The Novel Network / MyPadMedia - SCAM WARNING! Selling access to a free site

[questionfear]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's unquestionably despicable, but it may not be illegal, if they are saying "pay us $50 and we'll tell you where to get free books". You pay them the $50 and they say "you can get them from feedbooks". The $50 is for the information, not the books.

That's the way that a lot of these scams work.

They are actually bringing users to the Feedbooks site, with just a banner on top that says "MyPadMedia". And they are getting people to sign up by claiming to offer the "Twilight" series in their testimonials, and in the probably fake reviews around the web there's claims of having downloaded "Harry Potter". So it's not like there's a link "go here", they are making it appear as though Feedbooks is part of MyPadMedia.

So whether it's illegal or despicable, it's definitely wrong. And now that Feedbooks knows about it, at least it's being blocked...and according to Hadrien at Feedbooks, the hope is that the payment company (clickbank) will reimburse anyone who purchased a membership. From Feedbooks logs and the member number Judie was assigned, we think it was roughly 250ish people.

Glad we found them out...but isn't the whole story just bizarre?

-Carly Z from Gear Diary

[GeoffC]

Bizarre, yes .... and shows how easily the unsuspecting can be 'tricked'.

[CyberSmoke53]

This scheme is really brazen! It may not be totally illegal but its not exactly an honest business site. Its entire purpose seems to be to trick new iPad owners and other such folks into paying good money to locate stuff that is free. The main infringement though is the "the banner at the top of the page" giving an impression that the site is MyPadMedia's site. A new variant on the site "spoof"!

Unfortunately they did find victims. I hope the folks can get their money back.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by CyberSmoke53

This scheme is really brazen! It may not be totally illegal but its not exactly an honest business site. Its entire purpose seems to be to trick new iPad owners and other such folks into paying good money to locate stuff that is free.

Unfortunately, eBay is full of such scams, selling stuff which is absolutely free.

[AnemicOak]

Not the first time this has been done and I'm sure not the last.

[MaggieScratch]

According to the Gear Diary story, they are selling the service by claiming to have the Twilight books available to download, and apparently are doing some astroturfing of reviews around the Internet that claim the Harry Potter books are available through the service. That sounds fraudulent to me.

This sort of thing was probably inevitable with the iPad being touted as an ebook reader.

[davidspitzer]

http://mypadmedia.com/legal.html


especially the links to third party sites sections

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Unfortunately, eBay is full of such scams, selling stuff which is absolutely free.

One of the best ones was how to make eBooks for the Sony Reader. I don't think that one exists any longer.

[GeoffC]

Someone's put a lot of effort into the site

[asterion]

Originally Posted by CyberSmoke53

This scheme is really brazen! It may not be totally illegal but its not exactly an honest business site. Its entire purpose seems to be to trick new iPad owners and other such folks into paying good money to locate stuff that is free. The main infringement though is the "the banner at the top of the page" giving an impression that the site is MyPadMedia's site. A new variant on the site "spoof"!

Unfortunately they did find victims. I hope the folks can get their money back.

Shame on them! I totally agree with you and there must be such a lot of people trying to get books for their Ipads thinking this was a great saving if you could have the latest bestsellers. I hope they all get their money back

[CCDMan]

I think this shows that e-books are entering the mainstream. When it was just us early adopters, most users had a clue and would not fall for this stuff...

[HistoryWes]

Now they are trying to scam iPad owners by offering "iPad compatible books". It's hard to tell if they are still linking to feedbooks or now connect with someone else because there just isn't much information on their site.

[asterion]

And you can read in the geardiary saga that the owner of mypadmedia site complains about the treatment he gets from geardiary and announces legal actions, that sounds like you've been found with a knife killing your neighbour and you say his neighbour is trying to charge him a crime and he´s gonna telephone his lawyer to put his neighbour in prison. Amazing

[questionfear]

Originally Posted by HistoryWes

Now they are trying to scam iPad owners by offering "iPad compatible books". It's hard to tell if they are still linking to feedbooks or now connect with someone else because there just isn't much information on their site.

I just checked, they are still attempting to link to Feedbooks and the warning from Feedbooks about the scam is still up. Maybe MyPadmedia took a vacation after everything blew up?

[NightGeometry]

I'm not sure how much control mobileread has over the ads shown here, but there are adds for them on this site - I noticed at work today. If you log out and then browse this very discussion you will probably see one.