by Diane
Contact Them – Scam or Not?
September 19, 2008 in Blog Thoughts by Diane
When Success Blog Net is asked a question, we are always there to help.
A friend of of the Blog Net showed me a letter he had received this morning:
Hi,
We’ve seen your website at http://www.squidoo.com/onlinebusinessopportunitiesws
and we love it!
We see that your traffic rank is 450
and your link popularity is 3420.
Also, you have been online since 6/1/2005.
With that kind of traffic, we will pay you up to $4,800/month
to advertise our links on your website.
If you’re interested, read our terms from this page:
http://www.contactthem.com/r.php?s=10&p=2&w=122127
Sincerely,
DeMarco Smith
The ContactThem Network
Being the smart person that he is, Walt from All Sports on the Web, wanted to know our opinion.
When we looked into this “advertising”, on the surface it sure looked good…it has a fairly good page rank the site looks professional and lets face it…this person took the time and trouble to look into Walt’s Squidoo lens. The numbers cited are indeed on target.
Considering that we want our bloggers to be successful, we decided to check further into this and digged deeper to see what others had to say good or bad and this is what we found:
On the blog Top Affiliate Marketing Blog , we found this post and it says in part ” OH HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE! Only in my wildest internet marketing dreams did I ever imagine making $4800, $9,600 heck even $19,200 per month from simply placing some silly little links on my website! LOL.
WOW, look at the e-mail I just received! (Your spam checker probably saved you.)
Hi,
We’ve seen your website at http://www.top-affiliate.com/blog/ and we love it!
We see that your traffic rank is 191851
and your link popularity is 226.
Also, you have been online since 8/29/2004.
With that kind of traffic, we will pay you up to $4,800/month to advertise our links on your website.
If you’re interested, read our terms from this page: http://www.contactthem. com/affiliateLink
Sincerely,
“SPAM TEAM”
The ContactThem Network
hmmm does that letter look familiar to you? Read what this person has to say on this “program”
Then we came another post at Place My Product Blog , and here is an excerpt of what they had to say ” Are you one of those webmasters that received an email from ContactThem saying that they saw your site and want to pay you up to $4800 to place their ads on your website? I received one of those emails for another one of my websites. This is what it said:
Hi,
We’ve seen your website at http://www.trade-pals.com and we love it!
We see that your traffic rank is 101,412
and your link popularity is 602
Also, we see that you are online since January 17, 2005.
With that kind of traffic, we will pay you up to $4,800/month to advertise our links on your website.
If you’re interested, read our terms from this page:
http://www.contactthem.com/–
Oh my goodness….again another letter that looks very familiar….the blog author Tino Buntic has their thoughts on this,
And one last blog who has something to say about the contactthem.com. The Work from Home, Avoid Scams and get Paid blog , in part said “ If you own a website I’m guessing you have found propositions in your email box from a company called “ContactThem.com”. Your proposition probably reads just like the 30 or more I get a day:
Have you received an email that goes like this:Hi, We’ve seen your website at http://webbizbest.com/and we love it!We see that your traffic rank is 257966 and your link popularity is 3. Also, you have been online since 07/07/2006. With that kind of traffic, we will pay you up to $4,800/month to advertise our links on your website. If you’re interested, read our terms from this page: AFFILIATE LINK HERE Sincerely,so and so.” The blogger of this site – bigbail certainly did his homework and looked into this program.
The owner of contactthem.com is none other than Stephen Ducharme who has had many labels attached to him…from Self Made Guru, FreeAdGuru, scammer, rip off artist and a few other names besides. If You are interested in knowing a bit more about him, I suggest you go to ScamFraudAlert , when you do go there, notice the letter? Did You notice the signatures on all of them?
While we can’t tell you not to join Contactthem, what we do say is always do your due diligence before joining any program, free or paid.
Is Contact Them a scam or is it legitimate? Inquiring minds would like to know!
To Your Success,
Success BlogNet Team
Happy New Year to everyone, thank you for all your wonderful support. Sorry I am late in replying to everyone…just got back from visiting my family. We as Success BlogNet are going to be working harder and lol..more consistently in our discussions as well as great information. If you have anything you would like to know about, then just let us know.
Great stuff. I was too sure about this story. But this helped a lot so thanks
Hi Bill – when the person asked me about this ..um..program, i have to admit that for a whole 2 seconds i went wow…look at the research this person did…then i went..hold it…i can get these very same stats from a couple of places, very easy to do by the way. My concern is for those people who have not developed a sense of questioning these programs. I am of course talking about all the new people who are coming on line like the new gold rush, all wanting to make their millions being sold this and that. Of course they have to pay don’t they? To be very fair, there are fantastic programs out their that are ethical, who give real value and service. It truly is a do your due diligence, find people you can trust to help you with your education in creating a business that will stand the test of time. I went to visit your site and enjoyed what you wrote. What we are teaching people on the BlogNet is that trends are so useful for finding your niche and exploring your niche…but I am sure that we both could have a great conversation on that alone….lol
Thanks for coming in
Hi There,
Yes I just got the same email and I was more intrigued than surprised at the audacity of this guy.
I t sure makes you wonder why people get sucked into this rip off merchant, for sure he’s certainly got everybody talking.
“So just another scam artist, not just spamming but a very clever manipulation to strip your ID”
Very polished performance (-: Thanks’ for the read
Good Day Wynona :
One of the reason I did this post, was because there are so many people coming onto the net to create that online income, they truly do not know the rules, how to research, to do what in offline would be considered due diligence. The net is a very tricky place, so it is through article such as this, that maybe people will read and learn.
Thanks for coming in and letting your thoughts be known.
Have a wonderful day
P.S. Personally, I agree with you
It’s simple! Don’t fall for it! Your Tax ID is sacred! You would be crazy to just give it out to anyone. The registeration form requires enough information to clean out your accounts.
I hope people are smarteer than this!
Looks to me a legit offer as you’re not ‘required’ to buy their ‘free leads’ or pay ANY membership fee for levels 1 & 2. Sure, you stand to make a LOT more money from referrals who join if you pay the membership fee (and have $1000 in commissions) – but (from what I’d read) this is NOT a requirement.
Pressuring anyone to buy their leads or lead-generation software (short of withholding due commissions) would not trigger a fraud charge but withholding payment to website owners who generate sales for them WOULD be.
What the heck. It’s free to become an affiliate on the 1st 2 levels and 10% or $50 ($5) ain’t bad for referring a buyer. Just look at the commissions on most other affiliate programs.
HI David:
Thanks for coming to Visit us here on Success BlogNet.
When our friend asked me about this, I went to that site and at first it sounded..wow..they know a lot about this person, thus giving it an air of legitimacy. As I delved deeper into this program(?) and the person who owns it, I went..OUCH! One of the reasons why I did this was not to just warn, but to also get people to really think about what they are getting into. The fact is, we all need to do our due diligence when joining anything…really do your homework and check into any program before you ” sign on the dotted line” I just recently did a hub if you are interested on some points about driving your business successfully. If you want, then I invite you to go and read. I would love to hear your thoughts? HUB
I got that exact email today..
Definitely a scam. They want your contact information
Hmmm!! I would have been leary of the email before bothering to look into it. If it sounds too good to be true, it most like is!