ChrisBailey.info

Here we go again.  There’s just a never ending supply of these things out there.

Give us just $100 and we’ll give you $90,000.00 back in 3 short years.  Well, not exactly 3 years, LOL.  From their FAQ:

Q: I use your calculator to see what my return would be, if I invest $100 I do not get it to be the full $90 000 in 3 years as you claim, please explain.
A; We use 1100 days to calculate the return when it is stated as 3 years. This is to give us a few more days as reserve when selling of all the websites in the package. This explains why thee is a small difference in the calculations.

C’mon people.  If you’re anybody other than the usual hyip, ponzi game playing scam lover, you should know to avoid anything that even hints at such a ridiculous payout for doing absolutely nothing.

Much of what they talk about on the Web Builder Web Site Owner(WBWSO) actually makes sense as far as buying sites, flipping sites, optimizing them, etc.  BTW, I’ve also seen some people call it Wealth Builder Website Owner.  Not sure which is right, but the latter makes more sense since they call the investments Wealth Builder packages.

I have had an offer for one of my sites at 75 times the monthly revenue.

I was considering letting this potential scam go unmentioned until I read the following typical ponzi/pyramid scam lingo in their terms.

Every transaction is considered to be a private transaction between WBwso LTD and the member. As a private transaction between WBwso LTD and its member, any program on offer is exempt from:

• the US Securities Act of 1933, the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934,
• the US Investment Company Act of 1940, and all other rules, regulations and amendments thereof.

How many of you have seen that type of statement in the TOC of any legitimate company?

Guess what?  When you tell someone you will pay them $90,000.00 3 years from now if they give you $100 today and they don’t have to do anything to earn it, you are selling an investment.

If they are not registered with the SEC, they are not legally allowed to offer this deal in the U.S.

I’ve already done a quick skim of some of the ponzi player hotspots, so I know they are currently paying.  So did YMMSS, PIPS, 12Daily, ASD, and a number of other pie in the sky schemes……for a while at least.

In the end, it’s unlikely that they’ll be forking out over $450 Million Dollars in the next few years.

In case you’re wondering, their initial goal is stated as 5000 members X $100 investment X $90,000.00 return = $450 Million Dollars

Ahhh, the good old www(wild, wild, west).

Well, I was starting to write a post on this relatively new make money doing nothing scheme and after noticing it was starting to ramble(as usual), I figured another blog post conveyed my thoughts in a more succinct fashion.  That post is 5 reasons why GetTheBar.com will fail from the Living Room CEO blog.

Just a couple points in addition to what the author there has pointed out.

While the author touches on the fact that there is virtually no real info about the Boloto Group Inc. online, he doesn’t take it further and advise why that is a potential problem IMHO.

Despite the fact that many GetTheBar followers will say that this can’t be a scam because no money is being asked for, dealing with unknown entities such as this can have other consequences that could still cost you money, or worse.

• You are giving personal info to a company and owner, Robert Donnelli that has almost no internet presence or reputation, good or bad.  While they claim that info gathered is used for demographics for “advertisers” and is not to be sold, the info given is a valuable commodity that they could easily sell without your knowledge.  What have you found online that shows they can be trusted?
• Downloading a toolbar from a virtual stranger opens your computer up to some severe security issues.  Personally, I don’t even like downloading extra crap from companies I’m familiar with and have a reason to trust.  Again, what readily available info out there leads you to trust your computer, and in many cases, financial info, passwords, personal records, etc. to a company that has established no identity in its 10 year existence.

People just need to learn to evaluate these so called opportunities with their heads instead of their hearts.

Just like AllAdvantage and Agloco, the math does not add up to anything but disappointment in the end and your personal info in the hands of a complete stranger.

I just find it odd that an owner who was supposedly on the Chicago Board Options Exchange and a Wall Street technology firm has no internet footprint to follow, just like his 10 year old corporation that claims

The Company’s technology based applications impact many sectors including internet use, advertising, health benefits and commerce. The Company has invested over one million hours of engineering and development to deliver these applications.

Some examples of the press releases that lead to nothing:

Boloto Group Launches Free Online Membership – The Boloto Card
March 7, 2007  BolotoCard.com is a redirect.

The Next Generation Internet Has Arrived As Technology Company Introduces The First Ever Secure Way to Collaborate, Share Files and Conduct Business Within a Secure Distributed Community
December 29, 2004 — the “Library Card”  No site found

Businesses Remove Healthcare Burden From Employees With New Zero-Deductible Plans From the Boloto Group
Feb. 20, 2007 — bolotohealth.com/ still says beta 2 years later.

Until it all plays out, nobody can say for certain whether this is actually a sincere attempt at making a seriously flawed business model fly or just a clever scheme to gather information for other uses.

Edited on 02/28/09 to add the following:

Thanks to a recent comment on the LivingRoomCEO blog mentioned earlier, we now at least have a different site to look at — adsbyer.com

Before posting this, I actually did do a google search on the phrases ads by ER Exchange and ER exchange which brought up nothing.  Searching for just ads by ER did work.

The adsbyer.com site at least does a pretty nice presentation that lets you run through a demo of setting up an account and ad.

For now, it looks like they intend to charge advertisers $0.10 per click for non-demographically oriented ads and $0.50 per click for demographically oriented ads.

One slightly important thing that their entire site fails to tell potential advertisers is that all members are paid to click their ads.  Instead, they word it as “our audience chooses to experience your presentation one-on-one for a minimum 5 seconds GUARANTEED”.  The reality is that the audience is obligated to click if they want to earn any money.

Oh well, it will be fun to watch it all play out and see how it develops.

WordPress has just launched wordpress.tv with a ton of video tutorials and WordPress how-to’s.

Worth a visit for all of us who use WordPress blogging software, plugins, etc.

Happy blogging.

Recent Bank of America phishing scams.

Subject line(s):

• Bank of America Alert Update Your Information

Linking to:

• http://account-restore.com/sas/login-secure/index.htm
• http://www.mkc-zupanja.com/forum/user/www.bankofamerica.com/bankofamerica/online_bofa_banking/e-online-banking/

Body of message(s):

Your Online Banking is Blocked.

We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your Bank of America account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party. Protecting the security of your account is our primary concern. Therefore, as a preventative measure, we have temporarily limited access to sensitive account features. To restore your account access, we need you to confirm your identity, to do so we need you to follow the link below and proceed to confirm your information: Click here to Confirm your Information Thank you for your patience as we work together to protect your account. Sincerely, Bank of America Customer Service *Important* Please update your records on or before 48 hours, a failure to update your records will result in a temporal hold on your funds.

Bank of America, N.A. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender © 2008 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved

Beware.

Recent Monster.com phishing scams.

Subject lines:

• notice: confirm your online records <message ref: 0413889094>
• Monster customer service: details confirmation!
• official information for client of Monster. <message ref: 9265493765>
• software updating <message ref: 3188844944>
• please update your data. <message ref: 3628458339>

Linking to:

• http://hiring.monster.com.id-r01.com/serverdll/onlineemployerform.aspx?redirect=95603777633797495477266554307399130100464068937874718641744618023
• http://hiring.monster.com.dll-s01.net/serverdll/onlineemployerform.aspx?redirect=70749851022342226999489520921667196851439
• http://hiring.monster.com.file-p0174.eu/serverdll/onlineemployerform.aspx?redirect=261772616183425622980958122842289039024382580588889224462353327789782285439304
• http://hiring.monster.com.dll-s01.com/serverdll/onlineemployerform.aspx?redirect=637673150729552209734169678576099465479472526966390
• http://hiring.monster.com.id-r01.co.in/serverdll/onlineemployerform.aspx?redirect=699521817620622695298578162414247301428186059004104167

Body of message(s):