Is SwipeBids a scam? Who is behind SwipeBids.com?

By
BPAW Admin
 – May 17, 2010Posted in: Penny Auction Monitoring, Penny Auction Scams

We started by linking a great in depth review of PAW about SwipeBids.com They did a fantastic job at digging all these things about Jesse Willms and Just Think Media. You can read more about it at the end of this long article.

We made a lot of articles about SwipeBids, this long post summarize everything so that you can avoid getting scammed:

Scam Alert : SwipeBids Detailed Stats 08/25/2010 – Swipebids Proven a Scam!

SwipeBids Scams: How is SwipeBids getting traffic?

How to find out that SwipeBids is a scam in a few seconds

SwipeBids, are negative reviews helping their scam? SwipeBids strategy to scam thousands of people

SwipeBids : Another PR campaign, penny auction scam 2.0

SwipeBids Scams: Their Most Faithful Bot Tryagain2 won a Honda Civic

SwipeBids threatening us? Scammers, you wish we were afraid.

Is SwipeBids a scam? Who is behind SwipeBids.com?

Is SwipeBids.com legitimate?

They are doing everything they can to convince you that they are no scam. This screenshot is one of their latest trial. Let’s answer to them point by point:

Tracking Numbers – What the hell is going on with these UPS numbers?

I received a lot of shill comments on my post about Swipebids statistics inconsistencies. They drew my attention to something that I had no time to investigate: their would be delivery system and UPS numbers. What does it mean after all? Not much. They are providing you with a lot of real numbers. It isn’t that hard to get valid tracking numbers without delivering anything. I thought that I should look at those tracking numbers a bit longer. Here is what I did:

I compared what I found on their tracking number report (on UPS site) and what should be on it. I also compared the reports of the same products (Xbox console, Sony Bravia Theater, …)

I found out a lot of inconsistencies!!

  1. Same Products are not having the same shipping weight (Xbox Elite, amazon gift cards, sony bravia theater,…)
  2. Products are not having the right shipping weight (50% less or more)
  3. Bundles are having wrong weight (iPad + Macbook)

Conclusion: SwipeBids is using real tracking numbers but not for the right products!

Proofs:

Read more about SwipeBids UPS Tracking numbers: Scam Alert: SwipeBids, UPS, Delivery, Lies and Truths

Picture Testimonials

As I told you in SwipeBids Scams: Their Most Faithful Bot Tryagain2 won a Honda Civic, SwipeBids seems to be using fake images in their press release where they show “would be” winners standing next to cars. Picture Testimonials are no proof at all. PAID reviews only show that they are ready to pay to look honest.

Alexa Rankings

As I told you in SwipeBids, are negative reviews helping their scam? SwipeBids strategy to scam thousands of people, and in a lot of articles, it is extremely easy to get a nice but inconsistent Alexa ranking. Scamming Alexa and Google is almost as easy as scamming a greedy visitor that wants to believe in that Macbook orgy. Once again, SwipeBids is only proving that they are pretty talented scam artists who can fake almost anything.

Unlimited wins

Remember those Win limits on Gift cards?

I think those $10 cards and bid packs are the only things real humans can win on SwipeBids. They are plagued by bots. That’s a smart way to look honest. Having a few people win cheap gift cards. In an article PAW pointed out that they had win limits on $10 gift cards but not on Macbooks! Seriously? Who would fall for that one?

If they have been doing so, it can only mean that they were scamming people on macbooks and delivering a few giftcards… Those win limits were tacit admittance of botting and illegal activities.

What going on behind the scene?

If you read our article on Scam Alert : SwipeBids Detailed Stats 08/25/2010 – Swipebids Proven a Scam!, you will understand what they are hiding. We monitored their auctions for 12 hours and here is what we got:

  • Auctions appearing and vanishing, 0% consistency
  • A crazy lot of suspicious bidding activity (botting)
  • A very strange auction mix (89% bids and loads of $10 gift cards)
  • A crazy amount of daily spent bids (over 7 millions!)
  • Users winning for over $50,000 RRP in 12 hours

SwipeBids’ Leaderboard

You can read more about their leaderboard (which disappeared from their website a few weeks after our post was published) on our article How to find out that SwipeBids is a scam in a few seconds. What matters is that they got users who won 20,000 auctions in a few months (between two screenshots) This is completely crazy. Check our statistics about all others penny auction sites to know how many winners they got and how many auctions they are having in a month. Only Quibids is auctioning almost 2,000 items daily. We know that most of you believe that Quibids are a scam and we are watching their auctions since 09/01/2010. Anyway, Swipebids is changing their site every week. They are evolving and correcting their mistakes. Don’t get baited!

The first screenshot is dating from Aug 2010, the second one from June 2010. Killerplauze won over 40,000 auctions in 2months! Scary lol

Daily Contest

This is a screenshot about their daily contest. Now that we got more data, I’m going to prove you that they are a scam! Check the number of bid packs that they are auctioning in 12 hours! Those people would have been buying over 400 packs. (500+ bids for that contest !!!) That’s 200,000 bids…

PAW made a quite impressive work at digging those things. The first alert was the $150 charge that Swipebids is debiting to every new customer.

SwipeBids’ $150 charge

The worst thing is that SwipeBids started charging $150 without people being aware of that. The were charging $150 for a 1 year membership… That’s the first extremely “scammy” fact. They charge you $150 upon registration without even telling you. Now, they are elaborating press releases to feed Google results with information about this $150 and discredit sites who are telling you that they are scam artists.

Anyway, after this investigation from PAW, they updated their sign-up page to add the details about this subscription.

As PAW pointed out their marketing tricks can turn in scamming tactics in seconds: “Due to high demand, we are only accepting a limited number of new customers today. To ensure your spot, please sign-up in the next 3 minutes.”

Who is behind Swipebids.com?

Enter Just Think Media & Jesse Willms, are they behind SwipeBids.com?

Here is some research that PAW did about SwipeBids:

Last week, after seeing that SwipeBids had posted the news segment on one of their launch pages, that News9, Oklahoma, ran with QuiBids.com, which makes it look like the segment was about SwipeBids.com. We contacted Matt Beckham, the CEO of QuiBids. Due to Matt’s experience in Internet marketing over the years, he pointed it out to us that he believes that Internet marketing group Just Think Media are the ones behind SwipeBids.

We searched a bit more and found a Google cached entry showing that Alberta- Sherwood Park – Just Think Media was at one time showing up as the registrant for Swipebids.com

A current Whois domain search of Swipebids.com shows that it is registered by “MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES, INC.” Moniker offers domain whois privacy to protect your personal information.”-Moniker.com

Matt told us that JustThink Media is a marketing group that offered (offers?) trials for teeth whiteners, for i.e. they would say the trial had a small cost, $1.95 or so, then later the consumer would find a charge for $90 or so on their credit card statements.  We did some more searching and found out that Just Think Media is not only behind a lot of “free” teeth whitening products, but weight loss, internet security, identity security, Acai Berry Weight Loss sites and even WuYi Tea among others.


Then, with a quick Google search we found a large host of complaints surrounding Just Think Media’s businesses:

SwipeBids.com’s Twitter Points to Jesse Willms – Canada

Again some research from PAW:

Who is Jesse Willms?

“Jesse Willms is the founder of Just Think Media, a Canadian Internet marketing firm that specializes in health supplements and financial information products. Jesse strives to make Just Think Media a different type of online company – one that focuses on truth, integrity and the needs of its current and potential customers. With this blog, Jesse seeks to explain why Just Think Media is different, provide advice for other companies who want to do ethical business on the Internet and showcase the best practices of the Internet marketing industry.”-From JesseWillms.com

Jesse Willms is currently the subject of a W5 investigation. The Better Business Bureau has received over 2,200 complaints for Jesse Willm’s  businesses and has given them an F rating.

W5 piece on Jesse Willms: Just Think Twice: Part one & two

According to the W5 piece, Jesse Willms is a 22 year old jetsetting millionaire with two million dollar mansions, expensive cars, including a Lamborghini and company names and addresses from all over the world, all pointing back to Just Think Media in Alberta, Canada.

“Willms is not your typical online entrepreneur. At just 22 years old, the high school dropout is a multi-millionaire, connected to more than 40 product and company names. He and his companies have been sued more than half a dozen times — including separate lawsuits by software giants Microsoft and Symantec. He is currently being sued by high profile television celebrities Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Mehmet Oz.”- CTV News, Edmonton, March 2010

“And a few [of the complaints] have to do with the fact that they’re not receiving the product at all that they’re being charged for.”
Willms has faced other legal troubles. A federal lawsuit launched in Utah in November by two companies named dazzlesmile llc and Optimal Health Science LLC accuses Willms and his companies of deceptive marketing, trademark and tradename infringement and counterfeiting. Other companies are also named in the suit. Neither Willms nor any of his companies have yet to file a response to that complaint. Willms has also reached three out-of-court settlements, including one with Microsoft Corp. over charges of software piracy and violation of trademark laws.”-CBC Canada
Read what people who knew him are saying about him.
In December of 2009, ABC New’s 20/20 Featured Jesse Willms in an alleged deceptive practices story, Slick Web Sites use Tricks Photos. 20/20 interviewed the Better Business Bureau about the then 1000+ complaints and allegations of deceptive advertising, 20/20 also attempted to interview Jesse Willms at the Just Think Media offices and were pushed out the door.

Yesterday morning we found Swipebids.com’s Twitter account http://www.twitter.com/swipebids

Just yesterday, and more today, SwipeBids posted links to many WordPress hosted blogs, some (obvious shilled blogs) claim to be from customers, others are official SwipeBids’ blogs. If you take a look at the bottom of most of these blogs you’ll see the blog’s authors username: jessewillmsbritneyspears & jessewillmsamazon:

  • SwipeBids’ “happy winners blogs“
  • http://winningpennyauctions.wordpress.com/
  • http://onlineauctionsavings.wordpress.com/
  • http://pennyauctionaddict.wordpress.com/
  • http://thetruthaboutswipebids.wordpress.com/
  • http://pennyauctionaddict.wordpress.com/
  • http://pennyauctioncomparison.wordpress.com/
  • http://swipebidssuccess.wordpress.com/
  • http://swipebidssensation.wordpress.com/
  • http://swipebidsproducts.wordpress.com/
  • http://pennyauctionsreview.wordpress.com/
  • http://swipebidstactics.wordpress.com/
  • Swipebids’ Company Blogs
  • http://swipebidsupdates.wordpress.com/
  • http://swipebidswinners.wordpress.com/
  • http://swipebids.wordpress.com/

PAW still got all the screenshots of the above listed blogs showing striking similarities.

Further down, in the below screenshots, you will see that JesseWillms.com & JesseWillmsBritneySpears.com are hosted on the same server on RackSpace, similarly, RackSpace is where Swipebids.com’s server is hosted.

“Jesse,” my father said to me when I was little. “No matter what you do, always remember your responsibility to your community. You want to leave behind a good legacy.”

That’s the kind of attitude I’ve had since I first started making money on the Internet when I was 16 years old. That commitment to honesty and integrity has stayed with me for the past six years as I have built two different multimillion dollar companies.

I help my community by:

1. Generating employment and never laying people off for economic reasons.

2. Providing high quality products that can help people live a better life.

3. Giving back to my community whenever possible.

4. Dealing with people fairly.

Of course, it’s impossible to become successful without creating enemies. And in this day and age it’s easy for people who are threatened by your success to try to make you look bad.

While 99 percent of the information available about my companies is positive, a couple people have sought to portray me in a poor light.

I wanted to respond to their charges which is why I not only created this blog – I invited someone to look at my business practices and do their own evaluation.

Here is a highlight of what they found:

“After my research I can only conclude the truth about Jesse Willms is that he is an honest businessman who is trying to help people in a competitive marketplace. In fact, he is much more honest and straightforward than any of the other health and beauty sites I have investigated.”-From the JesseWillmsTruth.wordpress.com blog, the author “jessewillmsbritneyspears”

We went back and searched on Google and found:

  • Facebook Group exposing Internet scams mentions Jesse Willms
  • “Just Think Media. This is one crappy company who is taking advantage of anyone they can”
  • Dazzle Smile Sues Jesse Willms
  • Also mentioned on Wired Magazine
  • “Microsoft alleged that, among other illegal activities, the defendants illegally imported to the United States and distributed infringing Microsoft software that was intended for schools and other qualified educational users in the Middle East.”
  • He’s also been sued by Okuma Nutritionals, LLC & Symantec Corporation
  • Rip Off Report – Jesse Willms: “Here is the head office phone number and address for the Jesse Willms scam company called JustThink Media:
    • JustThink Media
    Corporate Head Office
    Suite 204, 85 Cranford Way
    Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA T8H 0H9
    Phone: 780.416.0211
    Fax:780.416.0218
    Careers@justthinkmedia.com
    Corporate@justthinkmedia.com
    Legal@justthinkmedia.com
    Customer Service
    customerservice@justthinkmedia.com

    Scam product offers include “free trial” offers for:
    AcaiBurn / Acai Burn
    Max AcaiBurn
    Pro AcaiBurn
    Ultra AcaiBurn
    Extreme AcaiBurn
    AcaiBurn Plus
    PureLift Cream
    PureCleanse Max
    PureCleanse Pro
    PureCleanse Ultra
    DazzleWhite Pro
    Dazzel White / DazzleWhite
    DazzleSmile / Dazzle Smile Pro
    Credit Report America
    “Online Cash Success Kit”
    Make Google Cash (makecashfastwithgoogle.com)
    Earn Cash from Grants
    WuYi Source Tea
    EasyWeightLossTea
    and many more…
    They also use the dba JDW Media LLC, out of Idaho & Coastwest Holdings Ltd / LLC as well as shell companies Gillmap Limited County Durham England and Farend Services Limited Nicosia Cyprus.”

    “Sites on the server at Just Think Media are:
    • acaiburnsupport.com
    • creditreporthelpdesk.com
    • easywuyitea.com
    • fraudprotectionhelpdesk.com
    • fraudprotectionresources.com
    • freereportcheck.com
    • hottestcelebritydietsecret.com
    • idthefthelpdesk.com
    • insidersecretstips.com
    • jessewillms.com
    • successtracker.org
    • thinkdns.net
    • weightlossebookmembership.com
    • www.preventmyidtheft.com
    • www.quickcashsupport.com”

    We performed a traceroute search on the above listed domains,  all are hosted on Rackspace servers, SwipeBids is also hosted on RackSpace.

    JesseWillms.com is also hosted on RackSpace, as is JesseWillmsBrittneySpears.com, these two are hosted on the same server: IP 174.143.45.71

    As you can see, a search of Jesse Willms  + scam, along with Just Think Media + scam, will bring up a host of complaints.

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