Monday, November 30, 2009

Google Profusion - Scam alert


A friend of mine was reading an article on a news website when she noticed an advertisement to the right of the article which looked like this:

Upon clicking on the ad she went through to the landing page and was really excited to see how easy it was to make money. She showed it to me and asked me if I thought it was legitimate.

The landing page looked like this:

Initially I thought it looked like such an awesome opportunity. The fact that the lady is South African (and we are in South Africa) seemed to give it more credibility. However there were a few things that concerned me - the fact that the comments have been closed (I know she said it's because she is being spammed but still) and she could have created false comments.

This then has a link through to a site which talks about a product called Google Profusion where you have 10 minutes to put in your details or the offer will expire:


Then I did some Googling and came across some links I found where people were discussing it – where people were very angry with the fact that this had turned out to be a scam:

http://www.scamtimes.com/featured/googleprofusion-twitterprofusion-and-profitprofusion-powered-by-jmhmedia-what-a-deal/

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Apps/thread?tid=421476d1f7d77382&hl=en

Then I came across another blog - exactly the same words (just changed the name of the Estate Agency depending on the country - so this one was for Malaysia so they changed the name of the estate agency & shopping mall). Even the comments are exactly the same (just different peoples names).

Screenshot from Malaysian edition (same story, just different names):

I also contacted someone I know from Google and asked them about it and they confirmed that it is a scam. I am so glad that I investigated this matter further and would like to draw your attention to it so that you don't get caught.