Be wary of online Enemies!
Written: Feb 08 '01
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The Bottom Line
Be wary of Online Enemies. You never know who may report you as a Spammer - and when they do, you're all-advantage history! Whether there's basis or not.
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| Full Review |
What is All Advantage? -- It's an online company that pays you an x-number amount of cents to have their view bar open at the bottom (top, whatever) of your screen while you're online. When you see ads (like commercials) that you like, you can click on their banner. They make money through the sponsor's ads. Personally, I think they should have called it Unfair-Advantage...
Here's why:
I don't remember the exact number of referrals I had, but it was almost two hundred direct referrals, and just over 100 indirect referrals. I was getting checks every month and I live in Canada... (Canadians get paid less, and have to earn more to get checks with virtually every online company.) I never abused the system by using those mouse-moving things. I didn't mass spam people to sign up under me. I actually did very well for myself...
Until the day...
One day, I couldn't log in. I couldn't figure it out, except my web page was vandalized as well. (Nothing major, just some replaced pictures, nasty messages, etc.) A couple days into not being able to logged in, I wrote to the company and asked if there was a system problem.
Their Response!???
They said that I was under investigation for fraud. Excuse me? I ran a successful web site, and the only advertising I had to do was put up a banner on MY WEBSITE! I couldn't believe it. But, I trusted them to do their little detective work. I had been with All Advantage for over a year. Of course they should have basis for accusing me of spamming people, right?
Apparently not.
For months after, I was confused. All advantage placed me on their Spam list of user-IDs. I was humiliated. (And of course -- I was upset at losing that $100 or so dollars a month. FYI -- They cancelled the last check on me, and withheld the money they owed me. They state they give it to a charity. Yeah. I'm so sure.) But right after that, they started those new rules - less hours to have the view bar open and active , as well as other silly things.
What happened?
A girl I had met on the internet and I had a fight around that time. I did not link that to the web page disaster, nor the All Advantage confusion. She told me she wrote them a message, two lines, saying "so-and-so sent me a message soliciting All Advantage. I don't know this person, make this person stop emailing me." And of course, she used my ID and email address. Nice. She didn't have an email from my account, she couldn't prove it, nor did they ask. They simply locked up my account, and probably pocketed the money for themselves. They did no research into the allegations, nor my protests. (I really liked All Advantage - I was an All Advantage junkie! I constantly went to see how many referals I had because of my web site, etc.)
And so...
And so, I hate them now. I can't believe that I was the cause of almost 300 referrals to their business, and they didn't give me the time of day to hear me out. The only consulation is that they are doing poorly, have too big of a banner, and are paying less.
I guess the point is don't make any enemies. I don't see how anyone can stay with All Advantage, since a lot of their users do spam. I get a lot of it. I don't report anyone unless they blantently ignore my requests for no email. I'm really good with my delete key in my inbox if I don't want anything.
Be wary of Online Enemies. You never know who may report you as a Spammer - and when they do, you're all-advantage history! Whether there's basis or not.
Recommended:
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About the Author
Member: Julie White
Location: Vancouver, Washington
Reviews written: 92
Trusted by: 94 members
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