Videos
So basically about 2-3 months ago I started seeing ads for people claiming to have "changed their lives" by becoming "online entreprenuers" and starting their own "digital business." These posts are remarkably similar to all the MLM posts that are posted here. I've screencapped a few of them and stuck them into an album so you can see what I'm talking about.
While this is obviously a scam, I'm not sure if it's a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme or something else. What's even more annoying is the comments section is ALWAYS tons of people commenting the same things like:
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This is the best digital business! I'm so glad I found this!
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It even runs while you sleep!
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It's changed my life! I'm my own boss and have time spend with my family!
The posts are always encouraging people to click their ad and sign up for their "complimentary workshop where they can learn more."
It's clear just from seeing and reporting so many of these ads that this is where they become brainwashed and told to start their own stream of ads, and likely comment on other peoples posts in a sad attempt to make them seem legitimate.
I've tried searching what this actually is, but as "digital business" is a pretty vague search term and they never give any names in the post, I've turned up blank so far.
I've been seeing these ads in Canada.
Anyway, anyone else been seeing them? Any ideas what the actual scam is? And you are seeing them please call them out on running a scam and report the ads to Facebook. I've had success getting a number of them taken down.
Wouldn't be surprised if it's a mining (cryptocurrency) scam to use your computer to mine random coins hoping they'll breakout.
Wild speculation, no idea for sure.
You are exactly correct. However embarrassing it is for me to admit to, I will share my experience. I spent 149 usd for what I was convinced would be a coaching session, which turned out to be an attempt to sell me on an $11,000 water filter. They tout true out there presentations that the $149 has got a money back guarantee. As it turns out their guarantee is a lie. I am battling with them as we speak. I assured them that if I don't get my money back that I will be telling everyone in the world how much of a scam they are. They call themselves digital Business Online. They should call themselves 149 US Dollars scam online because who in the world actually has $11,000 in their Hip Pocket to buy a system that they don't even know whether it works or not. It's all based on the claims of all of these so-called distributors who of course all stand to get paid 50 US dollars for their individual coaching efforts, which really are not coaching effort they are selling efforts. Anyhow that's where I am at right now.
TL;DR: A friend saw some YT ads which turned out to be under the same group that promoted the very same sketchy scheme under multiple different names over a year ago. We cannot find any info about the mastermind on the Internet other than a Vimeo account associated with two MLM schemes (InCruises and SendOutCards).
Intro
One of my friends recently ran into a YT ad promoting some "start your online business" crap again. They know that I like digging into shady ads and shared the links with me. After messing with their website, it vaguely reminded me of some other similar ads they sent me almost a year ago. Most if not all of them seem to target Asian women and try to convince them to "start an online business" with them.
Here are all the ads I got: (Warning: potentially harmful materials ahead!)
| Ad video | Ad URL |
|---|---|
https://youtu.be/DiOeZmDxUuw | hxxps://www.pansyho[.]net |
https://youtu.be/gsa3Dgo22fE | hxxps://www.janelllife[.]com |
https://youtu.be/wXXvxS65OTI | hxxps://www.jacksonandemily[.]ca |
https://youtu.be/efTd4EtoKZo | (Defunct?) hxxps://www.cecilappleby[.]com |
Sample screenshot of a page
Digging the Dirt
Here comes the fun part if you know where to get some burner email addresses. I always try to "sign up" for those shady "webinars" when I get something like these. All of them land on a webinar replay, showing some people presenting on the exact same set of slides, but with different presenters and groups of people. All the pages also lead to the same SamCart checkout link hosted under the subdomain name "success team". The payment page shows an email address [email protected] and asks for $149 to access their "risk-free online courses". Now I know these schemes are definitely run by the same group.
But who is behind this scheme? It's certainly not the people promoting them with their names on that. There are too many of these, and one of the links is already offline.
Into the Darkness
It turns out there are far more people trying to promote the very same stuff! I found this by using a popular website scanning tool originally designed to check malicious activities, urlscan.io, which comes with a handy feature that lists other webpages showing similar structure/appearance. Here are some scan snapshots of the mentioned URLs advertised on YT.
https://urlscan.io/result/afe6f5ae-90cf-4c25-b09e-d701b46b734b/
https://urlscan.io/result/18274431-5b26-4e92-b013-da8b3be81a90/
https://urlscan.io/result/22bf43d8-e336-4af8-8c66-28fe9ec3b666/
https://urlscan.io/result/e8f8a17d-9c97-45de-8530-fa8ee9791ec3/
Even more intriguing, the email address on the SamCart payment page has its domain name digitalbusinessprograms[.]net pointing nowhere. Googling either the domain or the copyright claim, "Digital Business Program", comes out empty. The WHOIS record from ICANN says that the domain was created at the end of 2021, which means whoever is behind the scheme has changed it after the scheme was launched since I already saw those ads from the same campaign in the summer of last year. Not sure if they are trying to evade something.
Furthermore, there is no actual website about the whole "program", and the ToS statements are the same on all promoted stub pages with no mention of the entity running the scheme. The only things I found on Google are negative reviews on third-party websites like TrustPilot or some Facebook review posts on even more promotion pages I didn't find through the webpage scans. There is some miscellaneous information in these reviews such as one claiming that those people asked them to purchase a jaw-dropping $12,000 package after the initial $149. However it seems to be a dead end here.
Currently, all I can get is that the webinars are uploaded by the same account named "Online Coach", with its public profile showing 2 MLMs, InCruise and SendOutCards.
Vimeo profile screenshotI vaguely remembered that they used to have all the weekly "webinars" public on their Vimeo profile when I checked it last year, but now they're no longer showing up. Below is the list of links I still got access to. (Warning: potentially harmful materials ahead!)
| Date | Video URL |
|---|---|
08/16/2022 | https://player.vimeo.com/video/740245349 |
06/07/2022 | https://player.vimeo.com/video/718135273 |
05/17/2022 | https://player.vimeo.com/video/711032518 |
05/12/2022 | https://player.vimeo.com/video/709356375 |
06/24/2021 | https://player.vimeo.com/video/567311612 |
Does anyone know what entity is behind this campaign? It seems like a huge composite of scams and MLMs to me.
Honestly it pisses me off to see random girl bosses on Tiktok claim to make more money than their brain surgeon husbands with their “digital marketing” business.
It’s offensive to people who actually studied and have experience in marketing
It’s literally just a pyramid scheme, posting your scam online is not digital marketing!!!!
Also just in general people stick “marketing” onto all types of sketchy jobs and courses. As an upcoming graduate, I’m always coming across some super horrible and misleading “marketing” jobs. I know many people that have joined pyramid schemes (MLMs) thinking they will get valuable marketing experience.
The company's that everyone knows are MLM trash (HerbaLife, JuicePlus, ect). When I was looking for a job I naively joined a seminar discussing CutCo Knives. Come to find out these dud muffin companies have been around since my mom was growing up, and are somehow still operational? Wouldn't the BBB or whatever business bureau operates in the US (FTC?) have these scams shut down by now? I understand that new ones are popping up all the time but im referring to the ones that have been around forever now.