I saw another fake work at home for Google ad today on Facebook. This time it’s a fake newspaper called the Watertown Tribute News with an article about Mike Steadman the college dropout pushing the Easy Google Profit and Google Cash Secret Club methods of working from home for Google for “only $1.97 or something”. Click on any link on the news site and you go to a snazzy offer page at yoursearchprofits.com. Can you work a part time job with Google for only $1.97? Is Mike just a nice guy who made good and is now raking in $10,000 a month “posting links for Google”? No he is not, he’s a fictitious snake oil salesman for the modern age.
It’s funny how these affiliate advertisers keep recycling the same names and picture for these work from home do gooders over and over again. Mike Steadman looks VERY similar to Kevin Hoeffer, exactly the same as a matter of fact. And he must be brother to Mary Steadman’s from Mary’s Money Blog. Do they know something we don’t about affiliate marketing or are they just lazy? Is that guys face the key to increasing conversions? Is the name Steadman some magic password to getting customers to pony up their credit cards?
Why are Easy Google Profit and Google Cash Secret Clubs Scams?
In our opinion, these offers are scams becasue nowhere do they meet the FTC’s guidelines for what are called “negative option” offers. A negative option is one where you are offered goods or services at a reduced price and in return are signed up for recurring monthly charges. For more details on the FCC rules check out our article on The Easy Google Profit Scam
That’s right, it’s not $1.97, it’s something like $78.73 a month that you’ll be charged about 7 days after you give them your credit card, many people saying regardless of if you call to cancel. Check out the fine print:
I am ordering the Earn Google Cash™ CD and trial membership for $2.29 S&H, after the 7-day trial I will be charged $39.95 if I do not cancel. I also agree to the 14 day and 21 day bonus trials to Grant Master™ and Network Agenda™ for $7.95 a month and $9.95 a month thereafter, should I choose not to cancel.
Great! Now I’m signed up for three “trials” I didn’t want with monthly charges that I have to call three different numbers (that will never answer) to cancel. And what do you get in return? Very likely some stale information about using Google Adsense (a free program by the way) to earn money on your website by letting Google place text ads on your site.
I Was Taken By The Easy Google Profit Scam! What Do I Do?
- Don’t feel bad! Seems like thousands of people have been taken in by these sort of 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 the number on the website IMMEDIATELY. Finding that number is up to you, they seem to keep changing. Have a witness listen when you call and/or record the conversation if possible. Unfortunately many people have complained that they can never get anyone to talk to when they call. You may want to skip this step and go right to #3.
- Call your credit card company and report the card stolen. They never clearly disclosed the charges you were signing up for and are going to start using your card for something you were not informed of. Treat it as if it was stolen.
- Monitor your credit accounts! Click here to sign up for Experian ID Protection monitoring. You just gave some shady characters your name, address, phone number, credit card and secret 3 digit card number. They tricked you once, you think they’ll stop at just the $82 they squeezed out of your card before you canceled? Experian is a large company, one of the Big Three credit reporting agencies. They clearly state that the ID Protection it’s truly free for a full 30 days, then only $9.95 a month if you don’t cancel in 30 days. I’d strongly suggest signing up for at least the free month to 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?
- Click Here to Share this on Facebook! Hit “Post to Profile” to warn your friends.
- Use the “Share This” links below to Digg or Twitter 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!
- Email this story to your friends.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
whenever a site says anything like “a quick and easy way to make money” this should raise suspicions
THis thing is an absolute scam. Good review of this here with lots of customer reviews from people that actually fell for this thing. They laos have the phone numbers you can call to cancel.
AH yes – the get-rich-quick formula
Beware of following links to these sites – I use Chrome which is pretty robust, but when I clicked through to something called securecartcenter dot com it contained some horrible javascript trap which stuck my browser so that I couldn’t leave the page until I crashed it
THIS IS A SCAM…I just got a link http://www.julypost.com to it on MySpace…reader beware!!!!! I believed it for a few minutes, actually thought it was someone from my area making REAL money…please, oh please don’t fall for this GOOGLE SCAM! We need to get the word out about this cr*p.
Whats funny is the GoogleAds at the bottom of this very article are all for the same scams the article describes!
Hopefully times aren’t too tough and electronplumber has turned to affiliate marketing with Mike Steadman!
Yeah Burr, we use Adsense ad blocks to help keep this site up and running, paying for things like hosting costs and the like. Unfortunately, the only tools Google gives us to choose what displays is the ability to block certain ads, which we do when we find them. Let us know please of any specific URL’s you think are hidden negative option scams where the offer is for one price but buried in the terms and conditions is another.
Note, that just because an ad is selling a make money at home idea on a squeeze page doesn’t automatically make it a scam. If Joe Blow is selling a secret method to make some extra pocket money with Adsense for $59 and you think it’s worth $59, be my guest. It’s when Joe Blow tells you it’s $1.97 and you’ll make $10,000 your first week, then charges your credit card $79.95, $43.95 and $23.87 every month that it’s a scam in my opinion.
Always use your judgment, look for real reviews and testimonials and BBB Reports, not fakes. Don’t believe anything a site tells you without doing a search for info on it first. Some of the best programs on the web have terribly scammy looking sales pages. For example Yaro Starak’s is considered one of the top make money blogging bloggers but his Blog Mastermind course sales page looks like any other. I think people use those sorts of testimonial filled hard sell squeeze pages because they work on some level.
You’re something else. You’re attacking affiliates promoting rebills, and then in the same post, you have an affiliate link to an ID protection rebill.
At least disclose that the reason you’re recommending ID protection is because you get paid every time someone signs up through your link!
You’re no better than the fake newspapers.
Joe, please reread the article again. Maybe you’re one of these scam site owners come to complain?
We here at the Electron Plumber have no problem with the idea of monthly rebills or affiliate programs. There are tens of thousands of products and services in this world that people gladly pay for every month and someone earns a commission on each one. Cell phones, cable TV, car leases, electricity, etc. Do you suggest people stop using their cell phones because they are charged monthly or because the cell phone store clerk gets a commission? Should we stop buying cell phones or cars because the stores doesn’t have signs disclosing that their sales people are paid on commission? No, of course not, and neither do we. The key is the discolsure of the rebill and the true month to month value.
These scam sites say they cost $1.97, then BAM, users get hit with $150 charges each month, all without their knowledge and for nothing new or different each month, and it’s near impossible to cancel them short of canceling your card number. That’s not value. However, is the ability to make a phone call from anywhere in the US worth $50 a month to you? I bet it is.
Rebills aren’t illegal, nor are affiliate programs. Promoting through false advertising and hidden rebills *is* illegal and you *will* get a visit from the FTC someday. Hope you’ve hidden your ill gotten profits well when that day comes.
Note that the Experian ID protection listed above clearly states that it’s free for 30 days (not 7) and then $9.95 per month after. It’s also plastered all over the Experian site that it has a monthly cost. We clearly suggest above that people sign up for the free month and check your credit report for signs of theft of ID fraud if you’ve been tricked into giving one of these scammers your card info. If you’ve given away your name, address, phone number, and credit card number to some trickster who then triple charges you without telling you, we think that puts them in a class of people that would also sell that info on the credit card black market for a few extra bucks. $10 a month for a few months (if you decide to keep it at all after the first month) to watch your back is nothing compared to your future inability to rent a car or get a cell phone or a loan of any kind or get collection agencies and lawyers to stop calling you 20 times a day after your credit has been trashed through ID theft.
Thus, it passes our tests and we suggest it to our readers. There is clear disclosure and real month to month value for anyone who has fallen for these scam artists.
Well, I have nearly signed up for one of them… but searched google a bit and as everybody says it’s a big scam… the one I have been on:
http://the-daily-reporter.com/P-UK-M-25-29/index.php?t202id=11042&t202kw=
strip the end of the url address to:
http://the-daily-reporter.com/
and suddenly you can earn money on Twitter, and what’s most interesting, the comments looks very similar, even times are very alike and off course you cannot leave any comment because “Comments Closed Due To Spam (back soon) “.
Everybody stay away from those sites, in current climate there’s lot’s of that kind of websites just waiting to grab your money for nothing in return…
Good luck in search for something that will really let you make some money. well, good printer, or good job
Dude this has to be BS. The name of the tribunal paper was the city I live in and we dont have a paper named that it also said he was a college drop out from the city I live in and thats a bunch of SHIT. Google makes enough money to monitor this shit and if they cant then I think we should start using Yahoo like I already do. Thanks
I nearly fell for it until I looked at the fine print! Who doesn’t want to work from home? Making money from home is not easy and we all have to do our due dilegence when it comes to protecting ourselves from these scams. If it says you can make a ton of money in a short period of time, then buyer beware. Nothing is THAT easy!
I found an ad by Mike Steadman on a fake newspaper, Washington Reporter. Why doesn’t someone stop this guy?????
i know someone who makes 2 K a month through google ad… and he’s doing it part time…
George, it’s true, you can totally make money every month using Google Adsense or Adwords. One needs organic traffic and the other needs cold hard cash for advertising. However, you don’t need to pay anyone $70 a month to learn how. It’s free.