A while back I dissected a series of scam sites that were touting natural cures for a variety of illnesses that involved using nothing more than grocery items.  The scammer was using quite a few different aliases (male and female) and even now his real identity remains a mystery.

I received an email though that might shed some new light here.  Apparently the scammer is operating not out of the United States but in Singapore (the IP address resolved to a server in a town called Clementi.)

This new intelligence might bring us closer in finally getting this guy shut down for good, but it remains to be seen if the authorities in Singapore will care enough to look into it and run down this scumbag for causing so much misery.  We’ll see!

In the meantime, if you have any more information that might help, let me know. 

Tags: mystery, natural cure, natural cures, scam, scammer
Categories: Tangled Webs
 
(  Print This Post | | 130 views )

Got this in my inbox from the “IRS”:

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $93.60. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access your tax refund online, please click here.

Regards,
Internal Revenue Service

Never mind the fact that I didn’t even do my taxes yet, or that my refund is usually 4 digits, but when you click on the link given, it takes you to an online form that’s hosted on an Internet Radio site called 90sAndNow.com.

What’s this? The Internal Revenue Service’s attempt to make their agency more hip and cool by handing out refunds to the tune of Backstreet Boys?

I need better filters for my email.

Tags: 90sandnow, backstreet boys, email, internal revenue service, internet radio, irs, phishing, scam, tax refund, web forgery
Categories: Tangled Webs
 
(  Print This Post | | 713 views )

Last October I entered a link building contest for Pink Internet Marketing, where the winning prize was a cute, fluffy bear. Amazingly enough I won the contest, and after Danielle emailed me to let me know I won, I sent her my address, though I left my name out for the sake of privacy.

After that, I never heard from her again. After receiving no bear for about a month, I sent her a friendly email, then sent another one to a different address of hers a week later just to see what was up. She hadn’t been updating her blog regularly, so I figured she must have been really busy, and let it go at that.

Then she updated her blog yesterday, so I left a comment in a Ashton Kutcher fashion, “DUDE! Where’s my bear??” I honestly thought she may have just forgotten and needed a reminder.

She deleted the comment. WTF???

For someone trying to create a successful internet marketing business, it doesn’t really help your credibility to run a link building contest, only to scam the contest winner out of his prize and ignore his repeated inquiries, ya know? Unless this is just a blackhat SEO technique I happened to be an unwitting victim of.

I wish I knew what went wrong. Maybe she changed her mind and simply couldn’t part with her beloved teddy. Maybe I wrote something on my blog that somehow offended her. Maybe the bear got lost in the mail. Really, I would have accepted virtually any explanation and been ok with it. It is just a bear after all.

But this silent treatment really pisses me off, and damn if it isn’t typical of how women usually treat me. One day you’re humming along, all is fine in the world, the birds singing, the flowers blooming, and then without warning, phone calls suddenly go unanswered, emails get ignored, and you’re left in the rain to wonder what had horribly gone so wrong.

Ah well. I guess I’ll just have to grin and “bear” it.

Tags: bear, birds, blog, contest, contest winner, credibility, dating, email, fashion, flowers, inquiries, link building, mail, rain, reminder, sake, scam, silent treatment, women suck
Categories: Tangled Webs
 
(  Print This Post | | 884 views )

I updated my GERD, Shingles and Ulcers Scam post with some new information I received from readers. It’s amazing just how many of these sites are out there… maybe hundreds, and all being perpetrated by just one person too. There’s no way to keep track of them all, other than to just exercise some common sense and do a little bit of Googling and research before spending your precious money.

Tags: acid reflux, common sense, con artists, ebooks, genital warts, GERD, go daddy, googling, little bit, report, ripoff, scam, scammer, scamming, shingles, ulcers
Categories: Tangled Webs
 
(  Print This Post | | 965 views )

Previously, I wrote a post pointing out several suspicious sites that were offering natural cures for shingles, GERD, ulcers and genital warts, all written by the same person. It was ranking pretty well on Google for about a week or so, and then suddenly my rankings vanished. I couldn’t find it anywhere on Google, no matter how many different combinations of relevant keywords I used. Meanwhile this motherf-, excuse me, this dude continues to litter the first page search results for the same keywords.

Ahhh, Google, that ever eternal gatekeeper for quality content on the Internet.

I’m just trying to do a good thing here, trying to help people avoid getting ripped off, and then these anal Googlie Wooglie fartbags had to go breaking my blogging balls.

Ironically enough I stumbled across yet another version of those “natural cure for shingles” sites, this one on the same simpleshinglescure domain, but with the page title saying “Natural Cure for Acid Reflux,” and the author here is an Aaron D. Smith, rather than the Aaron E. Smith shown on the other sites. Different picture too. So there are two Aaron Smiths now? Both hawking cures for shingles?

I have a headache.

Tags: acid reflux, combinations, excuse, gatekeeper, genital warts, GERD, google, headache, natural cures, rankings, scam, scammer, scammers, scams, serp, shingles, ulcers
Categories: Tangled Webs
 
(  Print This Post | | 2,137 views )

Internet dating sites have now become a huge industry, with thousands of sites dedicated to either providing dating advice or dating related services. This particular industry though seems to be HIGHLY plagued by online dating sites that may in fact be craftily designed splogs (automated blogs created for the primary purpose of spamming visitors), and crooksters looking to score off your dating misery.

These type of sites can be very hard to detect sometimes, but if you have pretty good intuition, maybe you’ll get a feeling like I do that something just seems to be a little bit… off here.

That’s how I felt about the site Online Dating Tips. Upon my first visit it seemed innocent enough, tightly coded, aesthetic design, speedy load, etc.. However, it also seemed light on the content, and heavy on the affiliate links. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that apparently EVERY external link on that site was in fact a cloaked affiliate link to some of the biggest dating services on the Internet.

Hmmmm….

The content itself is split into several categories containing very short articles, which is easy to read and to be fair, really does offer some sound advice, BUT… you get the strange sense that you’ve already read it all before. Additionally, for a site that purports to be an authority on how to use online personals, it certainly comes across as a bit… impersonal. There are no personal testimonies, and no heart warming anecdotes to encourage the reader with. It all seems very bland and emotionless.

There’s a reason for this though: the content is not original. At all. My suspicions were confirmed when I copied and pasted a particular phrase from an article here and did a Google search with it. The phrase I copied was:

“Is it possible to find a soul mate online through a dating service? You bet it is…”

And lookie see here, I found another article that starts the same way. In fact, it’s the very same article. But wait! Here’s another copy of the same article. And another one here, and here, and here and…

Hmmmmmmmmm….

Could be this “dating tips” site isn’t interested in the slightest bit about helping you find your loved one, but it does seem very interested in liberating you of your money through affiliate profits. Look, I don’t begrudge anyone who does affiliate marketing since I do it too, but if that’s their only purpose and they have no intention of offering anything of value in return, then they need to get their boonie boons spanked silly.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m devastated. And here I thought I found a place where people cared. Where people truly understood my sad plight and heartfelt desire to find a snuggly tookie tums butter pot cuddle pie to call my own.

Alas, alas, it appears that such is not the case here, and I shall have to continue my search elsewhere.

Tags: advice, affiliate links, anecdotes, cloaking, dating, dating service, dating services, google, google search, internet, internet dating, intuition, love, matchmaking, misery, personals, related services, review, scam, soul mate, sound advice, spam, spamming, splog, splogging, suspicions, tips, tricks
Categories: Romance and Relationships, Tangled Webs
 
(  Print This Post | | 1,979 views )