February 11th, 2009
The Anti-Scam Scam
One of the most ingenious scams is to create an anti-scam website, and promote only “approved” products… which themselves are scams or of dubious credibility.
The concept isn’t new, and shouldn’t be surprising.
A scam is the use of deception, trickery, fraudulent behavior over an individual for financial gain. Dozens of identical fake blogs that only vary by name and photo, which promote essentially the same product – that’s a scam.
Taking a picture of a model, altering it to make her look thin, and trying to sell a product based on this make-believe weight loss – that’s definitely deceptive.
So in the same manner, a website that pretends to alert consumers to scams, only to direct them to dubious businesses themselves which run scams – that is a huge scam.
I happened across antiscams.info the other day, which is a very lame attempt to fool people into thinking it is some sort of objective voice that will lead the misguided to the “right” products. This site approves of the grant scams, the Acai/Cleanse scams, and the shady teeth whitening sites.
A true anti-scam site will rarely promote any products, and if they do – the products will almost always be from a reputable company. For example, this blog is not an anti-scam site per se, but even in my current wave of anti-scam blogging I avoid promoting any products at all so my readers know I have no hidden agenda.
No so on a site like antiscams.info.
Anyone who can post that same, tired before/after picture that is rampant on the internet and say it’s valid must have an agenda. Anyone who can say Celebrity Sexy Teeth or NutraBrite are “incredible but true” has an agenda, and that agenda is not pointing out scams. It’s selling those products.
Anyone who links to free samples of obvious scams… is a scam itself.
Be careful even when looking at anti-scam websites. If they are trying to sell you something, be cautious. A true “review” site should take the major players into account, while fake review sites will usually only give glowing reviews to products you’ve never heard of before. In the same manner, a true anti-scam site will present consumer complaints or point out flawed advertising with a product. A fake anti-scam site will usually defend dubious products and give them a stamp of approval.
For some true anti-scam sites, check out Ripoffreport, scam.com, and the BBB.
February 12th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Hi Michael,
I stumbled across this site while doing research on the government grant scams that have been going around. I don’t know if you addressed this in a previous post, but there’s another scam I’ve been keeping track of that touts natural cures for various ailments using grocery items. You might like to highlight this in a future post to help spread the word if you haven’t already.
Keep up the great work!
February 12th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Hey Lincoln and thanks for the info and link. Good luck on your own scam-busting!
February 12th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Just as a suggestion, you might want to provide a text file that includes just the domains (without any commentary) that lead back to these scammers, that way publishers can use it as a blacklist to prevent the scammers from advertising on their sites. I’ve had to do that for mine as well. =X
Take care!
February 12th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Hey Lincoln, thanks for the comment. I’ll be looking to your site for an example of how to do this.