Effin’ NerdsTechnology | Celebrities | Geekery

Get comfy and read about this scam that I stumbled upon. It is truly diabolical. It all began when I was checking my Alexa.com stats. I was curious about the “Hot URLs,” so I cruised down the list to see what articles and links were blazing.

Everything seemed normal until I saw number eight...

SIGN ME UP, SCOTTY!

Everything seemed typical until I saw the headline in the number eight spot from losangeles-tribune.com. It said, “Jobs: Is Working Online At Home The Next Gold Rush?” Naturally, I wanted to check it out because this is right up my alley. It was a totally legitimate looking news blog so I kept reading.

Nothing unusual here, right? Right?

I’ll admit that I was salivating at the idea of earning $5,500 a month posting links on Google.com. Sounds great, right? I do that for free everyday on FaceBook and Twitter.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE…AGAIN?!

In the article, a woman named Mary spills the secret to her successful online business:

“We were doing pretty good and then we discovered the real trick to making money. We combined “Easy Google Profit” with another free course called “My Internet Payday” that’s where we really learned the extra tricks so instead of making a couple of hundred bucks here and there we started maximizing the amount we made.”

So, I clicked on the links and immediately red flags smacked me on the head. I’ve seen pages like this before, when I tried to sign up for a free pink MacBook Pro. My first instinct was the check the Terms and Conditions. Here they are.

EASY GOOGLE PROFIT (securecartcenter.com) – Terms and Conditions

You have also subscribed to a fifteen-day trial to Grant Spring for just $24.87 a month and every month thereafter should you chose not to cancel. Prior charges for all programs are non-refundable but bonus subscriptions can be cancelled and future charges stopped at any time by calling toll free 888-247-2155.

If you choose to sign up for this product and pay the recurring monthly charges using a debit card you hereby provide pre-authorization and consent that blazingkeywords.com may charge $77.82 on a monthly basis. You may stop payment on any pre-authorized charge by notifying blazingkeywords.com at least three business days prior to the scheduled charge date. You agree your pre-authorization and written consent to charge your debit card is given in electronic form by submitting the request for the membership, and that an electronic signature is sufficient to authenticate your authorization to charge the debit card. You further agree that these terms and conditions shall be your copy of your pre-authorization for the debit card.

This is totally insane. You basically agreed to spending $102.69 per month on a product that the article said cost $1. The scummy part here is that if you trust the article and think the news site is legit, you wouldn’t be suspicious enough to read the Terms and Conditions. How many of us have actually read the entire terms for sites like Gmail or FaceBook?

Instant Access...to a major debt.

CASH SECRET CLUB (cashsecretclub.com) – Terms and Conditions

By purchasing this product, you agree to adhere to the termination agreement as outlined on the order page, confirmation of order page, and confirmation email, which is that you, the buyer, are not entitled to a refund of the upfront cost of any shipping and handling that may or may not have been charged to you for delivery of said product. Furthermore, any free trials that may or may not be offered with this product are only free during the said allotted time of the free trial period as outlined within the product sales page, confirmation of order page, and confirmation email. If you have not cancelled the free bonus within the 7 day trial period (if offered on product purchasing), you are agreeing to purchase the bonus material and/or service at a monthly reoccurring cost. The resource center is billed at $81.32 monthly. This can be cancelled at anytime simply by calling the customer service number provided in the confirmation email and stating your desire to cancel said bonus material. However, in order to not be charged any future reoccurring cost, please give ample time (2 business days) to be cancelled out of any reoccurring billing system before the next scheduled charge to your account (this does not apply during any trial period). Not cancelling trial programs constitutes authorization, by you, the buyer, for any charges (as outlined) for the associated bonus service until your request to cancel has been received by our customer service staff. By not cancelling the bonus program during the trial period or prior to two days before a scheduled billing cycle, you agree that any reoccurring charges billed to you will be non-refundable. All products are shipped via USPS.

Assignment of rights
By providing any personal information, you agree and are giving permission that COMPANY, its associates, sponsors and co-sponsors of this offer may contact you by means of telephone, e-mail or other sources of marketing, even if your number is found on a do not call registry or listed on an opt out list pursuant to the CAN-SPAM Act.

This one is pretty shocking. Not only did you sign up to pay the $81.32 per month, you agreed to let these people SPAM you even if you’re signed up for Do Not Call registries. And this was supposed to cost $1.95?

WHAT ABOUT THE L.A. TRIBUNE?

The only L.A. Tribune is the La Tribune in France. The newspaper doesn’t exist. Here are some screen shots of the website when I went to the index page.

WTF? Right?

CONCLUSION

Okay, so the terms and conditions were pretty straightforward, but the font for CashSecretClub was tiny. I had to copy and paste the terms to read it without squinting. I’ve had some jerks trash talk my past articles because it was “so obvious” that these are scams. Yes, people figure it out eventually, but these marketing people are smart and they know that a few people fall between the cracks. There are actual folks out there that don’t spend 24/7 on the Internet. And I hope this is helpful for those people.

Related Article:

There’s No Such Thing As a Free MacBook

FaceBook Gone Phishing?

ViddyHo.com is SPAM/Phishing Site

Tags: blazingkeywords.com, cashsecretclub.com, Gold Rush, Google, LA Tribune, losangeles-tribune.com, Scams, securecartcenter.com, Working Online

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 at 6:47 AM and is filed under Gadgets, Internets, Movies, WTF?. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.