ZERN TAN: We have hundreds of Malaysians getting success from this training alone.
And the exact same strategies, the one that I'm going to show you, are strategies that I used as well.
You might think, "this is pretty ridiculous if all of this was built from my laptop – working from homes, at cafes, anywhere at the world."
The same strategies I'm about to share with you today, okay?
It looks pretty ridiculous, but I'm going to prove it to you in a bit.
So, are you ready for this same change that's about to happen,
just like all these people who have attended my free training and gotten results just like this, alright? 
PARALLAX: If you’ve been on YouTube for quite some time, you may stumble upon a variety of advertisements.
You know the ones that I’m talking about.
They appear in almost every video you watched,
usually before your favorite video starts.
And sometimes it comes up multiple times midway through the video.
These can range from annoying mobile gaming ads
to cringe-inducing ads from companies trying to be hip and cool.
We all laugh at the cringe and annoyance these ads have,
but at least they were innocuous for the most part.
They don’t pack the same amount of notoriety as the ads that I want to talk about today;
fake gurus selling online courses.
And believe me, they have a lot of infamies attached to their name.
So, let’s talk about them.
Nobody knows exactly when these types of advertisements started existing on YouTube.
But what we do know is how it came into prominence today.
(glitch sound effects)
TAI LOPEZ: Here in my garage, just bought this uhhh… new Lamborghini here.
It's fun to drive up here in the Hollywood Hills.
But do you know what I like a lot more than materialistic things? 
Knowledge!
In fact, I am a lot more proud of these seven new bookshelves that I had to get installed,
the whole 2000 new books that I've got.
PARALLAX: This video was titled “Here in My Garage”
and it was published on September 3rd, 2015 by a man named Tai Lopez. 
The video gained traction almost immediately and it became viral in that same year.
The view count says it all. 
As of this writing, that video managed to rake in 69,000,000 views. 
And with it came the avalanche of fake gurus wanting to dip their toes into the whole fad while it’s still hot.
(glitch sound effects)
People like Dan Lok, Sam Ovens, John Crestani, and Kevin David
are a handful of infamous examples of what we call “fake online gurus”.
The worst part about all of this is that they managed to rake in
millions of dollars in net worth for simply just selling a dream.
(glitch sound effects)
These gurus have cultivated a following that has people who are more than willing to spend
huge sums of money on courses peddled by these scammers.
All because they wanted to be as rich as their respective gurus.
But all they did is sponsoring these fake online gurus’ lavish lifestyle.
DAN PENA: ...inside of your fucking fat mother's thigh, you stupid cunts.
PARALLAX: Even if they wanted to pull back from the mess they ended up in,
more often than not, most of them just can’t.
They realized how much money they have invested in those gurus to make their dreams come true
and pulling out is admitting that their investment is all for nothing.
To most of them, it’s better to just spend more money on a dream that will never come
than to simply withdraw themselves from the whole scheme.
It is a textbook example of sunk cost fallacy.
And that is how these fake gurus chain their followers to their products. 
It’s a perfect storm for these gurus to manipulate,
to make their followers buy more of their courses.
And while the whole tsunami of ads from fake gurus spread in the United States like wildfire that year,
it wasn’t until 2018 when that phenomenon eventually reached Malaysia.
And one of the people who will eventually try their luck in being an online guru is a man named Zern Tan.
And while admittedly he is nowhere near as scummy as the names that I’ve mentioned before,
there are some things that he did that I want to talk about.
A small-time scammer is still a scammer, and that is important to keep in mind going forward.
Because even if he is relatively a small fish in a pond
filled with online scam gurus from all over the world, big and small,
I would still argue that he is Malaysia’s King of Online Scam Gurus.
PARALLAX: Before we delve deep into Zern Tan, we have to first understand a couple of things.
Is selling courses on the Internet inherently bad?
How can we tell if someone is a fake online guru?
And how does Zern Tan fit into this mold?
(glitch sound effects)
Answering the first question is very straightforward and doesn’t require a lot of research to understand it.
No, selling courses on the Internet are not inherently bad.
Most of the courses offered on the Internet can be beneficial to us in the long run.
If you want to learn how to code on Python
or learning to speak in a different language,
buying courses on the Internet might just be better than the alternatives that you have at hand.
With that said, you also have to be mindful of the pitfalls some bad actors employed to scam you.
Always make sure that you buy courses from someone who is very reputable and authentic.
Be sure to always put a lot of research before spending money on the course online.
And if you have a feeling that the course that you’re about to buy has a hint of shadiness to it,
it’s best to be safe than sorry.
(glitch sound effects)
The second question also has a very straightforward answer. 
You just have to keep your eyes peeled on a couple of red flags.
This includes but not limited to preying on your emotions and insecurities,
bragging about money or financial freedom,
creating scarcity and exclusivity,
and unverifiable testimonials.
(glitch sound effects)
What sets these fake gurus apart 
from legitimate people who sell legitimate course is marketing.
And the biggest problem with fake gurus is their deceptive marketing.
There’s nothing wrong with selling a course on things like dropshipping,
but marketing it as a lifestyle product and framing it as though everyone who buys the course
has a high chance of gaining “financial freedom” is just clear deception.
That is what James Jani had said, and I wholeheartedly agree with that.
And as we delve deeper into this video, we can see why that was the case,
and at the same time we can answer the third question that we have lingering above our heads.
Those red flags that I’ve mentioned were merely just touching the surface
of what lays beneath the character in question.
And I’m going to talk about all of it today.
So, let’s start with a bit of context.
Who is Zern Tan?
Zern Tan a self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur and the “founder” of Heroist,
the company he used to offer computer consulting services to other people.
He’s been making rounds on YouTube and beyond for the past several months
with his constant advertisements to sell his course.
And one other thing to note is that the company he founded was legally registered
under Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysiaor Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) on October 1st, 2018.
Now this is getting a bit more interesting.
From what we can gather so far is that he was running a legitimate business
as far as Malaysian law is concerned.
And at first glance, he doesn’t seem to be doing anything particularly wrong.
So, what gives?
What gives is that when you take a closer look at his advertisements,
you started to realize something about his desperate pitch to make his courses sell.
He seems to promise a lot of extraordinary things to other people about “making money online.”
There’s one advertisement from him that claims, in his own words,
that he adopted “this system that has helped him generate millions of dollars of sales online”
and that he is giving this knowledge away for free if you sign up for his free two-hour online course.
For a lot of people, this is something that would attract their attention.
This sounds like an irresistible proposal that he was giving out.
Who wouldn’t want a free knowledge of getting an easy profit on the Internet?
(music shuts down)
(glitch sound effects)
You see, it’s much more complicated than that.
It’s not that people don’t want an easy profit on the Internet.
It’s just that when some random guy on the Internet
claiming that he had managed to make millions of dollars of sales online,
you can’t help but scoff at him.
Because ultimately, extraordinary claims have to be backed up by extraordinary evidence.
And so far, we haven’t found one from him yet.
As a result, I offered myself to be the sacrificial lamb in all of this.
I wanted to know whether or not Zern’s assertions of him making millions online is legitimate.
And I wanted to know whether he ticked all the boxes when it comes to being a “fake online guru”.
The next logical step that I have to do is sign up for his online course.
After wasting two hours of my life away,
I want to share what I found and my opinions regarding his “free online training course.”
But as you may have already predicted, I don’t have any nice things to say about it.
Let me tell you why.
PARALLAX: To understand more about Zern Tan and his company Heroist, we have to start from the basics.
The About page seems like a good place to start.
We’ll also supplement the information gathered there with his two-hour “free online training course”
pre-recorded by Zern Tan himself.
Oh, don’t worry. You didn’t mishear that. 
His “free online training course” livestream isn’t live, it’s actually pre-recorded.
(Zern Tan waffling on and on about his earnings)
PARALLAX: AHA!
(Zern Tan still waffles on and on about his earnings)
(Parallax laughing)
Really, Zern?
ZERN!
This is not livestream, you've already did this before!
Wow!
(Parallax's unintelligeble speech)
(Zern Tan is still at it with his earnings)
PARALLAX: I realized this when I signed up for his webinar the second time.
And you can do this on your own as well.
(sigh)
With that out of the way, let’s review this monstrosity together.
(glitch sound effects)
MYSTERY MAN: Welcome, welcome!
(tense music playing)
Just to clarify, I’m not Zern Tan and this segment is not live.
PARALLAX: Yes, you’re not Zern Tan. 
In fact, you’re someone who is quite a prominent “e-commerce guru” once upon a time.
But we’ll come back to you in a bit.
MYSTERY MAN: But you’re at the right place.
Your live class is starting real soon.
And if you’re watching this, Zern is still getting ready.
PARALLAX: No, he doesn’t.
MYSTERY MAN: But, we will begin shortly.
Now, I want you to ask yourself one question.
Imagine what life would be like if you could create RM10,000 per month income from your laptop
just like all of these people have?
The moment they applied what’s inside after free training today,
they’ve been able to create results like this.
So, I want to ask you.
What if you could create RM10,000 per month income from your laptop?
What would you do? How would your life be –"
(dramatic boom in the end)
(sigh)
It’s been thirty seconds into the video, and we’ve already been served with a lot of information.
Talk about dogpiling numerous amounts of information at once.
Going back to the About page, we get to see that he started off by introducing who he is.
Notice that he can’t spell “entrepreneur” correctly.
This is the first thing you read when you go to this page.
Unfortunately, that is not the only spelling mistake he does.
He has several more of those,
on top of many grammatical mistakes and too much word repetition that wasn’t needed.
Maybe it’s an honest mistake, or maybe he just doesn’t care enough
to exude the professional look to his website.
Whatever the reason it may be, this is an unacceptable mistake to have,
especially if you want to present yourself as a “professional e-commerce guru.”
With the colossal amount of spelling and grammatical mistakes Zern Tan has in this page alone,
you can’t help but wonder why he even bothered having his own website in the first place.
Even when English isn’t his strong suit, you would think that he could at least hired someone to proofread his story.
I mean, he is a successful e-commerce guru, right?
If this is how Zern Tan displayed his professional image to other people,
then he failed miserably in that regard. 
With that out of the way, we at once got introduced to a long sob story of Zern Tan’s life.
He started off by telling us that his whole life is dark and depressing.
(glitch sound effects)
ZERN TAN: See, growing up I was compared to my perfect sister all the time.
My eldest sister excelled in studies, music, sports, you name it. She can achieve it.
She used to have a shelf packed full of trophies, medals, and awards right in the house
and naturally my parents were extremely proud of her.
And what about me? I was never exceptional in anything, okay?
PARALLAX: According to him he wasn’t the brightest kid in school.
He always scored last in his class rankings every year,
and not to mention that he was very terrible in extra-curricular activity and sports.
Such unfortunate luck he was born with, that his teachers told him that he will never succeed in life.
Even his dad thought the same.
ZERN TAN: I was even told, "when you grow up, Zern, you're going to be a garbage collector."
Okay? My Dad told me that.
PARALLAX: Eventually, he graduated from his secondary – and boy, was he happy to leave.
He barely passed through school, but he did it anyway.
This is the stage of his life in which he wanted to apply for college,
just like any other kid that age would do.
He started filling out college applications for that purpose,
hoping that at least one of them can accept him.
And that’s exactly what he did – “submitting college application…”
“After application…”
“After application…”
(glitch sound effects)
Having done all of that, it is time for his waiting phase.
And he waited,
and waited,
and waited,
and waited...
ZERN TAN: One month later, still zero replies. Okay?
Hmm, maybe I just have to wait a little longer, I told myself.
Because maybe they're having all of these new student applications coming in, okay?
So, I waited for another two full months, no replies from any colleges, okay?
I was totally crushed because I'm looking at all my classmates getting into college. 
But for me, I didn't hear a single thing back.
PARALLAX: At that moment, he had an epiphany – 
that maybe all of the colleges that he applied for is trying to tell him something.
They were trying to tell him that he would never be accepted into college.
His story might sound tragic to you at first, and you would be inclined to start feeling sorry for this person.
But what if I tell you that his story of not being able to enter any colleges might not be true at all?
Check out this one.
(boom sound effects)
This is from his former Instagram handle, @zernthefern.
He included that Instagram handle in his live webinar, in fact.
So naturally, I wanted to try and take a closer look into that Instagram account.
And surprise, surprise!
There’s a lot of incriminating information about Zern Tan that can put his whole story into question.
Like this one.
Now, take a look at the garb he wore that day. 
And look at the scroll he held,
and the smile he donned that time.
That place is not your average run-of-the-mill hall.
It’s grand and it’s expensive.
A wonderful venue for what looked like a convocation ceremony.
All of that is a far cry to his statement that his life before being a successful e-commerce guru is “dark and depressing.”
That he was a failure in his class, his studies, and his life.
What is this supposed to mean, and how can he explain this?
Is the story that he told us had been a complete lie all along?
Unfortunately, that’s not the only discrepancy that can be found in his story.
In fact, there’s a couple more that I would like to show you.
So, I suggest you stick around for more.
After supposedly feeling crushed for not being able to get into any college whatsoever, Zern was left with no choice.
The only way forward for him that time is for him to be a physical exercise teacher in an international school.
He felt embarrassed, in a way.
All of his friends wanted to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, and many more exciting jobs out there.
While here he is, applying for a job that supposedly no one wanted to take.
As time goes on, Zern also started to realize something.
He saw that his peers were getting job promotions, subsequently progressing in their respective careers.
One important detail that he can’t seem to shake off
is the fact they were getting pay increments at their jobs on a yearly basis.
ZERN TAN: But what about me?
After five full years of working as a teacher, I was working hard, bored out of my mind, hating my job.
But I was committed to make this work.
I kept doing the same thing over and over again
and I was still being paid the same exact salary for the entire five years.
I have no advancement in my job at all.
I was still doing the same thing, same pay.
I felt horrible.
I put in so much work every single day and yet other people are advancing but I was not, right?
I was still getting paid the same thing after five years.
PARALLAX: Because of the fact that his income
is stagnating for five full years, he decided to venture into business to earn extra money.
What he had in mind is to be a social media manager, someone who runs social media accounts for other businesses.
Consider it as a side job for him, of sorts.
But long story short, he also failed in that endeavor.
So, the story that he told us thus far had supposedly solidified his point
that his life prior to being a serial entrepreneur is dark and depressing. 
He’s a failure in school,
he failed to go into college,
he failed to get a promotion in work,
and he failed in his first business venture.
ZERN TAN: I felt like a massive failure my entire time and that was my reality.
(glitch sound effects)
PARALLAX: But the reality is, Zern Tan had lied and left out some important information about his past. 
He lied about not going into college.
And he didn’t elaborate how he became a physical education teacher in an international school of all places.
And that’s only the first part of his story.
There’s a lot more things that I will point out in this video
that had led me to believe that he’s not a trustworthy man to pay at least USD500 for.
But before we delve into his next act of the story,
let me bring your attention back to this part of the webinar where I found his personal Instagram handle. 
Let’s talk about it for a moment.
If you intend on finding this Instagram handle right now, I regret to inform you that you’re out of luck.
Let me explain.
His public Instagram account was public when I first looked at it around September of 2019.
As you can see, he had 10,000 followers at that time,
and he didn’t shy away from calling himself the founder of Heroist.
A couple of days later, I realized that his personal Instagram handle went private
and was bummed for not be able to have a closer look to corroborate his story.
Then, when Christmas of 2019 kicked in, I no longer see his personal Instagram account anymore.
The only thing left is his “official” Instagram handle that advertised his e-commerce coaching courses.
There are two possibilities that I could think of as to why he did it.
One, he probably changed his personal Instagram handle to something more obscure.
Or two, he realized that there’s too much incriminating information about him in it
and realized that he has to get rid of it. 
(glitch sound effects)
Either way, there’s not much I could do about it
apart from using whatever information I had recorded in that Instagram account back in September last year.
I know this is a lot of information that had to be digested.
Unfortunately, as said before, there’s much more to talk about this guy.
And I’m already eleven pages into the script.
In the next part, let’s talk about his “turning point” to become an e-commerce guru
and how his business model works.
It’s going to get complicated from here.
(boom sound effects)
PARALLAX: You might be wondering as to why I dissected his backstory first
and what relevance does it have to the title of this video.
The reason why I tackled his backstory before anything else
is because I wanted to illustrate just how shady his methods are
to sell at least USD500 worth of his coaching courses.
Zern’s motivation in using his life story
to hook other people to buy his coaching lessons is very suspicious and manipulative.
(glitch sound effects)
It seems to me that he was trying to use his life story
to gain sympathy from other people that are considering buying his course.
And it also seems like an attempt by Zern to try and build an emotional connection to the audience,
increasing his odds of pulling them into his scam.
Allow me to demonstrate.
Let’s go down to the “The Turning Point” of his About page to lay out some context
to what we’re about to see and skip through the useless filler.
At that time, Zern Tan was still a physical education teacher
and was bringing his students to Cambodia on a school trip.
He was seated right next to this young punk called Mr. X.
At some point, he peeked at Mr. X’s laptop screen
and was shocked to see that he made approximately USD230,427.90
out of selling the bracelet that Zern coincidentally have (bought) online.
Here is the series of clips of him talking about his experience
after realizing the fact that Mr. X had made that amount of cash.
ZERN TAN: At that moment, I was completely dumbfounded.
This freaking kid who looks like he has zero achievement in life is doing USD230,427.90 in a single month.
And the month hasn’t even ended yet… 
I won’t lie, I was mad. I was furious. 
But I needed to know what this kid X is doing.
Because if this little young punk could do it, so could I.
I was like, “dude, no freaking way – you have to teach me what you’re doing.”
And X replied to me, he said,
“I’m sorry. I don’t do coaching, not my thing…”
So, I was literally begging this kid like a crazy person for, I'm sure, about at least a fifteen, a good 15 minutes.
And X looked really, really annoyed.
And it was kind of awkward since we have to sit through the entire flight together.
But I didn’t care because I knew this was an opportunity of a lifetime.
I couldn’t stand being a failure any longer.
And it happened.
X finally lets out a huge sigh and then he said,
(sigh)
“Okay, fine."
"One call a week for USD500 per month."
"I’ll only do it under one condition."
"You got to be fully committed for at least a full year."
"You have to go all-in on this."
"And promise me you will write down as much notes as you can when we do get on the calls."
"Promise me you’ll not give up even if you’re failing."
"Even if you cry, even if you can’t figure out and you want to pull your hair."
"Promise me you’ll spend every waking moment obsessing over making this happen."
"Promise me all of this, then I’ll do the calls with you."
All I could think of was, “there’s no turning back, okay?”
So, I told Mr. X, “I’m in, I’m all in. Let’s do this.”
PARALLAX: So, he paid USD500 per month for Mr. X’s coaching courses.
He followed through every single advice that Mr. X had gave out to him,
and since then, his profits just keep on snowballing.
That is the entire context.
Now let’s get down to the premise of his main argument for selling his course.
From there, we’ll be able to point out the flaws and fallacies of his argument.
ZERN TAN: So, let me ask you a question.
Do you think my investment in X’s coaching program was worth my USD500?
Of course, right?
Do you think going all-in the moment I believed it’s possible was worth it?
Yes, of course right?
So, remember as kids we all wanted to be superheroes.
And along the way, we grew up and we lost our imagination and we lost our dreams.
And guess what?
It doesn’t matter how many times you failed or how old you are,
I’m here to tell you that your dreams are still possible if you believe in them…
That’s why I created the Hero Movement, right?
I’m here to help you believe in your dreams again.
If every day you see people just like you getting results,
people just like you starting to live their hero life,
surrounded by people who are just like you becoming new success stories every single day,
there’s no other choice for you to believe that if he or she can, I can too.
So, once you’re 100% convinced that you can do it, you’re guaranteed to make it work.
(glitch sound effects)
PARALLAX: There are a couple of problems that I can find in this argument.
For one, Zern is trying to frame this situation
as if paying a hefty sum of money to an entrepreneur guru is the only way for you to turn your life around.
In a way, it influences people who are struggling financially to pay that amount of cash
for a dream that they will be able to pull themselves out of abject poverty.
It doesn’t matter if Zern Tan had pointed out to the audience
that his webinar is not a “get rich quick” scheme at the beginning, 
his entire point is nullified the second he started talking about his sob story,
his turning point in life when he met Mr. X
and asking the viewer if his USD500 investment to Mr. X is worth it.
By then, people have already forgotten about the one and only disclaimer he gave out.
They’re already so absorbed to the fact that paying for his course would change their life for the better.
And I find it problematic that he can’t seem to realize
that some people may look at his methods as just dirty manipulation.
Two, his entire premise crumbles once you realize that he might be using this story
as an excuse to be your coach or mentor.
People like Zern needs to have a reason why others should trust his wisdom and expertise,
and one way for him to gain that trust is to frame himself as some kind of a future mentor
to those who paid for his course –
even when he didn’t explicitly said so. 
But if you think that this point is very vague and doesn’t hold much water, then I don’t blame you.
This type of webinar is designed to be vague about the technicalities
and more about convincing people to buy courses.
But I don’t really have to look further to prove what I’m talking about.
(glitch sound effects)
ZERN TAN: Why do people struggle financially?
Hey, it’s Zern Tan here!
And I can tell you that there are many reasons why.
I don’t want to oversimplify it, but from my experience, it was because I was not trained.
I wasn’t taught how to do it, right?
Everything in life, you have to be taught or you have to learn and train how to do it step-by-step…
(glitch sound effects)
And I wish someone had told me,
“Zern, do e-commerce. It’s the next big thing.”
I wish someone had told me that.
And I have to find my own mentors, learn through the hard way through my own experiences., alright?
PARALLAX: Let me be clear with you; mentorship isn’t wrong,
but you need to be cautious when someone is offering to become a mentor
and wanting you to pay serious amount of cash for that.
When these two elements are involved,
there’s a high chance that you’re getting scammed by a con artist.
You don’t really have to profit off of people if you want to become a mentor to someone.
If you’re sincere in wanting to help people out financially,
there’s no need for you to offer these atrociously expensive coaching packages.
But I suppose selling shovels is much more profitable during the gold rush than digging for gold itself.
And three, I can’t help but scoff at fake gurus such as Zern Tan using this “I just want to help you” line
as an excuse to sell their courses.
Because, why, Zern Tan was built differently from the rest of those fake gurus out there. Right?
I mean, in the webinar, he did tell the audience
that he would usually charge USD2,997 outside of his webinar at the very least.
ZERN TAN: But because you’re here, because I want to send the elevator back down to others,
because I want YOU to create your hero life within the next 30 to 60 days,
I’m only going to charge you USD497 today.
Or five payments of USD147, okay?
So, what I encourage you to do right now is to get started, click on the offer button on the right hand side.
It should be showing in your chat right now.
Click on it and you need to get started right now, because this is truly a limited time offer and this will go fast.
(glitch sound effects)
PARALLAX: Of course.
Because kindness has a time limit, after all.
(revving sound effects)
Now that we’ve established what’s wrong with the statement given by Zern Tan,
now we want to know what type of side hustle he’s been doing before creating Heroist.
ZERN TAN: So, who am I to teach you all this stuff, right? Okay?
I built multiple companies.
At the bottom there’s a picture of me with Namewee, he’s a famous celebrity from Malaysia.
I’m from Malaysia, by the way.
I own companies around the world like my Singapore company
and bank transactions that I showed you at the beginning of the webinar.
But I’m from Malaysia.
And other photos are an influencer marketing agency in Malaysia
and these are some of our female influencers inside of my company.
PARALLAX: So, what company is he talking about?
Well, he was talking about Millionials, of course.
Now, this is the company he founded alongside a man named Cruise Tan.
How do I know that he is a co-founder for Millionials?
When you go to their Facebook page and see the picture that they’ve posted,
you can see two similar posters – one for Cruise Tan and another for Zern Tan.
And you can see one similarity that they had.
While it’s true that both of them are founders for Millionials, don’t get confused.
Because Cruise Tan is the actual Don of this company, not Zern.
If you do a little digging, you will start to realize that Cruise Tan still has an active presence for Millionials,
while Zern Tan was made scarce from the company for quite some time.
And I was left wondering why that was the case.
But, in the end, I don’t have a definitive answer for that.
FUTURE PARALLAX: Stop.
Now... I thing I forget to mention about, um... Millionials is that Millionials didn't start off as a modelling company.
Uhm... it started off as an e-commerce company, uhh... just like Heroist.
Uhm... I just found out about it about a couple of days ago.
I was in the middle of editing this video.
The deadline is approaching.
But it's fine.
Because, uhh... I'm going to include it now, so...
Here it goes.
(Zern Tan clapping once)
(Future Parallax pressing the spacebar)
FUTURE PARALLAX: Okay, uhm... you get the idea.
And... do you know that they also sell a –
(laughs)
Uhh... a package course if you sign up for Millionials... coaching course once upon a time?
Before they eventually turned into a modelling company?
Uhh... yeah...
MYSTERY MAN: Hey, what's going on? This is .
And I'm just gonna cut to the chase in this video because frankly you don't have a lot of time to make a decision
on the M:Commerce coaching program, alright?
(elevator music playing)
[I seriously couldn't be bothered captioning this section of the video.]
[In essence, he's just trying to pressure you to buy the course IMMEDIATELY.]
[Saying that you should take a risk and Tesco and all that jazz.]
[By the way, why is he talking as if he was touching his lips on the microphone?]
[Like, the audio is peaking for no reason whatsoever, it's not pleasant for the ears. Minor edits were applied to make it bearable.]
[Whatever, it's not like that video is mine or anything – he can do whatever he wants, really.]
[Don't worry, I'll talk more about this Mystery Man around the end of the video. I'm not forgetting it.]
[Say, I've been thinking about making a new lighthearted video after this one. What do you think I should do?]
[A review video about Kimi no Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi, maybe? Or a video talking about Yandere Dev?]
[Hold on a second...]
(people couughing in the background)
[Yeesh... couldn't even record his lines alone.]
[I know it's tedious to hear him talk, but I'm just trying to illustrate my point about Millionials' early nature.]
[I hope you understand. And I do hope I helped you cope through his insufferable and incoherent speech somewhat.]
[Time's almost up. Let's get back to the video. Until next time!]
FUTURE PARALLAX: Yeah, uhm... you get the point.
FUTURE PARALLAX: So, onward to the main video.
PARALLAX: Let’s go back to the poster featuring Zern. 
We get to see his face, his self-introduction,
and a quote from what looks like a motivational speaker praising Zern.
You can pause the video if you want to read it in detail,
but there’s one thing that I wanted to point out.
ZERN TAN: And this is me being featured by Tom Haupt, bestselling author, and international speaker.
Really nice guy and that’s some of the things that I’ve achieved over the past few years.
PARALLAX: See that quote from Tom Haupt?
I scoured through the Internet trying to find this exact quote from Tom Haupt laying endorsement for Zern Tan.
As you might have guessed, I have no luck finding it.
So, I go out of my way to contact him via email asking for clarification.
I asked him if he had ever personally known or met Zern before
and if he had ever explicitly laid any kind of open endorsement to him.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t even allowed to show you the screenshots of the emails between me and Tom Haupt.
How can I possibly do it?
He made sure to put a disclaimer below each reply he sent to me about him being protected
under the Australian Telecommunications Act of 1997.
But, if you must know…
I’ll show you the difference between the first version of Zern Tan’s webinar and his newer third version.
From there, I think you can draw your own conclusion
as to what had happened after I contacted Tom Haupt.
ZERN TAN: As you can see, on the top, on vacations to various destinations as well.
And this is me being featured by Tom Haupt, bestselling author, and international speaker.
Really nice guy and that’s some of the things that I’ve achieved over the past few years.
But let me tell you the truth – things weren't always this way, yeah?
ZERN TAN: As you can see, on the top, on vacations to various destinations as well.
But let me tell you the truth – things weren't always this way, yeah?
PARALLAX: Cool, we now know that one of the companies he founded is Millionials.
What else?
He did say earlier that he had built multiple companies around the world.
So, where is it? Where’s the proof?
(shrugs)
Nobody knows.
There’s no way for us to verify that claim other than his own mouth.
I’ve already said this before, but once you invest your money into a course that promised you good returns
and you didn’t even get what was advertised,
there’s little chance for you to pull back.
You wanted to believe that you’re right when it comes to investing on these gurus.
But when their courses failed you, you’re led to believe that the problem comes from you.
And you will be led to spend more and more of your precious money on a promise that will never come.
This is the turning point that you should be extremely cautious of.
This warning is applicable not just to Zern Tan’s courses,
but to any fake online gurus’ courses you’ve come across.
I’m not saying that Zern Tan had done all of this.
Because frankly, I don’t have any evidence to suggest that he blamed his followers
for not being able to bring in the dough for themselves.
If he didn’t do it, then good for him.
However, I couldn’t help wondering to myself that something was still amiss in all of this.
But then I realized that there are more things to be said about his courses
and the methods he used to hook people in.
Let’s talk about manipulation.
PARALLAX: This topic is what prompted me to do this video in the first place.
Because Zern Tan’s courses are rife with so much manipulation and predatory behavior,
whether he realized this or not.
We’ll be breaking this down into several points for brevity's sake.
Without further ado, let’s get down to business.
This type of manipulation was used by Zern Tan in both of his ads and his pre-recorded webinar.
The latter is the one in which this tactic was used in full effect,
in tandem with the second point that I wanted to make later on.
If you need any examples for this point, look no further than his sob story.
He tells people of the lowest points of his life to garner sympathy
and to try conjuring this image that he was just like you before.
It is to say that he just wants to be as relatable to an average Joe as much as possible.
And he tells them the turning point of how he became successful from Mr. X’s coaching lesson
to justify his coaching lessons to you.
If this example doesn’t convince you yet,
here’s a couple of clips from his pre-recorded webinar that proves what I just said:
ZERN TAN: What I want you to do right now is click on the button, get started right now because this is it.
This is your time, okay?
Sometimes it is the smallest decision that will change your life forever.
Click that button right now, log in and I want to see you inside of the community.
So, what you have to do is click on that button and sign up right now because this is risk-free,
and I made it as easy as possible for you.
And this is the decision that you have to make right now and get a complete shift in your life,
to transform your life like hundreds of people that I’ve shown you today.
Because I know you want this.
I know you’re hungry.
I know you want to make a change in your life.
What you have to do right now is click on that button and just trust me on this, alright?
PARALLAX: It works every time.
And if you think that that’s the only thing that he did, then I have some bad news for you.
It gets worse.
ZERN TAN: So, let us just walk through your choices real quick.
So, number one – option number one is do actually nothing.
So, you know what happens if you do nothing?
Most people likely, you go back to whatever you were doing and your life stays exactly the same,
keep living your current life paycheck to paycheck just like my life before meeting my first mentor
for the next five, ten, twenty, thirty years.
Or, you try this on your own and waste tens and thousands of dollars.
If I were to be able to get all these information, get coaching, I will have switched my life
from being called and proven a failure over and over again to a life of freedom, abundance and choice
and finally prove everyone wrong.
It’s crazy, alright?
And worse-case scenario for you, if you do nothing,
you missed out the opportunity of your life five to ten years later, instead of living your dream life, you ask yourself,
“What if? What if I believed in my dreams being possible? What if I have made that decision to say yes today?” 
Alright?
Your five to ten years later, you’re like somewhere, like, thinking back, like,
“Huh, what if this actually work, you know?”
Option two–you can click the button and give this a shot.
And I will ask you to try this out and most likely,
what would happen is that you’ll get results just like hundreds of Malaysians had.
I’ve shown you a few of them just now.
And you know you can create that income that you desire and live the live that you want.
All this in a few weeks.
Or the worse-case scenario is that you take action,
you don’t get results and I will give you a full refund plus I give you another USD100, you know?
If you at least give this an honest attempt.
“You know what, I have no regrets, at least I have tried it and I got a USD100."
And that’s honestly the worse case of the worst that can happen if you click that button and enroll today.
PARALLAX: As said before, this type of manipulation cannot manifest itself into full potential
unless you pair it up with the first point that I’ve made.
Combining both of these tactics can elicit this sense of urgency and panic for the viewer
to do the things that others wanted.
It’s bad enough for somebody like Zern Tan tapping into your emotions to build personal trust with you.
It’s made much worse by the fact that you were given what seemed like a huge discount
for a limited amount of time.
Supposedly once it expires, the deal’s gone and you can no longer claim it.
But what if I tell you that those offers never went away?
Now, I know what you’re wondering.
“Why do they feel the need to put a countdown timer in the first place?”
The answer is quite simple.
They needed to do this to add artificial scarcity to their offerings.
Such a move usually means their course isn’t good enough
to withstand any type of critical thought whatsoever.
And every time the fake gurus deployed this tactic, people will more likely to buy their coaching courses.
Not because they believed that they are credible and trustworthy,
but because they are compelled to make a choice in a short time.
There is no way people could’ve make an informed decision
when they are only afforded with such limited time to think this through.
And it speaks volumes just how scared people like Zern are
with the prospect of being put under heavy scrutiny.
PARALLAX: As you can probably guess, Zern Tan included a lot of testimonials from a lot of people,
be it in a form of video or a screenshot. 
But all of them have one thing in common: there’s no way for people outside to know things
such as the name of their business and auditing how much they earned.
Such obscurity for details like these made the collection of testimonials presented almost meaningless and vapid.
It could be true, but I advise not to put much stock in what they have to say.
Always proceed with caution and skepticism.
And don’t forget that Zern Tan supposedly has a total of 568 testimonials in his Reviews page.
Can you guess how many of it actually got featured in that page?
Only 19 videos.
When he only has this little to show after boasting how many reviews he’s garnered,
you knew something was up.
It gives an impression that Zern handpicked the very few who are deemed successful in his courses
and conveniently forget to include the rest of them.
I don’t think it’s an accident.
I do believe he knows what he’s doing.
But he’s free to prove me wrong with that assumption I’ve made.
While we’re on the topic of testimonials,
I would like to point one instance in which Zern Tan used a 15-year-old kid as a testimonial of his coaching success.
(glitch sound effects)
PARALLAX: I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know which one is worse –
fabricating another story to make it seem that the course is easy to follow that a kid could rake in handsome profits,
or the story is true, and Zern decided to use a kid to prove his course’s legitimacy.
In my opinion, it’s shady to use a kid to prove that the course is legit.
And I’m saying this not just to Zern Tan, but to those fake gurus who pulled off this same manipulative shtick.
There are some things that kids simply cannot do.
Giving consent to share their personal information is one of them.
There is a reason why parental consent exists.
It’ll be a different story altogether had the parents already consented to Zern sharing their kid’s information.
But a big part of me doubts that they would ever allow that to happen to their kid.
The fact that Zern didn’t see any problems doing so shows how little he cared about the kid’s right to privacy.
More importantly, it just goes to show how deep he’s willing to dig himself deeper into his hole,
disregarding all common sense and integrity he had left.
All because he wanted to pull people into his coaching courses.
The worst part about this is that if this kid exists, this kid will forever be clowned on by the Internet
for even having ties with Zern Tan.
And it’s not even the kid’s fault.
PARALLAX: In every single offer you see on the Internet that is too good to be true, there will always be a catch.
The same thing applies to Zern Tan’s ShopHelper Academy course.
But, to understand what I’m getting at, we have to see what he has to say about refunds.
(glitch sound effects)
ZERN TAN: So, we have a company policy that says,
“if we can’t make you money, then we don’t deserve yours.”
So, everything right here comes with a 30-day guarantee.
So, you get started today, you don’t make money, and we will give your money back, okay?
But I decided, you know what?
Maybe some people will take a little longer.
I decided to make this offer even better.
So, I’m going to give you a 60-day guarantee instead.
So, you get to try it out for 60 days completely risk-free.
And I decided to make this even better!
If you don’t see results, maybe you don’t believe me yet in this whole ShopHelper thing,
so I want you to just try it out and believe it for yourself
when you see the results that are coming in–into your email, your Shopify app,
when you see the shoppers coming in, then you will start believing it, right?
So, I made this even better.
I’m going to do you even better.
If you don’t see results, if you apply what I’m saying,
if you don’t see results, I’m going to give you an extra USD100 and say,
“sorry I didn’t deliver, you know.”
You basically get to keep a free USD100 if you just sign up today.
Try it – you don’t make any money, you basically get a free USD100.
That’s it, alright.
So, there’s no way you can lose here, okay?
PARALLAX: Except that it wasn’t as straightforward as you might think.
Let’s examine Heroist’s Terms of Service page and go down to their Refund Policies.
As you can see, you can get out of this ShopHelper Academy without a hitch within three days after purchase.
However, once the grace period is over and you want to get out of this course, 
Heroist will hold on to you with a vice-like grip.
If you’re very insistent on dropping this course after the fact,
you have to meet a set of actions required for you to do so.
A set of roadblocks if you may.
Upon reading further into it, one of the requirements stipulated wanted you to pay
at least USD250 in Facebook ads to opt out of the ShopHelper Academy program.
As if paying at least USD500 is not expensive enough, you have to pay extra in Facebook ads
to prove that you’ve made “an honest attempt”, quote unquote.
I mean, what happened to more than 37 ways to attract customers without Facebook ads like he said in his webinar?
Well?
(glitch sound effects)
ZERN TAN: If you don’t want to run Facebook ads,
we got over 37 ways for you to attract shoppers to your store for free
and community to support you along the way
and coaches to support you along the way.
So truly, extremely different from other programs.
PARALLAX: Wait… are you trying to tell me that those 37 ways to attract shoppers to your store
without spending a single cent in Facebook ads don’t work at all? 
(shrug)
Seems like it.
Otherwise, Zern wouldn’t ask you to spend at least USD250 in Facebook ads if it actually worked.
And that is if you want to withdraw from his course.
He never tell you this directly now, did he?
And some of those requirements that he listed out are very arbitrary at best.
Sure, he will tell you that he doesn’t have the slightest intention
of withholding refunds to other people who had made “an honest attempt”.
But how do you measure an honest attempt, really?
(glitch sound effects)
You can do everything they told you to do
and there’s a chance that they will not grant you any refunds the way these policies were laid out.
Because, guess what?
Heroist are the ones that gets to decide how much of an “honest attempt” is enough.
Not you.
Those types of policies were designed to be vague
because it gives them an easier time spinning an excuse for you to stay put.
No matter how you look at it, you don’t have a say nor power in this matter.
And that is how it was intended to be.
PARALLAX: Not everyone has the same talents and skillsets.
It’s who we are as humans.
Not everyone can code, edit videos, cook, carpentering and so much more
with the same amount of proficiency and dexterity.
And that’s okay.
No one has a talent for everything, and no one can succeed at whatever they try, no matter how hard they try.
Take me for example.
I may be good with computers, but I’m not so good with things such as chemistry and biology.
And no matter how many times I tried to pay attention in class,
meeting my teacher and mentors,
and tried multiple avenues to be smarter in those two subjects, I just can’t get better.
I can relate to the feeling of frustration that comes after seeing all your efforts amount to so little progress.
Oftentimes, it’s fruitless.
And for the longest time, I felt bitter over my inability to be just like my peers who are smarter.
But as I scour through the Internet looking for material for this video,
I came across an article from Mike Bundrant.
The article that I’ve read detailed six signs that you’ve been scammed by a fake guru.
But, one thing stood out to me.
And I think you might find it interesting as well.
According to Mike, it doesn’t really matter if you’re not a jack of all trades.
It’s fine knowing and learning from your limitations.
To be a self-aware adult, you have to understand your limitations.
And I have to say, there is truth with what Mike has to say.
The same rule applies to e-commerce, as well.
Not everyone has the proficiency of doing this e-commerce hustle.
But fake gurus such as Zern Tan would like you to believe that everyone,
regardless of age and expertise,
has an equal opportunity to be successful in this endeavor when it’s not true.
I want to show you two clips of him trying to convince the audience to buy his course.
Here is Exhibit A.
This one shows him trying to convince young college students to buy his course.
ZERN TAN: “I’m still in college, will this work for me?”
Yes! You have seen . 
He’s in college and you know, he is 19 years old,
still studying and they didn’t start off with a lot of money but it still work for them.
They just followed the exact process which our coaches who are actually will be helping you,
guiding you and to create your first successes as quickly as possible.
So, if you’re still in college,
I truly understand that you may have doubt that you can actually make this work.
But absolutely, you have seen people just like you make this thing work.
So, you can too, alright?
PARALLAX: And here is Exhibit B.
This time, it shows him trying to convince older people with grandchildren to buy his course.
And I must say, hearing him trying to coax older people to buy his course really makes my skin crawl.
ZERN TAN: “I am older and have grandchildren. Can we start?”
Okay, yes.
The program has, like, all kinds of people who are really, really young.
Sometimes, like, 17-year old and there are people who is, like, sixty plus, okay?
So, honestly if you’re older and slower with technology, things like that, you might take a little longer.
However, you can always ask the children to take a look at the videos
and just follow along because it isn’t hard to do it.
It is super, super simple for them.
I’m not sure if it’s super, super simple for you, but I’m going to show you exactly how to do it for you.
Just click a few buttons.
There’s no quoting, none of that.
You can watch the video, you can click around on Facebook, you can actually know how to do it already.
It’s just mental blockages sometimes, right?
Because if we see something new, we have some kind of mental blockage, especially if you’re older.
However, if it’s actually really, really simple, if you want to do it,
you can pass it to your kids, your children, say to them, 
“Can you help me build this thing?"
"There’s videos and tutorials, 10 to 15 minutes, can you help me out?”
Then they’ll be able to do it easily, okay?
I promise you that.
They’ll be able to do it easily because there is no special skills needed
and all you have to do is click around on the interface.
That’s it, okay?
PARALLAX: Now, I wouldn’t go around and say that I have a lot of knowledge about e-commerce the way Zern does.
Because I obviously don’t.
But, even I could see that there’s risks involved with this whole e-commerce charade.
Think of it this way;
if it wasn’t difficult to tap into this industry, then every business would be successful.
And if it wasn’t challenging for a commoner like you and me, then everyone will be a business owner.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in that kind of world.
The fact that he’s trying to paint this field as if it’s the easiest thing for people to tap into is just misleading.
I don’t care if Zern has all the experience in the world to teach people for their success in e-commerce,
he should know better not to give people that false sense of hope and confidence.
Remember, he did say once in his webinar that his course is not a “get rich quick” scheme
and that it is not as simple as doing nothing and make money.
But the way he trumped up that course to people for so many times by the end of the webinar,
as if following his courses is a surefire way for everyone to obtain quick results in e-commerce confuses me.
That behavior ran in direct contradiction with the advice he gave out just two hours ago in his webinar.
And I genuinely don’t know if he even believed in his own advice.
But, guess what?
I am done talking about his manipulation tactics.
Because frankly, the more I talk about it, the more depressed I became.
Let’s talk about something else, shall we?
You want to know a fun little fact that I just realized?
It’s in Zern poster that I’ve shown you earlier.
Do you realize that there's a name that I’ve intentionally censored in this poster?
I’m trying to make this as a surprise for the end of this video.
And besides, I’m trying to make good with the promise I made around the beginning of the video
talking about this mysterious man.
MYSTERY MAN: Welcome, welcome!
Just to clarify, I’m not Zern Tan and this segment is not live.
PAST PARALLAX: Yes, you’re not Zern Tan.
In fact, you’re someone who is quite a prominent “e-commerce guru” once upon a time.
But we’ll come back to you in a bit.
PARALLAX: And the name of the man that we’re going to talk about is a man named Cason Bo. 
And just like Zern, Cason has a very intriguing history to explore.
PARALLAX: Cason Bo.
(glitch sound effects)
Co-founder of Heroist, a serial entrepreneur
and an International Best Seller that had received the award for W+ Product of the Year.
If you’re willing to do detective work like me, the first thing you want to know is knowing who he is.
A bit of Googling that took about five seconds or so proves that no such awards exist.
But wait, he’ll tell you that he got featured in Yahoo and Reuters,
but you can’t seem to find articles about him,
nor does he provide people with the said articles.
(Future Parallax hitting the spacebar)
FUTURE PARALLAX: And one other thing that he also mentioned before
is the fact that he was featured in major, uhh... American TV cable companies, like...
ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS – all that kind of stuff.
Not only you can't find any kind of footage or... anything of that sort to prove that he was featured in...
uhh... any of these TV stations, he have hired some, uhh... some woman from Fiverr to narrate this...
This lie of him being like the number one authority figure –
Whatever, you just... just... just watch this.
TAMERAK: Hello, and welcome!
Cason Bo's strategy session is only for real action-takers
who want a five to ten thousand dollar a month internet business within the next 90 days.
You're about to hear from a number one authority in building online businesses from scratch.
Cason Bo has been featured on ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS – 
and he has helped thousands of internet marketers build their businesses online
through his personal coaching, partnership programs, live workshops and training courses.
Cason was also ranked number one vendor in the whole of Warrior Plus.
You can see the huge amount of success stories Cason has created right below this video.
And he wants YOU to be his next success!
Here's a short message from Cason Bo.
Enjoy!
Cason Bo: Hey, what's going on?
Cason Bo here!
If you're watching this video, congratulations!
Because you're one of the few who are carefully selected among just hundreds and hundreds of applicants
to be part of my one-on-one coaching and partnership program, okay?
[At this point, I've already depleted all of my mental fortitude to listen Cason's bullshit.]
[Holy fuck, I want to bang my head against the wall.]
[By the way, did you know that my laptop just BSOD on me while I edited the captions you're reading right now?]
[Yeah, it's a bitch to redo this work again. Anyways, back to the video again.]
PARALLAX: You go down to his broken website and found the list of companies he was featured in,
some of which appeared twice.
But none of them are real companies.
You can’t even find any of their company names on the Internet.
Then you decided to go to his Facebook page.
His About page might just be a good place as any to read his comprehensive history.
Until you realize that you were hit with a sense of déjà vu.
Then, it clicked to you that the entire format for his About page on Facebook
is reminiscent of Zern Tan’s About page in Heroist.
I don’t think it’s such a biggie, but I think it’s interesting to point that one out.
He has the self-introduction, his epiphany, his turning point,
the time when he earned his first USD 3, The Four Success Lessons, Looking To The Future –
all the same.
But, we’re only just scratching the surface of who this guy is.
There’re more things to be said about Cason than just his shady credentials.
(glitch sound effects)
He didn’t come into the fake guru scene at the same time as Zern Tan.
He comes in way earlier than Zern himself –
around 2014 or so.
Cason tried to sell this course called “Easier Than Fiver” alongside a man named Gerald Soh.
This course is a system put together by both of the aforementioned individuals,
which claims to make up to USD80 per day without any investment using this system.
You don’t need a website, nor do you have to expose your personal information –
all the time you need to put into this system is only 20 minutes per day.
How do I know this?
If you’re typing in the name Cason Bo on any designated search engines you use,
you can take a glimpse of what people have to say about him.
Starting from Low Yat forums to an article review from Holy Smoke.
When you read through both of these, you started to realize that Cason didn’t exactly rake in the best track record out there.
(glitch sound effects)
And if you’re one with a keen eye,
you’ll realize that people forgot to talk about the co-author for the “Easier Than Fiverr” course, Gerald Soh.
This surprised me because his name was emblazoned alongside Cason’s name in their products.
Considering the circumstances, you would think that people would talk about his involvement in Cason’s course.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case. 
People just simply don’t pay attention to him, for one reason or another.
And I, for one, couldn’t say much about him.
(glitch sound effects)
But, at least we got a lot of information
regarding what exactly “Easier Than Fiverr” course is all about, and why Cason is considered a scammer.
There’s an article from Holy Smoke detailing the intricacies of this scam.
I recommend you reading this article in full, the link is in the description below.
In summary, the article states the overview of the course that Cason is trying to peddle –
the one that I’ve already stated before.
Then, the writer goes on by detailing his predatory behavior
by upselling the course that was initially supposed to be free.
After paying for the first course with a sum of USD18,
the writer explains that Cason was trying to sell another package to him, this time for USD60 –
but the writer refused, despite being served with the same new package minutes later with a discounted price.
Throughout Cason’s course video, he tried to justify to others why they should buy his new package –
juxtaposing it with his “Easier Than Fiverr” course.
Cason proceeds by telling people that this new course he was offering 
will be able to make several thousands of dollars for the user by doing nothing
but just easy copy and paste work for just a few minutes every single day.
The writer noted that not even a single one of the videos that Cason provided had any practical piece of advice
or anything to show that he had any viable business online that made him the number of earnings he was always claiming.
Sound familiar to you?
It sure does!
It’s the same problem that was pointed out to Zern Tan earlier in this video.
The apple just doesn't fall far from the tree.
He learned from the best, after all.
And speaking of which, you want to know what Cason did in each of the beginning of the clips?
According to the writer, boring talk on inspiration and an even more annoying talk on Source Market.
There are no sales secrets to be had here but boring filler.
All of that is to say that his course is just low effort, low-quality product bundled in a USD 18 package.
It’s just that bad.
Finally, the writer ends his rant by explaining his intentions of writing the piece in the first place –
to warn other people from taking Cason’s course and falling for the scam that the writer themselves did.
One final thing I would like to know about is this –
why does Zern Tan choose Cason Bo as his partner in business for Heroist?
We don’t exactly know his true intentions behind it, but we can infer from Zern’s old public Instagram account
about his thoughts on Cason in one of his posts as follows:
(sigh)
Based on the caption given by Zern, it’s obvious that he speaks highly of Cason Bo.
Cason might be Mr. X in Zern’s sob story,
albeit the circumstances in which they met each other is not so realistic.
If Zern begged Mr. X like a crazy person on a flight to Cambodia,
then the stewards or stewardesses are going to scold him for having an attitude on an airplane.
But hey, what do I know?
I’m not there to witness it.
But one thing is for sure –
Zern and Cason founded Heroist together,
offered a “free” online training course to people through advertisements by claiming a lot of extraordinary things,
in hopes of selling their course.
They used underaged kids as their promotional material
because they somehow can’t seem to find any other adults to manipulate and use.
When people did show up in their “live webinar”,
they’ll begin creating artificial scarcity to make people purchase their courses by impulse,
hyping their courses to oblivion,
giving everyone a false narrative of how e-commerce is
if people would just cough up their money for their course,
and the cycle goes on and on.
(deep inhale)
(sigh)
Predatory marketing at its finest.
PARALLAX: I wish I have a light-hearted message to give out before ending this video.
In the end, I just couldn’t find any other way to save this video from being a depressing piece overall.
Zern Tan wasn’t the first, but he won’t be the last of the litany of fake gurus out there in the wild.
And despite Heroist’s business being technically legal under the Malaysian law,
it still feels wrong for me to not point out the blatant manipulation they used against people.
The only way for us to combat this behavior is by spreading awareness to others.
But it might not be enough.
While it’s true that the reason why some people choose to believe in this scam is that they’re greedy,
I don’t think those demographics are the majority.
No, the majority of the people who took this scam are desperate people with financial woes.
More often than not, these people are more inclined to believe in fake gurus promising financial freedom
due to their dire circumstances.
It’s hard for most of us to imagine how it feels like to be living in abject poverty every day,
probably not being able to afford necessities such as food or water –
or even taking care of our kids.
Unfortunately, a lot of people are like that out there.
Desperate people do desperate things to stay afloat –
and seeing them being easy targets for these fake gurus is just saddening.
Despite what Zern Tan did was messed up on so many levels,
I don’t want people to go out of their way to harass him,
or Cason,
or their families,
none of that.
I do not support this behavior and I openly condemn those who tried to do this.
The purpose of this video is to analyze and verify the backstory he gave out,
as well as criticizing his egregious business practices.
This was never about organizing a hate mob against him.
Please, I implore you to be better than this.
I’m willing to accept the fact that I might get some information wrong in this video,
despite my best efforts in conveying the information as accurately as possible.
If you see one, I do hope you can point it out in the comment section below.
But, that was the whole point of this video, isn’t it?
You shouldn’t believe everything that was being said on the Internet.
Not even from me.
And certainly not from Zern nor Cason.
It’s up to you to discern fact from fiction based on the information given to you.
So, the next time you hear someone on the Internet claiming they have adopted a system
that has helped them generate millions of dollars of sales online,
on top of saying they want to give this knowledge away for free,
ask yourself.
Is this person trustworthy,
and what is the catch for this whole thing?
It might just save you in the end.
GARRETT: Here I was, worrying about getting rich and all, but...
A lot of us around, we... we don't need to be rich to be happy, alright?
And it's those thoughts that were like the special ones –
we're the star of our own movie, we're destined for greatness.
Those were the thoughts that they want you to feel and they will prey on you for feeling that way.
So, go out there, do great things, umm...
You know, don't be a sheep person.
And if you can produce a service or a product or an idea that makes you millions –
hey, congratulations.
But don't fucking use this psychological tactics, like these people – these fake gurus.
Because they're not in it to improve your life one bit.
They're there to destroy your life and to make themselves look at you.
