Give the man a hand

OK.. it's end of the work day here and I'm killing time before going to meet some people in an hour, so I did two things to help solve this mystery for all you nice folks.

1. I checked the web page's code (it's simple... you right-click on the page and select "view source") and there's nothing malicious in it.

2. I googled a phrase from the site ("that's a threesome to you non french-speakers") and found a page of websites that mention the original site - helpwinMYbet.com. It's apparently already gone over 2 mil hits and no longer works. That guy at least had the brains to make some money from his website. From a letter to The Register:
Dear Lester, I was referred to this site yesterday by a friend of mine (the usual word of mouth thing). Howver, I was slightly concerned by the unprofessional look and format of the page; I was therefore overly cautious about clicking on things on it.

Which turned out to be a good thing!

If you look at the link properties for his links to metrodate.com and gamefly.com (well, the gamefly link is gone, but it did the same thing yesterday), the actual href link takes you through a redirection website! I looked up the owner of the sites that the links redirect through and came across a company named: ValueClick.com, an online advertising firm.

Now, this was before the statements listed for April 5 were posted. He has since stated that he is getting a financial bonus for signing people up for metrodate.com. However, with a click-through redirection system, he's actually making money from people simply clicking on the link to metrodate (not from having them sign up!).

Personally, I feel that this is horribly unscrupulous and dishonest!

Please warn your readers not to click his links!

Thank you for your time, Dave

PS. Also of note, "Jim" seems to be a screen name for this endeavor; the site is actually registered to a gentleman by the name of Brent Williams. But that's understandable.
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OK... now that that's all cleared up, I'm going to get a beer :lol:
 
zarbtron said:
That article is just made up from the actual website, it sounds like they've actually spoken to the guy but they haven't - Quality UK tabloid journalism at it's best vs 2 minutes on the internet by morbyd :lol:
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Exactly!!!! Now you know how much it sucks as a PR guy having to deal with the UK press about more important things (especially dealing with the tabloids)

Here's an interesting note though: the link above no longer works. They might have pulled the online version of the article!
 
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