Website Listing Service Fraud Alert: Web Listings Inc.

Comments (31)

By John posted on Monday, March 15, 2010 @ 7:00 PM

Ahh, yes, we to have recieved such an "invoice". They must make some good money out of this or they would not do it!! We have also recieved letters in the mail from "international business registers" requiring a couple of hundred dollars to keep our company registered. I guess when you play the numbers game you will always have a win somewhere. I just wish the law could do something about it!!

By susan posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 @ 4:37 AM

I received the statement referenced in your warning. I did not submit for obvious reasons. I am however interested in linking my site to search engines to increase business. Do you know of a reputable company that can help me or can i do this myself?

By Andrea posted on Saturday, March 20, 2010 @ 8:56 PM

The issue with domain names is that it stresses out many small business owners: they just fear if they do not pay, their website (and their business’ online visibility) would disappear. You know, $65 for fulfilling your safety concerns... That doesn’t seem much. So they pay...

By Brad Proctor posted on Sunday, March 21, 2010 @ 7:13 AM

I've got these before, they are pretty shady. They make it look like a bill you have to pay and I bet a lot of people do without actually reading it to the print that says "THIS IS NOT A BILL"

@susan: No need, your site is already indexed by the big three. And submitting to any others is just a waste of time.

By Lisa posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 @ 2:58 PM

I also received the same letter. When I didn't see a phone number and attempted to find one by googling, I saw this page!!! It's a damn shame - and yes, obviously they are making money.

I am so glad I saw this.

By Martijn posted on Sunday, April 11, 2010 @ 5:36 AM

I have a friend in America who has received exactly the same letter. His strategy? Just throw the bill away and warn your clients about this letter

By Sherae posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 @ 5:33 PM

I just got the letter today and it freaked me out a little considering that I am still building my website and haven't even published it yet. If it were cold enough I would start a fire with it... BBQ anyone?

By Anil Mathew posted on Sunday, May 2, 2010 @ 6:26 PM

I received the referenced bill and figured out it is fishy. But I am interested in linking my sites to search engines. Do you know which companies provide this service?

By Mike posted on Monday, May 3, 2010 @ 12:57 PM

My website comes up on Yahoo, Google, and Bing searches how many more do I need Web Listings INC ?

By Signs Stockton, CA posted on Monday, May 3, 2010 @ 1:54 PM

Wow, we've had our site for years and just received one of these. I figured it was a scam when I saw the note at the bottom.

By kate hogeland posted on Monday, May 3, 2010 @ 5:08 PM

I just got the same thing and realized it was a scam. I went on line to google and found this site. So glad you posted this for others to see!

By Scott posted on Thursday, May 6, 2010 @ 5:56 PM

I just got one of these too. Does anyone know - how do they find your mailing address? It's not on my site anywhere. I also have to wonder how they know what my site is - it's not really built yet, so I haven't told anyone about it, and I don't mention my full name on it.

By Shane posted on Saturday, May 8, 2010 @ 2:55 PM

The website that the letter is listed to James Madison one of our beloved presidents. The 800 number says thanks for calling and says to press 0 to talk to a rep. All it does is say invalid number try again, but 6 will let you leave a message. Oh and the regular number that is listed is the Niagra Aquarium.

By David Hoffman posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 @ 7:34 AM

This is an old Yellow Pages industry practice; they send what appears to be an invoice to "renew" your listing in their book - problem is, you never had a listing in their book. If you look into this company, my bet is it's run by old Yellow Pages people who need a new industry to slime.

The only search engines that matter - Google, Yahoo (for a few more months), Bing and Ask - will find a site if it's optimized. If it's not, submitting the site to them wont make a difference.

By Bubba Gump posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 @ 5:48 PM

That address is a UPS Store - where you can rent mailboxes.

The UPS Store - 2194
www.theupsstorelocal.com
1623 Military Road
Niagara Falls, NY 14304-1745
(716) 298-4461

By Caldude posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 @ 1:01 PM

I receive one of those letters 3 days ago. The interesting part is the domain name they are referring to does not even have a website associated to it. I found it ridiculous and when they mentioned "Submission to 20 established search engines" I knew then it was some sort of scam.

By Mat Brooks posted on Monday, May 31, 2010 @ 12:07 PM

Man, thanks for this posting, I almost fell for this as I would like my website to get more hits and not knowing any better this sounded pretty good. I'm glad that I looked into this further $65.00 puts alot of stuff in the pantry.

By Rene posted on Tuesday, June 1, 2010 @ 1:10 PM

I just received a statement from this company for $65.00. Good luck!! be making a ton of money! They must preying on innocent individuals who don't know any better.

By Bobby Rhoades posted on Wednesday, June 2, 2010 @ 5:44 AM

I just received the same letter from Web Listings Inc. Such dishonest tactics. Thank you for bringing this to everyone's attention.

By Joe posted on Wednesday, June 2, 2010 @ 3:57 PM

I would think that with all the laws (CAN-SPAM ACT) for newsletters ONLINE, they'd protect the mail service, too. I wasn't going to do it anyway, because anyone can do it for free on their own.

By Bobo posted on Thursday, June 3, 2010 @ 8:08 AM

Mine arrived yesterday. My first reaction was that it was odd to receive a snail-mailed letter about a website -- which I closed months ago.

By David posted on Saturday, June 5, 2010 @ 1:32 PM

Thanks for the help. I got a bill today from these guys. I will burn it.
David

By Alma posted on Saturday, June 5, 2010 @ 4:40 PM

Oh my GOD! I received this "invoice" too!! I wanted to call them and ask what the heck this was about. So I decided to type in the address and look for their number. This ARTICLE was the FIRST THING that popped up.. Thank God I listened to myself on this one...

By Sai Thakor posted on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 @ 10:34 AM

This Is Bull. I Am Not Paying It Haha

By Morgan posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 @ 9:10 AM

I work for a University and they attempted to solicit payment from us. They are a scam. Very glad for this original post.

By Mila posted on Sunday, June 13, 2010 @ 2:14 PM

Yes, I received one of these yesterday. This is a scurvy operation--thought I had to pay it until showing it to a friend. My guess is they do pretty well with this phony invoice. They ought to be jail. A pox on them!

By Cleever posted on Monday, June 21, 2010 @ 4:43 AM

Got it last friday, immediatly rumple it and thrown it and when it was falling shoot it with a shotgun!

By redconfetti posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 @ 9:02 PM

I just got one of these in the mail today myself. This is funny.

For those that don't know, you can submit your domain to search engines for free. For instance, here is the link for the Google page submission form: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

The other search engines have one too if you look for it.

Really the best thing you can do is make sure your website has actual text on it that provides information which is useful enough that people decide to link to you. The more people that link to you, the higher the social value Google see's you provide (such as useful blog posts from a Wordpress blog)...whereas nonsense articles that aren't helpful don't get linked to by others.

By GLO posted on Thursday, August 19, 2010 @ 9:10 AM

Well glad to see that this letter is still out there. I just got mine Today, August 17th.

Did anyone get a letter to a strange name and your own home address?

Just making sure -- one never knows.

Thank you for the Posts, so very helpfull

Glo

By RR posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 @ 10:55 AM

Yah, I got mine today... August 30th! What a shame ... and I hope no one believes them and send any money... I feel sorry for those who end up losing their money. In my case they are asking me $85.00

By Joachim Loutangou posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 @ 1:43 PM

Thank God somebody made this fraud public. I received the same mail on August 25th 2010; I was about to send a signed check, but I wanted to chek if it was possible to do the payment online and I was stoned to discover this fraud alert. Thank you guys.
On my letter the amount have changed to $35.00 instead to $65.00 and the subscription said "submission to 10 established search engines up to eight keyword/..."