Here’s yet another letter we recently received concerning potential work-at-home scams.

I was wondering if you know whether or not the following online work at home programs are legitimate: Michael Andrews' Profit Lance, or The Process at Home System. Do you know where I can find whether or not a program is legitimate?

Earl

Since this is a two-part question, we'll examine Profit Lance today and take a look at the Process at Home System next week.

Unlike most of the work-at-home sites we review, Michael Andrews' Profit Lance does disclose an address, though not completely. At the bottom of each page on his site is the following address: Profitlance.com, Netmedia Marketing, 70 Brunswick Street, Cleveland TS18 1DW. The average American would assume this must be Cleveland, Ohio, but the postal code isn't American or Canadian. In fact, it’s in northeast England, in a town called Stockton-on-Tees.

At the bottom of every page is the claim “techniques and methods as covered on” along with logos for CBS MarketWatch, Forbes.com and CNN.money. None of the logos are hyperlinked and when we searched each of these sites, we found nothing on Forbes, and nothing but sponsored links on MarketWatch and CNN.

A WHOIS search of the site's ownership revealed a private registration by proxy. In other words, Michael Andrews (if that’s really his name) is hiding his true identity. And although he posts plenty of pictures of himself on his “lifestyle” page, you never see his face, only his feet (resting on table, kicking a soccer ball, dangling in the surf), his hands (wielding a ping pong paddle) or shots from behind (clearing a high jump—we’re serious, check it out).

As for his site, it’s full of the usual promises of easy riches, along with "proof," testimonials, and a bottomless homepage full of eye-catching reasons why you should send Michael $77 so you can “start living the life you’ve always been dreaming about.”

We didn’t find any mention of profitlance.com on ripoffreport.com, and we did run across a few positive reviews of this site in various online forums, which doesn’t say much, since many of these work-at-home sites typically seed these forums to promote themselves.

But we did find one glowing review from Consumer Reports. Problem is, it’s an imposter site called "Reviews, Consumer Reports," obviously designed to fool consumers into thinking it’s the real thing.

All things considered, we’d pass on profitance.com.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Continuing our analysis of Web sites you might run across in your personal economic crunch, we turn to Searchmynexthome.com, or House Refinance Company, as it calls itself on its home page. This is the fifth highest organic (unpaid) result that turns up in a Google search using the words "refinance house." Call it a glorified link farm or a doorway page, there's not much here designed to personally help you refinance -- though for a doorway page, it's quite successful, since Google ranks it so high.
As with yesterday's example, using the basic WebWatch guidelines makes this site easy to spot. Here's how.

First of all, "House Refinance Company" doesn't sound like the name of a real business -- too obvious, like "Drain Cleaning Company" for a plumber or "Food Selling Company" for a grocery store. In addition, that name doesn't match the URL of the site, which is searchmynexthome.com.
Next, there's no contact information or physical address, but for a single line saying, "To send us an email click here." The site has some content, but it's written poorly and makes a lot of expert claims that aren't necessarily fraudulent, but not particularly interesting, either: "The competition as well as the government’s initiative has forced the lenders for value addition in their offers every now and then, which have yielded more options and flexibility in the field of house refinance." Sounds like a foreign language run through a machine translator.
Do a WHOIS search and you'll find the site is registered privately. Most legitimate businesses dealing with services such as mortgage refinancing want to make it very easy for you to get in touch with them, so this is a bad sign.
By the way, a slight variation in search terms -- typing in "refinance house with bad credit" -- leads you to Buy-and-Sell-House-Fast.com, which we wrote about yesterday, as the very first organic link in a Google search.
See why lots of people complain the Internet is full of junk?

Posted by Beau Brendler at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We know this economy is making a lot of people desperate. Enough to try to sell their homes? Sure. What else would explain the presence of a site like 1-800-CASH-OUT.com at the top of Google's organic (not paid ad or "sponsored") listings for typing in the search terms "sell house fast." One good thing about this site, though, is that it's fairly easy to spot. Here's how.

First, dialing 1-800-CASH-OUT (227-8688) doesn't work -- no connection. There's your first red flag.
Second, all it says on the about us page is: "Click here to sell your property within 24 hours or call us at 1-800-Cash-Out." The problem is, clicking that link or just about any other link on the site promising information takes you to an information form that asks for your name, phone number, house address and e-mail address, along with some other information. When we tried entering information in this form, we got some sort of complicated database error message.
Next, a WHOIS search of the site's domain ownership reveals a private registration by proxy. In other words, the owner is hiding his or her identity. Never a good sign for a business. However, the site's URL has some history.
At best, this is probably an out-of-the-box "lead generation" or affiliate marketing Web site. It does have a Better Business Bureau record in Jacksonville, Fla., with a positive rating, but that's based on a single complaint with a single resolution, which wouldn't be that hard to fake. Plus, the BBB record point of contact phone number just happens to be (800) 227-8688, which spells CASH OUT.
Then there's also Buy-and-Sell-House-Fast.com, which has a little less of a "site out of the box" feeling, including some purportedly expert advice -- though no indication who the advice is coming from, what their qualifications are to be giving it, and no real way to reach a real person (the "about us" page provides no physical address or phone number, only an e-mail form, which for practical purposes could rout your e-mail to someone in Romania). The site also reads as if its author's first language is not English, often another red flag.
Really, Buy-and-Sell-House-Fast.com doesn't offer much more than a link farm (which is probably what it is), with click-throughs to LendingTree.com, to services that purport to sell insiders' guides to the foreclosure market, and of course a strip of Google ads. And, finally, a WHOIS search reveals the site is registered to an Andrew Loh of Singapore. Nothing against that wonderful Asian city-state of beautiful skyscrapers, Raffles Hotel and really killer noodles, but it's probably better to get help selling your home from someone a bit more local.
These are the numbers one and three organic search results on Google, so take even more caution if you decide to click on any of the paid listings.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We recently received the following e-mail from a reader:

Last September I purchased 3 work at home internet plans. One being Ewen Chia's Autopilot. Each program had a 90 day satisfaction back guarantee. After reviewing the programs I determined that this was not what I wanted to pursue. The guarantees stated that for whatever reason if not satisfied I would be refunded. Ewen Chia's Autopilot program has not refunded my money. They state that a downline affiliate marketer of his product is responsible for refunding the money. I have tried to contact this website marketer but the website is down and not operating. I tried contacting the Autopilot website to inform them of the problem but continually am told that I need to contact yoursupportonline.com which is the marketer of their product. I was unaware that I did not purchase this product directly from their company. I tried to inform them numerous times that this marketer's website is not operating but they just ignore me and claim no responsibility.

Jeff

While there’s nothing we can do to help Jeff get his money back, we did some checking on Ewen Chia and his site, Autopilot Profits (“Printing 24/7 profits for you. . . Automatically!”) and didn’t like what we found.

First off, the site fails WebWatch’s guidelines for Web credibility by failing to disclose any contact information beyond an e-mail address. Although according to one of his numerous sites, Chia is based in Singapore (although his site is registered in Brunei), you’d never know from his site.

Secondly, Autopilot Profits is all too reminiscent of the countless other questionable work-at-home sites we’ve seen, replete with cheesy graphics, gargantuan headlines, breathless promises, and lots and lots of yellow highlighter.

Chia uses this site to hawk his “Autopilots Profit System," which he describes as a “a plug-and-play turnkey machine which works like mad to deposit instant profits into your bank account 24/7! All you've to do is set it up and it runs automatically to suck in mega wads of cash for you. This is going to be a very profitable partnership between me and you, where you get the lion's share of the profits!"

He also offers “proof” in the form of a check for $549,784.82, which Chia claims represents two weeks worth of Autopilot profits from just one of his many accounts. And what does it take to tap into this effortless goldmine? As he puts it, "just a measly $27 for everything!" Enough said.

Thirdly, we looked at Ripoff Report, and found some illuminating comments from others:

"I purchased Ewen Chia's Auto Pilot cash system to discover that it was only a one time down load of lists, keywords and numerous sales pitches that range from $47.00 to $197.00 after you get in the door. He tells you that you can get all you need for $27.00 but doesn't tell you that part of what he thinks you need will cost you another two or three hundred dollars. Once you leave the site, that's it...you can't get back in.

It just so happens that my Internet service bumped me off during my initial session and then I discovered that there was no way to get back to it without paying again. You don't get a log in or registration so that you can go back to the site and get back in.

Money back guarantee? How? There's literally no way to get in touch with the guy. Ewen Chia is really just a business coach with all kinds of information products generated by graphics software with lots of feel good information in them telling you what you already know. It takes hard work to make money even on the internet. He doesn't tell you that though until after he's taken your money."

And:

"Ewen Chia make his fortune selling dreams to newbies on how to make money online. His product are rehashed fluff sold mainly on Clickbank, and people who buy them are just too stupid to realise they are scammed. People who say Ewen Chia is the real deal, or guru, straight away is BS alert."

And:

"Ewen Chia's web site promises that a business can be run on Autopilot, once its set up. All you get is a PDF giving you instructions for finding a niche market and how to set up a business (nothing detailed, though).

They charge $27 for the PDF, and then they offer to drop $10 if you try to escape their web site.
This material isn't worth 17 cents, much less 17 dollars. You can find it free on Google.

This is really a lead to get you subscribed to their website, at $39 a month. I don't like being lied to."

There are more, but you get the picture. We also found a list of more Chia sites, which we’d like to pass along: www.superaffiliates.com, www.newbiecashmachine.com, www.secretaffiliateweapon.com, www.trafficsignupssales.com, www.miniebook.com and www.resalerightssecrets.com.

Finally, if you want to see and hear him in action, visit his homepage, where he touts himself as the “World’s #1 Super Affiliate,” whatever that means, and tells us he was unanimously voted the best speaker at the “World Internet Summit" -- quite a list to avoid, if you ask us.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We recently received this e-mail from one of our readers:

One of our voting places was broken into and computers stolen. This brought about a tv news story urging people to get their free credit report and put a fraud alert or freeze on their information. I was guided to www.freecreditreport.com to do this with all three companies. I followed the online instructions to obtain my free reports but missed the one occurrence that mentioned that I needed to cancel within 7 days to avoid a $14.95 charge per month. The pages that I went through all said "free" over and over again. I have done the free credit report before without incident but have not done it for a while. So when I got the reference to this site I thought it was the same as I had used before. As soon as I received word that my credit card was being billed for the $14.95, I reviewed all the information that I printed from the site again, but there was no mention of any charges. So I went back online and looked at the site again to find the mention of charges and about canceling. That word canceling was very difficult to find on their site. The only way to cancel is to call them which I did right away. When I explained the situation to Justine (no last name given) she actually tried to sell me on the extended service. I repeated that I wished to cancel, that I wished to be refunded what I was charged, and that their website is intentionally deceptive. Again, she tried to sell me the service (though I could hardly understand her on the phone).

Once again, I was quite clear that I wanted to cancel and get a refund. She finally agreed to grant the cancellation but informed me that a refund would not be possible. I told her that I intended to contact Consumer Reports and my credit card company about this. I realize that this is similar to a free magazine subscription. I did not notice the fact that I would be billed monthly if I did not cancel within 7 days. The magazine subscriptions seem to be more clear that after the free trial you will be billed and this usually lasts for months.

I am not sure if I can do anything at this point but if you have any suggestions, I am listening.

Thanks,
Bob

Although there’s nothing we can do to help Bob get his money back, hopefully, his story can help some of you avoid the same mistake.

Here’s the operative phrase from Bob’s letter: “I have done the free credit report before without incident but have not done it for a while. So when I got the reference to this site I thought it was the same as I had used before.”

Bob had obviously used AnnualCreditReport.com, which the only government-mandated, free site. But the companies behind these "free" sites are clearly banking on consumers making the same mistake Bob did—confusing their sites with AnnualCreditReport.com and agreeing to pay for something they can get for free before they realize what they’ve done.

We published an extensive report about these sites back in the summer of 2007, one that examined freecreditreport.com and more than 20 others offering “free” credit reports. You can read the executive summary of the report, or download a PDF of the entire report.

Finally, don’t be fooled by the TV ads for free credit reports, especially the ones for freecreditreport.com that feature some boy band singing catchy ditties about their identities getting stolen.

Bizarrely, these ads have become so popular people are posting them to YouTube (where they’ve already attracted more than a million page views) and singing their praises with comments like: “lol. this one is my favorite of all the freecredit commercials. i have it memorized!!.” And “i'm addicted to these things! me & my friend sang this for a talent contest”

But at least a few of the comments echo Bob’s ordeal: “Bullxxxx this is not free. Its 14.95 a month where you have to get some stupid membership and if you dont cancel you will be billed 14.95 every month. I knew there was a catch.” And “Wow... hilarious videos... false advertising.”

So remember, there’s only one truly free credit reporting site: AnnualCreditReport.com.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)