| RavenBlog |
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| Comments on Thursday 24 April 2003: |
| Hoorah, an evil snail-mail scam, perpetrated by one icls.net. A letter from them that very closely resembles a bill or invoice. Only very small print says "This Internet Listing offer is provided to millions of Websites throughout the United States to enhance their Website exposure. This is not a bill, invoice or statement of account due. You are under no obligation to make a payment unless you accept this offer". This "offer" being described only in the form of something that looks like an invoice, and doesn't resemble an offer at all. I don't doubt that domain managers for large companies glance at this, see it as an invoice, and sign off on it. $37.50 gets you "Domain Name submission to 14 major search engines; Eight Keyword/Phrase listings; Quarterly search engine position and ranking reports". ie. $37.50 gets you something less than you can get from any of several free websites. And it seems you don't even get to specify your eight keywords/phrases (no doubt because offering a box for that would reduce the "resembles an invoice" effect). What absolutely fucking disgusting scammers.
[21:50] |
| Eps |
| Sad. Eps - Any one up for DDoSing them as a "protest" at their tactics, in fact at all _dirty scam_ companies. |
| Tom |
| Send them back an invoice: Review of your generous offer $37.00 Postage and Handling $0.50 Total $37.50 Thank you for your business. I believe that technically you don't even have to include small print saying it's not an invoice. You can send a letter to anybody asking them for money, you just have no legal means of forcing them to pay. |
| Vinnie |
| TERRIBLE Bastards! I received the same and was really Surprised. I think we should do something to stop these Assholes! This is what their response to my billing inquiry was: “Just to clarify Vinod,what you have received is a new subscription offer not an invoice or bill. You are under no obligation to make payment, unless you accept this offer. If you are interested in our search engine submission and ranking report services, please return the stub along with your payment. If you are not interested please email back and your customer numbers will be terminated and removed from our database. Thank you Michelle www.icls.net" |
| Gary M |
| Just got one of those yesterday. I notice that the "order form" doesn't even say that they'll do anything, and in particular doesn't mention the domain name which they'll supposedly submit to search engines (I have four different domains registered in my name). ICLS is clearly preying on companies that will pay anything that vaguely looks like an invoice. |
| George |
| Just got two of the "bills" though for only $35 each. By directly linking to them you are helping their Google™ position. Would suggest a more inderect link like: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000A3NAF/ref=alx_dp_lk_1/104-2701192-4295162?v=glance&vi=linksin&url=http://icls.net/ |
| Dick M |
| I didn't read invoice closely enough and since this was my first year to reregister for domain, I assumed the invoice from ICLS.net was legitimate. I think all ISP website hosts should alert their individual domains of this possible scam. They took my money, but never registered domain. I complained to Postal Inspector and IFCC. Maybe if everyone did the same we could get them thrown the hell off the internet. Probably show up with a new name and same scam, but let's pursue the crooks. |
| George |
| Just got another now in Nov 2004. |
| Rob |
| This scam is still going on, and yes Dick M was right, it is under a new domain name and now being faxed, people and companies be aware! |
| paul wells |
| December 14th 2005 and it looks like they're still going - though when I tried their site it was unavailable. |
| Michael M. |
| As of 9/27/2007 I have received many letters in the mail from them about services |
| Chris Crowder |
| 10/01/2007 Got one. I'm a contractor and have gotten a couple with various clients. Most of them use GoDaddy, but I bet any domain without the registrar privacy turned on is susceptible. I hate scams. |
| Stephanie |
| Just got one today, but for $9.50. The nice folks at my nonprofit were going to pay it. Sheesh. |
| stephanie |
| sorry, got one today 12/17/07 |
| Bill |
| I just got one too, but mine says quite clearly in bold all caps next to where you check off if you want to pay them for pretty much nothing for 1, 2, or 5 years. Clearly they hope to reach employees at organizations who don't give a rat's ass if they pay fake invoices or not. They are just pushing time. For all but the most indifferent my version would be pretty hard to mistake for an invoice, especially since bogus 'yellow pages' offers just like it have been sent for years, some much more ambiguous. It would be interesting to know how many they get back, especially for 5 year deals. I wonder if you could be successful as a consultant to medium sized companies if you offered an analysis of their bill payment by just sorting their database for this and a few other similar 'offers'. You could rate your client's need for training and audit based on just that quick search. You might generate a few similar invoices from you, each more obviously fake than the last, and then present a fancy chart graphing their foolishness (whoops! make that graphing their opportunity to increase return on investment through your services) |
| MY REPAIRMAN |
| TKS FOR YOU INFO. I WAS GOINT TO SENT THEM MY $140.00 FOR 5 YEARS . AND I TRY TO LOOK AT THE WEB SIDE THEY PROVIDE AND IS NOT COMING ON. SAYS HOST EROR |
| Laura |
| i got this letter too, what a hoax. I have built several websites and a few years ago would have been naive enough to pay them. I like the idea of sending them an invoice for my review time and would encourage the rest of you to do so as well. Send it back in their envelope so they think its a check! |
| Bob |
| I got one yesterday June 17, 2008. It's asking for $40.00. I googled it and found this discussion. I prefer to check things out before I make such a purchase. thanks for the valuable input, folks. |
| pineapple |
| ICLS.net's mailing address is a Mail Box Etc. box. If you google local the address and use the street level option you can even see the store. Their "corporate" address does not seem to be valid and they do not appear to be listed the their area phone book !!! |
| fay |
| Thanks for the information, I was approached in person by some guy asking if I had a web site, when I said yes , he said he worked for a company that could examine my website and then send me a letter with a cost that would allow my website better exposure, or something to those words, then last week I got a letter from ICLS, as was just about to pay , but I googled them first and found you, I not sure if this guy was real or not, this there such companies that can help with such things.? |
| Tom |
| What BASTARDS! |
| Steve |
| We got one today for 40 dollars. The owner brought it to me and as the IT manager I knew something didn't sit right as this is not from our SEO firm. Found this site on a quick Google search, glad I did. Scammers! |