The Email

The unsolicited email comes from Fredrick Brugh at fredrickbrugh949@hotmail.com.

Hello,

I am Edward Sutton, a job officer of G and M Stacey, Inc. Currently we are hiring additional personnel. If you are looking for a primary income or for an extra income it should be a great opportunity for you.

First, let me tell you more about our company. G and M Stacey, Inc. were established in 1964 by George and Mary Stacey in a Denmark as a family business. They were a second generation of jewelers and we still have a hand on approach with our business. Any jewelry needs at all when you want to give a remembrance gift that comes from your heart.

Currently we are expanding to North America. As most of businesses we are working on Buy and Sell principle. It means that we can buy something from a manufacturer and sell to customer without any production teams. Our experts examined the USA domestic market and it is obvious that a great taxation system creates a best price for such kind of jewelry like a diamonds, and factory-made gold items.

It means that the same thing for example a 2.5 ct. Round diamond VG/I/VS1 w/GIA certification costs ~USD16,300 in US and ~13,000 Euro (~USD19,200) in the Denmark. So all we need to do is just to buy a diamond or gold it the States and sell it in the Europe. Yes, we are a middleman.

But most of U.S. wholesale jewelry companies (such big as Szul), doesn’t offer an international shipping. We need someone to buy the merchandise and to ship it abroad.

To prevent the further questions – you will not cash any bogus checks or fraud transactions. Also you will not spend your own money for the merchandise. You will receive Company’s funds directly to your account and buy the merchandise only when the funds will be available.

Do not hesitate to contact me though email employment@gandmstacey.com for any further information.

Edward Sutton, G and M Stacey, Inc.

The Scam

There are two lines from above that should immediately set this one off as bad news.

1. But most of U.S. wholesale jewelry companies, doesn’t offer an international shipping. We need someone to buy the merchandise and to ship it abroad.
2. You will receive Company’s funds directly to your account and buy the merchandise only when the funds will be available.

If you were to agree to work for these guys, they would deposit money into a bank account of yours and have you purchase some big ticket items and ship them overseas. The only problem is the money is either non-existent or acquired through some illegal means and now you’re spending tens of thousands of dollars of it and sending your purchases abroad. There’s no way this can end well.

There are two possible scenarios for you now. Either the money that was sent to you bounces or disappears and now you’re tens of thousands of dollars in the hole with no possible way of recovering it or the authorities come knocking and hold you liable for accepting large sums of money and sending goods overseas to potential criminals.

In addition to having you launder money/goods, these guys now have your personal and banking information leaving your identity ripe for the picking. These are not the types of people you want to have access to your private information.

Bottom line: avoid any type of “job” that has to do with you accepting money or dealing with a company’s finances. Major corporations don’t hire people from home to handle their money. It just doesn’t happen.

What is the Surefire Money Maker System?

The Surefire Money Maker System lures you in with promises of free information. The majority of this information consists of vague references to earnings and how you can start making $200 a day by giving stuff away for free. Of course, to find out how to actually make money doing this you need to spend $37 first.

SPOILER ALERT!! The method on how to make money? The eBook teaches you to give away the intro to the Surefire Money Maker System for free and to sell the eBook on how to sell the eBook. Hooray recursion!

There are a few stock images and fake names selling this product including Rosie Peterson and Alex Cadens. They are selling from twaeresources.com, fastwebcash.com, realmoneyonlinenow.com, and 100plusaday.com. All the sales pages are exact carbon copies of each other which confirms the recursion method from above.

There’s only one thing surefire about making money online and that is there is nothing surefire about making money online.

Quite often, people even search through our archives first. They do their due diligence and then write a message like this one, from alert reader Joanna:

Hello. Great site.

I came across this web site homebizlast.com/ and could not find anything about it in your archives.

A person whom I only know on facebook (young daughter of real life friend) claims to have made 150 dollars in one day.

I will ask her about it, but she is very young – around 17. Have you come across this site before?

Here’s the problem, and there’s no way Joanna and the other diligent readers would know this. (By the way, Joanna, I love your accent!)

We HAVE covered homebizlast.com, just not in that particular disguise. Not with that exact name. The same scams go by different names and just recycle the same sales pages and tactics over and over.

Truth be told, I think there are like five scams on the Internet. But they wear hundreds, nay, thousands of different masks.

Homebizlast.com is one of them. What is it? It’s Easy Google Profit dressed up to look like a legitimate news site. It tries to sound like a news story. It runs a script that makes the newspaper title and location local to you. (Mine is called the “Utah Online Edition” and the person making $5k per month lives in Salt Lake City. Where are these details located when you visit homebizlast.com? Speak up in the comments to play Where In The World Is This Scam Today?! It will be fun!)

We wrote about this fake news tactic here. That was back in May and it was selling Easy Google Profit even then.

So, thanks for the question, Jo. It turns out we have written extensively about the so-called Google scams. They’re all the same. Here’s a good place to start—the Master List of Google Scams.

Is AcaiForceMax a scam?

I don’t know and I have no intention of finding out. Instead, I want to take a look at their sales page and their fine print.

The sales pitch behind AcaiForceMax claims that the little Acai berries will help you lose weight, tone muscles, burn fat, and increase your energy levels. The page is littered with testimonials and pictures of these jacked dudes lifting weights and looking good while trying to maintain nonchalant and carefree poses.

If I was trying to lose weight, the sales pitch has me sold. I get to lose weight, build muscle, and have girls throw themselves at me from every possible angle the minute I step out in public. What more could you want?

However, I’m going to keep reading after I reach the bottom of the sales pitch. I’m going to go where few have gone before and I’m actually going to read the fine print. It starts off with…

* These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please consult your physician before beginning any program. If there is a change in your medical condition, please notify your counselor immediately.

Hmm, that’s kind of disappointing. But just because the FDA hasn’t evaluated their claims doesn’t mean it won’t work, right?

1 Results not typical for any and all claims.

Crap. So all that stuff you said above probably won’t happen? But the testimonials looked so promising!

** All celebrity images were found on and obtained from public websites and are believed to be in public domain.
***Picture does not contain the likeness of the customer that submitted the testimonial.

Not even the testimonials were real! Well at least I can trust Fitness magazine, CBS, ABC, and Wall Street Journal for looking into AcaiForceMax.

+ Fitness Magazine, CBS News, ABC, and Wall Street Journal are registered trademarks of their respective owners.
2 Media elements deployed are those of paid actors.

IS ANYTHING YOU SAY REAL? You say as seen on ABC, but only because you paid ABC to advertise! I’m skeptical as hell at this point, but hey, it’s a free trial. What could go wrong about free?

If you do not cancel your Trial Membership during the applicable fourteen (14) day period as set forth in Section 7 herein below, your Active Credit Card will be charged the monthly Membership fee of Eighty-Seven Dollars and Sixty-Two Cents ($87.62) (”Monthly Fee”)

I. Give. Up.

Now do you see why we urge you all to read the terms and conditions? In about 2 minutes I found out that AcaiForceMax doesn’t work, the testimonials do not feature real people, and the free trial will cost me $87.62 every 30 days.

And that’s why I now take the time to read the terms and conditions to which I am agreeing to. You should too.

All of my kids except one have had it, but so far, Her Hotness and I have stayed clean. We’re hoping it stays that way. It’s draining our schools and churches here, with health officials surprised that it is hitting so hard, so early in the season. That means you have a lot of people sick, worried about getting sick, and ready to pay to avoid it.

And of course, that only means one thing: it’s a scammer’s market ready for the reaping!

Are we appalled? Yes. Are we surprised? We are not. Check out the story:

Federal officials have warned promoters of more than 140 products sold over the Internet about fraudulent claims that they can prevent, treat or diagnose swine flu.
Bogus products include devices and sprays that claim to sterilize the air or surfaces, and dietary supplements claiming to boost the immune system. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it even has found fake Tamiflu being sold online without a prescription.

Want to have a look at some of the scammy products? Just Google “swine flu” and look at the sponsored search results. Chances are good that you’ll spot the products making false claims. Check out Microsan, for instance, at stop-h1n1.com. See the fear-stoking headlines at the top? They’re designed to prod you into a quick purchase before your critical thinking skills kick in.

The problem is bad enough that the FDA created a Swine Flu consumer fraud detection team, which spotted about 10 new product a day being promoted. All of them were making untested, unproven claims, and some of the products were downright dangerous. Check out the useful warnings at the FDA:

On May 1, 2009, FDA and the FTC warned that consumers who purchase products which claim to protect against or treat the 2009 H1N1 virus, but are not approved by FDA for the treatment or prevention of influenza, are risking their health and the health of their families.

These fraudulent products come in all varieties and could include dietary supplements, medical foods, or products that claim to prevent or cure the 2009 H1N1 influenza.

FDA announced that it has initiated an aggressive strategy to identify, investigate, and take regulatory or criminal action against individuals and businesses that wrongfully promote purported 2009 H1N1 influenza products in an attempt to take advantage of the current flu public health emergency.

Full disclosure: we won’t be testing any of these products. Maybe we could get Steve to inject or ingest an unknown substance purchased online, but it won’t be me. The flu sucks, but so do the potential hazards of swallowing something made in Albania with misspelled English words on the label.

For real information on Swine Flu, look to the Centers for Disease Control. Wash your hands often and don’t make out with strangers on the bus or subway without a surgical mask.

My Observations on Netbooks2020.com

Here are just a few things I’ve noted while reading through the sales page.

• They claim, “clear at least $150 in NET PROFITS, per NETBOOK SALE.” How are you going to make $150 per sale on a $300 product? This is something tangible that has to be produced, boxed, shipped, etc. There’s no way these things are marked up that high.
• They also claim, “The Asian manufacturers that make these NETBOOKS are very displeased that WAL-MART, BESTBUY, and others have come to dominate PC sales in the US.” What the hell does that even mean? Why would they care who sold it as long as it’s being sold? Why is there no evidence to backup this statement?
• More claims, “Asian Netbook Manufacturers are very actively and aggressively seeking U.S. based Netbooks Sales Reps.” Why the hell would major corporations look to setup thousands of partnerships with home-based businesses to sell a dozen or so laptops when they can turn to major retailers and sell millions? My brain hurts from trying to follow the logic on this sales page and I’m getting angry.
• The sales page looks like it’s from 1998. Do you remember the web back in 1998? It was a scary, ugly place. There was little focus on design and Netbooks2020 appears to want to hold on to the past. For a company that brags about technological innovation and huge revenue streams, you’d think they’d go the extra mile and hire a graphic designer and not let their kid neighbor design their company website because, you know, “he’s good with computers.”
• The sales text and images are god-awful. I’m not done with their sales page yet. They could have hired a proofreader or an editor to go over their sales copy. And how many images of netbooks do we need? We have netbooks piled on top of each other, in clouds, in space, with arms coming out of them. Perhaps they should lay off the stock images.

Alright, so the sales page is weak, but what is it that they are actually selling? There’s no real mention of what they want from you other than to call this phone number and speak with a Netbooks2020 representative. Doing so will grant you the lovely experience of hearing a sales pitch that will ultimately end up with them asking you for $395 to get started with selling netbooks. You’ll get a website, sales materials, and all kinds of good stuff.

It doesn’t end there however. After paying $395, you’ll be informed that you have to spend an ADDITIONAL $170 to get your new website up to manufacturers specifications. Why didn’t they build it to their specifications in the first place? Why do you you have to shell out $565 for a website? Have you seen the Netbooks2020 website? And they have the audacity to charge over $500 for a website! I give up.

So, does it work? I don’t know, and I’m not about to spend over $500 to find out. There are a number of things here that just aren’t adding up and I personally wouldn’t feel safe sending these guys my money.

GamingJobsOnline.com Claims…

The biggest claim they make is that you can work from home, at your leisure, and make upwards of $30/hr playing video games. Laughable, right? Well, GamingJobsOnline.com says it is possible, but it will cost you $37 to learn how to do so. (Sidenote: Your membership also includes information on how to make thousands of dollars taking online surveys and how to watch satellite TV for free. Uhh.. what?)

This should leave you with two questions:

• Why does it cost money to find out how to get a job?
• Why would anyone work a real job when they could sit at home, play video games, and make money doing so?

Game Testing From Wikipedia

So, is there a career in game testing? Well, yes, yes there is. Take it away Wikipedia!

Compensation

Despite the job’s difficulty, game testing doesn’t pay a great deal and is usually paid hourly (around USD$10 – $12 an hour). Testing management is usually more lucrative, but this type of job usually requires years of experience and some type of college degree. For this reason, as mentioned earlier, most game testing jobs are taken as “foot in the door” positions, used as a stepping stone for more lucrative lines of work in game development.

As a career

Within the game industry, testing usually falls under a title such as quality assurance (QA). However, game QA is far less technical than general software QA. Many game testers have only a high school diploma and no technical expertise. Game testing is normally a full-time job with expectation of regular overtime, but many employees are usually hired as temps and the length of employment varies. In some cases, if the tester is working for a publisher, the tester may be sent off to work at the developer’s site rather than in his employer’s own offices. The most aggressive recruiting season is late summer/early autumn, as this is the start of the crunch period for games to be finished and shipped in time for the holiday season.

A common misconception is that professional game testing is akin to a public beta test or stress test, where players are expected to enjoy the game and report any bugs they happen to find. In reality, game testing is highly focused on finding bugs, often using tedious methodologies. Even if one could play the game freely, there is no guarantee that the game is stable or fun enough to be enjoyable. A tester may be required to play the same portion of a game repeatedly for hours at a time. Understandably, burn-out is common in this field.

Despite the demanding and risky nature of the job, game testing doesn’t pay a great deal and is usually paid hourly, with wages ranging from USD$8 to $15 per hour in the United States. As temps, testers typically receive no benefits or holidays and simply take unpaid vacation days when desired. Some testers use the job as a stepping stone in the game industry, but the success of this strategy is unproven, and depends on which part of the game industry the tester desires to work in. QA résumés, which display non-technical skill sets, tend towards management, then to marketing or production. Those wishing to land a job in programming, art, or design usually need to demonstrate their skills in these areas, either by taking jobs outside the industry and/or working on mods.

Did that confuse you? It probably should have. The truth is that there are video game testing positions, but they’re not as lucrative as GamingJobsOnline.com makes them out to be. Do they exist? Absolutely, but they’re mainly entry level jobs into video game companies.

GamingJobsOnline Refund and Contact Info

I did a fair amount of digging and couldn’t find anything. The whois information is falsified and I couldn’t find a phone number to call or the name of the owner or anything really. I managed to find out that the site operates out of the Philippines with servers in Quebec, Canada, but that’s as deep as I was able to go. A possible email address is louie.pixelwise@gmail.com but I have no way of confirming this.

Clickbank does handle all of the payment processing for GamingJobsOnline.com. If you’re looking to get a refund visit this page: http://www.clickbank.com/orderDetail.htm?clear=true and fill out the form to process your refund.

The Bottom Line

If you’re absolutely interested in becoming a video game tester, check the job boards of big name video game developers. After searching for just a few minutes, I was able to find 6 different video game testing positions. The pay averaged around $10/hour but every job required you to be on-site. This is far from the $40k/year at-home salary GamingJobsOnline.com promises.

Bottom line: Stay away from GamingJobsOnline.com

You see, I got this letter. (Click on it to see the full version, which is readable.) No return address. Postmarked in Illinois, which is a whole bunch of states away from me. So I don’t know who sent it to me. If it’s one of you and you somehow got my home address, I’m a little creeped out, but THANK YOU! I don’t know what the deal is, but all I have to do is send $2 to a post office box in New Hampshire, and they’ll send me all the information I need to change my life!

For $2, they say,

“We will show you how we use our program and how it can putyou into whatever income bracket you want to be in. We anticipate that you will surpass the $50,000 bracket within the first year, but there is no limit on your earnings, it could be much , much more!”

It’s only $2, and I can afford to lose that. I might as well take a chance. Heck, maybe it’s genuine.

Crazy, right? If you read the letter, you’ll see that it tells me absolutely nothing about what the program is or what I would be doing to earn this fabulous income.

But too often in this business, facts don’t matter. It’s all about pushing my emotional buttons. That’s why the letter leads with, “How would you like to receive the kind of money that most people only dream of having?”

If someone or something opens with the word “dream” in the first sentence, I know it’s a ripoff.

But the point of this post is to hold this snail mail scam up in comparison to the Internet scams we see every day of the year. Many Internet scams don’t give much more information about their offer than this letter…they just push your buttons and let the emotion do the rest.

Very often, the only difference is the price. I can’t think of an Internet scam that will cost you only $2. And I’ve heard stories of people losing thousands.

I shouldn’t be surprised…truly there is nothing new under the sun, and that includes the various ways people will separate others from their money. But what’s curious to me is that the very same people who would see this letter and immediately know it’s a scam sometimes get sucked in by scammy sales pages online. It’s almost like there’s a hypnotic effect coming through the monitor that causes people to suspend the bullshit detectors in their brains.

So, at the risk of sounding like a broken record and for the benefit of those readers just joining us, here’s Joe signing off with a warning: Be careful out there.

Alert I’ve Tried That reader Karen sent us this:

This site is for a job called, “Auction Listing Agent.” Costs $197.00 and what you’ll be doing is logging into Ebay, finding products for big name companies like Dell, etc., and filling out forms for $5 a pop. You are getting products listed to big names companies for auction and getting paid to fill out a form.

Is this for real? I think not! It’s run by Jennifer Johnson. At first she says no experience/education needed-then she says there is no competiton because this is a secret and nobody has the education or training to do it. Provides you with a mentor. My vote-Scam. Please tell me your vote. Thank you

I’m voting with you, Karen.

Readers who have been with us for very long will remember the Angela Penbrook/Angel Stevens rebate processing scam from last year. One of those scams cost $197, too. I think there’s a scammer’s Bible somewhere that says Thou Shalt Charge $197 for Thy Garbage.

Those sites also had a video pop up script that played a little video of Angela or Angel or Diana telling you all about how you can change your life with an hour per day and they’ll show you the secrets. This “auction listing” queen is Jennifer Johnson.

“Hi,” she says cheerily. “I’m Jennifer Johnson.” What the hell ever. Hi Jennifer! I’m Cary Grant. “I have an urgent message for you that could change everything,” she chirps.

Oh, Jennifer is also “America’s Top Work-at-Home Consultant.” No, really. I kid you not. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see. I wonder if Angela or Angel or Diana knows Jennifer has taken her title! Maybe they’ll get in a mud pit and wrestle it out! Let’s watch!

Sorry, I get carried away. It’s just that we’ve seen all this before.

Big companies like Dell are not sitting around hoping that you’ll list their products on eBay! You aren’t going to list auctions and get paid for filling out a form! You get paid IF someone clicks on the item you list and then buys it.

When homejobplacement.org says, “If you’re serious about working an extremely lucrative real job from the comfort of your home, I urge you to get started right now,” it is misleading you. It’s an outright lie to say it’s a real job. A real job is one in which you get paid a known amount in exchange for your time and skill.

Not IF the company makes money. Not IF the customers buy the right product. And you sure don’t have to pay an employer for the privilege of working!

So you’re right, Karen, and thanks for speaking up. Here is one person’s experience with another “auction listing” offer:

When I get this program I thought I was going to get an special program to put auctions in Ebay for diferents companies like Emily Thomas announce on this website “http://www.workathomerecruiters.com/index2.php ” I feel like I have been bamboozled, because I do not have recieve any thing that you promise on your web site.

I would like to know when you are going to send me that information, because the main reason I paid US$97.oo was get that program no a EBAY course that you sent me instead my money. Its no fair you act like that this is the principal reason many people do not belive in internet business, please be honest.

They’re all the same pigs, just with different lipstick. Stay away from Homejobplacement.org.

So here is a partial list of the “I was scammed” experiences we have collected over the past week from comments and e-mail. If you would like to speak up, share your experience in the comments section. You could very well help someone from making the same mistake(s) you made.

Herbalife and Partnerwithpaul.com

I’m worse….I did sign up for herbalife and got screwed! So let’s count…..
$9.95 – package, 39.95 to keep it, $149 to sign up, $88 in product, $118 in product ordered that I did not request (this is full price by the way), $20 for the on line traning………So that’s about $425 that I didn’t have in the 1st place. My husband was laid off in Jan 2009 – still not working, I was laid off in June 2009. So obviously I didn’t have a lot of money to throw at this thing. Once my sponsor found that out I shoved to the back corner. Also, I tried taking the products – I can’t handle them….I have a heart condition and they affect my heart. I tried to explain this to my sponsor and she gets all rude. I asked to return the products and shes mouthing off to me how I’m negative and if I REALLY have a heart problem I should take them. Honestly! Like I don’t know how to take care of my condition! On top of all that – my mail was stolen from my mailbox which had my completed application in it – no according to herbalife I don’t exist as a distributor because they don’t have a hard copy – and to get another app is another $50!

So Yes, stay away! Anytime you head the word ‘Parner with Paul, or Herbalife’ run the other way – hang up the phone, delete the email, etc.

FromHomeDataEntry.com

This company’s parent company is Plimus.com
If you paid through Paypal, look at the receipt and it will tell you where the money was sent. I am also one of the people duped by this site. I fully intend to allot a certain amount of money to advertise against this company. I am disabled and am in the middle of getting my disability and can’t afford to be scammed but it happened. These people have no conscience nor heart. I plan to post negative threads(the truth) about this company whenever the opportunity presents itself.

AboutFaceCorp.com

I was looking for a mystery shopper job and I applied for this company called AboutFacecorp. com and well this site is a scam and what they did was copy the companies exact site so when you sign up it goes to them and not the campany. They would want you to shop a western union and rate it. They would send you checks that look real but indeed they are fake checks. Would just like to share that info with you. I also let the company know that this is going on and she relpied and said thank you and check the email that is comes from and she said no company will have live, yahoo, or hotmail as their email address. Just would like to share that info.

Fake Checks from LightSpeed Panel

I called because I was sent two checks in the mail saying I won for taking a moneygram survey, when I asked the man who I called what to do he told me to go to my bank cash it and then call him, I then asked him if I could read off the internet about this lightspeed panel and quoted that the checks were fraudulant and from canada and another man was told to contact fraud department and he instantly hung up on me. Once I said your are a fraud he hung up. I gave him the wrong bank and everything. No personal info. This shit is a scam. They will screw you over. Do not take the bait! I personally find it quite cruel to offer money to people saying they won money when they are very poor and cant even buy groceries. Its like hope and then its smashed. These con artists should go to jail. Dont respond to a man called Mike Daddy.

Bogus Web site charges from IMC

I WAS SCAMED BY IMC I WENT TO PAY THEM $97 FOR A WEB SITE BUT AFTER I GAVE THEM MY BANKING INFO A MESSAGE CAME BACK THAT THEY COULD NOT PROCESS MY CREDIT CARD ,BUT WHEN I CHECKED MY BANK ACCOUNT 2 DAYS LATER THEY HAD DEBITED MY ACCOUNT FOR $197 DO ANY BODY HAVE THERE CUSTORMER SERVICE PHONE NUMBER PLEASE RESPOND BURRUSROY@GMAIL.COM THANK YOU