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These days you find online ads for the “Acai Berry Diet” all over the Internet including the online version of the Washington Post. I am pointing specifically to the Washington Post, since they seem to be in such dire need of income that they allow any scammer to advertise in their online edition.
Screen shot of scammer website - Click to enlarge.
Today I received a comment that I deemed worthwhile to publish here as a regular post. As a background information, these days you find online ads for the “Acai Berry Diet” all over the Internet including the online version of the Washington Post. I am pointing specifically to the Washington Post, since they seem to be in such dire need of income that they allow any scammer to advertise in their online edition. I always had a feeling that all these “Weight Loss” ads were part of an online scam, but I never looked into it in more detail. These ads were – at least at some time – distributed through a company by the name of pulse360 – See also my post pulse360 – A Leader In Fake Content Links?
Needless to say, but the ad campaign for the “Acai Berry Diet” is a scam. See the comment by Joseph Bennett from Milville, NJ below.
Joseph and Elizabeth Bennett
[Street Name Removed - WFV]
Millville, NJ 08332Date: June 9, 2010
Dear Sir or Madame,
Concerning your article “Acai Berry Diet Exposed”.
This is how the scheme works. It does not matter if the product works if you are not dealing with a reputable company.
My wife ordered a free trial of weight loss products online from (NTR ADVOCOLCS.COM AND NTR ACOPLTIMUMCS.COM) with only shipping charges to be charged to our account. They charged us twice for shipping of ADVOCOLCS. Our order for ADVOCOLCS was canceled by the company without notifying us. The company did credit our account for the two $3.95 charges. We had 14 days to try the products, but we did not receive any trial period samples. The 14 day clock started on the day the orders were placed. The first thing we received was a monthly supply of the ACOPLTIMUMCS and $79.98 was billed to our credit card. We were also charge $4.95 for shipping for the trial period samples, which we did not receive. The bottle of ACOPLTIMUMCS came loose in a sealed shipping box with no paperwork. The bottle was not sealed and the count of capsules in the bottle was 64. The label on the bottle indicated that there should be 60 capsules in the bottle. At this point, we were afraid to try any products from this company.
We tried to cancel the ACOPLTIMUMCS, but they had already shipped the first bottle before we figured out what they were doing and canceled the account. On 06/04/2010 we received two more bottles of ACOPLTIMUMCS. These bottles, unlike the first bottle, were sealed and came with paperwork. On 6/4/2010 I called again and I was informed that I was charge $98.00 for this shipment. During this conversation I was told again that both accounts (ADVOCOLCS AND ACOPLTIMUMCS) were cancelled.
Between the times the products were ordered online and the product was received, there was no time to actually try the product and cancel the account before the 14 days expired. The company canceling the order for the ADVOCOLCS insured that the 14 day trial period would expire before we could actually try the products.
Pretty slick, Huh!
Our credit card company has put all payments to NTR on hold and I have filed a complaint with the NJ Consumer Protection. I will be sending the ACOPLTIMUMCS we received to NJ Consumer Protection for analysis to determine what is actually in the product.
There is more to a product than the product itself.
I am interested in your comments.
Sincerely,
Joseph Bennett
Note: Joseph Bennett refers to an article “Acai Berry Diet Exposed” that was not published on this blog before today. I am assuming he responded to another website article and copied and pasted his comment to my blog. I, in turn, copied the title of the post.
A few months ago, the web information company Alexa redesigned their website and since then I’ve been noticing these incredibly distasteful advertisements pitching weight loss products, wrinkle removers and suspicious get rich quick schemes.
This article is part of a series on Online fraud. Read more…
pulse360 – in their own words “The Leader in Content Targeted Sponsored Links on the Web’s Best Sites – is a leading provider of links that lead to web sites with blatantly fabricated content. See below a few references I found on the Internet.
For the love of god, I don’t want whiter teeth
Note: Interesting article, especially since msnbc.com and pulse360 are business partners… The same ads, the reporter is complaining about, appear on the same web page as his article.
And so we come to the networks, the most irresponsible and hypocritical of our cast. Let’s take Pulse360, the ad network that serves up many of TBM’s scam ads, as another case study. I talked to Jaan Janes, the CEO of Pulse360, for an infuriating 45 minutes. My objective: figure out whether these kinds of ads comply with Pulse360’s ad guidelines. Janes repeatedly said that every ad and its corresponding site is hand-screened at Pulse360, primarily to ensure that contact information is visible on the site. But they do not call every phone number to see whether anybody actually picks up the line. (They say they do spot checks.) Logic implies that if the ads are personally screened and then end up in the network, they comply with the guidelines.
Q: How do you stop a pulse 360 ad from popping up?
A: Some Pulse ads are downright fake. There’s a weight loss one that lists the woman as from my home town “Susi from xxx lost 40 pounds!!”, but when I was out of state, I noticed the same ad listing the woman from the town I was now in..
It just gets the city your IP is from and inserts that into the ad. Deception makes me want to buy!!!
I clicked the ad and it’s totally bogus. They even use Rachael Ray’s likeness but spell her name wrong.
In the about us page, it even say’s “We know we mis-spelled Rachael’s name, but it was too late to fix it.” To late to fix it, but not too late to write text right underneath it saying it was too late to fix it????!!!!
Nice integrity!
Are Alexa.com Ads by Pulse360-Kanoodle Violating FTC Truth in Advertising?
A few months ago, the web information company Alexa redesigned their website and since then I’ve been noticing these incredibly distasteful advertisements pitching weight loss products, wrinkle removers and suspicious get rich quick schemes. While these type of advertisments are nothing new on the internet, what stood out to me was each advertisement appears to be placed by a person who is located in the same city as myself.
If you look up any of these blogs in Google, there are numerous bloggers warning that these flogs (as Jay Weintraub calls them)are blatant by scum of the earth affiliate marketers (Lincoln Adams’s affectionate term for the unethical blackhat set) scams.
Pulse360 – how to get rid off it?
Note: The following is a forum inquiry. I, personally, suspect that pulse360 is (or has been) actively using some kind of malware to promote their ads. Many references I found on the Internet point into that direction.
Recently, I started to get Pulse360 pop up window. My pop-up blocker is on, I removed Pulse360 from the Registry, deleted cookie, but the next day it was back… How to get rid of Pulse360?
Ads by Pulse 360
Does Pulse 360 do anything other than advertise for a miracle substance that “gets you ripped” in 4 weeks? The only other thing I have EVER seen there is a very disreputable looking “miracle” teeth whitener. It seems like this “ad network” is composed of nothing but disreputable crap. I guess this is nothing new, just the second (or 3rd, 4th, 5th…) coming of the Thighmaster style product.
I’m actually seeing this advertising on major sites like NBC sports. Everyone but the most gullible of us knows you can’t “get ripped” in 4 weeks unless you are already very low % body fat. If you click the ad and go to the landing page it is your typical “scammy” web site, it even brings up a pop-up window that asks if you are sure you want to leave when you try to navigate away. I actually read the page and this stuff is flat out GARBAGE. It literally tells people not to “waste time” working out.
How can I stop Pulse360 (sponsored listings) from popping up when I open up msnbc.com – I have Adblock Plus installed but no luck
Note: The following confirms my suspicion that pulse360 is in some way promoted by malware.
Q: Pulse360 only “pops up” when I open an article on the msnbc.com website while in Firefox. I use AdBlock Plus and I have searched the “blockable items” list to try to block it but nothing shows up for Pulse360. When it opens it shows it is “sponsored listings” for the site. Please help – this keeps me from going to msnbc when I really would like to view some of their articles. Thanks.
A: Your list of installed plugins shows that you have the My Web Search Plugininstalled, well-known malware which you should remove.
Inactivity charges Pulse360?
One of the smaller PPC services we have tested is called Pulse360. (Purposely not linking to them). We made a small $100 deposit to do some testing, and ended up pausing the campaigns after so so results. Like every other service I have ever used, I expected the balance to remain there until I was ready for more testing. Imagine my surprise when I got an email from them stating that they had removed $10 from my account for “inactivity charges”. I have to say this is a totally lame and cheap way to squeeze money from an already paying customer. You could have gotten tons of money from me by just serving up good traffic, but this little stunt has sealed it for me. I’ll be closing my account before the rest of the balance is charged away by you guys.
Pulse360
Pulse 360 is bad ad source to use. They irritate me more than anything. I see popunders all the time when I visit websites that use them and have received warnigns of spyware and adware from their ads. They are a horrible source for ads and lack security to protect anyone who carries their ads for them. My antivirus program gave warnings of spyware when their ads popped up.
The ads as posted by pulse360 onto the Online version of the Washington Post (washingtonpost.com) lead to misleading web sites that have a very similar structure and some identical features.
This article is part of a series on Online fraud. Read more…
The ads as posted by pulse360 onto the Online version of the Washington Post lead to misleading web sites that have a very similar structure and some identical features. Note: I live in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and all screen shots have been made from my office in Greenfield.
As shown in the picture above, this is how the ads are placed into the Online version of the Washington Post (washingtonpost.com).
This web page gives the false impression that it is posted by “News 6 Boston”, which doesn’t exist. The page’s content is most probably modified according to the user’s IP address location.
There are multiple references to Google, giving the false impression the user is dealing with Google directly.
The navigation links on top of the screen give the false impression that this page is from a real news source. As a matter of fact the links all lead to the same page where the user is asked to sign up and submit credit card information.
This page, leading to the same scam, is disguised as a “Massachusetts Job Report.” Needless to say, all this is a fake. The content is modified according to the viewer’s physical location.
This time the theme is “Whiter Teeth” posted by the “Consumer News Reporter”. And, of course, there is “Amy, a Boston school teacher.” Needless to say, but all links point to the same location. Do I detect a pattern here?
Note: This ad is not only provided by pulse360, the scam-supporting Online advertisement business, but also by the Washington Post’s own advertising business line.
They even add local weather. Note the expiration date, which will change with every new day you log on.
This is yet another feature these web pages have in common. You are encouraged to leave a comment, but “Comments will appear after approval by our editorial team.” You can bet, all comments are fake, and your comment, if negative, will not appear. In other cases they don’t allow any further comments due to “extensive spamming.”
Here we go! This time it’s weight loss. And there is “News Report 6″…
And when you try to leave they pop up a nasty window, meaning you can’t close the window unless you specifically click on the OK button.
Okay, just in case somebody needs more evidence that these ads are based on lies, here is the official confirmation found on the “White Teeth” web page:
Please also recognize that the story and comments depicted on this site and the person depicted in the story are not real. Rather, the story is based on what some people have achieved with these and other similar products. The results portrayed in the story and in the comments are illustrative, and may not necessarily be the results that you achieve with these products. This page does receive compensation for purchase of products featured on this site.
Last, but not least, if you want honest information on how to start a web site or blog and make money from it, check out my book, A No-Nonsense Guide to a Professional Blog (There is also a preview of the book). Honestly, I wrote it after learning about the so-called “Google Profit Library.” I deemed it was time to stop the nonsense. The book shows you step by step how to set up a professional blog with some advice on how to run it, and maybe even make some money from it. The difference is, you don’t pay me at all (I would appreciate that you buy the book, paperback or PDF), and the required investment of roughly $120…200 per year goes to your Internet service provider for running your web site. Also, check out myprofessionalblog.com. This is the web site I created to write the book, meaning I created the web site, made screen-shots and included them into the document.
Recently I noticed that The Washington Post has found another clever way of increasing their revenues by offering local ads. These ads are designed to read the viewer’s IP address and determine the physical location. All this could be interpreted as a clever marketing trick, but my admiration for the Washington Post’s new ways to create Online revenues faded quickly as soon as I found out that the location information was not used to provide real local ads, but to modify the ad’s message in a very misleading way.
This article is part of a series on Online fraud. Read more…
As I had written in a previous post, reading the New York Times and The Washington Post, both Online, on a regular basis has become my regular morning habit. Recently I noticed that The Washington Post has found another clever way of increasing their revenues by offering local ads. These ads are designed to read the viewer’s IP address and determine the physical location. All this could be interpreted as a clever marketing trick, but my admiration for the Washington Post’s new ways to create Online revenues faded quickly as soon as I found out that the location information was not used to provide real local ads, but to modify the ad’s message in a very misleading way. To make things worse, these ads are, in my very personal opinion, designed to defraud unsuspecting viewers.
Today I wrote an e-mail to the washingtonpost.com:
From: Wilfried Voss
Date: January 8, 2010 9:59:25 AM EST
To: letters@washpost.com
Subject: Fraudulent ads on washingtonpost.com
To whom it may concern;
I would be interested in your position regarding the posting of fraudulent ads on washingtonpost.com, especially those posted through pulse360. I have seen ads promoting the “Google Profit Library” which is a proven scam. And it doesn’t stop there. There are more ads such as “[Your Hometown Here] Local Mom Tricks To Whiter Teeth” and “[Your Hometown Here] Warning!” Replace “[Your Hometown Here]” with the location of your IP address.
The ads posted by pulse360 give the impression they have been posted by local businesses. As a matter of fact, the ads are modified according to the viewer’s IP address, and thus displaying false information that cannot be explained as being special marketing features.
I, personally, am disturbed that the Washington Post acts as an accomplice in a scheme that is designed to defraud hundreds of thousand of Americans.
I am awaiting your response. I also reserve the right to post this e-mail and any further communication on my blog.
Regards,
Wilfried Voss
http://www.frogenyozurt.com
We will see whether or not I receive a response, and if yes, I will post it/them here.
