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FIB - Scams 101 - Ye Olde Archives
Posted By: Mel. White In Response To: Global Cash Flow Network (Bruce)
Sunday, 26 March 2006, at 4:54 p.m.
> I've been contacted by Global Cash Flow Network
This should be a HUGE red flag, right there (and indicates your name got on a "sucker" list so you should be getting a lot of these.) Home businesses should start from something you know about (and have mentors for) rather than something that's offered to you by someone you don't know. They don't know your style, your needs, your situation, your expertise -- they're just looking for people to throw money at them.
So let's go look at some of what they say, by googling for them.
They've had almost no buzz... there's only 40 web pages on them. For a company that is "Committed to helping over 1 million people in the next several years", this is a very very very very very slow start. Their traffic ranking is nonexistant.
The first thing I come across is this press release:
http://www.prnewsnow.com/PR%20News%20Releases/Business/Global%20Cash%20Flow%20Network%20Gives%20Away%20Free%20Advice%20and%20Consultation%20To%20Help%20More%20People%20Looking%20To%20Start%20A%20Home%20Based%20Internet%20Business
* it's on a site where you can put your own press release and there's no fact-checking
* it makes some statements that you can check out
* there's a blog (and an interesting point here is that it's still on "Blogspot" and they haven't bought a URL and hosted it independantly. While putting it on Blogspot is no reason to think negatively of it, large and successful companies generally host it on their own machines and brand it with their own name.
Looking at the blog, we see that:
- there have only been 3 posts since October of 2005.
- it's a pretty standard looking blog format (so he hasn't hired any webgeeks like Steve Mclellan or me to do his website and maintain it, nor has he hired writers with all that wealth he generates to generate stories and content for his site. This suggests that he's not making huge sums of money off this.)
- the blog does tricks to get around some of the blog censors ("FRE.E"... a trick spammers use.) The messages have lots of "feel good" points and almost no content at all.
Going to the website, we find that:
http://www.globalcashflownetwork.com/
It's supposed to be a one-stop shop to sell and buy goods and services (note that their PR is a bit at odds with what the website says their purpose is.)
The only way you can buy or sell something (and there's no discount) from that site is to click on a button like Ebay, which gives them a "ooo! your click made me money from these folks!" link. Good for them, but does nothing for us.
The only thing you can do on those pages is give them your info so he can call you. In one section they say you can make huge fortunes and no computer is needed (yes, I know of several ways this can be done, including buying cars at police auctions and fixing them and selling them but it's not exactly something you can do quickly or easily.)
So, analyzing the whole thing, the only info you get is that this is supposedly the site of someone/several people who have been in business for 20 years (combined, I guess), and they are supposedly wealthy and will lead you to wealth ... only...
- they can't afford special hosting
- they can't afford a full time set of computer geeks
- they have a 404 error on their home page that they haven't fixed
IN SUMMARY: we see a page that promises things, PR that promises things, a blog with 3 entries (promising great things) and the material that is presented is so empty of information that it can be summarized in a few short sentences. There's no fact-checking, either.
We find that hype like this and empty sites like this are often bold fronts for people who are making as little money on the Internet as YOU are (i.e... none at all) and who are desperate to have you support them.
So, those are the things to watch out for. I hope this helps.
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