You've probably seen one or dozens of those funny Internet adverts for some product to help with improving your guitar playing, your chess, your tennis skills or to lose weight. I mean the ones with a lengthy page consisting of large-font promises, lists of "the secret they don`t want you to know about" and "the surprising tip for instant results", effusive testimonials from delighted customers, and at the bottom of the (very long) screen, a picture of a shiny box containing the disks and books that make up the product. I don`t know exactly why, but I find something profoundly dubious about that style of marketing.

A random example: http://chess-teacher.com/selfteacher

I`ve never bought one of these items, but what I`d like to know is simply this: do you actually receive a box like that containing all those goodies? Or are those images just templates or something like clipart?

Have any of you purchased a boxed set product? And if so, were you satisfied with the goods?

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I'd think it would be a pretty safe bet you'd get the set in the picture, since it wouldn't cost much to create (but the quality of the finish and the quality of the content might not be certain). That said, that chess course you posted lookes pretty interesting. Tempting even. I'd happily buy it if I thought I had the time (of course "GM in 2 weeks" etc claims are just advertising junk). Search the internet and if there's no clamour of hoax or just silence then I'd trust it.

e.g.
http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1305044414

edit: actually I'd probably just save my money and invest time rather than dollars

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I am John. John-I-Am.