I have been very busy the past few weeks and not had much time to research and write so the blog has suffered. I have not put out any new content and just sort of let it become stale. I will be working on this in the next few days and hope to catch up on some research. However like I have mentioned before I am looking for other authors who would like to write some posts here even if they have another blog.

Let me know if you are interested.

If you enjoy exposing scams and shams and are interested in writing about what you find, I am not talking about information like “This is a Scam”, I am talking about researching the scam finding out who is behind it and what is going on with it and exposing it to the world. If so I am looking for you, I want to turn Scam Times into a multi-user blog so that others can get the message out as well. A one person show to expose scams works but not as effectively as if multiple people are working together to bring scams down.

If you are interested in writing great posts about scams then I need you, contact me as soon as you can and let’s get down to business. I am looking for 4 to 5 people who are great at exposing scams and are interested in writing here. If you notice over the past few days I have done a few things to make it more multi-author friendly like the bio’s at the end of each post. This can contain a link back to your blog so your blog can also get some exposure as well.

Let me know if you are interested  or have questions at matt@scamtimes.com

I want to personally thank the readers of Scam Times and the listeners of Scam Cast, you have been a great audience and it has been a great 2009, unfortunately 2009 has been a massive year for scams and we have worked to help uncover some of them. I know that we have helped several people save money with our information and we intend to continue that into the new year. Here is what we resolve to do this year for you the reader.

• Create more great informative articles on current scams
• Turn Scam Times into a broader consumer protection site with all types of consumer protection articles and podcasts
• I would love to turn Scam Times into a Multi-User blog and have some other great resources writing here as well
• Continue with the Scam Cast Podcast and attempt to start doing Video soon
• Continue and branch off some of our training on how to do affiliate marketing ethically
• Find ways that you can make money without dealing with scams
• Continue to research and find more scams and the people running them
• Bring interviews from both the scammed and scammers.
• Continue to bring value to our readership

If we have missed anything you would like us to do please post it in the comments as I am working hard to bring you the best site I can to help protect you. Thank you for a great year and let’s get 2010 started right!

I have decided today after reading posts about an “entrepreneur” and wondered can they really be called that? If you make a living on scams can you be called an entrepreneur? I present to you the new name “scamtrepreneur”.

I see it all over the news when they are talking about these people and it really just makes me mad, maybe I am just sensitive to this type of tagging because I know several people who I call entrepreneur who have put more time and effort into trying to make it ethical and legit. It is harder to make it in business and be successful and ethical and these people do it.

People like Todd Cochrane (@GeekNews), Heather Gold (@heathr), Leo Laporte (@leolaporte), and Rob McNealy (@RobMcNealy) are great examples of entrepreneur’s that are working hard at doing the right thing and working to make a name for themselves, while other people we have mentioned on this blog would be considered “scamtrepreneur’s”.

But the question is will anyone come out and call them that, media is the biggest culprit on this and they will label anyone an entrepreneur and I guess thats because of the definition: “a person who organizes and manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of the profit.” So we will write the definition of scamtrepreneur now as follows: “a person who organizes and manages scams for the sake of profits”

Your thoughts and Ideas?

December is normally the month that all the “of year” posts come out so I might as well follow suit, however on this site being named the best of or the biggest of the year might not be the best thing.

So the winner of the Biggest Scam of 2009 is going to be the Dazzle White teeth whitening pens, why is this the biggest? It has by far had the largest spread of all the other scams I have seen including the multitudes of Google scams. You might argue with me that the Google Scams are more widespread and they may be more widespread and more knowledge of them however since they are run by so many companies the financial gains has been spread to many groups.

The Dazzle White scam seems to be one or two groups named in the dazzlesmile lawsuit. Just Think Media / Jesse Willms and Epic advertising seems to be the largest group involved. Here is what I am seeing and how I am basing it, I can not see the financials of these companies so I can only guess but in the dazzlesmile lawsuit we have seen claims that in 7 days almost $100,000 dollars was racked up with fees to the affiliate network, with thousands of orders in a few days. We also seen in the lawsuit that the offer was packaged with two separate billing groups and products. So the orders reported by one company can be doubled because it was really two orders just going to separate places.

The fact that the scammer turned white knight turned victim also helps the Dazzle White scam to be one of the largest most widespread scams of the year.

The amount of people scammed in this seems to be in the hundreds of thousands and one report I heard but have not verified is that one affiliate made over $10 Million dollars on the teeth whitening pen offers. This would put the order number at 250,000 this is hard to believe and like I said I have not had the opportunity to verify so take it with a grain of salt.

The sheer number of sites promoting this scam also stands out, with 3,770,000 results for “dazzle white” this does include sites like mine however and other people who are trying to out the scam but it does not include the other names for this product as there seem to be several.

Next year I hope to have voting for the person or group that deserves the award as well as basing it on comments on this blog and others. Dazzle White stands out among the scammers as my pick for the Biggest Scam of 2009. What is your pick?

This article is part of a group writing project for the 2009 year in review

Yes, that is right we are adding a segment to our podcast that will be exclusive to the podcast until the series is done, it will be called Affiliate Marketing Profits from Home, yes we know its very close to Advertising Profits from Home and its more of a joke because the book was a joke.

I will be writing exclusive content for the Scam Cast podcast and every show will have a section that will be all about affiliate marketing until the series is complete. From getting started to some other techniques that may work for you, this will go extend the Niche Blitzkrieg review and give tips and tricks to the podcast listeners each week. We will be releasing the first of the series this Sunday and will attempt to have a new segment each week until we are complete.

Once we have released all the content to the podcast we will put together a CD and maybe an E-Book and offer it here at Scam Times. Yes, I understand that this really does not have anything to do with a scam but we feel that a lot of our visitors are looking for ways to get started in affiliate marketing or making money online, and we feel this information should be available to them.

Why Affiliate Marketing Profits from Home? A lot of our traffic comes from our articles about Advertising Profits from Home and we feel that we should help the people who are blinded by the infomercials that are put out by Donald Barrett and Anthony Morrison. We hope that this series will help everyone who is attempting to learn affiliate marketing for the first time and hope that we can help you without paying the money that other systems want and demand for coaching and other crap you do not need.

We also need your help with the podcast, we need new microphones and recording equipment so use the ChipIn on the sidebar of the blog if you would like to give a dollar or two for the new equipment.

What do you feel about this? Do you think it will help you? What do you want to see in the series?

GoInternet was a business model that was designed to ripoff customers and others into making $29 dollar a month charges for services they do not even know about. These telemarketers tricked people into getting a welcome package and which triggers negative option billing unless you call and cancel. These packages where designed to look like bulk mail so that people would throw it away. This clown had over 1000 telemarketers working for him and signing up 7,500 new customers each week. In 2003 he had 350,000 businesses duped.

So lets think here 7,500 x 4 x 29 x 12 = $10,800,000.00 per year? Holy crap am I in the wrong line of work?

Read more at the Philadelphia FBI website

Recently we have been asking for victims to come forward from the Kevin Hoeffer scams we thank everyone who has made the step forward. The interviews and information is now online below watch the video and enjoy leave any feedback you have here. It is time to get the attention of everyone and attempt to stop this scam once and for all. In the video they talk about a guy from YouTube exposing the scams as well, you can watch that video below, mind you it has language that might not be acceptable to all.

It is very important that if you are defrauded or have been victim to one of the scams we discuss here that you file a complaint with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). Filing complaints with the FTC is very important because complaints filed with the FTC get put into a secure database that is used by law enforcement to investigate cases. The FTC does not follow each and every complaint but instead investigates sources that have lots of complaints.

The FTC will total all the related cases into large case leads and refers them out to task forces for investigations. You are not the only victim of these scams but if we do not file a complaint it may not get the attention deserved. Do not think that you are going to get a call from the FTC because you filed but it can help raise awareness with the FTC so they can take action.

The FTC however can open investigations against entities that have violated consumer protection laws so filing a complaint is very important in this regard. FTC will not advocate on your behalf or even promise they will investigate the claim however it is one way they can get the information they need to put a stop to organizations that are violating the law.

How to file a complaint with the FTC

• Go to the Federal Trade Commissions Complaint Assistant
• Click on the Complaint Assistant link on the right
• The wizard will walk you through all the steps of filing the complaint. Add as much detail as you can and make sure the information you give is clear and effectively tells your side of the complaint.

It is a very easy process but one that is vital to combating the scams that are taking advantage of millions of people.

Show Notes – Episode 2

Recently I got off the phone with a reporter out of LA with Fox News, they are looking into the Kevin Hoeffer and Google Business Kit scams and need your help as well as wanting to help you. He is looking for victims of these scams, you can remain anonymous however with the help of victims and others we hope together to out these people for what they are.

Listen to the show for the rest of the details