Thursday, May 31, 2012

Is Scambook A Scam?

Is Scambook a legit website?

At first glance, Scambook may seem a lot like the BBB. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Scambook is not fair to the businesses listed on their website because these businesses must pay $$$ to scambook in order to respond to complaints.

There's no way for merchants to respond to accusations without paying money.

Is Scambook a scam? Check out these sites and judge for yourself:

Is Scambook Scam?

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Scambook Merchant Extortion?

Attention Merchants: We really need to band together. Please leave me a comment so I can get in touch with you.




Scambook BBB Rating
Screenshot of Scambook's Rating with their local BBB.

Update 5/30/2012 - This blog is now getting noticed by the media. Thanks to Marla Jo Fisher over at the OC Register for mentioning this blog and updating her current story on Scambook.

Why does Scambook make merchants pay money to Scambook in order to resolve consumer complaints? Doesn't this seem like extortion?

What is SCAMBOOK EXTORTION?

Imagine having your company's name dragged through the mud, and then not being able to defend yourself without paying money to your accusers...

That's the premise behind "scambook.com".


Believe it or not, the ONLY WAY a merchant can dispute complaints made by consumers on Scambook is to pay $$$ to Scambook!

Here's a video I did outlining my experience with Scambook:





In my personal situation, the complaints are actually about another company with a similar name and scambook is refusing to do anything to stop it.


A quick google search for "scambook extortion" will show that there are many merchants in a similar situation.

I am not an attorney (unlike the owners of scambook), and I'm not sure if this is legally considered extortion, but that was certainly the first word that came into my mind! 

My Name is Mark Hall, and I'm the webmaster of a site called Herbal-Nutrition.Net.

One of our clients pointed out to us that if you google our DBA name "The Herbal Nutrition Network" you'll find a page of scambook complaints about our company. Except it's not us...

You see, there's a website that's using a facebook virus to sell a "HGH Ultra" weightloss product. The company is located either in Russia or China, and when someone orders the product they never deliver it.

The company does charge the customer's credit card, however, and sends them an email with a bogus "reply-to" address that matches an alternate domain name for our site. In layman's terms, this is a lot like using a bogus return address on an envelope. It's a guise aimed at confusing the customer and delaying the inevitable complaint and chargeback that will ensue.

Those complaints land in our inbox, or if they type in the domain in question they land on our website, thinking WE are the ones who scammed them.

Someone started a thread on scambook about our company and now we have to PAY scambook in order to have the posts removed.

As I understand it, you can pay $500 per month to scambook and they will prevent your complaints from coming visible. Nice, Huh?

Here's some info from another messed over business owner:

the company I work at suddenly got bombarded by complaints online from a site called scambook and magically they emailed us to signup if we want to resolve the issues and talk to the customers.

so for $500 a month you can try to talk to the "people" who complains on scambook and try to resolve their issue, but each time you want to resolve an issue, you have to pay $3 on top of $500 per month AND if you want to refund your customer, you have to put funds INSIDE scambook so that they can refund the customer for you. we dont have any complanits on complaint board and other sites but we have over 40 on scambook and they look all the same with a handful of subject lines that are exactly the same.
 http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/scambook-online-extortion-c596224.html

And Another:

Here is what scambook.com does to you. They let anyone make comments about you, or your company. It does not matter if they are true or false. Scambook.com does not care if it ruins your life, cost you your company or job. People have lost jobs, homes, cars, credit, and have divorced and others lost their lives because scambook continues to let people make false statements about you or your company in scambook.com. They will not take the comments out of their web site if you request it. They also will not take the comments out of their web site unless you pay them....here is the link to their rip off link called Business Resolve..........In other words, if you want the bad things people said about you or your company taken off scambook.com's web site you have to pay scambook. They give you the options of $99 a month to clear your name, or $299 a month to clear your name, or $499 a month to clear your name. They still your money to clear your good name.
http://scambook.pissedconsumer.com/scambook-com-are-a-bunch-of-thieves-extorting-your-money-20120403309615.html

Read more about possible scambook extortion at this site.