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Firefox Scam Email to make Money From Adsense Referals

by | Tuesday, 22nd May 2007 | 9 Comments | Share

I just came across a email today and probed it further to see what it is all about. My investigations led me to unearthing a new scam to make money using Google Adsense Referals.

What exactly is this scam. I recieved a email from download@firefox.com to download New Firefox 2008. Now this is not a email from Firefox but a email id that is spoofed and has been send from a different domain altogether, check screen shots below.

Now that is not so interesting yet, here is how the email looks like

If you see it is similar to how Firefox website looks. Ok so what’s the big deal. Well once I clicked on the link it takes me to a website ht**://pspcolls.co.uk/Firefox.htm which displays the same screen as in the email. Now here is the big money maker when I click on the link to try it out it takes me to another site ht**://firfox.bravehost.com/ where the user is showing a Google Adsense referal link to download the software.

Google pays out $1 for every referal download so you can imaging how much money this guy can make already. So look out for such emails which may be just sent to fool you. I will try and contact all concerned sites with the appropriate information.

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I am the editor-in-chief and owner of Techie Buzz. I love coding and have contributed to several open source projects in the past. You can know more about me and my projects by visiting my Personal Website.I am also a social networking enthusiast and can be found active on twitter, you can follow Keith on twitter @keithdsouza. You can click on my name to visit my Google+ profile.

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  1. Ryan Wagner on May 22nd, 2007 at 7:53 pm #

    That is definitely pretty underhanded, but I’m surprised the scammers didn’t try to take it a step further and reskin the download button to incorporate the Adsense Referral code. That way they wouldn’t have needed to take the user to another download page.

  2. keith on May 22nd, 2007 at 7:57 pm #

    Ryan,

    Very true, but he came up against a geek so i was able to track the flaws, any normal unsuspecting user would been fooled.

    I have reported the activity to both host and adsense, as it is a case of cheating.

    Keith

  3. Nirmal on May 22nd, 2007 at 9:58 pm #

    Scams everywhere and in adsense too. This shows to what extend people can go to make money. Too intelligent guy. Thanks for pointing it out.

  4. Ryan Wagner on May 23rd, 2007 at 5:16 am #

    I’m glad you reported it Keith, hopefully it will prevent some people for falling for it. I guess the bright side of things is that they are spreading Firefox. :)

  5. Rishi on May 23rd, 2007 at 5:33 am #

    I have got such emails a lot but now I’m crazy because ADSENSE HAVE NOT APPROVED ME!

  6. keith on May 23rd, 2007 at 5:35 am #

    @Nirmal True but if people like us make others aware it would be good

    @Ryan True but by scamming people lol

    @Rishi when did you apply for adsense?

  7. daniel on November 11th, 2007 at 1:51 am #

    thanks for the info. I also getting lots of this email.