The WS 9 Daily: Internet Scam That’s Catching Out Thousands (Monthlywebfee)

There is a current trend in on-line fraud that has fooled thousands of people across the world. Using websites that appeal to on-line authors, and Facebook this new trend appears like a newspaper article, but the newspaper does not exist.

Sometime ago I wrote about a very underhand web fraud, recently one of those readers encouraged me to look at this particular outfit, having been scammed by the company for over £100 ($140-$150) over a period of just over three months, in which they saw no return.

The scam works through advertising, or links you are fooled into clicking on. The first thing you find more often than not is an on-line news site called WS Daily 9. The fake on-line newspaper tells the story of how work at home mum Kelly Richards earns £4397 per month from home with her computer. The article states it has been seen on Sky News, BBC, The Telegraph, and FT.com. The truth of the matter is that none of the companies claims to have ever heard of the site, although they do all subscribe to Google adwords, a service that the WS Daily 9 subscribes too. The article looks legitimate enough, but click any link on the page and you are taken to a page for The On-line Career package, the site says little but promises you money to work at home. It promises that you will make money today.

Lets backtrack a little… To add a level of legitimacy to the WS Daily 9, there is a series of comments on the bottom of the page designed to look like posts from users. Some posters seem sceptical of the deal, while others say the format works and shows images of cheques received from Amazon or Google. The dates scroll back to roughly 3-4 days prior to you stumbling upon the article and include posts like the ones here:-

You’ll note the wording of Mark, but then look a little further on and you’ll find this post, look at what Mike has to say:

Seems a little fishy that two people with similar names have the same thing to say, don’t you think?

When you go to the bottom of the comments section you get a piece of text come up that explains that commenting is currently disabled. The interesting thing about the text used in the comments is that its actually really interesting high search terminology, such as “I really hate my job” or “I really hate my boss”, if you google this you’ll find a lot of options for earning from home. A lot of these comments are key words for people who are financially struggling, and searching for ways out. Google’s spider searching system sadly picks these up.

The page also implies that the information on how to get these deals is only available for a limited time. Often you’ll find a ticking clock that moves the time down to encourage people to participate. There is talk on the site of a minimal cost (the comments section), around $2 or £2 to get the information. Once you click through on ant link on the page you are taken to the website: On-line Career Package. From here you enter some details which takes you to another page telling you that for a small fee they will get you on the road to earning.

Essentially this scam is a way of getting you to pay, for what you could otherwise get for next to nothing.

Yes you can get cheques from google and from Amazon, as well as other suppliers. But this can happen without needing to go to this website.

What you get for your £2 or $2 is a very basic, nastily templated website, choc full of advertising for Amazon. It is basically making you a hub for Amazon, your nasty looking website has lots of Amazon products that people can buy, you in turn get referral fees if they click through and purchase from your site. You can also add Google Adsense to your account so you can benefit from advertising.

The legitimate part of the business is that yes you can earn money through this method, but not the sort of money that the WS 9 Daily tells you that you can earn, unless you are doing something incredibly underhand.

Now comes the real sting, in return for your nasty looking website (and I mean really nasty) you get charged between  $29.95  a month, this is much higher than most domain providers with web design tools would charge, and with them you would really get a site you can work with. The deviousness of the company means that they do not tell you of this monthly charge. Although it does tell you that you will get an initial charge which will appear on your credit card statement as monthlywebfee, which if you think about it really should be a bit of an indication that further charges are to come.The only way people find out about the monthly fee is by searching monthlywebfee on the Internet, most do this after discovering excessive charges on their credit card bills,  on the first page it explains the monthly charge. One of the first things you do when you do not recognise a charge on your statement is type in the name of the charger, this takes you to the monthlywebfee website, which tells you more or less immediately about the $29.95 monthly charge this protects them from you doing a credit card charge-back.

It seems hundreds of people are falling for this scam, some not noticing the monthly charge, until quite some time after they have been charging credit cards. If you are reading this article because you have encountered this scam, you cannot, I repeat cannot get your money back by claiming from the credit card company that you did not understand what you were doing, this company knows how to protect itself. All you can do is cancel your credit card and consider the money you have spent to be a loss.

If an offer looks too good to be true it often is, and this is most definitely the case.

If you see anything that features the following terminology then avoid it:-

Monthlywebfee

Online Career Package

WS 9 Daily

My Fox Back Office

Fox Back Office

You can set up your own google adsense accounts, and Amazon Accounts off your own back, and for no fee. And put them on your own website, which you have total control about.

While I’m sure it is possible to make a reasonable amount of money through referrals, do not pay someone for the privilege, and if you ever see something that says it is featured on a major source of news website/TV Channel, check it out first. You might find the only reason they ever featured there was because of advertising.