Wow, that’s pretty serious when you get slapped for $1 mil. Maybe they should be more discerning on some of these scammy offers.

Really disappointing that you’d back these scammers, even if you have stopped now. The constant stream of victims wanting to know how to stop these scams to my blog should be a warning to everyone - stay well clear.
<abbr title=”remove yourself”

There are too many legit and ethical ways to make money, that it’s a shame some people operate on this level.

There are too many legit ways to make money that it’s a shame some have to operate on this level.

RipOff report won’t mean crap compared to all the industry leaders and managers catching this post before their breakfast.

wow that is crazy - it is really deceptive - they have the agreement at the end but knowing kids and teens they really wont read them - its really deceptive

The biggest scam out there is paypal on most days, look them up on that fraud report site. They don’t even try to hide that if a buyer does a chargeback illegaly they still screw the seller. (the chargeback takes the money from paypal, paypal passes the loss to the seller).

You should write a protect yourself from paypal article shoe. Step #1 - create a checking account for paypal ONLY. Transfer funds to that account ONLY. the second the funds hit the account, transfer them from there to your real checking account.

Why? because Paypal goes so far as to go into your bank account to get money from a chargeback even if theres proof the seller delivered in full…. now thats a real scam!

I agree that the Feds and the States ought to go after these companies. My question is when they pay the $1mil fine, where does that money go and to what purpose???

Bigger the company more the problems! At least they have enough money and connections to solve it.

Okay, but the thing is, how can a kid / teenager pay for services like that?

I run a free dating site for teens, mostly they are 18, do they have paypal by 18 ? *shrugs*

Are they alive as for eCommerce? I’m 18 as well, but at least I’m into making websites, buying domains, etc..

The 4 second delay thing is pretty sneaky… Talk about loopholes.

This type of stuff, I dont like to promote.

I was secretly wondering if you were behind any of these…

When you can’t get leads any longer, try and kill a market. Worked for ringtones, right?

Unfortunately there will always be deceptive wolves out there trying to take advantage of naive kids and unsuspecting affiliates. Thanks Shoe for helping get the word out. That’s the way to fight these scammers on our open and unregulated (as it should be) Internet.
Pam

it comes down to the consumer just being careful. as a marketer, i check out these types of sites and always look at their TOS. usually there’s something way at the bottom about recurring fees or required payments, and what-not. either way, deceiving and ripping off customers is not a good long-term business model. even for paypal…

I ran and still run a ringtones site - not that I make more than a 1000 dollars a year out of it now and I’m in the top ten of google search for ringtones!

I sold subscriptions and was called by my friends for ‘ripping off kids’ but I always countered by saying that people will try and rip them off all their lives and if they learn a harsh lesson at an early age it might stick and they will be more wary in the future.

The scam is happening here in Australia too. The international company that is running it is called Mobile Messenger http://www.mobilemessenger.com/ and they link up with all the major mobile service providers (I’m with 3 mobile). They have a call center set up here in Sydney that is specifically devoted to calls from people trying to find out how to stop this service once they see it appear on their bill. To get a weekly horoscope sms delivered to my mobile (for the incorrect star sign mind you!), I am charged $6.60 per message. On the website, you’ll find call center numbers for several countries, the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and New Zealand. They appear to have offices in Australia, the US, New Zealand and India. They wouldn’t give me the exact address for security reasons, I said “I bet”. I do have their Australian Business Number though (a number used for taxation purposes) if anyone wants it.

The company was set up in 1999 (according to the website) and has grown exponentially by scamming people, but remember, this is with the cooperation of the telcos who get a kick back from them as well. They also comply with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (according to the very cheeky “customer service” operator I spoke with), and I’m more than welcome to go to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. Judging from the cockiness of the company, they’ve got all the legal side of it stitched up.

The site I supposedly signed up on was http://perfectlover.com.au and the only time you get to see any terms and conditions is a link on the last page which has a timer on it - you have to submit the pin code they sent you on your phone in 2 minutes or you won’t ever know your perfect match, and the terms and conditions page which you have to click on (the tick box to agree to it is pre ticked of course) brings up a small window with the terms and conditions. The part about being charged anything is quite a way in, it’s 7 pages long in Word! So you’re meant to read that in 2 minutes? The guy I spoke to said it’s all made very clear on the website. It does have all the info in it though, I just looked at it then using a fake mobile number (then messaged that number just in case).

These people are low life scum, I’ll grant you that, but the fact is that the profit driven system we live in totally supports this kind of behavior. It’s not that different to your boss cajoling you into working overtime and then not paying you for it. So while it might make us feel a bit better relating our experiences here, this sort of shit will continue until we collectively do something about it; not just these vermin scammers and the telcos, but the whole rotten system of capitalism.

so now, instead of doing it yourself you are getting commission from these companies to bring them more affiliates…
I can see all the ringtone affiliates joining in hordes to these programs.

Another entertaining shoesposé!

Business is Business, everything is a scam really. Ringtones, horoscopes, wealth building, make money on adwords/adsense kits, pay day loans, car titles for loans with 500% interest rates - what isn’t a scam? Just ask yourself, what really isn’t a scam in marketing? Chevys red tag event, i’d say it’s a scam, because they’re showing you $50,000 trucks and saying they’re $33,500, but the fine print says the model shown was $50,000, mis leading consumers into believing they can get a nice Tahoe like the on in the commercial for $33,500.

You just have to be aware of everything you do these days, read the fine print, that really in general stops 90% of confusion.

Oh my, this is slick!

Without question shady!

Very nice how it fits just perfectly on my laptop screen and I can’t see the T&C at the bottom of the page….

What everybody is leaving out is that these blaitant persistant violations of compliance standards have destroyed one of the greatest performance verticals in the history of the intenet. Lawmakers are on a mission to lock them out of the new mobile web which has 4 times the users.I believe the Carriers at some point soon will use all the information gathered by the Government to disable 3rd party billing totally. Basically announcing that internet marketers and these ringtone advertisers are a threat to the consumer.. I don’t think they will pick a favorite advertiser in the space to avoid litigation by the others.. Its very asshole thinking by compliant advertiser that they will be in bed with the carriers.. The carriers have bigger fish to fry like free voice by google as incentive to use the new mobile web.. A classic case of a few bad apples spoil the whole vertical..

This problem persists in most verticals though, publishers who are weak at conversions scam to get more interest there affiliate networks don’t care cause there getting paid on the sales of others.. The advertiser is trying to save money and wants sales and really dosent know what to do till its to late in the end the adveretisers see their death and mostly join in the action until its over..

I spoke to an exec recently at Verizon who said in jest” I put you on this earth and I can take you out anytime. The Feds are here to reccomend the carriers stop 3rd party billing.. They dont give a crap about azoogle or adteractive there just pawns in the bigger picture.. They are not here to clean up the space! the space is over so I say time to go back to Viagra boys & girls…

Looks like these jokers already updated their lover calculator page and the price isn’t randomly appearing after 4 seconds. Shoe if at the least you get these guys to update their sites to be a little less deceptive, then you’ve done your job.

Slim Shady. Thats whats up.

Nice landing pages they have

same issue with funmobile

Were they ever a scam lol..

Shoe, I noticed one of your sites (the larger one) is still running the crush offer…

its very bad now:(

I thought you got to be more careful..

[...] piece of pie. I wanted to blog about ringtones some day and just never got to it, but after reading Shoemoney today, I figured it was time. I have quite a few thoughts about ringtones and where they’re going, [...]

The guy who is scamming you all is called Eugeni Zhenya Tsvetnenko. Check this article about his 1.5 million dollar wedding: http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23149231-5005370,00.html