It’s Not About the Mommies, It’s About the Criminals
May 26, 2009
There’s this little drama that keeps swirling around the blogosphere. It involves paid-blogging, product reviews, honesty, transparency, integrity, liability, blah-blah-blah…
You can go debate it elsewhere if you like. There’s a ton of bloggers sure they have the answer and it’s whatever position they happen to hold on the matter. Do a quick Google and you’ll find a lively argument and people ready to verbally eviscerate each other over what you should or shouldn’t do. Or skip it – it’s getting kind of old, honestly.
But lately, every time you read one of these, they bring up the fact that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering revising their guidelines (for the first time since 1980!) and that it’s looking at Bloggers and how Social Media is impacting marketing.
Unfortunately, this is usually being dragged out as some sort of threat to “Mommy Bloggers” and whomever dredges it up tries to use it to imply that moms who blog product reviews “better watch out!”
Okay, seriously people. Let’s get to the real, shall we?
1) Moms (and Mommy Bloggers) aren’t the only ones out there doing product reviews. It’s just that they’re the latest group to get focused on by mainstream media and by marketing bloggers. But Tech Bloggers have been doing reviews for years. Magazine writers have been doing product reviews for years. Did you think that every one of those beauty & fashion magazines that tout the latest boots or makeup haven’t been sent samples? If so, you are living in fantasyland.
Companies have long been sending product samples to those who review – be they old-school magazines, bloggers, or even the currently-hot-but-totally-misunderstood-and-mislabeled “Mommy Bloggers.”
2) The FTC? They’re trying to revise their guidelines so that they have the power to go after criminals. That’s right, I said criminals. Those perpetrating fraud on consumers. Those guys. The bad guys.
Don’t know who they are? Here… let me show you.
Now, given that I don’t want to drive traffic to scammers, I’m not linking these websites, I’m just doing screenshots. Each small image links only to a larger, more detailed capture of the sites.
Now, what’s the difference between these “blogs”? The names (Alexandra vs. Claudia) and the locations (Georgetown, TX vs. Aurora, CO) – but other than that? Not much. Same pictures, same text, same everything.
As I said, I’m not about to drive traffic to these scammers – but you can see from the URL’s in the image above that they aren’t presented as marketing sites – they come across as blogs. Mommy Blogs.
I suspect that like many of these scams, these particular sites will disappear soon enough – to be replaced by the exact same everything but on new URLs. So I deliberately linked the images above to a basic scroll capture. For whatever reason, SnagIt couldn’t get the “comments” that are at the bottom of each page — if you’re really curious? They are simply text that is the exact same on both sites with the exception of the names, and are designed to imply that people have tried these and they work.
So why would the FTC want to be able to go after these guys?
Because if I’m a woman desperately trying to lose weight, and I come across one of these sites, I’m probably only getting in so far before I give up. What $50? $100? Then I’m certainly not going to tell anyone I got scammed. But I’m also not going to take the time and money required to sue them. Besides, how do you sue a con artist successfully?
This is where the FTC comes in. If they have not only the ability but the mission to “get these guys”? Well it benefits us all. Because “these guys” are going to keep suckering people in by pretending to be “moms who just stumbled on this amazing secret!” and it doesn’t do any of the real Mommy Bloggers and Product Reviewers any favors.
I’ve never known a real Mommy Blogger who claimed that she lost 25 pounds in 2 weeks using a miracle cure. But these sites above? I’ve seen their ads on Facebook and on Google. In fact, that’s where I first saw them. I clicked through an ad because it said that someone “near me” had discovered this “free” miracle weight loss method. I was curious what the scam was.
But I knew it was a scam before I clicked… My heart goes out to the overweight woman who gives it a try only to find out that she’s signed up for “autodelivery” and auto-billing… or given her credit card information to some guy in Malaysia.
So enough with the scare articles about the FTC coming to get us all, okay? Honestly, they’re just trying to make the Internet less scummy… and Mommy Bloggers? Not scammers. Not scummy. Really.
or Subscribe by Email!!
