Is online advertising a zero-sum game?
I was struck recently by a wonderfully succinct article from Seth Godin. For those of you unfamiliar with Seth, his daily email is always thought
It seems the team behind the scam at World Business List are at it again, this time trawling through the email addresses of lesser known businesses looking for people to hook with their con.
We run several websites and amongst them is one for a small campaign group, which we support free of charge. As part of that, we get to see all the emails and lo and behold, this turned up the other day;
If you’ve received something similar you might be tempted to fill in the form they supply, as it makes it ‘easy’ for you to complete your details and send it back to them.
Please don’t do this. You are signing up to a listing on an obscure website, for three years, for over £2,500. And if you fail to pay they will hound you mercilessly.
We’ve written before about these people back in 2018 and 2019 and as before our advice remains clear;
The problem with this particular scam is that they rely on busy people thinking that they are signing up for a ‘free’ service when it is nothing of the sort. The inclusion of the words “Updating is free of charge” in bold type are there to make you believe it is free. After all, the word free appears as a subliminal cue so you don’t look to hard at the tiny block print at the bottom of the contract, and it is a contract, which states you are locked in for 3 years at 995EUR each year.
We are reproducing the email below in full so you know that if you see this it is a scam. If you receive one of these, please delete it immediately.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In order to have your business(es) inserted in
the registry of General Companies for the
2021\2022 edition: please print and complete
the attached form (wbl2021info.jpg) and send it
to the following address:
World Business-List
Postbus 34
3700 AA Zeist
Nederland
Fax: 0031 30 310 0126
or send it to the email address mentioned on the form.
Updating is free of charge!
This form can also be used for your other
domain(s) and/or business(es).
A PDF version of the form is also available.
DEADLINE: April 16 2021!
If you have been unfortunate enough to fill this in and send it back already, we would urge you to read our guidance at the bottom of this article we wrote in 2018, which despite the passage of time, remains the same today as it did then.
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