Blogger Award Scam Aimed at Top Law Bloggers
Nov 24th, 2009 | By Rex Gradeless | Category: Blogging, Featured, Lead Article, Social Media, Web 2.0Why anyone would try to scam some of the world’s most tech savvy legal professionals is beyond me. Unfortunately, someone tried. And they got caught.
Basically, a group of people running NewLawyer.com, Attorney.org, and Laws.com tried to pawn off an award to some of the top legal bloggers in the country. This award promised these law bloggers that they were chosen among a select group of bloggers and would be featured on their site just for adding a special code and icon to their blog.
Now, and contrary to what I imagine their goals were, all of the top legal blogs in the country are telling their readers about this scam – the law blog award that never was.
Here’s some great posts on this subject:
NewLawyer.com, Attorney.org and Laws.com one and the same animal – Kevin O’Keefe
A ‘Top 100′ Honor I Can Do Without – Bob Ambrogi
More Spam from Phone to Phone Inc.–This Time on Behalf of Laws.com – Eric Goldman
SocialMediaLawStudent.com was apparently scam-worthy as well. We received a solicitation of our “award” with the following email:
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This did not pass the smell test (thanks for your ip address “Patrick”). I had never heard of Laws.com being “one of the largest legal informational databases in the world” nor had I heard of Laws.com at all. Upon further investigation, their site looked fishy and lacked substance. So I responded with the following email 4 days later:
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Then I received the following nonsensical response:
lawsinfo.in
to Social Oct 27
Thank for the quick response. All you would have to do is copy and paste the code below to your website.
<A title=”Laws” href=”%20Http://www.laws.com” target=”_blank”><IMG SRC=”i1016.photobucket.com=”" albums=”" af287=”" newdoctorstuff=”" laws.jpg=”" href=”http://i1016.photobucket.com/albums/af287/NewDoctorStuff/laws.jpg” style=”color: rgb(42, 93, 176);” target=”_blank”>http://i1016.photobucket.com/albums/af287/NewDoctorStuff/laws.jpg” ALT=” Laws” WIDTH=”110″ HEIGHT=”40″ HSPACE=”2″ BORDER=”0″></a><br>Featured Resource</a>This is an award banner due to your great reputation which was compiled through a number of polls we ran.Thank You,Mary Miller
Anyone else scammed by these people?
Take Away: 1) If it doesn’t pass the smell test it’s probably not the real deal and 2) trying to scam tech savvy legal professionals will most likely fail.
Update: Some people were a little sad that they were not included in this scam. In order to assuage this painful experience we’ve “created” a Medal of Awesomeness that you can add to your very own blog!!
(click for larger view!)
By adding this simple code below, you too can have a Medal of Awesomeness badge:
<a href=”http://socialmedialawstudent.com/”><img style=”border: 1px solid gray;” src=”http://socialmedialawstudent.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/awesomness.jpg” alt=”I Am Awesome Too”/></a>
Enjoy being awesome! For best results display prominently on your blog. Ideal positioning includes: next to, or in place of, the blog’s title or main logo.
Related posts:
- How to Spot a Fake Blogger
- 10 Tips For Starting Your Law Blog
- How Bloggers Can Legally Find Premium Images
- FTC Guidelines on New Media and Disclosure Won’t Just Affect Bloggers
- Submit Yourself to Blog Catalogs
- The Consequences of Being a Legally Clueless Celebrity Online
- Online Privacy v. Defamation Law
- Top 20 Blog Posts of All Time
- How to Get More Blog Hits
- Lawyer’s Guide for Engaging in Social Media
I started reading this post, and then got my supplies together to throw a big Pity Party (Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, a spatula, brand new bag of Double-Stuff Oreos, a Cosmo (the martini, not the mag) and my phat Welsh Corgi Phoebe) ’cause paralegals are treated like the red-headed stepchildren of the blawgosphere and we never get included in Top 100 Law Blog scams – maybe ’cause we’re not lawyers but still – and then I saw your Medal of Awesomeness and thought that it makes all those hours of blogging into the wee hours mainly so my mama can tell her friends I’m an author totally worthwhile, so I put back all of the Pity Party supplies, except for the dog and the Cosmo.
[Reply]
Rex Gradeless
Reply:
November 25th, 2009 at 9:53 am
We are happy to help. Medals of Awesomeness are all the craze.
[Reply]
Thank you so much! I have replaced my title, logo and half of my actual blog entries with your Medal of Awesomeness. Please be sure to click through to my blog to make sure I am displaying it properly. You may need to visit 100-200 times before you start seeing it… if you have any problems please have a friend check 200 or so times also.
[Reply]
Rex Gradeless
Reply:
November 25th, 2009 at 9:51 am
This is great advice! 100-200 clicks on the Medal of Awesomeness is the best SEO trick out there. Plus, this also helps ensure your medal stays in mint condition. Brilliant!
[Reply]
Glad I found this. It’s not just the lawyers getting these awesome contacts. They’ve changed their tactics a bit (wasn’t offered an awesome badge or anything), now they’re letting you know it’s a big honor to be considered for inclusion on their site, an offer that won’t be repeated. Submit your info (and place their code on your site) for consideration as a listed resource on their site. After getting suspicious and turning them down the entire tone changed from superior, to please, to snide. Googled the IP address which led me to your post and others. Seems it’s happening to Teachers, counselors, and people like myself (My blog is about eating disorders).
Received another email today from another one of their sites. Replied simply, “No thank you.”
Very tempted to grab your awesome medal to soothe my disappointment.
[Reply]
Scam or not, I still feel left out RT @Rex7: Blogger Award Scam Aimed at Top Law Bloggers http://ff.im/-bYaKE
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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Another marketing scam I ignored RT @Rex7: Blogger Award Scam Aimed at Top Law Bloggers http://ff.im/-bYgSL
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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Busted by Rex7 http://socialmedialawstudent.com/social-media/blogger-award-scam-aimed-at-top-law-bloggers/
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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New: Blogger Award Scam Aimed at Top Law Bloggers: Why anyone would try to scam some of the world’s most te.. http://bit.ly/7ROfHo
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blog scam fail. http://bit.ly/7ioWID/ good thing i ignored the message
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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Rex Gradeless (@Rex7) discusses questionable marketing from Phone-to-Phone websites Newlawyer.com/Laws.com http://bit.ly/6PQpQa
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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