February 16th, 2009
The Newest Phony Blog – Stretch Marks
I’ve started seeing a new fake blog being advertised the past couple days. This one has all of the hallmarks of the phony blog, including the exact same picture of the “Huff” persona from the fake Acai/Cleanse blogs. But today’s new scam isn’t for Acai/Cleanse, Google Cash, or the rest I’ve talked about so far. This one is for stretch marks.
A subdirectly of a site called removemystretchmarks.com has been seen advertised several times today, such as on ehow.com. It uses the name “Joyce Shaw” and will say she’s from your city (in my case, it says she’s from Las Vegas). Beware of this one.
Doing a simple whois, we find the site didn’t exist until January 9, 2009 – yet the first “comment” is dated January 7, 2009. It is registered to someone out of Canada and appears to be an affiliate for the product Cosmetyn.
Here is the ad I noticed, which just looked fishy to begin with:
Clicking on the ad from ehow.com took me to an extensive affiliate-looking URL (which may or may not work after this writing) where I saw the following picture and bio:
I immediately recognized the photo, the reused blog layout, the “from Las Vegas” ploy, the photos of Oprah and Dr. Oz, the phony-looking comments, and the “try it for free” link.
I thought of the “Huff” family, seen quite often recently on pages like double-diet.net:
I’ve also noticed that some of the Acai/Cleanse sites are starting to disappear. Perhaps they’ll reuse their photos and templates for this new product pitch.
So is Cosmetyn itself worthy? I can’t say. I am not reviewing that product. Will you be charged properly and informed of a trial period? I don’t know. At this point, I’m making no such suggestion. I’m only suggesting that the site listed here, which I am guessing is an affiliate site, is using deceptive and misleading tactics (fake blog, fake picture, no disclaimer, etc), and I hope consumers will realize this when they decide if they’d like to order the product or not. I am in no way reviewing the Cosmetyn product or site that is linked to.
I tried clicking on the “Disclaimer” link – and it asked me if I was sure I wanted to leave the page, then took me to the Cosmetyn page anyway. Sigh…
Regarding that Cosmetyn landing page I will say, however, that it has popups appear when you attempt to leave the page, which is extremely annoying.
Keep your eyes out for any blog trying to sell you something. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the “Huff” girls or blogs like this.
Further reading:
alifelessordinary.com
February 19th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
The thing about “your city” is true. when i went and tried it wrote in bold that whatever that is, is from “new york,NY”. I think that could be proof enough that its a hoax because why are exactly those words highlighted and why does it say the state, its not normal human writing. Now i’ll apologize for pointing out the obvious.
February 19th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Good eye – not everyone realizes that is fake!
March 16th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
This is a total scam. Well, I agree, its not right to judge the product without trying it but, all I can say is, if it was such a miraculous product, it wouldn’t have needed such a gigantic faux marketing campaign. It wouldn’t have tried to trick you with free trial offers with hidden rules of extra charges, phony online “live” customer representatives that pretends to be helping you but all they are trying to do is take your money. Even when you google the product all the reviews come up are the ones created by themselves..
People! Please, open your eyes and senses, don’t buy into these scams. The world is full of opportunistic liars that are trying to take advantage of others ignorance. Here is my advise on stretch marks. If you already have them, just learn to live with it. They are not going anywhere no matter how many products you use. Just stop making them bigger in your mind that they already are..Meanwhile, eat well,get enough exercise and sun. Make love and laugh as much as you can. Love yourself, nature, babies, good people and good chocolate…Cheers!
March 20th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Don’t do it. I received the free trial in the beginning of February, and I thought it was decent, so I did as the email I got told me: If you like it, don’t do anything; You will be sent another bottle of Cosmetyn for $89.99. Well, my credit card has been charged, yet it’s been almost 3 weeks since the free trial ended, and no bottle of cosmetyn in the mail. I’ve tried calling and emailing them, nothing.
Wanna know the best part? I’ve “automatically” been accepted into the VIP program, where I get a new bottle every 60 days for $89.99. And with no one to contact, my credit card will keep getting charged that. As for ever getting the bottles of Cosmetyn? Not sure about that one…
March 26th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Also the glaring misspellings and grammatical issues always scream FAKE to me.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:02 am
Makes my blood boil these fake sites! just wish they would crawl into a large hole and disappear.
May 26th, 2009 at 3:25 am
I’m glad to see that someone else realized how phony this is. I live in Germany, the picture above shows a woman in what may be a bathing suit outdoors. If this woman claimed to be in a bathing suit at the specified time of year in Germany, I knew it was a lie because Germany is freezing cold around that time of year. Sometimes it’s the little things that one should pay attention to.
I’ve also noticed more websites with the same pictures and exact same stories. The only thing that changed were the names.
September 19th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Thanks for alert us,there are many like this person on the net,using other people’s pictures.
September 30th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Good info: Here is another site that was helpful:
http://www.remove-stretchmarks.com