Nice Little Scam... Didn't Know I was that Important?!?!

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 I didn't realize I was that important until I got the email that I pasted below, wow "You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Madison Who's Who Among Executives and Professionals, and for inclusion into the upcoming 2007-2008 "Honors Edition" of the registry". Talk about some generic description, in fact would be 100% generic if it wasn't for my name... I obviously knew something was fishy but wanted to figure out exactly what was the catch...

Here is a general overview of similar schemes... https://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27053

Overall, they say that they are an important registry of people and that an inclusion within their registry is not only an honnor but is also a great networking tool that can bring significant business. And of course, none of this is free. So, you pay to get included into their member list, which you apparently were so deserving of being in (even though all they had was your name and email). And truely, who has ever heard of Madison Who's Who???

This actually reminds me of the Picture.com contest scam (https://www.greenfreak.net/?p=11). It is quite clever and i'll admit i've fallen for it...

You send a picture to enter the contest, no problem. Of course, your picture doesn't win the contest but is good enough to make their next picture coffee book and you get an offer to pre-purchase the book at a pre-sale discounted price (I believe I paid $40 for it). In a way, they avoid being treated as a scam as they do print the coffee book and send it, so you technically get what you paid for. But the real truth is that you've been lured into a simple bait-and-switch scheme.

You entered for free with the intent of entering a contest but ended up buying a $40 coffee book (which costs less than $5.00 to manufacture) that contains your, and about 2000 other pictures... So assuming about 20% of the folks fall for it out of 2000 pictures and that a book costs them $5.00, they come out with about $10,000... Hmm, maybe I need to change my business model ;)

---- Email ----

Image 

Dear Sebastien St-Laurent ,

    You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Madison Who's Who Among Executives and Professionals, and for inclusion into the upcoming 2007-2008 "Honors Edition" of the registry. We are pleased to inform you that on August 27th, your candidacy was approved. Your confirmation for inclusion will be effective within five business days, pending our receipt of the enclosed application. The Office of the Managing Director appoints individuals based on a candidate's current position, and usually with information obtained from researched executive and professional listings. The director thinks you may make an interesting biographical subject, as individual achievement is what Madison Who's Who is all about. Upon final confirmation you will be listed among thousands of accomplished individuals in the Madison Who's Who Registry. There is no cost to be included. We do require additional information to complete the selection process and kindly ask that you access this form on our website: Click here to registerOr you can manually enter this address into your web browser: https://www.madisonwhoswho.com/basiclisting To ensure your biographical data is received in time, please complete the online form above as soon as possible. Our editorial deadline is quickly approaching.

Sincerely, Matthew Johnson Managing Editor

 

Madison Who's Who is not associated or affiliated with Marquis Who's Who or any other Who's Who.

Madison Who's Who, Inc. 30-01 Northern Blvd. Long Island City , NY 11101 USA

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2007
    PingBack from http://www.artofbam.com/wordpress/?p=3902

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2007
    I almost fell for this one about two or three years ago. The scammer never emailed me, but he kept me on the phone for 1 hour, getting information about my business and all that. Next thing he asks me for my CC number because "there is a charge of $600 for the inclusion in the directory". That's when the "Scammer" light came up but I played cool and gave him a number that expired long ago, which he tried in right away. Told him to call the next day to give him a different CC number, and he did call - over 10 times that day - but I wasn't in the mood. Earlier this year they called again, this time a woman. I told them they make me sick.