Knowing a good deal about “geotargeting” – determining the location of where your Internet connection is located geographically – made me believe that this claim was fraudulent and designed to make me feel a connection to a “too good to be true” scam artist. The “code” for the web page that Mr. Hunter operates substitutes the local city where you are situated so he always appears to have grown up in your neighborhood:

Note how there is a script called “geoip.js” which is exactly what I’m talking about. It takes the “IP address” or numerical address of the computer that you are connected from and converts it into a geographical city name. If you go to maxmind.com, they state that they are “an industry-leading provider of geolocation and online fraud detection tools.” Pretty slick. But let’s move on because the worst is yet to come.

Scott doesn’t tell you what he did to make all the money that allowed him to take so many fancy trips but, if you look closely – and I mean very closely – you’ll realize something is very wrong from the start! The first picture of Scott allegedly holding his check for $5,0000 , is dated October 25, 2008 and is from Citibank Europe Plc. So why is Scott from New York, NY getting Google checks from a PLC – an abbreviation for a company located outside the United States? But it gets more amusing. If you go further down the page, you’ll see another check for $5,300.04 dated January 25, 2008. Perhaps Scott can explain to me why his income went down 10 months later? Pretty subtle!

Click on any of the checks or the links and you’ll be delivered to a landing page on “yoursearchprofits.com” and has several different splash screens, ostensibly for different companies that offer “Internet marketing services” at a very high monthly price. I was sadly amused by them, complete with “trust seal” of approval, secure order assurances, and several news graphics (CBS, NBC, CNN, USA Today) – with a disclaimer in small print in the footer stating that these companies “don’t endorse these products.” I’m sure they must have used a top law firm to ensure the validity disclaimer! Another landing page disclaims in its footer that “Google does not sponsor, endorse, and is no way affiliated with Google Pay Day!™ or this promotion.” I’m sure that’s true although Josh or Scott, in the audio on his site, specifically denounces the stock market and says that you should trust a company like Google to make money!

To begin, you need to just enter your name and email address – which will surely be sold to send more marketing spam than you could possibly imagine as I’ll explain shortly. You are then led to a second page where, if you don’t quickly choose to pay $1.14 shipping and handling for this special offer, you’ll be greeted by live or probably automated operators. There are several of them with different names. Where could the possibility of live operators be located? Perhaps in a call center like… the Philippines?

If you ask, the operator will simply enter a phrase “why are you changing the subject? As a reader pointed out, this reminds me of an old artificial intelligence attempt called “Eliza X” written for the Macintosh. The responses are far too quick to be typed live and I didn’t spend enough time there to determine whether a real operator exists – probably not.

So how do these guys make money by collecting just $1.14 which is for shipping and handling? Because you might not realize that “after your free 7-day trial, you’ll be charged $39.95 a month for continued membership and access to the Google Pay Day membership site and learning system.” How can you cancel this great deal within 7 days if you’re waiting for the great money at home package that is being shipped to you via ground shipping? They are betting on the fact that you won’t cancel in time because (1) you think your trial starts when you receive your package but that isn’t the case in fine print, and (2) you might not realize just how large the “monthly membership fee” is and you won’t get any of this money back if you don’t cancel within 7 days of the time you signed up on the web site. The terms of use I saw were from a company called JRS Media in the Philippines. In other instances you might be taken to the “Google Money Master” site and charged $73.83 by a company called “Google Revolution” aka “Honshu Systems, LLC” that is located in Henderson, Nevada. Here are the terms, with some highlighted:

As more fully described below, following your risk-free 7-day trial, you’ll be charged the monthly subscription fee of $73.83. You’ll have 7 days from your initial signup date to access and use the Google Revolution member website without charge. Your free trial provides instant online access to the foreclosed property feed and the information & training available at the Google Revolution site, and does not require the free kit being shipped to you – your free trial begins immediately. If you’re not satisfied for any reason, and cancel within the initial 7-day trial period, you will not be charged $73.83 for your first month’s membership. After your initial 7-day risk-free trial, your subscription will automatically renew approximately every 30 days from the date you signed up (see MEMBERSHIP TERM AND RENEWAL, below). You can cancel any time after the 7-day risk-free trial period, in which case you won’t be refunded that month’s subscription charge, but you will have member access through the end of the month, and you will not be billed again.

your email address is being harvested for sale to marketing companies. If you look at the site’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for JRS Media, by providing your email address and information to them, you are agreeing to receive solilcitations until you opt out of this program! I’ll be most of you didn’t realize this “small” issue.

By submitting your e-mail address at the Website or the website of one of our marketing partners, and/or obtaining services from us, you agree to receive e-mail or telephone calls, SMS text message,or other marketing from us and/or our third-party advertisers notwithstanding a prior decision, made by you, to opt out of this or any other of our or a third party affiliate of ours program, pursuant to the CAN-SPAM Act, you are agreeing to opt back in and to receive marketing materials until you decide to opt-out. In addition, you agree that such act constitutes a purchase, an inquiry and/or an application for purposes of the Amended Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 CFR §310 et seq. (the “ATSR”).

I don’t know what is contained within the “kit” to make money by posting Google links. Some comments I’ve read elsewhere claim that the “package” never arrives. My guess? You recieve a series of resources where you can put up your own site, just like Josh and Scott, and claim you made cash by simply putting up a web site with affiliate links to “Internet marketing programs” that contain high autorenewal charges. Other scams just like this one, perhaps people who bought this “fast money at home” system? Take a look at www.marysblogmoney.com, www.stevesblogmoney.com, www.craigsblogmoney.com, www.scottsblogmoney.com and the list goes on. Hopefully this article will help you be able to better identify Internet fraud which will undoubtedly become more prevalent during this difficult economic time.

As most should know who join virtually any dating site including match.com, the world’s largest online dating service, you can put up a profile but you have to pay to play. On match.com, paying to play is to the tune of approximately $20-40 per month, depending upon the length of time you subscribe and the options you choose. But you don’t have to pay to check out the service – and that is obvious instantly when you create a profile. But McGinn believes that match.com bears the responsibility – and fails to deliver – to differentiate between who is a paying subscriber and who is not. As such, a man can pay for membership and write to endless women whom he does not know are non-payment members who cannot reply, causing him wasted time and heartbreak.

“When a subscriber cancels their subscription, their profile continues to appear to be that of an active subscriber, nothing indicates to the viewer their limited access to read e-mails or respond to them… Match derives a benefit from giving members ‘matches’ who can’t reply because the notifications that someone has expressed interest in them induces some non-subscribers to subscribe in some cases.”

So if McGinn didn’t understand the way match.com works, wouldn’t the match.com folks have given him his 40 bits back and avoided a class action lawsuit? Probably… but for people like Mr. McGinn, apparently the deep rooted pain doesn’t end there.

“Match defrauds the consumer of his/her time, labor, and emotional investment… Match’s policy causes humiliation and disappointment for some members of the Class who feel rejected when their e-mails get no reply… causes severe emotional distress and anxiety for some members of the Class, including those who keep writing e-mails to one member after another and never hear back from any because he/she is writing to people who’ve cancelled. Because the writer has no way of knowing this, he or she may experience profound personal anguish, suffering which is easily preventable by Match.”

The next part of the brief does make a point but it misses the mark by a mile. A member is reported as “active” whether they login to cancel an account, deal with a billing issue, or something other than an intent to find a date. Is that deceptive? I’m not sure how anyone can differentiate the reason why someone logged into their account until after the deed is done. Additionally, how many times will a member log in to cancel an account? 23 times per month? There are some legitimate points about raising the activity level on match.com in order to entice membership, but nothing compelling.

Now here is the reason why this firm should have hired me to perform some expert review of their case and complaint, LOL! I observed that when a user merely reads a private email message sent from match.com, the act of viewing the email triggers the user’s online status to “active!” Now that is a significantly misleading and deceptive tactic which other users have already complained about prior – the misleading representation that someone is active or has “logged in” when they have not, in fact, logged in or performed any activity with relation to the service.

Let’s take an example where boy meets girl for the first time and likes her. While he doesn’t want to lose her and appear to be insincere, he still will review his emails from those who reply to his prior love missives but won’t login to start a new connection. Unbeknownst to him and probably most users, match.com will report him as “active” not just be replying to an email that runs through the match.com system, but merely opening an email message that could be an advertisement that he’d like to put in the trash, the likely result of code embedded invisibly in the email. When the girl logs in (or has a friend do so) to check on the sincerity of the boy, he appears to be checking out women every day while insisting that he prefers to see her exclusively. Now this deliberate attempt to mislead non-members into thinking that there are far more active users than actually appear is deceptive and match.com profits from this deceptive practice.

Match.com has been accused of fraudulent conduct before – in 2005 a lawsuit was filed against match.com and Yahoo, alleging that attractive employees were required to go out on a set number of dates with elegible single men. This lawsuit was later dropped. So what is going to happen now in 2009? It’s difficult to say, but if this is litigated, it will provide us with some case law on what is and what isn’t considered a deceptive practice in the shady practice of trying to lead web site visitors to the conclusion that more “action” is happening on a web site than is truly occurring in the hopes of coaxing another membership fee. At the very worst, it will be an exercise in entertaining courtroom fodder meeting reality TV as it will expose the life of the latest forlorn 40-something New York male looking for love in all the wrong places… the New York Southern District Court… and you can download the complaint against match.com here.