Warning to Vietnamese SEO agencies and freelancers! Don’t get scammed or become an accomplice to fraud

Beware of this scam targeting Vietnam-based online marketing agencies and also Vietnamese freelancers that work on Google Adwords and Facebook marketing.

After seeing the elaborate scam set-up which was tried to play on us, we thought we should share this and hopefully avoid having Vietnamese online marketing agencies taking part in this scam without knowing its dangers for them and for the clients that they will help to trick into buying these products (cosmetics).

What appears as a very lucrative PPC (pay-per-click) campaign is offered via email to a Vietnamese online marketing agency. The sender of the email states that they are ready to spend a considerable amount per day (1.000 USD) and that they will pay 5% commission for the Vietnamese pay-per-click agency that is managing the account.

Lidango.com, a legitimate online marketing business with a bunch of ill-reputed clients?

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcAfter researching on the web, you will find that many affiliate marketers are working with Lidango so it does seem that it operates normally, they are having some payment and other issues with some marketers but many others seem happy to be part of their network. So, we cannot conclude on malpractice on the affiliate side but for sure, the products we were asked to promote through an Adwords and Facebook campaign, really give out red flags as being scams. So, do you want to work and earn easy money as a marketer while the sales you generate are leading to disappointed people loosing money? We hope not!

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcHere is a part of the introduction email, received from Lidango.com:

************begin quote ******************

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắc“Our company is London-based and we have exclusive offers in beauty and cosmetics which we advertise in more than 35 countries at the moment. Our advertising campaigns are performance-based and we are interested in AdWords and Facebook.

I see that you have expertise in the Vietnamese market. We are interested in the options you could offer us. We would like to try a test campaign with you and if the results are good for us we would be happy to work actively with you. We are ready to spend up to $1000/day or more for advertising.

Best regards,
Vladislav”

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắc****************** end quote ********************

This email is sent from an address in the domain @lidango.com, after visiting their website, it looks like a legitimate and honest business so you will probably want to know more about their request.

lidango.com advertising agency for scammers?

When you reply to find out more about the campaign and the requirements of the potential client, this is what you receive in the next email:

************begin quote ******************

1) Below is a link for a Facebook Mobile Newsfeed –

http://www.pureskinjournal.com/vn3yxfasn/track.php?placement_id=1400432124&flight_id=1000000295&banner_id=100152259&hcountry_id=Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcVIETNAM&hcity_id=Hanoi

2) In our reports we need the following – clicks, impressions, CTR, Average CPC, Spent, Conversions, Website clicks. A regular .csv or .xls report which is downloaded directly from FB system will do fine.  We need that info on a daily basis for each day. If it is a period of 15 days – 1 line for each day with clicks, impressions etc.

3) The fee we offer to all our partners is 5% from the spent advertising budget – e.g. if the spent advertising budget is $1000 your commission will be $50 (5% x $1000). Our campaigns are performance based and if the campaigns perform well we will increase our daily spending until it reaches around $1000/day.

4) Profile managing – you will create and manage the AdWords/Facebook accounts. You can give me access in Facebook to your Ads manager so I could check the reports myself or you could send them. This is up to you.

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắc* about suitable partners – yes, this would be great

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắc* we have our own metric systems where we track all activity (clicks, conversions, customer activity etc.)

* banner template – attached example 300×250 banner in Vietnamese

* about set of criteria for referral partner – please elaborate

* banners are mostly the same , usually only the text is translated –

* translation of banners and texts is not required; however, if you notice some kind of error/mistake in the text or you have a suggestion we are ready to listen and correct

Best regards,
Vladislav

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắc****************** end quote ********************

Is this a legitimate project for your Vietnamese online marketing skills?

As you can see from that email, no real marketing skills are expected on your side in terms of redacting ad content, tracking and optimizing cost per click, etc. you are actually only an account (with your name on it in case of future legal issues).

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcSuspicious red flags you will find when doing your due-dilligene “background checks” on this potential client:

1) They say they are a London-based company:

Lidango UK

Liberty House 222 Regent StreetLondonW1B 5TR
Phone: +44 207 903 5433

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcWhen you call their number (always a good measure to call the company and ask for the same person you are receiving emails from), it is a third-party answering service (which could actually be anywhere in the world) that will take your message…we requested a call-back from the person we were dealing with and it never happened. Very suspicious!

2) When we set-up a skype meeting with the correspondant:

Vladislav

vladislav.xxxxxx@lidango.com

Skype: lidango61

It turns out that he is in Bulgaria (not London), even though he uses Skype, does not have a webcam available (so we can see his face) nor does he have a landline we can call him on (we pretended that the sound over skype was bad and wanted to call him on a landline). He called us back with an unidentified number.

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắc==> red flag, red flag! Even though the person speaking is well-versed in answering suspicious questions and is very pleasant and professional sounding, do not fall for this!

3) When checking the material sent to us, we see some sneaky methods that are all implemented to trick the customers (end-user, not you):

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcWe were sent this link http://www.pureskinjournal.com/vn3yxfasn/ as being the landing page of our Adwords Vietnam pay-per-click and Facebook advertisement campaign targeting Vietnamese clients. This page is supposed to give credibility to the product (looks like an article from a trusted newspaper, scientific virtues of the product are claimed)

Pureskin and Biolab scam targeting vietnamese online marketing agencies and Vietnamese public

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcIf you click on any link from that landing page, you are taken to another website (using a sneaky redirect that is very very difficult to detect, even when using an seo redirectchecker):

Biolab cosmetics scam targeting Vietnamese consumers

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcDon’t be fooled by all the legitimate Vietnamese bank logos (Vietcombank, Agribank, Sacombank, Techcombank, etc.). Look up Pureskin and Biolab scams and you will see many reports on how this scam tricks people out of their money, all over the world (see below).

BioLab (also written Bio-Lab) and Pureskin, two names that come up much too frequently when looking up online marketing scams

A very quick search and you will see many posts from people claiming to have been scammed by these brands. The main tactic it to promise a 30-day free trial, you only need to send postal costs (a few dollars), to do this, you use your credit card….bingo, you’ve been scammed! You will be charged a huge amount immediately, before finishing the trial period and you will never get it back.

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcFederal Trade Commission complaint against Bio Lab

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcPureskin creams, not recommended..

So, should I work with Lidango and earn all that money? After all, if people buy the product, it is not my problem…

1) Lidango.com, though it is not the scammer itself (it is “only” the advertising agency for other companies selling a variety of products, mainly cosmetics, these are the ones that will scam the people who buy the products online in Vietnam), it is an active component of this international scheme, now targeting Vietnam. This is more of an ethical question from our point of view, however, looking at the larger picture, being an actor in these campaigns is not something we would consider doing, you’ll have to figure out if it is worth it for you.

2) If you do some research, you will see that many affiliate marketers or pay-per-click marketers are complaining about not being paid by Lidango once they reached the agreed payment threshold (very common problem with any affiliate scams, you work and then don’t get paid…). This is another risk you will run, not getting paid. However, as we pointed out above, it does seem that most affiliate marketers are happy with their partnership (they get paid and earn substantial amounts of affiliate revenues).

3) Even if you did get paid for managing their Google Adwords or Facebook mobile ads campaign, you would be participating actively in theses fraudulent campaigns that will make many victims among Vietnam internet users as they will think they are just paying postal expenses to receive a cosmetic product for a free 30-day trial but they will actually be billed much more than expected once they give out their credit card details.

4) As you will be requested to create your own Adwords account and Facebook account, this means that if any authority wants to investigate this fraud, they will come straight to you as the one owning and operating these accounts even though you have no access to the credit card payments and amounts stolen from the customers…you will have a difficult time proving your are innocent.

Earning 50 USD/day for managing a Google Adwords account is quite attractive for many Vietnamese SEO agencies, please consider that either you, the local seo agency, will be tricked (not receive payment for your work) or, much worse, innocent people will be tricked and loose money and you will be an accomplice as well as responsible for this fraud. Do your background checking every time and do not be blinded by the large fees you are expecting to earn.

Some examples of the material that you will receive to set-up the online marketing campaign (Adwords and Facebook pay-per-click)

Here is the kind of material we received.

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcInstructions:

*********** begin quote ********************

Fan page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pure-Skin-Journal/1405948463033171

VN – Vietnam

Mobile Newsfeed

http://www.pureskinjournal.com/fbc.php?cnt=1027296

image – 4

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcImage 4, cosmetic scams pureskin and biolab

Note: the photo above is of Gao Yuanyuan, scammers are using this beautiful Chinese actresses’s photo for a cosmetic campaign, obviously without her being part of this scam.

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcChăm sóc làn da của bạn

Nếu bạn có phương pháp chăm sóc da hoàn hào này, bạn sẽ thấy kết quả tuyệt vời sau!

description:

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcMặt trời, khói bụi, chất kích thích gây tổn thương da. Làm thế nào ngăn những tác nhân đó?

image – 40

Image 40, cosmetic scams pureskin and biolab

Note: this photo has been taken from Shiseido’s Revital Vital-Perfection Anti-Aging Science Serum AAA Whitening campaign and is being used illegaly by scammers for their own banners and promoting their dubious products (Biolab and/or Puresking cosmetics).

Mẹo chăm sóc da của tuần

Làm thế nào để làm sạch và làm ẩm làn da với một thói quen dễ dàng và không có hại?

description:

Bạn mất tự tin tại tiệm mỹ phẩm? Hãy thư giãn, chăm sóc da chưa bao giờ được dễ dàng hơn.

Desktop Newsfeed

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắchttp://www.pureskinjournal.com/fbc.php?cnt=1027297

image – 4

Chăm sóc làn da của bạn

Nếu bạn có phương pháp chăm sóc da hoàn hào này, bạn sẽ thấy kết quả tuyệt vời sau!

description:

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcMặt trời, khói bụi, chất kích thích gây tổn thương da. Làm thế nào ngăn những tác nhân đó?

image – 40

Mẹo chăm sóc da của tuần

Làm thế nào để làm sạch và làm ẩm làn da với một thói quen dễ dàng và không có hại?

description:

Bạn mất tự tin tại tiệm mỹ phẩm? Hãy thư giãn, chăm sóc da chưa bao giờ được dễ dàng hơn.

Targeting

– 1 country –  Vietnam

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắc– women – according to link

– age – 30-45

– lifetime budget – 15.01- 17.01 – $450/ per link for the period

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắc****************** end of quote ********************************

Another example of a banner:

Hiển thị kết quả xổ số miền bắcBanner for Facebook advertising supplied by client