The ferrari guy from the Facebook Google Cash scam

The real identity of the guy with a Ferrari used in a Google Cash advert on Facebook has been revealed.

The Google Cash is a scam and the people behind it used a picture found on Google Images using the [me and my ferrari] key phrase. The results yielded on pole position a guy who is standing near a red Ferrari.

The caption of the image used in the scammers’ ads presents an arrogant man who got rich overnight:
“I’m the guy you see driving down the street in a bright red Ferrari with the top down, and you stop and think to yourself, ‘What a fool!’ And you know what? You’re probably right. But so what? Do you really think I value your opinion? I’m rich, I honestly could NOT care less.”

The picture in question was taken by a 25-year-old respectable man living in New York, Gary Marshall. He was interviewed by The Age and said “It was a joke photo and a joke caption”.

He uploaded the photo in his Picassa web album to share it with his sister who was overseas. He did not think that the picture will arrive on the public domain, he thought that the pictures will be kept private.

Facebook, even though it was informed that its advertisers drive the social network’s users in scam, did not take any action, thus 175 million users are still in danger of handling their credit card details into the scammers hand.

Could the sweepstakes programme of India Today Book Club really exist

This question was asked by Surjit Singh

First of all, let’s shed an insight on India Today Book Club for those who don’t know what it is.
India Today is one of the greatest media networks in India. Its content — mostly news — appears on virtually every media type in India, including but not limited to printed press, online press and radio.

India Today Book Club is a subsidiary of India Today and is very similar to the world-wide known Reader’s Digest Book club. It has its own member reward programs which is credit based. For example if you order from India Today Book Club items for at least 1000 Indian Rupees (roughly 20 USD), you will get 75 credits in value of 75 Rupees (about 1.5 USD) and which can be used ONLY for ordering gift cards or membership renewals.

Not so long, spam emails started to travel through the internet which tried to deceive the user in clicking links in order to conduct fool play, including data fishing (phishing) and signing up to websites for a stunning award, which usually was 1KG of Gold.

Most of these emails were initiated by 123greetings.com, an online system for sending greeting cards and the main target of the emails were Indian citizens.

India Today group never sent emails claiming the existence of any type of sweepstakes and their only reward program is the “Members Reward Scheme” which never exceeds 150 rupees (about 3 USD).

If you get emails telling you about India Today Sweepstakes Programme, please avoid clicking links from the email body.

Is Google Ads Free a Scam – review and insights

We were asked by one of our readers to shed some light on this system because he smelled it’s scam. Started our research by finding information regarding whether it is Google Ads Free a scam or not, but sincerely what we found are blogers claiming it to be a scam because of how the website Google Ads Free is advertised on looks like.

What is Google Ads Free?

It is just another e-book. What it will teach you is how to effectively use affiliate and search marketing to have some incredible incomes. The incomes which are stated on the website they advertise their product on are not impossible to achieve with affiliate marketing, however it is very hard and requires enormous knowledge and work. Basically it should be an e-book which sheds some light on the affiliate marketers’ advanced techniques.
But how is possible to advertise on search engines for free?
The technique is rather simple.
First of all, you will pay for every click or impression and to be successful, you will have to spend some big money on AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing. Without going into detailed description of what’s described in the e-book, you will advertise (for example on Google) products, you will pay for every click but when people buy through your website, the earnings should cover the advertising costs. Basically you will have a return of investment (ROI) greater than 100% and this makes the advertising costs diminished.
Be warned though, that to achieve this you will have to spend on AdWords small fortunes and don’t be surprised if you get bills with $5.000 or $10.000. It’s an extremely risky business.

Why people say Google Ads Free is a scam?

When you try to perceive whether a website conducts fool pay, you are aware of some patterns. The problem with the Google Ads Free website is that most of these patterns are found on it.

• The price of the e-book is not stated but at the very bottom of the website
• There are cliche-like testimonials which should prove the effectiveness of the information closed in the e-book
• Use of stock-photos as proofs
• Excessive use of huge earnings ($7 million)

Is Google Ads Free worth the money?

What we should have learn from the ebook, was already known by us. We payed $67 through Clickbank’s checkout system and apparently there are no recurring fees. But is it worth the money?
We believe it is worth only if you are prepared to spend huge sums on AdWords or other search marketing engines, sums reaching even $10.000 or more, and even then, there is no guarantee that you will succeed. As we said before, affiliate marketing is an extremely risky business.
You may also learn some things about search and affiliate marketing which you didn’t know yet but only for this purpose, it’s not worth buying it because most of the information contained in the e-book is already covered on websites for free.

Google scams – Scams using the Google brand

Google is one of the greatest brands of the internet, that’s an incontestable statement. If not the greatest. This greatness brings with itself publicity, however this publicity brings with itself an unwanted thing as well: scams using the Google brand.

In this article we will list some of the Google scam we are aware of; please note that these scams are in no way related to Google Inc. and that it’s not a full list.

Google Scams – fast cash promises, identity theft, phishing

Google Cash scam: One of the most notorious Google scams is Google Cash Scam. This system promises its users incomes up to $33.000 (USD) for almost no work. This system is basically an e-book and is one of the lightest form of scam as it is based on misinformation regarding the use of the Google AdWords online advertising platform. Under misinformation we mean that the author of the e-book presents for the readers information that is deprecated and currently is — almost entirely — against the Google AdWords Terms of Service. Another bad aspect of the Google Cash scam is that even though the user purchases this e-book for a minimal price, later it will be charged on monthly basis with greater sums and without its consent. Canceling the application is almost impossible since none of the contact methods presented on the Google Cash website and its affiliates’ is actually working.
This Google Cash system has been derived in many other forms and names. Unknown authors are publishing and offering for a fee their “knowledge” presented in form of an e-book. Some of the other names Google Cash has been derived to is Google Cash Cow, Google Cash Kit, Google Fast Cash, etc. All of these are basically e-books and repeats what Chris Carpenter, the author of the Google Cash scam has already covered in his book.

Google AdWords phishing messages: A much harsher form of scam are the Google AdWords phishing messages. If you get messages which states that you are required to update your AdWords contact information please do not click any links contained in the email body, but type the AdWords domain (http://adwords.google.com) in the address bar of your browser and verify whether the AdWords team really requested update or not.
If you click on the links from within the emails, a login page very similar to the Google AdWords login page will show up. If you enter your login information, specifically your Google AdWords username/email and password, these credentials will be sent to the scammers’ databases and they can use to access your AdWords and Google account, including the Google Checkout account and steal all your centrally stored information. This includes, but not limited to your address, phone number(s) and credit/debit card information.
Google Lottery: We got emails which states that our spam-catcher email address has been selected as the winner of a great prize, usually well above 2 million US Dollars. Nothing bad with that, it’s common to get such email but this email was a bit different as it stated that the lottery was initiated by Google. They required from us to email back to a specific email address information regarding our person. This was just another use of the Google brand to steal someone’s personally identifiable information.

Google scams seemingly are prospering.

Why Google doesn’t do anything to stop the Google Scams?

Regarding the AdWords phishing messages, they do go after each sender and they try to disable the webservers they used to send the messages. However this requires the users to be aware of the phishing messages and to effectively report each message they receive.
For the rest of the scams, we answer with a question: can it? It would be an enormous work and pointless in the same time as new affiliate websites would pop up in no time if Google would try to remove from its results the scam-sites or to remove them completely from their host.

You can take some steps to avoid scams and phishing

1. Whenever you get messages which states you have to update your information on a specific web service, do not click the links the author of the email provided in the email body, but go to the website using your browser’s address bar or bookmarks
2. If you are on a login page, always check the URL. If the URL is not familiar, close the specific window/tab and try to login from the domain of the service you are trying to log in to.
3. Forget the “Getting rich fast” and similar cliches. There is no such thing
4. Whenever a party claims that you are the winner of a prize, be extremely cautious regarding what type of information you supply for them. Ask for an URL to their Terms of Contest and Privacy Policy and read it thoroughly
5. Avoid any service which is payed and has no contacting method(s) provided
6. Whenever you are on to signing up to a service where you have to provide your credit card number or other personally identifiable information, do a search on google for the “service name scam” (replace the service name with the specific service’s name)

Cyberwize – Pyramid game, scam, everything you want to avoid

Every now and then we get emails from people who have been scammed. Usually we already know about the scam they report, but not in this case. Peter Horn, who just started to explore the internet, found a promising “work from home” offer, and since they were extremely convincing, he jumped on the band wagon as well. And this was just the beginning of his unfortunate journey.

Cyberwize, unlike the traditional scam sites, has a quite beautiful website where they advertise their wellness products and an “opportunity”. The wellness products looks fine, even though their secret is a meteoroid which hit the Earth in 1908 in Tunguska. Since we have no knowledge about these products we can’t say a word about them.

Cyberwize opportunity – multilevel marketing, scam

The opportunity they advertise is more interesting as seemingly is a well designed pyramid game. To sign up for this opportunity you have to have a referrer, a person who already “enjoys” the high payouts of the Cyberwize multilevel marketing scam.
After you provide the referee’s ID (a number), you will face some slight issues: you are required to fill out a form, later you will have to provide more personally identifiable information including your credit card’s number. Your credit card is needed to pay the sign-up fee, $99 (USD). Later you will be informed that you will also have to have a website, company website as they call it, which will cost you about $14.50 monthly and your credit card will be used to retrieve this fee. Again, monthly.
They promise “unlimited income” and you will work from home. Basically, this is true. What they “forgot” to mention is that you will also have to buy on your own money all the promotional materials, including brochures, sample products and other merchandising items.

When you finally signed up, you will have to sell products and refer new people in the system to be successful. Selling products is OK as even Amway works this way, but referring new people is fishy.
Another interesting thing we didn’t see anywhere else is that they state that they will effectively buy a car for you. Seemingly, you have to apply for a car loan, then each month you qualify for their “CyberWize Car Bonus”, they will pay your car loan for that month.
The testimonials on the website sounds great, maybe too great. Noteworthy that at the time of our review each and every testimonial sounded like if it was written by the same person and in the videos the people were like actors who are playing roles.

Cyberwize – why is it a scam?

Cyberwize fits perfectly in the “pyramid game” niche. Let’s see a summary of the reasons why we state Cyberwize is a scam:

• There are dozens of hidden fees which are not stated anywhere on the Cyberwize website
• You have to refer new people in the system to be successful
• Their company claims that they will pay your car loan

Gone Phishing – Williams and Suzan wants to give me their money?

I got this letter yesterday night. It’s quite interesting even though some bits of it I don’t really understand, for example why the author wants to give me a fortune, or what do I have to do with a Sierra Leone Mining Company?

The purpose of the e-mail is likely to be an e-mail address harvesting scheme; what would they do with my address I don’t know, but am not really interested at the moment in finding it out either. It’s much more likely that if I’d answer, they’d reply with specific queries regarding my security number, address and other, personally identifiable information.

This is the email, I removed the e-mail addresses and informed Yahoo about a possible phishing scheme. Have fun:

Dearest One ,

Our names are Williams and Suzan we are the children of Late Chief Micheal Koffi Donald the former acting General Manager of the Sieria Leone Diamond mining coperation(SLDMC ). We are contacting you to seek your good assistance to retrieve and invest USD 14,300,000.00 belonging to our late father which he deposited in one of the famous Security Company here in Abidjan Cote D’Ivoire. The money was deposited in a Trunk Box to the Security Company and our late father declares the content as Family Valuables for security reasons.

This money is revenues from solid minerals and diamonds sale which were under our fathers possession before the civil war broke out in our country Sierra-Leone. Following the brake out of the war, almost all government offices, coperations and parastatals were attacked and vandalized. The SLDMC was loothed and burnt down to ashes, and diamonds worth millions of dollars was stolen by the rebel military forces who attacked our father’s office. Many top government officials and senior army officers were assasinated and my father was a key target because of his possition and appointment in the SLDMC.
Regreatably, our father was captured and murdered along with half our brother in cool blood during a mid-night rebel shoot-out when our official residence in freetown was armbushed by Fordey Sanko the notorious rebel leader.

My mother sustainded very sever bullet injuries which resulted to her untimely and painful death in a private hospital here in Ivory Coast. Now we are alone in a totally strange country without parents, relatives or any body to care for us at our tender ages. Before our mother died, she told us that we should pray and find a trustworthy foreign business partner who would help us to retrieve the Trunk Box from the Security Company and invest this money in profitable business venture overseas. She told us to do this quickly so that we can leave Ivory Coast, then settle down abroad.

I have gone to the Security Company to make inquires about this Trunk Box and I spoke with the operation manager of the Security Company who assured me that everything is ok in their computers.

If you are willing to assist us, please let us know immediately through our private email address ([removed]@yahoo.com for more details on how to proceed and also provide us with Your full names and address, tel/ fax/ mobile for easy communication.

Please note that I and my younger sister have maped out 20% for your noble assistance. We are interested in any profitable commercial venture which you consider very good in your country and you would also get a school for me and my sister where we can finish our colledge education.

We are hoping to hear your urgent response.
Thank you and may God bless you and your dear family.

Best Regards,
Williams and Suzan DonaldDearest One ,

Our names are Williams and Suzan we are the children of Late Chief Micheal Koffi Donald the former acting General Manager of the Sieria Leone Diamond mining coperation(SLDMC ). We are contacting you to seek your good assistance to retrieve and invest USD 14,300,000.00 belonging to our late father which he deposited in one of the famous Security Company here in Abidjan Cote D’Ivoire. The money was deposited in a Trunk Box to the Security Company and our late father declares the content as Family Valuables for security reasons.

This money is revenues from solid minerals and diamonds sale which were under our fathers possession before the civil war broke out in our country Sierra-Leone. Following the brake out of the war, almost all government offices, coperations and parastatals were attacked and vandalized. The SLDMC was loothed and burnt down to ashes, and diamonds worth millions of dollars was stolen by the rebel military forces who attacked our father’s office. Many top government officials and senior army officers were assasinated and my father was a key target because of his possition and appointment in the SLDMC.
Regreatably, our father was captured and murdered along with half our brother in cool blood during a mid-night rebel shoot-out when our official residence in freetown was armbushed by Fordey Sanko the notorious rebel leader.

My mother sustainded very sever bullet injuries which resulted to her untimely and painful death in a private hospital here in Ivory Coast. Now we are alone in a totally strange country without parents, relatives or any body to care for us at our tender ages. Before our mother died, she told us that we should pray and find a trustworthy foreign business partner who would help us to retrieve the Trunk Box from the Security Company and invest this money in profitable business venture overseas. She told us to do this quickly so that we can leave Ivory Coast, then settle down abroad.

I have gone to the Security Company to make inquires about this Trunk Box and I spoke with the operation manager of the Security Company who assured me that everything is ok in their computers.

If you are willing to assist us, please let us know immediately through our private email address ([removed]@yahoo.com for more details on how to proceed and also provide us with Your full names and address, tel/ fax/ mobile for easy communication.

Please note that I and my younger sister have maped out 20% for your noble assistance. We are interested in any profitable commercial venture which you consider very good in your country and you would also get a school for me and my sister where we can finish our colledge education.

We are hoping to hear your urgent response.
Thank you and may God bless you and your dear family.

Best Regards,
Williams and Suzan Donald

Please, never answer any e-mail which looks suspicious!

Google Cash Review and Why Google Cash is a scam?

A while ago we published an article regarding the Google Cash Cow Scam but even now, every once in a while we get an email explaining how a user or in unfortunate case the author of the email was practically scammed by purchasing a quite expensive e-book, Google Cash by name which promised its user that it will help earn huge money fast. Better said a small fortune lightning fast.

The above promise is suspicious from the very beginning: other than the stock-market, real estate and illegal businesses, do you know about any activity, explained in the form of a relatively short book which can bring you a stunning $33.000 per month? Because this is what the author of the Google Cash, Chris Carpenter states: buy his e-book and you get rich in no time.

So why is Google Cash a Scam?

This is system can’t work as promised because of many things, listing some of the most obvious and important:

• The Google Cash system is about affiliate marketing taken to extreme. The affiliate marketing nowadays is almost dying because the financial crisis.
• It explains how to create AdWords ads in a way that is forbidden by the AdWords Terms of service. Nowadays you can’t use hop-urls to fool the users who click on the ads
• The Google Cash e-book states you will earn cash through Google, without a website. This would be OK, if you would be allowed to use hop-urls, but you are not
• This e-book also explains that you will use keywords for advertising on the search network of Google and for which you will pay only a few cents per click. While this sounds good, advertising on the search network is the most expensive option in AdWords and finding keywords which cost only a few cents per click is improbable
• The Google Cash explains you how to get started in a less than 15 minutes. The problem is that creating the ad plus the time frame in which the ads will appear on the Search network is way more

Is Chris Carpenter a liar and the Google Cash a scam? He is not a liar, we wouldn’t be so harsh with him because a few years ago the system he describes could work fine, but the truth is that today, when the World is struggling with a so called Financial Crisis — which evolved in an economical crisis, — and Google updated the AdWords engine many times since the book was published, the Google Cash is outdated and is a system which is designed to specifically fail on the current market.

Can you make fast and big money with Google Cash? The chance is extremely low.

Need a proof regarding Google Cash is a scam? This image is taken from the websites which advertises and sells the Google Cash e-book and related products.

If you look closely, then you shall observe that: 1. This ClickBank report is from 2006. At the time of this post is 2009. A lot of things change in 3 years. 2. Look at the report date period again: 2006-04-01 through 2006-04-15. Now look at the bottom of the image: Current ClickBank Date: 2006-04-10, so basically either the ClickBank system was so smart that it predicted the sales for 5 days in advance, or, and this is more plausible, the image is faked.

Have a second opinion? Post it below in the comments section!

How to wash laundry…ahem, money – by Dr. Roger Amar

Dr. Roger Amara, a doc from Malaysia explained me today how his client and himself wanted to transfer money from one account to another in order, probably to loose it’s track. Only one problem appeared: his client died, and now I would be the one who’d need to continue the process. Too bad it’s a scam.

ESTEEM GREETINGS

Good day to you.I would have contacted you through surface
mail, but because of time and for security reasons,I had
to reach you by email I apologize for breaking into your
privacy.

Meanwhile,let me introduce myself to you.I am Dr.Roger E.
Amar,I am a doctor at Hospital Queen Elizabeth
Malaysia,For the past six years,I have been the private
doctor to her Excellency,Chief Mrs.Stella Chincona
Obi.Last month,she came to our clinic for a liver
transplant and my assistant (NAME REMOVED) helped me in
the transplant operation.

The liver transplant was successful,but minutes later she
had some Complications that threw her into a terrible
coma.all the efforts we made,she died.A day before the
transplant operation,she came to my apartment to finalize
a deal with me,She has already called me from her country
two weeks before her arrival in Malaysia,to inform me
about this transaction and what she want me to do for
her.the main plan is to use my position as a reputable
doctor with the hospital,to remit the sum of $4.5 million
into Hospital Queen Elizabeth account with our bank.

The whole arrangement was completed and the fund was
carefully deposited with our bank.Her plans was to
transfer the fund into some private bank accounts in
Switzerland once she gets back to her country,so that the
management of the hospital will not know about the fund
and claim it. But unfortunately.she died some hours after
the liver transplant.

My main reason for contacting you is for you to assist in
transferring this sum of $4.5 million by presenting you
as a business partner or beneficiary to the deceased since
she has no next of kin,and more over no one knew about
this funds apart from me and her,because some auditors
will be coming in to check and balance Hospital Queen
Elizabeth account by next month and they will surely
discover the fund. Then,the hospital management will claim
the fund.

based on this secrecy of this fund,I would not be able to
handle this transaction alone.I need somebody that is not
related or connected to me in anyway,to be able to secure
this fund,as soon as possible.So,I consider it necessary
to intimate you on the profitable venture.I am even
thinking of us going into partnership,we can invest the
fund in any profitable business there in your country and
you will be in charge of all the affairs there.Which ever
way you want it is okay by me.

We don.t have much time to waste,so please,reply
immediately to enable us arrange on how to get this fund
transferred before the hospital claims it.

My sincere regards,

Dr.Roger E. Amar.
d602rogar@pisem.net
d601rogar@krovatka.su

Oh well, I got another million… by Mr. Song Li

I have to be the most lucky guy in the world: there’s no day when I don’t inherit or win a few millions. At least that’s what the emails i get state. Like the one below:

Good Day

Compliment of the day to you, although you may be skeptical receiving this
email as we have not met before, I am Mr.Song Lile I work with Hang Seng
Bank Ltd.I have a business proposition involving the sum of
$24,500,000.00usd in my bank which I know we will be of mutual benefit to
both of us, and I believe we can handle together, once we have a common
understanding and mutual cooperation in the execution of the modalities.

Should you be interested, please forward the following to me:

1.Full names,
2.Occupation,
3.Private phone number,
4.Current residential address.

Via this email address: info_songlile02@yahoo.com.hk
Your earliest response to this mail will be highly appreciated.

Best Regards

Song Li.

It is clearly a scam. I’m not going to answer this one, but if I would, the phisher most likely would ask me to wire or deposit some money in a bank account which would cover the expenses of the transfer. Nonetheless to say that I would see nothing in return. He would be happy, me not.

Confidential Spam from Ahmed Moola

Since is extremely confidential, I’m going to publish it.
The mail arrived to me in this format, without linebreaks or any formatting whatsoever, so don’t blame me, please.
This is a scam and if you received this e-mail too, please, don’t answer it.

Mr. Ahmed Moola. CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT ABSA BANK LTD. JOHANBNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA. TELL: 27732401244 Re: to accountant-moola@webmail.co.za ahmed.charteredaccountant.mool@gmail.com URGENT REPLY NEEDED Attn: I am Mr. Ahmed Moola, Chartered Accountant of AMALGAMETED BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA.(ABSA)I have decided to contact you through this medium based on a business proposal which will be of mutual benefit to both of us. However, I got your contact through a BUSINESS TRADE MANUAL in South African Chamber Of Commerce in my search for a foreign business partner whom I will transfer this fund in his personal or company’s account . During the annual bank auditing, we discovered an abandoned sum of US$ 42,000 000:00 (FORTY TWO MILLION US DOLLARS ONLY) in an account that belong to one of our foreign customers (Dr. Mohamed Gale) a citizen of Saudi Arabia, who lost his life aboard Egypt Air Flight 990, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on October 31, 2003.View this website;(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/502503.stm ). Since we got the information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money, because we can not release it unless some bodies apply for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines. Unfortunately, nobody has come forward to claim this money. It is based on this, that some officials in my department and I have decided to establish a cordial business relationship with you, hence my contacting you. If you indicate interest in this transaction I will let you know they steps to take for a smooth transaction for the approval of this fund from the Bank in your favor. The mode of sharing after the transfer of the money into your nominated bank account will be as follows: 65% for me and my colleagues, 30% will be given to you for your assistance and 5% will be mapped out to offset expenses during the course of the transaction. In receipt of this mail, call me immediately via the above phone or email and kindly send me your private telephone and fax numbers for easy communication. Please treat this business proposal STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. Hoping to hear from you soon. Best Regards, Mr. Ahmed Moola. http://www.absa.co.za/absacoza/content.jsp?/Home/Personal/Our-Customers/Islamic-Banking/About-Islamic-Banking/Management-&-People