HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN BLOGGING

[defrog]

Whilst the bridal unit and I were traipsing about the US, one “new” thing we picked up on was all the TV commercials and billboard signs for Cash4Gold. You know: send us yr gold stuff and we’ll send you cash at market value, etc.

When KT saw this for the first time, she looked at me and said: “Who in their right mind would send something valuable by mail to someone who promises to send them back money?”

To which I replied: “Welcome to America, honey.”

But she had a point, and of course I did wonder. I assumed they couldn’t be COMPLETELY crooked, because you could only sucker so many people before word got around that you might as well take yr gold and dump it in the river as give it to Cash4Gold. On the other hand, I seriously doubted that they would pay customers market value for their gold.

Sure enough, someone with a blog checked it out. He sent in $180 worth of gold and got a check for $60. He called Customer Service and got it raised to $178.

It gets better. The blog post on Cockeyed.com got picked up by much-more-widely-read Consumerist.com. A week later, the article’s author, Rob Cockerham, gets this email:

I work on the Cash4Gold site. We are trying to clean up their first page of results in Google. Your article: http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/cheat.shtml is ranking very well for term “Cash4Gold”. The site looks like you may do well from Adsense.

Is there a financial arrangement we can come to that will offset your Adsense income and make it worth your while to take down or at least “de-optimize” it for that phrase? I would be happy to speak more about this on the phone…

Thanks,

Joe Laratro
President
Tandem Interactive - Trendy Online Marketing Solutions
Hollywood, FL 33020

In other words: yr article is ranking too high on Google where people can see it, so we’ll happily pay you money to either delete the article or the words “Cash4Gold” so it doesn’t show up so high in Google’s search ranking.

Rob didn’t respond, and two weeks later got a second email with a more specific offer of “a few thousand”. To his credit, he refused.

Note that the email came from a marketing company that has Cash4Gold as a "reputation management" client, not Cash4Gold itself, so it’s possible they don’t know what Joe Laratro is up to.  They may even denounce him now that BoingBoing has picked up the story. Laratro himself has responded to the story on his own blog – and while he glosses over the specifics of bribing someone to delete a story, he otherwise stands by the emails he sent. Apparently he thinks that using his real name and offering to give the bribe money to charity makes his tactics for “reputation management” acceptable.

Developing ...

Solid gold,

This is dF

Comments

As Seen On TV

[bedsitter23.livejournal.com]

I saw that on reddit over this weekend. There's too mcuh of the "Get rich quick without mentality" around, that these people will always prosper, whether they are Cash4Gold or Bernie Madoff.

"Oh, you want to pay me big bucks for an item that you haven't seen?" - that doesn't seem like a scam to me.

There seems to be websites for every late night commerical- Video Professor, enhancement ads, Finally fast spyware remover, Star Registry, etc..

Caveat Friggin' Emptor

[lorilori.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if I skimmed too much and may have missed this, but...I have a friend who believes this is an attempt to wrangle people from the one thing that does not lose much of its value - THE GOLD. He thinks this is conspiracy from the very rich to lure poorer people to give up this commodity.

The friend also thinks we are seeing the beginning of the end of society. We use to work together and I'd hear him say, "COME ONNNNN APOCOLYPSE!"

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't get into that angle too much. I have heard some people suggest that Cash4Gold mainly serves as some kind of glossy fencing operation for stolen gold jewelry disguised as a legit operation. I like yr friend's idea better, though. Because when the Apocalypse comes and the economy is gone, gold will be the only thing still worth something – and Cash4Gold will rule the world! MWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!