Topbucks [[ Drama ]]
 

About 1 week ago a spammer - lets call him "Brad" for the time being, spammed 10,000s of adults and children with emails referring to child porn, rape and beast content for some of my biggest traffic sites.

The same day, sponsors started shutting down my accounts because "Brad" had put my name, referal code and websites on the email. Also the return email was my Domain name email, not a email I use for any other reason then to buy domain names.

Topbucks was the first to shut down my account. I'd been registered with them since early 2000 and made many thousands of dollars with them over the years. I even remember their 4c per click program.

I have spoken to Adam at Topbucks and the last word is final from him, Account terminated due to spamming. Even know I didn't spam anyone.

So this is how webmasters take their competition out now, they spam kids with others webmasters referal codes and that terminates their accounts = NO MORE INCOME from that sponsor. Good way to hurt affiliates.

Also, a big thank you to Rebecca at Trafficgigolos.com, Matt from Movieprofits.com, staff at pussycash.com, Jay from Traffic Cash Gold and some others who showed concern over this abuse from spam. All whom have now given me back my accounts or new accounts. A few accounts where put on hold but are now active again as they could see that this spam was an attack on me and not by me.

Basicly it comes to webmaster terrorism.

Yea that is fucking awful. I was shocked to see someone messing with you like that. Adult is low, but I never knew it was THAT low.

You need to retain counsel IMMEDIATELY and bury that fuckhead.

It always was like that, where have you been :)

All the Bro Wagons are getting in a circle right now I'm sure.

Be careful, Brad will be in here requesting to "meet face to face" if you don't say exactly what he wants to hear. :1orglaugh

I respect that above description of the situation and I am confident there is always two sides to every story.

However, in our experiences with Top Bucks, they have always and remain to be one the most highly respected affiliate programs when dealing with professionalism and the legalities with unsolicited mail.

Due to the ongoing changes of mail legistlation, it is simply not in the best interest for many of the US affiliate programs to even consider using email marketing as a means to accept traffic. The repercussions are very serious. The risk versus rewards are not logical for long term business, when addressing accusations of unsolicted mail. It is never in the best interest of the affilate program to turn legitamate webmasters away - we simply could not operate effectively.

IMO, the above issue does address customer service and communications. I am confident Top Bucks will repsond accordingly. They are a great team to work with and will continue to operate in this competitive market for years to come.

Wow, that's brutal. Running a sponsor program I've defineatly seen alot of nasty stuff, but I think that may be a new low. Hope you know who it is and can take some legal recourse.

Albert, I too understand business rules when spam is involved.

However, I have been patient with TB for 3 days now and im not getting the "we understand" treatment, this is what I got instead.


Due to a mass number of spam complaints that were received to our host
and spamcop and the legal issues we can be hit with, we cannot
reactivate this account.

Solution:

1: Buy a cheap Heat List.
2: Get a server in Nigeria.
3: Promote some escorts.












j/k of course, but I wouldnt blame you.

Zorgman - I'm not here to 'bro' anyone. I've worked for them and can tell you firsthand that they are one of the better affiliate programs in this industry today and their cautiousness ensures that they will continue to while others will disappear into the sunset.

That being said, as a now unbiased outsider, my suggestion to you, if it hasn't been done already is to collect all data & proof that it was not sent from your ISP, your ip and a copy of the emails with spoofed info and if possible sign an affidavit through your lawyer stating you had nothing to do with this activity and request that they review the account/situation again.
**no guarantee that they will reconsider, they are reasonable but still have to do their due diligence and if the lawyers disagree, they must follow the legal advice

As for this 'Brad' guy - if you know who it is, I'd report him immediately. If you don't know who it is, I'd most certainly make a police report as a form of 'identity fraud' (if this is at all possible) just so you have it on record that you had nothing to do with it and have proof of that fact JUST in case in a year or so, you find yourself with someone like AOL/MicroSoft taking legal action against you.

What happened to you is horrible, but I don't totally blame TopBucks. It's dangerous business and they probably just want to distance themselves from it all.

You should really look into legal counsel, although I'm not sure what options they can give you. If it's any consolation, I have blacklisted the company that was represented by the person who you say did it and another webmaster has pulled traffic he was sending to them. Doesn't seem like a company that is safe to work with.

Where can I get server in Nigeria? :winkwink:

Topbucks is currently in court with the the FCC for Spamming. Because of this sort of thing

They are paying big bucks to fight this.

They have to take this stance even though it is harsh. I don't think it is too hard to understand why they canned you, I don't think it was personal bro
;)

I know it wasn't personal and as I said I understand.

My point for this thread was to show that affiliates can take another webmasters income offline and hurt them by spamming everyone and say the other webmaster sent it. No one asks questions, the accounts are just terminates, so the affiliate has no chance of getting his income.

For the record I don't blame TB, I just find it hard to understand the full system as iv done nothing wrong.

Why you dont just punch the living fuck out of this Brad I dont know.

Seriously fucking hurt him then he wont fuck with you again.

Blue, he's on the other side of the world (Canada), and the program he works for wants nothing to do with this.

It's incredible beyond words he hasn't been fired.

People took notice and I'm sure won't deal with them because of it. It's just not worth the risk.

I'm surprised you didn't lawyer up.

I'm no lawyer myself, but this seems a pretty clear-cut case for an unfair competition lawsuit.

Maybe you should still retain council to see if you can still bury the fucktard.

The correct action would be:
- Freeze account
- Notify
- investigate
- take action on the evidence presented

hmmm.. is by any chance connected to that one 'brad' who wanted you help him win a contest or something like that?

Now, this is purely speculation... and I'm not saying that anything is set in stone, but I can tell you how this looks to me and why it looks VERY BAD for them.

Brad asks Zorgman for a "favour" of sorts, and is denied. His final words on the matter? An outburst of sorts, followed by accusations and threats on GFY. Then Brad laughs as he leaves.

Zorgman starts getting spam complaints and programs start shutting him down. The assumption here is (and Zorgman says he's pretty confident) that Brad is behind this rather large amount of spam being sent out.

Ultimately, you have a program who turns a blind eye... why? Because their employee is apparently capable of large quantities of spam.

Again, not saying this is so, but given the evidence.... this employee has access to large spam quantities, so just why is it that he hasn't been fired?

The program that he works for really needs to step up and take action. Whether it be statements, announcements, their own investigate or... what have you, but this reflects badly on them without it.

While I certainly feel for you I think it's an incredibly shitty thing that you went through, I still have to ask: Do you have proof that points to "Brad's" identity? If you do, sue him. If not, be careful, you don't want to get sued yourself and make it even worse.

You do know that the "Brad" he is referring to is Phoenix right? Personally I don't think he's smart enough to pull that one off, but I guess I wouldn't put it past him. :1orglaugh

Wow, if it's that easy to fuck someone up I am going to start sending spam today on an idiot's behalf.

No one i have talked to knows what the fuck phoenix does in the industry so I am assuming he just knows other spam reps (marina at sexsearch etc) and they all just share/trade spammers. That's how a lot of bros get traffic since they dont know FUCK about TGPs etc.

Anyway pure speculation but my guess is he pulled a string/favor somewhere. He is a total fucking douche but is capable of this I think.

shitty shit, I feel for you man

Is it dangerous to be an affiliate for lion dollars

I said this was a possibility years ago. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't happened more...at least that we know of.

From...

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=415120

sorry to hear about your plight :2 cents:

Yah this sort of thing is nothing new.

Sucks ... that really shouldn't happen without proof that it's you.

Sucks ... that really shouldn't happen without proof that it's you.

For starters, what kind of asshole makes a statement calling me a spam rep?
What is it that you do? Why are you bringing my name and our company into this mess. What is your agenda? Why are you comparing me to "Brad" aka Phoenix??????

I hope you have some kind of proof to justify such a ridiculous statement

Someone said there is always two sides to every story. And while that is some what true, they forgot that part that somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

if you are referring to phoenix I am going to have to call you on that

while phoenix may be an asshole on the boards, he is actually a pretty nice guy, and no offense to phoenix, but there is NO way he would know how to spam using the methods you mentioned

I beg to differ... he's been nothing but nice to me until he didn't hear exactly what he wanted to, or when he had the opportunity to kiss DH's ass....

I jokingly said that I had pics of him naked from Phoenix Forum... which I didn't. He freaked out and started threatening about having my servers hacked and blah blah blah.

Full on psycho, through and through.

It wouldn't be too hard though to find someone to do it for you if you had a particular vendetta against someone. I just find the timing incredibly coincidental along with the fact that Phoenix didn't come out and continue to flat out deny it. He simply took the position that he wasn't capable of of sending out a mailing even though others have said he had been inquring about mailing software weeks before.

At this point all the evidence is circumstantial until Zorgman is at least able to get some info on where the emails originated. As far as brad being nice, he's shown he's a loose cannon with anger issues and has threatened others on this board whom he didn't see eye to eye with.

wow what happened with this drama? i hope you can sue that fucktard who did this to you man! fuck them! well, if its brad i dind't see the proofs.

did you have recently any beef with someone else than Phoenix?

Did brad hire a russian spammer via irc?

I know for a fact that Brad doesnt have to go hitting up Russians for this sort of thing.

I want to clarify:

I am not slagging TB in any way on this. I am not slagging Lion Dollars except to wonder why Linds hasnt bitch slapped Brad to hell on this.




I'm slagging BRAD, because he lied SO fucking much in the original thread that I had to put hip waders on, then he compounded that by these actions.

I have no fucking clue or concern about what weight I carry around here when it comes to serious issues like this, but Brad you're a fucking liar and I hope you get nailed to the wall on this.

Quoted for so many god damned reasons ... the horse got up n left




this is a serious fuckin problem and its either obvious foul play or a nice frame job

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...zo/angela2.jpg

Investigation would be good

What kind of assholes use third party software/malware to steal from their own affiliates and competitors?

if that turns out to be true and can be proven it should result in a life long banning from all webmaster boards etc.

The fact that you willingly work for a company that stole from its webmasters via Zango is all the proof most of us need that you and sex search are capable of anything.


:)

if its true i hope community will do something aboutbit not just ban on webmaster boards.. ban in the whole industry.. but thats imposiible lol

Why isn't he here defending his name, reputation and company? He has basically lived on GFY for years and all of a sudden he decides he doesn't care what is being said about him. Makes no sense.