Dear Friend. How have you been scammed today?

Are people really that stupid? I hope not.....

I received an email in my junk folder today (as much as I hate to admit it, hotmail is a Microsoft product I almost like because of its spam filter) thats starts:

"Dear Friend.

How are you today?"

It goes on to talk about the delivery of US$1.8m cash. It's supposed to appear as though it got sent to you by mistake, and that if you forward the identification details, they will send the US$1.8m to you.

C'mon are you kidding me? This is a phishing scam at its worst. If you get it, block the sender, delete the email, and if possible report the sender. Never reply, this will only alert the person who is phishing that the email account is live (in use), and it might be passed on/sold to a spammer, then you can expect a never ending supply of phishing emails in your inbox.

Phishing scams pray on our will to believe something (no matter how preposterous). If I told you I knew a way for you to make millions online you would at least listen. What you would also do, is hope. Hope and want that information to be true.

Phishing scams do it, affiliate marketers do it, heck, advertising agencies do it! The emotion can be strong, the argument convincing (I was once convinced to take part a sophisticated way to get you to part with your money called Affiliate Junktion).

But there was nothing sophisticated about this phishing scam I received today.

I have to wonder how many people fall for such pathetic attempts to get you personal information. More importantly, I worry about people I know who may be sucked in...

Here's the email in its entirety for those how get similar phishing scam emails and want to recognize them.

Don't be sucked in by Phishing scams like these:


Dear Friend.

How are you today? I am writing to inform you that I have Paid the fee
for your Cheque Draft. And I went to the bank to confirm if the
Cheque has expired or getting near to expire and Mr.Ahmed Zafa the
Director of Central Bank of West African States(BCEAO) told me that
before the cheque will get to your hand that it will expire.

So I told him to cash the US$1.8million United States Dollars to cash
payment to avoid losting this funds.However, all the necessary
arrangement of delivering the US$1.8m UNITED STATES DOLLARS in
cash was made with FEDEX COURIER SERVICES LTD. in Cotonou Benin Republic,
Mr.Ahmed Zafa the Director of Central Bank of West African
States(BCEAO) Cotonou have to package the sum of US$1.8 m in cash for me.Then he also agreed to help me to Register the Consignment with FEDEX
COURIER SERVICES LTD.Infact I'm happy that every movement I made goes
sucessfull.
As for our agreement with the FEDEX COURIER SERVICES LTD. they
promised that your consignment will leave this Country on monday next week,But
the Director of the FEDEX COURIER SERVICES LTD. said that they need
your contacts informations to able them meet up with you immediately the
Diplomat Agent arrived to your Country.

write a letter of application to the given address below.
Contact person: Dr.Jim Vicktor
EMAIL:***********removed to protect the stupid************@yahoo.fr
Send them your contacts information to able them locate you
immediately they arrived in your country with your BOX .This is what they
need from you.

1.YOUR FULL NAME---------------------------------------------------------
2.YOUR HOME ADDRESS--------------------------------------------------
3.YOUR CURRENT HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER---------------
4.YOUR CURRENT OFFICE TELEPHONE---------------------------
5.A COPY OF YOUR PICTURE------------------------------------------
Note.The FEDEX COURIER SERVICES LTD.
don't know the contents of the Box. I registered it as a BOX of an
Africa cloths. They don't know it contents money. this is to avoid
them delaying with the BOX. don't let them know that is money that is in
that Box.

Thanks and Remain Blessed.

Mr.David Baju

**********
The latest scam I got in my email was this one (give me a break!)

AWARD FINAL NOTIFICATION.
We are pleased to inform you the released results of the EUROMILLION SWEEPSTÁKE LOTTERY/NEW YEAR PROGRAMS held on the 14th July 2008.
Your EMAIL was attached to a ticket number 102/08 with serial number 000228 lucky numbers 4 5 5 6 4 which consequently won0the lottery in the 2nd category.You have therefore been approved for lump sum pay out of £10,600,000 Pounds(TEN MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS)in cash credited to file REF Nº: ESWL/2147/08/MAL.
To begin your claim please contact your claims agent: Mr Alex Taylor
The Foreign Services Manager of EUROMILLION SWEEPSTAKE LOTTERY
Email: ----------@hotmail.com


For the fun of it take a look at these other Phishings scams, some are quite hilarious.

Aftermath of an online 'opportunity ' experiment (Affiliate Junktion, one month later).

I recently found myself interested in an online affiliate marketing opportunity called Affiliate Junktion.

<<<<< EDIT: my latest blog on Affiliate Junktion is here - You can find more up to date inforamtion on Affiliate Junktion here.>>>>>>

Deciding I should at least once in my life take the chance to see if they work, (and after confirming to the best of my ability that it was no scam) I decided to give it a go.

What convinced me were two factors:
1) An immediate $75 signing bonus
2) A guarantee (something like, if your not earning $150 a day, in three weeks, they would pay the $150 per day until you were)

So finally I gave in and decided to give it a whirl (feel free to read my previous blog entries on this topic after finishing this one)

The first thing worth noting at this stage is that all Affiliate Junktion payouts are in New Zealand Dollars (where Affiliate Junktion operates). So while you pay US$90+ to get you web hosting, Affiliate Junktion will theoretically refund you only US$57.95 (todays rate). After over a month, my NZ$75 signing refund is still showing in my Affiliate Junktion control panel as "pending".

The second thing is the NZ$150 per day guarantee. Over one month later, where is that? I new at sign up that Affiliate Junction's terms and conditions have provision to deny anyone this guarantee and make it impossible for people to take legal action against Affiliate Junktion regarding this, so I'm not that surprised. Maybe they bank on people apathy.

After signing up I followed their instructions and advertised the site they had given me. What I learnt over this time was:
1) Costs of getting traffic to Affiliate Junktion are far higher than Affiliate Junktion states. This is mainly because people followed the links to my site and never clicked through to Affiliate Junktion. Probably combine with increased competition for clicks which affiliat programs like theirs help fuel.
2) Conversion rate (when customers take action and become buyers) is not as high as Affiliat Junktion promised.
3) The commission is also in New Zealand dollars.

But I, persevered, Affiliate Junktion emailed me and did help with setting up my google adwords campaign, helping me to lower the click cost and get more traffic. I also realised I could send customers directly to Affiliate Junktion through adwords using my affiliate ID. This is a common practice, it solved the problem of people only clicking on my advertising and not getting through to Affiliate Junktion, so I immediately started to see clicks registering in the Affiliate Junkion control panel. The trouble was customers had not been warmed up (a process copywriters use, using persuasive, emotive language to improve the chances of making a sale) and so conversion rates weren't good.

So what was the end result? I spent €35 (NZ$66.65) to get NZ$16.00 in commission. It was a no brainer, I pulled the plug. ((EDIT, luckily I tried three time and on the last try nailed it. I now make €100 per day with Affiliate Junktion, the most important lesson learned is "if at first you don't succeed...")

I'm sure some people who find thier way to this page still want to believe, as I do, that is is possible, that I could have done something to improve things. Actually I'm sure I could have done better, but how long would it have taken? How much better could I have done? To make a profit I would have needed a conversion more than twenty time higher than I got.

Worth noting, Affiliate Junktion made 8 new sign ups from me. If they only duplicate my experience, then that will become 64 and so on... So its clear then even if their affiliates aren't successfully, than Affiliate Junktion (and google advertising) will be.

I hope this helps people make an informed decision regarding Affiliate Junktion. Maybe some day I workout how to promote the program cheap enough, at the moment, it's beyond me.

More on Affiliate Junktion...

<<<<< EDIT: my latest blog on Affiliate Junktion is here - You can find more up to date information on Affiliate Junktion here.>>>>>>

One of the things to watch, is that because they are in New Zealand, all payouts are in NZ$. If you check out www.ipower.com you will see they are making $100US per sign up. Not only that but a recent email to me suggested their lowest payout rate is NZ$1.50 (US$1.15). (At time of writing, I thought Affiliate Junktion paid per conversion, they don't, Affiliate Junktion pays per lead. Only Affiliate Junktion themselves know how many leads end up signing up)

If you put that together with the increase in people using keywords like "make money" through Yahoo or Google adwords resulting in a hight cost per click, its easy to see there is plenty of money for them, hardly any for you. (since writing that I have got my cost per click down to €0.03 for Affiliate Junktion ads)

Really the only ones making the money are Affiliate Junktion (maybe Affiliate Junktion isn't making money, see my latest Affiliate Junktion blog here) .

Maybe the occasional member who's experienced with online advertising is lucky enough to target his/her Affiliate Junktion ads effectively and cheaply, but for every member who does, there are no doubt plenty who signup and go nowhere. (that may still be true, but I suggest you get the free information here and then decide for yourself if Affiliate Junktion will work for you)

Day two. Affiliate Junkion, scam or truth a real test.

<<<<< EDIT: my latest blog on Affiliate Junktion is here - You can find more up to date information on Affiliate Junktion here.>>>>>>

This morning (about 12 hours after signing up) I received a conformation email from Affiliate Junktion saying my membership had been approved and to login to the control panel at Affiliate Junktion, a link was provided.

As yet, I have been unable to view this page. I simply get the error:
The server at www.affiliatejunktion.com is taking too long to respond.
Could it be that the Affiliate Junction program is really popular, or something more sinister? We shall see.

I have been trying now for about half an hour, I'll keep you posted.

After another hour the page came up, must just have been some kind of server problems (maybe unexpectedly large traffic).

Heres a screen shot of the control panel ((Edit Affiliate Junktion now uses a slightly different system)):

The getting started page in the Affiliate Junktion control panel tells you to download and install winzip (for those who don't have it), download you free websites a search and replace tool and free ftp software. Pretty obvious stuff. You meant to upload the site you received to you new domain (which you paid for) after replacing the appropriate referral links with your own.

It then simply goes on to explain how to market your new affiliate website using Yahoo and Google Adwords. Nothing here alot of us don't already know.

If you going to advertise a site, then why not make a nice site with information and some good affiliate links (perhaps including the joining the ipower affiliate scheme that Affiliate Junktion uses), this way you'd make a higher return on your investment ((Edit: Boy was I wrong)).

Conclusion:
Athough Affiliate Junktion is not a scam, don't expect to make any money from it ((Edit: Did I say that??? I'm now making over €100 per day!)). (read my post about my personal Affiliate Junktion experience) Affiliate Junktion is more or less a web base multi level marketing system using web hosting membership to give the bottom level something for the money they lose.

Also although you can join Affiliate Junction for free you are going to have to spend real money (first with web hosting and then with advertising through Yahoo and Google) and at $2,00 per sign up the only one who is going to make real money is the owner of Affiliate Junktion. ((Edit: again, boy was I WRONG!))

For a complete novice who can't get it together themselves I guess some money is better than none and you may be assured to know that Affiliate Junktion is not going to rip you off. You may just end up spending quite a bit for uncertain returns.

I for one will spend my advertising dollars on bringing people to more lucrative (for me) Affiliate programs than the one offered by Affiliate Junktion. I'm no longer just weary of scams, now I'll watch out for scam-like schemes similar to Affiliate Junktion.

I'll keep you posted to see if I get my $75 back!! -[edit] as of almost three months later, the $75 is still "pending" (not yet "approved"). ((EDIT: Yes, I got it back, here's my Affiliate Junktion payment proof)

Affiliate Junkion, scam or truth. A real test - day one.

<<<<< EDIT: my latest blog on Affiliate Junktion is here - You can find more up to date information on Affiliate Junktion here.>>>>>>

There are allot of Affiliate programs these days, and most good bloggers are affiliate savvy as are readers. I decide to take the plunge and check out one thats surfaced recently.

The site is Affiliate Junktion. Affiliate Junktion reads too good to be true. It guarantees to make you $150 a day, free to join and free website. We all know that affiliate plans can never 'guarantee' anything. In an effort to find out if Affiliate Junktion is a fraud, I did a bit of research:

I found (from forums/blogs) that after you join with Affiliate Junktion, sure you might get a free website (more on that later), but you have to host it with the service provider in their scheme. For that you have to pay for a years hosting, anything from US$5 to $10 a month (depending on time of year specials - currently only $4.95). Thats US$60-$100. So much for free (although the do promise to re-reimburse you $75 to cover that)

Looking at the site it appears to be New Zealand based. A quick whois check show Affiliate Junktion is hosted by bluehost.com in the US but (care of their domain privacy). OK so its hosted in the US that doesn't tell us anything. I had a look at the affiliate program at bluehost.com and they pay out $65.00 per signup to affiliates. That looks like where Affiliate Junktion is making their money.

So I thought lets see what happen when I sign up and registered my details. I immediately received an instruction email showing that I would have to sign up at ipower.com. Something smelt rather fishy. Why host with bluehost.com and direct people to ipower.com to sign up? So I check out their site, seams legit and a quick look at their affiliate program might hold a clue as to how Affiliate Junktion makes money. ipower.com pays out US$100 per sign up, enough to cover the promised $75 reimbursement and $2 sign up fee Affiliate Junktion pays its members (as I understand it).

About the guarantee to make $150 a day, we'll I check out Affiliate Junktions terms and conditions and it has a waiver that basically says that Affiliate Junktion is not liable for the validity or truth in the content of its site. That way Affiliate Junktion can guarantee and promise all they like it doesn't mean anything. You should know that.

I decided to carry on with the sign up. Hey I could use a years hosting even if the Affiliate Junktion turned out to be a scheme.

Therein I think lies the secret. Affiliate Junktion gets you to sign up for web hosting. This is how it avoids being a pyramid scheme, because at the bottom level there is someone getting a product, and one that most people who are likely to come across Affiliate Junktion (those searching for affiliate schemes) can use.

There are other schemes like that. They are called multi-level marketing. Basically a pyramid scheme which make sure the bottom level never 'breaks down' leaving people with nothing to show for thier money, by providing a product or service. They then encourage their members to duplicate the process and find more members. They even have a name for it, it's called "the cycle of duplication".

Whatever the outcome, I've paid my money to Affiliate Junktion so time will tell if they suckered me. If it is real, ones things for sure, Affiliate Junktion is set to make a bundle and at some stage there will be allot of people saying "I've got my hosting, now what?"

The last thing I did today ways to send my sign up proof to Affiliate Junktion. They are supposed to respond and upload the 'magical' website which will make me $150 per day to my host account. In any case I'll post tomorrow with more... if your thinking about joining Affiliate Junktion, maybe hold off a few days, we'll soon see if Affiliate Junktion is truth or fraud.