How many residents of Los Angeles can there be with the unlikely name of "Cashier Myricks Jr.?" I ask this question because an e-mail arrived in the Salon in box over the weekend marketing the services of ForeclosureData.com -- "the most trusted, comprehensive foreclosure database."
One of the enduring delights of a resolutely capitalist society is that there is no misery too great that someone can't think of a way to, well, capitalize on it. As has been widely reported of late, home foreclosure rates are soaring across the nation -- especially in those regions where the housing market exploded most ferociously, such as California's "Inland Empire" and pretty much all of Florida.
The foreclosure boom has apparently spawned a market opportunity for real estate investors looking to pick up "distressed" properties at foreclosure auctions. There's a ton of bargains out there, and the ForeclosureData Agent Network will help you find them!
Join our #1-Rated Affiliate Program for FREE and I'll help you: Generate HUGE monthly commission just by sending visitors to our web site!
You can't put it better than the site does: "Our product sales itself."
For those geezers old enough to remember when the first Make Money Fast! pitches started appearing in Usenet newsgroups, it's enough to bring a nostalgic tear to the eye. Housing busts come and housing busts go, but sketchy-sounding affiliate schemes will be with us always.
These instant-zeitgeist bumper stickers are rarely more than mildly amusing, and I would not have felt compelled to dwell on this latest malarkey to grace my computer screen, if it hadn't unexpectedly demonstrated, once again, the foundational principle of How The World Works: the utterly ludicrous and incestuous interconnections that bind all the workings of humanity together. Wondering if I could find any background information on the president and CEO of ForeclosureData.com, the endearingly monickered "Cashier Myricks Jr.," I googled the name and company together and discovered some brief, and unflattering, discussion at ForeclosureTalk -- a bulletin board dedicated to discussing foreclosure issues.
Which led, in turn, to a rash of news stories from May 2006 reporting a settlement between a "Cashier Myricks Jr." and the Federal Trade Commission, relating to what the FTC declared were "deceptive ads" associated with Myricks' Web operation, MP3DownloadCity.com.
According to the FTC, the defendant markets and sells a tutorial and referral service that promotes the use of P2P file-sharing software programs to download digital music, movies, and computer games. Unlike a licensed subscription service, the defendant's service does not provide its paying customers with a license to download and share copyrighted music, movies, or games. Instead, for $24.95, the defendant instructs consumers on the use of free P2P file-sharing software provided by others, such as Kazaa. According to the FTC's complaint, consumers are lured to become members by deceptive claims that subscribing to the defendantb
* AND BEST OF ALL PEOPLE ARE NOT GETTING SUED FOR USING OUR SOFTWARE. YES! IT IS 100% LEGAL;
* Why Are We The #1 Free MP3 Music Download Site?...
* Download and Watch DVDs and Movies Still in Theaters; and
* Rest assured that File-Sharing is 100% legal.
According to the stipulations of the final FTC settlement, Myricks was ordered to return $15,000 to his customers.
Once again, I ask: How many residents of Los Angeles named Cashier Myricks Jr. can there be? I'm not sure exactly what to do with the information that MP3DownloadCity.com and ForeclosureData.com might be joined at the hip, except to advise anyone who might ever think of signing up for anyone's affiliate program to follow one simple rule. Google first.
Shares