Anything is Possible
25 Jun
Is GrassRoots Advertising and gr-ads.com a scam or not? Here’s my experience.
A month or so ago somebody who says her name is Kristen Romero contacted me saying she’s from a company called GrassRoots Advertising at gr-ads.com, and that she wanted to do some sponsored links on old posts of mine.
What she offered was generous for a small-time blogger like myself, so I looked into it.
After investigating a little bit, things seemed seriously fishy:
Aside from a lot of odd tidbits, amplified by a suspicious mind, there’s nothing conclusive to say that these people were trying to scam me.
As I also use the email address she contacted me on for PayPal, I thought I’d give them a go (I didn’t have to expose info she didn’t already have).
I posted the text she gave me and a few days later the payment came in PayPal (from Find Your Dreams, Inc. - no info on that either), as agreed.
End of that story.
Bad Mouthing
Two days ago Kristen again contacted me and said a blogger she couldn’t negotiate a rate with had put up an unfavourable post about her and it was attracting bad comments. She asked if I would put in a good word for her, and as I had no problems with my experience, I was willing to give an honest opinion.
I read the post and contact Kristen again about the issues raised in the post and in my own mind. I told her, I could give an honest opinion, but my honest opinion is that I too thought that they were scammers, but tried them anyway and my suspicions were proven false.
In another email to Kristen I asked her to explain a few things to me so that I could comment on that post and put her in a better light, because my honest opinion alone will not. Here’s what I said:
The woman wanted x amount for her website and that wasn’t what you offered - you negotiated, she declined - I honestly don’t see the big deal.
But I can see your dilemma with the negative post and you did good by me so I don’t mind to put an honest opinion up there for you.
But here’s my honest opinion and maybe you can shed some light on it so that I can understand: Your website does come across as a scam website, and as the only contact with you it makes your business seem shady as well. Here’s why:
a) it’s like a 1990’s-style website, (quite out of step for a Internet advertising company)
b) your domain details (and registration address) are hidden,
c) there’s no actual company information on your site,
d) there’s no contact details of any kind,
e) you claim to have enough business for 2008 (wow!),
f) your employees are ALL unbelievably good looking, and
g) the meta data on your employee pictures DOES indicate that they are stock photos.The only reason I gave you a try is because you offered a good rate, and you only need my email address for Paypal, which is pretty difficult to use in a scam by itself, as it’s virtually in the public domain anyway.
Obviously not many people make these deductions and are still willing to take the risk.
Yet you did what you said you would and in good time too, so I don’t really understand - why the masquerade and the dodgy website when you do legitimate work?
But alas, the only reply I got from Kristen was to say “you’re right i think its ridiculous and i just don’t know or care anymore..“.
Epilogue
So I’m now no closer to knowing than I was before. All I know is that Kristen contacted me with an offer, we negotiated, I did my part, and she paid as promised.
Is this company dodgy as hell? Sure. Is there at least a ton of fish around gr-ads.com? There certainly is. Are they scammers? Well, I wasn’t scammed and I didn’t actually read about anybody that was scammed - just those who say they look like scammers.
So the question remains, and more importantly is there any proof either way: Is GrassRoots Advertising and gr-ads.com a scam or not?
Update 080715 - Just picked up a comment from Rose Desrochers, somebody reported that a rep from bridgeofknowledge.org contacted them for something that sounds like our friends at gr-ads.com / groundupadvertising.com. Surfed on over and wouldn’t you know it, my friend Kristen Romero is employee No.1.
Other employees include Lauren Keidis, Amy Callahan, Sean Callahan (Yay! They finally got a male employee that isn’t the CEO or an octogenarian web designer - he was a famous television blurb writer in the 90’s) and Melinda Hathaway.
The non-scam (or scam, depends on your school of thought) is evolving, as now they include a contact page, they don’t brag about how they don’t need any more business and they don’t have stock-photo employee mug-shots anymore. But the temptation to carry on with the employee profiles are just too strong…
Bridgeofknowledge.org is a more noble enterprise. They are a bunch of students who got together to provide links, or a bridge, to useful knowledge, which is where the paid-for-links come in. Obviously Sean Callahan didn’t write the copy for the front page, because he has a keen eye for detail and there are various typos on the front page. (Please note, I make no such claims, therefore typos on my pages are perfectly acceptable).
A quick whois on bridgeofknowledge.org reveals that the domain was registered on 8 July. I bet right now they’re hating the Internet community. It’s not so hard to carry on legitimate business on the Internet, why not try to not be one of those shady advertiser they talk about on their front-page blurb.
The gr-ads.com / groundupadvertising.com / bridgeofknowledge.org saga continues…
Update 080724 - Through links from the other blogs that have posted about this company, there are at least four related domains. They are:
The design of these websites are quite similar. I was contacted by gr-ads.com, some other people from bridgeofknowledge.org, and yet other by firstdayads.org. Both my and other people’s emails had groundupadvertising.com in the email headers, and this is how we know they are related.
I’ve established that they’re not scammers. They offered me money to place links, I did it, they paid me. No scam.
But I still had this question: Why if your company is legit do you choose such unorthodox methods that puts your company in bad light?
Apart from what I’ve listed above, here’s some other things that doesn’t make sense.






More absurd than the time that I’ve spent on this article (you’re right David Salsberger, I need another hobby), is this company that seems to be going out of its way to look illegitimate, when they actually do pay people money like they say they do.
Why?
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16 Responses for "GrassRoots Advertising and gr-ads.com - Scam or not?"
I offered an opinion of the company. I don’t understand why she felt the need to have those she has done business with post ‘positive remarks’ about her and GR-Ads.com is. By the way you bring up some good points.
I’m a grad student with a blog, and I too was approached by Kristen at gr-ads.com, this time about placing two ads on my site.
Same deal as you. I was compensated quite well, and through the PayPal account (an email address that I had listed for the DNS contact). This was back in April, I think, and nothing suspicious has happened at all.
Bizarre, really. But I was happy with my interactions with “Kristen.” Your email to her was perfect! Too bad she didn’t clarify the deal, but instead added more intrigue!
So, how much did she pay you to write that ‘epilogue’ ? Come on…you just lost all credibility.
You were scammed, wrote about it, and then were paid to say you weren’t.
Haha Wendy, think about what you’re saying, your statement is an oxymoron.
If a scammer would pay me to say I wasn’t scammed, then I got paid and thus the person isn’t a scammer. Hu?
Contradictions aside, if people WHERE scammed, the Internet would be littered with posts about how they were scammed, surely? But all I’ve found so far are loads of post about people crying wolf, but no actual scamming.
If you actually find a post where somebody says I let them in the door and they robbed me blind, then please post the link to enlighten me.
I receive a similar offer, and it just looked odd that they wanted to advertise on a obscure single page. I’m not worried about not getting paid (no pay = no link), but you should be worried about the way searchengines like google rate YOUR site after you added paid links:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/
Hey LessonSense - that’s another issue all together. This post deals with whether or not those guys are scammers, not spammers.
And I said they sure look like scammers, but there’s no actual reports of anyone having been scammed, right Wendy?
I don’t think it’s a scam. I got an offer too. Did some research. Asked for contact info (which she emailed including address and phone number). Accepted and they paid within a few hours after I had the links up. How is that a scam? I didn’t give them any info they didn’t already have. Hey, 100 bucks is a 100 bucks and the links were not in bad taste. Very appropriate to my site. I was skeptical too, that’s why I googled. Found only suspicion, not any complaints.
Okay Tom, ’show us the link’ to the ad you placed…? you too Mr Moderator - show us the URL to the link/ad you got paid for…?
Hey-hey Wendy, good to have you visit again.
I know this post seems like an advertisement for issuu.com, but it isn’t. It was helpful for me, so I thought I’d share.
What you’re looking for is in the first para. I declined a few I couldn’t make part of my content in a way that benefited the purpose of the post, but this was helpful to the post.
Ok, dear cynical Wendy, now it’s your turn to produce some evidence that somebody got scammed. Or was one of us crying wolf at the sight of a mongrel
Hi all
Sarah Raymond offered me dollars for one year of placement of the following links
Some were inappropriate (security firm on an art page) and others were just odd. For instance she was asking me to link USING ANY RANDOM WORDS to university pages containing travel information
…quote follows…
And link 2 random words on your page to these sites:
.www.nyu.edu/about/hotels.html.
.topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/hotels_and_restaurants.
…
I declined the offer
http://www.rvlover.net/Kalaloch.htm
It’s the three links in the text below the main picture.
Tom
Right, so there you have it.
This post wasn’t to defend these people, it was simply a case of relaying my experience, but I do love a good debate.
However, Wendy, and everyone else who screamed “scam!” really has brought nothing to the table other than saying “they’re scammers”; no evidence, no actual details of what the supposed scam is. Nothing.
In the meantime, tens of people from various parts of the world have said they tried them and got paid - such an elaborate scam and for what: my email address that will dump spam/scam/phishing messages straight in the SpamBox?
If this was snopes.com and “Are gr-ads.com / groundupadvertising.com / bridgeofknowledge.org scammers?” was an urban legend (fast approaching that realm), I think its status would be: False
Ha, I find this whole post to be quite humorous, and the comments are even better. I love how 1Earth has called out all the people crying wolf to produce hard evidence of their so called “scams” and not a single person has been able to produce anything. I have dealt with gr-ads in the past and they actually help me pay my rent for the month, I see nothing wrong with that! The person I worked with, Lauren, was very nice and I received prompt payment (in advance might I add), all of the links were relevant and I had no problem posting them on my pages.
I don’t see how these people could ’scam’ in the first place if they are the ones giving the money, if they didn’t pay up, people would just take the ads down, and the company would receive no benefit from that, so i don’t understand all the negative publicity.
anyway i just wanted to give my 2 cents and commend 1earth on the great post!
I think it’s really ridiculous that you put so much time into all of this. Business is business and I too know people who have dealt with this company before with little to no complaints and always pleasant things to say about how they operated. Maybe we all need a hobby instead of taking someone’s money and then bashing the business and the company itself. To this reader THAT seems more of a bad business practice then simply having good looking people work for them. If you have that much of an issue, don’t take the money. And in the future don’t be so “shady” in your practices. Taking the money and ripping them apart is really low.
This article doesn’t rip anybody apart, in fact, it tries to argue the fact that your company (it is your company, right?) is not scammers.
My arrangement with Kristen didn’t include “don’t ask questions“. I did my part she did hers, nothing shady about that.
But you can’t ignore what’s going on: multiple websites, the false employee profiles, etc., and that is shady.
Greetings all
I received an offer a couple of weeks ago. Looked at the website, thought it inconclusive, checked what they asked for, thought the requests legit and in context, liked the sound of actually getting paid for adding the links. Have just added them. Found the links they asked for were perfectly fine for the products offered
I shall be emailing an invoice with my P.O. Box addy and hope to receive payment in the near future.
HOWEVER - I did think there was the possibility of something Phishy - that’s why my mailing addy is a P.O. Box - who knows? future world domination plot?
I guess I’m just mercenary - they offer money for links, I add links and get money - if not, as someone else indicated - no links.
Neat discussion by the way!
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