“Attorney General Abbott Charges Web Site Operator with Orchestrating Fraudulent Work-at-Home Scheme

Infusion Media Inc.’s ‘GoogleMoneyTree’ uses high profile name to deceive out-of-work Internet users

AUSTIN – Attorney General Greg Abbott today charged two Utah-based defendants with operating a fraudulent work-at-home scheme. The state’s enforcement action names Infusion Media Inc. and Jonathan D. Eborn, whose “GoogleMoneyTree.com” promised six-figure earnings for conducting specialized Google and Yahoo Internet searches.

According to investigators, the defendants promised big payouts in order to convince Web users to spend $3.88 on shipping and handling for a “free kit” that supposedly would show them how to make money from home. Those who purchased the kit were later surprised to discover they were being charged $72 a month by the defendants.”

They are encouraging other victims of this scam to “file complaints with the Office of the Attorney General toll-free at (800) 252-8011 or file complaints online

Also see: http://strangelyperfect.tv/3099/google-treasure-chest-its-a-scam-and-a-half/ who has done some great research into this scam and for a full link to the press release.

And no… I haven’t been scammed by GMT. I am currently doing research on them.

I guess you need to read the fine print at the bottom of pages more often and pay attention to links that say terms and conditions.

“Right to the left of the form where you enter your credit card GoogleMoneyTree has this bold proclamation:

“No Hassle Money Back “Guarantee!
If you are not 100% satisfied with the kit,
simply call our dedicated customer service #
(located in the USA!), and we will immediately
refund your shipping payment… no questions, no hassle!” I RECIEVED THIS INFORMATION FROM THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE:

http://www.workathometruth.com/blog/2008/11/19/google-money-tree-complaints/

IT TOTALLY WORKED! THE FIRST TWO TIMES I CALLED I DID NOT MENTION THEIR GUARANTEE AND THEY TOLD ME I COULD NOT GET MY MONEY BACK. I THEN DID SOME RESEARCH AND FOUND THE ABOVE WEBSITE AND THE THIRD TIME I CALLED I MENTIONED THE GUARANTEE AND THEY IMMEDIATELY GAVE ME THE ADDRESS TO RETURN THE CD AND SAID I WOULD GET MY FULL REFUND BECAUSE THERE IS A 30 GUARANTEE. COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS THAT THEY DID NOT MENTION THIS TO ME BEFORE. WHEN QUESTIONED THE THIRD CUSTOMER SERVICE PERSON STATED THAT THE PREVIOUS CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES MUST BE NEW. HOPEFULLY THIS WORKS FOR EVERYONE ELSE. I WILL EMAIL WHEN I ACTUALLY RECIEVE THE REFUND!

I’ve worked with many companies like GMT who have products such as they do (Hit products with significant interests).

The Snuggie is one example, the company started to get many complaints about poor service, no returned calls and the like.

In the case of Snuggie, after everything was said and done, the problems had to do more so with the level of interest than the product itself. Here, the company had only expected 50,000 orders or so a month, and was selling at a rate of over 1,000,000 per month!

I imagine GMT’s problems may be similar to the mentioned above product. In one instance, I know where a company promoting a similar product refunded a significant number of people for all costs + gave them lifetime memberships with the program.

Believe it or not , some of the people that run these programs do know what they’re doing, but when things have exponential sales and they can’t cope, support goes wayy down. I can’t even imagine how you’d send out 120,000 Google CDs a month unless you had a VERY good infrastructure.

Having said that, I really did like GMT’s program, sure the support sucks at times, but I’ve made something like $2,000 following the outlined steps. I’m not making the $100,000 like the site said, but I’ve made more than enough to pay my mortgage.

In advance of that, I want to address some questions and comments that have been raised on this, and other boards. My doing so is not an attempt to debate people. So, to that effect, here are some very relevant facts you should know:

Let me first state that GMT was founded by an individual who has over a decade of experience in online marketing. This person makes enormous sums of money selling products via PPC, Organic Search, SEO, Blogs, as well as Display and Contextual Advertising. He also has a double opt in mailing list of over a million subscribers so he delivers quite a bit of email. And this is all selling products OTHER THAN GoogleMoneyTree. In the GMT kit, is an enormous amount of original education about how to duplicate what he has done. Anyone who applies him/her self can do the same thing. There is also information that if purchased seperately online, would cost you hudreds, even thousands of dollars.

In marketing online products like GMT, the ruling body is the most often the FTC, and in some cases the state of incorporation or location of the business. GMT complies with, and even EXCEEDS in some cases, the requirements in online marketing, fair disclosure and proximity as required by the FTC. GMT goes beyond the recommendations of the FTC to include disclosure and adequate proximity in the Terms & Conditions.

Would you have GMT, who by the way, is a business attempting to compete in a very competitive marketplace, and employs over one hundred individuals… (LOCATED IN THE US!!!), exceed the requirements of the federal government? Would you ask GMT to do MORE than what is required by law?

In what other business is that kind of extra disclosure mandated. When you buy a car, is it the sellers responsibility to make sure that you know how to drive, how to repair it if it breaks down, and disclose anything that is less than 100% perfect about it? When you purchase fast food, would you require the seller to disclose to you more than the FDA requires of them? Drug companies are not forced to tell you how many thousands of people die each year due to dangerous side effects, and interaction issues… just that some side effects ‘may occur’.

The facts are, the GMT Kit is a very, very good product (the only people who will dispute that, are those who have something to gain by doing so, because they are selling their own product). People like OneQuestion don’t even own the product. They’ve never been through the sales process, and they have no idea what disclosures are made to the purchaser as the sales process proceeds. They use the word ’scam’ in a completely inappropriate way. It seems that, like spoiled little children, should anything or anyone disagree with them, it MUST be a scam.

In another blog, a writer wrote about what her organization considers a scam. However, their definition exceeds what the federal law requires. And, she falsely represents what kinds of disclosure GMT does provide. There HAS to be some accountability on the purchaser of the GMT product, as well as those who write falsehoods about it.

Take the National Consumers League’s “write-up” of GMT. There are several mis-statements and outright lies made by Mr. Breyault. Here are some facts..

> The shipping charge is CLEARLY disclosed in every phase of the order process. No one clicks on anything without having adequate disclosure that they are getting a kit for free, and only paying for a small shipping charge.

> The member is told that they will have access to the members only site prior to the time they get their kit, in order to evaluate its value.

> The free trial to the membership site is clearly disclosed. Prior to the time someone enters a credit card, and in CLOSE PROXIMITY to the form where that information is entered via a secure order form, clear and concise language explains that after the free trial period expires, membership in the program requires additional payments.

> Mr Breyault says: Where is this fee listed? Why, in hard-to-read grey text on a white background at the bottom of the page (above the attention-grabbing red “Check This Out!” sign pointing to photos of a Range Rover, mansion, and island retreat), of course!

However, that is an outright lie. The text is not grey, is easy to read, and larger than the FTC requires it to be, and on a white background. It is easy to find, and should be read by everyone who orders our product. I copied that text from his page, without changing the font or color. GMT disclosure is much larger than even the type he used for his little blog!

> The Terms & Conditions are available on EVERY PAGE of our order process. Even directly above the submit button. A statement of customer agreement is made, by the customer, before they press the submit button to AUTHORIZE a charge on their card.

> The United States Government requires that the sellers of such information online, ship you the kit in a ‘reasonable period of time’. Case law has determined that time frame to be 30 days. GMT kits are shipped out daily, but because the kits cost more to produce and ship than we even charge for shipping, we ship via ground mail, and depending on where you live, it takes 3 to 7 days (not including Sunday) to get your kit. This is why we give you access to the kit (via the website in advance!

> If a situation occurs where a customer’s phone call is not immediately answered, that call goes into a queue, and if ever a call is in queue for more than 30 seconds, approximately 23 people are notified via email and text message. It happens about once every 3 days. If you were on hold for more than 30 seconds, it was an anomaly, and we apologize.

Now.. those are the facts. GMT complies with every law, in every state, regarding when, where, why and how you are disclosed the facts of the purchase you are making.

That said, calling GMT a ’scam’, disavows you of any responsibility in the process. Contacting your bank and claiming fraud, is paramount to you lying and stealing, but you don’t hear anyone at our company calling you a thief. We play by the rules that are set up for us by our elected officials. Yes, the rules are not perfect, but neither are the rules that we, as individuals, make up in an effort to correct the inadequacy of the system within which we do business.

GMT makes every effort to refund people who were, for whatever reason, not able to comply with the terms of the offer, or claim credit card fraud (meaning, someone stole their card and used it without permission) We’ve refunded a lot of money that we were not legally obligated to refund. We also refund those people who we show attempted to cancel within the time frame, but were billed that same day. That just seems fair. In the event of a technical or human error on our part, those customers will be given the benefit of the doubt, and refunded as well.

However, our policy is NOT to refund someone who simply did not read the agreements they were making. Asking us to do so is asking us to be responsible for something that you are not will to take responsibility for, the maintenance of a bi-lateral purchase agreement between two parties that had adequate and sufficient information and disclosure. We put the link to our terms and conditions page in the same exact same location, and font size that you see at the federal governments own websites. Go to:
http://www.irs.gov

http://www.ftc.gov

and now go to:

http://www.deliciousdownloads.com/z/GMT/?cy=6&pr=10&af=12&ad=12&rs1=898653244&rs2=1532#

We put it there because that is where consumers know to look. How much more would you ask of us? Would you want us to disclose more forcefully than even the regulatory agency entrusted to protect you as a consumer does??

So… before you start posting comments about how you were ’scammed’, ‘ripped off’, ‘lied to’…

Please ask yourself if you had the opportunity to determine whether or not you should purchase the GMT kit, but decided not to read the information provided to you.

Ask yourself if claiming to your credit card company that you were defrauded, or that your money was stolen, or ‘unauthorized’ is really honest.

Only ask us to keep the commitments that you are willing to make yourself. We will treat you more fairly than 99.999% of the companies in our market. If we didn’t care, I wouldn’t be here.

All that said. We do want to help. We are frustrated with the problems that blog sites like this have created, and are trying, in good faith, to do all that we can to assist.

If you feel like you were lied to, scammed, stolen from… and you can honestly say that the terms of the offer were never made available to you, or that for whatever reason you were not given the chance to make a good decision, for yourself, and that you should not be held responsible for your own actions… the please email a detailed refund request, with only your first name, last name, and city/state to:

GMTRefunds@gmail.com

(yes, it’s a public mailbox, but it’s the only way I can ensure that our company is protected from competitors attempts at DNS attacks trying to subvert our attempts to assist you.)

We will research your case, we will gather information regarding your attempts to contact customer service, we will examine whether you have complied with your responsibilities as defined in the terms and conditions, and then we will consider a refund.

NOTE: If you blog under an anonymous name, that negatively portrays GMT, your are in violation of the Terms & Conditions you agreed to. So blog responsibly.

When you receive the kit, I would suggest that you spend your time learning how to use that information to make money online rather than being frustrated. Even one month, of membership, and the kit is less than $100. You could make that money back in hours if you learn and follow the system.

And in a bizarre twist now their site is threatening people with $10,000 for each time a person mentions their site, the owners, the URL, or the site’s address without permission from the company.

In fact, this is a new clause that many companies running these types of negative option offers that stretch the meaning of “clear and conspicuous”. They even threaten people who might mention the site to someone else who THEN goes and posts on a forum, messageboard, etc.

Glad to see you here.

One thing I found out that I didn’t know when we were discussing this is that Google Money Tree had changed their order process by the time you entered the conversation.

When the blog post started, they had a pre-checked box linking to the terms and agreements, but they didn’t have the terms themselves on the first or second page.

Now they have the terms on the second page.

I updated the blog to reflect that they had mde those changes.

However, now people are writing that they called to cancel within the 7 day trial, told that the service would be canceled, but are still getting hit with the $72 charge and being denied a refund.

So basically they are alleging that the followed the rules outlined by Google Money Tree’s own Terms and Conditions and Google Money Tree is allegedly failing to comply. Of course those are only allegations.

I’m still curious about two things concerning their new order process:

1) The prechecked box next to the Terms and Conditions agreement link.

2) The fact that they wrote out the monthly charge amount.

Of course the ultimate solution as you’ve pointed out is to get people to always find and READ the terms and conditions no matter what.

Google Money Tree vs Grants for You Now