B2Blog

Business-to-business (b2b) and industrial marketing blog.

Friday, October 15, 2004

Traffic power is alive and kicking as 1p.com

Thanks to Rank for Sales blog, I learned that the evil Traffic Power (my previous post) has resurfaced. This time they are showing how evil they really are.

They are now 1P.com. Read the FAQ and it sounds like the same stuff. Second to last FAQ states no refunds.

What is interesting is that they are setting up their own web forums. You would think that they would do this to create link traffic for clients, but it is worse than that. They are actively dissing major SEO companies and personalities. There is a surprising amount of effort here, and to the sites they link to that do further slander.

posted by Dave J. @ 1:15 PM  

26 Comments:

  • At April 04, 2005 11:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    This post has been removed by a blog administrator.

     

  • At April 04, 2005 11:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    1 April 2005

    This complaint has been filed with:

    • Federal Bureau of Investigation Internet Fraud Complaint Center and National White Collar Crime Center
    • State of Nevada Better Business Bureau
    • Internet Fraud Council
    • Internet Fraud Watch
    • National Fraud Information Center

    Reference: Fraud complaint - InternetAdvertising1 and Traffic Power

    Traffic Power, also known as InternetAdvertising1 is an Internet search engine promotion company. Current Carpets entered into a contractual agreement to promote the Current Carpets website on May 3, 2004. The contract specified 8 top 10 placements in major search engines within 90 days.

    For over a year, we have had significant problems with the company; they have not achieved any of the results outlined in the contract; and have refused demands to refund the promotion costs several times over the last seven months.

    We have learned that, numerous companies have been defrauded by Traffic Power and InternetAdvertising1. Current Carpets would like to lodge a formal complaint against this company. The address we have on record is 4850 West Flamingo Road, Suite 39, Las Vegas, Nevada 89103. Telephone 866-896-2896. We have all correspondence sent and received during the course of the year.

    Our experience is as follows:

    -May 3, 2004 Current Carpets signed an agreement with Traffic Power and InternetAdvertising1 to promote 20 keyword phrases to achieve a minimum of 8 top 10 placements on major search engines within 90 days. Current Carpets provided data and information about Current Carpets for Traffic Power to use to create keywords and phrases.

    -We received the key words and phrases and found that they were wrong, misspelled and contradictory to what Current Carpets does. We were asked to spend several days rewriting the key words and phrases.

    -We were then advised that an invisible “mirror” website of the Current Carpets website would be made with appropriate key words, phrases and coding. This site would be an exact mirror of the existing site with background information for the search engines. We were asked to not update our website for three months during this time. Instead a visible site full of misspellings, incorrect information and junk text appeared on the Internet related to Current Carpets. We demanded the site be taken down and that we receive a refund. We were told the site would be hidden and asked to wait another few weeks for our “results”. This was in August 2004

    -Since then, we have requested a refund each time we have spoken with a Traffic Power, InternetAdvertising1 representative, which is more than twenty times. We have sent letters demanding a refund four times and been screened to receive a refund by “Customer Service”, all to no avail.

    -At April 1, 2005, the mirror site is still in existence, which is an embarrassment to our company. We have not received a refund. We received a report last month noting that we had placement results that month. However, the search word/phrase was misspelled and of no value.

    To date, we have paid InternetAdvertising1, Traffic Power, $2430.00 for a one year contract on May 3, 2004 with results guaranteed in 90 days. We have redone all the initial work for the company, had an embarrassing site placed on the Internet, no results except for a misspelled search term and no response to our demand to remove the site or obtain a refund. We rarely can find the same person to talk to twice or someone who can tell us how to have the mirror site taken down or a refund.

    We believe this company should be investigated. It has cost us significant time, money, trouble and embarrassment. It has also come to our attention that this is the situation with a number of companies who contracted with InternetAdvertising1 and Traffic Power.

    Sincerely,

    Hansine Pedersen Goran
    President
    Current Carpets
    ASID Indstry Partner
    Redwood Coast Chamber of Commerce

     

  • At May 20, 2005 4:56 AM, Blogger Ken said…

    I received calls from 1p.com as well and because my past experience of the similar scam with InternetAdvancement.com, I know what they are doing. I got refund from InternetAdvancement.com and they were fined by the court in Washington State. And it only happened after I had contacted other victims and asked them to send complaint to Redmond police department, attorney general of Washington state and FTC altogether. I think if any one fallen victims to www.1p.com or called traffice-power.com, they should contact Las Vegas police department. If the police got many complaints against one compnay, they will investigate them. Their phone # is 702-229-3285.

     

  • At June 10, 2005 5:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    After reading the Current Carpets complaint I can't help but feel they were pretty unsophisticated and greedy to fall for this in the first place. I did search marketing (light gray hat style) for 2 years and have some idea what will and won't work. Currently I do web design for a small company, imagine my surprise when my tightwad boss gave $3G to traffic power (!) AKA internetadvertising1 without consulting me first. He is actually a really smart guy so I can only think they were pretty smooth with him. Oh well, 3 grand down the drain.

    Darius

     

  • At June 15, 2005 10:42 AM, Blogger JJ said…

    This post has been removed by a blog administrator.

     

  • At June 15, 2005 10:43 AM, Blogger JJ said…

    Looks like I got a little bit further than some of the other trafficpower's disgruntled customers. I was charged $1200.00 for their services in March 2004. I was very displeased with how they dealt with my promotion and demanded a refund. Like everyone else, I got no where with trafficpower and I had to dispute the charge on my credit card. After several months of fighting I was granted the refund from trafficpower's merchant for the full amount of $1200. Now I got a letter in the mail from a collections agency demanding the money back or litigation will follow. I have 10 days to send the money back. I don't know what to do.

     

  • At June 15, 2005 11:05 AM, Blogger Dave J. said…

    Jeff--So close and yet so far, huh?

    I'd check to make sure it is an actual collections agency and not just someone inside TP trying to churn up some money. Then fax them a copy of the refund.

     

  • At June 17, 2005 2:09 PM, Blogger JJ said…

    After doing some research on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, I realized that they were not sending a legal letter to notify me of the collection. I sent them a reply using certified mail explaining this. I told them if they do not stop what they are doing then I was going to report them to the Federal Trade Commission office and possibly file suit against them.

     

  • At August 02, 2005 6:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    they are now webadvertisingpromotion.com..what a scam

     

  • At November 08, 2005 12:10 AM, Blogger 01Trev said…

    I am another victim of this company now called webadvertisingpromotion.com. They promised me everything you mentioned earlier in this blog and here I am almost 4 months later and I don't even REMOTELY show up ANYWHERES!!!! They have $4000.00 of my money and I have nothing!

    I already have my assistant filing complaints with the appropriate officials.

     

  • At November 08, 2005 12:10 AM, Blogger 01Trev said…

    I am another victim of this company now called webadvertisingpromotion.com. They promised me everything you mentioned earlier in this blog and here I am almost 4 months later and I don't even REMOTELY show up ANYWHERES!!!! They have $4000.00 of my money and I have nothing!

    I already have my assistant filing complaints with the appropriate officials.

    Trev

     

  • At December 15, 2005 4:32 PM, Blogger snapitdigital said…

    I NEED HELP FOR SEARCH ENGIINE OPTIMIZATION !!!



    I just opened a new website called WWW.SNAPITDIGITAL.COM. I recently got a sales call from a company called internetadvancement.com. Guys, could anybody give any feedback on internetadvancement doing search engine optimization.Or help, does anyone have any great company to offer for search engine optimization,,,,,,,need it urgently.

     

  • At December 15, 2005 5:03 PM, Blogger Dave J. said…

    Snappit--If they are calling you, be cautious. The ONLY people who have ever CALLED me about SEO are 'black-hat'. You should make the first call.

    Here is a place where the good SEOs hang out: I Help You Forums". This link is to a section where you can ask for (paid) help. The guys there are great, IMHO.

     

  • At December 21, 2005 8:01 PM, Blogger SEO Guerilla said…

    I am a private SEO, i work for myself, i am expensive but what i do actually works.

    I happen to live in seattle and am very familiar with Internetadvancement.com and i can tell you they are not nearly as bad as traffic power and they have ranked a better majority of thier clients compared to traffic power.

    Seing as internetadvancement also uses un-proven techniques it probably wont be long untill they also see a tragedy like traffic power has seen.

    Google webmasters is a place were google deceminates information related to SEO for thier engine and a i can tell you they dont much like www.internetadvancement.com at all from the comments left by google.

    www.Internetadvancement.com are not well liked and what you have to understand is that there is no SEO seceret trick that will actually work unless you plan to be holding you extremities in your hand shortly after the initial results asking what happened.

    The only way to SEO a site is to make that site the authority on its topic.

    Can we all say authority.

    You will never be able to trick a search engine but for a few months maybe and after that its all over.

    Both companies that have been mentioned in this blog are doing just that and atempting to trick the saearch engines.

    Traffic power got caught and all thier clients got blacklisted from the engines and from what iv seen with the new google updates recently id venture to say that www.internetadvancement.com could be next to have its major blackout.

    What ever happened to just being the big guy on the block or has everyone decided its easier to fake it.

    SEO is an ongoing process that requires time and close attention to ever changing search engine rules, contstant updates and always adding related and relavant content to your site.

    Removing coding errors, upgrading navigation and content for search engine spiders is only half of it.

    I take about 10-12 clients per year and thats all i can take but i make my clients the authority and they do rank for competitive terms over time.

    There is so much work, it would blow your mind but SEO can be looked at like a puzzle were there are thousands of little bits and pieces that eventually make the big picture.

    Submitting your website to thousands of search engines would only harm your site and the same goes for anything that causes link inflation like A DIP page that www.internetadvncement.com sells.

    Actually there was a recent update in Google called Jagger that targets all forms of link inflation and gives penalty to sites practicing in this.

    I can assure you that internetadvancement.con and the technology they use is a prime target for this google penalty.

    If anyone would like to learn how the search engine decides placementor hoe to SEO your site in an ethical and proven fashion please call me and i would be happy to assist in explaining the actuall indexing process.

    Eling M Orton
    206-568-5864
    800-281-0589

     

  • At April 19, 2006 5:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Traffic power also goes by a few other names. To name a few,
    1p.com
    internetadvertising1.com (used for email addresses only)
    allinternetadvertising.com (email)
    1stinternetadvertising.com (email)
    consultsense.com
    betterwebsales.com
    eadvertisingconsultants.com
    webadvertisingpromotion.com
    internetpromotionnow.com
    eresults.com
    eresultsinc.com
    seosuccessfully.com
    elite-webdesigns.com
    toprankonline.com
    eadvertisingexperts.com
    websitestranslations.com
    thewebmarketers.com
    theonlineadcompany.com
    seoprofessional.org
    www.netmktinc.com
    www.theroifirm.com
    www.digitaltransmit.com
    www.theadteam.com
    www.adnetpros.com
    www.theonlinefundraiser.com (singer)
    all of the citynews.com websites
    (lasvegas-citynew.com) (insertcityhere-citynews.com)

    The singer sites are for them to do all of their own referrals (in house) with the aid of VOIP. The city news sites and another one called pressreleasesonline.net and pressreleaseservices.net are so they can also do press releases full of bullcrap information everytime they add another name to their growing list of "brands" that they sell. They refer to each name change as a new brand name of product when it is all the same crap with another name so that they can keep everyone thinking that they are all different companies that they are dealing with.

    I know, because I used to work there..... They also work not only from Las Vegas, NV, but also Manilia and Cairo. (cheap overseas labor cost=more money for Matt Marlon, the owner)

     

  • At May 04, 2006 12:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Not all of seo companies are shady BIG DIFFRENCE BETWEEN BLACK HAT OPTIMISATION & White HAT...thats what matters as long as its legal and WORKS!!..it worked for me.almost 2 Years now .

     

  • At May 30, 2006 1:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Ive received a call from eadvertisingconsultants.com they are offering 20 keywords on 18 different search engines for $3000.00/year, sounds good.
    Better Business Bureau of Jacksonville Florida claims they have no complaints.
    Any Ideas on what I should do..?

     

  • At May 30, 2006 2:23 PM, Blogger Dave J. said…

    To anonymous: You've read this entire page and need to ask what to do? Be very careful with your $3,000. Even more-so if you don't understand how SEO works. Anyone can 'get you on' any number of search engines.

    And if they are truly related to traffic-power, I'd find a safer way to get your site improved.

     

  • At June 13, 2006 2:29 PM, Blogger AnneW said…

    We too have been a victim of these people. They now call themselves eResultsinc.com and have gotten our company for about $2000. Anyone willing to put their name and phone number to a complaint please let me know as I am complaining to everyone I can abou them! Please feel free to email me your information at anytime!

     

  • At June 21, 2006 3:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Before hand any money over to any consultant ask very specific questions about what they intend to do and take notes, get contact info [all forms] and then get multiple opinions from different consultants [while some might be inferior, and other might lie, a broad evaluation f the processes provides you additional question to ask.

    Anyone scamming will wish to keep thing very secretive as it opens the doors to being quickly shutdown.

    I did note on the BBB that 2 complaints were filed and resolved - assuming they wish to keep using the BBB field they have little choice but to resolve... many people just cut their loses thus it is easy for them to continue.

    That said: at some point the name will become disposable and then it matter not how many complaints there are.

     

  • At September 12, 2006 3:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Eadvertisingconsultants.com ? Stay away from them also. Another scam Company, call and question them you will see. You are unable to call them directly. Ask them if you can record the call for quality assurance. Currently a company(if this is there real name) call Call Center Industries buffers their calls.

     

  • At October 21, 2006 4:00 PM, Anonymous didi said…

    hey i`m one of the cheap overseas labor that you guys mentioned & i used to work for matt marlon but i wanna let you know that he ran away with our commision chicks and got his ass kicked out of the company that he used as a call center but he`s doing his best to find anther one

     

  • At January 21, 2007 6:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    They are now down to 5 employees, none of which can handle doing the work they are still promising and trying to sell with full force. I feel sorry for anyone that buys anything from them now. Nothing will be done.

    The staff left because they weren't being paid. I was paid when I left, but people that quit after me have quite a few paychecks that have bounced and the Matt Marlon has no intention of paying.

     

  • At April 17, 2007 8:38 AM, Blogger skype3 said…

    Everyone needs to stop playing victim to SEO companies tricks. It is easy to say "oh sure - we'll get you to #1" - sure for your domain name, but who is going to search for your domain name. You are all looking for good search engine results, and the trick is as follows.

    1.) Set up the name of your page, i.e. your title to describe the name of your company and a little about only the page it is referring to.

    2.) Then add your meta keywords, however only add keywors that describe the actual content on the page you are creating, to do other wise is a lie, and doesn't look good from Google's point of view.

    3.) The next fun area to go is your meta description, make sure it describes the page you are making, and also describes a little about your company.

    4.) Keyword density!! This means that you have an even keyword distribution throughout your website. If you are looking to compete with the big guns in the market, opt to instead compete for a niche in the market. If you sell computers, 9 times out of ten you will not show up on the 1st page of Google because the big companies can afford to have great "paid" links to their sites and have inter-company linking (i'll get to that in a little bit) moving on, try and show up for a specialty search like modern or unique home computers, or you can use different websites online to see what keywords people choose to use the most when searching. The key is to have the search terms cascade naturally down your site's page and to write the page with people and search engines in mind.

    5.) The next point of interest is the "Alt" + "Title" tags in the html programming language. These tags allow you to identify an image or button so that both the blind and bots can read your page. If your page has a significant number of images, make sure that each image is described to the most minute detail, as if you were describing the image to someone who couldn't see. This helps the search engines look at your site and see that you are working for them, however you would also work for a screen reader. Always keep the disabled in mind, and you will do well to follow this tip.

    6.)The all important use of internal links. If you have a website that is using JavaScript to link from one page to another, then forget showing up in Google without the use of the webmasters tools-->site manager. The site manager allows you to freely add your website and all affiliate pages to Google for no extra charge. However, internal links are also good, so if you have a homepage, link it to your about company page, ditto for your contact page, and make sure that your links only go down three levels at most, and from any page, make sure that you can easily navigate back to the homepage or other pages.

    7.) Alas, external links to your site. Try first for a dmoz entry (http://dmoz.org) they are deemed a knowledgeable source in their directory, so make sure you search first for a company like yours, and then go ahead and add yourself. This is a free service, and takes up to 6 months to get into the directory, however, it is like gold for your search rating after your in. Also get into Yahoo Directory, for $199/ yr this is the best paid directory you can be in, and as I've read above, this is a small investment for some real results. Next if you have affiliate companies who you work with, or sell services to or through, set up a link exchange, I am not talking about link farming, but if your company links from their page, you should adda reciprocal link back to theirs. Also if you are using Google AdWords, your pagerank (algorithm numeric result between 0-10, 10 being the best, 0 being the worst) AdWords will cost on average around $100 a month, and the benefits of a good search campaign is good organic to paid results ratio over time. This means that as your site is climbing the search engine latter, you will still be getting hits to your website. Also know this, their is no overnight trick to good SEO. If you would like more help buy a copy of IBM press search engine marketing (amazon search: Search Engine Marketing + IBM PRESS) This will give you an insiders look at how and why search engines work the way they do.

    That is all - I promise you that if you understand a little of what I wrote here, and follow these rules, that you will never be ripped off again, and your site will begin to climb the search engine latter.

    For more information, visit my website at Newfront Productions
    ---- Flash 8 required--------------

     

  • At July 06, 2007 9:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    They're still going...
    http://podcasts.linktheplanet.com/

    Click to listen to Mariann Poling taking credit card information for yet another duped customer. Recorded in May 2007

     

  • At March 17, 2008 1:17 PM, Blogger Jimmy James said…

    Not anymore:
    Matthew Marlon busted:
    http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=7567906

     

Post a Comment

<< Home