FrogenYozurt.Com - Online Literature Magazine » pulse360

A New Scam? Penny Auction Website QuiBids.com Saves Consumers up to 95% off Retail

Editor — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:43:21 +0000

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“Have you ever heard of “Penny Auctions”? If you haven’t, but you’re the type always looking for bargains and amazing deals, then you’re in luck! Penny auctions are a new auction model that are rapidly becoming very popular in the US and Europe. Penny auctions allow individuals to do just what it implies, win popular products for pennies on the dollar. Leading the way in this new auction model is QuiBids.com, an Oklahoma based company. QuiBids auctions off brand new popular products such as iPads, Macbooks, HDTVs, Digital Cameras, Gaming Consoles, and more for steep discounts of 75%, 80%, or even 85% off retail price.

Sounds too good to be true right? Surprisingly, it’s not. See, QuiBids isn’t run like your typical auction. Along with people snagging great deals at a fraction of the product’s cost is the fact that users pay to participate in these auctions. Each bid placed on QuiBids costs users $0.60. By collecting $0.60 for each bid placed, QuiBids is able to afford giving away products on the cheap such as Macbooks for $23.72 or Nikon Digital Cameras for $57.42.”

You may have found this Online ad on abcnews.com, msnbc.com, washingtonpost.com, or somewhere else, but don’t be fooled! ABC News, MSNBC, and others are not responsible for the ads they display, and they don’t add any value to the actual advertisement.

Just a fair warning: The so-called “Penny Auction” may be another scam!

If you found this Online ad, do yourself a favor and be extremely cautious. DO NOT, by any means, submit your credit card information, and if you already did it, CANCEL YOUR CREDIT CARD! If these guys are what I suspect they are, they will suck you dry!

A few hints:

The so-called reporter Julie is definitely a fake. The photo of the young woman shown on the website appears on many known scam websites.
The so-called “Consumer Tips Digest” logo is a fake.
The website structure is identical to many known scam websites.
The YouTube videos, including the “News 9″ logo, are fake. They are being mass-produced for a number of scam websites.
A company like Apple would never allow any retailer to sell their products for 75+% off retail price.

Still not convinced? Read my post on http://www.frogenyozurt.com/my-articles/making-money-from-home/.

Read the comments from readers of my website on the bottom of this page: The Scam: Work At Home Mom Makes $6,397/Month Part-Time.

Remember: If it sounds too good to be true, it most probably is!

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A New Scam? Facing Bankruptcy – Mother of 2 Gets New Lease on Life

Editor — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:23:14 +0000

Julia investigates the Consumer Debt Plan to discover how American’s can qualify for debt relief.

“America had to tackle the drastic economic downturn affecting the sustainability of the country. The major worry was the Huge Debt that gave rise to a great number of bankruptcy cases and taking the situation from bad to worse. In order to find a solution to this financial debacle, new regulations were introduced to which creditors have had to resort to relieving people’s debt.

This plan to reduce debt can be seen as an attractive effort to relieve Americans from theirdebt burden. The new regulations made available has led to feasible debt reduction options.

By simply filling out a short qualification form (below), Americans are able to tap into this life-saving assistance. You just have to initiate the process yourself.

We began our investigation when we received a letter from a Linda Jenkins, a single mother of 2 young girls in Dallas, Texas. After a devastating loss left her jobless and alone, Linda found herself facing the real threat of losing her home and not being able to feed her children.

I read Linda’s story last month and decided to feature her story in our local finance report. In our correspondence she told me about her remarkable journey.”

Just a fair warning: The so-called “Consumer Debt Plan” may be another scam!

Click to enlarge...

A few hints:

The so-called reporter Julia is definitely a fake. The photo of the young woman shown above appears on many know scam websites.
The so-called “News 6″ logo is a fake. The two people on top are also used to resemble Jennifer Theuriau and James Field, top news anchors of CNNews, yet another fake. See my post http://www.frogenyozurt.com/2010/05/cnnews-supports-online-work-at-home-program-scam/.
The website structure is identical to many known scam websites.
The hyperlinks on the “News 6″ website don’t work.

Still not convinced? Read my post on http://www.frogenyozurt.com/my-articles/making-money-from-home/.

Read the comments from readers of my website on the bottom of this page: The Scam: Work At Home Mom Makes $6,397/Month Part-Time.

Remember: If it sounds too good to be true, it most probably is!

Advertisement

The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Acai Berry Diet Exposed

Editor — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:19:43 +0000

Screen shot of scammer website - Click to enlarge.

Today I received a comment that I deemed worthwhile to publish here as a regular post. As a background information, these days you find online ads for the “Acai Berry Diet” all over the Internet including the online version of the Washington Post. I am pointing specifically to the Washington Post, since they seem to be in such dire need of income that they allow any scammer to advertise in their online edition. I always had a feeling that all these “Weight Loss” ads were part of an online scam, but I never looked into it in more detail. These ads were – at least at some time – distributed through a company by the name of pulse360 – See also my post pulse360 – A Leader In Fake Content Links?

Needless to say, but the ad campaign for the “Acai Berry Diet” is a scam. See the comment by Joseph Bennett from Milville, NJ below.

Joseph and Elizabeth Bennett
[Street Name Removed - WFV]
Millville, NJ 08332

Date: June 9, 2010

Dear Sir or Madame,

Concerning your article “Acai Berry Diet Exposed”.

This is how the scheme works. It does not matter if the product works if you are not dealing with a reputable company.

My wife ordered a free trial of weight loss products online from (NTR ADVOCOLCS.COM AND NTR ACOPLTIMUMCS.COM) with only shipping charges to be charged to our account. They charged us twice for shipping of ADVOCOLCS. Our order for ADVOCOLCS was canceled by the company without notifying us. The company did credit our account for the two $3.95 charges. We had 14 days to try the products, but we did not receive any trial period samples. The 14 day clock started on the day the orders were placed. The first thing we received was a monthly supply of the ACOPLTIMUMCS and $79.98 was billed to our credit card. We were also charge $4.95 for shipping for the trial period samples, which we did not receive. The bottle of ACOPLTIMUMCS came loose in a sealed shipping box with no paperwork. The bottle was not sealed and the count of capsules in the bottle was 64. The label on the bottle indicated that there should be 60 capsules in the bottle. At this point, we were afraid to try any products from this company.

We tried to cancel the ACOPLTIMUMCS, but they had already shipped the first bottle before we figured out what they were doing and canceled the account. On 06/04/2010 we received two more bottles of ACOPLTIMUMCS. These bottles, unlike the first bottle, were sealed and came with paperwork. On 6/4/2010 I called again and I was informed that I was charge $98.00 for this shipment. During this conversation I was told again that both accounts (ADVOCOLCS AND ACOPLTIMUMCS) were cancelled.

Between the times the products were ordered online and the product was received, there was no time to actually try the product and cancel the account before the 14 days expired. The company canceling the order for the ADVOCOLCS insured that the 14 day trial period would expire before we could actually try the products.

Pretty slick, Huh!

Our credit card company has put all payments to NTR on hold and I have filed a complaint with the NJ Consumer Protection. I will be sending the ACOPLTIMUMCS we received to NJ Consumer Protection for analysis to determine what is actually in the product.

There is more to a product than the product itself.

I am interested in your comments.

Sincerely,
Joseph Bennett

Note: Joseph Bennett refers to an article “Acai Berry Diet Exposed” that was not published on this blog before today. I am assuming he responded to another website article and copied and pasted his comment to my blog. I, in turn, copied the title of the post.

Advertisement

The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

pulse360 – A Leader In Fake Content Links?

Editor — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:44:17 +0000

pulse360 – in their own words “The Leader in Content Targeted Sponsored Links on the Web’s Best Sites – is a leading provider of links that lead to web sites with blatantly fabricated content. See below a few references I found on the Internet.

For the love of god, I don’t want whiter teeth

Note: Interesting article, especially since msnbc.com and pulse360 are business partners… The same ads, the reporter is complaining about, appear on the same web page as his article.

And so we come to the networks, the most irresponsible and hypocritical of our cast. Let’s take Pulse360, the ad network that serves up many of TBM’s scam ads, as another case study. I talked to Jaan Janes, the CEO of Pulse360, for an infuriating 45 minutes. My objective: figure out whether these kinds of ads comply with Pulse360’s ad guidelines. Janes repeatedly said that every ad and its corresponding site is hand-screened at Pulse360, primarily to ensure that contact information is visible on the site. But they do not call every phone number to see whether anybody actually picks up the line. (They say they do spot checks.) Logic implies that if the ads are personally screened and then end up in the network, they comply with the guidelines.

As found on msnbc.com…

Q: How do you stop a pulse 360 ad from popping up?

A: Some Pulse ads are downright fake. There’s a weight loss one that lists the woman as from my home town “Susi from xxx lost 40 pounds!!”, but when I was out of state, I noticed the same ad listing the woman from the town I was now in..

It just gets the city your IP is from and inserts that into the ad. Deception makes me want to buy!!!

I clicked the ad and it’s totally bogus. They even use Rachael Ray’s likeness but spell her name wrong.

In the about us page, it even say’s “We know we mis-spelled Rachael’s name, but it was too late to fix it.” To late to fix it, but not too late to write text right underneath it saying it was too late to fix it????!!!!

Nice integrity!

As found on wiki.answers.com.

Are Alexa.com Ads by Pulse360-Kanoodle Violating FTC Truth in Advertising?

A few months ago, the web information company Alexa redesigned their website and since then I’ve been noticing these incredibly distasteful advertisements pitching weight loss products, wrinkle removers and suspicious get rich quick schemes. While these type of advertisments are nothing new on the internet, what stood out to me was each advertisement appears to be placed by a person who is located in the same city as myself.

If you look up any of these blogs in Google, there are numerous bloggers warning that these flogs (as Jay Weintraub calls them)are blatant by scum of the earth affiliate marketers (Lincoln Adams’s affectionate term for the unethical blackhat set) scams.

washingtonpost.com – Structure Of The Misleading Ads

Editor — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:04:05 +0000

This article is part of a series on Online fraud. Read more…

The ads as posted by pulse360 onto the Online version of the Washington Post lead to misleading web sites that have a very similar structure and some identical features. Note: I live in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and all screen shots have been made from my office in Greenfield.

As shown in the picture above, this is how the ads are placed into the Online version of the Washington Post (washingtonpost.com).

This web page gives the false impression that it is posted by “News 6 Boston”, which doesn’t exist. The page’s content is most probably modified according to the user’s IP address location.

There are multiple references to Google, giving the false impression the user is dealing with Google directly.

The navigation links on top of the screen give the false impression that this page is from a real news source. As a matter of fact the links all lead to the same page where the user is asked to sign up and submit credit card information.

This page, leading to the same scam, is disguised as a “Massachusetts Job Report.” Needless to say, all this is a fake. The content is modified according to the viewer’s physical location.

This time the theme is “Whiter Teeth” posted by the “Consumer News Reporter”. And, of course, there is “Amy, a Boston school teacher.” Needless to say, but all links point to the same location. Do I detect a pattern here?

Note: This ad is not only provided by pulse360, the scam-supporting Online advertisement business, but also by the Washington Post’s own advertising business line.

They even add local weather. Note the expiration date, which will change with every new day you log on.

This is yet another feature these web pages have in common. You are encouraged to leave a comment, but “Comments will appear after approval by our editorial team.” You can bet, all comments are fake, and your comment, if negative, will not appear. In other cases they don’t allow any further comments due to “extensive spamming.”

Here we go! This time it’s weight loss. And there is “News Report 6″…

And when you try to leave they pop up a nasty window, meaning you can’t close the window unless you specifically click on the OK button.

Okay, just in case somebody needs more evidence that these ads are based on lies, here is the official confirmation found on the “White Teeth” web page:

Please also recognize that the story and comments depicted on this site and the person depicted in the story are not real. Rather, the story is based on what some people have achieved with these and other similar products. The results portrayed in the story and in the comments are illustrative, and may not necessarily be the results that you achieve with these products. This page does receive compensation for purchase of products featured on this site.

Advertisement

The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

WashingtonPost.Com – Unwillingly Supporting A Scam?

Editor — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:54:46 +0000

This article is part of a series on Online fraud. Read more…

As I had written in a previous post, reading the New York Times and The Washington Post, both Online, on a regular basis has become my regular morning habit. Recently I noticed that The Washington Post has found another clever way of increasing their revenues by offering local ads. These ads are designed to read the viewer’s IP address and determine the physical location. All this could be interpreted as a clever marketing trick, but my admiration for the Washington Post’s new ways to create Online revenues faded quickly as soon as I found out that the location information was not used to provide real local ads, but to modify the ad’s message in a very misleading way. To make things worse, these ads are, in my very personal opinion, designed to defraud unsuspecting viewers.

Today I wrote an e-mail to the washingtonpost.com:

From: Wilfried Voss

Date: January 8, 2010 9:59:25 AM EST

To: letters@washpost.com

Subject: Fraudulent ads on washingtonpost.com

To whom it may concern;

I would be interested in your position regarding the posting of fraudulent ads on washingtonpost.com, especially those posted through pulse360. I have seen ads promoting the “Google Profit Library” which is a proven scam. And it doesn’t stop there. There are more ads such as “[Your Hometown Here] Local Mom Tricks To Whiter Teeth” and “[Your Hometown Here] Warning!” Replace “[Your Hometown Here]” with the location of your IP address.

The ads posted by pulse360 give the impression they have been posted by local businesses. As a matter of fact, the ads are modified according to the viewer’s IP address, and thus displaying false information that cannot be explained as being special marketing features.

I, personally, am disturbed that the Washington Post acts as an accomplice in a scheme that is designed to defraud hundreds of thousand of Americans.

I am awaiting your response. I also reserve the right to post this e-mail and any further communication on my blog.

Regards,
Wilfried Voss
http://www.frogenyozurt.com

We will see whether or not I receive a response, and if yes, I will post it/them here.

Advertisement

Vampire Ascending

by Lorelei Bell Sabrina Strong is a Touch Clairvoyant who knows a secret. She knows her mother was turned into a vampire when Sabrina was ten. Now that she is grown up, a powerful magnate in the Chicago business world hires her to reveal the identity of who relentlessly murders vampires in his ultra-modern stronghold of a hotel. [Read More...] – Including an excerpt of the first chapter.

Vampire Ascending is now available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.