Welcome to Wallyworld

Well, well, well. Three holes in the ground. I've been messing about with so-called "Belcher Buttons" recently - "Buy Now" buttons that Perry Belcher invented. These ugly-assed buttons are supposed to out-perform any other website buy button. Belcher tested every element in over 10,000 trials. He found that the broken red coupon style line, "Add to Cart" and that vomit-inducing orange were the triggers that got people to click through and buy. Fair play to him. So I Googled his name today and look what I found -

Agrees to forfeit $1M in assets, Web pages

By Lawrence Buser (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

A Shelby County man who scammed thousands of hopeful customers worldwide with bogus health-remedies pleaded guilty Monday to computer fraud and agreed to forfeit cars, motorcycles, bank accounts and other property.

Perry Belcher, whose name still rings up more than 20 pages of hits on Internet searches, received a 10-year suspended sentence, but agreed to six pages of special conditions that include the forfeitures and an agreement to place his professional life under a law-enforcement microscope.

The stocky Belcher, 44, who owned property in the Cordova, Eads and Lakeland areas, sold and shipped homeopathic remedies for everything from hair lice to varicose veins. Prosecutors said the promises of cures were fraudulent and that the remedy ingredients were common items available in drugstores and supermarkets.

Beginning in 2002, he created Web sites for Selmedica, Increase Media and numerous related enterprises offering scientific research by fictional doctors and fake testimonials from users attesting to the value of his products.

"We have victims from virtually every continent and there allegedly are several thousand victims," said Steve Crossnoe of the District Attorneys Office White Collar Crime Prosecution Unit. "People were not receiving what they thought they were receiving. The medical research was fictional. The doctors were fictional."

Belcher declined comment.

Under the special conditions of probation Belcher must end his career of false and misleading sales and marketing and forfeit his many Web page sites.

He also must forfeit three cars, a pickup truck, a motorcycle, four all-terrain vehicles, camcorders, two televisions, four luxury watches and bank accounts totaling more than $1 million.

Belcher agreed to the destruction of thousands of bottles of his homeopathic and herbal remedies, e-books and health books seized by the Shelby County Sheriff's Department in a raid in March.

The agreement will allow him to keep $150,000, computers, a gold ring with an amethyst stone and autographed pictures of Muhammad Ali, George Burns, Bill Clinton, Morgan Freeman, Willie Nelson, Babe Ruth, Tim Robbins and three unknown autographs.