Stop! Don’t Ask Me To Participate In Your Scam

Since I started blogging last year, I joined a few blogging social media groups:  Blogged, Blog Catalog Stumble Upon and Technorati.  I’ve made some contacts and added friends to my network.  But this morning I checked my e-mail and was disturbed by a request from someone who had just added me as a friend and then put a message on my Shout box asking me to go to his blog and click on his ads!  Of course, he would in turn click on mine.  Oh h*## no!

Now I’m no saint, but I am honest and I absolutely hate for anyone to ask me to do anything dishonest.  I’ve been known to give back $1 that the self checkout register gave me because it was too much change.  Anyway, the first thing I did was send him a reply:  “No thanks!”  Then I deleted his message from my Shout box.  I could have ignored it but I didn’t want people to think I participated in his little scam.

I went over to his profile.  His profile is so empty that it’s scary.  He has no photo, uses a pseudonym and offers no personal information.  His web site is the same.  The profile gives his gender and nationality.  He had added about 20 new friends over a two hour period and sent them the same message he sent me.  Quite a few people reciprocated.  If they get caught, they’re all going down together.

To me, this thing is absurdly dishonest on several levels:

• This person doesn’t know me – I could have reported his site to Google Adsense
• If you have Google Adsense or affiliate ads that pay per click, they can pull your ads if they find out you asked people to click them
• Even if Google or your affiliates don’t figure out that you’ve asked people to click your ads, if your click rate is high and your click through rate is low, they can pay you less

That said, it’s his problem and not mine.  But don’t try to recruit me into your shady dealings.  Just let me go about it the honest way.  If I make money great, if not, that’s the chance I take, but for me integrity is priceless!