Internet Marketing Business Strategies

This was an article I wrote back in 2009. More recently, I told the story of my encounter with an Internet scam as a lesson in how to avoid getting caught by online scams for my Web Business Podcast listeners.

Here’s the podcast where I tell the story. It starts at the 3:20 mark:

While surfing on the Internet the other night I came across a classified ad that I immediately suspected was promoting an Internet marketing scam because the offer seemed too good to be true.

This is what it said:

50 GUARANTEED PAID SIGNUPS

You’re GUARANTEED 50 PAID Signups!! In 90 Days or Less Details Here!!

ORDER NOW AND SAVE $100.00

When I clicked on the ad I was taken to a site I was taken to a page that explained the deal and offered the package “just” $425…

Actually, for fifty guaranteed paid sign-ups that was suspiciously cheap. How could they guarantee to get every purchaser FIFTY paying subscribers???

As I just said, but it is worth repeating,

…if it seems too good to be true, then it ALMOST CERTAINLY IS too good to be true.

Just think about it for a moment…

The best performance for signing up paid affiliates that I know of was achieved by Daegan Smith, who built a team of 625 affiliates in just 90 days. After six months his group had grown to 2,000 affiliates.

Other top affiliate marketers such as Ewen Chia and Stone Evans regularly recruit over fifty paid up affiliates to Empowerism.com each month (Ewen recruited 147 affiliates in September 2009 alone).

These guys are the best in the field, yet none of them offers any of his affiliates “50 guaranteed paid sign ups for $425″.

And then, up pops a tacky-looking website which claims to be able to deliver that many paid affiliates to EVERYBODY who signs up.

What if 100 gullible souls each paid $425 each?

Are we really to believe that the people behind this dodgy looking website can produce 5,000 paid up members within a three month period?

What if even more people, say 500 or so, paid for the service… would the people who ran the classified ad really be able to “guarantee” 25,000 paid up members in 90 days? It is crazy!

This is an example of a classic Internet scam ad. It promises you a quick and effortless way of getting rich… in exchange for nearly 500 bucks!!

Here is what I did to check out the site…

First, the URL looked dodgy, ending as it did in “.tv”

The domain suffix “.tv” refers to the Polynesian micro state of Tuvalu but conjures up images of online porno and
amateur youtube film-makers.

Surely a website offering a genuine service would go with “.com” rather than “.tv”.

Second, there are no names on the home page. When I searched in the testimonials all I discovered was that the cheesy faced anonymous
woman at the top of the page might be called “Lisa”.

The only place I found a real name was when I clicked on ORDER HERE NOW.

Apparently a chap who calls himself “thomas wheeler” would like me to send him $425 via westernunion.com. It would appear that “he” can give a name and the vaguest of locations:

Saint Louis
Missouri -
USA

Hmm. No street address. No zip code.

Third, a whole page of the website is dedicated to explaining why they can’t use Paypal. Here we discover Lisa’s purported surname, and that her accomplice is someone called
“Jon”.

Going back to the main listings page I discovered that some of the other traffic generating services have Paypal “Buy Now” buttons for you to click.

However, the Paypal buttons are just window dressing. Presumably the idea is that Paypal buttons will impress the gullible visitor who will also swallow the “explanation” about why he can’t send $425 via Paypal for his 50 paid up affiliates…

When I clicked on a Paypal button on the scam website I got this message from Paypal: This recipient is currently unable to receive money.

Fourth, in the left hand column there is a list of dodgy affiliate schemes. Not all the links work. One told me the referrer’s name was neither Lisa, nor Jon, nor thomas [sic], but Paul Somebody-or-other.

Two Quick And Easy Website Scam Checks

I don’t claim to be an expert scam ad detective or anything like that, but here are a couple of easy checks that anybody can do.

1. Do Some Research On Google

This is easy. I simply pasted the website URL into Google’s search field and out came a list of pages with people complaining about being ripped off! A string of people had spent $495 each without even bothering to do a few simple checks. They must be nuts!!

I didn’t even have to qualify my search by adding the word “scam” to my search terms!

Run A “Who Is” Search…

The name and other details of a webmaster on an otherwise annonymous site can usually be found by looking up the URL on

http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx

However, when I ran a search for the URL, it turned out that the site is registered by a proxy company called domainsbyproxy.com which is designed to
“protect privacy” – and conveniently conceal the “private” details of website that is masquerading as a public company.

If you were foolish enough to send your cash, the only contact you have with a dodgy site like this is the email address that they kindly supply. But, even assuming it is a real email address, they quite probably won’t respond to enquiries.

So come on then, roll up! Roll up! Who wants “50 ‘guaranteed’ paying affiliates for ‘only’ $450″ from “Lisa” and her no-Paypal play pals?

I think I’ll pass up the “offer” thank you very much.

7 Easy Ways To Check A Website’s Credibility

Just to recap, here are the actions you can take to quickly check a website to see whether the business offer is likely to be a scam:

1. Check the domain name. Cheap Internet marketing scam artists sometimes go with cheap domain names like .tv, .hk etc.
2. Search for the full name of the webmaster on the site. A full name is no guarantee of rectitude, but an anonymous site is always suspicious…
3. Look for full contact details. Are they complete enough to be verifiable?
4. Test all the links. Do they really work or are they just there for show?
5. What is the payment method? If it is Paypal, click the button to see if it is for real. Paypal requires the name and street address of the vendor.
6. Run a Google search and see what comes up. Add the word “scam” to the search terms and run a second search.
7. Check the site out on http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx.

David Hurley