Not As Bad as it Looks – Your Job Application
At times, it feels as though you can divide up the performance marketing world into a few groups. Those who are deliberately shady and those who are not. Those who receive deliberately shady traffic accidentally, and those who do not. Even the best and biggest businesses will receive some accidental, deliberately shady traffic. For those who do not want to receive any shady traffic, their challenge is the number of hops between their page and what the user saw. It’s not just technical hops but relationship hops, e.g., advertiser gives offer to network who gives it to “emailer,” who gives it to another network who has some less than reputable publishers.
When shady traffic is discovered and not wanted, there is always that uncomfortable decision. Keep taking the money or shut it off. Whether they, be it a network or direct advertiser, choose to continue receiving that traffic often depends not just on their risk profile, but the general risk zeitgeist of the industry. During the heyday of acai, everyone wanted in on the action – from advertisers to networks. Social pluralism said do it, and much like speeding with a bunch of other cars, it felt as though nothing could happen. People might have thought about the FTC, but they certainly didn’t think about the cash crunch of today that resulted in tens of millions of dollars of uncollected receivables by the pill makers.
This scam is not quite breaking news having been discovered at least a few months ago, but it’s longevity makes it interesting. Unlike acai, this one is so blatantly bad, that it should have been completely squashed. Like acai, though, ultimate monetization relies on a continuity product. Unlike acai, this one has some value, but, similar to acai, the messaging for it can be manipulating in such a way as to create a high friction customer but low friction conversion. The scam can be search or as we see below, email based. Here is what the email says:
—————————————————————————————————
Dear applicant
Thank you for submitting your details for available work options.
We look forward to reviewing your application, but can not do so until you complete our
internal application.
The pay range for available options range from $35.77 pr hr to $57.62 pr hr.
Prior being considered, we will first have you to formally apply.
Please go here to begin the process:
Furthermore, the following perks are potentially open:
– Paid Time Off
– Health Benefits Package
– Higher than average salary
– Dear Lisa, How are you? I remember that the last time we met with girls in the café you complained about the lack of passion in your relationship with Joe. I think all couples get through such a crisis sooner or later. But I can share with you a sure-fire remedy. So keep hope and rebuild your flawed relationship as I‚ve done it! Hugs, Jane Reimbursement
– Full 401(k)program
Please take the time to follow the directions and complete the entire
application process.
Best regards,
The Rockzone Management Group
—————————————————————————————————
It might say Rockzone or Rockforce or Rockwoods or any number of innocuous names. Go today to the link above and you see this:
“Website is down for upgradation. It will be up soon.
Best
RockWoods Management Team”
I’m not sure what upgradation is. Then again, I’m not sure why they didn’t notice the fourth bullet point before hitting send. When the link was working, clicking on it took you here:
After completing some lead data, you end up on this little piece of nefariousness
Then the fun began. Click on the link, and you go here:
http://www.creditreport.com/dni/default.aspx?PageTypeID=HomePage3&sc=674655&afid=&bcd=2344
But not before your browser does this:
http://www.rockwoodsmanagement.com/apply/credit.php
http://securetracksys.com/creditxr.php
http://securetracksys.com/favicon.ico
http://xrevtrk.com/?a=48&c=644&s1=fnl
http://securetracksys.com/favicon.ico
http://clickztrax.com/?a=2344&c=25409&s1=48_fnl
https://clickztrax.com/default.aspx?a=2344&c=25409&s1=48_fnl
http://ocsp.starfieldtech.com/
http://ecdtrk.com/?a=20&oc=405&c=2&m=13&s1=2344
https://ecdtrk.com/default.aspx?a=20&oc=405&c=2&m=13&s1=2344
http://ocsp.starfieldtech.com/
This scam isn’t ultimately scalable, which is the good news. The bad news is that it deals with an already highly monitored businesses – credit. The ultimate good news is that there are a number of networks who actively want to see this behavior stopped. When enough people can make enough money not engaging in fraud, it creates an incentive to see the fraud cleaned up. We are seeing that here, and the proof arguably comes from this site having been taken offline less than 48 hours after this email was sent. While it’s not nice to see the fraud, it’s great to see the industry self-policing so effectively and expeditiously.
