Good morning Stephen, Kathleen and anyone else reading what is being said about scams, "scam" reporting sites etc.
As many if not all of you are very aware, I am not in any of these "programs" so I have nothing to gain nor to lose by stating my thoughts on this subject.
The reality as I see it is that what you are doing is working and like any job offline there is a category for that job. You earn commissions when you tell people about your particular "store", "product" or "service" and the bonus is that when you use these products/services yourself, then your credibility goes up a thousand fold.
Whew..that was a mouthful.
For all the great people you will meet on the web, you are also going to meet people who are negative, angry, hurtful and disgruntled for whatever reason and who are going to go out of their way to do what they can to ruin your day, to ruin your credibility and to ruin your life.
This happened to Adland and while I do not know the ins and outs to how it all started ( I don't want to know btw), Adland was made into a monster full of this that and the other. In the process people...good people got caught up in the nastiness and they were also attacked. NOT GOOD!
Forum marketing or Forum social marketing is something that has been used by many people for lots of reasons, but to many who do not grasp the concept,they will think that "blasting ads" is the way to be seen and it can create a bad impression. It truly is up to the experienced people on Adland to start teaching people/helping people learn how to be social, how to converse about many topics and to learn the power of forums/social networking that will turn Adland into a great (er) community and the added bonus is that to the individual members will be seen with greater credibility.
Back to the topic and sorry for digressing.....
I read a comment on WOT that I feel people should read and should take into consideration. When I went to GDI ..yep a poor rating on all levels..yikes! As it is my nature (the blogger in me...lol) I read through the comments and this one caught my eye. It is so well written and it makes very good points that I am putting it here........
WOT ratings are no longer accurate and can not be trusted. I hate to admit it, but WOT has been corrupted by uneducated, misinformed, and sometimes intentional sabotage reviews. This is the second site I got involved in that has a poor WOT rating because someone thought they knew what they were talking about. I am a member of GDI and although their marketing techniques on some of their promotional sites are kinda in your face, the company is legit, solid, honest, and provides a good opportunity for individuals to make extra money.
Dear WOT Admin, Please find a way to make your ratings more accurate and more useful. When I first started using your plugin I thought it was great. The more active I become on the internet I see many sites getting poor ratings just because someone felt like giving them a poor rating. I know this does not stop me from visiting this site, but throws a big warning sign in my face and I have to do more research before I can trust the site when all along the site was perfectly trustworthy and a handful of WOT users tarnished that sites name using your system."
On a personal level...I am truly sorry that so many people have been hurt and I hope that things will get better for you in all ways!
P.S. have you considered going to the owners of these places and demanding that all references to you be removed? I will say it is one thing to talk about a business, but when it is made personal, then that might be considered defamation? #justsaying
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