On CBS Evening news tonight they are taking a look at CPA Empire’s Ringaza. The piece is actually titled Ringing Up Big Charges For “Free” Tones. CPA Empire is current under investigations from the Florida Attourney Generals office and other authoritys.
From the CBSnews site:
“I did not purchase anything,” Anderson said. “I did not agree to any charges. I did not download anything. All I did was navigate to a site.”
An innocuous-looking website run by a company called Ringaza. Peel away the layers of Ringaza and you find a man named Scott Richter, better known to some as “the King of Spam.” A few years back, Richter was one of the biggest e-mail spammers in the world. He even paid a $7 million settlement over it.
Here is the funny twist. This site which is supposedly *exposing* Verizon specifically from profiting from these “ringtone scams” is actually being monetized by VERIZON RINGTONE OFFERS
Hi, hypocrite called. Anyone home?
Also this is a great time to post the video of Scott “King of Spam” Richter when he did a very funny piece on the daily show.
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Ringtones sites are so scammy. And ads loaded.
I was scammed once by a ringtone company when I put my cell phone number into their website to”get info”, only they sent me a ringtone and unbeknown, if I opened the sms message they sent me, it charged me $5 for the incoming sms message telling me that I could accept the ringtone, but nothing about the $5 cost.
I found out who they were thru my cell phone service provider. When I rang them they said I had entered a contract by entering my cell phone number into their website and they sms message charges, which were now around $170, stood and they would pursue me for it.
I called my cell phone provider back who said to write us (the cell phone provider) a letter and they would look into it. They did and this ringtone company then told me it was my bad luck and they would send my account to a debt collector.
I got assertive (not rude) with them and told them I would be referring the matter to the communications authority. The next thing I heard was from my cell phone provider was that the sms charges have been reversed which meant these crooks backed off when I called their bluff.
Lesson is, never put your cell phone number into a ringtone website unless you know they are above board.
Let’s not forget this was the network of the unbiased (yea, right) Dan Rather.
Haha that video at the end is hilarious
LOL! He’s just doing what a lot of us have done at some point either now or in the past, but on a much larger scale. It is getting to be a bit of a pain now with all the spam I still get.
No, they probably don’t have any idea those ads are on that page, Kind of ironic though.
Interesting – big fan of the Daily Show too, but I don’t think it’s on “daily” in Australia like it is in the U.S. I think we get the “World Edition” once a week though.
thanks for sharing!
How come this happen? What can be done from our parts?
How come??
Nice to hear about that ValueClick settled hisself too. Every place where I am reading I read about AzoogleAds, but there are more settled players. I will give ValueClick a try!
kind of… azoogleads is one of the companies that has “settled” so far.
I posted about it here:
http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/02/13/valueclick-vclk-settles-ftc-investigation-for-29-million/
Didn’t azoogle got fined $1m for those “free” offers in california?
It’s interesting how some people just ignore or bend laws to make big money. I couldn’t do this. Taking away money and making it impossible for the victims to stop it is a step too far in my opinion.
Regular things… Try to sign up with FreeCreditReport and it will be the same. I was charged 3-4 times untill it was completely removed. Internet (including ringtones) is a “wild wild west” now and it will take a years when JFK consumer laws will reach this field.
CBS isn’t going to cut off their advertising dollars if they can make a buck. They’re just like anyone else.
Hilarious video. I’m sure that guy can’t be buying what he is saying. At one point he even alludes to the fact that his made up title is the same as ’spammers’.
The Daily Show is awesome. I’m so glad the writers are back!
Is there things like out there right now that you know of? Ones that have not yet been exposed?
All sounds a little hypocriticial as usual…
Is anyone still sending him emails?
Oh my goz..I really hate scsm. I wish to kill the scammer with my intelectual property.
That was a funny piece.
HAH! The king of “spam”. There are new kings now!
-Mike
This is by far one of the funniest video’s I have seen. that guy was obviously not given the gift of intelligence (although he was making alot of money, geez 20k per day?)
You mean, aren’t ALLOWED any communication about what is being advertised!
The video is too funny. What’s really funny though is that Richter is pretty smart or at least he is smarter than the people he scammed or still scamming.
Even though it looks really hypocritical, and somebody at CBS should have checked, the advertising department and editorial department probably don’t have any communication about what is being advertised, particularly the automated contextual advertising from Overture.
Wow adsense looks bad now made me laugh
A great point to PR…research who is interviewing you!
scottrichter442@yahoo.com
Wonder how much email he got?
Ah, I remember when Scott was just ripping people off at his first go-around: OptIn Real Big (yes, that was the company name) back in the late 90s. Seriously, how has this guy eluded jail time up until this point.
I registered ringtonelawsuit.com about a year ago and think its value just climbed a bit more.
also makes adsense look pretty bad.
A spammer and a scammer? I don’t like this guy.
This interview is so “Borat” like and I am amazed that Scott was taking it so damn seriously. After watching this video – Rule #1 – Spammers are DUMB!
gave me a good laugh
Very funny video. Yea, I hate missing all those offers when they don’t come in.
I missed this. Great video. I hate spam and have to delete soooo much of it daily. It’s ridiculous.
ya its kind of weird… I know Scott loves the attention though.
Isn’t this how you made your fortune?
lol, cpaempire right
I just joined CPA Empire… looks like I have to take advantage of some of these ringtone offers.
My company having problems with spam emails. Everyday in the morning we need to delete each and every one of them. It was too much! And the IT DEPT still can’t handle the problem.. It is annoying!!
Kurasan Blog
That’s really funny. Never thought it could be CBS news cheating on it..
What a great video. I wasn’t sure if Scott Richter actually believes that drivel, or does he just believe the public is that stupid? I get over 150 spam emails a day and would love to see those idiots held accountable for my lost time to deal with it.
That’s the first thought that came to mind! lol
This really correlates with yesterday’s blog on shoemoney.com about ‘why you should embrace negative press’. Verizon is a company that enables other companies to produce and distribute ringtones to their customers, while pocketing a little bit for each one. And of course, you can’t just cancel your service with Verizon, because you’ll be charged an ETF. How
convenient.Probably not a good time to start promoting the ringtone offers now huh? lol
Seems like CPAEmpire / Scott Richter are in the news whenever Affiliate Summit comes around…
Ive seen that video before – Very good! It was obviously scripted but some people didn’t see it that way at the time
It would be like…”Drugs are bad for you…But if you are gonna take them anyway, go to Rite-Aide!”
That made my day…Gotta protect those little white trucks.
Funny thing is, email has been a whack to the USPS, but probably not due to vagiskill.
scott richter is my hero
That video is hilarious. Spam really is a hassle. Everyone loves emails, but the sheer volume of spam is crazy.
It’s unfortunate that there are people using deceptive practises to try and take other people’s money. As technology advances so will the scammers and spammers.
That is so funny it was being monetized by Verizon ringtone offers!
The Jon Stewart video had me cracking up. “High Volume Email Deployment”? I wonder if any email was “deployed” to him after that?
Well, I got to go delete any “deployed email” that got through my spam filter.
~ Terry
This was bound to happen sooner or later. I just wonder what kind of impact it will have on the industry as a whole. Small dent? Most likely.
Thank you
OMG ! a lot of scams these days !!
Scott Richter is my hero/role model/BFF. I’m redoing my entire business model on account of his trailblazing entrepreneurialism.
That’s funny. In defense of CBS, I doubt their advertising and journalism department’s have much to do with one another.
I can’t believe it’s monetized by ringtone offers. Very hypocritical.
This is crazy stuff! I can’t wait to see it on the news! This scam looks huge!
That’s hilarious! I just went to the article and saw that it’s being monetized by ringtone offers. I’m sure CBS will volunteer to give that money back…right.
Damn it! I missed it!
LOL funny video
I feel sorry for all you guys legitimately doing ringtone stuff, as this will make you look bad. Seems ringtones have become the new email spam. The legitimate offers are being drowned out by the bad ones.
On the flip side, I’ve heard that even the music industry has been pushing artists to do and promote ringtones as well.