38 responses so far ↓

• Paul // Feb 20, 2008 at 4:08 pm

  That’s great Lynn,
  Thanks for checking that out. I have gotten a few of those, so good to know!

• Nell Taliercio // Feb 20, 2008 at 6:53 pm

  I’ve gotten about, oh, 5 gazillion of these darned emails in the past weeks. Spam…hate it.

• Stephanie // Feb 20, 2008 at 9:02 pm

  I got them too. Took a look, realized it wasn’t being entirely honest, hit delete.

• Nicola Boschetti // Feb 21, 2008 at 2:00 am

  HeHe,

  thanks Lynn for the advice… it has just starting coming to my mailbox… i am pressing DEL button instantly

• Tucson Web Design // Feb 21, 2008 at 3:23 am

  I knew that had to be a scam, I have been getting similar emails asking to put banners on some of my sites with no traffic. I never bothered to follow up on the emails.

• Charlie // Feb 21, 2008 at 7:16 am

  As soon as I get more than one email from a different sender but with the same copy, alarm bells start to ring.

  But people obviously fall for the scam otherwise the emails would not keep coming.

  Thanks for the Spam alert Lynn

• seocontest2008 // Feb 21, 2008 at 7:37 am

  To me this the worst ever link bait program. The emails are sent to blogger/ website owners to annoy them. Bloggers will blog about it and contactthem will gain as bad news spread faster than good news.

  Thanks for such a nice scam alert post. I received for 3 of my ID’s and all of them are blogs. seems they are just sending mails to bloggers only.

• Lynn Terry // Feb 21, 2008 at 8:25 am

  True, but you’ll notice I didnt include any live links And in this case, the harm has already been done. SD’s reputation preceeds this particular launch…

• Melissa Ingold // Feb 21, 2008 at 8:50 am

  Ugh, just what we need, more spam! Thanks for giving us a heads up about this Lynn

• Teli Adlam // Feb 21, 2008 at 9:06 am

  I just got the exact same e-mail, but it was not sent through my contact form or personal e-mail address — it was sent through the whois protection service forwarding address, so I knew it was from someone who didn’t even bother reading or visiting my website. Can you say instant delete?

  Glad to see you’re spreading the word and protecting others who may fall into the trap.

  ~ Teli

• seocontest2008 // Feb 21, 2008 at 9:51 am

  Yes I can see that Lynn you didn’t added the live link to it! You also did a great spy work, which many don’t care, finding out the name behind the network: - Stephan Ducharme.

  Here is an interesting post on scam.com. I am surprised to see this post was made in 2005!

  http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=6739

  Sorry for my typos in earlier comment!

• Lisa Marie Mary // Feb 21, 2008 at 10:21 am

  Thank you so much, Lynn - for the heads up on this! You always take such good care of us! (Which is why I hate that I’ve been missing the webinars! Life’s been getting in the way - ugh!)

• Lynn Terry // Feb 21, 2008 at 11:39 am

  You’ve been missed! Hopefully you can make it next week or at least soon - they’ll be there when you’re ready

• Alvin Huang // Feb 21, 2008 at 12:20 pm

  I must admit Lynn, when I got the same email I was abit excited. As I always made my money through products and services. Never ad space.

  Until a realized that they were asking about one of my untouched and unbuilt domains. Which made everything sound fishy.

  Nonetheless, thanks for the information Lynn.

  Regards,
  Alvin Huang

• Stefani // Feb 21, 2008 at 5:00 pm

  I have got them too! Hit delete!

• Genuine affiliate program training // Feb 22, 2008 at 4:33 pm

  Thanks Lynn for being quick with this. Actually I sent spammy mail to some guys to share their thought and opinions.

  I was also thinking how to reach you, now this post. You see, I actually sent a mail wanting to know how they will pay and all that. It was then it dawn on me it was/is MLM kind of.

  The whole thing smells rotten. Hey what did you suggest we should do? DELETE? Yes, that was exactly what I did

  Anyway, I would not mind adding their banners on my site for one month if they pay the $4.800 upfront.

• Spend Money Here // Feb 25, 2008 at 11:57 pm

  I’d love to get those types of emails. lol. Damn I doubt anybody would pay $5 a year on my site.

• Muhabbet // Feb 26, 2008 at 8:55 am

  Until a realized that they were asking about one of my untouched and unbuilt domains. Which made everything sound fishy.

  Nonetheless, thanks for the information Lynn.

• Anita // Feb 29, 2008 at 2:10 pm

  Ugh! I’ve been getting so many of those and they’re driving me crazy! The only one I opened was the first one and when I seen this:

  With that kind of traffic, we will pay you up to $4,800/month to advertise our links on your website.

  Yep, I deleted it right way … just those words immediately made me suspicious!

  But, what’s driving me crazy the most …
  I’m getting them for websites I don’t even own! Two of them were for sites that I’ve owned in the past and have sold - that I understood BUT, they’re also coming for sites that I’ve never had anything to do with!

  Some system then … they can’t even get the correct website owner!

• Darwin // Mar 1, 2008 at 6:56 am

  Lynn,

  I have received a series of similar emails but from a different company. I clicked on “report spam” and then deleted. I often wonder if these groups actually make money doing like this and could it be worth all the trouble they go through.

• Closets Los Angeles // Mar 1, 2008 at 5:51 pm

  Do they ever make money with those? I like to think that with all the email addresses I have had to lose due to spam over the years that someone is making money. But yeah, big whistles went off when I got one regarding a blog site about buffy that was shut down less than a week after going up. You wanna pay me?…..sure

  Anyhow, thanks Lynn

  Tommy.

• Diane Scott // Mar 1, 2008 at 10:39 pm

  Thanks so much Lynn! Just got one of these things in my inbox, and my stats were completely wrong (a different site than what I’ve got here) but that’s not the point LOL! The first thing I did was put their name into Google and there you were with my answer. Again a big thanks and frankly I will be looking around before I go

• Lynn Terry // Mar 2, 2008 at 2:12 pm

  Welcome, Diane - I’m glad this post served helpful to you and to everyone else reading. It’s very frustrating when these types of things go around and create such a distraction.

  And yes, I imagine plenty fall for the “opp” and that they are indeed making money with the system… otherwise it would just disappear. And hopefully it will yet

• Holly Cotter // Mar 3, 2008 at 8:07 pm

  Hi Lynn,

  This is more than just spam… it’s almost a bait a switch - where they suck you into their offer by making it sound like they’re paying you for the opportunity to place their links on your site, but if you read the small print (and ONLY if you read the small print) you find out you’re only actually paid on sales made by promoting their spamming (oops, I mean “mailing”) system.

  Thanks for helping to spread the word.

• Crystal Weckerly // Mar 4, 2008 at 8:31 pm

  Hi Lynn,
  Thanks for the post. I got the email too, however, I did join the free affiliate program. This was on Feb 5th. I earned $700, not nearly $4800 but it’s reoccurring so I figure I can’t beat that.

  I also ventured into their forum and see that there will be an unsubscribe link from data base disclosure in future emails…be on the look out for that and you shouldn’t be contacted anymore.

  I was not pressured to join the mlm style program either. For something free and 1012 affilate websites running the ad in a network that took off from a banner? I’m impressed.

  I was trained by internet marketer Charles Hefflin through the payperplay program on the ethics of webmaster partnerships and this program follows the guidelines and I could see that I too could benefit from there software ( I bought it)…however, the problem with spam with this program is that the affiliates (in most cases) do NOT know what they are doing and are contacting the same websites over and over…that my friend is spam!! They need trained better…um, no rather…they NEED trained.

  Well that’s my opionion, thank for letting me post.

  Peace and Joy!
  Crystal

• Lynn Terry // Mar 5, 2008 at 12:34 pm

  Thank you for the insight, Crystal. I definitely look forward to the unsub feature - glad to hear that!

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  [...] http://www.contactthem.com - Ducharme’s latest scam Should You “ContactThem”? A Tempting Scam… [...]

• Soli // Mar 6, 2008 at 8:28 am

  Scammers keep getting better (or worse) by the day and they are not limited to just one country.

• Rose // Mar 6, 2008 at 5:26 pm

  Lynn, I received the same email today in my inbox. Red flags immediately went up so I did a quick Google search. Now having read your post, what do you know my my instincts were right. Thank you for the post.

• Lynn Terry // Mar 6, 2008 at 5:31 pm

  Glad this was helpful to you!

• » Contactthem- Affiliate Spam by Rose DesRochers - World Outside my Window // Mar 6, 2008 at 6:18 pm

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• Tom Gray // Mar 6, 2008 at 8:54 pm

  Thanks, Lynn. You clicked through so that I didn’t have to. That’s taking one for the team!

• Tery // Mar 11, 2008 at 10:54 pm

  Hi Lynn –

  Thanks for the warning. I was scammed by that cockroach Ducharme a few years ago and never got my money back despite dozens of calls to his company. (I even registered http://www.dontusethiscompany.com just so I could let the world know about him. I took the site down a while back — now I guess I’m gonna have to resurrect it again.)

  I thought he’d fallen off the face of the earth but I guess he’s back out of the hole he crawled into.

  Thanks for the notification that the roach is alive and well…

• Toboc // Mar 24, 2008 at 11:21 pm

  This was the mail which i got from ContactThem

  Hi,

  We’ve seen your website at http://www.toboc.com
  and we love it!

  We see that your traffic rank is 70440
  and your link popularity is 128.
  Also, you have been online since 4/18/2005.

  With that kind of traffic, we will pay you up to $4,800/month to advertise our links on your website.

  If you’re interested, read our terms from this page:
  http://www.contactthem.ws/hit.php?s=10&p=2&w=103066

  Sincerely,

  Tom VanBuren
  The ContactThem Network
  616-886-1549

  i decided not to go for it.

  Thanx Lynn for the info

• BoB // Mar 28, 2008 at 3:54 pm

  I think the only one to get rich with the ‘Contact-Them’ software will be that Ducharme fellow !!

• Overly tempting scam - ContactThem offers link placement $4,800 per month on your websites/blogs - by SmartBorneo.com // Apr 10, 2008 at 8:27 pm

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• DoC // Apr 24, 2008 at 7:04 pm

  I found the spam email extremely useful. I copied & pasted all the whois nfo into notepad for all my websites. Great historical reference for over 120 url’s. THEN I hit the delete key.

• Lynn Terry // Apr 25, 2008 at 10:44 am

  You lost me, DoC - ?

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