So let's take a look at the number one organic (non-paid) result you get when you Google the words "need cash." Cash N Minutes.com promises a loan of up to $500 with no credit check -- heck, you don't even need to talk with a real human being (not that you could, since the site provides no contact information besides an e-mail address, but we'll get to that later). Fill out an online form or send a fax and Cash N Minutes says it will provide same-day service and will transfer a loan directly into your bank account.

So what's wrong with that? Plenty.

First, note the site provides no real contact information -- no physical address, no phone number. Their FAQ page says they are in the central time zone, but that covers a lot of flyover country. And the way e-mail works, this site could be in Wyoming, China or Romania.

Second, note terms of the loans aren't explained anywhere on the site, including the first page of the application forms. Surely it costs something to borrow $500, even if only for a few days? Tony the Shark down at the local pastaria probably charges at least 300 per.

Third, note the application forms ask for your Social Security number, and checking account number.
Would you give out this information to a stranger you meet on the street? That's basically what you would be doing here. At best (for them), you might get a loan at 1,000 percent interest. You get your hamburger today, but you gotta give 10 hamburgers back on Friday. At worst (for you, since as you may have guessed, there's no win scenario for you), you've just handed a complete stranger everything needed to steal your identity and loot your bank account. And theres no information to track him or her down. Did we mention this is the number one organic result in Google for a word search on "need cash"?

Fourth, the privacy policy doesn't exactly inspire a warm feeling: "All information transmitted, printed or otherwise submitted to Cash N Minutes.com via this web site shall be deemed to be the property of Cash N Minutes.com and shall be free to use such information for any lawful purpose as detailed herein."

But we understand, people are desperate these days. So let's take a little bit deeper look at this site. Surprisingly, it's not blind-registered. The domain owner is:

Capital Investing Specialists (support@CASHNMINUTES.COM)
+1.7196320651
Fax: 1
2409 Paseo Rd
Colorado Springs, CO 80907 US

But before your faith in humanity is restored, you'll be happy to know that phone number is disconnected (not like anyone pressures domain registrars to keep registrant information accurate and current, right?) 2409 Paseo Rd. in Colorado Springs is someone's house (actually, a 2-bedroom, one-bath condo worth about $115K in today's market).

Take a look here for some postings by people who say Cashnminutes plays nasty when you don't pay back on time. Here's a similar story. And if you need to know more, they have an F rating with their local Better Business Bureau.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), just released their 2008 Annual Report on the amount of Internet crime complaints they received last year, and the numbers are not encouraging.

The IC3 received 275,284 complaints in 2008, a 33 percent jump over the 206,884 complaints logged in 2007. Reported losses in 2008 totaled $265 million, compared to $239 million in 2007. The average individual loss was $931. Almost one-third of the complaints were for non-delivery of merchandise purchased online, while auction fraud accounted for one in four complaints.

Online fraud tends to increase during economic downturns, and given the worsening global recession, 2009 may well be another record-breaking year. Here’s a breakdown of the most popular scams (by percentage), along with the average amount of money lost per complaint:

• Non-delivery of merchandise/payment: $800 (32.9%)
• Auction fraud: $610 (25.5%)
• Credit/debit card fraud: $223 (9%)
• Confidence fraud: $2,000 (7.9%)
• Computer fraud: $1,000 (6.2%)
• Check fraud: $3,000 (5.4%)
• Nigerian letter fraud: $1,650 (2.8%)

You can read a summary of the report's findings, along with other links to other useful online fraud resources. Download a PDF of the complete report.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Simple and elegant, recently published. They're based on three principles:
1. Internet users are entitled to an Internet connection with a predefined capacity and quality.
2. Internet users are entitled to an Internet connection that enables them to: Send and receive content of their choice; Use services and run applications of their choice; Connect hardware and use software of their choice that does not harm the network.
3. Internet users are entitled to an Internet connection that is free of discrimination with regard to type of application, service or content or based on sender or receiver.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Glad to note I have joined the more than 1 in 2 New York state residents that get lottery spam e-mail. Feeling more ornery than usual this morning, I decided to see if I could get a response from this one using a fake name but the same physical address and e-mail address as my employer, which is of course one of the world's largest consumer protection organizations. Of course, we're not the first to do this, but what the heck. See the first part of the exchange by clicking below and we'll let you know if the good Dr. Harry Raymonds takes the bait.

From: Dr Harry Raymonds [mailto:uknloorganization@live.com]
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 5:30 PM
Subject: (c) UK National Lottery
You won the sum of 1,532,720 in the uk lottery monthly promo,so you are are adviced to send the following information below for claim 1.Full Name: 2.Full Address: 3.Marital Status:4.Occupation:
Sincerely,
Dr Harry Raymonds
(c) UK National Lottery
-----------------------------

Dear Dr. Raymonds:
Wow! I'm so excited to hear about this.
Here's my full name and address:

Bertram Brendbergl
101 Truman Avenue
Yonkers, New York 10703
Married
Working as researcher
Please contact me by e-mail as soon as possible!
Regards,

Bertram

Posted by Beau Brendler at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The notorious Conficker worm, which experts believe may have already infected millions of PCs, is due to ratchet up the mayhem on April Fool's day. That's when the infected PCs, which form the biggest botnet ever recorded, may begin sending spam, spreading more infections, clogging networks or shutting down Web sites.

The Conficker worm, which first appeared in October 2008, was designed to target Windows operating systems. Microsoft was not amused, and is offering a $250,000 bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for creating the worm. According to a report on CNET News, experts believe the worm may have originated in China.

Although estimates of the number of PCs already infected vary from the hundreds of thousands to upwards of 15 million, some experts believe 30% of all PCs have yet to be protected with a patch Microsoft issued in October 2008.

To date, high-profile Conficker infections have included Royal Navy warships and submarines, the Houston Municipal Court system and the German Bundeswehr. Despite the massive amounts of publicity and hype, some experts believe the danger from Conficker may be overblown.

CNET News offers an excellent Conficker FAQ, along with a link to the Microsoft patch. If you're one of the 30% who haven't bothered to patch your PC, time's running out!

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

WebWatch recently spoke to Marketplace host Tess Vigeland about various kinds of phishing scams. The interview included a discussion of spear phishing, i.e. phishing scams that specifically target certain individuals or groups.

Although The WebWatch mailbox is regularly deluged with all sorts of scam e-mails, we've never been spear phished, until now:

Well, i`m a young man who really want to work with any Crime-crime agency...because i`m a victim of Scam and that made me very verse when it comes to cyber-crime and we have to put an end to it.

Waiting on your reply.

InGodwetrust. (anticybercrime26@yahoo.com)

All we can say, is, Good Lord!

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The following e-mail just showed up in our box:

Complaint: I am receiving emails from Brioude-Internet Inc. which says they will send me money to place ads in the u.s. and pay me to do this. Seems to good to be true, anyway I should receive my first check any day now...should I cash it or deposit it and place the ads, or is this a way to get my bank info.

Thanks.
Cari

Although Brioude-Internet Inc. is a French company, we ran the homepage though Google’s handy language tools, and despite some inevitable glitches, it seems they’re in business of search-engine optimization, among other things.

Being a French company, we couldn’t check them out via the Better Business Bureau, but we did find their name on a French site listing ”blacklisted links” to avoid. Brioude is listed on the very bottom of the page.

We also found an interesting entry on Rip-off Report, which was just updated today, under the heading: “Brioude-Internet Sending fake cashiers checks Budapest Internet. *UPDATE *UPDATE Latest email threatening to take legal action.”

According to the complaint, Brioude is ostensibly looking for Americans to post classified ads in U.S. newspapers, for which they will them send them cashiers checks, paying them $100 for each ad. The detailed posting (complete with various e-mails from Brioude) is well worth reading, since the author clearly smelled something fishy early on and kept stringing Brioude along to see what would happen.

But we'll cut to the chase and show you how it ends:

“Hilarious! It keeps switching emails and then...weird! they want me to wire transfer money instead of placing an ad! I am sorry but if you fell for this, you're a bit of a moron....

Monika
Fort Worth, Texas
U.S.A.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Take a look at this late 2008 survey, sponsored by Microsoft but conducted in conjunction with Australian Federal Police superintendent Nigel Phair. Judging by some of our recent surveys here, you might get the idea from these numbers that Australians have more confidence in the Internet than U.S. consumers. For instance, 30 percent fewer Australians than New York state residents (based on a survey we did over the summer last year) report getting a phishing e-mail.
In addition, Australian consumer attitudes might be influenced by a number of factors, including stricter consumer protection laws or better industry self-policing.
Among the stats:
• 35% of respondents said they are more trusting now of online transactions than two years ago.
• Over half (53%) of respondents had a personal profile on an online social networking site. Of those, less than half (43%) had their profile set for public view.

• 90% of respondents wanted e-commerce merchants to notify them if they suffer a data breach that could reveal their personally identifying information to someone else.
• 68% of respondents said they felt trust and confidence when doing internet banking.
• Over half (52%) of respondents said they had received a phishing email. However, only 1% said they sent the information requested by the sender.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Take a look at this scintillating offer that just landed in our e-mail box:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Best Regards.
franck.gbedji@gmail.com

Sounds too good to be true, right? Lets find out just how good. According to a handy precious metals calculator we found on the Web, 450 kilograms of 22 carat gold is worth more than $12 million.

Franck Gbedji is nothing if not generous. A $12 million return on an $11 thousand investment is probably outrageous enough to make even Bernie Madoff blush, and we certainly hope none of the countless thousands of people who've received this ludicrous solicitation are naïve—or desperate—enough to fall for this classic 419 scam.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We tend to publish all comments unless they're spam, and sometimes we publish them as well, just for fun.

Last week, we received a response to one of our posts that contained a link to a site called "The Personal Money Store," which specializes in something called "No Fax Payday Loans." Regardless of the wisdom of payday loans, what really caught our attention was the privacy policy, which we've reproduced in part below. You can read it in full here.

We collect all the information you provide to us while on our Website. This includes your name, date of birth, telephone number(s), home address, Email address, Social Security number, employment information, income information, bank account information, personal references, and any other information that you provide to us.

If you want to opt-out from receiving communications from us and/or our third-party partners, please do not submit any of your information to us. When you submit personally identifiable information while visiting our Website, you have automatically opted-in, meaning that you are requesting that we share your personal information with third parties.

At least they're open about it.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By now, there can't many who haven't been subjected to those insipid FreeCreditReport.com commercials featuring a silly boy band singing ditties about identity theft. But beyond the nuisance factor, these ubiquitous ads are also misleading countless consumers into signing up for credit reports that are anything but free.

As we pointed out in a recent post, there's only one true free credit report site, and that's Annual Credit Report.com.

It seems the Federal Trade Commission has gotten sick of those commercials as well, and decided the best way to fight back at the disinformation campaign was to give them a taste of their own medicine. The lyrics are as catchy as the ads they're lampooning, and more importantly, they're true.

We've embedded one of them below, and you can watch the other one here. As the FTC notes: Anyone can write a catchy jingle, but only AnnualCreditReport.com provides you with a truly free credit report. It's the only authorized source to get your free credit report under federal law."

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the latest phishing attack trends report by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), the number of sites infecting PCs with password‐stealing "crimeware" reached an all time high of 31,173 in December, an 827 percent increase from January of 2008.

Other highlights from the 2nd Half 2008 report include:

● Unique phishing reports submitted to APWG recorded a yearly high of 34,758 in December.

● Unique phishing websites detected by APWG during the second half of 2008 saw a constant increase from July–October had a high of 27,739.

● The number of unique keyloggers and crimeware-oriented malicious applications also reached an all‐time high in July, reaching 1,519.

● Financial Services continues to be the most targeted industry sector during the second half of 2008.

Download a PDF of the APWG report here.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're proud to announce the full launch of BadwareBusters.org, and encourage your participation to help make the site a valuable, vibrant resource. Read our press release below for more information.

BadwareBusters.org launches to help computer users fight back against viruses, spyware
Site is a joint effort of Consumer Reports WebWatch and the StopBadware.org project at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society

Cambridge, Mass. and Yonkers, New York, March 17, 2009—StopBadware.org and Consumer Reports WebWatch announced today the full launch of BadwareBusters.org, a new online community for people looking for help preventing and countering viruses, spyware, and other “badware” on their computers and websites.

Viruses and spyware accounted for $6.5 billion in damages to U.S. households in 2008, according to Consumer Reports. Until now, the Internet has lacked a central place where people with no prior knowledge about badware and its effects could go to ask questions and get assistance on the topic.

BadwareBusters.org aims to fill that gap by attracting a community consisting of everyone from computer novices to technology experts. The site’s clean interface makes it easy to browse, search, join, and start conversation topics and to rate other users’ contributions. Several subscription options make it simple to keep up with new content via e-mail or RSS news feeds. A reputation and rating system helps people identify the most useful topics and the most helpful users.

“Our aim with BadwareBusters.org is to offer a place where all consumers can learn from each other and teach each other about the pervasive and daunting issue of malicious software,” said Beau Brendler, director of Consumer Reports WebWatch. “The site will be a great complement to the educational content in the Consumer Reports Online Security Guide at http://consumerreports.org/security.”

Maxim Weinstein, manager of StopBadware.org at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, sees the site as not only a useful destination, but also a piece of a bigger puzzle. “BadwareBusters.org is part of StopBadware’s strategy to bring together the people, the organizations, and the data that allow us to fight back against the spread of badware,” Weinstein said. “The collective wisdom of the BadwareBusters community will inform not only individuals, but the entire technology industry.”

The site is free and open to the public at http://badwarebusters.org.

About StopBadware.org
StopBadware.org is a partnership among the academic community, consumer groups, technology industry leaders, and volunteers committed to protecting Internet users from threats to their privacy and security caused by bad software. StopBadware.org is led by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The initiative is supported by Google, PayPal, Mozilla, AOL, and Trend Micro. For more information, please visit http://www.stopbadware.org.

About Consumer Reports WebWatch
Consumer Reports WebWatch is the Internet integrity division of Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports Magazine, the Consumer Reports on Health and Money Adviser newsletters, and a variety of sites advocating consumer rights in the marketplace. We research and investigate Web sites on behalf of consumers, and we advocate for consumer focused Internet policy and governance. Consumer Reports WebWatch accepts no advertising. With the Center for Media and Democracy, WebWatch publishes Full Frontal Scrutiny, dedicated to exposing the activities of front groups in modern media and culture. WebWatch also serves as an unpaid special adviser to StopBadware.org.

Contact:
Erica George
StopBadware.org
(617) 384-9142
egeorge@cyber.law.harvard.edu

Beau Brendler
Consumer Reports WebWatch
(914) 378-2600
brenbe@consumer.org

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At least the number of infected machines is thought to be in the hundreds of thousands, rather than millions.

Posted by Beau Brendler at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Imagine this. You're a 20-something Californian whose online activities have included registering a domain name with GoDaddy.com, changing your Yahoo e-mail password and ordering a meal from Pizza Hut. To perform these transactions, you've entered your credit card number, birth date, telephone number, address and various passwords. Problem is, all this sensitive information now resides on a server in the Ukraine--thanks to a botnet.

This information, along with data from 160,000 infected computers, was recently uncovered by the UK security firm Prevx on a Web site that has since been shut down. Read the harrowing story here.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Despite our various safeguards against spam, some still manage to get through, like this amusing example from the only nation ever to suffer a governmental collapse due to a massive pyramid scheme.

"Greetings! The excellent site, has especially liked design. Thanks. I am from Albania and, too, and now am writing in English, give true I wrote the following sentence: "Find legal information about airline tickets."

With best wishes :-(, Kasa."

Here's our reply: Greetings! Glad we are you especially liked design. You're welcome. We are from USA, and, too, are not writing in Albanian, to give true we perform the following on your spam: "delete!"

With lukewarm felicitations ;- ), WebWatch

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three of Germany's largest social network providers have agreed to sign a voluntary agreement on their duties and responsibilities regarding data, youth and consumer protection. The eight-point agreement includes restrictions on sharing personal information with third parties, the right to maintain anonymity online, and the right of users to delete their profiles. Read the entire agreement here.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We just received an e-mail from a reader asking us if an e-mail he'd received informing him that he may benefit from a proposed class-action settlement against Webloyalty.com was for real. WebWatch has a long history with Webloyalty, and we were pleased to inform him that the e-mail was indeed legitimate.

According to the e-mail, he may be eligible to receive compensation since he was a member of/or enrolled in one of Webloyalty's programs from September 11, 2000 through September 30, 2008. Those programs include Reservation Rewards, Shoppers Discounts & Rewards, Members Specials, Buyer Assurance, Distinctive Privileges, PC Protection Plus, Travel Values, Travel Values Plus, Classmates Rewards and Wallet Shield.

The e-mail goes on to state that class members who submit a valid claim form can receive a cash settlement payment in an amount equivalent to the cost of up to two months' membership in each program for which they were enrolled, and that the defendants have agreed to pay a settlement up to $10 million dollars. Besides Webloyalty, the defendants include Fandango.com, Priceline.com, Inc., Justflowers.com, Giftbasketsasap.com, ValueClick, Inc., E-Babylon, Inc., Kraft Foods Global, Inc. and Gevalia.com.

WebWatch first wrote about Webloyalty in 2005, when we commissioned a consumer investigation to look into some questionable business practices by one its discount clubs, Reservation Rewards.

As we reported, Webloyalty made its money from customers who paid monthly fees for consumer discount clubs it operated. Consumers enrolled in these clubs by filling out an online rebate form on partner sites (i.e. the defendants), which automatically triggered the transfer of personal credit card data from the partner sites to Webloyalty, making them paid subscribers of Webloyalty's services as well. Most—if not all—consumers never realized what they were signing up for until they started noticing recurring charges on their credit card bills.

The lawsuit echoes WebWatch’s findings, noting “the Defendants enrolled consumers in the Programs listed above in the course of online retail transactions without obtaining sufficient authorization or consent, and thereafter wrongly charged fees for membership benefits.“

When the article was published in 2005, Webloyalty was already the source of numerous complaints from consumers, so many that the Better Business Bureau gave it an “unsatisfactory” rating. The WebWatch article generated a lot of attention as well—obviously too much, since we discovered Webloyalty hired a marketing firm to try and push the article down in the search rankings when someone Googled "webloyalty." You can see how well that worked here.

We also posted a follow-up in response to a comment from a reader of a related article by our good friend Bob Sullivan at MSNBC, who wrote about the phenomenon of “online reputation management” firms like the one Webloyalty hired to eliminate negative press from search engine results.

The last time we heard of Webloyalty was in November 2007, when WebWatch was subpoenaed by the law firm that brought the class action suit to provide copies of consumer complaints against Webloyalty in the event the parties were unable to reach a settlement.

No surprisingly, the defendants deny any wrongdoing and make no admission of liability by agreeing to the proposed settlement, which they say will preclude protracted and expensive litigation. You can read the full notice here, and visit the settlement site here.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of weeks ago, we received an e-mail from a reader asking us to look into sites advertising free government grants. As we pointed out in our response there’s only one legitimate site for federal grants, www.grants.gov.

But when we Googled "free government grants," we found a slew of other dubious-looking sites claiming to be the real deal as well. Since there are far too many of these sites to cover in one post, here’s the first in what promises to be a long-running series of exposés on these “free government grant” sites.

Today, we take a look at “USA Government Grants,” which was the second Google result, right after www.grants.gov. The site's tagline says: “Each day millions of dollars in Free Government Grants are given away to people just like you for a wide variety of Business and Personal Needs.”

Here’s the first red flag, the site’s bizarre URL: www.rachelboltz.com. When we looked it up on WHOIS, we learned it’s registered not to Rachel Boltz, but to one Matt Dorman, with no indication of his location. Secondly, the site fails the WebWatch smell test due to a lack of a privacy policy, contact information or any information whatsoever about the site.

The site itself is bare bones, just a homepage topped by the header “You Can Claim Thousands of Dollars In Government Money With No Obligations,” along with a list of links on the right, all of which outline various types of "free government grants," and all of which end with the following link: "Click Here To Receive Your Free Grant Package.”

Following this link takes you to an entirely different site, www.grantwritingexpress.com, which promises to help you “Claim Your Share of the $512 Billion of Free Money Given Away Every Year!” The site also features pictures of happy people thanking grant writing express for helping them realize their dreams with quotes like “I just received a check for $72,000 dollars!”

In order to qualify, you have to fill out a brief form asking for your name, income, type of grant you’re seeking etc. We filled it out several times, and received the same answer every time: “Congratulations! You qualify for a free CD! Use this CD to apply for your cash: $150 billion to start your own business! $97 billion to go to school! $144 billion to buy a home!”

As you may have guessed by now, this CD isn’t a certificate of deposit—it’s a compact disc. And there is, of course, a catch. While the CD is free, there’s a $3.95 shipping charge. But what probably isn’t apparent to cash-strapped consumers desperately scouring the Web for financial aid is the fine print at the bottom of the page (below the screen), which reads as follows:

“Special Bonus: Order your FREE CD today and receive a free 7 day trial enrollment in the Grant Writing Express Online Help Center which includes 24 Hour Email Access to Grant Specialists, Funding Instruction Courses, and Grant Sources Updated Daily. It also gives you access to our Grant Writing Specialists who are there to Quickly Answer Your Questions about the Grant Process. This membership continues at the low monthly rate of only $74.95 for as long as you need the help in your Grant Search and Application Process. You can stop your monthly subscription to the help center site anytime in the 7 days and you will not be billed anything. The free trial begins on the day the CD is ordered.”

Although the site does highlight certain sections of this "special bonus," they aren't the ones that mention the recurring "low monthly charge" of $74.95. More on this in a minute.

According to WHOIS, Grant Writing Express is based in that hub of federal grant-writing activity, Cheyenne, Wyoming. And although the site offers a reasonable privacy policy, when you click on the “contact us” link, you're redirected to a pop-up at a different URL (www.granthelporder.com) that lists the address as Grant Ventures Today Inc., 642 Main Street Charlestown, Nevis. That’s Nevis, as in the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Caribbean island nation.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. While the Better Business Bureau has no record of USA Government Grants, they did have quite a lot to say about Grant Writing Express—as well as its sister sites. The first BBB report addresses Cheyenne-based “Ultimate Grant Secrets,” which runs both www.grantwritingexpress.com and www.ultimategrantsecrets.com, an identical site.

According to the BBB report, “consumers state that they are being charged $3.95 for shipping the Free CD. Upon attempting to contact the company to cancel the membership within the 7 day free trial period, phone calls and emails to the business are not answered or are not working.”

For this and other reasons, the BBB gives Ultimate Grant Secrets an "F" rating, which means: “We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices.”

The other related BBB report concerns Clickincome Inc., a Utah-based company whose sites include the aforementioned www.grantwritingexpress.com, as well as www.clickincome.com, www.click2tradeonline.com and www.clicksitebuilder.com—all sites to avoid. The BBB says it’s processed no fewer than 358 complaints about Clickincome in the last 36 months, and notes it was fined $10,000 by the Utah Division of Consumer Protection in September 2008 failing to refund deposits within 30 days. Unsurprisingly, the BBB also gives Clickincome an F.

We also found numerous complaints about the sites in Ripoff Report, with headlines like "Ultimate Grant Secrets IS A RIP OFF", "Grant Writing Express Major ripoff multi company scam Internet", Grant Ventures LLC Total Ripoff Cheyenne Wyoming", and "I applied for a grant they took my money and found out it was a scam Cheyenne Wyoming".

But we’ll let the BBB have the last word, which included some sage advice about these free government grant scams, which are proliferating now that President Obama's stimulus package has been passed. Here’s an excerpt, but it’s worth reading in full:

“No matter what the ads say, no matter whether you see it on the Internet or in a newspaper or magazine ad, no matter if the ad has a picture of President Obama or Mickey Mouse, the "Free Government Grant" scam is not legitimate. It is a ploy to get you to part with your money. The current hook is to tie the Free Grant scam into Obama's Stimulus Package. Don't believe it. The government does not operate this way. If indeed you or your company qualify for any kind of grant money or government assistance, you can file for it yourself and there will not be any upfront fees.”

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A month ago, we alerted you to one of the most egregious work-at-home sites we've yet to run across, Angel Stevens' ProcessAtHome.com.

We happened to visit her site today while researching another one, and instead of being greeting by Angel's smarmy video pitch, found the site gone, replaced by an open letter explaining why ProcessAtHome.com was forced to close down.

The letter, signed by the "The Process At Home Team," (what happened to Angel?), explains that ProcessAtHome was simply a victim of its own success.

In short, they claim their "pioneering" affiliate marketing model was so successful it "attracted the attention of unscrupulous people who sought to take advantage of our success by creating 'copy cat' websites. . . and in the process, defrauded hundreds, if not thousands of people."

The letter goes on to say that despite hiring attorneys and sending cease and desist letters to prevent these other sites from ruining their brand, they decided to abandon ship. "Accordingly, ProcessAtHome will no longer be accepting new members. We will, of course, continue servicing our current members for the complete duration of their membership."

While ProcessAtHome.com may indeed have been copied by other sites looking to cash in on their dubious success, the site we reviewed was no "copycat," and resided at the exact same URL as the open letter. In fact, we suspect their decision to shut down had something to do with the 422 complaints to the Better Business Bureau, which gave ProcessAtHome.com an "F".

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 1-7 is National Consumer Protection Week, a federal initiative highlighting consumer protection and education efforts across the country. This year's campaign, "Nuts and Bolts: Tools for Today’s Economy," features a Web site full of useful information on topics such as free credit reports, identity theft, online fraud, avoiding auto repair scams and how to report credit repair scams. Visit the NCPW site.

Posted by Jorgen Wouters at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)