ContactThem: Too Good To Be True?

Yesterday I was checking my spam folder to see if any legit emails slipped there by accident. At one point I came across one titled “I visited your website http://www.dailyblogtips.com/.” Here is what it looked like:

Hi,

We’ve seen your website at
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/ways-to-make-money-online-with-website/
and we love it!

We see that your traffic rank is 14522
and your link popularity is 31.
Also, you have been online since <Online since>.

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.ws/hit.php?s=10&p=2&w=103432

Sincerely,

Tim Smith
The ContactThem Network
330-325-0417

For one thing the $4,800 monthly caught my attention. Then I also noticed that the software that the guy was using was flawed on the section that was supposed to capture the registration date of my domain…

Anyway I am always curious to see what ingenuous ways people find to make money online, so I clicked on the link to check the website out. On the other side I found a professionally designed website, which started immediately playing a recorded voice. Here is what the voice told me:

After millions of dollars invested and over 2 years in development, we’ve just launched the fastest growing program since Google Adwords and as viral as Hotmail. Over 300,000 people have visited this page in the first week and thousands are joining every day! Growing faster and faster every minute, this program propagates extremely fast.

Right, I thought. Reading further I found out that the conditions of deal were even better than what I first imagined! The $4,800 payment is just for the first month, on the second month this figure will double and I would receive $9,600! Not only that, every month that I kept using the program my pay would increase, after just four months I would already be making $19,200. Yay!

Long story short there is an asterisk on the numbers, and they just represent earning potentials. You just make money when other members join their network using your referral code. I mean come on guys, even if you want to encourage people to sign up you would do a better job by using some down to earth figures.

How does the program work? Every new member receives a software that is supposed to “finds thousands of Leads: Clients, visitors, subscribers, network marketing leads (Yes, MLM leads!), Internet marketers, affiliates, website owners & business partners.”

I checked my spam folder once again and noticed that I had a dozen of similar emails from that company or from its affiliates. It appears that they arrived to me through my contact details on my domain names. Talk about qualified leads!

Well, I guess I should have trusted my email client in the first place.

Daniel Scocco on March 18, 2008 Subscribe to our RSS Feed

Got the Internet Marketing Newsletter?

My analysis of the industry
The latest trends and opportunities
Tips and tricks that I use on my sites
It's free!

Bookmark

33 Responses to “ContactThem: Too Good To Be True?”

derek on March 18th, 2008 3:12 am

I actually received the same e-mail though it was from a different sender. I think this is much more of an MLM scheme. The 4,800$ is indeed too good to be true. This is my post.

http://yuwoncedric.com/contact.....per-month/
Aaron at FullTiltBlogging.com on March 18th, 2008 3:13 am

I have often wondered if maybe my spam folder is smarter than I am.
The How-To Geek on March 18th, 2008 3:30 am

I’ve been getting these exact same emails as well… stupid spammers.
Cindy Szponder on March 18th, 2008 4:01 am

I know the spam catcher is smarter than I am. Quite often I get what looks like a legitimate comment resting in Askimet. It looks good on the surface, but when I click through to see the site I realize that it’s simply a scam. What’s scary is that the spammers and scammers will only get more skillful. But, then, Askimet learns too!

Thanks for highlighting something that might actually fool someone out there.
Eli on March 18th, 2008 4:17 am

I don’t check my spam folder, because I don’t want to bother looking at spam. Seems pointless heh.

At least he wasn’t claiming to be Nigerian, though.
andrew on March 18th, 2008 4:24 am

This reminds me of an entry on the Google Webmaster blog (Google: “dear google, we noticed” to see the entry.

Essentially, it is a spam letter to Google saying “we noticed you aren’t ranking well on some of the search engines, like Yahoo and Google.” Oh wait…you ARE Google.

Those spam filters are pretty darn smart. Those spammers are pretty darn annoying. This is all, however, fairly entertaining.

I enjoyed the post - nice A.M. read : )
Daniel Scocco on March 18th, 2008 4:24 am

Eli, usually I get 2 or 3 legit emails going into the spam folder every week, that is why I check it once in a while.
Hendry Lee on March 18th, 2008 5:05 am

Received more or less the same kind of spam but with less details on traffic rank and link popularity.

Rumors in the forum said this is scam. They’ll transfer money to your account exceeding the number by a few thousands, request a refund, and then reverse the first transfer. But it haven’t been proven so far with this.

Perhaps what you received is different.
Daniel Scocco on March 18th, 2008 5:40 am

Handry, this one looks like a pyramid scheme for me.
Sumesh on March 18th, 2008 7:23 am

They say, “If something is too good to be true, it usually is” One more example to justify that.

You’re really putting “expose scammers” strategy to work on your own blog, just as you advised me to do. Way to go.
Stephanie on March 18th, 2008 8:21 am

I’ve been getting those too, for a while. Pretty misleading when you go to their site and see what they really offer. I knew right away that what they were saying was too good to be true, but it does make for a laugh… once you get past the annoyance.
Chip on March 18th, 2008 12:05 pm

You should have noticed th .ws domain. It doesn’t look too serious. What is .ws anyway?
Mike on March 18th, 2008 6:16 pm

Soooo many scams on the stupid internet lol
Jeremy Steele on March 18th, 2008 7:02 pm

Heh, they are just sad. Can’t wait until we have the technology to reach through the intertubes and strangle the spammers with our bare hands.
ms danielle on March 19th, 2008 1:05 am

i saw greg morgan got that same email when we were at ASW. lol gotta love that “You have been online since (Online since)”
Tay - Super Blogging on March 20th, 2008 10:06 pm

I got the same thing… Seriously, how stupid do they think we are? Unfortunately, I guess there are some people out there who believe they can sign up and just start making those numbers. Thank goodness for spam protection!
Melvin on March 22nd, 2008 10:01 pm

Hahah… I dont trust my email client that much either
fitzheim on March 23rd, 2008 1:49 pm

Geesh.. These so-called “online marketers” are getting smarter. I made a mistake once. As a result, I have to delete that ‘affected’ email.
Crystal Weckerly on March 26th, 2008 1:32 am

Thought I would add an update for you all. Contacthem is updating and will include an unsubscribe option to block yourself from the searchable database. Annoyance over for many.

Oh and I added the banner to my website (Feb 5th), received a check on March 17th for $665.71 I don’t feel stupid at all!!

Take care and Peace out!!
Crystal
Highly Skeptical on March 26th, 2008 3:32 am

I received one of these emails today from Crystal Weckerly (above).

I’m Highly Skeptical about this particular offer. The links go to a sign up form with no information about the program.

A Google search on it mostly returns gibberish, with a few odd blog articles like this one that don’t go into a lot more detail than speculating that it is probably a scam.
Ken Chan on March 26th, 2008 1:47 pm

You have to read the disclaimer. “These figures of earnings are examples to help you understand the earning potential - You can make more or less. There are no guarantees of income.”
isecore on March 28th, 2008 9:09 am

Yeah, I got the same email promising fame and fortune. Looks really professional when it’s sent with freakin’ hotmail-adress as reply-to.

Just more bullshit on the internet. The only people making money off of that crap are the ones sending out the spam.
Chuck Anthony on April 18th, 2008 6:43 pm

Hey there and thanks for this post. The old school spin on this sort of thing was often referred to as “company of the month” where big-hitter MLMers would lead their flocks into these new programs on a rather frequent basis. That’s how they made a living. Trouble is only the few at the top of the so called pyramid make any money. Sometimes intermediaries will be fortunate enough to cash in early however, this would be short-lived. This new spamLM incarnation will unfortunately attract the most desperate seekers and, or pathetic get-rich-quick dreamers.
Make Money Online on April 18th, 2008 7:47 pm

-OMG I got the same e-mail but I ended up finding out it from an affiliate I even signed up but never purchased the program, that only gave me access to some really unuser friendly forum it was horrible, they didn’t even have a link for me to close my account. I e-mailed them and told them I wanted my account closed, shortly after I recieved an e-mail from them stating they closed my account. Funny, that’s all I can say about ContactThem.
printnpost on April 21st, 2008 2:00 pm

the ws domain is wordsite, domains extension are not an indictator to if something is valid or not..there are so many domains extensions
Neptune on May 9th, 2008 4:09 am

We have to be sceptic whenever there is free money incolved
kelley on May 21st, 2008 2:41 am

This program is definately not a scam. I received a check yesterday for $59.95 and next months will be higher. I have not used the software that sends you all of these emails, but that is an option that I have the choice to make or not. I would consider getting the software if there was an option to opt out of the list. You can really build a residual income with this program. Maybe some spam but not a scam. You can join free and promote how you feel and you really can make some great money with this program, like anything else it takes time to build.

I looked it up and .ws means web site.
komputa on June 19th, 2008 7:35 am

I think contactthem.com is a scam, as at this time, their website address in no more loading, i think when they discovered people are discussing about them and that the conclusions people gives is not good
J.R. Jackson on August 6th, 2008 5:11 pm

I rec’d the spam email today. Someone must be making money or they would not be sending out all of these emails.

J.R. Jackson
http://www.JRJackson.com
Lex on September 17th, 2008 1:32 am

I have received a similar offer.Why would someone spend thousands of dollars for creating this incredible software and sell it for a measly US48

Btw,I have a business opportunity that costs just US2.50.
ContactThemSpamIncomeCalculator on October 18th, 2008 6:31 am

Wow. Why would I delete spam that could make me “up to” $4,800 per month (by the way I think ZERO qualifies in the phrase “up to”).

About the claim that they will soon add a way to block you from the database - I would SERIOUSLY doubt the veracity of that statement considering it’s coming from a person USING this software which uses sales tactics on about the same level as the good ol’ “data entry” sites.