When it comes to energy scams nothing is more true than the timeless statement "the love of money is the root of all evil". Welcome to this third post in our 5 part expose' of consumer energy scams.
In week one we introduced out subject of energy scams. Last week we explained the four categories of technology which underpin most energy scams. This week we are going to identify three of the Internet groups who are deliberately in most cases, and inadvertently in a few, feeding on green energy hype.
There are approximately thirty million searches made on the term "energy" each month. Of these, at least 300,000 are specifically related to energy scams. A search on the keywords "energy scams" returns almost 3 million pages of content - yikes!
Energy Scams has become a significant Internet Publishing and Internet advertising business. I am not suggesting it is all bad! If so I would need to include this article in our list of scam earners. Open4Energy, like many niche publishers, includes adverting with it's content as a source of income. You can imagine how unhappy we were to be informed, in fact accused of being scam accomplices, by a reader who noticed that we were serving adverts for the very scam products we were exposing - Ouch!
The effort to keep scam adverts off Open4Energy is endless. I am appreciative that Google provides a way for publishers to block advertisers from a site. But it would be much better if they were not there at all! We did ask Google if they could help with the problem! Yes, yes we understand freedom of speech, and why they do not want to touch the issue of advertiser quality. I would probably be a lot less cynical if a human person had taken the time to respond to our question! Might I ask that they consider taking the millions of dollars they earn from serving scam adverts and setting up a fund to help consumers? I worry that despite their honorable intention to do no evil, that a real 84% market share (based on Open4Energy search traffic sources) leaves them with more responsibility than they can handle?
Product agents/reselling is next in our trio of green opportunists. The high unemployment rate of capable people has opened a door to this booming industry. For the up front purchase of a few units (great for the scam manufacturer), a short training course, instruction on internet advertising (of course) you can go from unemployed to self employed. Saving consumers 40% of their electricity bills. The first time I was called by a reseller questioning the information we publish I patiently explained the principles of electricity involved and why their solution was a scam. Being out of work is no fun, and to hear that you have bought into a franchise scam even less. If I was troubled about human behavior earlier, how much more so today. On the good side, there is one person I know who took our opinion and despite their need for an income decided this was not for him. There are others who went ahead anyway, and selfishly continue to promote these products.
The final group in this review is by far the most surprising to me. I understand the Internet and why scams are one of its unsavory side effects. I understand wishful thinking and the financial pressure of being unemployed. But I really have no patience with green publishers who serve scam adverts and participate in affiliate marketing programs (profit sharing) of scam products. Earlier I mentioned the accusation of being an accomplice from the reader who noticed a scam advert on open4energy. It was a justifiable complaint! I am pleased to say that this reader is now a loyal follower of open4energy, who I sincerely thanked for pointing out our issue.
Despite emails to publishers, offering the list of scam domains to help publishers, the general attitude of green publishers to the ads they serve is astounding to me. No wonder our readers ignore our adverts! One top web site on electricity goes even further and includes this on their site "Google picks the ads, not me. They change all the time, too. Though frankly, I don't care what ads Google picks"
If you want to find more on this - Google the following including the quotes "I don't care what ads Google picks" - you will find it. May I respectfully suggest that a publishesr who does not care about the advertising they serve is missing the point about reders care! We do try to promote publishers with SCAM free content!
It is one thing to be an energy enthusiast trying to communicate a green message and missing a nastay ad being served. By the way, it is not that easy to catch them! To ignorantly serve scam adverts after being alerted to the issue is nasty. I have nothing to say about publishers who deliberately engage in profit sharing off scam products, feeding on the very people they are supposed to be serving!
Well, having taken a good 'pop' at our ourselves and the Internet feed, get ready for our post on who to blame:
Follow this link to read our fourth post titled: Blame for Consumer Energy Scams.
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