Feed: Grant Scams - AggScore: 67.7

This has been a pretty good month so far. Earlier in August the FTC filed action against the 'Grant Writers Institute', and yesterday announced a suit against grantconnectoffer.com and the company behind it, Vantex Group LLC:

At FTC’s Request, Court Halts Deceptive Claims for Free Government Grants

Web Sites Pitched “Easy to Use Program” and “$15 Billion of Free Money”

A U.S. district court has shut down several Web sites that scammers have been using to falsely claim that they can help consumers get free government grant money, the Federal Trade Commission announced today.

At the request of the FTC, the court issued an order closing the Web sites of several related companies that falsely promised consumers that their “Easy to Use Program,” Grant Connect, could help people “instantly find the grant that’s right for [them],” while using pictures of President Obama, Vice President Biden, and the American flag to give the false impression that they were connected to the government. The FTC also charged the companies with using bogus testimonials, failing to disclose the actual cost of their product, bundling multiple other products together for sale without adequate disclosures, and debiting consumers’ bank accounts on a recurring basis without permission.

On July 28, 2009, the court entered an order that temporarily halts these companies’ illegal activities. Subsequently, five of the 12 defendants in the case agreed to a preliminary injunction halting these practices until the matter is decided at trial. The court has set a preliminary injunction hearing for the remaining defendants for September 11, 2009. The FTC is seeking to permanently stop these practices and force the companies to return their ill-gotten gains so the funds can be used to reimburse consumers who were defrauded.

According to the FTC, the operators sell many products online, including Grant Connect, which they describe as “a unique, consumer-friendly US government grant program that delivers all of the tools for the consumer to search multiple databases, write grant proposals, and deliver polished plans...” While the companies claim that consumers will be charged only a few dollars at most, they instead bundle other products and services, such as identity theft protection services, credit offers, and purported health benefits plans with their offer, ultimately charging consumers as much as $70 per month.

Using an affiliated network of Web sites, including www.grantconnectoffer.com and others, they make claims such as: “Grant Connect - $15 Billion of Free Money Available;” “Over $10 Billion Issued in 2009 Already;” and “EASY TO USE PROGRAM: Instantly find the Grant that’s right for you!” They also claim that Grant Connect “makes the process FAST and EASY, so all you have to worry about is where to spend your money!” In addition, the Grant Connect site features “testimonials,” including photos of people who supposedly got grants from the company, including one that states, “It’s so easy! I got my first grant for $300,000. All I have to do is search and click.”

To further persuade consumers into purchasing their product, the Grant Connect site has used images of the President and Vice President in an effort to suggest an affiliation with the U.S. government. For a time, the site featured a photo of President Obama and Vice President Biden standing in front of an American flag, next to the Grant Connect logo and a caption that read, “CHANGE Is Here! $15 BILLION in FREE Government MONEY for you!”

Unfortunately for consumers, according to the FTC, Grant Connect provides little more than outdated, useless information and worthless grant writing “tools.” Few, if any, grants are available to consumers who sign up for the program, and those that are require applicants to meet strict eligibility requirements before they are even considered for the grant.

In addition, while the Web sites tell consumers they can get the Grant Connect service for a one-time fee of as little as 99 cents to $2.78, they do not adequately disclose that buyers will be automatically signed up for other products and services costing up to $70 a month. While the Web site contains some disclosure language in small, densely packed type, few consumers realize they will be charged monthly for services such as “SmartHealth Gold medical and lifestyle benefits” and “VComm International and Long Distance Calling Service” unless they cancel these memberships.

The FTC charged the Grant Connect defendants with violating federal law by: 1) making deceptive representations regarding Grant Connect, 2) failing to adequately disclose the material terms and conditions of their offers, and 3) violating the Electronic Funds Transfer Act by debiting consumers’ bank accounts on a recurring basis without their authorization.

The Commission vote authorizing the complaint was 4-0. It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on July 27, 2009. The complaint names Grant Connect, LLC; Global Gold, Inc.; Horizon Holdings, LLC; O’Connell Gray, LLC; Pink LP, Vantex Group, LLC; Vertek Group, LLC; Rachel A. Cook, manager of Vantex, and Vertek; James J. Gray, managing member of Grant Connect, Horizon Holdings, and O’Connell Gray; Steven R. Henriksen, president and owner of Global Gold; Juliette M. Kimoto, owner of Vertek and General Partner of Pink; and Randy D. O’Connell, managing member of Horizon Holdings and O’Connell Gray.

The five defendants who agreed to the preliminary injunction entered by the court on August 18, 2009, are: Grant Connect, LLC; Horizon Holdings, LLC; O’Connell Gray, LLC; James J. Gray; and Randy D. O’Connell.

The FTC appreciates the assistance of United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada, the Better Business Bureau of Northern Nevada, the Better Business Bureau of Southern Nevada, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, and Reno Police Department (Financial Crimes/Computer Crimes Department) in this matter.

Once again, the FTC showed its teeth! Kudos to all of those involved in bringing this one down.

Official FTC documents here.

In my previous post (A Clarification) I mentioned that some people may not like some of the things I write here, since it interferes with their shady 'business' and potentially affects how much money they make off of scamming honest, decent, hard-working Americans with their 'clever' grant offer ploys.

Well that became pretty clear after my post about grant scam facilitating affiliate network Convert2Media.com, after which some of its less intelligent errand boys came out of the woodwork, twittering @scamhunter in no uncertain terms.

Here is the first tweet I received, from user AdHustler, also known as Brandon Hoffman (here is his blog, and see him babble here):

That's right, this thug wannabe, who actually looks quite cuddly-friendly in the video linked above, is threatening me with acts of violence with the intent to inflict bodily harm if I 'don't mind my own business'. Charming.

The next message I received from a certain Nick Mattern does not threaten me with the more primitive forms of violence, but is just pure despicable filth that makes your blood boil:

This guy is a piece of work. Now the 'gaysex' theme, I can live with that, but apparently this poor soul (or should I say ignorant hick?) thinks that that's something so very awful that it's an insult.

The other things he mentions though, are sickening. Nicholas, who apparently has some kids of his own, is trying to associate me with filth like that as a retaliation for the piece I wrote about an affiliate network that runs deceptive grant offers, a 'business' he seemingly has a vested interest in.

As a parent and as someone that works for the state government Nick should know better than posting crap like that.

The last guy is probably the least intelligent one of the pack, since in his cute little tweet he essentially admits these grant programs are scams:


Now he does not quite literally say 'grant programs are scams' but you be the judge of what he says.

And for the record, John Nigro, I did not purchase shit, but that's probably too hard for you to grasp. Well hey, now at least we got word straight from the source about these grant programs.

I realize that there is a certain group of people out there that do not appreciate my blog posts here, because they expose a side of affiliate marketing they would rather see kept in the dark.

In light of some of the comments I recently received I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not waging war against the affiliate marketing business in general. It can be a good, honest way to make a very decent living, if you choose it to be so.

One of the ugly sides of affiliate marketing is the grant (kit) offer business, and that is what this blog is about, period.

The only purpose of the marketers operating in the grant offer niche is to get people to sign up for steep recurring monthly fees for useless 'grant information', 99% of the time accompanied by 'bonus programs' that add another $20-40 to the insult. They don't care how it's done and whether this 'service' they promote is genuine or not, for these folks the end ($$$) always justifies the means.

If you operate in this niche you know exactly what you're doing, and you know very well that the very thing you so cleverly try to convince people to sign up for is useless. For me there are no excuses, it's black and white.

It is pretty clear-cut that the overall theme within this affiliate marketing niche has been one of deception. The goal of all of the campaigns I have seen so far has been to target abuse the desperation, hope and financial insecurity of our brothers and sisters in economic distress, making false and / or suggestive promises about financial relief and availability of government funds for personal use.

It is this particular subsection of affiliate marketing that is the target of my wrath. I don't care if you're a marketer or network - if you promote these deceptive grant offers you willfully disrupt the lives of innocent Americans (and more recently, Canadians), and I'm not having it.

In the mean time, thousands of people have fallen victim to these scams and millions of affiliate marketing dollars have changed hands as a result.

I fail to see how it can be wrong to question and address that, and I fail to see how anyone can just shrug it off as 'part of the business'.

It appears it's getting hotter under the smelly feet of grant scam affiliate neverpayitback.com.

Over the weekend they reconfigured their site to no longer show their landing page with its fake 'sales pitch', complete with non-existent, stock-photo person 'Alan Friedman' (in case you missed it, here's what it looked like)


Instead the domain now does a 301 (moved permanently) redirect to the grant scam merchant JRS Media Solutions in the Philippines - hopping via their affiliate link, of course, still trying to cash in on what remains of their jail-worthy affiliate marketing campaign:

GET http://www.neverpayitback.com/ HTTP/1.1

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:16:49 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635
Location: http://www.lynxtrack.com/afclick.php?o=8628&b=2y1hfphh&p=38081&l=1&s=NPB
Content-Length: 482
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

I wonder, would the redirect have anything to do with my abuse complaint to Planet, which hosted the site? I guess we'll never know ...

Apparently they're still advertising on radio - a visitor from Tampa, FL commented that (s)he heard the ad there on The Bone.

In the mean time, HydraNetwork.com, the folks behind Lynxtrack, and the affiliate network that facilitates some of the JRS Media Solutions grant scam programs that have ripped off thousands of Americans, is networking at Affiliate Summit East 2009 in NYC, sipping champagne and dining on gourmet food.

Aaah, business is good, isn't it?

In my previous post I wrote about how affiliate networks like HydraNetwork.com facilitate the grant scam business by actively managing the advertising program for grant scam merchants like JRS Media Solutions in the Philippines.

Another such affiliate network in the United States that does this is MarketLeverage.com, a Lake Mary, FL based company that manages the advertising and affiliate programs for grantsmoney.com, grants360.com and like their grant scam facilitating brethren at Hydra, a program for JRS Media Solutions, Federal Grant Connection.

In case you did not read my postings about grants360 and grantsmoney.com, these are grant scam sites operated by a company called 'Positive Thinking Management Ltd.' in the United Kingdom. They are particularly devious because, besides providing useless grant related information, they

• use a 1-day trial period, after which they bill you $57.61 (recurring)
  
• also sign you up for their 'work from home guide' for $38.21 (one-time)
  

So, in essence they will bill you close to $100 for useless crap.

And MarketLeverage is OK with that.

It happens to be the case that in recent weeks I have received several inquiries from the media for information about these two grant scam sites, so I decided to investigate a little more and see what MarketLeverage's input on this would be.

So just like I did with my HydraNetwork investigation, I contacted the MarketLeverage Team:

- - - -

Hi,

I run a blog called 'freegrantkitscams.com' which deals exclusively with government money grant scams.

I have been investigating and reporting on 'verifiedgrants.com' and its sister sites. This set of sites is built around a complete fake organization (see exposure article on my blog).

The grant programs they 'recommend' all appear to run through your affiliate network, for example via URL:

GET http://users.marketleverage.com/ad/28842/CD3963/&dp=0&l=0&p=0&subid1=81751&subid2=&subid3=&subid4=&subid5= HTTP/1.1

Which 301s to:

http://affiliate.votracking.com/rd/r.php?affid=221010&sid=44&c1=CD3963

So I have a couple of questions:

1. These guys cannot possibly be compliant to your affiliate policies. Their account should be shut down.
2. Why are you running a affiliate programs for Grant Scam Merchants in the first place? You know it's a scam, and you know the FTC is "not happy" with them.
3. Besides "Federal Grant Connection" and "GrantsMoney" programs, what other grant related programs do you run?

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Also note that I may or may not publish this e-mail and / or answers to this e-mail on my blog.

Kind regards,

'Hunter O'Scams'
Blog Admin | FreeGrantKitScams.com
E-mail: freegrantkitscams@gmail.com

- - - -

As you see, in particular I asked them about verifiedgrants.com and related sites, a set of grant scam affiliate domains that are complete fakes, as described in my posts Verifiedgrants.com is a Verified Scam Affiliate and More Grant Scam Affiliate Deception - SecureGrants.com.

Here is the response I received from the MarketLeverage team (bold / highlights by me):

- - - -

Hello ‘Hunter’,

Thank you for contacting the MarketLeverage affiliate network with your concerns.

As you may be aware, the United States federal government, along with attorneys general from several states, recently took aggressive action against several government grant assistance programs in a unified effort to protect consumers from false or misleading government grant opportunities. These efforts targeted specific government grant assistance programs that have falsely implied that consumers could obtain government grants as a direct result of President Obama’s recent economic stimulus package. Additionally, a few specific grant offers also implied that their programs were either affiliated with or sponsored by the U.S. federal government.

For many months prior to the government’s actions to protect consumers, the MarketLeverage network developed its own standards and increased its own scrutiny regarding government grant assistance programs. Because MarketLeverage proactively monitored its own actions, not a single one of the grant assistance programs cited by the federal government was ever listed on, is currently listed on, or ever will be listed on the MarketLeverage affiliate network.

The MarketLeverage network strives to be at the forefront of affiliate marketing compliance. In the rare event an Advertiser or Publisher on the MarketLeverage network violates a federal law or regulation, or violates either the MarketLeverage Advertiser Terms and Conditions or the MarketLeverage Publisher Terms and Conditions (which are more restrictive than federal law), MarketLeverage wants to know about it so that it can take swift and appropriate action.

We reviewed the website which you brought to our attention, verifiedgrants.com, and the government grant assistance programs that are currently listed on the MarketLeverage network reveals none of the above-mentioned issues. While MarketLeverage doesn’t perform independent investigations into the business of each of its advertisers, it appears that the offers listed on verifiedgrants.com provide consumers with legitimate and beneficial services. If you have any specific information that would contradict our current conclusion regarding these programs and verifiedgrants.com, please bring this information to our attention.

If you plan on attending the Affiliate Summit conference next week in New York City, please feel free to introduce yourself and visit us at our booth. We appreciate your vigilance and your efforts, and, again, thank you for contacting the MarketLeverage network.

- - - -

First of all, it appears that like Hydra, MarketLeverage currently only runs grant related programs that are owned by foreign companies. Again it seems obvious why; these companies are outside of the direct reach of the FTC. The scam is exactly the same though, but MarketLeverage does not care.

They mention the team 'developed their own standards and increased its scrutiny regarding government grant assistance programs'.

Well let me make this really easy for you, MarketLeverage. Here is a quote from the FTC:

"[...] this is a scam as old as the hills. [...] Do not pay a dime to anyone for information about government grants"

Go ahead, scrutinize that.

The e-mail also mentions that MarketLeverage 'doesn't perform independent investigations into the business of its advertisers.' Does not just blow your mind? In other words, they apparently do not care what of for whom they run advertising campaigns, as long as the money keeps rolling in. Kinda makes you wonder what else they have in their portfolio.

Furthermore the e-mail states that if any publisher or advertiser violates their terms and conditions to please bring it to their attention. Well did not I just do that in my e-mail? I followed up and let them know that the verifiedgrants.com set of sites clearly and blatantly violates section 4.2(f) of their publisher terms and conditions:

4.2 Prohibited Content. The content of the Publisher Website(s) incorporating any Program(s) may not promote, advocate, facilitate or otherwise include any of the following ("Prohibited Content"):

(f) Material that impersonates any person or entity;

As exposed in my previous posts about verifiedgrants.com, securegrants.com and the other sites mentioned, they are complete frauds claiming to be a grant research company with a team of fake grant researchers, and all they intend to do is push you through their affiliate sales funnel.

If that is not impersonating and entity or person in its most blatant form, then I do not know what is.

So why would MarketLeverage's CEO and founder Michael Jenkins allow his company to represent these shady grant kit offers and allow its publishers to generate deceptive sites to push these offers?

Funny thing is if you read this interview with Michael, he seems like a pretty decent guy, and much of what he says seems to contradict MarketLeverage's take on these grant programs, except for the following quote, which may explain the whole thing:

"One of things I always say about affiliate marketing and performance marketing is “he who has the gold makes the rules.” This is really the case with what the CPA industry does.

The advertiser is the person with the gold. At the end of the day, they are the ones that get to make the rules. They get to define what it is that they want to pay for and mitigate their risk by doing so.

CPA is the advent of a brand new way of marketing. It’s extremely efficient for the person with the gold, so we believe that that’s the driving force behind this industry. That little saying has really influenced the way that we think about the business."

Wow he really said that. 'He who has the gold makes the rules'.

Well yes if you are a slave to money. And how much gold do you need? Not all gold is equal. Heard of Blood Diamonds? In similar fashion, let's coin the term 'Scammer's Gold'.

You should not want that kind of gold, and should not allow yourself to be ruled by anyone that holds the Scammer's Gold.

In the mean time, MarketLeverage publishes 'good things' in their news section, like how much time and money they donate to Ronald McDonald, etc. It's always nice when well-to-do companies do charitable things, but considering where some of that money may have come from, I ain't applauding it.

MarketLeverage will be attending Affiliate Summit East in NYC from August 9 to 11 where they also will be celebrating all that is gold with a lavish VIP yacht party. If you attend the ASE, please visit their booth and request they remove all their grant related offers from their portfolio.

See you there.

Simple questions - a bit leading, yeah, but we're trying to get some results here! - that could have been countered with simple answers.

Not the case.

Instead I got the run around, pretty much saying that due to my anonymity (they wanted a phone call, I declined) as well as legal considerations, they could not respond in detail except for saying that Hydra 'eliminated all but one grant offer from our advertising network'.

Apparently the only grant offer they now run in their advertising network is the one (in its many variants, I presume) by JRS Media Solutions. It's easy to understand why that is; all US-based grant offers have probably flipped the switch due to increased FTC scrutiny and recent federal suits against some of these grant scam operators. The one grant offer Hydra currently runs is operated by a company that claims to be in the Philippines, more or less out of the Federal Trade Commission's direct reach.

I highly doubt that HydraNetwork's decision (if it was theirs to begin with) to stop representing all of the other 'grant offers' was for reasons of morality, the desire to run a clean business, or to look out for the financial well-being of Americans in economic despair. In proper corporate speak, it was probably in their best interest.

Hydra also did not elaborate on my questions regarding the neverpayitback.com site. I take that as a confirmation that according to Hydra the site complies to their publisher terms and conditions, which, we can conclude then, condones deceptive affiliate marketing practices. Fair enough, but at least have the balls to say 'yeah, kinda deceptive huh, but it's OK by our rules and we really don't care', instead of ignoring the question (if you thought sticking one head in the sand was difficult, try 9).

The question I am left with is WHY? Why would a successful company like the Hydra Network involve itself with shady grant scam merchants like JRS Media Solutions? Why would any respectable US company participate in schemes that prey on the financially weak?

I think I have the answer, but unless confirmed by Hydra it will remain just a 'hunch':

Money talks, mmm-hmm-hmm, money talks
Dirty cash I want you, dirty cash I need you, woh-oh
Money talks, money talks
Dirty cash I want you, dirty cash I need you, woh-oh

[From: Adventures of Stevy - Dirty Cash]

Up Next: Grant Scam Enabling Affiliate Network #2: MarketLeverage.com (it gets even better).

The following press release was published on the FTC web site on July 23rd. This time the FTC as well as several state Attorney Generals file suit against the 'Grant Writers Institute.

FTC, Three States Charge Scammers with Falsely Promising “Guaranteed” $25,000 Government Grants as Part of the Economic Stimulus Package

Court Halts Operators’ Deceptive Pitches for Grant Writing Book and Services

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission and three state Attorneys General, a U.S. district court judge has stopped an operation from falsely claiming that it could help consumers secure a “$25,000 Grant” – guaranteed – from the U.S. government. The case is the latest in a Commission crackdown on scammers trying to capitalize on the economic downturn by targeting people facing financial hardship. The FTC is working with federal and state law enforcement agencies nationwide to bring such actions.

In a complaint filed this week, the FTC, jointly with the Attorneys General of Kansas, Minnesota, and North Carolina, charged that Grant Writers Institute, LLC and its related entities (together, GWI) falsely told consumers that they were eligible for grants as part of the recently announced economic stimulus package. The complaint alleged that the defendants’ false and deceptive claims violate federal law, state consumer protection laws, and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule. The complaint seeks a court order permanently stopping the defendants’ illegal conduct and forcing them to return money to consumers injured by the scheme.

“Stamping out grant fraud and other types of schemes that take advantage of consumers in dire financial shape continues to be one of the Federal Trade Commission’s highest priorities,” said David Vladeck, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. “There is no such thing as a guaranteed grant. But to consumers in financial trouble, the chance for extra income – guaranteed or otherwise – can unfortunately be a huge draw.”

According to the FTC, since at least 2007, GWI has mass mailed postcards to consumers across the country falsely claiming that the consumers “are Guaranteed a $25,000 Grant from the U.S. Government.” Consumers who call the number are pitched a $59 book titled “Professional Grant Writer ‘The Definitive Guide to Grant Writing Success.’” The company’s telemarketers falsely claim that the book will explain how to get government grants – including the “guaranteed” $25,000 grant. GWI and its North Carolina-based telemarketers, also named as defendants in the complaint, then call consumers who have bought the book, trying to get them to pay hundreds of dollars or more for grant research, writing, or coaching services, falsely claiming a 70 percent success rate in securing grant funding. In reality, few, if any consumers ever receive any grant money.

The Commission contends that in addition to falsely claiming consumers were “guaranteed” to receive grants, GWI used the current government stimulus package to make its pitch. For example, when consumers called the number on the mass-mailed postcard, they heard a recording that said, “If you’ve been reading the papers you know that recently our government released $700 billion into the private sector. What you probably don’t know is that there is another $300 billion that must be given away this year to people just like you.” The recording continues, “And if you’re one of the lucky few who knows how to find and apply for these grants, you will receive a check for $25,000 or more, and we guarantee it . . . If you don’t get a check for $25,000 or more, you pay nothing.”

The Commission vote to issue the complaint – jointly with the Attorneys General of Kansas, Minnesota, and North Carolina regarding the alleged telemarketing violations – was 4-0. The complaint contains additional charges and remedies to address state-specific violations.
It was filed on July 20, 2009, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, and the court granted the Commission’s request for a temporary restraining order on July 22, 2009. The FTC thanks the state Attorneys General for their substantial contribution to investigating and filing this complaint.

The complaint announced today was filed against the following defendants: 1) Affiliate Strategies, Inc.; 2) Landmark Publishing Group, LLC (d/b/a G.F. Institute and Grant Funding Institute); 3) Grant Writers Institute, LLC; 4) Answer Customers, LLC; 5) Apex Holdings International, LLC; 6) Brett Blackman, individually and as an officer, manager, and/or member of Affiliate Strategies, Inc., Landmark Publishing Group, LLC, Grant Writers Institute, LLC, Answer Customers, LLC, and Apex Holdings International, LLC; 7) Jordan Sevy, individually and as a manager of Landmark Publishing Group, LLC; 8) James Rulison, individually and as president of Answer Customers, LLC, all located in Kansas.

In addition, the complaint names the following North Carolina entities as defendants: 1) Real Estate Buyers Financial Network LLC (d/b/a Grant Writers Research Network); 2) Martin Nossov, individually and as a manager and member of Real Estate Buyers Financial Network LLC; and 3) Alicia Nossov, individually and as a manager and member of Real Estate Buyers Financial Network LLC.

The Commission recently announced several other grant fraud cases as part of the “Operation Short Change” law enforcement sweep targeting economic stimulus frauds. More information about these cases can be found at: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/07/shortchange.shtm.

It seems the Federal Trade Commission is making good on its promises. Awesome! For PDF versions of the complaint as well as Temporary Restraining Order with Asset Freeze, visit the official case page on the FTC web site.

Today someone left the following comment on this blog, in response to my post Selling the Grant Scam:

"I don't mind scamming the fools that voted for Obama. They deserve to get the shaft. Stupid people deserve whatever their stupid actions result in. Obama fooled them, so now they are just getting more of what they deserve."

...

WOW...

First of all, Mr. Scam Affiliate, you have no idea who you are setting up to be scammed. Or do you put a questionnaire on your cleverly designed, super SEOptimized, psychologically targeted landing pages that asks the visitor whether they voted for Obama? Didn't think so.

You should have said "I don't care who I set up to get scammed, as long as I get my dineros I'm a happy chap!" In other words, you are just an unscrupulous wannabe mobster.

Second of all, Mr. Scam Affiliate, these grant scams have nothing to do with President Obama, or who voted for him. If people voted for President Obama on the basis of his campaign promises, and the President turns around and changes what he promised, then yes, you could say "you voted for him so bo-hoo".

Third of all, Mr. Scam Affiliate, in your reasoning, "Obama fooled them", so it's OK for you to fool "them" too... I doubt you possess even 1ooth of his intellect and presence, so don't try to put yourself on equal footing with the President.

Justifying your pathetic doings as a scam affiliate by creating this mind-boggling link to presidential politics is so ridiculous, it leaves me near speechless.

Fourth of all, Mr. Scam Affiliate, who are you to decide what people you have never met 'deserve'? Do you hear voices in your head you while you angrily hammer on your keyboard, spewing out your next awesome landing page? Do angels appear at your bedside at night while you are getting the shaft, telling you to 'do unto others what is being done to you'? Are you the grim reapers' third cousin, knowingly presiding over the pain and suffering of some people over others?

Last but not least, Mr. Scam Affiliate, thanks for commenting on my blog and being honest about being dishonest. It keeps me motivated.

So, in my previous post I mentioned Aweber's unresponsiveness to my inquiry about the e-mail harvesting activities of neverpayitback.com and its sister sites, who used Aweber's services for this.

As I mentioned I had submitted a support case to them and after no response chatted with a 'live' support person who had told me the case had been forwarded to a manager, only to find the case 'closed' a few days later without a comment or response. I had reopened the case with the question as to why it was closed without any feedback, but had not received a response.

So today, two hours after posting the neverpayitback.com story as well as tweeting about it I get the following message:

My apologies for the delay in response, but when we get these kinds of complaints, we take some time to fully investigate the account in question.

After a complete investigation into this account, this is not something that we condone, nor are able to work with. The account has been closed effective immediately, as per our service agreement.

I would like to thank you for taking the time to look into this, and bring it to our attention. If you have any questions about this please feel free to let me know. Thank you.

[signature removed by me]

Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. In any case, they indeed closed the account the folks behind neverpayitback.com and its sister grant scam sites were using.

See what happens when you submit your name and e-mail from the front page now:

Awesome. Crippled, for now. Thanks Aweber for doing this, it will save a lot of people financial grief and prevent the unauthorized harvesting of e-mail addresses for (presumably) spam purposes.

The other day I was approached by someone who asked if I had ever heard of the web site neverpayitback.com. Well I had not but after some research I can tell you that neverpayitback.com is a scam. Stay away from it.

Apparently they have been touting their site using radio ads in certain parts of the country. From a forum:

"I was in my car and I live in South Texas so these guys are really getting after it for a scam. I heard the www.neverpayitback.com ad on the radio. Same song and dance as everyone else hears "$2500 from stimulus packages and private investors who want to help stimulate the economy & help our country" Ultra bogus site." [source]

There have also been reports from people in Florida, North Carolina and several other places, so these guys are serious about getting their scam message out.

If anyone has an audio clip for this radio ad, please contact me.

Apparently they have also been robo-calling folks, referring them to the same web site. The caller ID shows up as Federal Funds Administration with number 202-280-2428.

I have seen people in places like Yahoo Answers and other discussion boards ask whether 'this site where you can get free money, the one from the radio' is for real. So apparently the radio commercials do have some impact. This is also evident from the traffic pattern:



As you can see it is a new domain that had a surge in traffic recently. This, obviously, due to the advertising effect. Besides this domain, they also run nevergiveitback.com, also a scam. Here is the traffic pattern, again indicating a surge in traffic due to advertising:



Besides these two, the same outfit runs a couple of other domains that look exactly the same. They are: mygrantfunds.com, mygrantfunds.org and mygrantsource.com.

Let's take a look at the sites.

I was notified by someone in Canada of the fact that grant scam merchant grantsmoney.com is now also targeting Canadian consumers, via URL www.grantsmoney.com/ca. I have no clue as to the political landscape in Canada, but the Canadian version of the site prominently displays what appears to be Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

So the grant scam merchants are now expanding their operations to other territories.

It should be restated that grant scam site grantsmoney.com is operated by an outfit located in the United Kingdom and has absolutely nothing to do with US or Canadian government grants:

Media Ltd
31 Castle Street,
High Wycombe,
HP136RU
United Kingdom

Also note that the USA & Canada versions of the page are exactly the same except for some of the graphics and wording. Here are three side by side screenshots.


I do not know what the Canadian version of the FTC is but maybe the two should join forces to shut this operation down.

A couple of months ago I wrote about the ultimate grant scam affiliate marketing deception in the form of the site verifiedgrants.com. I showed you how the site is a complete fake attempting to gain your trust, and how they use stock images, presenting the people in the images as their team of 'grant researchers'.

It appears that after publishing my article, the 'grant researchers' have mysteriously disappeared from the site. But wait, the front page still touts the friendly looking 'Glenn Ross':

Would it surprise you if I told you that 'Glenn Ross' is another fake? Well I guess it wouldn't.

Here is the stock image:

Boy does he look friendly. I guess that's why they picked him for their deceptive site.

A little more research into verifiedgrants.com led me to squidoo.com. Squidoo is an article submission site much like EzineArticles.com, allowing folks to create nuggets of 'knowledge' with the option of linking to their own sites. As discussed in the EzineArticles example, Squidoo in very much the same way provides affiliate marketers with a method for 'link building', i.e. creating 'related content' on a well-known site from where they can link to their affiliate sites via keyword-rich links (good for SEO purposes, or presumably so).

Behold:


Recognize the friendly face? Obviously this 'Squidoo Lens' is fillled with blah blah and strategically sprinkled keyword-rich links to verifiedgrants.com. While checking the link targets, I noticed that they also link to another site, securegrants.com :


Notice how the site has the same look and feel of verifiedgrants.com as well as trustedgrantsources.com? Well there's more that's very similar, yet different. How? Well here goes; image 1 is from verifiedgrants.com, where the lady used to be listed as 'Linda Markinson' (but like I mentioned, the 'team' was removed from the site soon after I posted my article exposing the scam), and image 2 is from securegrants.com, where the lady goes by 'Gayle Blanchard':
Gayle, Linda - whatever. Securegrants.com is another verified deceptive scam affiliate site trying to gain your trust with fake blog posts and tucked away links to genuine sources of grant related information in the hope that you will take the bait and follow their 'recommended programs' affiliate links to grant scam merchants.

In a follow-up post I will show you how to submit an official complaint with the FTC via the online FTC complaint assist tool - using this batch of willfully deceptive sites as an example.

It has been a while since I posted something here, but there is some exciting news in Grant Scam land; the FTC is taking some serious legal action against some of the Grant Scampanies out there. On July 1st 2009 they announced Operation Shortchange, with a set of 15 actions filed against scam operations, among which we find two Grant Scam operations.

It appears that after their Economic Stimulus Scam Press Conference in March they have been working behind the scenes to prepare for all of this. The FTC is filing suit against just two grant scam operators, but it is a start and hopefully an indication of more to come. For one I hope that it at least scares the crap out of all the other Grant Scam frauds out there, so much so that they will cease their operations (which, hopefully will NOT be a get out of jail card).

Also, in a section 'Scam Watch' they now have a handful of videos with information for consumers. I am not sure when the particular video below was posted on the FTC site, but it is in relation to Grant Scams specifically, so I thought I'd post that as well. While the delivery is quite tame, the message is clear:


As for the legal action, I am pleased to tell you that as part of Operation Shortchange the FTC is taking on the people behind Easy Grant Access (aka Grants for You Now),

"Grants For You Now and its affiliates and principals operated Web sites such as
grantsforyounow.com, grantoneday.org, and easygrantaccess.com that deceived consumers by promising them free government grant money to use for personal expenses or to pay off debt. According to the FTC complaint, after obtaining consumers’ credit or debit account information to process a $1.99 fee for grant information, the defendants failed to adequately disclose that consumers would be enrolled in a membership program that cost as much as $94.89 a month. Some consumers also were charged a one-time fee of $19.12 for a third-party “Google Profit” program. All the defendants’ Web sites falsely offered a “100% No Hassle Money Back Guarantee.” This case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California."

as well as the cuddly folks behind the Cash Grant Institute:

Cash Grant Institute and its principals allegedly waged an automated robocall campaign promoting bogus claims that consumers were qualified for grant money from the government, private foundations, and wealthy individuals that they could use to overcome their financial problems. They made similar misleading claims about "free grant money" on their Web sites, cashgrantsearch.com and requestagrant.com. This case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.

Now that's a good start of the second half of the year! In case you're interested, the official documents for the case against Easy Grant Access are here (PDF), and those for the action against the Cash Grant Institute are here and here (PDF).

As for the Easy Grant Access site, it used to look like this, but now it looks like this:

Excellent.

Kudos to the FTC!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about grant scam affiliate marketers that knowingly and willfully try to deceive unsuspecting US consumers in an effort to make a sale. They do this by among other things putting up fake review sites and ratings, by issuing false warnings against grant scams (followed by a recommendation of the very same type of site they warn against), and by providing untrue information about the nature of government grants.

I showed some examples and specifically warned against the type of site owners that try to create a feeling of trust and pretend to be your friend.

Today I want to show you another example of blatantly deceitful grant scam affiliate marketing. The example you are about to see is affiliate marketing in its most devious form, with a site filled with lies, fake and non-existing grant experts, fluff content and quality outbound links (i.e. links to sites like grants.gov, to make things look more trustworthy). These guys do not just fake recommend a couple of grant scam programs, no, they built a whole fake company around their sales pitch scam effort.

The other day I was checking grant scam affiliate ads on the Microsoft Ad network by searching for 'grants' on Microsoft Live Search. This is the block of ads that showed up at the top of the results:

The second link leads here:


The site looks kind of 'official'. No screaming headlines. No flying dollar bills or piles of cash. No smiling Obama. No exclamation marks or pushy calls to action.

In fact the design looks almost corporate. It sports a sober blue and white Wordpress theme with an authoritative looking United States seal in its banner, and a friendly looking 'Glenn Ross' is smiling right at us, assuring us in quote that he's here to help. Then there's a quote from the Wall Street Journal, including impressive logo. The menu bars look structured and seem logical and on-topic.

But let's look a little closer.

The first red flags are right there on the home page:

"At VerifiedGrants our staff is dedicated to helping individuals, businesses and organizations locate, At Verified Grants our staff is dedicated to helping individuals, businesses and organizations receive funding from over 75,000 available sources. These include Federal Grants and Grants from Private Corporations and Foundations. Through our thorough research we are able to provide our visitors with the most up to date and reliable Grant Programs and Products as well as information that can help explain the grant process and the opportunities are currently available."

What respectable company would have garbage like that on their front page? And that's not all, there's stuff like that all over the site. Here's more from the front page:

"All United States Citizens are eligible to apply for government and private funding. These programs issue funding on a weekly basis most programs do not require qualifying information such as Credit Checks, Collateral, Co-Signers"

OK somebody made some typos what's the big deal, you may say. Well there's more.

The site verifiedgrants.com claims to be operating since 2005. From the footer:

© Copyright 2005-2009 VerifiedGrants.com. All Rights Reserved

However, the WHOIS record for this domain shows us that the domain was registered 03-16-2009.

Technical Contact:
VerifiedGrants.com
Verified Grants (verifiedgrants@yahoo.com)
+1.3109397339
Fax: +1.5555555555
13428 Maxella Ave
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
US

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
ns1.faceplant.net
ns2.faceplant.net

Creation date: 16 Mar 2009 17:22:57
Expiration date: 16 Mar 2010 17:22:57

Domaintools also does not show any sign of a domain history going back further than March 16th 2009, and they have been tracking domain history since 2000.

When you create a company, one of the first things you do these days is to register the domain name to protect your brand name and establish a web presence. You do not wait 4 years to register your domain name. I believe I can safely say that the footer copyright notice is yet another deceitful component of the site, designed to establish a feeling of trust.

The categories menu buttons each lead to one or more articles about a specific type of grant. Don't be fooled by this seemingly genuine content - it's all fluff. You will notice that under each article, there is a link to their 'recommended' programs. And there's the always present 'click here now' button in menu on the right. Needless to say, these links and the button lead to a page that recommends three grant programs - programs you may have seen mentioned here before.

These are the grant programs they came up with after '26 months of research'.

Grant Funding Express
Grant Seeker Secrets
Grant Now

Some research that must have been; the three 'recommended' programs are those we have seen a zillion times before. I bet they used their team of 'grant researchers' for that. Let's meet the team:

Linda and Randall sure look like experienced businessfolk. And the confidence just oozes off of the page. But what company creates portraits like that for their employees' bios? Eeehm - none as far as I have seen. Those images smell like stock images, where the 'isolation on white' [background] is very typical.

In case you do not know, a stock image is basically an image that is for sale to anyone that wants to pay for it. The stock agency takes a cut, and the photographer gets the rest. In the last couple of years, so-called Microstock sites have literally rearranged the stock photography landscape. Photographers from all over the world contribute to sites like iStockphoto.com and web designers, graphic designers and anyone else who is interested can obtain high quality stock images for a lot cheaper than used to be the case, typically starting at $1 or so, and use these images on web sites, in brochures, etc.

You can probably see where this is going. Meet 'Linda Markinson':

'Linda' is a model who most likely lives in Canada, which is where the photographer who shot this image lives.

And here's our friend 'Randall Stevens':


'Randall' is a model that most likely lives in Denmark, the home of microstock superstar Yuri Arcurs, who shot this image.

Not convinced? Well here is another member of the Grant Research team, the very lovely 'Shari Jackson':


... and here is the corresponding stock image of model 'Kiara', shot by yet another photographer:


I am stating the obvious here, but neither the models in the stock images nor the photographers of the images have anything to do with the grant scam scheme made up by the folks behind verifiedgrants.com. Anyone can buy these images from iStockphoto and use them in any way they like (and therein lies one of the 'risks' of modeling for stock shoots...)

I could not locate the fourth member of the team in the stock photo database; there's a zillion young blond businesswomen out there so she will be kind of hard to find. But I am sure that she's a fake 'Grant Researcher' too and most likely the friendly 'Glenn Ross' from the front page is a stock model as well.

Well there you have it - a complete fake team of 'Grant Researchers'. As should be clear, the people behind verifiedgrants.com are trying very hard to deceive you, in an effort to push you further into their grant scam affiliate sales funnel. You are worth about $30.

But the scam does not end there. The fake folks at verifiedgrants.com were kind enough to leave a trail. Searching Google for a certain 'Linda Markinson' yields a link to an articlefeeder.com article about government grants, supposedly written by this lady. Of course the article contains a link to a grant site, but it is not verifiedgrants.com but a site called 'trustedgrantsources.com':


Recognize anyone? Site design looks very similar too, so you probably won't hold it against me if I conclude that this site was made by the same sleazy affiliate marketers. The trail goes further: look at the site title at the top of the browser window: it mentions 'Grant Money Direct' ? I guess they forgot to take that bit out when duplicating some of the sites content. Sloppy, sloppy.


That site looks a little different. But check this out, this is a look at the source code for both grantmoneydirect.com and trustedgrantsources.com:


What you see here is that the Google Analytics code - a piece of code that helps web site owners track who visits the site, how they arrived there, etc - contains the same tracker ID, meaning the site is owned by the same person. Or tracked by the same person. Whatever. Very nice!

I have no doubt that there's more grant scam affiliate sites out there that are made by the same affiliate marketers. If I find them, I'll update this article.

Let's end with a more positive note. The Federal Trade Commission has been monitoring these types of sites with a watchful eye. Late last year the FTC issued a series of proposed changes to some of its rules regarding online advertising, specifically the type advertising that uses testimonials. Depending on how things play out, the FTC proposal may have a big impact on online affiliate marketing and as such has the community buzzing, which is good. I'll write more about that in a follow-up article.