Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2007-09-09 15:22:56 - Graham Ellis
While I was away last week, Lisa received two invoices in the post with the Goole logo on them - for 79.99 each - and wondered what I had been ordering. Nothing - I believe they are a SCAM. Having used the esteemed Google search engine itself to look into these and draing a blank, we have taken it up with Google who are looking into it. Me thinks if it was genuine, they would have known / put us right in touch with the correct department.
Let me give you some key words / text so that you can see if you get a similar invoice.
Advertising subject to adherence to our credit terms. This Pro-forma invoice is a special offer and can be cancelled on request or non-payment without obligation or recourse. More sales or money back offer
I think that latter says - "This isn't an invoice you requested so it's up to you whether you pay or not. And if you don't pay, there's nothing we can do about it". Ah ... I don't think I'll pay. So glad that Lisa has the presence of mind not to be taken in by quite a cleverly worded scam.
An Update. It looks like we're not the only one to have received these invoices. Lisa writes:
Phil Brierley of York House Leisure received an invoice from ATP (Google Adwords) and googled for more information and came across your blog.
He [phoned] wanted to discuss your experience...I relayed the fact we've reported them to Google. He actually phoned ATP to query the invoice and was hung up on...the chappy being very evasive.
He's very much against this type of scamming and wondered if he could help, or if a combine effort would help, etc. give him a call to discuss if you are interested.
I've been in touch with Phil, and he has posted a follow up on the forum too. We've been in touch with Google and I'm updating this page / item as I hear more so that it becomes prominent. Would love more stories ....
An update - a year later - 12th September 2008.
This Spring, the Advertising Standards Agency upheld a complaint against the wwmdirectory mailing - see here and here. And the wwmdirectory website is no more ...
I had heard, last year, of another site called "tradeorlando" which was - I think - the previous scheme coming from the same team. It appears that in the last few months there's yet another appearance from the same team at Honeytrapagency - that's www . honeytrapagency . com , which I'm not making linkable. But you might want to look at other forums - here and here.
Tradeorlando ... gone ...
Wwmdirectory ... gone ...
Honeytrapagency ... current ... Top links are "Directory Pages", "Order / Cancel Advertising" and "Advertising Rates" ... which seem a very odd choice indeed for a detective agency!
