Scam artists are persistent

I didn’t intend for this site to become Scam-Stop central, but I can’t resist commenting on the persistence of people who are so single-minded in their attempts to part you from your money. I am also amazed at those who spend time trying to outwit the scammers! There seem to be plenty of both types around!

The latest wrinkle in the online scammer’s arsenal of tricks is the flock of "favorable commenters" who produce glowing testimonials after someone has written about systematic abuses by a particular company. In fact, this confirms that the company is really trying hard to keep the scam working.

These scammers use Google just like the rest of us and when they find that they are being exposed as lower life-forms, they mobilize their letter writing crews and post indignant comments on the offending websites. These cover-up emails usually come from the same IP address and all contain the same spelling mistakes.

I recently wrote about the "free" logsplitter advertised by home-garden-rewardpath.com and started getting letters almost at once from people defending this company as "good guys". The first few were from fake email addresses, but they have improved their approach and are now using real email addresses.

What they are trying to do is to offset the critical remarks on forum groups and on weblogs like this one. Unfortunately their praise of the scamming company is short on details and never uses their real name.

Here is how their comments appear in a list of complaints about a company. See if you notice a pattern:

This is a rip-off! (full details included)
These guys are absolute scumbags! (full details included)
I had a wonderful buying experience!  (anonymous)
I will never deal with this company again! (full details included)
I got everything I wanted!  (anonymous)
I am suing these guys!(full details included)
Warning! Do not do business with this company (full details included)

Use your own judgment in buying online and Google the company name with the words like: problems, ripoff, scam, and bad service. There are a few names I suggest you circle in red and avoid like the plague: CCI Camera, Royal Camera, Bananaboat Camera.

If you do get ripped off, you can report Internet crime at: http://www.ic3.gov/
If you receive an offer via email from someone claiming to need your
help getting money out of Nigeria — or any other country, for that
matter — forward it to the FTC at spam@uce.gov.

I also discovered that some people enjoy dealing with scammers. Perhaps they feel they can outwit them. You can read an email from one of them after the jump.

I received this email from someone who enjoys trying to outwit scammers like home-garden-rewardpath.com. It seems like there might be better things to spend time on, but this person has made a game of it.

There are more than 65 of us who have received MacBook Pro laptops from the company who also runs this site that you refer to.

Yes, you have to do the sponsor offers, but the logsplitter only requires 8 offers! The laptop required 18!

I fail to see how you conclude that this is a "scam". DId you look
through the actual offers to see what you would spend to do 8 offers?
Many of the ones on the first page are $1 offers, and if cancelled
within 7 days that is all you  pay. For our $2000 MacBook Pros, most of
us spent only about $200.

You don’t really expect to just show up at a website and get a free
logsplitter, do you? I would bet that with my spreadsheet and keeping
track of the offers, using a different virtual credit card number for
each one with a spending limit so they cannot charge more, and calling
to cancel within the time period, I could get that logsplitter for $100
or less.

It seems to me that just because there is fine print and you have to
spend some money, you conclude that the offer is somehow a "scam". It
is not – if you follow the directions you will get your prize.

Now this is a website run by NuiTech Inc. – they are the good ones.
Many others are in fact much more difficult to do and require that you
refer one or more other households who must also do all the offers –
those are not worth it.

Interesting! People who want "something for nothing" are the natural market for flimflam artists and scammers. It sounds like a perfect match…

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