Adventures4U Letters from David Courtney

Ad-Ventures4U Update #1 for Friday, August 28, 2009

What a way to start the day. I was up very late (which is not uncommon for me), so I only went to bed a couple of hours ago. At 9:44am my phone rang. Having only been in bed for an hour or so at that point, I ignored the call. At 10:09am, my phone rang again. I ignored it. At 10:17am, my phone rang again, and again, and again, and again...

I knew something was up.

I had to drag my head out of the daze ... you know that feeling you have when you've just been pulled out of a deep sleep after only resting for a short time.

I checked my computer and quickly saw the reason for all the phone calls.

I got the same email that everyone else got - and I am every bit as floored as everyone else. (Probably even more so.)

I believe the email is genuine. The style of writing is similar to emails we've received from Steve in the past. (i.e. Spelling errors, tone, flow of the email, etc...)

Many people have told me they do not understand what he said. I have gone through the email very carefully and it seems pretty clear to me.

Ad-Ventures4U, as a revenue sharing platform, is over. That's the bottom line. Steve said in the email that he and his family are being threatened and this whole thing is just not worth it to him. He said "I really really wanted to continue but with the current events with the scammers and the hackers and the attacks to the site I just cannot continue the revenue sharing portion of the program."
If you were in profit, you will not receive any future earnings no matter how many ventures you have. He said "All members that have cashed out out revenue and is in profit you will be able to keep your purchased ventures and use the product that you have purchased but will NOT Share in this last Revenue Share."
Anyone who was not in profit will have the opportunity to cash out one final time. He said "The remaider of the members will be invovled in this last revenue share and will have the opp to request a cashout and share in our Revenue. We have enough revenue to make this worth your wild to collect on." (Typical spelling errors here. Remainder is misspelled as "remaider", involved is misspelled as "invovled", the common term "worth your while" (meaning it is worth your time) is written by Steve as "worth your wild" which is incorrect, but typical of his style.)
The site, Ad-Ventures4U.com will continue on as an advertising vehicle and they will be introducing more "products." He said "The site will continue to grow and we have a great place to advertise and you will see allot more products to purchase. We are better than traffic swarm and we are listed on google as number one." (He should have said "...you will see a lot more products..." The word "allot" is a form of allotted or allocating, it means to distribute between or among. Again, this misuse of grammar is typical of Steve. I am not picking on the guy. I am just saying that I believe the email is genuine because these are common mistakes he makes.)
Steve reiterated the point that people are threatening him and his family and this is the reason for his decision to discontinue the revenue share. He said "We have been threatened and my family is more important to me than most will know. We Never ever said the revenue share was a set % and inorder to move other income forward I made a decision that put my family in danger and I will not tolerate that." (Small typo in that sentence. "inorder" would be "in order", but he probably just missed the space bar by accident.)
Steve mentions that basically the psychopaths have gotten the better of him. He said "99% of the members understood where we were going but the small % that I am scared of I just cannot risk because we really are who we said we are and we really did intend to move us into the future."
Processing the current cash outs are their primary priority right now. He said "We will not be answering scary support or answering the phone anymore until we have completed the cashout requests." (This is kind of amusing from a grammatical point of view because it indicates that they will resume answering scary support tickets and answering the phone after they've completed the cash outs. However, I know that was not what he intended to say.)
The Gold Site will go forward as planned. He said "The gold site will continue and we do have a referral commission program."
Anyone who has mailed in a check, money order, or cash which is in transit will have their funds returned. He said "All upgrades from this point that has been sent thru the mail will be returned to the sender."
As stated in point #1, the revenue share is over as soon as they are done processing cash outs for this final week. He said "Once the Revenue Share is complete that will be the final one and all earnings will have been paid out and we will end our Revenue Share portion of the site."
They will process cash outs as long as they can, but if members file complaints with the payment processors, the Ad-Ventures4U payment processor accounts will be frozen by the payment processors, and Ad-Ventures4U will lose control of their accounts and will not be able to process those payments. He said "We cannot control the Members so please give us to Aug 4th to process all payments because if members complain to the payment proccessors and they Freeze our accounts..." (Since August 4th was 24 days ago, we'll assume he met September 4th. The word processors is misspelled as "proccessors")
Communication will continue. He said "I will continue to communicate until the proccess is over so that you will not have to worry that I am not going to do what I said I was going to do." (The word process is misspelled as "proccess")

So there you have it. I've analyzed this email he sent very carefully and have given you my interpretation as best I can.

In a follow up email from Steve, he clarified a major point that a lot of people were very concerned about. He said "...we will also be sharing the revenue from the gold site until the all members are in profit." In other words, if you purchased 1,000 ventures and have thus far only earned $100 in return, Steve will use profits from the Gold Site to get your other $900 back to you.

Steve then went on to remind everyone that if they complain to the payment processors, the payment processors WILL freeze the Ad-Ventures4U accounts. If that happens, Ad-Ventures4U will have no way to pay you. He said "Reminder if the payment proccessor get frozen we cannot be held responsible for the earnings any longer." (The word processor is misspelled as "proccessor")

Unfortunately I have seen this kind of thing in the distant past. I suspect people will complain to all the payment processors and Ad-Ventures4U will lose control of their accounts within a few days. I hope I'm wrong, but I've seen it happen before.

As I said before, this is all as much of a shock to me as it is to everyone else. I've been in communication with Steve over the past many months and could not have seen this coming based on my conversations with him over the phone. Many of you were on the conference call with Steve 2 weeks ago to this day - and we all know that at that time, he was in full support of Ad-Ventures4U's future.

Steve has been very transparent with the members. Rather than hiding his identity like so many other admins do, his phone # and information have always been available. This helped many of us believe that he "had nothing to hide", but he seems to feel that his level of transparency has jeopardized the safety of his family.

Obviously this is a lot to take in. My phone is ringing constantly and emails are pouring in faster than I can keep up. So please understand I probably will not be able to take your call or reply to your email. I am putting out this email to my entire list so that I can communicate with as many people as possible.

David Courtney