I only now saw this.  I want to say that I subscribe to ConsumerAffairs.Com.  The first thing at the top of their page says:  To cancel your subscription, please use this link.  You don't have to hunt to find out HOW do I cancel.

They list recalls, which companies are in bed with people in power, scams, health, etc.  It's not all positive nor negative and it is very informative.  If you ever wondered what's going on that is not on the news, this is a nice little ezine to read. It also lists recalls about everything I can think of.

I believe that if someone wants to start a topic about a product with the intend to improve that products standing and they are getting paid, they should have the information or be in contact with the company where they can proved some technical or customer services for the said product.

A lot of people there know I work for Kingsoft and I have no problem in answering questions about there products I have even started some topics there about Kingsoft products but I have never told anyone I do not work for them. I prefer to answer questions in forums that are already talking about KS products 

What these people are doing comes close to and in some forums crosses the spamming line.

I recently discovered how this really works, with the most effective companies that are involved with paid posting, and the whole thing is quite scary.

1. They require their paid posters to be well established on the forums in which they make paid posts first, with a minimum number of 500 unpaid posts to their credit. This is to establish trust among the forum membership and lessen suspicion that they could be engaged in paid posting.

3. Paid posters must maintain a high ratio of unpaid posts to paid posts.

4. Paid posters must write original unique posts that are not duplicated, elsewhere.

5. They are only allowed to be paid once for an advertiser, and are forbidden from making a second post on another forum for that same product.

6. The forums they post on must be PR4 or higher and quite active.

The perfect candidates are people that have been long time members of a busy forum, and are trusted and respected by most of the members, and know what will and won't fit into the forum. They know the members of the forum quite well and the members know them. They are the ones that would never be suspected.

Take a look at the top 10 posters on this forum. All of them would be perfect candidates for this type of paid posting, here. And if any of them did it, you probably wouldn't know it.

If we had one among us, they could easily post about an application "find" and start a software discussion about it. Or they could easily post in the living room about some "cool site" they discovered, directing traffic to it. Or post in the company compliments & complaints section, with something nice to say about some company. It's also likely that it would end up promoted to the blog.

If any of the top 10 posters in this forum was to do any of those things, we would never know if they were paid for it or not, would we? Could we ever be sure? We all make posts like that all the time here, don't we?

The ad companies that charge the most and pay the posters the highest, and offer the most effective advertising for your money, all work like this.

They don't send someone to a forum and pay them to sign up and make a post and say great stuff about some product, site, or service, on the first post. The companies offering that kind of spam advertising services are cheap and ineffective and nobody really wants to make posts for them or hire them to spread the word about their product, site, or service.

It's the good ad companies that are capable of pulling the wool over our eyes and the only choice we have is to either keep trusting who we already trust and try not to think about it, or look at everyone with suspicion each time we read a post on any forum made by someone with 500 or more posts to their credit.

I told you it was scary.



DISCLAIMER: Since I have more than 500 posts here and am also on the top 10 list, I feel the need to state that while I may have done some things during the course of my life that I am not proud of, paid posting isn't one of them. I would rather be homeless and starve to death than sell my integrity, and I do not engage in any type of paid posting, here or anywhere else.

Hmm...  I guess we have to watch out for that mouser guy then.

But if any of us did that, it would probably be the same high quality posts we usually do, and thus the effect of it probably wouldn't be bad - even if the sub-morality of the things makes me nauseous. I really don't condone the idea, but at least it (probably) wouldn't result in the sub-par crap that spammers usually do.

Exactly! (as long as you don't know for sure that it's really going on and who is doing it)

A couple of months ago, a friend gave me info for 3 companies that he does paid posting for. I had no idea and I can't look at his posts on another forum without wondering now. (don't worry, he's not a member here...not his kind of forum)

He had good intentions when he told me, figuring I could make the money for a new pc much faster if I did paid posting. He was trying to help me by giving me this info, and info about some other less than desirable ways to make fast money online.  (at least to me they were)

He told me that between the 3 companies and the number of qualifying forums in which I am a member, I would make between $200-500 a month, if I worked for all 3 and did paid posts on all of the forums in which I have 500+ posts. This is what he's making from doing it on 2 forums, and he's even an admin on one of them.

I believe my response was "I'd rather sell my unwashed socks to foot fetish freaks on ebay, than do that." (no, I didn't do that, either...lol)

I didn't keep the info on the 3 companies and even if I had, I wouldn't link to them or give out the info to anyone. I happen to think the whole thing is dispicable, and I wouldn't want to promote or encourage this kind of thing.

With that kind of money, I can see why it would be tempting

But even though I don't view myself as having super extremely high moral standards¹, I don't think I could make myself post positively about something I didn't personally like or use.

#1: or perhaps it's just that I don't follow all of normal society's rules and etiquette

Actually, there is a way to deal with this. In the terms and conditions of your message board, you can force agreement of terms and conditions before allowing registration. In those terms and conditions, add a line that states

"Posting messages, public, private, or otherwise, for the purpose of advertisement, is against the terms of service and can result in an immediate and permanent ban along with removal of any/all of the content contributed by the user. Any post made here (donationcoder.com), be it the opinion of the user or not, which was posted in return for any product, service, or financial reward is strictly prohibited by the terms of service."

I just made that up, so it hasn't been thoroughly checked for any 'loopholes' or anything, but it would most definitely be a start to get rid of this. Businesses have to play by the rules, and this form of advertisement should be illegal. If for no other reason, because the forum owner should be responsible for the price of advertisement on the said board. If a person is paid to advertise something on the message boards, the owner of the forums who has paid money and put his sweat into making a successful message board is completely left out of any dividends received by the advertising.

If I were to ever do a review website (something I've wanted to do several times, actually) I would add a mission statement to the front page explaining my policy in detail about receiving money and kickbacks from companies regarding their product.

"Exclusive: Belkin’s Development Rep is Hiring People to Write Fake Positive Amazon Reviews"
http://www.thedailybackground.com/2009/01/16/exclusive-belkins-development-rep-is-hiring-people-to-write-fake-positive-amazon-reviews/?ref=email

Agreed carol -- these things need to be punished swiftly and harshly if we are to discourage them.

In fact you could go further and say that amazon should put a giant sticker on every belkin product page for a year saying the reviews and company cannot be trusted.

Wow they should pay me to say good things >.<

Hi there,

We're doing lengthy QA on our products, websites and other things here. We're always looking for people to look with "critical eye" and "severe fault-finding".

Drop us a note if you're interested...

Protocol is:

a) contact us, or drop us private message on donation coder.
b) we contact you, negotiate price,
c) you look/ or try to find faults with our products
d) more feedback --> more money.

this is private non-published review in other words.

We're doing lengthy QA on our products, websites and other things here. We're always looking for people to look with "critical eye" and "severe fault-finding".

It would be helpful if you mentioned what your products, websites, etc. are.  That way, people can judge whether they're interested and qualified to make a knowledgeable assessment.