While the bulk of unsolicited email still focuses on male enhancements and other dubious wares a new breed of Spam is emerging.

The new angle is to peddle seemingly genuine and useful (I use this term loosely) products that magically reduce costs, solve problems or in some other way resonate with mainstream worries or fears.

The latest fad seems to be Green Energy.  I’m a firm advocate of reducing our insatiable appetite for energy and there are many ways we can contribute individually. In recent months I have been getting more Spam advertising miracle solutions that will reduce your personal energy dependence.  What caught my attention is the level of sophistication with which these schemes are orchestrated.

One particular example is an unsolicited email from an organization called Earth4Energy which boasts the following headline:

Don’t pay for your electricity any longer…

Instead, the power company will pay YOU!

The email links to a website that is offering a $50 e-book, which will teach you how to “generate your own electricity for less than $200”. Truth is, you can generate electricity for less than that, but it is not going to get you “off the grid” or the power company paying you for your electricity any day soon.

What makes this scam different is how it is leveraging Google search with a clever strategy of multiple domain names / web sites and affiliate marketing.  If you search for Earth4Energy you’ll get thousands of hits, many with negative titles and descriptions such as “earth4energySCAM.com”.

HOWEVER – all of these sites are actually promoting this scam through an expansive affiliate network.  This method is called “Internet Saturation Marketing”. The idea is to basically drown-out any legitimate reviews or commentary that would reveal the truth.
I’ve found one website that is exposing this particular scheme and many others and has managed to stay on top of all the Google noise.  http://www.nlcpr.com/Deceptions6.php

GoogleBait: Scam4Energy Earth4Spam Earth4Scam Energy4Fraud Fraud4Earth Earth4EnergyFraud Scam4Energy WTF4Energy

So remember the old adage: “If it sounds too good to be true … it probably is.”