I just received an email asking to purchase advertising space on my website for up to $750 a month. Here is the full email (warning – do not click the links / enter the email, it attempts to run a Java program on your computer!!!):
Hello!
My name is Liza Mecklenburg, representing the advertising department
of the JPP Consulting company. We are interested to place an ad
(banner), of your choice, on your website.
Design and sizes can be seen on our website at
www.eandjconsulting.net/ id_8ae87/
Depending on the banner size you choose we can pay up to
US$750/month.If you are interested please let me hear from you.
Kind Regards,
Liza Mecklenburg
liza.mecklenburg@eandjconsulting.net
It sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? I can chose the banner design and size ( I will obviously chose the most expensive), and they will pay me $750 a month.
They do not ask about the number of visitors I get to my site either. Amazing!
When you follow the link Java asks if it can run (I use Chrome and have set Java to always request permission to run). This is so that you can see these banners. This is all very, very suspicious. I mean, why not just have a page with jpg or gif banners like other sites? Or, why not add the banners to the email? All seems very, very fishy.
I did a quick Internet search and the first result is a Fake Banner Ad – WARNING on Warriorforum (an Internet marketing forum).
Even just opening the email (which I did) may cause more problems. Brad Mc Bard opened such an email and afterwards received a virus-infected email.
So this is certainly a scam, designed to con you into thinking that you have just attracted a wealthy advertiser, but it really just wants to infest your computer with a virus and do all sorts of nasty things. So, if you get an email like this, do not click the links, do not respond. No sensible advertiser will offer you $750 a month, or any amount of money, without know more about your website first.
Got this same email too – always suspicious when they don’t ask for traffic stats and drop a massive monthly offer on one of my lower quality sites. If it’s too good to be true, it usually is. Running a virus scan to be safe regardless, but I’m sure as long as you don’t allow the java on that scammy page to run you are OK.
Got one too. On a positive note it means my website is growing on Google and other search engines. Great compliment 🙂
Yeah Finn. I had a bit more spam on another site the other day and thought the same!
Received this today. I’ve got plenty of “cold emails” offering ad placement without asking traffic stats, but it’s almost always for SEO purposes and never $750/mo. Ha, I wish.
Clever these Spammers are.