ScamAdviser.com reviews and complaints

Scamadviser.com is a serious extorsion scheme. (I was hesitant to post this, given that it might have the effect of others giving in as well, but I feel this is too important to keep silent.) A few weeks ago I was checking Google for the ranking position of a site I had programmed for a client of mine earlier (a business that he had just started). I was surprised to see "Scamadviser" search results next to my client's site listing, given the fact that I knew for sure that his business was 100% legit. These "Scamadviser" links had very negative sounding text, along the lines of "Are you sure you want to do business with that site?" or "This site looks very suspicious, watch out" and so on. It was clear that these "search results" could kill his business before he had even started, so I informed him immediately about this. He told me not to worry and that he would get these links removed immediately, he was pretty confident about it - I was less so. A couple of days later, I checked Google again - no more damaging Scamadviser.com search results. During our next client meeting I asked him how he had managed to do this - he immediately got furious when I mentioned it: it turns out he had to pay the group behind Scamadviser.com real money to get the Scamadviser.com links and pages removed. His contact on the other side told him that he had several options, such as just improving his Scamadviser.com score (cheapest option) or having his pages removed (already expensive) or even having his site blocked for the check/test feature on Scamadviser.com (extremely expensive). My client opted only to have his pages/search results removed and that cost him a whopping $15k (yep, in words that is "fifteen thousand" - apparently those guys had figured out that my client was in a very lucrative business). Now, I know he told me one should "never negotiate with a terrorist" etc. and that he didn't want me to mention this to anyone out of fear of encouraging other businesses to pay as well, which would in turn encourage Scamadviser.com to continue, but whatever, this is just unacceptable and I don't know how search engines like Google haven't blocked them yet. So there it is. All I hope is that one day "the wrong guy" gets ripped off by these scammers and puts an end to this.

A strange rogue site called WWW.SCAMADVISER.COM has illegally abused the logo and copyright illustration adaptations of our website and advertised their website with it for upward of 6 - 7 months without permission. The publish the names of reputable businesses who run franchises, and try to wreck them!
We are an old medical firm and run a reputable website WWW.COBRA-ANTIDOTE.COM under the EU-67 548 EEC law of toxicology (as a group of several other similar sites such as WWW.SNAKE-ANTIDOTE.COM and WWW.SAFARI-MED.COM and WWW.COBRA-ANTI-VIROTOXIN.COM). We sell snake antidotes to customers who seek an alternative legal detox medication.
For all almost 7 months the criminal scam site called WWW.SCAMADVISER.COM had published our highly reputable website as first 61 percent trustworthy, then 87 percent trustworthy, but had wickedly published libelous information along with their ratings. After 6 months they suddenly claimed that the website which initially received a 87 percent rating as a trusted site was now 0 percent trustworthy! The two differing ratings are in no relation to each other and make no sense. The highly criminal site SCAMADVISER.COM and their mother company MINERVA SEARCH Inc never once contacted our doctor's office or foreign distributor offices for any of our legal medical papers and lab-documents about our longstanding medical claims in the Orient, and never once emailed or phoned us to inquire or obtain permission. We warn that they are a rogue site and are attempting to harm many reputable Asian and Oriental businesses such as ours! They treat reputable African websites even worse, and are attempting to plummet foreign start-ups into poverty! If you must do business, try to secure your business with local customers and distribution, because the West is attacking the role of Asian and Oriental companies who help to build the technology of the Internet. The digital information highway can exist without such racism. They will destroy this technology if they continue to condone or to use digital terrorism tactics!

ScamAdviser.com is worst than a scam, they use misleading, abuse and offensive title on search engine to damage other legit online businesses and push them to hopeless. Why I say that:

Scam Suspected 1:
This site base in country A but office address show in country B
This site might be owned by an anonymous who’s lived in India, I found his LinkedIn profile on the web (http://in.linkedin.com/pub/scamadviser-s/50/221/770). It is never mind adviser is from which country, but adviser said if the site seems base in country A but most likely in country B, it is suspicious as scam. So how to say this adviser, they are actually based in India and office address in UK?

Scam Suspected 2:
Using misleading, abuse and offensive title on search engine
They used misleading, abuse, and offensive title on search engine, eg. “is fake”, “suspicious”, “unsafe” “xx% trusted”, to attract visitor’s attention when they are search on a particular website. THIS IS A SIGN OF SCAM - those who intended to make quick money online – cannot wait for visitors but try to grab visitors from other websites. Other professional trust service company never do such thing to abuse other website or business, it is fair if you visited their site and found a negative reviews or rating about a website.

Scam Suspected 3:
Using generic website information as criteria to rate a website and cheating online users
Generic website information A – private domain registration
A website using “Private domain registration”, this is safety concern for a family based online business (many of single parent with kids; only son/daughter who needs to take care of their parent; people who needs to operate business at home to take care of their disabled spouse), who feel dangerous explore their home address in the public. It is allow by the domain registration authority, but adviser use this as criteria and say this is suspicious because of “using a service to hide their address”.

Generic website information B – free email
Adviser said if a website or online store using free email, they are scam suspected. But based on my sourcing experience, there are many of South Korea and Taiwan manufacturers and suppliers, using free email account like yahoo or naver (a Korean web service like yahoo) for business operation. They use free email account to save their hosting disk space to save their cost.

Generic website information C – Site seems based in country A but appear in country B or C
We know internet is borderless, a site owner based in country A, might host their website in a hosting service based in country B. And the hosting service have some servers in few countries, this is actually nothing to do with the website owner. Adviser claimed that it is suspicious.

Generic website information D – Contacts Information
Sometime we think a legit website should have contact information such as phone number, email or even fax. But not every website or online store doing that, even you visited a USA website, it might only have a contact form. A home based small business may only have a contact form, as they don’t want their phone number spammed by commercial ads. The funny thing is ScamAdviser itself do not provide any phone or contact information, but there is an email address if you want to advertise with them.

Scam Suspected 4:
Lifetime of a domain or website
Adviser said if a website is shorter than 366 days, it is suspected as a scam or unsafe to use. So according to this rule, ScamAdviser.com is just a few months online, and scamadviser.com has 8 history records in the past from 2008 to date. So this site might be suspicious as hit and run scam (source from whois).

Scam Suspected 5:
Their “scanning machine” is totally a cheating to no experience users, because based on their misleading and unfair criteria they given. It is totally a generic information of a website, so how can it identify a suspicious? And when you using of their scanning machine, it is likely helping them to promote their site on the web by hurting and damage other legit small business, make them hopeless. We know there are many of single parent with kids, or only son/daughter who needs to take care of their parent that rely on their small online store or blogshop for some income. They don’t really earn big, but if you scan their site (by their misleading and unfair criteria), it will put them in the risk of scaring their customer away.

Scam Suspected 6:
ScamAdviser.com claimed that they can detect a scam, but when a user asked them for help, they are also based on other reviews on the web.

Scam Suspected 7:
Their facebook page looks fake and mechanism. Those who look likely their fans, post almost similar questions on their page, and adviser gave them answers that nothing professional, anyone can answer their questions.

Scam Suspected 8:
ScamAdviser generated some fake webpage on search engine tailing their own domain name on the search engine, because they want to cover negative reviews on the web. A professional trust service will never do such kind of thing on the search engine.

Scam Suspected 9:
They asked for big sum for advertising opportunity on their site, you can see they asked for minimum budget of 5, 000 USD if you want to advertise on their site. A sign of BIG SCAM !

Conclusion:
Since their so call scam scanning machine is fake and totally useless (cannot even scan for virus, malware or spyware), why you use their service, do free promotion for them and help them damage other legit businesses? Specially for small online businesses that owned by many of single parent with kids; only son/daughter who needs to take care of their parent; people who needs to operate business at home to take care of their disabled spouse. You will help this BIG SCAM to damage other legit businesses and make them hopeless with no heart. So please DO NOT use their service, DO NOT visit their site, and DO NOT click on their ads. This heartless make quick money scam should died forever and never have second similar scam come up.

The adviser might be enjoying massage in Pattaya or stay in a luxury hotel in Las Vegas right now, while other legit small businesses are pushing by them to the edge of hopeless.

If you want to find out whether a site is scam suspected, there are many other review websites or forums that can give you some ideas. Also is best to do some research and learning to gain some knowledge on your own, rather rely on an unknown source and 100% trust what they said. A scam might get their 100% trust before they started to scam you!