Noobing Removes References To Rachel Ray, Red Cross From Surf Website; Members Blast Firm In Forums
UPDATE 9:08 A.M. EST (FEB. 19 U.S.A.) After having gone missing yesterday, entries below “Noobing Rotator’s Top Rated Sites” on Noobing’s main page have returned. But previous entries for Rachel Ray, the Red Cross, Omaha Steaks and OrganicConsumers no longer are there. Here, below, our earlier post . . .
Controversial surf site Noobing has removed references to celebrity chef Rachel Ray, the International Red Cross and other entities from its website. Links to Ray’s site and the Red Cross had appeared on the main page at the Noobing site, under a headline titled “Noobing Rotator’s Top Rated Sites.”
Noobing site references to Rachel Ray, Red Cross, Omaha Steaks and OrganicConsumers.
Noobing, which pitched itself heavily to hearing-impaired clients, has been under fire for days because it slashed advertiser payouts. Members said that, in its early days last fall and into the winter, the company paid ad-viewing “incentives” of between 1 percent and 3 percent to customers.
The Surf recently has paid “incentives” of significantly less than 1 percent, causing members to ask publicly for refunds and accuse the firm of “bait and switch.” Noobing countered by saying refunds would not be granted because “incentives” weren’t guaranteed.
Noobing said its decision to slash “incentives” was based on an unclear ruling in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case. Noobing launched after ASD’s assets were seized by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008, amid allegations of wire-fraud, money-laundering, selling unregistered securities and operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme.
Customers now are questioning why Noobing even chose to launch and wondering out loud if Noobing had done all of its regulatory homework up front. Noobing said members should be angry at the government, not the company.
“If there is a bad guy in this whole story, it’s the government!†the employee exclaimed. “Let’s get mad at them! How can sharing our revenue to help control costs for legitimate advertisers be a bad thing? How can keeping $90+ million dollars to protect the people who worked with ASD be a fair result? It’s madness!!! Our government is the bad guy here, not Noobing.
“Let’s get mad at the source of this challenge!†the employee railed. “Call your congressman, send letters, speak publicly!!â€
See related post. Also, see this related post.
Why Noobing removed the references to Rachel Ray, the Red Cross and others is unclear. The information went missing without explanation.
The development may prompt Noobing members to question whether the company had signed agreements with Ray and the Red Cross to advertise on Noobing, or whether the sites were simply inserted in the Noobing rotator to create the impression that a relationship existed.
Promoters of ASD placed the main page of Facebook.com in the rotator, suggesting that Facebook itself was an ASD advertiser. Pages from other social-networking sites also were placed in the rotator. An undercover agent working for a Secret Service/IRS task force placed a MySpace page in the rotator and qualified for ASD viewer “rebates” even though the MySpace page offered nothing for sale.
Rachel Ray, Red Cross, other references now missing from Noobing.
Oh this is rich. They’re still crooks, but you have to admire the good folks at Noobing, they gave the refferal hounds a real advertising website where you can get something beack to advertise your business. But when it turns out that what you can get back is less than what you paid, the natives are ready to have a BarBQ with the Noobing execs….I really hate it that there are innocent victims, but the people screaming hte loudest over at ASA Monitor are pros and they’ve all been here before. And they’re just shocked I tell you that Noobing expects them to make money from the real business they’re advertising, and not from advertising and surfing…
the only funnuier thing is Faith Sloan running around like a cown on meth telling everyone that she knew all along, and thinks it’s a great idea! reminds me of the guy in Animal House in the last scene yelling “ALL IS WELL” as the parade erupts to pandimoniun around him.
Like I said, I hate that there are innocent victims, I’m especially mad about the targeting of deaf people, but you know, I a’m also enjoying the train wreck amongst the professional scam promoters.
sorry abou the spelling and syntax in the above post. I’m almost out of Vicadon so I should be back to normal soon!
I suspect that “Noobing” had done exactly all its regulatory homework it wanted to. It know it was selling unregistered securities or were negligent in not knowing. I believe they could see all the ponzi pimps plugging this like mad & could see it getting too big. It gets too big, it attracts attention. I suspect the operators will simply move on to the next surf & start again.
Take care of that tooth, Gregg. Man, tooth pain is a drag.
The natives over at ASA Monitor are restless when it comes to Noobing.
And the company’s PR strategy is almost impossible to understand. It is inciting people to get angry at the government because of Noobing’s own decision to slash rates.
And even using ASD’s name in any explanation of Noobing’s policies/practices is just baffling.
Patrick
Hi Tony,
Your “negligent in not knowing” comment sounds like something that would appear in an SEC complaint.
I’m amazed that a U.S. company even would enter the surf arena after what happened to ASD last August. And I’m equally amazed that Noobing even would mention ASD when explaining itself.
But I’m most amazed by Noobing’s call to rail against the government. Here we have a case — ASD — that has played out in full view of the surf world. We have seized assets, allegations of Ponzi fraud, wire fraud, money-laundering and the sale of unregistered securities.
Noobing launched amid all of this and now is telling people to be angry at the government while insisting it is a true advertising service — even though some celebrated Ponzi promoters pitched it.
Truly, truly odd.
Patrick
I’m not. When 12Daily Pro was closed, Phoenix Surf rose from the ashes and some of the same promoters jumped on that ship as well. I think Faith Sloan was one of the rats jumping from ship to ship back then as well. I think Faith Sloan was a big promoter of CEP as well.
I’m not. It’s just an excuse. A ploy, smoke & mirrors. I would not be surprised if there will be a Noobing V2, this time “off shore”, with “all the I’s dotted & T’s crossed”, and “perfectly legal”. No doubt someone will have done their due diligence and have found Noobing V2 to have covered all their bases.
http://cashcowaddict.com/noobing-review-of-the-noobing-program-is-it-legal-scam/
Wait a minute, wasn’t Megalido “off shore” and therefore safe?
Hi Tony,
Some of the MegaLido members are saying the surf was run by a Nigerian scammer. Haven’t checked in a while, but the domain for another scam surf — instant2u.com — was redirecting to the MegaLido site.
So, it looks likes a tagteam scam.
They both died at approximately the same time after being pushed by ASD members, who promised safe, offshore profits. One guy sold MegaLido by waving a wad of $100 bills, telling ASD members it was much better than ASD or GoldenPanda.
Patrick
Was it Clifton? Was it this picture?
http://opencoffee.ning.com/profile/CLIFTONE
Stick around and be prepared to be further “amazed”
Keen observers of the HYIP ponzi game “scene” have seen it all before.
I have no doubt that most people will eventually get “it”
The whole point is, these are companies in name only. In reality they’re ponzi “games” disguised as real businesses.
THIS is the “brave new world” often touted on true believer websites.
A world of smoke and mirrors. Fraud disguised as business.
TonyH is entirely correct in his observation.
The game is still the same, only SOME of the names have changed.
The Faith R Sloans, Jake Amadees, AutoSurfAuthorities,MoneyMakerGroups and Team Aaron/Sharas of this world will carry on with seeming impunity, just as they did 2 years ago with 12DP and years before that with P.I.P.S.
The ASD clones like Noobing,AVG, Megalido and the like will spring up and disappear in short order, just as Phoenix Surf and Alien Trust evolved out of 12DP.
One can only hope that the involvement of the DoJ and Secret Service, the formation of a taskforce and the “different” way the shutdown is being handled signals a new approach to this whole sorry “business”
Well, the root canal was last Friday, just between you and me the tooth is fine, I was just using it as an excuse for my terrible typing and no edit function,.,.,
but thanks for the conceern!
No problems….Patrick & I are enjoying your Vicodin-addled posts under your other non-university pseudonym….
I dunno about the others, but kkep an eye on Jake Amedee, he’s getting a lot of attention right now from people you’d rather not be attracting the attention of when you’re basically providing a felony theft clearing house….
A little birdie tells me Jake is gonna need to call an attorney soon, I wonder if the guy in North Carolina is available?
Hi Tony,
Yes, that is the person. He wrote multiple, loud headlines. Here is one of them:
“MEGALIDO ROCKS! PAYS>>12%
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Patrick,
To establish Noobing’s securities fraud liability, four elements must be proven: (1) Noobing made false or misleading statements or omissions of material facts, (2) with scienter*, (3) upon which the “ad view buyer” justifiably relied, (4) that proximately caused the “ad view buyer’s” damages.
Hmmm…I think I see a winnable case here — what about you???!!!
FIVE GOOD REASONS TO IGNORE THE LAWS AND OPEN AN AD-SURFING BUSINESS:
1.) It’s long been your dream to see your name in the headlines of an article in the Wall Street Journal;
2.) You’ve always wanted to do more for your community;
3.) You’ve been trying to find time to catch up on your reading;
4.) You look good in both stripes and orange, and find jumpsuits comfortable;
5.) You’ve always wanted to meet Bernie Madoff
*Scienter- Having the requisite knowledge of the wrongness/illegality of an act or conduct; guilty knowledge; knowing the impropriety/illegality associated with doing certain acts. This is often an element of liability or guilt that must be proven before a judgment or conviction can be obtained.
IMHO the “Securities Fraud” prosecution of these scams was declared redundant with the way the ASD case was handled (and quite rightly so, IMHO)
These are blatant frauds disguised to look like advertising businesses/social networking sites, nothing more and nothing less, and should be prosecuted as such.
Hi LRM,
I tend to agree with you here — not that I discount Marci’s research above.
These surf sites are proliferating during lean times, and people even are selling them as a way to insulate yourself from the recession.
I have received notes from folks who were torn apart as a result of their participation in ASD — and they weren’t complaining about the government. They were thankful that the government intervened to stop the madness from spreading and consuming even more wealth.
Patrick
I’m skeptical on the chances of Noobing being prosecuted, and I’ll tell you why.
First, there’s just not that much money involved. Second, and this shows some intent to me, but if you look, Noobing didn’t say all these great and wonerful things, they had the early members saying it. On ASD, Mike Reed has several posts where he says “it’s advertising, not rebates” which in the contect of the places he was saying it was definitly as Patrick calls it “wink and nod” statements, but all the real heavy promoting is hard to pin to anyone at Noobing. I’m willing to bet there are a lot of communications like e-mails or better yet instant messages that are more incriminating, but the public statements Noobing made are at the very least ambiguous. And that makes it hard to prosecute. The feds won’t bother, like I said, not enough money, but maybe someone can get Kansas to go after them, although they have some budget problems and I’m guessing they won’t mess with an iffy case. It’s sad, but I still can’t be but happy that the big losses appear to be among the professional scammers.