Disclaimer: the request below may be legit, but my BS radar went off louder and louder the more time I spent with the requester on Skype. I am not mentioning the requestor's name here unless one of the mods ask me to.
So here is the deal: Last night I received a PM from a member with more than 10 but less than 50 posts. He was asking for help with AdWords, his accounts kept on getting disabled. I have helped quite a few people and companies in the past with this so I did not think too much of it.
We started to message on Skype this morning. He told me about how each time he opens an AdWords account it never gets impressions or clicks. When I asked what websites or URLs he has in the account he got very evasive. At one point he gave me one domain that when I went there the URL failed, he said he removed it from the server.
(getting some warning bells here now)
He then asked me to open an account for him and he will pay me for the activation fee + a fee for my time. He asked for 2-3 accounts that I will put in generic ads that he could later go in and modify to his own ads/URLs. He said he would need around 100 accounts per day.
(warning bells, sirens, BS meter all going wild here. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!)
At this point I was pretty sure I was looking at someone who would use fake cards to pay me through PayPal and run up huge bills on MY cards that would be in the AdWords accounts he wanted me to open for him. This is one of the real dangers, if you open an account for someone else, they can run up bills on the card and info you have there and you are on the hook for those as it your billing info in there.
Just for the heck of it I offered to teach him a method of how he can open an account safely himself for a small fee. But he went real quiet after that.
Final note: This is meant to be a warning about the angers of opening accounts for others, not the ethics/legalities of opening multiple accounts.
-Alon
So here is the deal: Last night I received a PM from a member with more than 10 but less than 50 posts. He was asking for help with AdWords, his accounts kept on getting disabled. I have helped quite a few people and companies in the past with this so I did not think too much of it.
We started to message on Skype this morning. He told me about how each time he opens an AdWords account it never gets impressions or clicks. When I asked what websites or URLs he has in the account he got very evasive. At one point he gave me one domain that when I went there the URL failed, he said he removed it from the server.
(getting some warning bells here now)
He then asked me to open an account for him and he will pay me for the activation fee + a fee for my time. He asked for 2-3 accounts that I will put in generic ads that he could later go in and modify to his own ads/URLs. He said he would need around 100 accounts per day.
(warning bells, sirens, BS meter all going wild here. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!)
At this point I was pretty sure I was looking at someone who would use fake cards to pay me through PayPal and run up huge bills on MY cards that would be in the AdWords accounts he wanted me to open for him. This is one of the real dangers, if you open an account for someone else, they can run up bills on the card and info you have there and you are on the hook for those as it your billing info in there.
Just for the heck of it I offered to teach him a method of how he can open an account safely himself for a small fee. But he went real quiet after that.
Final note: This is meant to be a warning about the angers of opening accounts for others, not the ethics/legalities of opening multiple accounts.
-Alon
