More BS From Bob Seligman (no PhD)

I re-listened to the audio file and took a few more notes, and (surprise) discovered a few more discrepancies. I am sure if you listen to the 45 minutes you can find even more.

• Seligman claims he is a guest lecturer at Harvard, Wharton, and Stanford. My Harvard source is unable to locate the name anywhere associated with Harvard. A search of Wharton's site turned up nothing as did Stanford. Hmmm.
• Seligman said that he was knowledgeable of business practices because he is "a financial columnist" and "a published author". Well, guess what? Not much is coming up on that front either.
  
• Seligman also referenced General Electric and "his friend" "Jack Walsh". Well if he is referring to the former CEO of GE, it is Jack Welch. Now maybe his friend "Jack Walsh" is the guy that sweeps the floors in Fairfield.
• Seligman stated that Harvard Business School said YTB was "the business opportunity of a lifetime." Again, no real substantiation there. Looking at their website, there are few references to "MLM" or "Network Marketing" and certainly none to YTB. I have also been told (unsubstantiated) that Harvard Business School has derided MLM as an invalid business practice.
  
• Seligman says that he suspects that Coach, Scott and Kim are "smarter" than Barry Diller and have "outsmarted" him in travel because Barry Diller spent $5B for Expedia, but YTB offers the "same thing" for $500. He claims that YTB is "better" and "provably better" than Expedia. Uhm, OK. As my daughter might say, "whatever."
  
• Seligman claims that the average adult in the US spends an average of 6.5 hours watching television and 2 hours a day on the computer outside of work. His pitch was to cut an hour off of the television and concentrate on YTB and you can make 100X your investment. That "statistic" although he says is provable, this seems very excessive to me.
• Seligman, in his closing statement, said that Bill Gates is worth $50 Billion dollars and explains that it is "9 zeros folks". Uhm, maybe it was just a mispeak, but it is 10 zeros. One would think that the closing point in a presentation by a financial guru would not make that error!

A lot of people will say so what? Well, I think this is an issue. Regardless of who originated the Doctor, his credentials cannot be substantiated at all. These same credentials are being used by numerous Reps as they try to recruit people into the YTB program. Without knowing that the credentials are bogus, people will take him at face value. Anyone who may make a decision to join YTB based on this is being duped into the program. I am not sure, but if an RTA wanted to press the issue, I would bet some Rep might be on the look for this. What is more reprehensible is that YTB, by their silence, is endorsing this type of "marketing". GO ahead and tell them anything you like as long as you sign them up.

Just an interesting aside, I have said that I believe that Seligman is really a fabrication by a few Directors of YTB to enhance the recruiting efforts. After all, one would think a "published author" and "financial columnist" would have some information publicly available. The audio file is hosted at a domain called seligmanaudio.com. According to WHOIS, the owner is a company called Domains By Proxy which is a company that hides the identity of the true owner of a domain. Without a subpoena or a formal investigation, the actual owner remains unknown. Odd? Perhaps. The domain was just registered a few days ago.