I usually focus on online scams, but being scammed by PepBoys has made me change my mind. I will now be adding offline scams too.

PepBoys specializes in specialty retail and automotive repair. It provides auto parts and different services related to vehicles. The company tagline  is: “Parts, service, and so much more”. PepBoys is actually the chief automotive aftermarket chain in the United States. The company operates in 36 states and Puerto Rico.

PepBoys regularly runs tire specials “Buy 3 Get the 4th Tire Free”. It sounds like a good deal, but it isn’t as you’ll soon see. To get your 4th tire free you have to send in a rebate form, which they promise is easy and guarantee you’ll receive payment. I have now found out this is not the case, and its not just me that’s getting scammed by PepBoys Rebate scam.

I did some research on the internet and found 1,000s of Pep Boys scam complaints. People all over the United States are sending in there rebates and PepBoys does not honor them. Worst of all it appears PepBoys is scamming people on just about every service they offer.

What happened to me

I purchased 4 new tires for my 2006 dodge charger, the salesman did a good job convincing me to buy and the tire sale didn’t hurt. The tire installation job took an hour and a half, and I went to pick up my car. That’s when my Pep Boys problems began. I looked at the tires before leaving and noticed the hubcaps weren’t even put back on right, so I had to wait 15 minutes for them to fix the issue.

When driving my car the alignment seemed off, so I took my car to my mechanic and had that fixed. I guess they can’t hire tire experts to work in the tire department. In checking online I found 1000s of complaints about bad workmanship on everything PepBoys offers throughout the united states.

I made my tire purchase on the weekend, and on monday I looked thru my PepBoys tire paperwork for my tire rebate form so I could send it in. Guess what they didn’t give it to me, I contacted the store and said I hadn’t received it. They said I could come back to the store and pick up the rebate form, so I thought everything would be ok. I was going on vacation so I was going to get the form when I came back.

When I got back from my vacation I went and got my rebate form. When I got ready to send in my rebate form, I noticed that PepBoys gave me the wrong months rebate form. I was now late getting my rebate in, so I tried to contact Pep Boys 1 800 number and was hung up on when I wanted to complain about getting my rebate.

I went to the store I made my tire purchase from and started to complain to a couple of employees and was asked to leave or the police would be called (I wasn’t even irate or chewing anyone out, they didn’t want any other customers hearing about company complaints). The employee told me I could only complain to their 1 800 number, which I did call but was a waste of time.

So I’m not getting my rebate, and by what I read on the internet I don’t trust Pep Boys to even rotate the tires. So I’m selling the tires and never doing business with Scam Boys again.

What other people say

To get a full picture of how bad PepBoys is and how they have scammed others on just about every service they offer, check out complaintsboard.com and pissedconsumer.com.

Here are some of my favorites:

Terrible service!, License to steal, The truth from an employee (not good), Overcharged, Scam and cheating, They f***ed up my car, False advertisement, Make feel like a theft, I’ll never go there again, Horrible service, A good place to throw money away, Scam, Lousy company, Avoid this company, Stay away, Simply awful, Lies, lies, lies, ripped off, Poor Service, Rip Off, Don’t buy from them, dishonest, Poor Quality Parts, Terrible experience, Fraud and scam, They Charged me over 800 to Fix my A/C and didnt fix it, They are the worst, “Miscellaneous shop charge” is a scam, Don’t use them, Not fair, They do bad work, I got nothing for 3 hours, Lying manager said rats ate up wires, Missing engine parts!, Pep Boys Threatens Their Customers, PepBoys did not give rebate, Theft Boys is the worst! Don’t leave anything in your car!, Would not honor warrenty, Little boys at Pepboys have no pep, Pep Boys capital on ignorance, A Very pissed off customer!!!, I never got my rebate for tires bought, Incompetant Staff & Liars, will not honor tire warrenty, being hood winked, Destroyed my engine, If you value your life DO NOT GO TO PEP BOYS, Don’t Buy It From Pep Boys, PEP BOYS LAWNDALE, CA the worst!!, pep Boys suck, Pep Boys does not care about employees or customers, Pep Boys Rebate Problem, service givin u bullshit, Tired of the b.s. at Pep Boys, Mislead me on the buy 3 tires and get the 4th free, Pep Boys nearly killed my wife and I!!!!, Pep Boys set my Car on FIRE, PEP BOYS got my 88 GT stang stolen while in their care!, Pep Boys Dropped bolt into trans while working on clutch, then left outside for vandals, pep boys bait and switch, Pep Boys is full of it!!!!, yes its a scam, over charging of the elderly, Manger lied and mechanic confirmed it!, Refurbished parts are junk!! Rebates are a JOKE!!, Pep Boys Tire Scam, Pissed on and Pissed Off, Sexually Harassed by PepBoys Manager, Pepboys no customer satisfaction here.

I could go on and on, but you can read all the full comments on the 2 websites I listed above. I don’t know how Pep Boys has stayed under the radar for the amount of customer complaints I saw, they rival all the known home business scams. It appears Pep Boys rips you off and scams you on every service they offer. I do not recommend going to them for anything, if you have another alternative I recommend you go there.

Please do not purchase anything from PepBoys, let them go bankrupt. Teach them not to scam and take advantage of honest people. If you want to know more about scams, check out the MakeCashNow.biz Scam section.

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You might think Internet surfers have started to wise up to all the Internet rip-offs. But you’d be wrong. Scammers on the Internet are very creative and are constantly coming up with new scams or variations on old scams. The only way to fight this is with knowledge.

Here are some of the hottest top Internet scams you should be aware of.

1. Easy Google Profit
2. Google Business Kit
3. Google Treasure Chest
4. Google Money Tree

What are Easy Google Profit, Google Business Kit, Treasure Chest, & Money Tree?

These programs examples of affiliate marketing business systems that claim to teach people how to do Adsense Arbitrage: that is, buying traffic from a Google Adwords pay-per-click advertising campaign and then sending it to a page where the user is persuaded to click a Google Adsense ad. This is a banned practice in Google’s Terms of Service and isn’t as easy to pull off as it was 2 years ago.

How do Easy Google Profit, Google Business Kit, Treasure Chest, & Money Tree work?

These programs follow many of the same basic principles as most other affiliate marketing business systems out there. Perhaps the most notable difference they have from other affiliate marketing models is in their use of Google AdWords as the sole method of promoting affiliate products and services. Users of these systems follow this basic process:

1) Find quality products and services online
2) Become an affiliate of those products and services
3) Advertise those products and services with Google Adwords
4) Receive your commissions on products and services sold as s result of your pay-per-click campaign

Here’s What the Better Business Bureau has to Say

On April 24, 2009 the Texas Attorney General’s Office announced charges for operating a fraudulent work-at-home scheme against Infusion Media Inc, GoogleTreasureChest.com, InternetIncomeInitiative.com, and Jonathan D. Eborn (”Defendants”), whose “GoogleMoneyTree.com” promised six-figure earnings for conducting specialized Google and Yahoo Internet searches. According to the state’s enforcement action, GoogleMoneyTree failed to clearly inform purchasers that they had been enrolled in monthly memberships and had only seven days to cancel their trial membership. Purchasers who failed to cancel within seven days were automatically charged $82 on their credit card statements each month. In addition to the unexpected credit card charges, customer complaints obtained by state investigators indicate that GoogleMoneyTree failed to actually send the “free kit” and refused to honor customer refunds. The state is seeking an injunction, civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as well as restitution for purchasers.

BBB Rating for Google Treasure Chest.com

Based on BBB files, Google Treasure Chest.com has a BBB Rating of F.

Reasons for this rating include:

• BBB concerns with the industry in which this business operates.
• Length of time business has been operating.
• 477 complaints filed against business
• Failure to respond to 210 complaints filed against business.
• 74 complaints filed against business that were not resolved.
• Overall complaint history with BBB.
• Government action(s) against business.
• BBB does not have sufficient background information on this business.

Here are some of my favorite comments about these products

Don’t Do It

Here are the terms they have for the charging of your credit card (notice how they write out the whole number to make it harder to read):

Upon submitting a request for Membership, a Member ID and Password are assigned to you and can be used to gain access to googletreasurechest.com. The initial shipping and handling charge of one dollars and ninety seven cents, includes the google treasure chest kit as well as seven days worth of access to the online directories and training. After seven days, if you choose not to cancel, you will be billed your first monthly membership fee of seventy two dollars and twenty one cents for the membership fee for the googletreasurechest.com membership. Membership fees will be charged to the credit card used by you to complete the transaction. You have also unlocked a fourteen-day trial and twenty one-day trial to the Fraud SafeLockID and GrantSpring for just $19.95 and $14.95 a month thereafter (shows as “SafeLockID” and “GrantSpring”) should you choose not to cancel. Prior charges for all programs are non-refundable but bonus subscriptions can be cancelled and future charges stopped at any time by calling toll-free 866.951.1406 Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm. All offers come with a monthly newsletter.

If you choose to sign up for this product and pay the recurring monthly charges using a debit card you hereby provide pre-authorization and consent that googletreasurechest.com may charge seventy two dollars and twenty one cents on a monthly basis. You may stop payment on any pre-authorized charge by notifying googletreasurechest.com at least three business days prior to the scheduled charge date. You agree your pre-authorization and written consent to charge your debit card is given in electronic form by submitting the request for the membership, and that an electronic signature is sufficient to authenticate your authorization to charge the debit card. You further agree that these terms and conditions shall be your copy of your pre-authorization for the debit card.

Upon completion of the order form, should your credit card be declined, we may, at our option continue to try to authorize your purchase on future dates. Your acceptance of these terms indicates your additional acceptance that should your purchase of either the shipping for your free kit, or your monthly membership fee eventually approve, you will accept and approve those charges to your method of payment.

Please someone Help me!!

Help me PLEASE I can’t beleive it, but I fell for this damn SCAM. I really thought this was real, then it was to LATE. PLEASE someone HELP ME I am a young student and made mistake, but I really don’t want these people stealing my money! Damn scammers it makes me sick that there are people in this world like this!! I fell for it, I am just a normal student trying to make a extra buck.

Google Profit, Google Treasure Chest, Google Home Business Kit, etc. are all the same. A scam product being resold by dozens of affiliates.
The idea is to make AdWords ads directing “clickers” to a AdSense page and hope they click on some of the ads. Hopefully, the revenue from the ads will offset the cost of the AdWords campaigns. This is called the AdSense Arbitrage model for making money online. Like another commenter noted, this was a way to make money a few years ago, but it has too many risks of loss these days. (And is against Googles TOS to boot).
The kicker with these “kits” is getting out of them once you sign up. There is a low introductory charge ($1.95 for instance), but then a steep monthly charge a few days later ($72.21 is one I read). In addition, some companies sign new customers up for other services as well which each cost an additional fee.
To cancel, often one has to send a certified letter with the received materials enclosed. If a customer attempts to block the charges with their bank or credit card company, they are threatened with legal action.

The safest bet is to avoid these types of scams entirely. There is plenty of free information online on how to make money. Google things like article marketing, affiliate marketing, internet marketing and so forth. Most “guides”, especially older ones, are free for joining an email list.

Conclusion

Anything with words, “Easy Profit” is bound to catch the attention of many of you that are looking for alternative methods to supplement an additional income. RUN! Don’t walk for the nearest exit. Nothing in this life is ever “Easy”. Look at the bottom of the sales pages and you will find that Google doesn’t involve itself with the product creator. You will likely get bombarded with additional things (Hoops) you will have to jump through that serve nothing more than trying to get you to buy a product….Theirs! Beware of the $1.95 S&H Fee Scams!

I hope this information was helpful and I hope you found this article before getting taken by these Internet Scams. I recommend always doing a Google search for the product before you make a purchase, because 99% of all products are scams. If it’s a new product, wait a couple of weeks and Google search it again.

About the Author

Shawn Culver founder of Make Cash Now.biz Home Business and PLR Membership Website offering 150,000 articles, 1,000+ ebooks, 4,500+ software titles, 2,000+ business products, working home business programs, training material, 900+ internet scams revealed, and much more!

Anyone else get taken by these scams? Seen one of these type products under a different name? Let us know.

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The following Internet businesses & income opportunities listed below on this page are scams! These businesses are unprofitable, too difficult to pursue, involve selling overpriced or inferior products, unethical or have some flaw deeming them not to be worthy of a positive recommendation from me.

The Scam List on this page has been removed. A new interactive review system with search capability is currently in production and will take the place of the Scam List.

Have a comment about a scam or want to report a scam not currently listed, just leave a comment below.

The following Internet businesses & income opportunities listed below on this page are scams! These businesses are unprofitable, too difficult to pursue, involve selling overpriced or inferior products, unethical or have some flaw deeming them not to be worthy of a positive recommendation from me.

The Scam List on this page has been removed. A new interactive review system with search capability is currently in production and will take the place of the Scam List.

Have a comment about a scam or want to report a scam not currently listed, just leave a comment below.

There are definitely some red flags that often prove that a job is a scam. If you see a job that has one or more of these I would definitely stay away, and whatever you do, don’t give them any money, your Social Security number or any banking information.

1. The company emailed you out of the blue and you didn’t apply for the job or contact them in any way.
2. The company is trying to prove something by adding words like legitimate or guaranteed to their business name.
3. The email address is from a free email account such as hotmail, aol, yahoo, or gmail.
4. You can’t find any information on them at www.ratracerebellion.com, www.workplacelikehome.com, or www.wahm.com.
5. They don’t have any other contact information besides an email address.
6. They hire you without an interview or reviewing your resume.
7. The job description says “No Experience Necessary”.
8. It’s a pyramid scheme of any type where you recruit others to work under you.
9. The job title is vague or includes the words rebate processor, data entry, stuff envelopes, home assembly, process claims, or anything of that nature.
10. The job simply sounds too good to be true.

Because a job falls under one of these doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a scam but it definitely means you need to be careful and do a ton of research on them. I definitely recommend looking for information about the job at the websites listed in step 4 first.

If you can find others who have heard of the company, worked for the company, or can provide you with more information about the company you are off to a good start. Next I would go to www.ripoffreport.com to see if there is any information listed about the company there.

You can never be too cautious when trying to find a work at home job. There are tons of people out there who make a living just by scamming others. So many people are wanting to work at home these days because of the rising gas prices and other reasons that the market is flooded. People often get so excited about a job offer that they don’t do the required homework.

Definitely take your time as you look into a job and remember to always go with your instinct. If something is telling you that a job is too good to be true then you are probably right.

It is a night like any other night, when your insomnia hits. Yeah, it happens to the best; usually brought on by stress. You can stress-out over anything these days, your child’s education, which shirt to wear, or your finances. You, are laying down and not able to sleep due to the stress of your increasing bills and decreasing income. Making ends meet has you stressed out and you know that you need to do something more to even out your income. You turn the TV on to relax and reduce the stress off on your mind; surfing the channels and wanting to sleep.

Finally, you flip to Jeff Paul Internet Millions Shortcuts infomercial, an interesting show that answers all of your worries. You feel the stress roll right off your shoulders and you quickly write the number down before you drift off to Neverland. But in the morning skepticism has brewed, so you decided to get online and do some further research.

Anyone with a logical thought would be able to find flaws with the program. Seriously, would you sell your method to financial success to anyone; even if you stumble upon the simplest technique to making instant riches in just “3 simple clicks”? Most likely not

Ok, lets settle this, Jeff Paul states that his Internet Millions Shortcuts cost $40. What he does not tell you is that the $40 is for his “start-up package”. His “start-up package” contains just enough information to get you started; but you will never make money.

You will be told that it is easy to become a millionaire in a week without doing anything. Get serious, if is so easy, why aren’t there so many more millionaires? Jeff Paul has telemarketers ringing your phone off the hook to sell you huge packages that you need to finally put the pieces together for you. These are not cheap packages; they sell for thousands of dollars.

I understand how enticing the thought of becoming an overnight-millionaire is or growing your own $100 bill tree; but you need to protect yourself from potential internet scams. Above all else, just stop thinking that an internet business is a magic potion to cure all of your financial troubles.

Good solid programs do not claim the amount of possible money to be made, nor how easy it is to make money; there also are no huge hype gimmicks. Internet Marketing does take some time to get the system in Place before any money is made and these are the successful programs where having no investment is OK.

Just understand that succeeding in an online business will take dedication, desire, and effort. You will only become successful when you decide to learn the methods and skills and put forth some effort. Good luck you!

Post from: Network Marketing

Jeff Pauls Internet Millions Scam Or Shortcuts?

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What does “network marketing scam” mean to you?

There is tremendous long-term income potential in this business. Thus, it isn’t unusual for scam operators to pass off their deal as legitimate network marketing, in an effort to make their deal attractive to opportunity seekers.

What else makes people think “network marketing scam” when presented with a legitimate opportunity? Often, it is negative experiences that they (or other people they know) have had.

There are several other reasons that this business gets a bad name.

One common situation occurs when an opportunity seeker signs up without understanding what it really takes to be successful. This can happen when their sponsor focuses mostly on recruiting and makes big promises. When the new network marketer fails to make money quickly, they quit and tell people they know that the business doesn’t work.

Another thing that happens – network marketing is taken as a lottery. Some people sign up based on the income potential, talk a few people into joining, and then watch to see what happens. When this fails to build a significant income for them, they figure it was just another “network marketing scam” and they quit.

One other thing often happens. When a new associate works hard for a few months, but has little to show for the effort in terms of money, they often decide that the business isn’t worth pursuing any longer.

The bottom line here is that building a successful network marketing business requires four things.

Take some time and choose a good, solid company with excellent products. Look for a sponsor and upline with a proven success plan in place, and a willingness to coach you on building a profitable business. You need to feel confident that these people are there to help you.

Take time to “plug in” to your upline’s success system, and follow coaching on how to be successful. Be open to learning to do things perhaps differently than what you envisioned.

Plan your business and follow the proven system. It’s great to be creative and innovative in building your business, but get the basics down successfully first.

Be patient and understand that a really big, profitable business with long-term residual income may take 3-5 years of consistent work.

“Network marketing scam” is often used to described legitimate and attractive business opportunities, spoken by people who had unreasonable expectations when they signed up and never understood what it takes.

Post from: Network Marketing

Network Marketing Scam – Are You a Victim?

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