Just wanted to report to everyone that on Thursday and Friday morning I got a visit at my house from two lead investigators from the Florida state Attorney General's office and two investigators assisting them from the New York state Attorney General's office.
Without getting into too much detail, I was definitely caught off guard the first time, and a bit nervous about it, because let's face it, four guys in trench coats and suits showing up at your door flashing their badges/ID's one after another introducing themselves and their titles when you're half awake would be intimidating to anyone by any standard. Personally, I thought they were either from the IRS to come to tell me that I screwed up on something and that I was going to jail, or that it was about the Myspace suit. Never thought ringtones for a second, until now.
Luckily they told me right away I wasn't in any sort of trouble and that they were just there to learn more about the affiliate marketing industry, specifically the ringtones industry. They spoke to a few people before me, and all of them had mentioned me as an expert in the field (does this mean I have to write an ebook now?) to speak to. Apparently they had tried to get in contact with me first via email, but I thought it was a scam/phish email, and deleted it, and may have said something not so nice in response. Well, even without a .gov email address, I can tell you now, it's the real deal.
It was a pretty general conversation overall, because like most of you know (especially those at the session I gave at ASW) I'm not into ringtones at all, and although I know the general basis of it, I'm not sure I was much help to them in that area. I can say however that the part they are investigating and collecting information for a case right now is over ad networks, affiliates and some of the ringtone companies for "deceptive marketing" practices. I'm referring to marketing ringtones as "free" when they aren't at all. They had also mentioned a word called "cramming", which is when you prepopulate a lead gen form without the knowledge of the actual user, and sign them up for the "free" ringtone offer. Now all of the ringtone offers I know of use the second page passcode verification part, but apparently that wasn't always the case. So that is what they are focusing on for the moment, because there were a ton of unsuspecting victims who either got signed up for it via the cramming method, or who signed up to one of the lead gen pages themselves thinking it was free, but then months later realized "why am I being billed for $10/mo for this?!".
Just a heads up to all of you affiliates and networks that may still be trying to convince users that the offer is free, you may want to consider stopping that type of marketing practice. If two large states are already involved, you can bet others will join in with them too.
If you are an affiliate or network owner, have ran the Blinko or Dirty Hippo offers in the past as "free ringtones", and you may have more information to assist these guys in their investigation, and want to come out to them, it may be wise to be on their information collecting side, rather than on the defense side in a few months from now (or less).
They are good guys and definitely not out there to screw you, I'm sure they will keep things anonymous too if you ask them, and I know they have visited many others already, both affiliates and ad networks, but I won't ask any of those guys to come forward, because that's their call, not mine.
To get in touch with the lead investigator, his name is Robert Schara. You can contact him at his office at 850-414-3300, or email him directly at Robert_Schara@oag.state.fl.us. Hopefully if you are reading this and do decide to get into contact with him, you'll be of a lot more help than I could have been. They already have a long list of people they are visiting all over the country (probably going to wake them up and give them a semi-heart attack like with me), and if they do happen to show up, don't blame me for it either, because you were probably on that list way before me. I didn't give out any names (nor was I asked to), because quite frankly, I'm not a ringtone guy (thank god! Good call Jon!), and they had already mentioned anyone of any significance (networks/affiliates wise) within the industry that I would have known about.
In closing, this investigation is not shutting down the whole ringtone industry as we know it, so I'm not telling you guys to pull down your offers and head for the hills, but again, if you are marketing these things as "free ringtones" (that includes on PPC) when the end user is not really getting it for free, you should stop, now. This is very serious stuff, and I can assure you, it's not worth an increase of a few thousand bucks to go to jail over. So as long as you've always played by the rules, you probably shouldn't worry about it, but if you haven't, well, I'd get plenty of sleep if I were you.
Without getting into too much detail, I was definitely caught off guard the first time, and a bit nervous about it, because let's face it, four guys in trench coats and suits showing up at your door flashing their badges/ID's one after another introducing themselves and their titles when you're half awake would be intimidating to anyone by any standard. Personally, I thought they were either from the IRS to come to tell me that I screwed up on something and that I was going to jail, or that it was about the Myspace suit. Never thought ringtones for a second, until now.
Luckily they told me right away I wasn't in any sort of trouble and that they were just there to learn more about the affiliate marketing industry, specifically the ringtones industry. They spoke to a few people before me, and all of them had mentioned me as an expert in the field (does this mean I have to write an ebook now?) to speak to. Apparently they had tried to get in contact with me first via email, but I thought it was a scam/phish email, and deleted it, and may have said something not so nice in response. Well, even without a .gov email address, I can tell you now, it's the real deal.
It was a pretty general conversation overall, because like most of you know (especially those at the session I gave at ASW) I'm not into ringtones at all, and although I know the general basis of it, I'm not sure I was much help to them in that area. I can say however that the part they are investigating and collecting information for a case right now is over ad networks, affiliates and some of the ringtone companies for "deceptive marketing" practices. I'm referring to marketing ringtones as "free" when they aren't at all. They had also mentioned a word called "cramming", which is when you prepopulate a lead gen form without the knowledge of the actual user, and sign them up for the "free" ringtone offer. Now all of the ringtone offers I know of use the second page passcode verification part, but apparently that wasn't always the case. So that is what they are focusing on for the moment, because there were a ton of unsuspecting victims who either got signed up for it via the cramming method, or who signed up to one of the lead gen pages themselves thinking it was free, but then months later realized "why am I being billed for $10/mo for this?!".
Just a heads up to all of you affiliates and networks that may still be trying to convince users that the offer is free, you may want to consider stopping that type of marketing practice. If two large states are already involved, you can bet others will join in with them too.
If you are an affiliate or network owner, have ran the Blinko or Dirty Hippo offers in the past as "free ringtones", and you may have more information to assist these guys in their investigation, and want to come out to them, it may be wise to be on their information collecting side, rather than on the defense side in a few months from now (or less).
They are good guys and definitely not out there to screw you, I'm sure they will keep things anonymous too if you ask them, and I know they have visited many others already, both affiliates and ad networks, but I won't ask any of those guys to come forward, because that's their call, not mine.
To get in touch with the lead investigator, his name is Robert Schara. You can contact him at his office at 850-414-3300, or email him directly at Robert_Schara@oag.state.fl.us. Hopefully if you are reading this and do decide to get into contact with him, you'll be of a lot more help than I could have been. They already have a long list of people they are visiting all over the country (probably going to wake them up and give them a semi-heart attack like with me), and if they do happen to show up, don't blame me for it either, because you were probably on that list way before me. I didn't give out any names (nor was I asked to), because quite frankly, I'm not a ringtone guy (thank god! Good call Jon!), and they had already mentioned anyone of any significance (networks/affiliates wise) within the industry that I would have known about.
In closing, this investigation is not shutting down the whole ringtone industry as we know it, so I'm not telling you guys to pull down your offers and head for the hills, but again, if you are marketing these things as "free ringtones" (that includes on PPC) when the end user is not really getting it for free, you should stop, now. This is very serious stuff, and I can assure you, it's not worth an increase of a few thousand bucks to go to jail over. So as long as you've always played by the rules, you probably shouldn't worry about it, but if you haven't, well, I'd get plenty of sleep if I were you.
That's all it takes, huh? I should have thought of that sooner.
