OnlineBannerAds - Scam?
BillBoardRanking - Scam?
Search Direct Matrix - Scam?
Portal Response Technology – Scam?
Client Placement Services – Scam?
Search Direct Media – Scam?
One Top Firm – Scam?
MySpace Guardian – Scam?
This website is devoted to educating YOU, the consumer, about a pitch you may have received from one of the above companies -- or some going by another name.
The pitch has been around a long time, and there’s been a trail of unsatisfied customers posting their experiences on the internet.
The pitch sounds deceptively simple: get a banner ad for your business placed above all results of a given search engine, plus a 100% refund if you don’t achieve a guaranteed number of hits on your website.
Remember the phrase, “ If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”?
This is a pitch that realtors, retailers, insurance agents and many other professionals are hearing from cold-calling telemarketers. The entities involved go by many names: OnlineBannerAds (OBA), Billboardranking (BBR), Search Direct Matrix (SDM), Portal Response Technology (PRT), One Top Firm (OTF), Client Placement Services (CPS), and Search Direct Media (SDM2). These are only the current iterations. There have been many others.
We’ll call them “The Pitchmen”.
How the Pitch Works
(reprinted: http://professionalwebservices.blogspot.com/2005/07/advertising-scam-search-engine-data.html)
The Setup
The first element is a Trojan Horse in the form of a TOOLBAR that the Pitchmen have created. This toolbar is meant to have alleged utility for a wide audience. One of them is called the BizformBar. The other is called the MySpace Guardian, which claims to help parents protect their children while they are on MySpace. They may claim it has been featured on Dateline, or other high-profile shows.
The Pitchmen issue a press release to raise awareness in the hopes of creating an actual base of users, and in order to get unsuspecting people to download it.
Once downloaded, if someone performs a search in the browser, the program takes over a millisecond before the actual results are displayed, the information is data merged and manipulated with other pay-for-keywords data feeds. Then, when the search results page is displayed to the user it looks like the natural results with targeted Banner Ads at the top of the leading search engines. The Pitchmen claim to have 10 to 20 million network users.
Springing the Trap
Enter any professional business looking for leads in the hot consumer market place. An agent (you) gets a cold call from a nice, sincere sales rep asking if you are interested in getting thousands of leads and website visitors guaranteed. You can get your website at the top of certain keywords searches from their alleged millions of network users! Of course with numbers like that, anyone would want to hear more information.
The sales person answers, "Let's say someone does a search for: 'San Ramon Homes For Sale’. We can place your real estate website as a banner ad above all search results or anyone looking at Homes For Sale in San Ramon. You get thousands of hits because people are using keywords you have exclusively registered with us! Imagine being number one!"
They send you to their website, and ask you to download the toolbar, or to click on the orange bar labeled “online demo”. You type in your web address and a keyword, and there you see the top portion of your webpage above the Google or other search engine results. Wow! It really works!
You choose as many keywords that you think are relevant for you, and they offer a discount if you buy in bulk. Of course, keywords that are used frequently cost a lot more. They determine which keywords are best by directing you to www.seobook.com, which lists exactly that information.
And the best part is that it’s 100% guaranteed! If you don’t get a minimum number of hits during a certain period. they will refund your money! Right?
The Blowoff
By the end of the Guarantee Period, the minimum number of hits has been achieved. But the client has received no actual leads. The ones they have received are designed not to convert into actual sales. The client receives no business whatsoever.
When the client complains, the Pitchmen gives excuses. The first is, “We said your banner ad would be viewed, not that you website would actually be visited”.
Or if you got any “leads” but somehow they never converted to sales, they’ll say, “We sent you the leads. It’s YOUR fault you couldn’t convert”.
Or they pull a log from their server “proving” that the minimum number of visitors had been achieved. But since each “hit” actually travels from the computer allegedly performing the site visit through the Pitchmen’s servers, there is no way to actually verify that a unique computer user visited the site.
You do not receive your refund. And funny…the traffic that started arriving at your website when your deal closed has dropped to almost zero now that the Guarantee Period is over.
Does this sound like a scam to you? Think it over.
Now let’s examine this scenario from beginning to end….
Questions People Should Ask…But Don’t
HOW many toolbar downloads?
1) The installed base of PC computers with internet access in the USA is about 58 million, according to the US Census. The Pitchmen’s claim of 10 – 20 million network users means that 20 – 40% of every US computer has the MySpace Guardian Toolbar (“MSG Tool”). Do you REALLY believe that? How many people do YOU know that have the MSG Tool?
2) If this toolbar is so widespread, why haven’t you heard about it before?
3) If there have been millions of downloads, why is it that the number of downloads at popular 3rd party websites like download.com and windowsmarketplace.com show less than 10,000?
4) The MSG Tool was announced in May of 2006. How could they have reached 10 – 20 million MSG Tool downloads in just under 18 months?
5) Alexa.com’s toolbar, which shows website traffic for selected sites, is one of the most popular toolbar downloads EVER. It’s only been downloaded 10 million times.
6) Alexa.com’s traffic information shows that all sites associated with MSG Toolbar and BizFormBar have almost nil traffic.
7) What counts as a “download”? Downloads to UNIQUE computers? Downloads to bogus, Pitchmen-owned computers?
8) How many VERIFIED INSTALLATIONS of the toolbar exist? And most importantly…
9) How can the Pitchmen PROVE TO YOU that their claims are real?
If they can’t prove it, then you can’t verify it. If you can’t verify it, why should you believe it? Because they said so? Because they “sound sincere”?
What exactly is a “guaranteed hit” to my website?
1) Are they fake, inorganic hits that the Pitchmen create using ‘bots, low-paid foreign shills who are paid by the click, and/or hits generated by the Pitchmen’s own employees?
2) Are the leads auto-generated or entered by the Pitchmen’s employees?
3) How can the Pitchmen PROVE TO YOU that their claim is real?
If they can’t prove it, then you can’t verify it. If you can’t verify it, why should you believe it? Because they said so? Because they “sound sincere”?
Why does the Pitchmen’s website look almost exactly like others?
Have a look at all of these websites. Funny how they all look the same. Is that because the same person is behind them?
www.s-dm.net
www.toppg1.com
www.onetopfirm.com
www.clients1.com
www.searchdirectmedia.com
www.surfspeak.com
AND
www.onlinebanneads.net
www.billboardranking.com
Where are all the testimonials?
With the “millions” of network users and all the clients OBA has, where are all the testimonials? With an alleged network of millions, you’d think many businesses would be falling over themselves to sign up with OBA. If that’s so, why haven’t they sent in testimonials? Is it possible that they were so unsatisfied with the results that there is no way in Hell they would send in a testimonial?
Are there any actual “Partners”?
Notice there are no actual partners? Just a list of technologies they have no business relationship with.
Is it possible that this might be designed to trick people into believing that these top companies are somehow clients or partners with the Pitchmen?
Why do some of the above listed companies have “F” ratings from the Better Business Bureau?
1) Go to www.bbbsouthland.org
2) Click on “Company Reports”
3) Look up all these names: One Top Firm, Simply Voice, GoDotLess, Client Placement Services, Portal Response Technology
Search Direct Media and Search Direct Matrix are not members of the Las Vegas BBB, so there are no reports available on them yet.
But why is Search Direct Media operating WITHOUT A BUSINESS LICENSE in Las Vegas, as of 12/3/07?
As for OnlineBannerAds.net, one victim who had been scammed by them wisely set up a webpage detailing their experience and providing much of the same information you see here. They paid for Google AdWords to list their truth-telling website above the results for OnlineBannerAds. Nice move! And guess what? They got their money back
