you know, it's really hard for a newbie like me.
I checked in the praise & applause section with every site before signing up.

I don't mind if a site sends less mails to those who do not search - as long as I can revert the process by starting valid searches. But, as I learned in this thread,there are also sites that will delete you for not searching.

Now I'm wondering if there is a quite up-to-date list of forced search sites...

As far as traficool is concerned and since I'm only about 50 mails away from payout, I will probably continue, request payout, and unsubscribe after been paid....

report them to Paypal and to the SE owners that they force searches.
report them to their local revenue office that they should do a checkup on the owner if s/he pays income tax and if they have their business registered.
hire a hacker or if you are fit in hacking hack their site to pieces.
what else can you do.... ?!
EDIT to add:
I got an almost identical mail from QualiytCash and Dayseeking a few weeks ago. Appears as if those clickfraud sites all conspire together, a well organized mafialike, well-oiled clickfraud-money-making-machine they are.
Suffice to say that I'm no longer a member at above mentioned sites.

To me, hacking their site would make me even worse than you all seem think they are.

I agree.Hacking,spying and/or reporting to paypal is IMHO,low down and dirty.

Trafficool doesn't pay so you're wasting your time.

Agree.

I just dont get it. How does hacking into anything make the hacker any better than the person forcing searches or reporting to paypal...... for WHAT.

Is it against paypals TOS to force searches or be a sleaze ?

It has been repeated so many times that all these reports to pp are a large part of the reason so many good sites are being shut down.

We are already seeing what IMO is the result of people doing mass reports to pp. Its fine to say if the sites are doing nothing wrong they will get their acocunt back but unfortunately for many it is not true.

I am not sayng do not report them....Just that if you do at least report them to someone who can do something about it and where it isnt just a "grudge" report.

Paypal is not a collection agency nor are they the ethics police.They only care about what is against THEIR tos. IMO they are getting sick of being asked to step in for every issue involving any problem with a ptr. Their answer so far has mostly been to indiscriminately freeze accounts and that helps no one.

I am not defending the forced search sites but see no logic in dynamiting the river to catch a fish.

Belle

This is enough to keep me away from trafficool.

From terms:



From home page:


So what is it, 48 hours or 30 days or a reasonable time after?

Ken

Hacking or other dirty tricks definately are not the solution.

One thing that could help a tiny bit:

Like richie050766 it's hard for newbies to determine if the site is good or not...and where they look for the info? From Praises and applaunce and complaints folder. So if someone posts a praise for a site like this it would be great if someone would notice it and post a link to the discussion where these type of actions are uncovered...and of course posting a complaint about these issues is also something that will also (maybe) help some newbies to find this kind of info and decide not to join the site.

to make this world a better place


nope, but some or most of these sites have multiple ref-levels.
But you are right, what's the good of reporting them to paypal when these sites have no intention to pay their members anyway.

collateral damage

Paypal is not everything there are many other payment processors out there.

Unfortunally there is no "legal" institution that could block those sites from the internet or could impose fines, or arrest them and ship them to a remote island or secret intorregation camps somewhere in eastern europe.
We're all on our own to deal with them with the means we have at hand.

I agree, and I bet everytime an PP employee opens one of these denunciation mails he goes "Oh no ! Not again !"

This isn't about fishing, this is about organized crime. These sites seem to communicate among each other. Conspiring cells forging plans of how to rip off best naive members who want nothing but to make a few bucks.
Smoke 'em out I say !

Paypal is not everything, but when it comes to geting "real advertisers" it plays a very big role...At least before the google's payment processor becomes, and if it becomes widely used.

Paypal is almost the only credit card payment processor with reasonable fees and that is also a very big thing.

True ! And I would think twice if I would join a side that does not offer PP as an payment option.
So, what we can do about it is..... nothing I guess.
Maybe this Forum should pin a Thread on top where all known search fraud sites are listed.

That's what's puzzling me.
I see that no one can prevent someone from posting "I've been paid" about Scam-sites.
But I was assuming if there are more than only a few such posts about a certain site, then it's probably true.

And there are 31 posts in "praises & applause" about trafficool (?)
and also a downline-thread...

What good sites are being shut down by paypal? I don't see any good sites being shut down by anybody. Only lots of bad sites that should never have been started in the first place. Good sites are the ones that are doing nothing wrong not the ones that pay the most.

Multiple referral levels as such is not against PayPal AUP and therefor not a reason to report a program. An MLM, which usually includes multiple referrals levels, is against PayPal AUP. Please do not confuse these two. Normally, PTR programs are not MLM's.


All I can say is


70% of members and 90% of advertisers use PayPal exclusively. False complaints and ignorance of PayPal employees caused several programs to lose their PayPal account. Oh right... collateral damage again...


If you want regulation, then go out and make it happen. If you want to fight fraud, then go out and fight it; many people already do, so if you haven't joined the club yet, it's free... Lack of regulation still does not justify harming legitimate programs.


I agree on the organised crime part, but does that justify sacrificing perfectly legitimate programs? Especially when you know your actions won't damage the fraud programs one little bit?

Some of us have invested a lot of money, effort and time in our programs. Will you pay us the financial loss we suffer on account of your actions, when our programs can no longer survive because we can't use PayPal anymore?
We program owners are real people, with real money invested in our real programs. And I do not look kindly upon someone who considers the loss of my investments because of his scorced earth practices just collateral damage.

Doing nothing wrong - being fully PayPal AUP compliant - does not mean PayPal won't close a program's account. They will.

Hi,

As you say, we cannot prevent people from praising a program that we consider as a bad site or a site that is up to no good. If the members who posted those 31 praises feel it is a good site, there is nothing we can do about it unfortunately. This is a discussion board and we allow members to complain/ praise/ discuss about the programs.

As for the downline builder, here again, we close threads only of sites running on unlicensed/ pirated scripts, 0iframe sites, sites no longer available and/or DB threads when the PO requests the thread be closed.

GPF has information for members to make an informed decision about which sites to join and not join. They can search the praises/ complaints/ general discussion folder, read and then decide whether to support a program or not. If not, they can start a thread here asking about a particular program and there are members who will be willing to comment about it. Taking such programs out of the DB folder is not going to stop a member from joining them if they wish to join ....

Hi,

my last post was not a complaint about this forum - what I wanted to say is:
if a site seems to be okay - regarding the mail credits, the mail credit-sponsor price ratio, the TOS, ... - AND there are lots of people praising this site - are there any other hints on concluding this site might cause problems to members....?

Hi richie,

I did not take your post as a complaint. I just wanted to clarify our standing on things

As for your question, the answer is yes. Now I do not know whether the site, trafficool pays or not. But according to Priestes, it is on her banned list for running 0iframes. Also, the mail you posted is disgusting. He is calling members lazy because he is not getting enough valid searches. He is threatening members that if he finds them lazy, he will put them in the "dishonest" group. His words:



Even if this program pays, sticks to his TOS and members praise it to high heaven, IMO, his email to members + the fact that it has 0iframes is more than enough hints that the site is causing problems to members.

....I'm just wondering:
if they're using 0iframes - why do they need to force members to search ?
(to my knowledge 0iframes are used to pretend valid searches )

regards,
Richie

mostly 0iframes are used for generating more traffick to search portals/domain parking sites to hide very high click through rate.

So when members are forced to search....valid searches per thousand page views is very high, which isn't normal...so these po:s put the same portal to 0iframe and that way get more page views and make the traffick and click amount look normal again.

I am sorry...I should have said their paypal account is being closed ( frozen)..not the site but in the end closing the pp account often ends up either in the site closing down or at the very least struggling to survive.

I think I am quite aware what a "good" site is but the problem is not what I think or know a good site is.....the problem is with indiscriminate closings by paypal.


Belle

So if I don't agree with something you are doing and get mad at you, it's ok if I hack your site or your PC? Because I might think it was to "make this world a better place."???

Maybe, but if you read them you will see that almost all of the posts praising Trafficool are from the same person (who I suspect may be the wm) and a lot of replies from other people(including myself) who have not been paid. There are also several theads in the complains section about Trafficool.

Of course not, because I'm not in the search-click-fraud business nor am I involved in any unlawful or unethical activity on or off the internet.
And I don't have a homepage or an own site.

But to "eliminate" the bad in this world would make it a better place wouldn't it ?!

I reckon that the war against click-fraud is lost. A pity.

So we hack the sites that, in your opinion are 'bad' and eliminate them all. Doesn't the hacking, which is illegal make you just as bad as the sites you are trying to get rid of??

Sometimes, the end does not justify the means.

Maybe we should just form a gang and beat the bark off anyone who "messes with us"...Yep...That 'll sure show them...

and if that doesnt work..well there is always the river and concrete shoes or at least thats how they did it in the last movie I saw.

Yep...its hacking or snuff them dudes...

Belle

First things first....

Now...The viciousness that has developed in efforts to close click fraud sites,is IMO,a threat to all PTR sites.

Reporting them to search engines is one thing but hacking and reporting them to paypal will surely hurt many more sites than the intended victim.

Gee...gorilla warfare online...... hackers can line up for jobs in PTR.....

I agree with Belle, you would be bombing the river just to kill a few fish.

Might I ask, DoubleR, how you would feel if it was a program that You were in, that owed YOU money, would you still justify it as "collateral damage"? What if it was more than one that owed YOU money?
Just curious.....
CindyB

well, seems I've learned again the hard way

I have to admit that I was just browsing through this section and counting the number of threads....
Probably my own fault....

No.. I dont think its your fault. Unfortunately these threads which should be informative to newbies get so bogged down in argument that it is easy to lose the point of the conversation ( even when there is one )

Hopefully it will get easier with time but it's always a safe bet that anyone who threatens deletion if you dont do enough "valid" searches is probably not going to be around for long.

How is THAT for definite information....don't words like hopefully and probably make you feel secure that we know what we're talking about.

Its a lot of reading sometimes but in the end it will save you a lot of wasted time and effort.

Good luck

Belle