Yep, these people contact you and ask to place an ad, or ads, on your site/blog. They offer you amounts of money that seem too good to be true…and they are. For example: they offer you $100 to place one or two really crappy ads for, say, a fishing trip in Alaska or hotel deals…the ads are very poorly worded and the bad grammar gives the game away.
Then they ask for your PayPal details – Do Not Give Them!
Here’s what others are saying about Gr-Ads.com around the online world, just follow these links:
Advertising company Gr-Ads-Something Smells Fishy
Several of the employees are currently leaving comments on this site posing as ’satisfied customers’…here are some examples…they are all fake artists!
The below one is from ‘ShanNing’…if you can believe it…
“My friend got the email from Gr Ads too, he told me that he has been got the money via PayPal.
I searched about Gr, it is a company that buy/sell inner text link on blogs, but normal, it cost about 25 US dollars per links.
You have a great blog, because your links worth more than 25 US dollars. I hope someone buy my blog’s links too”
Note the bad english…more…this one is from ‘Michelle’…these people are desperate!
“Hi, I got ads from them before. For a small blogger like me, that’s a huge amount. So I have no complaint. Btw, those photos of the ladies are real. I think they are studio photos, photoshop. Everyone will look pretty after being photoshop. I know one of the employees personally (a very good friend of mine) and Gr-ads is not a scam. ”
And from ‘Marina’…
“I was approached by the same company a few months back and was quite happy with the set-up and to be frank, it may not be for everyone but it worked for me at the time!”
Yeah right…these people are trying to save their backsides…
http://hektik.org/forums/main-page/3877-tom-petty-will-my-party.html
This is Christina Taylor from the same place trying the same shit..
http://groups.google.com/group/kuali-rice/browse_thread/thread/20c342d3a0aca6db
Their site uses fake photographs – their employees are not the girls in the pictures and they also have very poor PR skills and very bad spelling.
If you get an email from Kristen, Christina or whoever from Gr-ads.com or Grassroots Advertising then here is my advice…ignore them – delete them!!
They are after your email address for spam purposes.
They operate from Albany, New York – thank god for my feedjit who told me this…I will have their ISP soon and will share it.
Copyright © 2007-2010 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.
I know these people…stay away from them. Great that you have written this post. Others are more gullible.
They are only after your email address for spam purposes. And they are LIARS!!
Thanks.
Yep, me too. Thanks Wendy for exposing these criminals. We all HATE spam and this is what they deal in…
‘Christina’, ‘Kristin’…’Marina’…’Shan’Ning’…your days are numbered guys!!!
Thanks again Wendy!!
Wow that was fast!
sounds like this ‘company’ are well known – as are ‘Christina’ and ‘Kristen’…looks like they will have to rethink their strategy.
They make you want to VOMIT eh??
Kristen Romero stopped by my blog and dropped a link to a photo of her. Funny the link to the photo of her is not the same photo on the website gr-ads.
Yeah, they are running scared now as I have traced their ISP address and reported them . Follow the first link above and see how pathetically they are trying to post false ‘happy customer’ posts on that particular blog.
Hope we get ‘em good…
I think we will.
Here’s a link to their site stats…
http://whois.domaintools.com/gr-ads.com
Gives you the run down on this bunch of criminals.
Use it and report them guys!!!
Have sent this info around to other sites.
I notice they are checking the site as I write…thank god for the feedjit – proof speaks!
Wendy you might want to do a reverse lookup on them.
hi, i’m michelle from Malaysia and I am not Gr-ads employee pretending to be satisfied customer. well, i just want to say that me and my other blogger friends got the ads from them and got paid. =) oh ya…pardon for my bad grammar…English is not my mother tongue.
Well ‘Michelle’ I have seen your blog and do not believe that anyone in their right mind would pay money to advertise on it.
‘Show me the ads’ is all I can say…
Nice try…
Wendy, they are using other people’s urls to post their ‘we are happy blogger’ comments. This is what they do.
Gr-ads.com are wrong and I am glad you have started this thread. I have been reading that other bloggers are saying the same thing as you. So good on you.
ouch! it hurts…i know i’m no big time blogger like u. btw, i am michelle not ‘michelle’…
Hi Fleur; I think it is more than obvious that we have hit a company of crooks where it hurts and shown them up for it. Thanks to our collective efforts – and they will not stop here – many more bloggers are now aware of these people.
Scammers/spammers might get away with their games for a certain time but, at some stage, they WILL meet their match! I work on the premise…’If it sounds too good to be true then it is’. Follow that and they will go out of business eventually. I would rather risk losing a few dollars from being suspicious than co-operate with criminals who are out to fleece honest people.
And ‘michelle’…I do not consider myself in any way ‘big time’ – however I am wondering what sort of blogger publishes a photo of a decapitated squirrel on his/her website…I would not want to compete with that.
By the way – how did it taste…?
Somehow I feel that ‘michelle’ really suits you
I am still receiving emails from bloggers who have been conned by these people; the best thing I can do is tell them to write posts on their own blogs telling other bloggers what these people are out to do. And it is great to see that many bloggers are now doing this.
Have nothing to do with GR-Ads.com whatsoever!
Thanks to the online community we now know where these people are coming from in the USA also their ISP(s) and other links.
We also know they ‘pay’ bloggers to say they are not scammers.
We all know they are.
As well as GR-Ads.com, there are two other ‘companies’ listed under the ISP of 69.72.214.98 and they are:
Groundupadvertising.com
Brightflashlights.net
Remember, they are fraudsters.
I receive a similar offer, and it just looked odd that they wanted to advertise on a obscure single page. I’m not worried about not getting paid (no pay = no link), but you should be worried about the way searchengines like google rate YOUR site after you added paid links:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/
i got the same thing from melinda hathaway at http://www.bridgeofknowledge.org
offering me $5 to review the links then $45 to put them up for the whole year
still awaiting for her response, i said if it was religious i didn’t want anything to do with them!
Yep, that is one of their other sites – I listed them in another post. Don’t keep writing to them though as that gives them your email address and these people would be the types to sell them off to other scammers.
Hi Wendy!
I’ve been researching this scam for a week after being contacted by a “Darcy” from FirstDayAds.org about placing an ad on my site.
With the help of your blog & the others posting on this topic, I believe i’ve solved the puzzle of what is a 3-fold pagerank scam, found yet another ‘clone’ site and identified those at the top of the pyramid and who they REALLY work for.
The short version is: the ‘bottom level’ link finders recruit and pay you small amounts (using false identities & untraceable companies)
to unknowingly help scam clients of the ‘top level’ business by adding spammy paid-links
(padded with 2 other .gov and .edu links),
The SEO clients are assured they are getting transparent & ethical ‘organic’ linking services at a price of around $6000.00 … or MORE, When in fact the SEO Companies I have identified are using shadow companies, deceptive marketing practices, fraudulent identities and bloggers to purchase the links for the purpose of spamming Google’s PageRank system and lying to their SEO clients about how it’s done. All the ‘top level’ SEO companies are owned by Jim Boykin, who also owns the company the link payments come from and coaches sessions on paid-link baiting.
Here’s a link to the full Autopsy:
http://miqel.com/internet_business_fraud/paid_links.html
Well done Miqel!
Firstly thanks for your interest in what myself and other bloggers have been discussing regarding this matter and secondly ‘good work’ in getting the dirt on them.
How they represent themselves initially makes them appear quite ‘on the level’ until…
The character known as ‘Kristen’ offered to pay me for links but when I checked out where the links led to I discovered some really very poor sites which no-one in their right mind would want to link out to – even for the ridiculous sum of money I was being offered.
The link-text offered was appalling and no way could any legitimate writer make a decent or credible post out of them. Really, really shoddy.
But it is very interesting what you have found. They know that people are now onto them too – knowing their IP I notice that they visit this site on a regular basis and always the posts relating to ‘them’.
I read your article on your site and would like to write a post regarding what you have found – hope you do not mind if I link to it.
Thanks for getting in touch and great work!!
Hi Wendy,
Thanks to you too! I would never have found as much about them without the research I found here & on Rose & 1Earth’s blogs!
Seems like their scheme is already having some problems … bridgeofknowledge.org is down, with a note in the address bar that says “Suspended”
I wonder if they got reported for spamming?
I’d love to read your new post about this topic when you finish, no problem if you link to my page and feel free to use any of the screen-captures I made of their sites and such.
I’m pretty sure i’ve nailed them … does it make sense to you? All the clues point to these SEO companies as being at the center of the operation.
Have a great weekend!
~ Miqel