FTC sent warning letters to a bunch of free credit report sites, including Quinstreet and Vertrue:
The Federal Trade Commission is warning 18 Internet websites offering free credit reports that they must clearly disclose that a free report is available under federal law.
I just read about the Lockerz funding:
Seattle-based startup Lockerz is a new kind of social networking service—an invitation-only social commerce site where the ultimate goal is for members to earn rewards for their online interaction. Through the site, members collect points redeemable for discounts on brand name products by connecting with friends, watching videos, shopping online, and otherwise engaging in the Lockerz community
Then I googled them and got lead gen deja vu.
The site makes lots of grand promises , but it does not deliver. They are slow to credit you for points. They don’t run it like a real business. It is much more like the other internet scams that say that you will get “stuff” or money for doing tasks that anyone could do with no training. Nobody can stay in business by giving away something for nothing. Avoid them.
I don’t know anything about the company but this sure brought back some memories.
Blogger walks us through the first free Ipad offers:
So what’s the deal? I clicked through and found a little fine print about having to complete eight “offers” to receive an iPad:
There was also a lot more fine print at this address. Plus another page which seems to say that you have to have documents notarized as part of the process.
I started to click through the offers, which kept claiming to be “surveys,” although most seemed to be things like credit card offers and sweepstakes and free trials for various services, all of which wanted personal information from me (including, sometimes, my credit card info).
You don’t need to be a marketing guru to figure out that the business model behind the “free iPad” is convincing you to sign up for offers that pay a bounty (aka a referral fee) to those that send business their way.
Los Angele-based Leads360, a developer of web-based, lead management software, is powering a new feature in Google’s Adwords program, the firm said Tuesday. According to Leads360, it is working with Google to help power the new AdWords Comparison Ads feature
A nice overview of the Quinstreet regulatory filings over at Bronte Media. I read over the S-1 and found it rather boring, which is a good thing. These sort of documents only get fun when the filing companies are being bad.
It was interesting to read the rationale for why Quinstreet could be counter cyclical but my gut reaction is to think otherwise.
Another point also had me pondering– Quinstreet currently operates only in America. Can a lead generation company ever become global? The answer to that question could severely limit the upside for the company.
Another article on the shady side of marketing– this time on free credit reports:
But while the government has taken issue with the ads, it has had little to say about credit monitoring services themselves, a rapidly expanding niche approaching $1 billion in sales for which millions of people have signed up, often unwittingly. The problem, say critics, is that most people really don’t need it.
via Ads Stoke a Battle Over ‘Free’ Credit Scores – NYTimes.com.
From: @nikiscevak Sent: Nov 1, 2009 5:33p Prescient http://bit.ly/42uvhz RT @arrington @TechCrunch Social Media Scams http://bit.ly/Hqw5u
Everyone who reads this blog should be familiar with the subject of Arrington’s rant in his recent post. As Markus Frind notes, this stuff has been going on for years. It’s just that mainstream bloggers haven’t covered it. I have a feeling that this stuff will die down and things will go back to the way it was. The one rule that seems to persist in this space is that offers will always go away, but new ones always seem to come around.
Who knows, maybe Arrington can kick start enough momentum to usher some reform into the industry.
I’m surprised it took this many years to be reported by the “media”. These kind of scams have been going on for years and I get several emails a month from these vendors promising to make me millions of dollars a month. I’ve no doubt I could make millions a month off these scams, but they are scams and will eventually bring government regulations. Michael mentions tattoo media look up tatto media sued on google and you will see all the government agencies sueing them.
