Nobody Home at the WebTradeBureau.com
Time for a follow-up on our favorite Internet watchdog, the WebTradeBureau.com.
As we blogged about last week, the WebTradeBureau caught our attention for a number of reasons, including:
-Its lack of contact or ownership information
-finding its "seal of approval" on a badware-spewing work-at-home site
-hosting a picture of its "senior commissioner" on a site deemed unsafe by McAfree Site Adviser
-hawking a $29 streaming video on "how to own a truly free house"
As promised, we sent the WebTradeBureau two e-mails in response to an open invitation by Gary Sullivan, the WTB's "Senior Commissioner."
The first was a request for the WTB to review Consumer Reports WebWatch and see if it met the WTB's high standards—making it eligible to proudly display its impressive seal of approval. Secondly, since Commission Sullivan asks readers to alert the WTB to sites displaying non-clickable seals of approval, we forwarded them the badware-laden site.
Unfortunately, we received the following response to our second e-mail: "failed delivery." Oh dear. Things aren't looking good for our seal of approval, are they?
In the meantime we looked up www.webtradebureau.com via WHOIS and learned the site is registered to:
Susan Phillips
PO Box 61359
Sunnyvale
94088
CA
(510) 595-2002
We'd call her, but it seems that number is notorious for being associated with scams.
Comments
I saw a ridiculously low priced ipod touch for sale on usedOttawa.com. When I sent an email query I was told it was sold but helpfully pointed to whatistheitouch.com where you can "Win" a free ipod touch if you follow the link. (I didn't). That web site is registered to Mary Ann Parsons, same address and phone number as Susan Philips (google on the adress led me here).
Posted by: Ragnar Paulson | January 16, 2010 05:17 PM
I went to the webtradebureau.com site after receiving an internet offer by email and clicked on the webtradebureau link to check it out. It seemed to me, right off the bat, that they did not take an objective look at the programs they presented, but rather showed a full-blown advertisement for different money-making programs they were "reviewing". This makes me think that they are either getting kick-backs on the sales of these programs or they owned the programs themselves.
Is there any true "watchdog" out there that will protect consumers from getting sucked in to these bad websites? Something like Consumer Reports does for products would be great if they did something for the web.
Thanks.
Jim
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Here's our reply: Yes Jim, there is: Us!
Posted by: Jim Miller | May 27, 2009 01:57 PM