A lot of people view Warrior Forum as the go-to source for new internet marketers to soak up as much information as possible and get help when they need it. Over the past few years, the creators and moderators of Warrior Forum have unfortunately transformed their site into a safe-haven for “gurus” and scummy product publishers to prey on innocent, honest people looking to get a start in internet marketing. If you think that’s a bold statement that couldn’t possibly be backed up with evidence, then read my Warrior Forum review below in its entirety. It echoes and mirrors the experiences of multiple honest, hardworking internet marketers across the internet, which I’ll link to toward the bottom of this review as well.
Many People Warned Me About Warrior Forum, but I Didn’t Listen
As someone that runs a website exposing dishonest sales tactics and internet marketing scams, many of my followers warned me that the Warrior Forum would probably fight back someday. I didn’t listen because I interacted on the Warrior Forum for several months without facing blowback or resistance of any kind. After a while I just assumed that, because I was following all of the forum’s rules, the moderators were allowing me to speak openly and protect their members from getting scammed. That changed one day when I apparently “crossed a line” and stepped on a landmine.
One of the MANY Con-Artists on Warrior Forum (a.k.a. My Undoing)
I found a WF member that was buying classified ads on the Warrior Forum and ranking on Google for all kinds of scammy products – most of which I’ve reviewed negatively on this site. All of his reviews were overwhelmingly positive, and in each review he ranted and raved about how much money each of these products makes him. He bragged about how powerful Google Sniper was, he talked about how he made $10,000+ his first week with Empower Network, etc…
It seemed like every product that I had reviewed negatively because I know without a doubt that these products are illegitimate, unhelpful, and outdated – this Warrior Forum member was reviewing all of them positively and (of course) posting an affiliate link for people to purchase through him and receive a “bonus”. His “reviews” on the Warrior Forum were ranking at the top of Google for several terms and I can’t imagine how many people he ripped off (and continues to ripoff) over the months or years he’s been up there. In one of the reviews that I read, it was obvious that he hadn’t even purchased the product before writing his review because what he claimed the product taught was completely inaccurate and didn’t line up with the content of the product at all. I know because I actually purchased it for my review! In another review he misspelled the publisher’s name throughout the entire “review” he had done. It was becoming more and more obvious that this guy was creating fake reviews without even buying the products, bragging about how much money he was making, posting an affiliate link, and promising bonuses to anyone that purchased through his link.
One day I got fed up, and decided to protect the consumers he was trying to scam with his fake reviews. I posted a lengthy reply to one of his reviews, linking to many of his other “reviews” on the Warrior Forum and exposing the pattern of fake positive reviews that he was leaving all across the forum. I pointed out that he didn’t even know what information was being taught in most of his products, that he paid so little attention to detail that he did things like misspell publisher names, and made it crystal-clear that this guy was ripping people off.
I signed off pretty happy that day. Sure, the post took a lot of time to type up, but it was an impossible-to-argue-with exposé and I was proud of myself for standing up for what I believe in and continuing to protect consumers from dishonest affiliates. That was until a Warrior Forum Moderator completely deleted that reply, all of my posts on past “review” threads, and my forum signature site-wide.
You Read That Right – A Warrior Forum Moderator Effectively Muted Me
Not only did they delete the post on that thread which clearly exposed this member as an illegitimate reviewer that was ripping people off (nothing in my post was defamatory or against forum rules, mind you), but they deleted ALL of my posts within the internet marketing product review section. Again, none of these violated thread rules or personally attacked publishers, they just exposed products that were completely illegitimate and outdated to Warrior Forum members that had asked for help and insight on these products.
In addition to that, they replaced my signature site-wide. My signature linked to my site and explained that I gave 100% honest, no-holds-barred internet marketing product reviews. When I noticed all of these other changes, I was really creeped out to find that my signature hadn’t simply been deleted – no – it had been replaced to make a clear statement against my website and what NoMoreBSReviews represents:
Is it just me, or is that really, REALLY eerie? Not only had they wiped my original post on that thread and ALL of my posts helping prevent people from getting scammed in the product review section, but all remaining posts on other sections of the website now sent a message: Warrior Forum doesn’t want you linking to a website that exposes our active members as con-artists and scammers.
If I’m selling a product that’s 1o years out-of-date and a complete ripoff at $97 a month, I can link to that. If I’m selling a coaching course that will cost you $5,000 and leave you stranded after you pay, I can link to that. But if I give away solid, up-to-date free training and consumer protection information that exposes fraud artists and deceptive advertising which reveals many of your members and their products to be con-artists, I can’t link to that.
So Naturally, I Filed a Complaint with Support
I thought the questions were pretty reasonable and level-headed, all things considered. I had just had MONTHS of work and conversations within the forum wiped without any notification or explanation. I wanted to know why my posts had been deleted and why my signature had been replaced. To say that Warrior Forum’s response was unsatisfying is an understatement:
In case you can’t tell by reading it, this response is complete bull$#!&. I don’t currently and have never had a site loaded with affiliate links. Less than 5% of my website’s content contains an affiliate link of any kind. In addition to that, the Warrior Forum support representative didn’t even address the more important part of my support ticket – why were ALL of my posts in the review section deleted? After Thomas submitted this reply, he marked the ticket as resolved without a care in the world that they had just muted an honest voice trying to protect consumers on their forum.
This Is Why Warrior Forum is COMPLETELY Unsafe for Newbies
Warrior Forum slowly weeds out the honest, truly helpful internet marketers that make a living through legitimate means, but continue to allow publishers to sell whatever they want without a care in the world. People get scammed and ripped off several times a day at Warrior Forum. Within their forum there are hundreds of con-artists, thousands of low-quality, outdated products being sold and the Warrior Forum protects them.
I’m Not the Only One
Unfortunately this is not rare. There are stories like mine all over the internet, and a few basic internet searches will turn up the following:
Why I Deleted My Warrior Forum Account by Kevin Muldoon
What’s the Best Internet Marketing Forum by Sam Frost
Confessions of an Internet Marketing Scammer by Eric Holmlund
The Warrior Forum is One Big Scam on Tumblr
Banned from Warrior Forum!! on Black Hat World
What Matt Cutt’s of Google’s Spam Team says about internet marketing forums like WF
The Warrior Forum is a Safe Harbor for Deception, Lies, and Scams – Avoid It at All Costs
The truth about the Warrior Forum is out there, it’s just hard to find. Any negative feedback like this on the Warrior Forum is deleted almost immediately and the members posting such information are frequently banned. Regardless of whether or not it’s intentional, the Warrior Forum has created a place where dishonesty is protected and honesty is banned forever, and that is why I deleted my Warrior Forum account:
What Are Your Experiences with the Warrior Forum?
Have you had negative experiences at the Warrior Forum – whether it was getting ripped off or being personally attacked by their sometimes over-zealous community? Do you think that this is an overreaction and that Warrior Forum is actually a great place for new internet marketers? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below!
Well I am in an offline business and joined W/F . I was new to all this and posted something that did not go down well apparently with Paul Myers.
The way he dealt with it was somewhat surprising, banning me and all that, I tried to explain I did not realise what I had done wrong! ( still cant) He comes over a s an American rude as you like, brash, big headed individual ( putting it mildly)
Words to describe him;
Megalomaniac!
Megalomania is a mental illness. People with megalomania have delusional fantasies that they are more relevant (important) or powerful than they truly are. Megalomania is an unrealistic belief in one’s superiority, grandiose abilities, and even omnipotence. It is characterized by a need for total power and control over others, and is marked by a lack of empathy for anything that is perceived as not feeding the self.
Warrior Forum is a club for the inner circle, feeding the unwary false information.
Every post I try to upload gets deleted. Check out what I posted and what they said:
When do affiliate networks pay their publishers?
I have recently come across a situation where an affiliate network is saying they are only able to pay once they receive payment from the advertiser.
Is it normal practice for Affiliate Networks to only pay their affiliates once they have been paid by their advertisers?
I have seen some networks display the amount of credit an advertiser has left and send an email to the publisher when the credit is finished so you don’t promote an advertiser that has no funds.
———————-
WarriorForum.com: Thread was deleted!
Your thread: When do affiliate networks pay? has been deleted! Reason: Not Enough Context Best regards, The Warriorforum Team
————————
That was about my 5th revision of my post to try to get it to something they would accept. It seems to me like they don’t want people talking about that topic.
There I tried to post this:
Hi guys,
I have a niche content website. It’s getting about 800 unique views per day. It consists of about 40 pages, each page covers a specific brand in relation to the niche topic. I would say about 40% of my traffic is coming from people landing on 1 specific page. That page is only focuses on one of the brands.
For example, let’s say it is a website about Cars. Then one page is all about VW, another about Mercedes, another about Toyota another about Nissan. So I have 40 such pages but the one about Toyota is generating most of the inbound (organic traffic).
How do I generate more traffic with the above in mind?
Do I write more about Toyota on the existing page?
Do I write more about Toyota on a new page?
Do write more about other brands?
Or something completely different?
By the way, I am not worried about which page visitors arrive on. It can be for any brand.
———————————————–
That post was deleted, because: “I should use the search function of the forum”
Sounds like they don’t want normal people to post. There are way too many people on there just promoting their own products. Most of them seem to be “how I made $XXXXX”
I’ve been very active on a forum with very honest people, but I thought about going back to Warrior.
You see, I like to make useful, informative and good quality posts tomattract clicks to my blog through the forum signatures most of them allow.
I am not sure if I want to bother at all since I have always been critical of Warrior Forum.
There’s a lot of [email protected] being shovelled over there. It stinks.
I couldn’t agree more. And in my case, I was linking to a blog that gave 100% honest reviews of internet marketing products to help people and was reprimanded for doing so by an administrator. I hate how much they cover for scammers and con-artists over there, although you’re right that there’s some high quality traffic there as long as your signature doesn’t offend one of the admins or major product publishers.
Hmm, I’m not sure I could pretend to fit in over there.
There are certain sub forums I can participate in and stay away from the spammy product focussed forums.
It makes me wonder if it is worth building a reputation there if all it takes is one person who doesn’t like my tone to report me and get me banned.
Never build a house on rented land, I say.
A very good saying, Darren! If I had known it ahead of time, I’m pretty sure I would have made the same decision and saved myself a lot of time and disappointment.
Hello Ian, Good Job!!! Just keep on exposing the brutal honest truth about all of the scams and unethical practices you uncover in your investigations. Your going to take some bullets and arrows, but that just comes with the territory. The mid to long term payoff for your gallant actions now, will have huge benefits in your future.
And don’t be afraid of anyone who you feel is not using the best business practices. Your posts and reviews really shed light on all of the “Make Money Online” niche programs.
This is a tremendous help to those of us just getting started with a jar of change as our operating capital. Thanks again Ian!
Hey Michael! Thanks for stopping by, and thank you for taking the time to leave so many kind words of encouragement. I don’t have any plans on stopping, but comments like this really are what keep me going when I’m feeling burned out or facing adversity. I appreciate you reading and commenting here, and please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly down the road if I can help with anything!
Hi Ian,
I totally agree with your review about Warrior forum….about a year ago I wrote some very strong complaints about one of their very active vendors and they would not publish them. I don’t know if WF blackballs people but I know that since that episode my sign-in info does not work…..and I am so fed up with them I have not tried to re-sign up with WF.
On a different subject, do you review marketing advertisers? I have been trying to warn people about using a company called topsearchad.com which has changed it’s name to adwordpositioning.com. I’m attaching a short youtube video I made that you might want to watch. I think you have built up a following and have very good credibility. I know you’re always looking for scammers….check this company out.
http://youtu.be/D-jtWqpe7OE
Thanks……Al Widen
Hey Al! I actually don’t review companies quite like that – only IM/AM training products. I’m sorry for your experiences with Warrior Forum, but I greatly appreciate you sharing your experiences with other members of this community seeing this review! If I can help you with anything else down the road, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask!
I kind of disagree with you. There are many valuable WSO’s that have taught me a lot. I have also found many valuable threads.
Hey Sam – I think it’s great that you disagree with me! I try to encourage open discussion of these things. I’m not saying that there isn’t valuable content or that valuable WSOs don’t exist – I’m saying that Warrior Forum mutes, censors, and bans people that work hard to expose scams but doesn’t work hard to prevent low-quality products or scams being pushed on their forums (they actively protect these vendors). By censoring one side but not regulating the other, they create an unbalance making honest, legitimate internet marketers feel unwelcome but scammers and con-artists in this industry can ripoff anyone they want without retaliation. In the other posts that I linked to, there are stories of people getting completely ripped off by Warrior Forum members through services or WSOs they advertised on the Warrior Forum, and when the customers created threads and posts on other threads to warn others about the scam, those posts have been removed. Many new internet marketers don’t even know enough about internet marketing and what works vs. what doesn’t to understand whether or not they’ve been ripped off after buying most WSOs (I’m not saying that this applies to you, but it applies to many, many people clicking through the Warrior Forum).
So my argument here isn’t that there is nothing valuable at the Warrior Forum, my argument is that it’s an extraordinarily dangerous environment that is unbalanced in the favor of low-quality publishers pushing scams, and that anyone visiting the site for information should be very, very careful.
Thank you for reading and commenting! If you have any follow-up questions/remarks or if there’s anything else I can help you with down the road, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Hey Sam,
I think we should put it this way. Warrior Forum should be a place where the moderators worked hard to refrain scammers to commit IM ‘crimes’. In other words, each time a WSO posted on Warrior Forum, you would have to work hard to analyze if a product is a scam.
We need more people like Ian and Pat Flynn so that IM world is a much better place to live. I’ve been following Ian and Pat Flynn for quite some time. Being a person who analyzes a lot and having strong analytical skill, I would say so far, I trust Ian Pribyl and Pat Flynn in Internet Business industry.
Hey Charles! Thanks for taking the time to chime in and for your vote of confidence. Trust me – I don’t take it for granted!
Hello Ian, I’m sorry for this happen to a good honest guy like you. I can’t even say enough Thank You for writing this very insightful post. I will spread the words out too. Take care my good friend.
With Many Respects
Thiha Min
Thiha! I haven’t heard from you in forever! Haha, I hope you’ve been well old friend. And it’s okay, things like this happen in this industry and it’s just best that I share my experiences with others and move on. No sense in lingering on it because, unfortunately, that won’t do any good. Thanks for continuing to read and comment! Let me know if I can help you with anything (as always).