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Better Business Bureau of Eastern North Carolina warns consumers to beware of Internet work at home scams operating under the Raleigh-based company, Eco Venture, LLC. Eco Venture, LLC uses several different Web sites under various Google names including Google Profits Kit, as well as other sites named MyBloggingNews.com, and YourBlogProfits.com. BBB has received six complaints against this company within the last four weeks.
"Many consumers are looking for new ways to earn extra money for the holidays and the Google name leads consumers to believe they are getting a job with Google that will provide huge money-making opportunities to work from home," said Beverly Baskin, President & CEO of BBB serving Eastern North Carolina. "Unfortunately, consumers are taken in by another work at home opportunity that doesn't deliver on what is promised and victims find that instead of making a few extra dollars, they lose hundreds."
Nationally, BBB has received more than 1,500 complaints about many similar Web sites that are falsely operating under Google name to scam people who want to learn about making money from home.
While the schemes go by many different names and are found on many different Web sites, the complaints to BBB are all similar. Complainants for the various Google sites as well as the sites run by Eco Venture Group, LLC, state that they signed up online to receive a free trial of a CD or access to information that would show them how to make money from home using either Google or YourBlogProfits.com. Consumers had to provide a credit or debit card number to cover shipping costs ranging from a few cents to two dollars.
After providing their account number, consumers were billed before their trial ended, or never even received the CD. Even after they had cancelled their orders complainants continued to be billed. These consumers also found mystery charges from several other businesses including Grant Finder and Google Chest for services they didn't realize they were signing up for with their "free" trial.
Two Web sites, Google Treasure Chest and Google Money Tree, quickly racked up 523 and 782 BBB complaints respectively before being called out by the Federal Trade Commission and state Attorneys General for misleading consumers. The Web sites have been taken down, however, BBB has received complaints about many other work-at-home schemes using similar tactics, including Google Biz Kit, Google Cash, Google Money Profits, and Google Success Kit.
Google posts the work opportunities with their company on their website: http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/.
Before signing up for any work at home opportunity, BBB advises job hunters to:
Review the business's BBB Reliability Report® at bbb.org to find out if BBB has received any complaints on the business or provides other information to consider.Beware of any offer that guarantees a lot of money for little effort and no experience. Thoroughly read the Web site's terms and conditions, keeping in mind that a free trial could cost you in the end.Be wary of work at home offers that use logos from Google, Twitter or other prominent online businesses. Just because Google is in the name, it doesn't mean the business is affiliated with Google.Research the Web site with Whois.net or a similar site for determining domain name ownership. If the site is anonymous or individually registered, beware.For more advice on evaluating work-at-home companies and schemes, visit www.bbb.org.
About the BBB serving Eastern North Carolina: The Better Business Bureau serving Eastern North Carolina is a 501 (c)(6) not-for-profit corporation serving 33 counties in Eastern North Carolina. The organization is funded primarily by membership dues from more than 2,900 local businesses and professional firms. The BBB promotes integrity, consumer confidence and business ethics through business self-regulation in the local marketplace. Services provided by the BBB include, reports on companies and charitable organizations, general monitoring of advertising in the marketplace, dispute resolution services, and consumer/business education programs. All services are provided at no cost to the public, with the occasional exception of mediation and arbitration. Visit bbb.org.
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By Diana Cleaveland on 11/10 11:58 AM
For all those who have been taken in by this scam (as I was taken in three months ago), BEWARE: Once you cancel your debit cards AT THE BANK (which I did, one hour after ordering the 1.97 packet from Google Fortune," which was advertised on Time.com, and after I received an email cancel confirmation from the scammer, citing that my account would not be charged- a week later I was STILL charged 1.97, which led me to cancel my debit cards through the bank), the scammer can still somehow manage to charge your CANCELED DEBIT CARDS AT THE BANK, for months after YOU STOPPED ALL TRANSACTIONS ON THAT CANCELED CARD with your bank. This scam is twofold; the only reason the scammer gets away with it is that the banks (for some scary reason) continue to permit monthly charges that were set up prior to cancellation to be stolen from your completely, non-existent, destroyed and deleted old debit card. I have filed 6 or seven monthly affidavits since the original fiasco, and the NON-EXISTENT debit card still manages to be charged, every month, now 69.97, each and every month. After calling several supervisors at Citizen's Bank, I was told that there are FULL-TIME personnel dealing with this kind of fraudulent activity, which the banks promote, and which they assure you that, once you fill out the nineteenth affidavit, they will remove the fraudulent charges every month, but without doing anything to delete the old card from their system so it can't be charged; this means that the bank allows canceled cards to be charged (because the revolving charges were set up by the scammer immediately upon the original transaction, and even before the consumer knew it would be a monthly charge). If consumers can no longer be assured that a canceled debit card is truly a canceled debit card, through their own banks, then this country is not only in big trouble, it's already beyond salvaging. Even if you've already assumed that the bank has canceled your debit card off their system, or even if the bank sends you new ones after a large-scale fraud or breach has occurred, check your statements, EVERY DAY. Report ALL fraudulent charges right away, after the cancellation,(especially because the statement won't tell you if the charges to your account are coming from a canceled card or a new one), fill out the affidavits, and prepare to have no choice but to call your bank every day for weeks, and to become very angry and aggressive. For some reason, the banks permit the scammers to set things up so that the consumer can be charged for months fraudulently, long after they have canceled their compromised card, and all the bank will tell you is to fill out monthly affidavits, until such time that the bank decides to stop the activity from within their own system. In addition, be prepared to receive multiple calls from the bank; some of these will be from the scammer. Call the bank ONLY using the number that is in the phone book, and report all other calls coming from automated bank calls to the Do Not Call List. In addition, when you call, the bank representatives will not only know that this happens all the time, but they will try to tell you that the only way to stop the problem is to call the scammer to stop charging your canceled debit card, and to file your affidavit, so that you get your money back, which the bank is legally required to do, but only if you notice the fraudulent activity, and only if you fill out the affidavits, and if you submit all the voluminous proof, each and every time. The bank won't take responsibility for the canceled debit problem, unless you talk to multiple representatives supervisors repeatedly, and even after they assure you the card has been deleted off their system, the scammer will still keep on charging the canceled card. Even worse, one supervisor told me that many people try to cancel their checking accounts as a means of stopping the fraudulent activity the bank allowed. When this happens, the scammer still charges the deleted card, and you will get overdraft fees as well as the original charges! Until the banks decide that it is in their best financial interest to fix this problem at their end, these problems are unsolvable. This scam, and the bank's utter stupidity, have added up to an unrelenting nightmare for months. I'm hoping that people will not assume that once they cancel their cards, that the scammer can't still hurt them, with the bank's full encouragement and permission. I was told that, not only DOES this happen, that many full-time people work only to replenish accounts with moneys taken from accounts fraudulently, and that the bank doesn't do anything to stop it for months after the fact. Good luck!
By Sally on 11/06 05:43 AM
Thank God I saw this article on your site. I just recently signed up with this company called "Google Profits" but hadn't had the time to completely read the site they give, after supplying the 1.99 charge to your card for "information" and a "CD", because of work & school. Then I received just this last week a charge for $50 on my account. I hadn't even completed the steps yet to set up an account with these people but yet they still charged me. I'm furious. The first thing I'm doing in the morning is calling my bank to dispute the charges.
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