I’m writing this because probably a lot of my readers are newbies who buy sites and may be buying from Sitepoint and other forums/auction sites. I use Sitepoint to sell my sites and occasionally buy some sites from Sitepoint.
If you buy sites on Sitepoint, you really need to do some homework. There are a lot of sellers who are purchasing MMR products that cost $10 or less, setting it up on a domain, and selling it for $167 more or less. When I say a lot, I mean a lot.
Some of them even try to pass these MMR sites off as unique. They advertise them as unique, but they are far from unique. I saw yet another one of them two days ago that advertised the site as unique. I found it for $49 by Googling and this scammer was charging $797 for this site. I pm’d him and gave him the $49 link to the exact same site. His response? He gave me a link to the exact product that costs $5.99. What can you say to that kind of arrogance and pure rip-off mentality?
Apparently this type of thing is not against TOS, so it is up to YOU to research the site before investing your hard-earned cash.
How to Flush Out the Rip-Off Artists
Use Copyscape.com for starters. It will tell you if a site has duplicate content. In addition, you can use Google.
Take a headline or paragraph and do this
“place headline here or paragraph or sentences” in Google with the quotes. It will return any content within the quotes. When you look at the results, look for Master Resale Sites listed and check it out. You may find that there’s a Master Resale Rights product for a couple of bucks identical to what is being sold as a unique product on Sitepoint for over $100 or you may find that the site being sold is using PLR articles that are already all over the Internet.
Here’s another tip on how to spot the scammers. Click on their profile and check all the sites they’ve been selling. Click on each of them to see if they keep selling the same sites over and over. Right now there’s a little scammer on Sitepoint who is selling the exact same “traffic selling” site over and over, just changing the template and domain name, but it’s the same site and he’s listed well over 20 of them so far. And people keep buying them. Not only is the market completely oversaturated with this BS site he’s selling, but Sitepoint is now overrun with people trying to sell “traffic” from these clone sites.
Take the time to do the research.
Hey Diva,
There are a lot of those cases. In fact, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that a vast majority of the people selling sites on the marketplace are SCAMMERS. A guy sold a webhostingoffers or something site on marketplace for like $600 when he faked all the screenshots.
Similar things are happening all over the marketplace, people tryin’ to make a quick buck eventually will get lost out of the business. They’re relying on catching “prey” to buy their sites. Ain’t a good biz model.
Swastik
Hi Diva,
It’s desmond28 from SitePoint. Thanks for pointing this out. I agree with you that [scammer's name] made a HUGE mistake.
Glad that you point that out.
Desmond´s last blog post..So Sick of Spams
Thanks for advertising our site on your page, (much appreciated) want a link on our sites? http://www.a1ebooksonline.com & http://www.a14ebooks.com
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Hey Diva,
Thanks for outing this person. It is so stupid to misrepresent the facts when selling a site when there is a ton of money to be made just by creating and selling quality.
Information like yours is a great public service for the many unsuspecting people who are just trying to find ways to get some extra income.
Thanks again.
I agree with you on this. I’ve been buying a lot of sites on Sitepoint also and [scammer's name] just disgust me! I can’t never imagine how someone who runs a business for over 6 years and have 5,000 active clients a month (from what he said), be this low and rip people off without feeling guilty.
From some of the comments on his past auction claiming his website is not original, I’m sure he knows about it, but I guess he loves to rip off people. Thanks [scammer's name] for adding your junk to a great marketplace!
I don’t trust anyone on sitepoint who is selling sites. I’ve seen blogs selling for $17 on Warrior Forum and a day later some idiot is offering the same blog on Sitepoint for $199 claiming its his/her original design. The last few months the sites being offered on sitepoint are totally worthless, hastily put together junk. Sales pages are being offered as websites. You do better on ebay buying a site.
Well…I think I still can find genuine person selling at Sitepoint. Say like Kate Anderson. She is honest and great seller…
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I created the TrafficHeist website for a client who went on to sell PLR to it to a select few. I’ve seen it sold as unique by [scammer's name] on SP, along with other auctions he puts out there that are definitely not unique (but listed as such), but you know, SP doesn’t act on this stuff.. no matter how many times auctions are reported, they just don’t seem to be all that proactive in cleaning up the marketplace.
Great article, though.. at least someone’s taking a stance and warning newbies.. great job.
Hey Diva, Nice post and I have to tell you, I have seen these guys and many like them take newbies for tons of cash for so long now.
To be honest we have been selling turnkey websites for over 9 years now and are so sick of these type of sites being over priced and sold that we are now trying to set up a membership area just to train and warn newbies about people like these guys out lined above.
Very nice job with pointing this out and let’s hope that SP get’s a grip on these scammers. if not they will end up like ebay lol
Well good luck and let’s hope that with your help we opened a few newbies eyes
Regards to all
Auggie Turnkey Geek´s last blog post..Why MoreMoney365 Is Different From The Others
Hey I am glad i found this site i was going to buy one of their websites
off sitepoint . Thanks for the info.have bought a few off sitepoint, like
them better than ebay.Have a GoOoD night/day
Robt
Excellent post Diva. I know you have I have spoken via Sitepoint quite a few times about [scammer's name] and the ridiculous stuff he posts. I have contacted him directly as well about his listings, and he chooses to simply ignore. It was my design he was trying to pass off as his own, that you mentioned up earlier above…lol.. I believe that was when he said he had 5000 customers and was too busy to keep everything straight.
Kate is right. Sitepoint wont do anything about this fool. They make too much money off the volume of listings he creates daily! But it’s only harming the marketplace in the end. We are seeing [scammer's name] copycats pop up, thinking they can do the same as he. The Kate ‘wannabees’ also are now crawling out of the woodwork.
It makes those of us who actually care about what we build, and the value we provide our clients, get lost in the garbage available these days.
Just had to pop my 2 cents in…
Joanne
P.S Oh! Diva! There’s another Blackberry one to add to the list… He’s sold 3 of the identical site now in the past few weeks, all for $297, claiming to be 100% custom original material….
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I have to say that sites such as sitepoint, warriorforum and digitalpoint are getting more and more of a joke with people churning out utter crap. This is probably what turns people to the dark side and blackhat methods by getting ripped off by these idiots.
It has to be said that a lot of the products I see on some of these sites seem to be ‘inspired’ by various blackhat forums and websites.
Its a shame because I have to say you blogs look pretty good, its a pity you have to list them on sitepoint.
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Hi! I’m Absolutelee on SP. Actually what you’re saying is great news. My sites are either completely written by me with 100% original material, or they use some public domain material. (I use some PD material for sites about finance, for instance.) If I do use PD material, I make that really clear.
Why do I think this is great? Because as the word gets out, buyers will eventually understand the important of dealing with ethical site flippers. The scammers will have to crawl off and do business somewhere else.
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