I was recently suckered by a website called www.35grand.com into ordering what turned out to be a total scam. Plus, I'm disturbed that this ripoff is still being advertised on 35grand.com last I checked, so I feel like I owe it to my readers to let this be known. Hopefully this might help some other people to avoid getting cheated by the same offer.
Back on 11/6/07 I even posted a list of several different ideas I had at the time for making money, and following this guy's plan was one of them. The "deal" was that I was supposed to be a dealer of his supposedly deeply discounted laptop computers, and easily be able to earn an extra "35 grand" per year. I had really high hopes for this, and I was excited to have found something like this in time to make some extra money before Christmas, etc.
Problem is, about 3 weeks after ordering the dealership (for $195.00) all I received was a nearly empty 3-ring binder that only included some general information about different types of laptops that would supposedly be available sell, a couple of CD ROMS about how to use free advertising and market on the internet, and a contract to sign and return that said I would have my local area reserved for me only. The explanation for the lack of further details was that he was just getting started and would be sending more pages for the manual as they are created.
That was the last contact I had with this person. My emails and phone messages were never answered, and neither was the snail mail letter I sent to ask what was going on and to request a refund if the program was not going to take shape.
Luckily I did end up getting my money back, but only by calling my credit card and disputing the charge. It was probably a pretty easy decision for them once they verified that the phone number that appeared on the credit card charge had been disconnected by then. So thank goodness I eventually got my money refunded because it doesn't always work out that way!
It's so easy to fall into the trap of believing everything people say when it comes to money making plans. The sales pitch on this 35grand.com even builds rapport with the reader by acknowledging how most money making plans for sale are just a waste of time and money, and then ends up being just another one of those situations.
I guess it should have been a clue that I wasn't dealing with the most honest of people when I first learned of this site by way of an ad on CraigsList, which was supposed to be advertising a "local" business opportunity. (He's on the opposite side of the country from me.) The truth is hidden well in the ad, since it only reveals the phone number which instructs you to go to the website for further details.
It's interesting to note that at the time of this writing he's even lowered his price to $99.00 for the "dealership" now. I guess even ripoff artists have to do a little price testing once in a while, huh?
I've reported this scam to GoDaddy, which is who the domain was registered with, so hopefully www.35grand.com will be brought down before it can rip too many more people off.
It's so easy to fall into the trap of believing everything people say when it comes to money making plans. The sales pitch on this 35grand.com even builds rapport with the reader by acknowledging how most money making plans for sale are just a waste of time and money, and then ends up being just another one of those situations.
I guess it should have been a clue that I wasn't dealing with the most honest of people when I first learned of this site by way of an ad on CraigsList, which was supposed to be advertising a "local" business opportunity. (He's on the opposite side of the country from me.) The truth is hidden well in the ad, since it only reveals the phone number which instructs you to go to the website for further details.
It's interesting to note that at the time of this writing he's even lowered his price to $99.00 for the "dealership" now. I guess even ripoff artists have to do a little price testing once in a while, huh?
I've reported this scam to GoDaddy, which is who the domain was registered with, so hopefully www.35grand.com will be brought down before it can rip too many more people off.
2 comments:
Hello. Thanks for letting people know. I as well fell into the same trap. Because I am a college student I thought that I could make some extra cash with this selling laptops.
Once I got the "kit" I wanted to see how these laptops were and so I decided to order one for a friend. I even did it over the phone with the man who created this scam, Dave Palmer, if thats even his real name.
A few weeks went by and I had not yet recieved it so I emailed him and asked him if he sent it, and how long would it take, and so on. He replied and told me that he thought it went out and that he would look into it. Ok a few more weeks went by and no laptop. Again I got the same response from him.
Maybe after 2 months or so he finally says that its on the way and he even sent me a tracking number and says that he sent it to one address that was incorrect. Unfortunatly I did not get his email in time.
I checked the tracking number at the UPS website and it said that it had been returned to sender. Obviously it went to another address and wasnt theirs.
So I emailed Dave again and he told me that he was going to check on it. After not hearing from him about a week or two later I sent another email and never got a reply.
Now check this, after emailing him several times and not getting any replies, I decided to create another email and see what would happen. I used another email address and emailed him about that I was interested in this program and asked him a simple question, like how long is shipping. He responded a day later.
This really angres me. He doesn't care about his "customers", all he cares about is his "to be customers" that will keep putting money in his pocket.
I have never been able to retrieve my money back. I don't care about the initial fee for the dealership all I care about is the money I used for the laptop.
I could have bought some text books with that money.
Hi Alex, thanks for sharing your experience with this scam. We owe it to the rest of the internet to get the word out that this guy obviously never intends on sending you anything after he gets your money. Hopefully "35SCAM" will get shut down before much longer.
Thanks for reading my blog and being a part of it!
-John
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