Sad so many using such amateurs

[universal4]

Based upon the recent increase in the amount of BS spam emails from so called seo experts or digital PR service experts or whatever they want to call themselves (seo wannabe's) totally scamming those they sell their services to and those they contact to deliver the services they claim to sell.

I am sad to see so many site owners fall for this. In a few recent conversations I have had with a few affiliates, there are things to watch for and ways to reduce getting scammed, such as not paying until you know for sure you will receive what you are paying for, or not posting the links before a verified payment, or asking for references from previous clients (doesn't hurt to ask for their GPWA username - and if they don't have one - my question is ALWAYS why not?)

These folks are pretty much just constantly spamming site owners and developers wanting to buy links, guest posts, etc etc etc.

They also in turn approach those known to sell links, guest posts etc wanting to act as agents for them.

They often do this under a series of different names, company names, and series of email addresses. Many times these groups will hide behind a series of different company names many times not real just made up names since payments will almost always just go to individuals, or will be invoiced by individuals - not the companies they claimed to be.

If you really want to buy links, get guest posts or similar services, visit the Link Exchange section of the GPWA and deal direct with site owners.
https://www.gpwa.org/forum/link-exch...-services.html

If you want to sell links, guest posts etc, visit the Link Exchange section of the GPWA. It is your choice whether to follow up with those who have posted wanting to buy or sell, or to make your own thread with a post to buy or sell. (just don't hijack other folks threads)

The entire section is full of sellers and buyers, and no need to deal with the constant flood of spam we all see.

Over the years I have had times when I have sold a few links (although it is not something I have done for many years) and I have also purchased a few here and there, but I have always felt I got what I paid for or delivered what I was paid for since I knew the person I was dealing with.

Overall I mostly just ignore the spam emails selling or buying links, but with the steady flow, it is pretty clear so many fall for their ads.

The largest problems that can happen from all these emails, is that often some of these folks claim they represent a site or sites and are just lying about the sites they represent.

Anyone that has real information about these scams, or who is behind some of them, contact me privately and let me know what evidence you have. There is no need to just flood this thread with a bunch of email addresses or names of these spamming link sellers since all any of us have to do is check your email accounts every so often since almost all of us get the emails.

Rick
Universal4

[wonderpunter]

GPWA opened up the doors when they started defending spammers instead of banning them, it's now increased with many seeing this as a safe haven to promote their biz or build shoddy backlinks in their sigs

[SportsNewsIRE]

we get about 35-40 emails a day asking to either build a website, do seo or build an app. It must be just huge business for the scammers.

[allfreechips]

First rule of thumb i have from link sellers / buyers ext is that if they cant even have their own domain how serious can they be? so many experts@gmail lol

[universal4]

wonderpunter,
First, the GPWA does NOT defend spammers, and really the thread topic is more about the email link spammers and scammers, however, if anyone is receiving direct blind contact here at the forum about link buying or selling, and you have not solicited such, requesting quotes as an example in the link exchange threads, then please use the report post or report pm function and we will look into it.

If anyone is spammed in their emails and you feel it is being done by members from here, you may contact Anthony or myself privately with evidence of such and we will look into it.

We have found that some of those approaching people in emails, may falsely represent themselves as being authorized to work ith some of the sites they claim to, so it is not always easy to determine who is behind some of these scams, but if anyone has leads and would like to let me know maybe we can expose a few or at least reduce the effects of some of them.

If it saves even one person from losing funds I think it is worth it.

Rick
Universal4

[PROFRBcom]

First rule of thumb i have from link sellers / buyers ext is that if they cant even have their own domain how serious can they be? so many experts@gmail lol

"We do not do business with <insert Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail/Random Freemail>. If you are serious, email us again from the domain of the company you represent. We are now blocking this email address."

^^ Standard reply, if a reply is sent at all.

[universal4]

Profrb, have you found that to be fairly effective at weeding out a lot of the less than desirable sellers/agents?

I can sorta understand wanting to use gmail et al for sorting or filtering through the mails etc, but if a person really wanted that, they could use an email at a domain they owned and forward to their choice of email providers.

Rick
Universal4

[PROFRBcom]

Profrb, have you found that to be fairly effective at weeding out a lot of the less than desirable sellers/agents?

I can sorta understand wanting to use gmail et al for sorting or filtering through the mails etc, but if a person really wanted that, they could use an email at a domain they owned and forward to their choice of email providers.

Rick
Universal4

Yes. Almost all of those people are middlemen who do not really work for the companies they claim, or at least not directly. They are likely just contract employees/freelancers and once they are blocked, that is the last we hear from them.

So while I acknowledge that there are easy workarounds for this most of these people are not sophisticated enough to pull that off. Maybe one in 50 actually comes back from a non-free email.

[Former Member 14]

"We do not do business with <insert Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail/Random Freemail>

I've been filtering 'free email accounts' out for years. It puts the kibosh on about 95% of the crap. The rest which arrive in my inbox, have had secondary filters applied. This weeds out the usual suspects (India). As a result, I get very little SEO/Link Building and or Web Development spam these days.

If by chance one of these undesirables manages to run my gauntlet successfully, I simply re-tweak the filtering system, and block the domain.

Edit:
Probably the most trickiest is casino spam etc. Aside from whitelisted contacts. Inevitably, some legit emails, albeit a very small % end up in the spam folder. One thing I notice about a lot of casino spam, they'll substitute an alphabetical-letter for a number or special character.

By far the most popular is casin0 (the #0), or they'll add an additional "a" to caasino. stupid stuff like that. Reiterating, adding these dumb-tricks to your filtering, including other spammy phrases such as: "It's your lucky day" or "You've been selected"... Really does stop the crap at the front gate

Footnote:
Before implementing this filtering system, and with 15 email addys (at any give time), I was wasting close to 3 hours a day, wading thru crap.

[gil.langelaan]

"We do not do business with <insert Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail/Random Freemail>. If you are serious, email us again from the domain of the company you represent. We are now blocking this email address."

^^ Standard reply, if a reply is sent at all.

That's too much time for scammers. Filtering is way better even though some legitimate people get sent to spam.

[Strider1973]

I never reply to such @gmail etc emails, and almost never to "real" emails from casino affiliate program sites.

When I do answer, I ask a few questions.

What amazes me most is that I often don't even get a reply to my questions. I mean, there are so few webmasters replying by email, so if one replies, they should answer that email. But no, silence. So why sending out the emails then?

[PROFRBcom]

That's too much time for scammers. Filtering is way better even though some legitimate people get sent to spam.

I should have said that not every one of these fools gets a response, only those that look semi-legit get a follow-up before being blocked

I never reply to such @gmail etc emails, and almost never to "real" emails from casino affiliate program sites.

When I do answer, I ask a few questions.

What amazes me most is that I often don't even get a reply to my questions. I mean, there are so few webmasters replying by email, so if one replies, they should answer that email. But no, silence. So why sending out the emails then?

Like most of the lazy sacks of poo that pretend to be people these days, they just send out the emails in order to APPEAR to be working to their bosses. They do not really wish to do anything other than SnapChat pics of their lunch to each other.

[Former Member 14]

Like most of the lazy sacks of poo that pretend to be people these days

Honestly, if breathing wasn't automatically controlled by one's body, these "lazy" sods would surely keel over.

[fullbenefit]

I think it is just common sense, it is like telling people not to reply to the Nigerian Prince's emails.

My tips:

- Don't use anyone's SEO services, just spend money for your content, website design.
- Exchange backlinks, make contacts.
- Keep doing it and don't stop.