Update 1/17/09: I’m noticing a new trend that seems to reflect the strategy of black-hat affiliate marketers, where fake blogs are created in order to present their product as legitimate, including fake comments that offers only positive, gushing things to say about the product in question (legitimate and negative comments get deleted).  One example is at kevinsacidrefluxcure.com, where the scammer generated a barebones blog in order to draw people to one of his many grocery cure scam sites.  There’s simply no way for me to keep track of them all, so the best I can do is provide you some examples so you know what to watch out for.

Update 12/29/08: Here’s a list of some domains being used by the same scammer, touting grocery items as cures for various ailments:

• fibromyalgiacured.com
• asthmadefeated.com
• diverticulitiscure.com
• colitiscured.com
• sarcoidosiscure.com
• healgenitalwarts.com
• cellulitedefeated.com
• tuberculosiscured.com
• hemochromatosiscure.com
• diverticulitisinstitute.com
• shingles-cure.com
• colitis-cme.com
• tourettes-disorder.com

It may be a good idea to lodge a complaint with GoDaddy and mention these domains, since they are hosting some of the websites and domains.

Update 10/6/08: I received an email tip that strongly suggests this scammer may be operating out of Singapore.  (Since then I’ve received no confirmation of this however, and still suspect he is really operating out of the United States.)

Update 8/30/08: The Washington State Attorney General’s Office recently visited this site, indicating that the complaints about the spammer are at least being read.  I don’t know if they’ll take action since the Washington address itself may be fake, but it’s good to see they’re at least looking into the matter.

Updates: I received several helpful email tips about the following sites in question, including:

1. That the “pictures” of Aaron Smith vary with each site.

2. That he is apparently based in the Sydney suburb of Cronulla (Australia).

3. There is a known glitch on his sites where you can download all the eBooks without paying for it. (Simply add “/download.htm” after the root address of any of his sites, and the link to directly download the eBook can be obtained.

4. The scammer also uses “Sharon Kresler/Sharon Cresler” as an alias to sell “natural cures” for diseases that afflict women in particular.

There seems to be an insane number of these types websites, all with the same modus operandi, all touting natural cures for various types of diseases, but what’s truly sad about it all is that this only reflects the work of one possible scammer.

As always, exercise due diligence before spending your precious money online. A simple Google search was enough for me to uncover the suspicious nature of dozens (if not hundreds) of these eBook sites.

Original Article:

I was googling around for information on acid reflux, and what kind natural remedies there might be to alleviate some of the symptoms, when I stumbled on to this site.

The author promises a natural cure in less than one week using nothing more than common grocery items. Sounds awesome! Here’s a short quote where he introduces himself:

Hello, my name is Aaron Smith and I’ve been exactly where you are now. I’ve experienced GERD and the feelings of extreme pain, burning, nausea, depression and anxiety that often accompany this condition.

But wait a minute, he has another site, this time relaying his problems with ulcers:

My name is Aaron Smith and for about 2 ½ years I suffered from the pain and discomfort of ulcers every single day of my life. At first, I lived with the pain by taking over-the-counter antacids – lots of them! If you saw me during that time of my life, you would have sworn I owned stock in the big antacid companies. I was popping Tums and Rolaids like they were candy and using Maalox and Mylanta to wash them down – that’s how bad it was!

But wait a minute, he has yet another site, this time sharing his story on how he cured his problem with shingles:

You see my name is Aaron Smith, I live at 300 Elliott Ave, Seattle, WA, USA and I have been exactly where you are. I had Shingles for 3 Months – and they were the most painful months of my life… which is why I was so lucky that I stumbled upon a simple, unique home treatment that I used to heal my shingles in 6 days.

But wait a minute, he has yet ANOTHER site, this time touting a natural cure for genitals warts. I won’t even link to this one because of the graphic images contained therein.

Well I smell a rat, how ’bout you?

Either this guy is one of the most unfortunate (and subsequently LUCKIEST bastages ever) to have endured all these major illnesses only to cure them all with simple grocery related remedies, or he is one scumbag of a scammer trying to rip you off.

I vote on the later.

Each site hawks an eBook that you have to pay 25 bucks or more for, even though they probably contain nothing more than the words “SUCKERS!! HAHAHAHAHAH!!”

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s these blood sucking pieces of amphibian crapballs who have the gall to try scamming those afflicted with serious physical problems, desperately searching for relief. May the Egyptian plagues of old descend upon them.

After tracing the domains, it appears that all the websites have been registered and hosted via Go Daddy. I’ve sent them an email complaint along with a list of the websites. Hopefully they’ll get back to me and these sites will soon be taken down. If not, then I’m dumping their affiliate program, and they can just find somebody else to pimp their services for them.

Update: I received a response from GoDaddy, but they will not do anything about these websites and indicated the burden of ascertaining whether these sites were scams or not belongs to law enforcement.

I dunno, I guess it’s possible that one guy managed to find a natural cure for ulcers, GERD, shingles, genital warts and more, all in one week’s time and using nothing more than common grocery items. Stranger things have happened, right?

For now I would strongly suggest you not do business with any of these websites. In the meantime I’ve dropped Go Daddy’s affiliate program, since they seemed to show little concern over the issue.

Tags: aaron smith, acid reflux, antacid, con artists, due diligence, ebooks, extreme pain, genital warts, GERD, go daddy, God, google, google search, maalox, mylanta, natural cure, natural cures, report, ripoff, rolaids, scam, scammer, scamming, shingles, sydney suburb, time of my life, tums, ulcers
Categories: Tangled Webs
 
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I’ve been dabbling in the world of affiliate programs as a way to make some extra money lately, and so far I’ve already made 10 bucks by getting an affiliate sale for the folks at Clicky. I decided the easiest way to break into this field though was to just sign up for affiliate programs advertising products and services that I actually use. So far I’m using Hostgator for my web hosting, Go Daddy for domain registration, and Clicky Web Analytics for tracking my site stats. I’m pretty happy with all of them, so I can feel comfortable enough whoring for all of them without feeling too guilty.

I wouldn’t use Go Daddy for web hosting though. I’ve heard too many complaints from people using their hosting packages, and for the most part it’s too basic for those of you who are truly serious about building a good website, especially one that might be PHP-SQL driven. Still, I signed up for their affiliate program since I’ve had a good experience registering my domains with them.

But, in order to do that I had to first apply to become a member of Commission Junction, one of the largest affiliate networks in the world. When I got accepted I went to access my account page and almost went insane. CTRs and EPMs and EPCs and what the F___ is everyone talking about here??? There was so much information jam packed into one page I had no clue where to begin. I finally managed to figure out how to generate an affiliate link after tearing my hair out for an hour, which wasn’t easy considering Go Daddy apparently felt the need to provide 3 million different types of affiliate links and banners that I could use to promote their goodies. Ugh. All this business crap gives me a headache.

Eventually I’ll post review articles relaying my experience with these companies, which should serve as decent landing pages for all those interested in using the same services. I also added their banners at the footer of my blog now, so feel free to click on them and gimme some lovin’.

Seriously though, if you want to try out a service for free, Clicky is your best bet. You can use their premium service for three weeks without paying or providing any payment info, a smart move because they even hooked me in after my premium trial expired. The stats they track is not as exhaustive as Google Analytics, but the design is done so well that you can find out just about everything that’s going on (real-time) at your blog/website with just a quick glance. They have a basic version that’s free, while the premium version is less than $2 a month (if you sign up anually). Again, I’ll write a more extensive review in the future when I have more time.

Ok, I think I’m done whoring for now.

Tags: affiliate networks, affiliate programs, affiliates, clicky, clue, commission junction, ctrs, domain registration, epcs, footer, go daddy, goodies, hostgator, monetizing, problogging, web analytics
Categories: Blog Fog
 
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