SEO fraud scam alert

I was cold call solicited by a salesperson from toprankconsulting.com.
they claim to be a search engine optimization (SEO) company. they
obtained my name from my advertisting on google adwords. the first
salesperson realizes that i know more than she does about web placement

and that i was in fact working on signing a contract with another SEO
company. this salesperson turned me over to a very knowledgable person
that she called herself a "closer". this closer claimed that they have

been in business for 5 years and have over 9,000 customers. the closer
also quoted me prices that were substantially less expensive than other

real quotes i had received. these quotes included big discounts if i
paid in full upfront. red flags went off all over. how does a
non-automated company manage over 9,000 websites? it simply cannot. i
asked for references of which i was going to check out very
thouroughly. the promised references never arrived. checking the domain

registration toprankconsulting.com was started in july 2005. their
website advised they are located in oregon and the closer confirmed
that fact. a quick check of oregon corporate records do not reflect any

such company. all facs considered it appears to be a fraud scam that
has just started. i searched google groups to see if there were any
other posts. none until now. i started this in hopes of helping others

get burned.

SFLL wrote:

I was cold call solicited by a salesperson from toprankconsulting.com.

to prank consulting - there's your clue.

they claim to be a search engine optimization (SEO) company. they
obtained my name from my advertisting on google adwords. the first
salesperson realizes that i know more than she does about web placement

and that i was in fact working on signing a contract with another SEO
company. this salesperson turned me over to a very knowledgable person
that she called herself a "closer".

Loser with a C.

been in business for 5 years and have over 9,000 customers. the closer
also quoted me prices that were substantially less expensive than other

real quotes i had received. these quotes included big discounts if i
paid in full upfront. red flags went off all over. how does a
non-automated company manage over 9,000 websites? it simply cannot. i
asked for references of which i was going to check out very
thouroughly. the promised references never arrived. checking the domain

registration toprankconsulting.com was started in july 2005. their
website advised they are located in oregon and the closer confirmed
that fact. a quick check of oregon corporate records do not reflect any

such company. all facs considered it appears to be a fraud scam that
has just started. i searched google groups to see if there were any
other posts. none until now. i started this in hopes of helping others

I get people ringing me up all the time promising guaranteed top 5
positions on 3000 search engines etc etc. Occasionally I listen to
their ridiculous spiel and then tell them why they are wrong, but most
of the time I just hang up.



--
Brian Wakem
Email: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/b.wakem/myemail.png

__/ [Brian Wakem] on Friday 06 January 2006 14:02 \__

SFLL wrote:
I was cold call solicited by a salesperson from toprankconsulting.com.


to prank consulting - there's your clue.

*LOL*

they claim to be a search engine optimization (SEO) company. they
obtained my name from my advertisting on google adwords. the first
salesperson realizes that i know more than she does about web placement

and that i was in fact working on signing a contract with another SEO
company. this salesperson turned me over to a very knowledgable person
that she called herself a "closer".


Loser with a C.

*LOL*

been in business for 5 years and have over 9,000 customers. the closer
also quoted me prices that were substantially less expensive than other

real quotes i had received. these quotes included big discounts if i
paid in full upfront. red flags went off all over. how does a
non-automated company manage over 9,000 websites? it simply cannot. i
asked for references of which i was going to check out very
thouroughly. the promised references never arrived. checking the domain

9 clients, 1,000 mirrors per each for SEO purposes?

registration toprankconsulting.com was started in july 2005. their
website advised they are located in oregon and the closer confirmed
that fact. a quick check of oregon corporate records do not reflect any

Alexa rank: 112kth; Netscarf traffic rank: 1.8 millionth, which means that
they boost their Alexa rank artificially. Front page with PR0, which in no
surprise since their site was first observed by Netscraft in September 2005.
They are run by a large host which includes dodgy domains and are based in
the States.

such company. all facs considered it appears to be a fraud scam that
has just started. i searched google groups to see if there were any
other posts. none until now. i started this in hopes of helping others

The subject line can often be the loudest alarm.

I get people ringing me up all the time promising guaranteed top 5
positions on 3000 search engines etc etc. Occasionally I listen to
their ridiculous spiel and then tell them why they are wrong, but most
of the time I just hang up.

No SEO people ever call me... *frown*

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Data lacking semantics is currency in an island
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
2:05pm up 26 days 21:16, 12 users, load average: 0.38, 0.31, 0.22
http://iuron.com - next generation of search paradigms

Email spam, yesterday:

Great offer for Isham-Research in Observer Magazine

Didn't even bother taking the damned hyphen out of the domain name.

"If you are looking to attract an influx of new, affluent customers to your site then an ad in one of the quality Sunday broadsheets is the way to go. Advertising in print provides website owners with the opportunity to get in touch with potential customers who may never have thought of searching for their service online.

Intersting approach. Don't bother with SEO - it's too cheap?

webwindows.co.uk are the perpetrators. I sent them a note suggesting
they try a Google search.

Bunch of dickheads.

I keep getting spam emails from Webwindows. I've emailed them to take
my domains off their database, telephoned them and asked them to stop

spamming my domains but I still get them. I've now filed a formal
complaint against them to the relevant UK government departments and
as there's been a recent legal case awarding damages to the spammed
recipient, I'm hoping it might make them wake up a bit.

Click on their site and check out the source. The keywords and
description refer to CCTV and the like. If you search on their domain
name, Google's results show completely misleading snippets. Looks like
spamming to me - I wonder if the search engines would be interested.

I can't really speak for the other SEO companies out there (and have
heard the horror stories about some), but I've been using
toprankconsulting for the past six months and have seen a modest
increase in traffic and sales. If the results continue to increase, I
may just resign with them.