WorkAtHomeTruth.com Blog

Sneaky Google Sneaky creator Nick Marks and the Google Sneaky review flood!

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:29:34 +0000

So you've probably seen a lot of hype for Nick Marks' product Google Sneaky and you've probably come across a Google Sneaky reivew or two already. But do you know how sneaky the Google Sneaky product creator himself actually is?

The Google Sneaky product creator is PRETTY DANG SNEAKY!

You may remember how I busted the apparently fake "Senior reviewer" at a site that pilfered the WorkAtHomeTruth.com name and made it WorkAtHome-Truth.com. If you read that information about the Google Sneaky creator's other activities here you'll see exactly what I mean. So as you come across a Google Sneaky review you might want to dig a bit of digging to see who the reviewer actually is.

I'm not saying that you necessarily have to be cautious about ever Google Sneaky review, but obviously it's important for you to perform due diligence considering what I've revealed in the previously mentioned post.

In that post, you'll see just tip of the iceberg of what Google Sneaky creator Nick Mark's has been up to using domains found on IP address 70.86.122.226 as shown below:

www. 2009-top-work-at-home-jobs .com
www. Affiliatehijack .com
www. Affiliatehijack.net
www. Aniksingal-truth .com
www. Automatedmillions .com
www. Autopilotprofits-truth .com
www. Autopilotprofitsinc .com
www. Babyboomersonlineincome .com
www. Boomersincome .com
www. Clickbank-truth .com
www. Copynprofit-truth .com
www. Craigslist-truth .com
www. Derekgehl-truth .com
www. Donlapre-truth .com
www. Dotcomsecrets-truth .com
www. Everlastinglife .com
www. Ewen-chia.org
www. Imanswers .com
www. Internetmarketingwave .com
www. Jeffpaul-truth .com
www. Joevitale-truth .com
www. Johnreese-truth .com
www. Launchtree-truth .com
www. Makemoney-athome .com
www. Makemoneyonlinemoney .com
www. Marketingmasterminds .com
www. Maverickmoneymakers-truth .com
www. Mikefilsaime-truth .com
www. Milliondollarloophole .com
www. Mustangfastbackforsale .com
www. Needcustomerservice .com
www. Newbiescashvault .com
www. Nickmarksfanclub .com
www. Nosalessysteminc .com
www. Paydotcom-truth .com
www. Perfectmoneyformula .com
www. Rapidbusinessgrowth .com
www. Rapidbusinessgrowthdvd .com
www. Robertallen-truth .com
www. Rosalindgardner-truth .com
www. Russellbrunson-truth .com
www. Superaffiliatelab .com
www. Superaffiliatewebsites .com
www. Surveyscompany .com
www. Swreg-truth .com
www. Theaffiliateslap .com
www. Theinternetmarketeroftheyear .com
www. Top-10-scam-free .com
www. Topsecretcashreport .com
www. Treasurehuntmarketing .com
www. Truth-clickbank .com
www. Truth-makemoneyonline .com
www. Whoisnickmarks .com
www. Workathome-truth .com
www. Workfromhomegirl .com
www. Yoaffiliate .com
www. Your-bill-killer .com
www. Gsneaky .com

Google Sneaky creator Nick Marks' AutomatedMillions.com

Let's start with Google Sneaky product creator Nick Mark's AutomatedMillions site first. This is a site that warns you to "Strap yourself in because you're about to make Henry Ford look like a kindergartner while you automate your way to riches".

Well, one thing is for sure. At least one of the people giving a testimonial on the site definitely knows a LOT about automation – but not in the way you might think.

I'm talking about, of course, Sebastian Foss who states in his testimonial for Google Sneaky product creator's Automated Millions course states "I highly recommend your Automated Millions System to all of my customers".

You see Sebastian Foss is considered one of the top 100 spammers in the world and is listed in the Spamhaus Project's "100 Known Spam Operations responsible for 80% of your spam" right here where you'll also noticed that the website MoneyBank.com is listed as one of Sebastian Foss' websites and by taking a look at the archived version of MoneyBank.com here you'll notice that the same person – John Denton – has a testimonial on both the MoneyBank.com and AutomatedMillions.com product.

Google Sneaky product creator's ForexEnterprise.com – the early days

Unanswered complaints at the BBB:

ForexEnterprise.com BBB Complaints

Now the fact that Nick Marks' product ForexEnterprise.com generated 69 complaints really isn't that alarming because you have to look at the complaints in light of the volume of business does along with other factors.But what is a bit alarming is the fact that the BBB report shows that there are still 31 unanswered complaints.

In fact, in doing a bit of research I came across Hewlett Packard's BBB complaint history which shows 6,983 complaints (which isn't that many considering the size and age of HP) – and shows that HP has NO unanswered complaints.

Obviously this information is important if you are planning to buy Google Sneaky based on any Google Sneaky review that highlights Google Sneaky's "100% Risk Free" offer which claims that "if you don't make money you'll get a 100% refund."

Google Sneaky creator Nick Marks' strange "news story"…

ForexEnterprise site Nick Marks claims that his "story was featured in the local Newspaper Business Magazine" and asks the reader to "check out this cutting promoting the article" and then posts what is supposed to be an image of that article.

There's only one problem. And you can see what the problem is in the following image which compares the Nick Marks' "newspaper clipping" with one I made with the fake newspaper clipping generator at fodey.com:

Nick Marks' "news story" compared to a fake news clipping made at fodey.com

The important thing to notice is "hamming distance = 0.000000" since "The Hamming distance measures the area of symmetric difference between the two polygons, in other words, the area of the regions lying within one of the two polygons but not both of them. If the two polygons are identical, and properly aligned, the Hamming distance will be zero."

Should you believe testimonials for Google Sneaky?

At this point the Google Sneaky sales page includes a few testimonials which might get you too excited…but before you get too excited consider what types of testimonials are found on other products by Nick Marks.

His AutomatedMillions product contains a testimonial from Sebastian Foss (already referenced above as one of the top 100 spammers in the world) and also includes a testimonial from Costas Dedes.

If you aren't familiar with Costas Dedes you may want to read the following write-ups about a couple of his products:

FTC, Visa, and BBB Partner to Educate Consumers About Free Trial Offers and Online Scams

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:36:22 +0000

12/17/2009 FTC Press Release:

The Federal Trade Commission has joined an effort to alert consumers to online deceptive marketing connected to free trial offers that require individuals to cancel or opt-out of a recurring charge for future products or services.

The Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, David C. Vladeck, appeared at a press conference with officials from Visa and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) today to caution consumers about the free trial feature, known as a “negative option.” In a negative option feature, a company takes a consumer’s failure to cancel a free trial offer as permission to begin charging for the service. While many merchants use this billing process appropriately, others pre-check consent boxes, bury the details of the offers in the fine print, terms and conditions, and make cancellations or returns difficult, catching consumers in a cycle of recurring charges for products and services they do not want.

“Free trial marketing can be convenient for consumers–if the terms are clearly spelled out beforehand,” Vladeck said. “Legitimate marketers don’t hide critical information about costs or cancellation policies to get their customers to agree to future charges.”

The FTC, Visa and the BBB offer tips to online shoppers on how to spot deceptive free trial offers, and how to deal with unauthorized charges:

Take time to read and understand all terms and conditions, so a free trial doesn’t turn into a costly purchase you didn’t intend to make.

Pay particular attention to any pre-checked boxes before you submit your payment card information for an order. Failing to un-check the boxes may bind you to terms and conditions you don’t want.

Review credit card statements when you get them for any unauthorized charges, and notify the card issuer promptly of any unusual activity or unauthorized charges.

Try to resolve the situation with the merchant. If you’re unsuccessful, contact the card issuer immediately to dispute the charge.
Consumers who think they’ve been victims of deceptive marketing and who haven’t been able to resolve the issue directly with the merchant should call their card issuer to dispute the charge. They also may report their experiences to the FTC at www.ftc.gov/complaint or their local BBB at www.bbb.org. More information is available at www.visa.com/negativeoption.

FTC Consumer Alert on Free Trial Offers

Make 10 Billion Dollars Posting A Link On Google – Strange, Strange Comments…

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:28:15 +0000

A while back I created a parody site with the headline Make 10 Billion Dollars Posting A Link On Google which I assumed was obviously making fun of these Make Money Posting Links on Google Scams. Apparently on the internet sometimes "clear and conspicuous" in the mind of consumers doesn't mean providing completely nonsensical writing with gigantic, obviously fake images, and pictures of babies giving comments and claims that you've trained a dog to post links on Google.

Click here to see the original Make 10 Billion Dollars Posting A Link on Google site.

At one point someone tweeted the site to Matt Cutts, Google's head of web spam and apparently he found it funny enough to retweet to his followers on twitter.

Even there among seemingly intelligent people there were comments made – that didn't seem to be made in jest – such as "is this a scam?"

Pretty unbelievable, but a recent experience turned out even more oddly.

I posted the site to a review exchange on WhyDoWork here and received the following strange remarks that this time were clearly NOT made in jest:

"I liked the way the site was set up but I couldn't really see the proof. Everything was all scrawled out and it made for a bit of suspicion for me. Pretty good tho."

AND

"The layout of the site is neat but the information is a bit misleading with making million and billion dollars with Google. It is a bit unrealistic and most of the the Google kits on there are scams, so I am not sure about this site."

WOW!

I think those two consumers gave me more insight into why the Google Kit scams have been so successful than the thousands of Google Kit scam victims who have posted on the WorkAtHomeTruth site over the past year!

Fake News Sites Move to Yahoo – Sort of…

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:07:59 +0000

Yahoo Is Hiring...For Google...?

I literally just stumbled onto a fake news site called News33Show.com while searching for a list of national newspapers broken down by city. The first thing I noticed of course was the headline:

"Breaking News: Yahoo Now Hiring People To Work From Home
Yahoo is Set To Hire A Group Of Americans To Work From Home In The Next Few Days. Thousands Of Jobs Available, Anyone Can Apply."

And a recommendation of a product called "Easy Google Profit".

It appears that this fake news site affiliate is scared enough of the recent Google Lawsuit to have changed his landing page – although once you clickthrough on the Easy Yahoo Profit link you end up on a site called InternetRichGuru.com has a name similar (but not the same) to another site I wrote up yesterday in the Not Recommended section here:

InternetRichesGuru.com – Not Recommended

I also learned how to report invalid Verisign Seal from a (the?) Verisign Marketing Coordinator who posted this comment:

"If you encountered a VeriSign Secured® Seal that is used incorrectly, please report it to VeriSign using this form.

https://www.verisign.com/support/contact/secure-site-seal-abuse/index.html"

So why is this fake news only "sort of" moving to promoting Yahoo?…Because the actual offer it promotes claims to teach how to make money with Google.

I'm going to go ahead and publish this post "as is" – but hope to be able to update it more tomorrow.

Oh, and here's a few more fake news sites that I hadn't seen before to enjoy:

www. AmericaJobDaily.com | Rachel Appleton story
www. BayTimesNews.com
www. BestRewardsProgram. info | Paul Steadman story
www. Consumer-Reports-Weekly.com | Marie Thompson story
www. DailyBlogPosts .net | Mary Thompson
www. GetTheTimes .net | Mary Steadman story
www. GlobalNewsMedia .info | Mary Steadman story
www. HealthyConsumerTips.com | Jacob Steadman story
www. JobsAlertWeekly.com | Jerry Reynolds story
www. JobsNewsIs .tk | Mary Steadman story
www. JobNewsHome.com | Jerry Reynolds story
www. LANewsAndReports.com
www. MelbourneDaily .us | Maria Summers story
www. News17NBC.com | Mary Steadman story
www. News2Online .net
www. News33Show.com |
www. News7TV .info | Marie McCan story
www. News9Alerts.com
www. NewYorkChronicle .org | Steve story
www. ShowMeWhatNext.com | Mary Steadman story
www. TheBritishDaily.com | Debbie Jackson story
www. TheWorldFreePress.com | Janice Waterman story
www. Times-News .org | Mary Steadman story
www. Tribune-Gazette.com | Mary Steadman story
www. WbbcJobReport.com | Mary Thompson story
www. WashingtonReporter .net
www. WeeklyNewsToday.com | Patricia Feeney story
www. YourDailyReporter.com | Jerry Reynolds story

Page 4 of Question Submissions

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:32:40 +0000

This is the place to submit your questions as the forum is officially on hold for now.

I'm in the process of getting a F.A.Q. section installed at WorkAtHomeTruth which will also allow you to submit your questions.

I've decided to do this in place of the forum for now as it seemed like the forum was mostly being used for that purpose and I'm MUCH more likely to answer on the blog than in the forum.

You can post your questions here for now until I get the F.A.Q. section set up.

Thanks.

Note: This is page 4 of questions submitted. You can see previous questions and answers here:

Pacific WebWorks CEO expresses surprise over Google lawsuit

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:05:17 +0000

The Salt Lake City Tribune has just reported that the CEO has expressed surprise over the Google lawsuit stating that "Pacific WebWorks insisted Wednesday it was taken unaware by a Google Inc. lawsuit accusing the Salt Lake City company of running an elaborate scam that roped in hundreds of consumers and millions of dollars by trading on Google's name."

The full Salt Lake City Tribune story on Pacific WebWorks here details more about the Pacific WebWorks surprise over the lawsuit.

Here are a few other surprises that may be in store for Kenneth Bell, CEO of Pacific WebWorks:

1) The complaint history of Pacific WebWorks discussed in this post called ProfitCenterLearning review revisited (includes a great question by commercial litigation attorney Michael Webster).

2) The first manned moon landing – SURPRISE!

3) The invention of Television – seriously, it's been invented. No really…look:

4) The Great Big Beautiful Bowl was in fact just a big plastic bowl:

5) And of course a bit of shocking news about this guy (sorry folks):

Google Lawsuit Against Pacific WebWorks – Prediction…

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:53:31 +0000

I have an unsettling prediction about the impact the recent Google Lawsuit against Pacific WebWorks will have – and my prediction is that it will have little to no impact in the long-term.

Why? Because it's still incredibly easy for companies running hidden negative option scams or misleading people using the Google Trademark to cover their tracks and remain invisible.

Sure, there are easy targets that weren't smart enough to cover their tracks or bizarrely believed they were forever immune to the type of lawsuit Google recently filed, but unless

A) the anonymous corporation and secret banking loopholes discussed in the post Digging deeper into hidden negative option scams are closed.
AND
B) There is a tremendous increase in funding for Federal Law Enforcement Agencies
AND
C) There is MUCH better coordination between U.S. Federal Law Enforcement Agencies (which is starting to happen)
AND
D) There is MUCH better coordination between countries in fighting cross-border fraud (note, the U.S. Safe Web Act has been used in a few recent FTC cases)
AND
E) There are stricter penalties and actual jail time for companies/individuals who perpetrate such scams on consumers
AND
F) There are stricter penalties or higher fines for incorrect WhoIs information that remains in place after a registrar requests it be updated.

Related:

Google forgets to disable Pacific WebWorks Adwords account?

Google forgets to disable Pacific WebWorks Adwords account?

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:39:43 +0000

After reading the news today about Google suing Pacific WebWorks, a lot of us who have been reporting on Pacific WebWorks and other companies which seem to use the Google Trademark in a deceptive manner…were thrilled to see Google take this action.

So, I decided to see if it was a big enough deal to make the top of Google itself. Well, it did…but not exactly in the way I expected. LOL.

Here's what I got when I searched for "Pacific WebWorks" on Google:

Pacific WebWorks Adv Exact

Considering all of the Adwords Accounts that Google Disabled it seems a little more than odd that they did NOT disable the account of the company they allege "perpetuate Internet scams on unsuspecting consumers using the trusted Google brand" and have engaged in a "Scheme To Defraud The Public Using Google's Marks".

Additionally, according to this Lawsuit Google recently filed against Pacific WebWorks:

"This action seeks to stop a widespread Internet advertising scam that is defrauding the public by misusing the famous Google brand. The scam victimizes unsuspecting consumers by prominently displaying the famous GOOGLE mark, by suggesting sponsorship by the plaintiff, Google Inc. (“Google”), and by urging consumers to obtain a kit supposedly showing them how to make money working from home with Google. The kit is advertised as free, except for a nominal shipping and handling charge or access fee. However, people who sign up for these offers have their credit cards charged with substantial recurring monthly fees. They also receive little of value, or nothing at all, in return for their payments.

Because of the prominent use of the GOOGLE mark and false or misleading statements in the advertisements, consumers are tricked into believing – falsely – that these work-at-home kits are offered, sponsored or endorsed by Google. Consumers have sent letters and e-mails to Google complaining about fraudulent charges. Many have asked Google for a refund or asked Google to cancel the recurring charges, even though Google is not connected to the solicitations. Google has informed the victims that Google is not affiliated with the scam and has referred victims to the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”). Google has demanded (to no avail) that websites involved with the scam stop using Google’s name and marks, or similarly confusing names and marks. This summer, the FTC obtained an injunction and asset freeze in the District of Nevada against other websites operating a virtually identical scam. While the injunction did lead to removal of a few of the scam websites, thousands more remain, including those associated with Defendants. This, in turn, has compelled Google to file this lawsuit."

Some of the specific Google Kits mentions in their complaint are:

Google Adwork
Google ATM
Google Biz Kit
Google Cash
Earn Google Cash Kit
Google Fortune
Google Marketing Kit
Google PayDay Kit
Google Profits
The Home Business Kit For Google
Google StartUp Kit
Google Works

Some of the credit card processing sites Google mentions in their complaint are:

BSSkyTracking.com
GoogleWorksToday.com
ProcessCartCenter.com
SecureCartCenter.com
SundayBikeRides.com
SafeTrialOffers.com
SelfProfitsMadeEasy.com
SecureSiteOrders.com
YourSearchProfits.com
SecureOrderSites.com
SecureSiteOffers.com
OnlineTrack.com
ProfitCenterLearning.com
S3curehost.com
VisualWebTools.com

Google TradeMark within Domain Names:

The Lawsuit also alleges that "consumers are lured into the scam through a series of
websites that prominently display the Google name, logo and other trademarks. These websites
often include “google” in the domain name address, such as"…

GoogleFortuneMembers.com
GoogleMoneyProfits.com

Related posts at WorkAtHomeTruth:

01/10/2008 – Is Google Cash Any Good?
07/23/2008 – Google Cash Key – Not Recommended
12/04/2008 – Google Cash Scam
12/13/2008 – BradsMoney – Where's that Government check?
01/01/2009 – EarnCashFastWithGoogle
01/03/2009 – Google Success Kit Complaints
01/10/2009 – Is EarnGoogleCash.com the same as Google Cash.com?
03/06/2009 – BethsMoney Discussed
04/03/2009 – Where the hell is Google Cash kit?
08/09/2009 – GoogleWorksToday Quickshot review
08/14/2009 – NewYorkMinuteNews.com has a strange take on disclaimers
09/03/2009 – Google Cash Machine quickshot review
09/13/2009 – ProfitCenterLearning review revisited
10/1/2009 – NewYorkGazetteNews.com and Products it Promotes
11/11/2009 – GoogleBizKit.com – Not Recommended
11/11/2009 – Will the Google Biz Kit addiction raise to the level of alcohol, porn and drugs?
11/11/2009 – Why YourProfitGateWay.com is Not Recommended
11/11/2009 – eAuctionSuccessKit – Not Recommended

There are a bunch more and other sites that were listed in this post:

White Knight SEO-ers ride in on broken horses

Not all of the products mentioned are ones owned by Pacific WebWorks, but the same issues are present as Google details in their lawsuit against Pacific WebWorks.

Dennis Yu graph

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:13:47 +0000

I'm surprised at how many intelligent people are trying to "guess" what's going on with Dennis Yu, Shoe Money, Markus Frind, etc. when the actual DATA is right in front of their noses. The only person I've seen actually make a real attempt to find out what's going on based on data is one of the posters at WickedFire.

Why am I doing this? Because I want to know the answer to the following question:

Can Dennis Yu really reveal anything new about scamming techniques and operations that can be helpful to consumers?

I've been collecting a lot of data, generating a lot of graphs, and looking for overlaps, patters, but there's so much that organizing it and then detailing it is pretty time consuming. Here's just one of the graphical sneak previews (the details of which will provide indicators of what is most likely to be true in all of this):

Dennis Yu Graph - Edge Weighted View

First of all – why should anyone care? As Michael Webster pointed out the real reason to care is to find out what insight Dennis may be able to shed on behind the scenes shady tactics/operations going on. But based on the TechCrunch post about FaceBook scamming it didn't appear that Dennis was revealing anything particularly new – but he also claimed he was holding back the more interesting information.

So details of this graph and a few others I've been working on will start to answer questions such as:

Was Dennis Yu involved in the porn industry?
What role did various connections of Dennis play in the development of Blitzlocal (at least one of the names really took me by surprise in a big way - and hasn't been mentioned in all of the recent posts as far as I can recall).
What role did Markus Frind play (if any) in the development of Blitzlocal
What is the real significance of the recent ShoeMoney posts about Dennis Yu

Hopefully once some of that is detailed at least SOME of the inane guessing games will stop and the more important can be answered (at least for my customers)…

Can Dennis Yu really reveal anything new about scamming techniques and operations that can be helpful to consumers?

If you want to continue engaging in guessing games about Dennis Yu, Jeremy Shoemaker, Markus Frind, etc. then here are a few places for you:

Retro-spamming techniques and the rise of spam in 2009

Paul (Founder, WorkAtHomeTruth) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:12:37 +0000

According to the Official Google Enterprise Blog:

"Last quarter we reported on the trend toward larger message sizes, measured in bytes. The trend has continued into this quarter, making 2009 a year of resurgence in old techniques such as image spam and payload viruses. When considering the spam bytes processed per user, growth has been steep in 2009, with Q3'09 rates up 123% from Q3'08."

For anyone who's wondered why spammers consider to spam, consider this from the Google report:

"The majority (55%) of these viruses are messages like the one you see below, a fake notice of underreported income from the IRS (which the IRS distributed an alert on earlier this week). Another large contingent (33%) have come in the form of fake package tracking attachments, which were already on the rise in Q2. You might think a spoofed IRS notice or package tracking email is obviously spam, and wonder who would fall for it and actually click on the attachment.

However, at these volumes, it takes only a tiny fraction of the recipients being fooled for the spammers to add hundreds of computers to their botnets every day."

Click here to read the full report at the Official Google Enterprise Blog.