Is Wikimetro a scam? | Complaint Hub

Submitted by jrenaut on Mon, 11/10/2008 - 3:19pm.

Recently, I got an email from someone I'd never heard of from Wikimetro.org wanting to talk about advertising on my site here.

Drupalcon,

Who is the contact for discussing advertising on your blog Complaint Hub? We have received 24 requests this week for advertising on Complaint Hub, and the page has been viewed 69 times.

Our website, wikimetro.org, is the largest online BlogAd marketplace with more than 50,000 blogs in more than 2,300 US cities and towns.

Here's a link to your blog on wikimetro: http://list.wikimetro.org/market/info.aspx?blog=822

If you are agreeable to scheduling a time to talk on the phone about this, please tell me a good time by contacting me at this link (choose phone): http://list.wikimetro.org/contact.aspx

I'll cc my assistant to set up a time to talk, if there's interest.

Alex Rawlings
Wash DC BlogAd Account Direct
Email: alex.rawlings@wikimetro.org
Website: www.wikimetro.org
Motto: "Everything Local"
Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.wikimetro.org/wikimetro_guide
Tel. +1(202) 470-0961

It sounded a bit scammy to me, especially because by addressing me as "Drupalcon", they clearly didn't actually look at the site, but just scraped it with some script.

A bit of Googling made it sound like Wikimetro was a scam, but nothing really concrete. So I looked at the local blogs they had listed as participants and emailed one I recognized to ask if Off Seventh was actually participating, or just being used to bait others. I got an email back, and it turns out Off Seventh was totally unaware of the deal Wikimetro claimed to have.

So, the conclusion I draw from this is that Wikimetro is a scam. If they contact you, I suggest being very cautious.

Edit to add: Follow-up from Wikimetro is here.

Posted in

24 requests to them for

Submitted by Gary (not verified) on Mon, 11/10/2008 - 7:24pm.

24 requests to them for advertising on ComplaintHub, but 0 requests to you directly. Hm.

I got the same unsolicited

Submitted by Kevin LeMaster (not verified) on Sun, 11/16/2008 - 10:45pm.

I got the same unsolicited e-mail from the same "Alex Rawlings". At least the message was addressed to my actual name.

I actually found this blog while Googling "WikiMetro scam", so thanks for getting the word out there.

I got the same e-mail, from

Submitted by Stanley! (not verified) on Tue, 11/25/2008 - 9:45am.

I got the same e-mail, from the same guy, claiming to work for "Minneapolis BlogAd Account Direct." The link they gave me for my blog's profile on Wikimetro was for some OTHER blog, so I'm not sure what they think they're doing.

And the Wikimetro forums (just a glorified Google group) are completely overrun with porn posts. It's a very weird way to run a business.

I just got one of those too.

Submitted by Monkey (not verified) on Thu, 02/19/2009 - 2:46am.

I just got one of those too. Strangely enough, the page the traffic was on doesn't get updates and isn't in public view on Blogger. That didn't make sense to me. What about my main blog! Lol.

I just got an email from

Submitted by Book n' a Mug (not verified) on Thu, 02/19/2009 - 1:17pm.

I just got an email from Wikimetro, too. I was a little hesitant so I googled them and found this post - thanks for letting us all know! I'll stay away.

got it too. they said they

Submitted by Noname McClown (not verified) on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 8:02am.

got it too. they said they received 50 requests and over 300 page views from me. i dont advertise it at all so there is no way their numbers add up. i think it's a total lie.

I got the same thing and

Submitted by Rev Mel (not verified) on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 12:21am.

I got the same thing and could not open their site and when I check on the net found your site. Thank you will keep my self away from Wikimetro..

Rev Mel

Happy to help.

Submitted by jrenaut on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 12:22am.

Happy to help.

Thanks for the post. I sent

Submitted by Rio Guzman (not verified) on Sun, 03/15/2009 - 11:54pm.

Thanks for the post. I sent them an email and got no response so I was wondering.

Sorry you had to waste your

Submitted by jrenaut on Sun, 03/15/2009 - 11:57pm.

Sorry you had to waste your time emailing them.

I just received an email

Submitted by Maiah (not verified) on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 10:03am.

I just received an email from an employee there named Nano L. I'm glad I took the time to do a little research and came across your complaint. I'll be sure to keep an wary eye on them!

Thanks!
-Maiah

yea i got it too... i think

Submitted by ryan (not verified) on Tue, 03/17/2009 - 6:19pm.

yea i got it too... i think im just going to vote no on this. thanks

I got the same email last

Submitted by Glasgow (not verified) on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 5:00pm.

I got the same email last night. thank you so much for the heads up

Same here - I'll stay away

Submitted by Noname McClown (not verified) on Sun, 03/22/2009 - 11:46pm.

Same here - I'll stay away too...

I'll echo the thanks, I got

Submitted by Dave Welch (not verified) on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 10:46am.

I'll echo the thanks, I got excited for about half a second then took to the web and found your site. Good call.

Yeah, I got this even though

Submitted by ellipsis (not verified) on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 11:41am.

Yeah, I got this even though my blog has ONE post.

That just means an ad on

Submitted by jrenaut on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 11:43am.

That just means an ad on that post is a great value.

Poetra M BlogAd Account Asst

Submitted by Jeremy (not verified) on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 2:26pm.

Poetra M
BlogAd Account Asst Director
Email: Poetra.M@wikimetro.org
Website: www.wikimetro.org
Motto: "Everything Local"
Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.wikimetro.org/wikimetro_guide

weird I forgot I used to Blog all the time lol. SCAM for sure.

I received a similar letter

Submitted by Brendan (not verified) on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 9:30am.

I received a similar letter in bad English.*

* We want to know if grab your blog feeds to let people know whats happening in your hometown each day.

That's never a good sign.

Also, congrats on pulling the 3rd place Google result for wikimetro.

Thanks. I'd like to thank

Submitted by jrenaut on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 9:35am.

Thanks. I'd like to thank Jesus, and my mom, and the Google search robots, because without them I'd just be poor blogger, lost in the vast reaches of cyberspace, unread, irrelevant. I'd like to thank my sixth-grade math teacher who never stopped believing in me. Thank you all, and good night.

I have just received an

Submitted by Mademoiselle Robot (not verified) on Wed, 05/27/2009 - 10:51am.

I have just received an email from them saying

"Hi MelleRobot,

We are a Twitter API development partner and want to ask you to connect your hometown with your twitter feeds, so users can read your tweets and get local info.

Please use this link to register and choose your hometown: http://www.wikimetro.org/register.aspx

...and everything else happens automatically. We now have more than 50,000 users who send updates every day, are gradually trying to fill the gap for local news since newspapers, and the local info improves every minute as more people send local updates.

Rory B
Wikimetro Community Director

Wikimetro lets you post local classified ads and events, and add your blog to our blogad marketplace to accept blog advertising.

If we are sending this email to you by mistake, reply to this email by writing "stop" and we will make sure you dont get any more emails from us."

So now they introduce themselves as a Twitter API...
What's interesting is that when I reply to them to say that if they had read my site they would have seen I wasn't in the US (which means I am not even in their target), I got a Mailer Daemon error in return, from an address at Sohu.com (sq_zhuyi@sohu.com) - the site is entirely in Chinese, so I had to stop my investigation at that though!

I think it is possibly a phishing scam, trying to get people's Twitter credentials.

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