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Is Adam Dicker a criminal? You decide.

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This story starts with DNF; 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.

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Updates / Reports
These are in no particular order.

From what I understand, Adam still owes north of $33,000 to previous customers and business partners. As I receive more information, I will update this figure.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
What's interesting to me about this latest story is that I'm not seeing any evidence that Adam benefited from stringing this guy along

It sounds like he bites off more than he can chew (due to ego?). He possibly believes everything he sets out to do will prosper and is initially in it 100%, then something else comes along and he jumps in there. His attention is diverted and he doesn't even look back to see the crumbling remains. Jumping from one project to another and not giving each the attention it deserves will lead to a total car wreck, especially if you just ignore the damage. That's fine, I suppose, if you're a one man band and pissing away your own money - it's a different story if there are other people in the mix.
 
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These so called gods of domaining only care about themselves.. Adam proves this time and time again.

When I do business with someone, I fully expect that anything they do will be motivated by self-interest. I don't have a problem with that. It only becomes an issue when they further their interests through deception.
 
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What's interesting to me about this latest story is that I'm not seeing any evidence that Adam benefited from stringing this guy along ( did I overlook something? ). He basically just failed to perform. That's why it's not clear to me what would constitute restitution.


I think that's exactly the bigger problem in all this, after hearing these stories come out...How do you fix problems that are just not fixable financially...deception & broken promises are a result of a man's character & not his wallet.

It's sounding almost like this pitch,

Hey try this great program with me. We are going to make you a lot of money with my plan/concept...then fast forward a few months, when there's no money coming in & it's off like a prom dress to next one and so on & so on....IMHO

This does not sound like a business plan/concept that needs anymore awards....IMHO
 
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What's interesting to me about this latest story is that I'm not seeing any evidence that Adam benefited from stringing this guy along ( did I overlook something? ). He basically just failed to perform. That's why it's not clear to me what would constitute restitution.

Yes, it doesn't mention any direct purchases made from Adam Dicker under false and/or inflated pretenses. But, the man did invest heavily (it seems) in time and money under the information of:

“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)


Most people would be influenced by Adam's direction (probably why this was so easy for him to pull this off) and take it at face value as solid. An error in hitching a wagon to his continued empty promises, perhaps - but there is a responsibility in promising "more leads than they can handle, go get them signed up" and "we've got leads coming in, I just need to log in and check...."

Did Adam capitalize personally from this endeavour? Doesn't seem so. Did he instruct someone to generate clients under the promise of "s**tloads of money"? Sounds like it - and then kept making those promises over time without fulfilling them.

But, two sides to every story I suppose.
 
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Yes, it doesn't mention any direct purchases made from Adam Dicker under false and/or inflated pretenses. But, the man did invest heavily (it seems) in time and money under the information of:

“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)


Most people would be influenced by Adam's direction (probably why this was so easy for him to pull this off) and take it at face value as solid. An error in hitching a wagon to his continued empty promises, perhaps - but there is a responsibility in promising "more leads than they can handle, go get them signed up" and "we've got leads coming in, I just need to log in and check...."

Did Adam capitalize personally from this endeavour? Doesn't seem so. Did he instruct someone to generate clients under the promise of "s**tloads of money"? Sounds like it - and then kept making those promises over time without fulfilling them.

But, two sides to every story I suppose.

Presumably somebody pays him $1500 to get a "led gen" website created, and the "industry contact" that they get who purchases the leads from them are people like Blenja_man, who is subsequently promised lots of leads.

Then the $1500 four page wordpress site gets no traffic, and no leads, so the "industry contact" (that's Blenja_man) gets no leads to pass on.....

Its zero risk for Adam Dicker, if something works (and it sounds like it literally never does) then he gets money with no outlay, if it fails he is still taking $1500 from the websites.

Something along those lines? Was that the masterplan?
 
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It sounds like he bites off more than he can chew (due to ego?). He possibly believes everything he sets out to do will prosper and is initially in it 100%,

That's the best case explanation. The worst case is that he gets people to invest their time in as many ventures as possible in the hope that if they can make it work on their own, he takes a cut, but if it doesn't work out, he loses nothing.
 
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My vote is for this: "Adam Dicker at least he's not Bill Cosby"

And you're still joking around after all that has happened... what a scumbag!! Hopefully someone will step forward and sue you for damages.That's what you deserve.
 
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meme.jpg


Hope everything gets resolved soon. Peace !
 
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Ben,
There is so much more to this story that I will respond tomorrow.
You were doing dentist leadgen under your own company name long before we ever talked.

More in the am.

Mr. Adam.
I was one of paid members of your showcasemanager.com.
Although you finally refunded me after a really long struggle,
you still own me a formal apology.
 
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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. Although you have a different perspective on this, I'm not lying about anything. 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.

I can vouch for what blenja_man has said here and can attest to his honesty, work ethic and character. I worked with him on several occasions and this project was indeed a heart wrenching failure largely, in my opinion, as a result of him trusting the promises and false claims of Adam. Claims he made of expertise, of commitment, of time investment and and more that were not given or intended to give. The over promising and under delivering (and that's putting it nicely) is not just a bad habit and it shouldn't be brushed aside as no big deal.... Real harm can and does result from this and real lives are affected. When someone of influence and prominence makes promises and claims, there is an even greater responsibility to live up to the trust that others put in them. Simply put, if you cannot or will not deliver, then do not offer. If you cannot or will not keep your word, then do not give it. And if you do have true and honest intentions but realize along the way that thing are not going as planned, do not continue to string people along for days, weeks, and months and make what is already bad, worse.
 
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When there is hyperbole, it usually is almost impossible to live up to the hype.

If it was easy to make $25,000 a month everyone would be doing it, web design and lead gen are hard work.

When people use terms like shitload of money or amounts that just seem way too high, you need to take a step back. The one beauty about the Internet is you can research just about anything, you can find people in every field and get basic answers.

People want to believe they will be the outlier, every once in awhile someone becomes the outlier. It is no way to plan your career or business. Every week someone wins the lottery, millions lose the lottery.

When I read Ben's story I am sorry to hear that he put his life savings into it, I am not sure why he did ? But I get it. We get excited working with people who have already been there done that, and been successful. It makes us not ask questions or set things up properly. I have been watching Horrible Bosses 2 on HBO a comedy, but some of it plays out in what new or little guys and girls do when entering into a partnership with an established big player.

Nick, Kurt and Dale were so happy to get a deal that they did nothing right, and it plays out in this scene. Spacey asks them why they wouldn't get 35% up front ?


In doing a deal with Adam there should have been a deposit made up front by Adam to secure a space so that you are not out in the cold if the deal doesn't work out. I agree with @discobull Adam did not gain anything by stringing him along, where Adam screwed up is over promising and having unrealistic expectations of success. Sometimes being unrealistic gets people hurt.

Whenever anyone has any opportunity presented to them come to a forum like Namepros or Warrior Forum, sure everyone will not agree but I am willing to bet there will be a few posts at least that open your eyes and mind to something you didn't see. Look a business can fail with everyone saying this looks great, you always need to prepare for failure.
 
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When there is hyperbole, it usually is almost impossible to live up to the hype.

If it was easy to make $25,000 a month everyone would be doing it, web design and lead gen are hard work.

When people use terms like sh*tload of money or amounts that just seem way too high, you need to take a step back. The one beauty about the Internet is you can research just about anything, you can find people in every field and get basic answers.

People want to believe they will be the outlier, every once in awhile someone becomes the outlier. It is no way to plan your career or business. Every week someone wins the lottery, millions lose the lottery.

When I read Ben's story I am sorry to hear that he put his life savings into it, I am not sure why he did ? But I get it. We get excited working with people who have already been there done that, and been successful. It makes us not ask questions or set things up properly. I have been watching Horrible Bosses 2 on HBO a comedy, but some of it plays out in what new or little guys and girls do when entering into a partnership with an established big player.

Nick, Kurt and Dale were so happy to get a deal that they did nothing right, and it plays out in this scene. Spacey asks them why they wouldn't get 35% up front ?


In doing a deal with Adam there should have been a deposit made up front by Adam to secure a space so that you are not out in the cold if the deal doesn't work out. I agree with @discobull Adam did not gain anything by stringing him along, where Adam screwed up is over promising and having unrealistic expectations of success. Sometimes being unrealistic gets people hurt.

Whenever anyone has any opportunity presented to them come to a forum like Namepros or Warrior Forum, sure everyone will not agree but I am willing to bet there will be a few posts at least that open your eyes and mind to something you didn't see. Look a business can fail with everyone saying this looks great, you always need to prepare for failure.
.
 
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Throughout this thread, I keep thinking of the old business cliché to under promise and over deliver.

While that might not always be the best strategy, it certainly is a hell of a lot better than what people's claims of Adam are: over promise and under deliver.
 
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Do you know what this story is lacking?

I'll tell you.

It's lacking sex. I mean like a male and a female with an unctrollable attraction to each other. Throw that in and I would probably read this beyond 500 words...
 
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I'm sure your ego thinks you are but unfortunately you're just not. I am the original Shane. Here first, older, after this probably wiser, certainly faster and maybe even stronger. I realize you're enjoying the attention but I'm sure you'll do fine in your next line of work. :)
And his favourite nGTLD is.TOP ......lol
 
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Do you know what this story is lacking?

I'll tell you.

It's lacking sex. I mean like a male and a female with an unctrollable attraction to each other. Throw that in and I would probably read this beyond 500 words...
It has that doesn't it?

I could have sworn I heard someone mentioning something about getting: ;)


screwed.jpg
 
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@Adam Dicker, you did not answer my question. Did you sign with your employees employment contracts? Other than the NDA? You mentioned WebCorp is trade name, so does that mean you have another name that is legal? If contract was signed , even the NDA, which business name was used ?
 
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Adam said it was a trade name,

A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies to perform their business under a name that differs from the registered, legal name of the business. Trade names are typically used by companies to conduct their operations under a simpler brand as opposed to using their formal name within all public communications, or when a desired name was not able to be registered by the business operator, or if that business is owned by a separate company, franchisee, or a sole proprietorship.

The distinction between a registered legal name and a "fictitious" business name or trade name is important, as businesses with the latter give no obvious indication of the true identity of the entity that is legally responsible for their operation. Fictitious business names do not create legal entities in and of themselves; they are merely names assumed by existing persons or entities.[1] Legal agreements such as contracts are normally made under the registered legal name of the business or owner, and the legal name must be used whenever a business sues or is being sued.

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Zimbabwe (as well as some parts of the United States), the phrase trading as (abbreviated t/a) is used to designate trade names. In Canada and the United States, the phrase "doing business as" (abbreviated DBA, dba, d.b.a. or d/b/a) is used. In English writing, trade names are generally treated as proper nouns.[2]


thank you
very helpfull
 
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When there is hyperbole, it usually is almost impossible to live up to the hype.

If it was easy to make $25,000 a month everyone would be doing it, web design and lead gen are hard work.

When people use terms like sh*tload of money or amounts that just seem way too high, you need to take a step back. The one beauty about the Internet is you can research just about anything, you can find people in every field and get basic answers.

People want to believe they will be the outlier, every once in awhile someone becomes the outlier. It is no way to plan your career or business. Every week someone wins the lottery, millions lose the lottery.

When I read Ben's story I am sorry to hear that he put his life savings into it, I am not sure why he did ? But I get it. We get excited working with people who have already been there done that, and been successful. It makes us not ask questions or set things up properly. I have been watching Horrible Bosses 2 on HBO a comedy, but some of it plays out in what new or little guys and girls do when entering into a partnership with an established big player.

Nick, Kurt and Dale were so happy to get a deal that they did nothing right, and it plays out in this scene. Spacey asks them why they wouldn't get 35% up front ?


In doing a deal with Adam there should have been a deposit made up front by Adam to secure a space so that you are not out in the cold if the deal doesn't work out. I agree with @discobull Adam did not gain anything by stringing him along, where Adam screwed up is over promising and having unrealistic expectations of success. Sometimes being unrealistic gets people hurt.

Whenever anyone has any opportunity presented to them come to a forum like Namepros or Warrior Forum, sure everyone will not agree but I am willing to bet there will be a few posts at least that open your eyes and mind to something you didn't see. Look a business can fail with everyone saying this looks great, you always need to prepare for failure.


that pretty much sums it up

I feel the pain, as I have been a "victim" myself in other hypes
like stocks and other guru's visions

but thats part of the learning curve

you want to learn when to cut losses
and when to move on

you can't avoid to fail

you just want to do it in a way, that you can survive
 
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Let's give @Adam Dicker some time to address/concede/refute all the allegations from the blog... but not too long.

First and most importantly, all the victims' issues should be taken care of... but not too long too.
 
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I'm sure I'm not alone in being very uncomfortable with the word "criminal" at the top of this thread in H1 tags all along. Does anybody agree that Shane should consider changing that word to something a little less extreme? "Is Adam Dicker unethical" would have a little less of a sting.... even "scammer" imho would be a little less extreme, although that may be subjective.

It's useless to expect good etiquettes from a person with Shane's history (no offense). Therefore, I'm not worried about Adam now as he has decided to resolve things in a decent way, but I do wonder if (and when) somehow tables turn, would Shane be able to survive in the industry? He's not an angel as we know of him.

For all the victims, I do hope they will get what's theirs.
 
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Some guys here just see “over promising and under delivering” while I learned here maybe the smartest business plan on this planet.

I will take out 100 domains from my portfolio, and invite 100 developers as the project manager of each domain. If a project succeeds, I will take 80% of the profit. If a project fails, I will take back my domain, and have nothing to lose except the otherwise parking income. As for those managers of failed projects, I don't care as every project is a “so called” separate business. Repeat this again and again, I will soon get on the Forbes list.
 
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Some guys here just see “over promising and under delivering” while I learned here maybe the smartest business plan on this planet.

I will take out 100 domains from my portfolio, and invite 100 developers as the project manager of each domain. If a project succeeds, I will take 80% of the profit. If a project fails, I will take back my domain, and have nothing to lose except the otherwise parking income. As for those managers of failed projects, I don't care as every project is a “so called” separate business. Repeat this again and again, I will soon get on the Forbes list.


that sounds like a plan
 
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The recruitment:

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.

This seems to cover Adam as there's no mention / promise that he would be injecting his own personal funds into these businesses. Just no cost or investment from the partners.

I do not pay company bills with anything other than comnpany money

You can't support a bad company with funds from a good one, if that company is going to make it, it has to stand on it's own.

I guess most people would had assumed that Adam would provide the funds, expertise and leadership, while the partners would provide the time and work.

I did.
 
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Without knowing all the background info from all the people that feel that they have been scammed or how Adam has conducted his business:

Stuff like these happen everyday, everywhere. To me, this seems like an ordinary learn how to make $5,000/day "scam". There is no difference imo.

He made "getting rich by selling domains and building businesses" sound very easy to newbies - something that anyone could do. I´m sure he made lots of money by doing this but that does not mean that you can copy the same concept and earn the same. People tend to forget about timing, location and hard work. What worked 5-10 years ago will most probably not work today. Internet is changing rapidly. One Google algorithm update and you might lose all the revenue over one night.

It should be quite obvious that you will only get a reused WP-template when ordering from Nichewebsites. You could easily get the same thing done on oDesk of Elance for a fraction of that cost. And I guess alot of people have forgotten the most important thing when outsourcing web stuff: clear specifications, what is expected upon delivery, limitations, contracts.

Also, to include "SEO services" in your website packages while having basic SEO mistakes on the site can tell alot about your business and the quality of the services.

Just my 2 cents....
 
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