April 19, 2006 11:04pm by Steve | 
I clicked on a Google link on my own site today because it intrigued me. It may still be up there. The text of it read as follows:
$99 Training Program. Earn $1000-$7000/Week At Home!
I was like, what the hell is a “Coca Cola Home Job”? So I clicked on it. That’s when the fun began. I decided to read through and pick apart this scam. It’s easy to see how Internet noobs can get suckered by stuff like this. All the pieces are in place for a noob to get taken. But they’ve got no chance against a sleuth like me.
This ad has been placed (apparently with a bot) by a company called “Internet Training Institute”, which I’m sure isn’t a real company at all. I doubt it’s even registered as a company. And let’s get this out of the way right now. Everything you find underneath this ad is the work of a single guy… guaranteed. There is no “staff”, there is no “company”. It’s one guy in his basement with a Word document that he converts to a PDF and sells.
Essentially it’s a “work-at-home and become a millionare” type of scam. Yeah, we all know how valuable data entry jobs are. People with basic typing skills are so hard to find that companies are paying them salaries of $300,000+ per year. Wow! I should learn how to type.
The first thing you notice on ITI’s website is crappy, amateur design and an excess of font colors to really grab your attention!!!! Along the left hand side is an excess of stock Getty images of cool, happy, internet peeps getting paid $400 to “type 2 or 3 sentences” at a time for 2 hours a day.
Then they hit you with a lengthy “gee I did it and so can you” story apparently written by a beastly woman who couldn’t possibly make money other than with this program. She starts out claiming that she makes $1000+ per day. Then towards the bottom says that she makes closer to $3000+ per day. That’s for 2 hours work. It had no idea it was possible for jolly people to make so much scratch!
She goes on to provide some other amazing, truthful facts such as:
- There are 10,000 companies paying through the ass for data entry home workers.
- These Internet companies “don’t widely publicize their internet-based programs.” Heck, why would they? It’s much more economical to pay a fat slob $1500 an hour to type a few sentences.
- Internet Training Institute staff is starting to get overloaded. And they don’t want to take on so many students that they can’t give everyone personal attention. Yeah, emailing PDFs is hard work. If I did that, I wouldn’t want to get overloaded either.
- There are tons of bonuses if you sign up by today, Wednesday, April19! By a strange coincidence, this is the very day that I happened to find the website! What luck! I’d better sign up so I don’t miss this opportunity.Here’s the Coldfusion equivalent of this lie: #DateFormat(Now(),”dddd, mmmm dd”)#This will output the current date on the website no matter when you look at it.
- And she reminds us multiple times, this is definitely not a scam.
I love how on the “Contact Us” page they indicate that they are so busy that one must format their emails correctly so that it can go to the correct person. Puhlease, they all go to the same guy. Either that or they go to an email tar pit, which is more likely.
Now we come to the funnest part of the scam… the person behind the curtain. Surprise surprise when we find the person to be hiding from any inquiring minds. Here is the WHOIS for the “itidata.org” domain:
Domain ID:D108488244-LROR
Domain Name:ITIDATA.ORG
Created On:13-Nov-2005 11:26:54 UTC
Last Updated On:13-Jan-2006 04:02:30 UTC
Expiration Date:13-Nov-2006 11:26:54 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Go Daddy Software, Inc. (R91-LROR)
Registrant ID:GODA-015243144
Registrant Name:Registration Private
Registrant Organization:Domains by Proxy, Inc.
Registrant Email:ITIDATA.ORG@domainsbyproxy.com
Isn’t that peculiar? The company has gone through domainsbyproxy.com in order to hide their real identity. You’d think that a company offering a money-back guarantee and countless claims that it’s “not a scam” would be willing to share their address or even a telelphone number with their customers. Hmmm… I don’t understand.
But not to worry! Because Internet Training Institute is endorsed by “a major consumer protection group” called “ConsumerReporter.org“. Although an impressive website, visiting ConsumerReporter.org left me a little wanting due to the following points:
- They mysteriously use the exact same excess of font colors to really grab your attention!!!!
- They mysteriously use the exact same method of delivering audio.
- They apparently have only “researched” and “recommended” a single company…. um… ever. Guess which one?
- All of the various email addresses on the Contact Us page are guaranteed to be aliases pointing to a single person… guess who?
- All of the “telephone transcripts” (HAHAHAHAHAH) deal with how much money the person makes. Wow, that’s some in depth consumer reporting!
- A bunch of Googling turned up nothing about the “Better Internet Business Bureau”. Hahaha.
The only thing that really eased my mind was the fact that Mr. T endorses this program:
Mistah T say: “Internet Trainin’ Institute is the REAL DEAL, sucka!”
Okay, so I made that up. Let’s do a WHOIS for “consumerreporter.org”, shall we?
Domain ID:D107769797-LROR
Domain Name:CONSUMERREPORTER.ORG
Created On:11-Oct-2005 15:51:33 UTC
Last Updated On:11-Dec-2005 04:10:26 UTC
Expiration Date:11-Oct-2006 15:51:33 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Go Daddy Software, Inc. (R91-LROR)
Registrant ID:GODA-014576237
Registrant Name:Registration Private
Registrant Organization:Domains by Proxy, Inc.
Registrant Email:CONSUMERREPORTER.ORG@domainsbyproxy.com
Gosh that’s strange. What an amazing coincidence that ConsumerReporter.org uses the exact same service as itidata.org to mask it’s true identity. And wow! ConsumerReporter.org was registered one month after itidata.org. Neato!
And, of course, the final piece de la resistancio… the real Better Business Bureau report on Internet Training Institute. And I quote,
- “The Bureau processed a total of 24 complaints about this company in the last 36 months”.
- “[When dissatisfied,] consumers do not receive their requested refunds from ClickBank or The Internet Training Institute.” What a surprise!
But remember! It’s not a scam!
p.s. Why I spend so much time on this crap, I’ll never know.
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People are willing to pay any money for a dream world! Earn $7k a week, for doing nothing? MAN, that sounds GREAT! SIGN ME UP. Coz goin back to school, and working hard – WAY too much of an investment.I’m an American! I live in the richest country in the world! WHERE’S MY MONEY! Sadly, I dated a girl who fell into this trap – not the internet though. Old fashioned, “earn money typing” ad in the Sunday paper. To be fair, she got exactly what they said – a package on how to type, and suggestions for getting a job. LOL. For $25, it was worth the life lesson.
p.s., the “Actual Paychecks” image was a nice touch!
Update: It appears the offer was extended through Thursday, April20 so there’s still time!
I recently quit my job and now I stay at home with my two year old daughter. I saw this website recently and thought wow, wouldn’t that be helpful to make that kind of money from home. I was very skeptical about it, but hopeful in a way so I decided to research the site. Obviously, it is a scam and I am very thankful I did not waste 99 dollars on some BS training manual. I will stand by the old saying “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”