You might already came across of a sales pitch that Google is hiring work at home workers offering more than $300 Dollars per day. Well, if you are one of those fellows who bought the work at home kit, sorry to inform you that it is a scam and now Google Inc., is suing the company for making false advertisement.

Google filed a lawsuit in Salt Lake City against Pacific WebWorks and other, unnamed defendants for alleging trademark infringement and dilution, unfair competition, federal cyberpiracy, and violation of consumer sales practices.

Here’s a screen shot of the alleged Work At Home Scam. Image courtesy of Google.

“This action seeks to stop a widespread Internet advertising scam that is defrauding the public by misusing the famous Google brand,” the suit says. “The scam victimizes unsuspecting consumers by prominently displaying the famous Google mark, by suggesting sponsorship by the plaintiff Google Inc., and by urging consumers to obtain a kit supposedly showing them how to make money working from home with Google.”

How does the scam work? First they will tell the consumers that Google is hiring and they are offering $300 dollars or more per day as the compensation. But here is the catch, the consumer can only know the full details once they bought the kit from the company.

According to the lawsuit, the consumers are asked to pay for an instant access or for a shipping and handling fee, supposedly tells you on how you can make money from the program. However, according of victims, they either do not get the DVD, they received the DVD’s that contain viruses or they get access to unrelated sites.

At times consumers, who purchased via credit card are billed $50 to $79 dollars per month. “These scams play upon some powerful methods of persuasion. Not just by using Google’s logo, but we often see ‘as seen on CNN, Fox News and ABC,’” he said in an interview. “I don’t know if people understand how easy it is to copy an image file on a Web page. They also try to use social proof by creating a fake blog, with a photo of the blogger from his wedding, the new car he bought, and explaining how he lost his job. They go to great lengths to string people along.”

According to CNET news website, Barbara Ford filed a lawsuit to Pacific WebWorks. She claimed that she clicked an ad on her AOL program with a fake news article how one woman made $5,000 a month with the program. She alleges she paid $1.97 for a “Google Business Kit” and that her credit card was also charged $79.90. She called the company to request a refund and never received one, according to the lawsuit.

It is about time that the Big G starts to sues scams like this. I hope that the government will also start in patrolling internet business on the Internet where the primary targets are the consumers.

Source:
CNET – http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10410831-83.html?tag=nl.e757