Comments on: GrassRoots Advertising and gr-ads.com - Scam or not?

By: chris

chris — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:21:38 +0000

Miguel is right. Why involve yourself with questionable practices? Or is it all a scam where we are being baited into saying something potentially libelous so they can sue us?

Oops… paranoia strikes deep.

By: Miqel

Miqel — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:18:01 +0000

“Not to be a jerk, but why should I care whether or not adding a few links to 2 or 3 pages on my site deceives their clients?”

Well .. listen to your own question. Why should you care? why should you not assist in Lying to a paying client?

Because it’s bad business that a legitimate marketing company would not engage in. Fake identities and clone ‘front companies’ are not needed if what you are doing is Honest!

You are assisting in defrauding of the SEO clients, who have paid for links “not gained by payments or unsolicited emails”, as claimed to their clients of WeBuildPages.com / Find Your Dreams inc. … whose ads appear on your site.

it’s totally shady mr Flamenco

By: don flamenco

don flamenco — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:03:57 +0000

I have been reading these posts since I too was recently contacted by Sarah Raymond, but I am still not seeing where I would be getting scammed. As I understand it, they pay me - no scam there. Not to be a jerk, but why should I care whether or not adding a few links to 2 or 3 pages on my site deceives their clients? Again, I am probably missing something here, so please feel free to shoot me down.

By: Miqel

Miqel — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:32:48 +0000

Thanks for the props, & good question! Hopefully net-reputation will self-regulate them, dry up their business & force them into finding a new method of linking pages. On WeBuildPages.com it says they are a member of the Better Business Bureau, and the policy at http://www.BBB.org says
“All BBB accredited businesses have agreed to live up to our Principles for Trust. Our Principles for Trust are a comprehensive set of policies, procedures and best practices focused on how businesses should treat the public – fairly and honestly in all circumstances.”

I don’t think this behavior of WebuildPages merits the BBB ‘Seal of Approval’ and I’ll be sending an email to see if they agree. Also there is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) which could open an investigation into their business practices or impose penalties - http://www.ftc.gov/index.shtml

By: 1Earth

1Earth — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:50:56 +0000

Good work Miqel!

Do you think a net-reputation will take care of scammers like this, or is there some governing body somewhere that needs to receive a copy of your article?

By: Miqel

Miqel — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:51:19 +0000

Hi 1Earth!
I’ve been researching this scam for a week after being contacted by a “Darcy” from FirstDayAds.org about placing an ad on my site. I actually posted the comment above, but didn’t want to use my name as i was still playing a game with them & didn’t want to tip them off.

With the help of your blog & the others posting on this topic, I believe i’ve solved the puzzle of what is a 3-fold pagerank scam, found yet another ‘clone’ site ( SmallStepsBigLeaps.org ) and identified those at the top of the pyramid and who they REALLY work for.

The short version is: the ‘bottom level’ link finders recruit and pay you small amounts (using false identities & untraceable companies)
to unknowingly help scam clients of the ‘top level’ business by adding spammy paid-links
(padded with 2 other .gov and .edu links),
The SEO clients are assured they are getting transparent & ethical ‘organic’ linking services at a price of around $6000.00 … or MORE, When in fact the SEO Companies I have identified are using shadow companies, deceptive marketing practices, fraudulent identities and bloggers to purchase the links for the purpose of spamming Google’s PageRank system and lying to their SEO clients about how it’s done. All the ‘top level’ SEO companies are owned by Jim Boykin, who also owns the company the link payments come from and coaches sessions on paid-link baiting.

Here’s a link to the full autopsy w/ pics and references:
http://miqel.com/internet_business_fraud/paid_links.html

By: Another Attempted Customer

Another Attempted Customer — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:36:47 +0000

FirstDayAds = gr-Ads = WebMatchers.net TOO! This may explain the scam part and what’s in it for the shady company. I’m putting the puzzle pieces together, but this post explains the general idea.

By: Louise Peacock

Louise Peacock — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:01:08 +0000

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!

By: 1Earth

1Earth — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:39:31 +0000

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.

By: david salsberger

david salsberger — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:13:04 +0000

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.