It was time today to open my weekly junk email account to see what goodies were waiting for me. And I wasn’t disappointed. I wouldn’t call this week’s “gem” a scam, but it uses disingenuous advertising language that is unnecessary and desperate. The site is Quibids.com, one of many so-called “penny” auction sites cropping up lately. … Read entire article »

Kevin Trudeau is one scammer that makes me cringe more than any other. That’s because in the early 1990′s, I borrowed his Mega Memory course and found it quite useful in my final year of graduate school. Even though I learned years later that virtually none of the techniques were new or developed by Trudeau, I still felt it had some value. A couple years later, I purchased his Mega Math for my nephew, and I felt that had some value as well (Mega Math was really math genius Scott Flansurg’s creation, promoted by Trudeau). So for a few years, I felt that Kevin Trudeau offered at least somewhat legitimate products. But that’s as far as my defense of Kevin Trudeau went. It’s apparent in the years since Mega Memory … Read entire article »

Today I’m looking at scam-reports.com, after seeing the site advertised on Google. I did a Google search on Wellness International, one of my earliest exposures to modern “seminar” sales pitch companies. Over on the side was a single ad, which read: West Coast Wellness Scams! I Tested out West Coast Wellness! Read my Shocking Story TODAY scam-reports.com Clicking on the ad sends us to that website with virtually nothing of value to see. It looks purely like an email trolling site, but for what purpose? … Read entire article »

I’ll make it clear from the start: the “rich dad” seminars are, in my opinion, a complete and total scam. They aren’t even about giving advice, but about finding as many people with $10,000 or more to hand over to them for their worthless “training” as they can find. Not convinced, consider the following: … Read entire article »

I enjoy junk email because it really entertains me. I would enjoy it even more if people weren’t being scammed by it on a regular basis. I remember a day when junk consisted mainly of penis enlargement, weight loss, and credit card offers. The stuff being sent out now makes those seem benign. Let’s take a look at my junk folder for the past 24 hours. In fact, I have 18 messages in the past 24 hours (yes, I would have hundreds if my server didn’t block most of them – these are the ones that got through!). They break down as follows. … Read entire article »

In my junk folder today, I had several 419 scams. I thought this one was a bit more humorous than the rest with the subject of “URGENT PLEASE!!!!!!”  from the email address tou_m016@yahoo.co.jp, which is from Japan, though the body of the email states this “transaction” is from Western Africa. Oh yeah, and it’s a total scam (for anyone who doesn’t already know). I sometimes like to have a little fun with these scammers. I wrote back, telling them “I actually have a bank account in a bank in Abidjan. You can go there and do the transaction in person. Give me your details and I will arrange it.” I can’t wait to see how they respond. Hahah… Below is the email I received: … Read entire article »

Having just spent a couple days sifting through all of the garbage at Clickbank, including the highest money makers and the most popular publishers there, I was amused to check my junk box this morning and find the following email from bttb2010@getresponse.com with the subject $1,000 In Just 7 Days… Guaranteed!?: … Read entire article »

After posting my original article on the 10 most popular Clickbank affiliates, I realized I had only touched on the tip of the iceberg. For that reason, I have delved into Clickbank a little further. In that first article, I listed the 10 most popular publishers, and today I am listing the 10 publishers with the highest average sale amount. The results this time were just as disappointing as the first batch I reviewed. My reviews are based on web page design, claims, and similarity to known scams/junk. I haven’t tried these products because I have deemed them to be worthless based on my 20 years of advertising experience. … Read entire article »

You’ve either heard about or played one of Zynga’s myriad games on Facebook, such as Farmville, Fishville, Frontierville, and the list goes on. What we have all learned today is that the game Zynga has been playing behind our backs should be called Scamville. That’s because Zynga has been accused of passing along user information to internet advertising and tracking companies. Though Zynga and Facebook have essentially said that passing along such information is against their policies, it has still apparently happened. Everyone involved said it was inadvertent, but does that still excuse them from fault? While it’s not terribly uncommon to transmit anonymous tracking data along to third parties, in this case the information wasn’t so anonymous. … Read entire article »

Clickbank is a huge affiliate marketing website. A lot of people are making a lot of money from this service. Problem is, their most popular products are the most questionable. In fact, 8 of the top 10 most popular websites are completely bogus single-page sales pitches, one of the other two has a questionable product, and only one is what I would consider to be a fully valid service (that being PhoneDetective). … Read entire article »