We’ve been reporting on many of the fake blog and fake news site scams here at the Electron Plumber over the past couple of months and they just keep coming and coming, changing their names every once in a while in an effort to appear new and different. At first and sometimes second glance, they appear to be legitimate news or blogs sites describing how you can earn money at home posting links for Google part time.
Want to know exactly what the Easy Google Profit scheme is, how the people advertising it are making money off it, and what will hopefully eventually happen when the government finally catches up with them? Read on!
First, go take look at our article on the Los Angeles Tribune News site by clicking here. It gives you some background on some of the fake news sites that are used to promote Easy Google Profit. Next take a look at our article on the earn easy money Google Biz Kit. I’ll wait here for you until you get back…
A hallmark of these earn online with Google sites is lots of testimonials from people supposedly earning money online to the tune of $5000-$10,000 a month, all from working part time posting links for Google. Enough to entice most average Americans with dreams of quitting their job, earning more money working at home for themselves and spending more time with the loved ones, but not so much as too seem completely unrealistic.
Ok, now you understand that it’s certainly a scam in our opinion and that they trick you into thinking you’re only paying $1 until suddenly your credit card is whacked for $77.83 or some other odd amount?
So how does it work exactly and how the heck do they get away with this?
Easy Google Profit Ads
First, lets track it back a little. Start at the beginning. You likely ended up here because you saw an Ad somewhere which linked to a fake blog or fake news site (hopefully you noticed it was fake). Hopefully you had to thought to do a quick search on the blog or Easy Google Profit scam to see if the offer was legit or not. The most common places we’ve seen and heard of these ads are Facebook, MySpace, Google, Yahoo, and Time.com. Someone is spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising a month on this stuff, and tricking more and more people every day. The advertiser likely isn’t the offer creator either…
The people doing the advertising are internet marketing affiliates who make a large commission for every person they can drive to the site who ends up giving up their credit card for a “free” trial. There are many affiliate networks out there, some good and some not so good. I belong to many of them, most to find offers to run. There are the top names like Commission Junction and Amazon, a number of big networks like AzoogleAds, ShareASale and NeverBlue, and then lots smaller third tier programs like Direct Agents. Funny story, we’re joined over 20 affiliate networks and so far only Direct Agents has “rejected” our application from The Electron Plumber with no explanation. We can only guess that sketchy offers like Easy Google Cash and the like are mainstays of their revenue.
So the creator of blazingkeywords.com (which is basically what you are buying through Easy Google Profits) likely pays affiliates in the $30-40 range PER PERSON they drive to the securecartcenter.com site and get to enter in their credit card number. So the affiliate pays the advertising cost, and the site owner pays the cost of hosting and the service to field all the angry customers who didn’t realize they were paying $75+ after 7 days rather than $1.97. Oh, and the cost of lawyers when the FTC catches up with them…
Is blazingkeywords.com and Earn Google Profit Breaking the Law?
We aren’t lawyers here at The Electron Plumber, nor do we pretend to be. However, the FTC has the following to say on the matter:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus41.pdf
and
http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/02/P064202negativeoptionreport.pdf
Don’t have time to download and read them? The main points:
- The same consumer protection laws that apply to commercial activities in other
media apply online. - Disclosures that are required to prevent an ad from being misleading, to ensure
that consumers receive material information about the terms of a transaction or
to further public policy goals, must be clear and conspicuous. - Display disclosures prior to purchase, but recognize that placement limited
only to the order page may not always work. - It’s the advertiser’s responsibility to draw attention to the required disclosures.
There is certainly an argument here that none of the above four criteria are being met, both for the companies running the various Google Money offers and for the affiliates pushing them.
The likely outcome? There have been similar types of cost hiding legal actions in the past, some notable ones:
- Azoogle Ads “donating” $1 million to the Florida to settle a case regarding deceptive advertising of “free” ringtones that had similar monthly charges attached.
- Think All Publishing settling for $2.1 million in similar charges regarding deceptive $1.99 shipping offers with high hidden monthly charges. See http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/06/manay.shtm.
Note that something similar will go on here. Eventually the FTC will get around to these guys and take them down, allow them to “settle” if they pay back what they took from people, and have them likely flee to their offshore tax haven with the money they snuck out.
How To Cancel Easy Google Profit and Blazingkeywords.com Monthly Charges?
Well, they do provide a phone number you can call. The number to cancel is 1-888-258-9765. HOWEVER, a number of people have suggested that calling their number is not the right thing to do.
If you call to cancel, they now have a record of you contacting them and if you later try to dispute the charge with your credit card company, they can show the record of your call to your credit card company as proof of the transaction. Only go this route if you can’t afford to cancel the card in question.
Here is what we recommend:
- Don’t feel bad! Seems like hundreds if not thousands of people have been taken in by these sort of “negative option” offers that trick you by not clearly disclosing you are signing up for monthly charges. You were tricked, it happens to the best of us.
- Call/write your credit card company and report the card stolen. This will make sure they can’t charge you any more and that they can’t sell your credit card number to anyone else. If they tricked you once already, what makes you think they won’t try to squeeze every penny out of you they can?
- Start ID theft monitoring right away! Click here to sign up for Experian Protect My Id monitoring. You just gave some shady characters your name, address, phone number, credit card and secret 3 digit card number. You can get Experian ID Protection for free for 30 days, then it’s $9.95 a month. I’d suggest signing up for AT LEAST the free month to check your credit report for free and make sure no one tries to change your address or open a new card using the current cards details you gave away.
I Didn’t Get Taken, But What Can I Do To Help?
Wh can you do to stop these guys from taking in more people? Warn everyone about it!
- Click Here to Share this on Facebook! Hit “Post to Profile” to warn your friends.
- Use the “Share This” link below to Digg or Stumble or Reddit or Email or whatever service you use to share this so that other people might see it before they get scammed too!
- Click Here to ReTweet this article to warn all your faithful followers.
But I Wanted To Make Money Online, Not Get Scammed! Is There Anything Real Out There?
Yes, there are many people who earn a living working at home sitting in front of their computer. And you can actually be one of them! Check out our article on The Best Way To Learn To Make Money Online
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Note – The comment from “Lisa” above says nothing about which site they are referring to. I have removed the number since it’s more likely someone trying to scam people.
Hello,
If there was some confusion about your subscription, we honestly didn’t mean to inconvenience you in any way. Our goal is not to inconvenience our customers .The terms and conditions of our offer are very visible on the order page, they are stated on the order page where you confirm your order, located directly to the top of where your credit card information was entered. There is also a link at the top of the home page that opens up the terms and conditions in a separate window. Customer service is our number one priority and we do everything we can to be open with all of our customers. Of course, mistakes can be made; and if you were not aware of our terms and conditions in our site.
You can talk to customer support seven days a week. Our U.S.-based help lines are also staffed each and every day of the week to respond to any questions you may have both before and after your order. Simply call us at (number removed) and we will be happy to walk you through the entire cancellation process.
Your satisfaction is our number one concern,
Thanks,
Hi Different Gina,
You are certainly free to try to sue them, and if you could both find them and get them to appear in court, you would very likely win. However, discovering who is actually behind these scams is likely extremely costly and futile. There is usually a shell company hiding behind a shell company that is located somewhere outside the US. You could easily spend $50,000 in lawyers fees to find out that there is no one to sue since the company simply closed down in the Cayman Islands.
Anyone shady enough to run this type of scam has either been shut down by the FTC already or has learned how to avoid them.
I’m Gina, but a different one. Has anyone ever sued this type of scammer? You’d be bound to win. Would Small Claims Court accept this kind of lawsuit?
So I was successful at getting Easy Google to refund the 129. I worked with my bank at first to file a claim and was refunded both the 129 and the 39.98. However, Easy Google told me they’d only refund the 129 if I’d fax them a letter promising not to go ahead with the claim for 39.98. Three months later, lo and behold, they recharged both…causing major overdraft fees on my account. I am working to go recapture both the 129 and the 39 now. SCAMMERS!!!
looking foreword to it
One of my friends on fb had a friend post a recommendation to go to galewher.com to start earning money at home. I checked it out. It was a letter about a girl and her husband that are earning money at home in North Battleford, near where i earn my money and live. I couldn’t find this girl’s name in the local phone book, nor is there anyone with a name similar to hers in North Battleford, unless she doesn’t have a phone number. Then i followed links on the page, they didn’t work, so i did a google search for easy google profit which brought me to this page. Thank you for the information, you saved me lots of research! i am convinced once again, if something looks too good to be true, it likely is.
I think you guys are idiots, how can you guys not read the fine print. Its obvious there are only 2 of you stupid people who wrote this blog. Next time if you give out your credit card number i advise you to read everthing before you sign up. Basically what you guys have done was gave a person your credit card information without reading anything. Its like signing a contract without reading anything. Good Grief. I hope these stupid people may stop putting advertisement saying this is a “scam”, while there are advertising other online business opportunities and advertising there links to earn money from people. So lame hypocrites. Thank you and that is my 2 cent.
Wish I had seen this article before. I can tell you this…If you are looking for biz with integrity… stay away from Google Biz & Google Profits = THIS IS A SCAM!!!! I ordered this back in October. You have 30 days to try it out and if you cancel you will not pay more than the 1.95. I CANCELED within 48 HOURS! Since then I have been billed $47.50 and $99.00 I called the same number that I canceled with originally and they said they had no record of my cancelation. When I found the cancellation # they originally gave me they said it really didn’t matter that I cancelled within the 30 day time as the $99.00 was a non-cancelable one time fee. They did say they would cancel me as of today but they would not be refunding my money. I do have my bank disputing this on my behalf and am contacting the Attorney Generals Office to inform them of this misrepresentation of the facts. DO NOT GET CAUGHT IN THIS SCAM!!! There are plenty of legitimate online business offers and ways to do business. INTEGRITY IS NOT PART OF THIS COMPANIES BUSINESS PRACTICE!
I’ve seen the same link as Greg, articlecash.cn. I see this thing everywhere. I get it as a pop-up on streaming sites, I’ve seen the link everywhere, always with some attractive copy to drive you to it. It always has the same info as Greg’s. It’s tailored to your geographic area and it’s from The Ontario Financial Journal, which is even a copyright.
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