Thoughts on Marketing... » internet scams

An Internet marketing practice that loses my business…

Marte Cliff — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 00:05:27 +0000

This is a marketing ploy you don’t know about unless you visit a web page and say “no” to the offer.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this, but every time I do it makes me take a mental note to delete everything from that marketer in the future.

What’s the practice? It’s offering a lower price for the same product when a visitor declines to buy at the going rate.

I’ve even seen two reductions. When you first click away from the page you get a pop-up offering the lower price, and when you say “No thanks” to that, you get a second pop-up. Sometimes it’s as low as 1/4 of the original offer.

I can see offering a different product – perhaps something similar but without the “bonus reports” or some other feature.

But offering the same product for less just to make the sale is, in my opinion, just sleazy.

What do you think?

Bogus Promotions? Common Sense Says “Yes they Are!”

Marte Cliff — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:21:25 +0000

Your mailbox is probably just as full as mine with fantastic promises of wealth if you just buy in to the latest program.

I know some of them are making money for the people sending them, or they wouldn’t keep sending them. Well, maybe. What I think is they people behind them have lured in other people to keep paying to send them.

Start with the “Free to Join” promotions. They go on about how you can mail to other people who will also join for free and you’ll make a ton of money. So… where does this money come from? Somebody is buying something along the way.

Then there’s the ones like this sample from this morning’s mail:

“You don’t have to learn anything.

You don’t have to study.

You don’t have to be clever.

You don’t have to be technical.

You don’t have to DO anything*

* ( Okay, I lied, it takes
you 45 seconds of “work”
to activate each business )”

It says you get a money-making on-line business without having to lift a finger. I’m not going to click to see, but my guess is you pay a fee to have the right to send the same bogus message to other folks.

WHY does ANYONE think you can make a bundle of money without making an effort?

Even our crooked politicians, scam artists like Bernie Madoff, and the pickpockets on the street had to make some effort to learn how to steal.

One for a chuckle…

This morning’s mail brought me TWO copies of one I hadn’t seen before. It went on about working a day job, getting up in the wee hours of the morning to work on an internet business in his garage, and then having this fantastic breakthrough.

I won’t go into detail, but in the course of the letter, the writer talked about taking his wife and children away for a week-end.

The letter was signed “Stephanie.”

Now I suppose there may be some man out there named Stephanie. But I kinda doubt it.

OK, that’s my rant for today – If you have any funny ones, add them in the comments.

Beware these Phishing Scams

Marte Cliff — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:04:58 +0000

Because you read messages like this one, you’re probably the kind of person who is way too savvy to fall for any scams, but since you probably have friends and relatives who are new to internet use, maybe you can alert them.

One new one is hitting the airwaves now in response to Tax Day. Now that most people have filed their 1040′s, the phishermen are out in full force, pretending to be the IRS. They’re writing people to let them know there’s some little thing that needs to be corrected or verified on their income tax return – and either directing them to send info by return email or go to a website and enter information.

And… as a nation of citizens scared spitless of the IRS, people are responding out of fear and handing over the personal information that can let a crook assume their identities with no trouble at all.

Just tell your friends and family this one fact: The IRS does not communicate via e-mail. If they want to talk to you, they’ll write you a letter and send it by the U.S. Postal Service. Any e-mail you get that says it’s from them should be forwarded to phishing@irs.gov

If someone tells you they’ve responded to an e-mail from the IRS, or if they find something suspicious on a credit report, tell them they need to report identity theft immediately. My article at: www.allcreditscoresnow.com explains what to do if you’ve become a victim. Identity theft is big business in this country right now, so it pays to be vigilant. If the economy worsens, the problem will no doubt grow.

So be careful…

A new scam that I hadn’t seen before landed in my in-box tonight. It’s a notice that I have a job offer from UNICEF! Now hopefully everyone would know that was bogus. UNICEF doesn’t just pick people at random and offer them work. And if you scan the message and see poor grammar combined with a reply e-mail address at @yahoo.comm you’d know instantly that it was a phishing letter.

But if some people weren’t responding to these messages, no one would be sending them, so…

A third one is not a phishing scam, but an attempt to extort money. And this one may come via telephone or postal mail. It’s an attempt by unscrupulous collection agencies to get you to pay money you don’t owe.

I was reminded of it tonight when I read a tweet on Twitter – someone had gotten a phone call from a collection agency demanding payment to a health club that had billed him fraudulently 9 years ago.

Anyway, what they’re doing is either trying to collect from families of the deceased or trying to collect on old accounts that were discharged in bankruptcy or written off after a dispute. This one can cause you trouble because it can affect your credit scores.

I wrote a whole article on it a while back – you can find it here: www.allcreditscoresnow.com

UPDATE ON STINKY MARKETING

Remember the guy who wrote and gave me heck because I hadn’t responded to his letter? He’s written me about 4 times since I told you about it, and he’s sounding crankier all the time. Before long he’s going to be cursing me…