The article seemed pretty balanced actually. He is not a convicted criminal thanks to unfortunate loopholes..

Tracking his business closely would be a good opportunity for legislators looking to reform payment systems. But any reform would have to affect a whole class of payments designed based on human psychological defects. I.e. a good reform is a big battle with most phone companies, gyms, etc.

I found it funny to reach the end and see their affiliate marketing... So, thanks "theatlantic", and I would fund your article through what sounds like a very legitimate affiliate retirement plan, but Jesus is already a part of my father's retirement plan. (He swears to him he'll never retire.)

I suspect The Atlantic's legal department may have had some input during the editing of this piece. Look at the section of the OA that reads (my emphasis in italic)

"That May, Decker filed the FTC’s suit against him. (Willms, I should note, has never been charged with any crime; the FTC’s authority is civil, not criminal.) The complaint accused Willms of nine separate infractions, from illegally charging consumers’ credit cards to deceiving customers about “risk free” offers and outside endorsements."

Every company and entrepreneur has to trick people into buying their product. Anyone who has worked in sales or has seen it up close knows this. You cannot sell people anything by providing them with mere facts and convincing them of the correctness of those facts. You have to convince them to trust you and your product, to believe it will deliver what it promises, completely independent of overwhelming factual evidence.

Example: we have first hand experience with the following: we did a pilot project and the project manager personally testified that we saved them 500K in costs, at a < 50K expense. Nevertheless we had a hard time selling the company our product for use in other projects.

You have to trick people into buying your product, even if you know it's objectively in their best interest. So yes, this guy definitely has a useful talent.

I'm not condoning his actions by any means, but by most accounts Willms is an exceptional marketer. I say this as someone who has spent the better part of the previous decade in the affiliate industry, and although I've never personally interacted with Jesse I do know several people that have. That said, I've never heard of anyone in the affiliate game refer to Jesse as a "legend" as this author proclaims, but he is respected for his creative advertising techniques. Simply put, his relentless pursuit in optimizing his marketing message is often what made his products convert visitors into customers at a much higher rate than any of his equally-shady competitors.

this guy exists because of the "dont do evil" googles and the yahoos that are willing to work with him even when they know he is a scammer. Because they make a lot of money with people like him,it's their core business.

Who is the real criminal in that story ? the guy is an horrible individual sure, yet he is insanely rich now thanks to the googs and the yahs.

Not defending the guy but it would appear from the article that he isn't a criminal, because there is no charge for breaking the spirit of the law, only the actual law. The recurring charges are legal because the terms are on the checkout page.

It's out and out scamming but it appears to be difficult to prosecute.