The other day I was browsing Craigslist and was in the homes for sale listings and came across a listing that looked way too good to be true. So I emailed the poster and asked for the address since none was given.
He emailed back this:
The house is still available. I will be happy to show the house at an agreed upon time and date but I do require that all applicants complete a free credit report to ensure their eligibility. I do not give out the exact address of properties before I am able to show them because last time I did that the house was vandalized.
Please go to one of the following URLs to complete the free credit report:
http://free-creditreports360.com No Social Security Required
http://nationalcredit-report.com
Please let me know when this is done and we can then work out the time and date to go see the house.
***Please do not send me your credit report!
The URL is a reference link so the agency knows where the applications are from. The credit report company only sends your name, email address and whether you have had any evictions in the past 5 years to determine your renter eligibility. This is the only information I am interested in.
Sincerely Tinap.s. This is a soft credit report; it will not hurt your FICO score!
Well, this sounded a little fishy and is definitely not standard procedure. So I clicked on the link (http://nationalcredit-report.com ) and did a view of the source code and found this….
As you can see it is a MaxBounty CPA offer that he is promoting! I logged into MaxBounty and found the offer and it is paying $23.50 per lead.
This dude is probably getting a ton of unknowing people to get a free credit report thinking they will then get to look at the house for sale while he is laughing all the way to the bank (or jail)!
Of course, I am in no way endorsing this type of scam. Is it cleaver…yes…but it is also highly unethical and most likely illegal. Also, I am sure if MaxBounty found out about it they will for sure cancel his account and not pay the commissions. If you look at the links one of them is already down.
Just another reminder that there are no shortcuts to success in online marketing and remember to always play by the rules. And to all the consumers out there you should never have to get a credit report just to look at a house for sale!
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Hello,
P.S. This information was so helpful I saved this webpage in my favorites so that when I have more time I can view other information (not related to this topic) that is posted on this website. Thanks
I came across your webpage because I saw a very similar ad on Craiglist to rent a place. I thought the deal was too good, but decided to email any to show my insterest. I recevied the below response and thought that was strange. I viewed the websited and thought that was odd. I googled both of the sites and your site was 2nd. Thanks so much for the information. Just by reading “Spamming Craigslist With CPA Offers” I confirmed my doubts and learnd how to view source codes of websites.