Fake Blog aka Flog

A few high profile scams lately using fake testimonials have drawn the ire of many consumer defenders, including some state Attorney Generals. While the practice of using “paid” reviews has long been a sales technique on and offline, the use of fake testimonials is downright disgusting. Once the FTC’s rules are in effect, you will have to be prepared to disclose the contact info of those providing testimonials.

Many advertisers will give a blogger a free sample and ask them to write a review on the product, they may pay the blogger, or they may offer some other benefit. Soon These benefits will have to be clearly disclosed. The rules would include a review of a book that you recently read and, as an Amazon affiliate; you have posted a link so that readers would be able to purchase the book. Perhaps you are a parent that received a free product, like a coupon to try organic baby food. You blog about how good you think the product is. On your blog, you will have to be very clear that you received a free sample. Everyone will be open to scrutiny, not just those that use their blogs to generate an income.

Offline companies are responsible for the actions of their sales reps and that responsibility will extend to online sales. It appears that the FTC will include bloggers, even those that blog for personal reasons, as a part of advertiser’s responsibility. This means that we may see many changes in affiliate programs as companies and advertising networks struggle to comply.

Let me be clear, the bloggers and/or sites may not be in the US at all. Rightly or not, the US has been long known to claim that if a US resident is able to access a site, that site and the owner of that site are subject to US law. The upshot may be that it may be easier for non-US based advertisers to require the use of geographic blocking technology be used so that US residents are not able to access sites that offer “paid” reviews of their products. This technology is available because the ranges of IPs that are used in the US are blocked.

My guess is that whether or not the FTC is the proper body to regulate is a topic that will generate many heated discussions. The FTC is currently working on rules that will change how bloggers blog about any products and they expect that the rules will be in place by the early fall of 2009.

Flippa

To sum it up, as both a regular seller and buyer on Sitepoint, this move has been disasterous. It’s obvious from talk, posts, and tweets around the net that I am not alone in thinking this way either. Most have been irked from the moment the announcement was made, and the reaction from Sitepoint owners and management has done absolutely NOTHING to make most of us regulars feel any better about the move. The reason for the move was supposedly because their marketplace had “outgrown its tab”. I find this highly unlikely. That “tab” was generating tens of thousands of dollars monthly for them!

It seems ego and complete unprofessionalism are more Sitepoint’s style these days. When confronted with hundreds of comments and complaints about not only the impending move, but the total lack of warning about that move occured, SitePoint co-founder, Mark Harbottles’ response is nothing short of appalling:

Our buyers aren’t going anywhere. They are savvy business people. They don’t care about the design of the site or the fact the logo sucks (the current logo is a placeholder BTW), they simply get on with the business of buying, and we’ve made it a lot easier for them to do that on flippa.com.

Meanwhile while you all whine and complain about the fees, the design, etc. the smart sellers are listing their sites on flippa.com and they are attracting the majority of the buyer interest. They will also get the added benefit of the PR we’re about to roll out.

So, it’s totally up to you! If you want to come across to flippa and sell your site in the professional marketplace we’re creating for serious buyers, we welcome you with open arms. If not, please do go to digitalpoint. List your site for free and see if the old adage of “you get what you pay for” applies.

A Summary of The Flippa Flop:

• The name is ridiculous and unprofessional. It leads one to believe that it’s all about “flipping for profit”, and not targeting the revenue potential of owning a piece of web property long term.
• The new fee structure is nothing less than greedy. Their previous plan lined their pockets more than adequately for the service provided. There was no need to add a 5% success fee, when NO additional services are offered nor provided, to justify that fee.

  I asked @sitepointmatt about this fee. Here is the conversation:

  sitepointmatt @Lukevdp GreatDomains, AfterNIC, Sedo.com, etc. all take a _MUCH_ higher success fee…

  iBlogaholic @sitepointmatt Sedo etc act as intermediaries – you dont. Whats the justification for list fee + success fee except for greed?

  sitepointmatt @iBlogaholic Sedo charges 10% for successful sales through its marketplace. If they get involved in escrow, it’s an additional percentage.

  iBlogaholic @sitepointmatt Granted yes, but, it’s also free to list at Sedo – Flippa wont be.

  sitepointmatt @iBlogaholic We could go free, but then we’d be like eBay’s Internet Businesses category with 30K junk listings per month

  @sitepointmatt $19 is reasonable. 5% for no extras is not. it’s extortion (metaphorically). I KNOW I’m not the only one saying this either

• The lack of warning about the move was inconsiderate! An announcement by Andrew on June 11th, stated it would be “very soon”, but no date was ever provided. A little post was made on their developement blog June 22nd, giving only hours notice. The result was hundreds of unaware people thinking their browser had been hijacked!
• The Flippa site itself is horrible to navigate! Why would anyone want to pay for a featured listing? It appears on the homepage only, and once someone clicks on “Buy A Website”, it is never seen again. Featured and Ending Soon listings also fall well below the fold of their homepage, most likely missed by 90% of their traffic.

  The ‘at a glance’ capabilities are so difficult to use, I don’t even want to get into them. It would be a whole post in itself. You truly have to go and play over there to see what I am referring to. Consider your normal search habits and you will see what I mean. Here is one small sample though of what I am referring to…This is the Latest Auctions tab on their homepage. As you can see, dates are all mixed in, and the default is listing end time…



Flippa's Latest Auctions

• The new “rules” do absolutely nothing to encourage sellers to build a solid legitimate business. They are geared towards Flippa greed only.

  For example:
  – Private offers outside the system “expressly forbidden”, including listing in more than 1 place

  – “Users may not link to certain categories of external site. These include: Pages which could be classified as self-promotion, such as pages affiliated with the user” – this means no more list building, a huge downfall for many

  And my favorite:

  Flippa’s Role
  Flippa does not enter into monetary transactions or business dealings between marketplace buyers and sellers. Flippa is a neutral facilitator only, and will not be responsible for the failure of either party to follow through with their obligations, agreed or otherwise. The content of a marketplace listing is the responsibility of the respective sellers including compliance with all laws and not engaging in misleading and/or deceptive conduct and therefore Flippa is not liable for any violations of rights of a third party, in particular intellectual property rights, trade mark rights, and copyright resulting from a marketplace listing. Flippa reserves the right to remove any listing, bid, offer or comment from the system at its own discretion.

  In other words, apart from verifying a telephone number, that can be obtained by anyone with a $20 buck pre-paid phone, they do nothing to justify the increased pricing and success fee.

• Mark states that “savvy business people…don’t care about the design of the site or the fact the logo sucks”, but on a quick scan of comments around the net, I found no less than 5 places where he states he is “very much looking forward to replacing the ugly placeholder logo with something more permanent.” Come on Mark – who gives a WHOOT what the logo looks like!! Your logo doesn’t provide functionality – the old Sitepoint Marketplace did…
• A quick glance at Flippa at the time of this posting reveals absolutely no sites listed in the Start Up section so far today. Normally there would have been close to a dozen by this time. The Established section has 1 added, and there is nothing new in the Premium section.

What Sitepoint/Flippa seems to forget is that without sellers listing products and services, they will be out of business. Trust lost in the way they have handled this move, and the utter inability to listen to what their customers are telling them, is going to be the downfall of a once fabulous place to do business.

“Five more days mom!”…… “Four more days mom!”… “Hey mom, only 3 more days of school”… “Woot! Only two more days mom!”…. “OMG, TODAY is the LAST day mom!!!”

Having 3 school aged boys myself, my home has suddenly turned into a massive recycle bin with the sheer volume of paper, notebooks, and artwork that arrives home daily. I am positive if you were to weigh a school in May, and then again in June, Jenny Craig would be scrambling to sign them up as spokespeople!

I think some teachers have gone “fruity” though when it comes to planning class parties. At least my boys think so… Two of them are required to bring fruit trays to class on their last day. Yes, fruit for a class party!

Come on… What kid wants fruit on the last day of school? They want CHOCOLATE, CHIPS, CHEESIES, & SODA!! Heck, toss in a couple of Freezies to help wash it all down as well

Now I can understand the teachers taking this route. Our schools are trying to become more health conscious and I both applaud and appreciate their efforts. If they can lighten up their classrooms of paper, they can certainly help lighten up our childrens too. However, I think the REAL reason for the fruit request is to put off the following eventual countdown from parents at least one more day:

“OMG, 73 days left till they go back” … “Babe? When the heck do they go back?” … “Phew, 71 more days!” … “Arg!! Still 70 MORE days!” … “Yes! Only 69 more days!” …

What do you think? Have you started your countdown yet?

== Joanne ==

Here’s the lowdown on this scam:

Unscrupulous marketers have flooded the search engines, forums, Facebook, Twitter and a wide number of CPA networks with eye catching ads, promising thousands of dollars per month placing little google ads. Many of these ads even point to sites that are made to look just like a reputable online version of local newspapers.

http://miamigazettenews.com/business/2009/main.php (opens in a new window)
http://usajobjournal.com/ (opens in a new window)

As you can see from the links listed above, to someone newer online, these pages can seem very convincing and real. They are full of supposed testimonials and comments about the Easy Google Profit system, all of which are obviously fake.

I personally love the commentor who says:

Mikey says:
April 13, 2009 at 9:12 pmThanks for the info, just started this 3 weeks ago. I’ve gotten 2 checks for a total of $1900, pretty cooll.

For those of you who may not know, Google Adsense sends checks monthly and approximately 30 days after the end of the month. For someone starting the program 3 weeks earlier, it would have been virtually impossible for him to have received 2 checks…

Once a buyer has been hooked into thinking they are ordering a CD for only $0.99 – $2.95 (depending on the offer), their own little hell begins. This is where reading the fine print on absolutely everything you order online becomes SO important. At the bottom of every Easy Google Profit order page, in light grey fine print, is the notice that within 10 days, you agree to have your credit card charged an additional $72.71 monthly. One of the reason many people miss this, is the fact that the additional charges are written out in characters, not numerical format. The $72.71 appears as seventy-two dollars and seventy-one cents. How low is this…

This fine print ALSO details how the lucky buyer of the scam will also be subscribed on a monthly basis to 2 additional programs, for the low price of $24.95 and $14.95. Easy Google Profit is now costing you approximately $113 each and every month. Not only that, but you will be lucky if you even receive the CD via mail.

Actually, you ARE lucky if you don’t receive CD! Wide-spread reports indicate that the CD has a trojan virus on it, allowing gosh knows what access to your computer. If you have already ordered Easy Google Profit, and are awaiting your CD, do not run it on your machine.

I asked someone who contacted us over at TotalTreasureChest to send me a scan of the envelope they received. On the envelope, there is a contact email address of support@googletreasurechest.com. This is NOT a valid email address folks, so don’t bother even trying to send anything to them.

The owner of Easy Google Profits (aka Google Treasure Chest and Google Money Tree) has been identified as Infusion Media Inc, GoogleTreasureChest.com, InternetIncomeInitiative.com, and Jonathan D. Eborn, by the Texas Attorney General. Formal charges have been laid against this group. Here is the latest update we have found:

On April 24, 2009 the Texas Attorney General’s Office announced charges for operating a fraudulent work-at-home scheme against Infusion Media Inc, GoogleTreasureChest.com, InternetIncomeInitiative.com, and Jonathan D. Eborn (”Defendants”), whose “GoogleMoneyTree.com” promised six-figure earnings for conducting specialized Google and Yahoo Internet searches. According to the state’s enforcement action, GoogleMoneyTree failed to clearly inform purchasers that they had been enrolled in monthly memberships and had only seven days to cancel their trial membership. Purchasers who failed to cancel within seven days were automatically charged $82 on their credit card statements each month. In addition to the unexpected credit card charges, customer complaints obtained by state investigators indicate that GoogleMoneyTree failed to actually send the “free kit” and refused to honor customer refunds. The state is seeking an injunction, civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as well as restitution for purchasers.

Here is the link to the full charges made by Texas. (also opens in a new window)

From the hundreds and hundreds of reports and comments we have read, it seems calling this company to cancel the charges does not work, despite receiving a cancellation verification code. The customer service company that handles these requests are always polite and seem to be helpful, but 95% of the time the refunds and cancellations never actually occur. Most consumers have had to actually cancel their credit card and have a new number issued.

I strongly advise anyone who has purchased Easy Google Profit, Google Treasure Chest or Google Money Tree, to contact their credit card company or bank asap, and advise them of the situation. They are in a position to give you the best advice.

Update: June 19th

More proof you need to cancel your credit card immediately, from one of our commentors below:

Ed says:
June 19, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Yeah, i was duped as well. I read the article on MSN. So comming from a trust worthy site i purchased the kit that i never received and was charged the $72 in just a few days. I canceled my card the day i found out. Since then they have been accessing my account some other way and charging me $73 from somewhere overseas everyday. Now i have to close my whole account and open a new one.

Ed says:
June 19, 2009 at 2:02 pm
No, they billed my card twice for $72 in two days time. After i canceled my card they started drawing it out of the account directly from some place overseas for $73 daily so far. My bank and I are fighting this right now.

Update: June 24th

We received an annonymous email from someone duped by Easy Google Profits, Grants Springs, and SafeLock. Here are the details:

I have been to the Attorney General, BBB and the FTC.. The FTC stated that everytime they track them down and get to the address they are gone. They are very good at what they do. Forget trying the upteen numbers. They give you the run around to tire you out and keep your money….Go to the Fraud Dept. of your bank, file a claim for a charge Back. That is the only way you will ever see your money again.
But first always call a nd cancel this service or they will keep charging your credit card. That is first and foremost. There numbers are:

Google Chest 888-705-1275
Grant Springs: 888-247-2155
Safe Lock: 866-879-1266

Help Stop Others From Being Duped!

To help stop this fraud, reduce the number of people marketing this scam and save other unsuspecting people from getting duped, leave a response below with any other details or assistance you have. If you have been duped, let us know. It helps others who have know that they are not alone.

Let’s get these guys SHUT DOWN!

== Joanne ==

My oldest son planned a little get together for today with some old friends he hasn’t seen in few months. He just turned 13 last week and wanted to have a little party with them. So being the semi-organized work from home parents that Jeremy and I are, we had the munchies and pizza money ready, and some fireworks purchased to let off outback come dusk. To keep his brothers out of his hair, we even had movies and goodies my younger 2 sons to watch upstairs. The plan was 2 upstairs with their own little in-house party, the teenagers occupied with whatever goofiness teenagers do these days, and baby Brie playing with daddy. That left me to get down to business. Or so I thought…

Enter ROCKBAND 2 into the picture… Need I actually say more?

How stupid of me to not realize that the newly unwrapped birthday present wasn’t going to be the center of attention, let alone be attached to the TV on the other side of my office wall!

Now granted I love the game myself and have enjoyed playing it with the kids, but at this point, if I have to hear Eye of The Tiger one more time, I will be renting office space in town

== Joanne ==

I see people pushing all sorts of ‘make-money-fast-and-get-rich-off-doing-nothing-in-your-pajamas-while-on-a-beach-that-you-drove-to-in-your-new-porsche’ offers. This sort of marketing has been around forever because simply it works. Most people coming across these ads are made to feel they just can’t survive online if they don’t buy it, and buy it now before the price triples (or quadruples, or they lose out on 10 gagillion $$’s worth of bonus products, etc). These kind of scare tactics most likely will always be out there, but it’s a newer trend that absolutely drives me up the wall – the “Don’t Buy X Product Scam – Read This First” type of PPC ad.

Here is a little blurb I wrote a few months ago, taken from the perspective of someone new to online marketing:

Wow…Was I in for a shock. I googled product #1 to see if I could find a review and the first thing I saw was an ad yelling at me that it was a scam. Or was it? I quickly clicked away, proud of myself for not falling for that supposed “scam”. I then googled product #2 and by golly if I don’t see the exact same thing! Blaring warnings that I should not purchase this product until I read something first and another warning that it could be a scam if I didn’t go and read that persons website first too. The same thing happened for product #3 and #4.

This internet place is downright damn scary! It seemed that anything I checked had someone yelling SCAM about it! Can this be right? Is everything for sale a scam?

In my opinion, this type of marketing is NUTS! But unfortunately, some marketers think this is an effective way to market legitimate affiliate products. Scaring potential buyers into feeling they must read a particular website or risk losing their life savings, undershorts AND their first born child, has become the norm.

The norm?! Most people seeking out these products are new to online marketing and truly need help learning. Why on earth would people want to scare the living daylights out of them and make the online marketing industry look like it is completely fully of scammers?

It’s marketing tactics such as this, that bury the real scam reports from being found – the ones that really do take the money and run.

Come on people…Let’s clean up our workplace…

== Joanne ==

So what the heck do we do?

Grab an empty paper towel or gift wrap roll and slide it over the nozzle of your vaccum hose. The roll can flatten, unlike your vacuum nozzle, and get into those tight places.

Dust bunnies beware!!