Thursday, March 19, 2009

FRAUD ALERT: Google Money Machine IS A get rich quick SCAM

Recently, I have been checking out various blogs on the blogtopsites.com list, of which I am a member. Quite often, I am seeing sites proclaiming "Google Money Machine" and "Earn $150/day" in some of the top 50 finance sites. Obviously, this peaks my interest.

When I went, this is what the website looks like:
Immediately, I'm suspicious. Are there really that many altruistic people out there trying to make YOU $1000s a day? No way!

But I am always curious, so I kept clicking. Eventually, you land on the page in the second picture.

Here, a care-free cute female greets you with a pile of cash and an excited smile.

This should instantly cause warning bells to go off.

On the right side, they use two devices that advertisers use to confuse you.

First, they tell you in bold capital letters to "Take Control of Your Financial Future"; a call to action. Second, they create a false sense of urgency, by running a 15-minute countdown timer. Interestingly, as I was writing this post, a message box from this site (running in a different tab), opened up to ask me if I needed more time since the 15 minutes was up. When I clicked "no", the timer restarted, regardless.

That should be the second warning bell.

Now, how most scamming sites work, and how they avoid legal prosecution, is by having a terms and conditions set forth that prevent you from actually taking legal action.

I looked for it, and I reproduce it here, in bullet form, the most important parts of the scam (Full terms & Conditions reprinted at the bottom of this post).
  • $69.90 a month after 7 day trial
  • You agree to be billed monthly
  • $2.95 for setup of 'Home Business Kit'
  • They will never send any billing notifications and you agree that this is okay
  • No refunds will be given if you don't use the services
I haven't bothered to figure out what the services are, but I have yet to find a site that actually has any verifiable checks or endorsements of this service. The site even claims that major news networks have discussed them, which is certainly not the case.

Finally, the address of this company is:
4240 West Flamingo Rd. Suite #201
Las Vegas, NV 89103


And their phone number: 1-800-497-4988

When you Google that address, two interesting points pop up:
And here's a log of complaints about that number and the related credit card charges:
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-800-497-4988/2

I don't know how these guys get away with it, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, don't get scammed by them.

Further research of the referring site, browsefreetrials.com, leads to this address:
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale,Arizona 85260

And to the company Domains by Proxy (http://domainsbyproxy.com/), who helps people mask the identifying information for their domain registrations.

While not immediately damning, the fact that a company needs to hide their location and their employees names should tell you something.

====

Full Terms & Conditions:
"By submitting this form I authorize Google ATM (DRI*GoogleATM) to immediately charge my credit card $2.95 USD for the setup of the Google ATM Home Business Kit. I hereby request that Google ATM (DRI*GoogleATM) activate my account and authorize them to advance funds as indicated. Monthly Service fees will commence seven days from the date of this purchase, and will be billed monthly thereafter. After the seven day trial you will be billed sixty nine dollars and ninety cents USD monthly for the continued access to the Google Money Making System. No refunds will be given for failure to use the requested and provided services. You may cancel at anytime by writing to 4240 West Flamingo Rd. Suite #201, Las Vegas, NV 89103 or calling 1-800-497-4988 (International customers please call 1-866-321-2728). I agree that Google ATM (DRI*GoogleATM) shall be fully protected in honoring any electronic transfer or collection. Google ATM shall not be responsible for refunding any Account Set-Up fees. By submitting this information I am agreeing to the terms stated herein. Google ATM (DRI*GoogleATM) will not send notification, postal or electronic, when a billing occurs."

33 comments:

Lary "The Beast" said...

I would like to thank you for this information. I too saw this and immediately became suspicious. I just wish there was some way to prosecute these kinds of people who pray on others. In my opinion they rank up there at the top of the list as the scum of the world.

Big Pig Rider said...

Capitalism!

ucanwalkonwater said...

Thanks for this post! It is a shame that most people don't do their homework before getting involved with such schemes. Nothing is free and wealth is not obtained easily.

Jonathan Arnold said...

thanks for this, i was one of the unlucky ones who got preyed on by these people, but luckily only got charged once so i called and canceled and didn't have any trouble with it so if you find yourself getting charged a fee from these guys cus you fell into their trap like i did call and like the blog says you can't ask for your money back but you can cancel without any grief

Morgan said...

Thanks for posting this important information. As the old saying goes: "If it sounds too good to be true, then it can't be true." And wasn't it W.C. Fields who once said "that a sucker is born every minute." If you have any questions about one of these "too-good-to-be-true" money making schemes, then go to Google (the search engine that is) and type in either the name of the company or the headline of the online ad. 99.99% of the time, it's going to be a scam.

Unknown said...

Thank you for the post,
its amazing how the theives get richer and the poor/need money people lose more money because of desperation. i appreicate the post.
thank you

Rob Kraye said...

Yeah, those guys in Vegas are charging an ongoing fee. The legitimate version at website :(Google-Moneymaker.com) only charges $37.00 one time and it actually helps publishers to earn revenue with Google, who you know is legit.

Carmen T. Olivero J. said...

thank so much, they are trying to roob latin people too, they have not limit...here is a link of the "google money michine" on maria´s blog....http://www.elblogdemaria.net/facebook/dom/

Jose de la Cruz said...

Good article..
Congrats!

Unknown said...

y ahora que hago si ya di mis datos?

Unknown said...

Thank you very much for the information. They are publishing the same add in Spanish and advertising it through facebook in Venezuela.

foi said...

hi Thanks for this information and i was wandering if you know something about another scam salute ventura they are offering job to earning a lot of cash check This please!!! http://salutaventures.com/Working_Tools.html

Karla said...

Hey , thank you very much for this article, I just read the story of "maria" from facebook in Mexico, I would love to make this public. Is it possible to translate your article t spanish? I can help if you want, but I really think is importan for people to know and understand what is going on with thi fraud.

yan said...

quisiera saber como hago para anular mi inscripcion al google machine mooney responder a mi casilla de correo por favor urgente

Unknown said...

Great news! But if you know how to make this happen, you can do your own scheme just like it, sell basic mail service content, and get paid by thousands to hundreds of thousands of people at least once. So, if you want to make money, do what they're doing, just don't be one of the people that signs up for it.

MJHT2010 said...

thanks for the information and now i need some help because i logged to a page similar to them and they charged me the 2$ and now after 4 days 59.95$, i don't know what to do, i know that i made a biiig mistake and now i don't know what to do :( somebody can help me?

MJHT2010 said...

yo entre al programa por el http://www.elblogdemaria.net/facebook/dom por favor como hago para anular mi cuenta con ellos???

Angel Alfredo said...

SOY OTRO INCAUTO..yo entre al programa por el http://www.elblogdemaria.net/facebook/dom por favor como hago para anular mi cuenta con ellos???

Unknown said...

those bastards... i almost sign in for that. thanks a lot dude

Angel Alfredo said...

Mariano a que te referis con esto..those bastards... i almost sign in for that. "thanks a lot dude"

esos cabrones ... i casi en signo de ello. "muchas gracias amigo"

Queremos soluciones y o ayuda

Luchando por una escuela media said...

Hola! Chik Ausie y Angel:
Creo que lo que deberían hacer es lo que dice Jonathan en su post. Lo copio por si no lo leyeron. Él dice que llamó y canceló la suscripción sin problemas. Espero que así sea y tengan suerte, porque lo lamento mucho. Creo que mucha gente se siente tentada, y me incluyo, así que espero que puedan cancelarlo pronto.
Creo que el teléfono al que tienen que llamar es 1-888-448-6887.
Saludos y después cuentennos como les fue!
Mai de Argentina (Yo también vi el anuncio en Facebook)

Jonathan said...
thanks for this, i was one of the unlucky ones who got preyed on by these people, but luckily only got charged once so i called and canceled and didn't have any trouble with it so if you find yourself getting charged a fee from these guys cus you fell into their trap like i did call and like the blog says you can't ask for your money back but you can cancel without any grief.

Luchando por una escuela media said...

I just read in another post that you can call to your Credit card company and ask them to cancell the payment.
I hope the informations helps
Mai

Angel Alfredo said...

Mai,gracias por el dato,pero esta "gente" solo acepta llamados en ingles y frances (Please note, Phone support is only available in English and French) y yo de esos idiomas NADA,la verdad que esto me tiene preocupado

Angel Alfredo said...

Otro detalle,por el cual estoy aun mas preocupado,buscando en Google,me encontre con esto http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-800-497-4988/8 VER

CineChela said...

MIL GRACIAS! THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU. I almost fell for the Mari-blog-facebook link too over here in Puerto Rico. These people need to be stopped. I can't believe scams like these exist by the thousands and none of the a*holes that created them get prosecuted. Something is very very wrong with that; it's quite scary. Anyways, thanks for saving me and anyone else I might have recommended the scam to. :-S

MJHT2010 said...

pues les comento que yo llame el pasado jueves y me dijeron que me van a reponer los 59.95$ y esta en proceso, pero mi gran sorpresa es hoy cuando veo que mi cuenta esta SOBREGIRADA y a que no adivinan? me cargaron 4 veces los 59.95$ que tal??? volvi a llamar y tengo que enviar un fax con el estado de cuenta donde aparezcan reflejados los montos que me cargaron para reponermelos, esperemos a ver si es cierto :(

Jesus B. said...

hola acabo de leer el blogdemaria en facebook/venezuela y estaba por llenar el formulario cuando me percate de que al pie de pagina decia que google no era responsable de dicha pagina lo que me llevo a investigar sobre el caso y llegue a tu post, el cual agradezco mucho pero seria bueno si pudiera ser traducido al español para asi ayudar a otros hermanos hispanos. gracias nuevamente.

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