses the latter to sell you on High Traffic Academy.

 

Vick Strizheus’ Internet Traffic Formula

Again, this is very similar to High Traffic Academy. It’s a similar sales pitch – Vick is going to teach you how to get massive amounts of traffic which equates to lots and lots of money. This is yet another funnel into Empower Network, where you’ll be grouped in with the rest of the Big Idea Mastermind and potentially have your referrals stolen from you like the couple of stories I linked to earlier in this review.

Internet Traffic Formula just funnels you into Empower Network

A Scientific Explanation to Not Trust Vick

If all of this isn’t enough evidence for you, there’s a scientific, psychological explanation for why you shouldn’t trust Vick Strizheus. Vick mentions in that thirty minute video earlier in this post that he was in his early twenties when he committed grand theft, and he was arrested a couple of years later. There have been psychological studies concerning when the brain “solidifies” and we’re basically set in our ways for life (at least as far as behavior is concerned). For men, studies have found that this is around 25 years old.

Executive Functions of the Prefrontal Cortex

As you can read on the page I’ve linked to above, the prefrontal cortex (which is the frontmost part of your brain) controls a lot having to do with behavior, emotion, how you strategize and solve problems, etc… Vick claims that he’s turned over a new leaf and that he would never behave that way again, but just five years after his conviction he’s promoting a product that makes him a ton of money and leaves most of his referrals with nothing to show for it but a hole in their bank accounts, he has stolen Empower Network signups from his Big Idea Mastermind members, and ultimately doesn’t care about anything else but making as much money as possible, just as he did in 2003 when he defrauded his employer out of $30,000.

Conclusion: Don’t Drink the Strizheus Kool-Aid

I know his sales videos are flashy and convincing, and it really seems like Vick Strizheus has your best interests at heart. It seems like you might join Big Idea Mastermind and be mentored by an internet millionaire, but as you’ve read over and over again throughout this review, you’re much more likely just to be the next “Vicktim”. Strizheus has demonstrated a pattern throughout the course of his professional career that reveals several red flags and warning signs, leaving an inescapable trail all across the internet. If you choose to trust Vick, you only have yourself to blame if he steals from you too.

In the words of the prosecutor that got him convicted for grand theft in 2009 regarding whether or not he’s a con-man: “That’s what he is. He’s got five years to walk the straight and narrow… we’ll see.”

Share Your Experiences with Vick Strizheus Below

Were you thinking about signing up with Vick Strizheus in Big Idea Mastermind? Do you have positive experiences with Vick that contradict what I’ve stated here? Do you have negative experiences that support all of the above? Chime in and let the rest of the community know what you’re thinking.