Meet the South African brothers conning coaches out of thousands through their online lead generation business
Their business goes under different names including Millionaire Performance, Clients2Calendar and Scale Cave.
Dirk de Jager wants you to believe that he's a success story in the world of online marketing.
An engineering graduate from South Africa, the online entrepreneur claims to have risen from financial hardship to $5.3 million in sales in the “New Digital Economy” over the last few years.
Now based in the US, his Instagram pushes out the usual fare from self-styled gurus steeped in hustle culture to his 121,000 followers: a big house, luxury vacations, and trite maxims about the secret to success.
Along with his brother Bruwer, Dirk runs an online business under several names offering lead generation services for coaches. “I’m on a mission to help 100,000 people achieve financial freedom,” Dirk wrote in his LinkedIn bio.
Yet, many of their former clients claim their experiences were far from liberating. Scamurai interviewed eight individuals who allege they were lured into the de Jagers’ scheme by enticing packages and a money-back guarantee — only to find that the duo failed to deliver.
A coach for coaches
The coaching industry has boomed in recent years, with over 71,000 coaches worldwide helping clients achieve personal and professional goals. According to the International Coaching Federation, the sector was valued at $4.56 billion in 2022.
Among those trying to make a business in the industry is Aisling Powell, a Dublin-based business coach. In August 2023, Powell was approached by an Instagram account under the name Emmie Millie, offering a "done-for-you Instagram shoutout system" designed to generate leads for her business. This introduction led her to Clients 2 Calendar (C2C), a company run by the de Jager brothers.
C2C promoted itself as a lead generation service with impressive results. “You’re about to discover the secrets behind how I grow and scale my own companies,” reads the text beneath a picture of Dirk on the website.
“I’m offering you my entire $7M+/year business infrastructure on a plate. It’s called The Unbreakable Infrastructure. The moment you log into this program, I’ll give away the farm to you,” the pitch continued.
C2C promised bold results: “30 appointments in 30 days” and “3+ qualified sales calls per day in the first seven days.” Testimonials boasted "64 appointments in the first 30 days" and "$30k in sales”.
The major selling point, however, was the company’s guarantee: If clients didn’t double their investment in six months, they would receive a full refund. It seemed like a no-risk deal, so in August, Powell and her business partner April Kerr paid the company $6,000.
Things went wrong quickly.
C2C’s lead generation method involved using external contractors based in Pakistan to do the grunt work of contacting potential clients over social media. Despite the company's claims that the appointment setters were “certified”, clients reported multiple problems.
Among them, clients said the setters did not understand the service they were promoting or reach out to potential clients in appropriate ways. Powell said one setter addressed everyone she reached out to as “Danielle”.
Even more concerning, the setters often used fake profile pictures and names, giving the impression they were in Europe or America when they were actually in Pakistan. Clients who gave the setters access to their own personal social media accounts found that platforms like Instagram suspended them for spamming.
Powell and two other clients Scamurai spoke to said that they offered to train the setters themselves but were told they could not do so by Bruwer.
The payment system for the setters was also unusual. Clients of C2C were required to pay the setters separately to the payment that was made to C2C. Their salaries were set at $300 per month but setters would only start receiving this salary from the date they booked their first call for a client.
This system led to frequent disputes between setters and clients over payments. Setters often went unpaid when they believed they were owed, with both sides having been made different promises by Dirk and Bruwer.
Powell, who went through 11 different setters in six months, never received a single booking for a call with a potential client.
When she requested a refund, Bruwer demanded she first pay the setters even though they hadn’t delivered results. When she suggested deducting the payment from her refund as a gesture of goodwill, Bruwer refused. He stopped replying to her and Dirk blocked her on Instagram.
(Some people Scamurai spoke to did pay the setters despite not being required to do so by the terms of the contract; they still did not receive a refund.)
Unreasonable demands
What Powell didn’t know at the time was that she wasn’t alone. And C2C was only one of the de Jagers’ ventures.
Registered in Delaware in May 2022, Millionaire Performance promised everything C2C did and similarly left clients feeling conned. It even had the same core staff.
Harry Nouhan, the founder of My Sales Coaching Hub, paid $5,500 for Millionaire Performance's services in July 2022. “I really wanted it to work,” he said.
Instead he encountered the same problems as Powell: poor results, vague contracts, and no response when he requested a refund. "They got me one appointment in six months when they guaranteed ten a month," he said, adding that the sole appointment ended in a no-show.
(The ten appointments were a verbal promise from Dirk and not included in the terms of the written contract. This was also the case for multiple clients Scamurai spoke to, where what was advertised and offered in calls was not included in the deliverables outlined in the contract.)
When pressed about a refund in a month-and-a-half-long exchange, Bruwer accused Nouhan of making "unreasonable" demands, despite the money-back guarantee in the contract.
In December 2023, Nouhan filed a lawsuit against them. They did not acknowledge it. Nouhan considered obtaining a default judgement but eventually cut his losses after his lawyer advised that it would require spending thousands more dollars with a very low likelihood of being able to collect.
Millionaire Performance’s website shut down as they shifted to operating under the name C2C. But the Delaware company still exists. It is listed with a status of “cease good standing” due to its failure to pay $1,135 in tax.
Little recourse
Despite winning an award for generating over a million dollars in sales, the de Jagers have left a trail of dissatisfied clients. How many is not certain. Dirk claims to have helped over 650 businesses in two years, while Bruwer's LinkedIn profile states they manage over 960 active campaigns.
The fact that the de Jagers attract clients from all around the world makes seeking legal recourse against them difficult due to the different jurisdictions involved. Attempts to initiate chargebacks against their companies have proved futile due to the time passed since the initial payment was made.
Powell approached the US Secret Service. She was told they wouldn’t investigate cases under $250,000 in losses. Nouhan took the de Jagers to court and they ignored his suit.
Another client who lost $7,500 sought action in Delaware but was turned away by authorities due to jurisdictional issues.
In an effort to warn others, some clients have taken to platforms like Trustpilot, where C2C has an average rating of 2.7. Some reviews call the company a scam, but there are also positive reviews — from accounts in Pakistan, suggesting they may be written by appointment setters. Strangely, several give low scores but leave positive comments.
The de Jagers have made other efforts to counter negative content about them online. They have published several articles in pay-to-play publications lauding Dirk’s business acumen.
Lewis Ellis, a UK-based former customer of the de Jagers, showed Scamurai messages of Bruwer offering him his money back if he took down a negative post on LinkedIn about his experience with them. (Ellis never received that money. The post is still up.)
Powell is currently trying to track down other former clients of the de Jagers. She’s found 22 people so far. “I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” she said.
Meanwhile, people continue to fall victim to their tactics. The de Jagers have shed C2C and rebranded once again. They now have businesses under the name of Scale Cave and Jager Lounge VIP. Little about their business model has changed except the name.
Scamurai made multiple attempts to contact Dirk and Bruwer through social media and email. We received no response.
Several days after contacting Dirk via Instagram, his account disappeared. At the time of publishing, it remained inaccessible.
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Scamurai, Who are you to publish articles on the internet not even knowing the term ''Scam''.
Do you know the meaning of a scammer?
This is someone who take your money without providing you a services.
As one of the Fulfillment managers working with our lead gen clients, the team was working on each client's business for 180-days.
This worked out between $500-800/month having the following support.
1. Access to a Mastermind that costed $18k.
2. We build out clients offer pages for them, included in this cost.
3. These clients had access to our client success manager for 180-days for any support needed.
4, Full Time Cop Writer.
5. 3 Fulltime campaign momagers that worked on their business 6-days week for a period of 180-days.
6. Content creator that created weekly post for their business.
7. Members working on their business to bring them in leads.
8. Managers, managing these members for them.
So if you had to spent $3-5000 for a team of this scale to work on your business for a period of 6-months would you say this is a scam?
Sure, if you work with over 900 clients, and 10-15 are not doing well that is normal for any business due to the type of offers they wanted us to promote.
We had clients doing up to $120-220k/months but they had high in demand offers.
Point is, based on al of this information Better get your facts right before calling people scams.
This is a brilliant article and summarises exactly what happened to me. My poor setter even told me that the company never paid her waht she was owed and she couldn't even afford here rent. She is also from Pakistan. They have no regards for ethics and values at all.