SEO scams, and two outfits to avoid

14.03.2024/21.25

Recent events have reiterated how a lot of the SEO profession—I’d say almost all of it, except for a tiny sliver of people who really know what they are doing—is a crock. The good news is you can confirm which ones are the crooks by seeing who had posted lies about me. Usually they write […]

The tech’s been captured by the bad actors and we haven’t caught up

17.04.2023/02.10

Dr Sean Munger’s blog post today about an east Asian model’s face being used by scammers is excellent, and his final paragraph is spot on. I won’t spoil it, as it’s worth your time getting there, but I will provide his Mastodon post on it. I responded to Sean with: ‘I must have […]

What saying yes to SEO “guest posts” looks like

05.01.2023/05.53

Here are a few screenshots from a magazine I loved, but sadly, it seems they’ve responded to those SEO emails, and grabbed the US$50 per post. I don’t blame them, since Google has destroyed the online advertising ecosystem, and they have to make ends meet somehow. I was in contact with them some years […]

Instagram scammers are next-level lazy (and greedy)

22.12.2021/07.52

This was somewhat disappointing. This chap contacts me, seemingly wanting permission to repost our Instagram images. His personal info has been removed. Hello there, We have reviewed your page and we truly loved your work! We’d like to repost your pictures on our profile. Our account is [redacted] and we have over 200.000 […]

Despite being blatantly obvious, Facebook does nothing about thousands-strong bot nets

01.04.2021/02.51

We already know that Facebook does nothing if you want to use scripts to join groups, even if the scripts all give roughly the same answers. Apparently that’s not enough to trigger the systems at this company that’s worth almost a billion dollars (that’s a proper billion, or what the Americans call a trillion). Unless, […]

Are you a scam artist? Facebook loves you, and protects you

04.04.2020/09.55

The Royal New Zealand Ballet generously put its Hansel & Gretel performance from November 2019 online for free this weekend, choosing Facebook as its medium. That, naturally, attracts scam artists, putting in false links in order to charge credit cards. Many Kiwis were duped. The RNZB reported many, and so have I. All six of […]

Warning about Facebook “copyright” phishing scam—which Facebook itself covers for

13.12.2019/13.33

Yesterday, I received an email purporting to be from Facebook, with the body reading: Hi, We are obliged to inform you that your page has been flagged because of unusual and illegal activity, therefore your page might be permanently deleted. In order to avoid such actions from our side, you need to fill the forms […]

419ers adopt a new technology: the postal system

10.09.2011/13.44

Interesting to get this letter from the UK today, sent air mail from the Croydon Mail Centre, Surrey, on September 5. The Nigerian 419 scammers have ﬁgured out that email is ineffective, so they are moving on to this brand-new technology: mail. As with the last time I blogged about clumsy 419 attempts—a […]