by Rudolf Faix
14. June 2015 06:33
William Taylor sent me an invitation on LinkedIn. As I accept all invitations I have accepted his too. The only purpose of the invitation from William Taylor has been to send me a spam message with an invitation for an affiliate system with the name Shopping Sherlock. I have replaced his affiliate code with the sign "x" in his message, because it is nothing else then a simple pyramid system:
Sie haben diese Nachricht beantwortet:
What is my Goal? / Simple.
I want to help you Save, by giving you "Absolutely Free" an invitation to Shop on an Invite Only Platform that allows you to Find the Absolute Lowest Prices on the Web!..
Check out the site / Enter your Email address / Choose a User Name & Password / Go Shopping
Then Decide for Yourself / It’s Just That Simple!
http://www.shoppingsherlock.com/xxxxxx
With my nearly 40 years of computer networks and security experience I know that spam leads very seldom to a good offer. In this case the offer has already a very bad reputation. The first warning by following the link comes from AdGuard:
Warning! Could be unsafe!
Adguard has blocked access to this page
This web page at www.shoppingsherlock.com, has been reported as a phishing page and has been blocked based on your security preferences.
Adguard has found that this page may be a forgery or imitation of another website, designed to trick users into sharing personal or financial information. Entering any personal information on this page may result in identity theft or other abuse.
At the blog behind MLM we can read that Shopping Sherlock is nothing else then a copy of the crashed system from My Shopping Genie (closed May 2012) after they could not pay their affiliates. Each MLM or pyramid system, which is living only from membership fees, crashes as soon there are not enough new members joining the system are coming up. The same will happen to the system from Shopping Sherlock. There are enough free sites without any membership fees which are offering price comparing on the Internet available.
For a normal user is It not recommended to proceed after the first warning already. As I know that all my protection systems are up to date, I have continued visiting the page and got prompt the next warning from Web Of Trust - a system where user are rating the content of the sites:
Such a scam rating is interesting and I have followed for reading the comments about this ratings. You find at the site Web Of Trust like everywhere about Shopping Sherlock positive and negative ratings and you can decide which ratings you are more believing. I'm listing here only the ratings written in English. If someone likes to get the other ratings translated he can use Google translator. The comments from Web Of Trust:
If we verify these rating then we find out that they are true. The only possible earnings on the site Shopping Sherlock are done selling memberships for affiliates. With other words the affiliates have nothing to do as to work for Shopping Sherlock and pay for their work. This makes the site to SCAM. In the whole world is it usage that you get paid for your work and you need not pay for it. For this is the site nothing else then a simple pyramid system. Such systems are illegal in a lot of countries.
In such a system you are able to earn only if you are a member since the early start up time. As later you enter the system as harder it comes to earn by convincing new members. The system started in February 2012 (which wonder that is close to the time as My Shopping Genie has closed down on May 2012) and has reached now an Alexa global ranking of 105,934. That the site is growing slowly already as it get shown in the Alexa global ranking, where Shopping Sherlock has improved their rankings during the last 3 months only for 1,135 positions. That the lifetime of such systems is relative short get shown by the example of My shopping Genie. My Shopping Genie launched late 2007 and the reports that they could not pay their affiliates more than 6 months already, have been coming up during September 2011. With other words the system worked only 3.5 years. If we compare it with Shopping Sherlock then we can expect, as it is nothing else then a copy of Shopping Sherlock, a break down at the end of this year or during 2016. It is depending how fast they are growing with their affiliate structure until no new affiliates can get convinced. As soon as the new affiliates gets it that they cannot find some new members and they have to pay more as they are earning the break down of the system starts.
The actual Alexa ranking from shoppingsherlock.com:
The domain registry data from shoppingsherlock.com:
Domain Name: SHOPPINGSHERLOCK.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1720468532_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Update Date: 2015-04-30T18:23:03Z
Creation Date: 2012-05-15T04:30:54Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2016-05-15T04:30:54Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4806242505
Domain Status: ok http://www.icann.org/epp#ok
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Michael Wiedder
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: 4912 Lemona
Registrant City: Sherman Oaks
Registrant State/Province: California
Registrant Postal Code: 91403
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Phone: (310) 428-9375
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: mwiedder@gmail.com
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: Michael Wiedder
Admin Organization:
Admin Street: 4912 Lemona
Admin City: Sherman Oaks
Admin State/Province: California
Admin Postal Code: 91403
Admin Country: United States
Admin Phone: (310) 428-9375
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: mwiedder@gmail.com
Registry Tech ID:
Tech Name: Michael Wiedder
Tech Organization:
Tech Street: 4912 Lemona
Tech City: Sherman Oaks
Tech State/Province: California
Tech Postal Code: 91403
Tech Country: United States
Tech Phone: (310) 428-9375
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: mwiedder@gmail.com
Name Server: NS05.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS06.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2015-06-13T23:00:00Z <<<
The story from the break down from My Shopping Genie
Web Of Trust - shoppingsherlock.pdf (403.95 kb)
d88b5931-de95-4579-98cf-33abc8d24508|0|.0|27604f05-86ad-47ef-9e05-950bb762570c
Tags: Spam, Pyramid System, Identity Theft, Adguard, Alexa, Fee, Fraud, Law, Multi Level Marketing, Phishing, Scam, Web Of Trust, Marketing
Fraud & Scam
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