Recently I have a slew of calls, emails and even a letter from the Better Business Bureau accusing my business of fraudulently making continuous credit card charges on their accounts. When I got the first call, I figured it was just an anomaly and I helped the guy determine what happened, we found the company he was looking for and moved on. The second call I got started to get me a little worried. The third call, an email and a letter from the BBB downright freaked me out. In Oregon, there is a business using a name similar to mine, and they are scamming people out of their money. I decided to write a post on how it works and what you can do to make sure you don’t fall victim to something like this.
My company name is Moore Web Exposure. The company scamming people is called WebExposure. The problem gets worse given the fact that I run my business in Portland, OR and these con artists run theirs in Clackamas, OR.
What they are doing:
From what I have been told,WebXposure tells its victims that they will put their business Google Local listings for a fee of a couple of hundred bucks. The first problem with this is anyone can get a Google Local account for FREE. But this alone is not a big deal. What is a big deal is once the victim gives this company their credit card information, WebXposure keeps billing them without authorization until the victim catches on and cancels the card.
So, how could these victims avoided this altogether? Simple. Start asking questions. Had they done a simple Google search for this business, they would have found the following:
- WebXposure Rip-off Report Filing 1
- WebXposure Rip-off Report Filing 2
- WebXposure on Scam Informer
Chances are good that the people who got scammed here will never get their money back. Best thing they can do is call their credit card company and report it.
The moral of the story is DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!! Ask for testimonials, look for their footprint on the internet, see what others have to say about them. If it is a legitimate business, they should have a large footprint on the internet. If you cannot find them on the internet, turn and run as fast as you can!