Adam Dicker: Scam Artist

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###   ADAM DICKER: Domain investor, industry icon, and scam artist.         ###
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# Original publication                                                        #
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Is Adam Dicker a criminal? You decide.

The Introduction

Adam Dicker is commonly seen as a mild-mannered guy who will do anything for anyone. However, he appears to be a predator. He preys not on the weak but on the domain industry’s many novice investors who lack the knowledge to identify him as the criminal I believe he is.

Every year we see hundreds, if not thousands, of interested individuals join the forums in the hopes of making a living online. They are quickly introduced to the many “gurus” within our industry through the multitude of news outlets that blast blatant propaganda on a 24/7 basis. While these publishers may not intentionally encourage this idol worshipping behavior, they certainly play a huge role in the way we perceive these media personalities. They publicize the good in our industry while brushing the dirt under the proverbial rug — with few exceptions. However, this piece is not about the lack of transparency in our industry. This is about Adam Dicker and the many he has harmed.

The Backstory

This story starts with another forum; a barren wasteland that once was a leading forum within the domain industry. While the forum itself played a huge role in propagating the myth that is Adam Dicker, the story really begins with DNF College in the summer of 2011. This is where Adam Dicker began pushing his services to many of the industry’s newcomers. He created an environment that would help him transform his reputation from a leading investor to a philanthropist. Truthfully, this was and continues to be a travesty. He pushed many affiliate links and services owned and operated by his own companies to pursue his personal interests while providing very little substance to those who enrolled in his course.

Adam Dicker has continued to hustle new users, in this manner, for 4 semesters between the years of 2011 and 2015. While I’m sure there are many horror stories from previous years, this article highlights both his actions and inactions that took place this year.

The Premise

In October of 2014, Adam Dicker made a post on his DNF College Facebook group stating, “I am looking for people that want to partner up with me and have the time to work full time on businesses that I will build. I do not have time to run them all but need good people that will make a 30-40% of the net revenue and I will teach you personally to build the business. This will start the second week of November after I get back from Traffic. There will be zero cost or investment, just time and hard work. Please post if interested.” There were hundreds of comments on this post from people excited to work with an industry giant.

After the initial post, Adam Dicker segmented these candidates into another group of candidates. He called these people “the inner circle.” From there he further divided the group of candidates based on skill sets and availability. This was called the “inner inner circle.” Pretty clever, Adam. Finally, another group was created where the selectees introduced themselves. This is where he promised the group millions of dollars in net revenue.

The goal was to launch dozens of businesses in a span of mere months. Adam Dicker promised to pay all of the expenses, share his knowledge, and provide proper training. He claimed that he only needed the manpower to make these businesses huge earners like he has done with many others in the past.

The Truth

Adam Dicker stated that some of his preexisting businesses were clearing 6-figures per month when in reality they weren’t even making 6-figures per year. Ironically — a year later — none of the businesses he attempted to launch succeeded and most never even made it off the ground.

The Employees

Adam Dicker treats employees like shit. He forces them to chase him for their paychecks, shorts them consistently, or outright refuses to pay them.

Kudos, Adam.  Glad the free labor paid for the new home theater in your basement.

What’s worse than extorting people for their hard work? Well, he’s verbally abusive and even makes vague threats.

Want to make me disappear, Adam? Want to have your boys beat me up? Go for it.

The Scam

Adam Dicker’s NicheWebsites.com  (previously dnfwebsites.com and dcg.com) was his cash cow. Actually, it technically still is. Recently, he had a large payday from a wealthy investor allegedly worth over $1,000,000,000.

Maybe you’ve heard of him? Emmet Stephenson. He is the Chairman of Domain.com and owns Technology.com and Classes.com, among others.

He hired Adam Dicker to develop both domains. They put down a large deposit to initiate the project but they soon realized that his claims would never become a reality.

To ensure repayment of $75,000, Emmet had him sign over 2 of his top domains for collateral. If he didn’t refund his money by August 17, 2015 Adam Dicker would lose both Planets.com and Avatars.com.

It is unknown if either domain was released back to Adam Dicker but Avatars.com’s registration recently went private. Interestingly enough, Avatar.com now uses the same privacy company as Technology.com and Classes.com.

Hard to believe, right? Luckily, I have proof.

I can confirm that Planets.com and Avatar.com have been successfully transferred to our Domain.com, Inc. account. Further, this email is to memorialize in writing that these domains are being held as collateral to secure the $75,000 that is owed by you to Domain.com, Inc. and is currently due for payment in full on or before August 17, 2015 by bank wire to our account at Boulder Dam Credit Union. As soon as the $75,000 is paid in full, we will transfer both domain names back to your account free and clear. Please confirm your agreement with these terms by return email.

Emmet Stephenson, Chairman
Domain.com, Inc.
The Retirement

Adam Dicker’s inability to follow through with his commitments has led to his forced retirement from DomainSherpa.com. Sure, he claims to be too busy to participate but that is far from the truth.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the conversation between Adam Dicker and Michael Cyger discussing exactly this.

[01:36:37] Adam Dicker: I have reached out to all potential customers with issues
[01:36:47] Adam Dicker: i believe most will be resolved and happy by tomorrow
[01:36:50] Adam Dicker: we will see
[15:24:04] Adam Dicker: if you are asking me to retire on the next show, I will because of our friendship. let me know.
[15:31:35] Adam Dicker: also drop niche websites from sponsors if you have concerns, I only advertise there because its your site 😉
[16:05:06] Michael Cyger: good morning, adam.
[16:05:22] Michael Cyger: you’re a good friend. thanks for your message.
[16:06:06] Michael Cyger: i do need to ask you to retire from the show. it pains me to ask you to do so, because you are a friend.
[16:06:38] Adam Dicker: ok I will do that
[16:06:50] Adam Dicker: can you let mw know any things as to why?
[16:07:26] Michael Cyger: let’s make the last show your last, please. i’ll tell people that you’re too busy to be on the show with all of your businesses. i know you are. it’s not a lie.
[16:07:44] Adam Dicker: ok I will go with that and announce it on the next show
[16:07:47] Adam Dicker: no problem
[16:08:43] Michael Cyger: i always defend you, adam, and give you the benefit of the doubt because there are always 2 sides to every story. but there are enough people that have come to me that I cannot ignore them. they include sponsors, people following the show, and sherpas. and i feel terrible not being able to give you specific details, but i feel like i’d be breaking their confidence. and, honestly, i don’t want to get in the middle and try to figure out all the details.
[16:08:59] Adam Dicker: ok
[16:09:01] Adam Dicker: np
[16:09:10] Adam Dicker: next show will be my last
[16:09:22] Michael Cyger: i need to make your last show your last, bud. i’m sorry.
[16:09:30] Adam Dicker: ok
[16:10:11] Adam Dicker: nothing like being found guilty without a trial. ;(
[16:10:17] Adam Dicker: ok talk soon.
[16:10:20] Michael Cyger: i’m sorry, adam. i really am.
[16:11:06] Michael Cyger: i’m not a judge, nor do i want to get into any of the details of the incidents. :(
[16:11:20] Michael Cyger: least of all i don’t want to judge a friend.
[16:11:31] Adam Dicker: ok, I will post a thank you message on facebook when you think its appropriate
[16:11:42] Michael Cyger: i’d rather keep you as a friend, if that’s possible from your perspective.
[16:11:48] Adam Dicker: ok
[16:11:53] Adam Dicker: i can separate the two
[16:12:30] Michael Cyger: it’s not like you won’t ever be on the show again or do an interview. i’d love to have you back on in the future. i think you just need to work on following up with your commitments in the industry for the time being. i say that only as a friend, and hesitate to even say that, adam.
[16:12:45] Adam Dicker: I agree with that
[16:12:49] Michael Cyger: it’s not my business. but you are a friend, and i want to see you do well.
[16:13:01] Adam Dicker: i don’t disagree, sometimes i am too anxious to help and I over promise
[16:13:24] Adam Dicker: but i do have tons on my plate and i wonmt let any commisttments fall apart
[16:13:27] Michael Cyger: yes. it’s difficult to not say you can help with something when you are a giver and know you can help.
[16:13:48] Adam Dicker: i will fix them all. please have whoever told you that has an issue to contact me and i will work to resolve them
[16:13:55] Michael Cyger: this conversation stays between just you and me.
[16:14:00] Adam Dicker: agreed
[16:14:27] Adam Dicker: i will fix them all. please have whoever told you that has an issue to contact me and i will work to resolve themif they actually want them resolved
[16:14:32] Adam Dicker: ty and talk later
[16:14:39] Michael Cyger: ok, thanks, adam. ttyl
[16:14:57] Adam Dicker: are you ok if i post a ty message to you and domainsherpa?
[16:15:28] Michael Cyger: yes, of course.
[16:15:32] Adam Dicker: ok bye for now
[16:15:38] Michael Cyger: bye
[16:22:33] Adam Dicker: posted
[16:22:43] Adam Dicker: that’s pretty much all true
[16:22:51] Michael Cyger: to fb?
[16:22:58] Michael Cyger: see it
[16:23:05] Adam Dicker: yup
[16:23:26] Adam Dicker: is that ok?
[16:23:42] Michael Cyger: perfect
[16:23:50] Adam Dicker: k
[16:24:02] Adam Dicker: just don’t want to piss you off. now I am off to fix some meeses
[16:24:05] Adam Dicker: see ya!
[16:24:16] Michael Cyger: cu

The Conclusion

I can only conclude that Adam Dicker is broke and desperate. His actions lead us to believe he is pulling the same crap that Toby Clements was suspected of. If you aren’t familiar, Toby was accused of using money from new sales to pay passed clients for what he owed. The difference being Adam Dicker hasn’t even attempted to fulfill his obligations.

Are you continuously shuffling the deck, Adam? I think so.

G’night, Adam.

P.S. There will be a part 2.


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I felt a little inspired by Lanny sharing her story and I’ve been personally encouraged by someone who was closely involved, so I wanted to share my experience I had working with Adam. At first I was a little hesitant to put this all out there, but now I think it’s necessary to put it out there as a warning.

My experience was a little similar to other stories I’ve read on here. Everything I’m relaying here can be verified through email messages, skype messages, or people who were on phone calls with me when talking to Adam. I’m not making anything up, and my only reason for telling anyone this is to let everyone know that Adam is NOT who he says he is. I hope he gets his stuff together someday and becomes the guy so many people already think he is, but for now, he seems to be pathological liar with no regard for other people’s wellbeing or livelihood.

SIDE NOTE: If I use quotes in this post, it’s because I’m ACTUALLY directly quoting Adam. I’m not making things up.

Essentially what it comes down to is that Adam proposed that we work together on a project that I was already working on. I was doing SEO for a few dentists, and Adam said he had a background in lead generation for local businesses and he could help expand my business. It seemed like a great way to make more money, since SEO and pay-per-lead programs are separately billed services. I hadn’t done local pay-per-lead work before on my own, but Adam assured me he knew plenty. He assured me that if I found the clients, he could “make their phone ring.” In fact, here’s what I wrote down about him in my notebook from our first meeting when I knew very little about him:

***Adam Dicker: owns thousands of domain names – worked at GoDaddy – local lead gen expert – marketed for 3,500 businesses, including 500 dentists – can make their phone ring off the hook – as many leads as they can handle***

I don’t know if any of that stuff he told me is true, but he definitely said it to me. I can’t think of any reason why he would say it to me unless to get me to want to work with him. I mean, for someone like me who’s just a small time marketer, why wouldn’t you work with someone with those credentials? I had just bought a house, my wife and I had our first baby on the way, and I was VERY excited that things seemed to be working out so well for me.

Anyway, 7 months after working with Adam who promised to “make their phones ring,” he had not delivered so much as ONE lead to any of the 27 dentists I recruited for lead gen services. I spent 100% of the money I had saved up to start this business which was about $20k, all spend on salary and commission to salespeople, marketing efforts, ppc, office lease, and eventually chargeback fees while getting these dentists signed up. I couldn’t generate leads on my own at the scale necessary and with the budget I had set aside, no matter how hard I tried to set up a profitable adwords campaign using the lead pricing that Adam had instructed me to use with the dentists I had signed up. I was stuck on my own, waiting for Adam to come through on his promises. Adam assured me every couple of weeks along the way that things were “moving along” or that he’d “have it taken care of by this weekend” or that he just “needed to hear back from someone” before we could get the ball rolling. I’d have gladly jumped ship at any time if he’d given me a legitimate, honest response telling me that he wouldn’t be able to deliver what he promised. But instead, I just kept going while receiving reassurance such as these DIRECT quotes from him:

“we’re going to make a s**t load of money”

After asking him every couple of weeks if he was still on board, he’d say “oh yeah, definitely. Let’s get this going.”

“we’ve got leads coming in, I just need to log in and check it this weekend.” (referring to his adwords and call tracking account)

About 3 months in to working with him (around November 2014,) he introduced me to one of his VPs (let’s call this person Erik to avoid real names,) one of his project directors in a new company he started called WebCorp. At this point, Adam handed all communication off to Erik, so he was the one to relay to me things like “he says he’ll take care of it by Monday” or “he says he’ll take care of it when he’s back from his trip.” His VP, Erik, was simply caught in the middle, and he did a great job of working on things from his end, but Adam just never came through on anything.

One thing as a side point: At one point along the way (around December 2014,) Adam asked me to be a project manager for him on a separate project. We were building an affiliate site together, and I was supposed to make 20% of revenue off the site. After working on if for over 40 hours, Adam scrapped the project. 20% of $0 is still $0, so I wasn’t paid for any of the work.

By February 2015, after we’d been working together about 6 months, Adam agreed to let me set up an adwords campaign in a shared account with him, and if he could pay for the ads upfront, we could split profits 50/50. A full month later (March 2015) after he had apparently checked the campaign I had put together and said everything looked good and started running the ads, we had spent $700 and got one lead. Most of this money was spent on clicks from people WAY outside of the geographic area around the area we were targeting. He had forgotten to set the correct geographic radius like I asked him to, and I didn’t have correct Admin access to do so. At this point, Adam was apparently very disappointed with the project, and scrapped everything.

So, at this point it had been 7 months that I’d been working with Adam. I’d been working with Erik for about 4 months, and Erik could back up my entire story from that point, as we were on calls with Adam at the same time. I was $20k in the hole on this project, my entire savings set aside for the project had been exhausted, and I had a list of 27 clients who were all angry with me because they were never going to get any leads.

By April 2015, after paying back the deposits that I charged each dentist when they signed up, I had to start selling off my office furniture to pay my personal bills. I sold my truck to pay my mortgage that month, and I sold my desk and chairs to pay my wife’s car payment. I maxed out my credit card to help pay for groceries and diapers and baby food. I was stuck with 100% of the bill on this project spearheaded by Adam, and I was never going to get a dime out of him.

I emailed Adam to see if there might be some other way that I could be involved in his company. I figured there was no way that he would have put me in this position on purpose, and that he would probably be able to see my side of things if I just explained it to him. After all, he’s the one who continually reassured me that things were moving along, and he never once admitted that the project had the potential to fall apart like it had.

I figured since Adam apparently had several companies clearing over $100k per month, there must be a way that someone like me could get involved and make enough money to get by. After emailing Adam, here’s the exact email response I got from him:

****
Ben,
i do care, let’s chat about this tomorrow.
Adam
****

The next day we spoke on Skype, and Adam said he’d get me involved in his company and he’d find a way to “make [me] tons of money.” I was glad he said that, but I was still skeptical that it would ever pan out.

Within the next 2 months (by June 2015) Adam had offered me a commission-only sales job selling bobble head dolls, and that’s it. At that point I knew that none of the salespeople working for him had been paid either, so I had no intention of getting involved in that. He did say he’d help me sell a website I own to help me raise some capital and that he’d put me in touch with his broker, but after an initial conversation, his broker fell off the face of the earth too. So, it was clear Adam wasn’t going to help, and that he likely didn’t take any personal responsibility for how things had gone. I emailed him a couple more times, but I didn’t get a response.

Now, it’s been about 14 months since I first started working with Adam, and things are a little bit better, due in no small part to the fact that I work 60 hour weeks to try to salvage a small part of the business I once had before Adam got involved. My goals are no longer to strike it rich, but rather just to pay the bills and somehow climb out of the hole that Adam helped me dig.

I know it’s not 100% Adam’s fault that this is how things turned out. I have to take plenty of responsibility for being so trusting of someone I didn’t know very well. I honestly don’t even know how to put a dollar amount on the damage that working with Adam has caused. If I’d continued to build my existing business on my own without involving Adam, I suspect I could have built it into something great on my own, but instead I trusted someone that didn’t have any intention of fulfilling his promises. I don’t know if he does this on purpose, or if he just doesn’t know how to tell the truth any more, but I do know though that if he truly did want to help make things right, he’d do more than send a one-sentence email to me to let me know that he cares.

I am certain I’m far from the worst victim of Adam’s deception, but I still feel like he needs to own up to what he’s doing with his life. For the 9 months that we were in regular communication, I couldn’t believe that Adam would be leading me along with no intention of helping. I figured he’d be honest and let me know if there were a chance that he couldn’t fulfill every promise he made to me, but he was VERY clear that I had nothing to worry about.

So, Adam Dicker, now is your chance to respond. You know I’m not lying about any of this. Plenty of people know that everything I’ve said here is the truth. You’re messing with people’s lives here, and not everyone can blow a ton of money on a failed project and still come out ok. I’m set back more than 16 months financially with this little venture, and I doubt you lost any sleep over it. If you are sincerely worried about this, then please let me know. You have my email.

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At 26:30 (or 11 minutes and 9 seconds into the convo)....
Interviewer: You made boatloads of money and I think you had said you were worth $200 million
Adam: My portfolio was evaluated at that awhile ago but it's worth more now.

https://www.listenmoneymatters.com/better-know-a-millionaire-with-adam-dicker/

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Mr. Dicker artificially inflated his statistics by 125,000 members to make his numbers look betterest.

387,039 members on feb 26, 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20150226182045/http://www.dnforum.com/
* 3 months later *
389,164 members on may 28, 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20150528001452/http://www.dnforum.com/
* 1 day later *
514,349 members on may 29, 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20150529175307/http://www.dnforum.com/
* 3 months later *
515,417 members on aug 20, 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20150820230835/https://www.dnforum.com/

This is not the only time either. It’ all part of the deception.

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Adam’s claiming it happened because they moved members from one group to another. LIE!

I checked with a developer on xenforo.com (his forum software) and they confirmed that is a lie and that’s not how it works. Adam just keeps digging himself in a hole.

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To this moment Adam is still ignoring people he owes money too. Keeps saying “This will be handled today, tomorrow, right now. I’ll make this right.”Email me” Bullshit! He is still lying and stringing people around. There are plenty that haven’t been paid back yet. I am not a newbie in domains and I got screwed by listening to Adam’s fake sincere BS hype too. I vow not to let this go ever until I get my money back. By the way I know what part 2 is all about and I won’t be afraid to divulge it. I don’t think his family or friends will be happy to hear about it.

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Ya he owes me a TON of money but "my claim is too old". Even though he inflated his numbers on his forum to me to include accounts that didnt even exist.

Does anyone think its ok to sell a email blast on a per email basis when you add over 100k of unverified (spam/bot) emails and claim them as real people??

So its not OK to call him on it now because he is finally trying to repay A FEW people?? What about my 20 emails he didn't reply back to? What about that?

Poor Adam is having a hard day because ALL the people he has scammed are coming out at the same time making it hard to shut them up one by one

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I debated adding to these comments with my own story, I have no desire or intent to destroy Adam, but I do want to protect people in the future from what I and apparently others had to go through. While reading this post there were a few things I was surprised at, but most of it I was not shocked to hear based on my own experience working with Adam for 8 months. Looking back on everything, I should have paid much more attention to all the red flags, and I was very naïve. His actions left me quite depressed and in a bad financial position for quite a while. He forced me to chase after him for several months after avoiding me, ignoring me, promising me over and over again to pay me what I was due and then disappearing again, however I WAS finally paid in full what he owed me this past week.

Anyway my hope more than anything, is that coming forward like this will help others to not be taken advantage of and I really hope Adam will change his ways now that all this is coming to light. I would love to see him make things right for everyone that he has hurt financially and otherwise, and conduct his business in the future completely honestly and ethically. The fact that he finally paid me after I had lost all confidence that it would ever happen gives me hope that he will make things right for others as well.

I first met Adam through the DNF college fb group in October of 2014. I like many others was very impressed that someone with such success in the domain industry seemed to offer so much of his time and guidance to others, especially newbies starting out. I wanted to learn from him and to benefit from his experience so I could start flipping domains, and build out my domains into profitable sites, which were two of the main things he promoted and toted himself as the expert at.

I googled him and found countless articles and videos and interviews, and thus he seemed reputable and legit. I figured that there would be no way someone of his status in the forefront of the industry could be a sham. He was the owner of DNF, he spoke at all the major conferences, he had earned several industry awards, and everyone seemed to generally like and admire him.

When he put out a call for partners in all his various businesses, I jumped at the chance and was quite excited to be considered as I thought the opportunity to work with Adam was going to be a once in a lifetime, and from the way he talked….a goldmine.

After candidates had been narrowed down, he conducted a group call introducing ourselves to each other and Adam made huge promises about how things would be structured, the potential of all of the projects (he was talking multimillions) and generally kept everyone buzzing and excited.

One day out of the blue I was invited to come on a group call with Adam, and two others, and was told I was selected to be one of 3 Vice Presidents of this new company that adam was forming. My responsibilities would be to manage all of the chosen project managers over each of the projects he wanted to launch. I didn’t even think twice, I agreed without question and was quite happy about it. I didn’t know why he chose me, he didn’t know me personally and I didn’t have as much experience as many of the other candidates but I didn’t want to question it. I’ll admit fully looking back that I was incredibly naïve.

From that point on, I jumped in with both feet. I wanted to prove my work ethic, my passion, my worthiness to be a part of the team. I began working 60-70 hour weeks for Adam.

The idea was that he wanted to launch a few dozen businesses, as well as grow his existing businesses in just a few months and that he would pay all expenses and costs and assured us of his knowledge, and that he had made many of these were currently successful or were a grand slam success before, but just needed the manpower to staff them, run, and grow them since he didn’t have the time. He told us he would be teaching us everything we needed to learn, and all we needed to do was put in the time and be loyal.

He DID take care of expenses and costs, but the promises of wealth and success never came. Now if this had been a simple case of business ventures not working out and going south, it would be different, that happens despite people’s best efforts sometimes. It would be one thing if he were honest from the beginning and told us the truth about the projects, the financials, and the fact that he had very little knowledge of how to run these businesses, but that was not the case. He lied and led all of us to believe in nonexistent income and in non-existent expertise that would lead to success.

It was also extremely difficult working with him, as he would constantly promise that he would get things done, and then they simply wouldn’t. Either extreme delays or never at all. After awhile I took to paying for business expenses out of my own pocket for my project managers because Adam could not be relied on to get things done for them. It was quite the struggle to get reimbursed, but eventually he did pay me back.

One project in particular, he told us it already cleared 100k a month easy and that we would be making a large percentage of that. We worked out a profit share percentage for everyone in the company that we felt was fair based on the numbers Adam was giving us. But Adam was very shifty about giving us REAL numbers and real financials, he was very vague and often avoided answering questions about those things or contradicted himself. After awhile he gave us more access and responsibilities it became evident that it was barely clearing a fraction of that, and not even that sometimes.

Another project he told us profited 2-3 million per year and that we would be making a percentage of that, however months and months later it was very evident that it was also only making a tiny fraction of that.

Once I had the courage to call him out on the numbers and he was so upset that he ignored me for 2 days, and I had to grovel and apologize to get back in his good graces and I felt bad that I had questioned his integrity. However in hindsight, he never actually responded to my calling him out on those numbers on those specific businesses, probably because he knew that the numbers he claimed were completely made up.

We had daily calls because there were SO many projects he wanted to take on, it was crazy the amount we all had to try and tackle. Adam was a major bottleneck because he was completely unreliable and rarely did any of the things we needed him to in a timely manner or often never got to them at all. Simple things that only he could do like pay for things or authorize things, he constantly promise to get it done “tonight” or “by tomorrow” but then it wouldn’t happen for days, weeks, even months and all of us were left waiting….and then were often blamed for the lack of progress. This was very stressful and difficult for all involved, most of us in the company I can vouch for were working extremely long and hard hours and needed the boss to do his part, to be invested, to give us the tools we needed to do our jobs, in short to do what he said he was going to do and be reliable. Not the case.

I tried to give my opinion that launching that many businesses all at once was an exercise in insanity, and that we needed to focus on ONE or TWO and make it profitable and then move on to the next, but I was brushed aside and so I buckled down even harder to try to make things work.

Almost all of these projects (including the ones he said were already profitable but were not) have failed miserably or never made it off the ground. And this is almost a year later. One of the only projects that I know of that still functions is his web design business, but that one has the most victims.

It was months of work trying to get the business structure set up and get the hang of things before it started to become obvious to me that many things were not as Adam claimed, but (and this is where my naivety comes in) I thought that they used to be great and Adam was overwhelmed and too busy, and that he was horrible with time management and execution, so that if he would just delegate more to us than we could fix all of these problems and turn things around.

As an example, Adam’s way of bringing in sales, is to promise them the world. He will tell them he can give them an amazing site, and do all the SEO, and rank their sites, and provide lead generation, or take over the customer service aspect of it….. all just to get the sale. Always over promising and under delivering….or not delivering at all. We thought that he actually knew how to do what he promised them. He assigned me to handle his web development business after awhile because he said he thought a woman with soft mannerisms and good customer service skills would be a great asset. I quickly found out that everything in the inside was a complete mess. There was no system for orders, there was no clear process to follow, there was very poor communication with the client to know what they wanted, there were customers that had ordered months and MONTHS ago that were furious and constantly messaging and emailing wanting status updates or refunds….. it was a crazy mess. Adam didn’t seem to really care, just brushed them all off or he would say “no worries it’ll be taken care of” but then it never was.

At first I believed that it was all just because Adam was so crazy busy that he had gotten overwhelmed, and that I could swoop in and save the day and clean things up. For awhile things got a bit better, I and other employees actually got on the phone with clients and on skype and tried to clean up the backlog and mess, including clients that had been waiting for their sites for weeks and months. I tried to systematize the process, I found out exactly what they wanted and tried to communicate their needs to the designer adam had used for years. But were so many problems, one of which was this outsourced person was not able to deliver quality sites to clients in any way shape or form. And working with him was an exercise in ultimate frustration, the back and forth took days trying to help him understand small details and changes, not to mention attempting to get Adam to give us things that we needed like plugins and themes.

Adam often refused to change the processes and make positive changes that would have helped things immensely, including hiring competent design staff. And it was the blind leading the blind. After awhile of me attempting to fix and make changes that Adam did not want to make, he got tired of me and took me off the project to give to someone else. Which I will be honest, was a complete relief. I was tired of making futile efforts and getting blamed for the mess that couldn’t be fixed.

In the article, there is a portion that is about Emmet being owed 75k – that part was surprising and does make me upset if it is true because Adam told us month after month that Emmet had not paid anything at all for the work we had done for him. He told us that Emmet was going to pay a five figure amount for the work on his sites and we were supposed to get a percentage of that (it would have been quite the decent amount for me) and for months when asked he kept brushing us off telling us that he had not paid but would pay by the end of the month, and again and again and again. It appears from Shane’s post that Emmet did in fact pay and Adam was keeping that from us?? I can only assume because he wanted to keep it all for himself… why else would he lie to us about that?

Anyway, around April things were getting worse and I was beginning to really see that everything was a mess, and some serious changes needed to be made. I had still been working 60-70 hour weeks working like crazy including nights and weekends and it was having a serious impact on my family life. I thought I was doing it for the ultimate betterment of my family, because all the promises of huge financial success were still being dangled like a carrot and I still clung to the belief that all my hard work and effort to turn adam’s businesses around and make them huge successes was on the horizon. However, I had been paying for daycare for my two youngest children (I have 4 total) in order to put in the time that Adam required and it was draining my account each month…. It cost about $7k total but there was no income to back it up, other than one payment in March of $1.5k that Adam did finally pay after promising and delaying for several weeks. This was putting huge stress on me and my family, as I had believed and relied on Adam’s promises of the amounts we would be making by that time, and they weren’t coming.

So we discussed and agreed upon a monthly salary rather than a profit share agreement for all the work we were doing, and we agreed on terms and a date each month to be paid. I was very naïve not to get it in a written contract, it was just a verbal agreement…. At that point I still trusted him enough to keep his word. Especially after I explained my family situation clearly. After that I continued to work as hard as ever but the payment he promised never came, until I finally told him I would no longer be able to work without payment. He agreed and then promptly began his long stretch of ignoring all my messages and avoiding me entirely. I went through a cycle of grief in a way, at first disbelief that after all those months of loyalty and insanely hard work and what I thought of as friendship, that he could so easily cast me aside, then anger that I had been duped and strung along, then I felt a deep sense of loss and sadness that the hopes and dreams I had for this company I had worked so hard to build were –poof- gone, then embarrassment that I had allowed myself to be taken advantage of and was so naïve… and on and on.

Basically I was quite devastated for awhile, as I had put 8 months of my life into this and I thought that I was sacrificing now so that my family could have a better life. He would throw out things like “This year you will be clearing $350k EASILY” and being naïve and trusting….I believed him. I thought I could turn things around, thought I could help Adam change for the better…..but it was all doomed to failure from the start. After I stopped working for him others starting coming to me and talking to me about their stories, former partners and clients and that made me feel even worse about the whole situation. I wont speak for them, it’s their choice whether they come forward or not but I can attest that there are MANY others.

I find it interesting that Adam on this thread asks people to just “reach out” if they have a problem, when I and apparently many others tried to do just that….for weeks and months on end but were given the run around again and again. If people try to resolve things in private but are ignored, what other choice do they have? I figured something like this would happen eventually but didn’t realize it would be so soon.

Now, is Adam a criminal? I don’t know about that. I don’t think so. At least he hasn’t done anything to me personally that is criminal. I have only experienced what I have written above.

Would I ever work for him or with him again, or be a client of his? Or recommend anyone else do the same? The answer to that is a resounding NO. I hope he can learn from all this backlash, it is a harsh lesson but if he has been doing this to people for years and getting away with it, then perhaps this is the only way to make it stop and for him to change his ways. I hope everyone who is still looking for restitution can get it.

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Unfortunately I was one of these novice domainer beginners who got trapped into the snake oil salesman’s promises and sales pitches.

I have to give it to the guy, he’s a great salesman but only when trying to squeeze dollars out of unsuspecting newbies and into his own pockets. He’s always being mentioned as the best domainer of the year but where are his own domain sales? How is he has a domain broker?

He’s promised people that he’ll sell their domains easily to any of his many contacts within a certain timeframe and never lives up to that promise. I doubt he even tries to sell the names.

His DNF College on Facebook was a joke. Sure, there were and still are plenty of people who are in love with the guy but there’s equally a large number of us who feel the complete opposite. If you have a look at the DNF College on Facebook or on his own forum dnforum.com (latest dnf college), you will see him pop on for a brief moment, give us promises of so many different things we’ll learn. One popular lesson he promises us is: “How to buy a domain for $10 and sell it in less than a week for $1000-5000”.

Of course he always vanishes as quickly as he appears in the forum or facebook. Many times he’d be gone for weeks or months at a time with no explanation.

One thing that aggravated many of us was that he’d give so many specific dates and even times on those dates when someone will happen. When a lesson will start. We’d all show up and he’d be a no show for days or weeks afterwards.

In the DNF College, he would evaluate everyone’s domains and give us price tags for how much money he wants us to send him in order for him to develop the domains. His big thing was that he’d help us develop them into “lead generation websites”. His web development is a joke. You should see the cheap themes and “quality” of work on the sites “he” develops.

In the DNF College, he’s appear to be telling us about these services and tools out of the goodness of his heart but even he admitted that he gets a kickback from them. Including the one lead gen theme (i think it was called rockstar).

I know of multiple people who have given him money received nothing really in return. Failed promises, very very crappy $50 sites built after paying him $500 or even $5000. Some of those people have asked him for refunds and had to KEEP asking him for weeks, months, even a year or more.

He really is the typical bully too. I’ve read in some forums and sites how he threatens people who dare speak ill of him with legal action in one way or another.

Other domains I know for a fact are too terrified of Adam’s “authority” in the domaining world to speak up against him publicly. Even though they have spoken to me in length about their various sketchy dealings with this guy. They all say they’ve been told if they say anything negative about him, they will never become profitable domainers or be taken seriously since this guy can ruin a domainers career quite quickly, due to his standing in the community and his connections.

Adam, when you make promises, live up to them ok? Don’t keep throwing around all these extravagant promises and timelines if you’re always a no show and an utter failure with each promise you make. My suggestion if you are to continue down this path is to ease up on yourself. Forget the specific timelines and be more transparent.

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I was part of the Semester from August 2014 and I spent $1500 on a build out of a Domain from Adam that Adam had said would be Monitized for Monthly Revenue, and I would be kept updated during the build, this was during his domain reviews for all participants on the course, and from other participants there are lots of other people in my shoes.

As I was not familiar with sites and monitization I felt as for hearing about all his results during the reviews it would be a good investment.The (wordpress) site went live within 3 days using a parent / child theme and a contact form 7 for email with absolutley no monitization on site and Adam was to have this fixed and has ignored any further requests.I was told this could have been produced for $50 by someone I had take a look at the site.

Content is poor on the site and does not give any hook to have anyone fill in the contact form as looking at the site it is unsure what exactly it is trying to promote within the niche it was built in!!

I also made the mistake of purchasing a licence from him for lead gen software that failed to validate after a couple of weeks. On contacting the product customer support they had said that the product failed to validate due to either too many installations of the licence or the product was installed on too many PC’s Laptops etc. Adam was to refund me the cost and this never happened either.

I did have a lot of respect for Adam at first as I have been around in the industry for over a decade, but I had dropped out of domaining for a few years before he was involved with GD and had I been aware of his baggage I would not have got involved.I feel this was a real learning experience and was embarrassed at first and from what I understand some other participants ware shafted by him the same way but they ware reluctant to complain in case their sites would not get finished.

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Hey. I had the exact same thing happen to me, right at the same time as well. Promised to develop a site into a lead generating monthly income site only to receive (after several months) a very crappy lorum ipsom $50 landing page. Asked his developer to fix certain things and never did. Picked a style from his own nichewebsites and they wouldn’t use that. In the end, none of the promises were fulfilled and I was out not only the money but also dozens of hours of time emailing them asking to be refunded if he won’t live up to his promises.

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For over 8 months in 2014, Adam gave me the run around, about refunding me for services he never followed through with. It wasn’t until I contacted his family members, that he finally decided to give me a prompt refund, a long with a threat to never contact his family members again about business matters or he’ll put me in a body bag. I wish now that I would of saved that message but I didn’t take it seriously enough, I just figured the stress of my audacity to contact his family members made him have a bad day.

Perhaps others who are waiting to be refunded should do what I did..

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he promise me days ago he would pay me back. I emailed him just as he requested. He has yet to get back to me and gives a false day when he will.

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I can only tell you at this point I was offered partnership on many websites. The deal was I pay for the sites, which I did. By the way, because of this blog I realized I was cheated much higher then 299 per site. Some of the sites I was charged in the thousands.

I was told that all the mentoring SEO SEM promoting would be done by Adam. I trusted him. Also offered partnership in his supposed Webcorp. Then nothing ever happened..All of a sudden I was ignored. And lots of false promises.. I realized nothing was happening so I stopped buying sites. Please note: I have great developers I work with. I didn't need websites built. I went on the sole purpose of Adam's offer to partner, mentor, etc. I went by what I thought from others was a solid reputation which obviously now I find out isn't the case.

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Adam did not deliver on a 1.5k build he did for me, also lead gen software licence purchased from him failed to validate after two weeks.This has been over 1 year now and he has failed to live up to his promises.

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I sent him a few domains to grade and he chose FloridaLoan.com. He told me that he can build a website for $3,000. I finally broke down and told him yes. I sent him the $3,000. He assign this job to one of his "employees" which never got in touch with me when I had a problem with the unfinished website. I would try to get a hold of Dicker but slow response! When, he did email or call back, it would always be " next week it should be done". That must of been 8,9,or 10 times that that when on. They still did not get the website right or done. One example was the telephone on the site was not mine or even a working number. I emailed or wrote to him(Facebook) over 6,7 time about the number but it was never corrected. He finally called me and told me that He will try to sell FloridaLoan.com for me at The Conference. And, if he didn't, he would refund my $3,000(this went on for over 6 months). I got in touch with him after the Conference and he told me that he never said he would refund my $3,000. I swear he did!!!!!!!

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Here's some fake testimonials on DCG.com

https://i.imgur.com/WeWXj2t.jpg

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He is stringing me along and bringing stress to my 91 yr old Mom. It is getting very personal now.

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I had similar excuses to my requests also.I took to posting on the DNF College Facebook page when he was ignoring my Skype or emails and he would send a message for me to contact him and then he would delete the post from the group.

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My website,LasVegasVehicles.com is now blank.
I changed the Password to my hostgator Customer portal but forgot about the cPanel change,so Im guessing someone on his "team of professionals" cleared it.
I requested a refund to Adam@dcg immediately after my first post here in the Thread a few days ago,along wih messaging Shane. His VP was in contact with me,saying Sorry to See you go..other various replies,along with,"As for the Copyscape,You paid for pages with Content"...

Lol.

Regardless,He stated 2-3 times in those emails that the refund request has been forwarded. That's all Ive heard so far.
I wont be hostile,nasty emails or anything of the like.No reason.
I am just in request of a refund for the $500,and move on from this Ceo,Company,and work ethic.
My sympathy to those who have been on a ridiculous string for months,and months without a reply,and for more money spent,and dangled.. I seriously hope you get paid back,with a direct "I apologize for this" Because so far,in his Pop ups,I have never seen one."Ive bit off too much,and businesses fail,oh and quit the witch hunt" is all Ive seen really.

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No,no permission.. I would have prefered a "Well since the Refund will be processed soon,we are going to need to take down what we Did do from your hostgator account" or something similar. I wasnt expecting to keep it,but a heads up would have seemed little more professional. Last night it was up,now its blank. I've never done anything in my control panel since creating a hostgator account specifically for this project 2 months ago.
My issue with it is,If you have the time,to make sure,to go in,and whipe the surface clean in my account of the (copied bullsh*t articles) you put in the site,Then you should have the time to click "Refund",along with the 12 others that have spoke up in here.(id feel better if LannyB and others received theirs first,of course)
I emailed the Time,transaction number,paypal email account to him.it would take 2 seconds to locate and refund,and take me less to forget this nonsense,lol.
Im just waiting for members to chime in "I received my refund/My issue is resolved this morning,All is well". Hope it starts soon.




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# Adam promised a refund by Friday. Sent out legal threats instead.           #
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It's 1:33pm EST, anyone receive a refund yet?

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He's online right now. Hopefully he gets the refunds rolling out...

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He has a list of people who require refunds. He has contacted them for information to send payment. Will update when I know more.

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> He has a list of people who require refunds. He has contacted them for information to send payment. Will update when I know more.

I retract my statement.

Prepare for war, folks.

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Scanned image:

#####

gowlings

Joel Reinhardt
Direct 613-783-8809
Direct Fax 613-788-4498
joel.reinhardt@gowlings.com
File No. 07378396

October 23, 2015

Via Email [redacted]

[redacted]

Dear [redacted]

Re: Adam Dicker - Namepros.com Posting

We write on behalf of our client, Mr. Adam Dicker, who has provided website services to you. Specifically, I write regarding a post made to Namepros.com, a website on which you have a username operating.

The post is dated [redacted] and is entitled "Is Adam Dicker a criminal? You decide": http://therealshane.com/is-adam-dicker-a-criminal-you-decide/.

The post, made by username "Shane Bellone" is replete with highly damaging false, defamatory and malicious statements. The statements include that our client Mr. Dicker is "a predator" and a "criminal"; that he "treats employees like shit...or outright refuses to pay them", that he is "extorting people" and that he makes "threats".

The original post has many responses, some of which also contain false and defamatory materials about our client. Some of the disparaging posts where authored by your username on the website.

These posts have been reposted on other websites and have already caused our client to experience specific business losses.

Our client would like to address your concerns with respect to the services provided to you and come to a negotiated settlement of all issues. This would, of course, include you taking the necessary steps to remove the disparaging posts and agree that the settlement of the issues is full and final.

Please contact me at joel.reinhardt@gowlings.com on behalf of Mr. Adam Dicker if you are willing to discuss resolution of this matter. If you do not wish to discuss resolution of this matter then our client will hold you responsible to the full extenst of the law for any breach of our client's rights.

Gowling Lafieur Henderson LLP - Lawyers - Patent and Trade-mark Agents
160 Eigth Street - Suite 2600 - Ottawa - Ontario - K1P 1C3 - Candada T 613-233-1781 F 613-563-9869 gowlings.com

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Bwuahahah! What a joke piece of paper lol

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I thought the gist of it was "Remove your posts, get paid"

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> I thought the gist of it was "Remove your posts, get paid"

Exactly how I read it.

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I wonder if he paid the lawyer.

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Unbelievable. He'll sell a domain and rather than refund people he owes money to for work he never completed, he'll pay a lawyer to demand that people remove their comments in return for their own money.

The time has passed for playing with this guy. Just sink him.

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I have one also, the same letter.

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Anyone notice that law firm represents Scientologists?

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Someone has recommended a lawyer but he is rather expensive.

I did in fact decide to start a Go Fund Me campaign to raise capital towards the legal fees and the excess will be used to repay all of Adam's victims.

https://www.gofundme.com/5e776upk

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> Adam Dicker says, if everyone agrees to not post in this thread he will refund the victims within 24 hours and there will be no legal action.
>
> The purpose of this thread was to get the victims refunded. So I'll say this is a reasonable offer.
>
> @Adam Dicker Right?

If extortion is reasonable these days...

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http://memegenerator.net/Internet-Conman
http://www.filedropper.com/adam












































































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