Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

The following posting from Raj Sharma at LinkedIn brought Castle Pension Solutions - castlepensionsolutions.co.uk into my focus.

The posting from Raj Sharma:

Beware!!!Beware!!!Beware!!!!Scam!!!Scam!!
scam!!!fraud!!fraud!!!fraud!!!
Beware!!Beware!!Beware!!Beware.
castlepensionsolutions.co.uk is a fraud.
Paul Rowe,the con-man and owner of castlepensionsolutions.co.uk has cheated with our company Gokyo Ri BPO as my manager rajen sing was constantly in touch with him and didnot pay our payment from last two months.We started working for him, in mid of february and started passing pension and bank reclaim leads to him.He made only 1st payment after making lots of excuses,but we continued to pass leads for him as we thought the reason which he was giving might be genuine.Suddenly,Paul started showing his true colour.He didnot make any payments afterthat.He started telling lies and giving unreasonable excuses.1st week he said we made payment,might be banking issue.Next week he said i had issue with account department .when we made several attempts to contact him through email and trying to reach him,he always avoided us.Sometimes,he said audit is going on,will pay later without giving any specific date.We tried to get our money till last week untill he completely refused to pay to us.If anyone need email and chat snap shot we are happy to share with you guys.Any thing you want to know about this fraud company and his cheater owner,please contact.
We want that these scammer and con man should be out of LinkdIn or any other sites so he cannot cheat with any other people and please avoid castlepensionsolutions.co.uk to work.We are thinking of taking legal action against him and his company and contacted Fraud and crime department of British High commission,New Delhi India.
Paul Rowe.
castlepensionsolutions.co.uk
Registrant's address:
21 Simonburn
Washignton
Tyne and Wear
NE38 0NJ.

The first what I see on their website, that the “company” is only named Castle Pension Solutions. A legal form under which the company is operating is not declared. So we try to find out if the company is registered under this name or if the any responsible person is found for this company.

Registered UK companies can get found at http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/

As expected we find some other companies which are starting with Castle Pension but no Castle Pension Solutions.

Under the names Paul Rowe, Rowe Paul, Nick Danks or Danks Nick is no company registered. For this they are private persons and not company owner. This makes at least Nick Danks for the fraud full responsible. At least Nick Danks cannot hide himself, because the website is registered on his name and the name got verified (see at the domain registry: Registrant contact details validated by Nominet on 27-Mar-2014)

The given phone number at the homepage (UK: 07852196909) is a mobile phone number.

We see at the LinkedIn Profile of Paul Rowe that he has given a recommendation for Paul Danks.

At Facebook he describes himself as “Bank/Financial Institution”. A bank or a financial institution has in UK to be registered at the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority). There is a search about “Castle Pension Solutions”, Paul Rowe or Rowe Paul at http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/firmSearchForm.do ended without any result.

My opinion: Paul Rowe is not more than an insurance salesman who likes to play CEO. He is unable to find customers by himself. For this he uses call center in low wage countries. He is even not able to pay them.

My recommendation: Each call center, which got cheated from Castle Pension Solutions - castlepensionsolutions.co.uk - Paul Rowe - Nick Danks should file a complaint with their proves at http://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/complaints-and-compensation

LinkedIn Paul Rowe: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/paul-rowe/36/1a9/353

LinkedIn Nick Danks: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/nickdanks

Facebook Castle Pension Solutions: https://www.facebook.com/castlepensionsolutions (2016-02-25: Link removed - Facebook profile already not available)

Google+: https://plus.google.com/101662186451649408556/posts

Domain name:
castlepensionsolutions.co.uk
Registrant:
Nick Danks
Registrant type:
UK Individual
Registrant's address:
21 Simonburn
Washignton
Tyne and Wear
NE38 0NJ
United Kingdom
Data validation:
Registrant contact details validated by Nominet on 27-Mar-2014
Registrar:
Paragon Internet Group Ltd t/a Tsohost [Tag = UKWEBHOSTING]
URL: [link removed] dates:
Registered on: 27-Mar-2014
Expiry date: 27-Mar-2016
Last updated: 24-Mar-2015
Registration status:
Registered until expiry date.
Name servers:
ns1.tsohost.co.uk 185.52.27.27
ns2.tsohost.co.uk 95.142.155.4
ns3.tsohost.co.uk 95.142.154.15
WHOIS lookup made at 07:20:39 16-Apr-2015
This WHOIS information is provided for free by Nominet UK the central registry for .uk domain names. This information and the .uk WHOIS are: Copyright Nominet UK 1996 - 2015.
You may not access the .uk WHOIS or use any data from it except as permitted by the terms of use available in full at [link removed] includes restrictions on: (A) use of the data for advertising, or its repackaging, recompilation, redistribution or reuse (B) obscuring, removing or hiding any or all of this notice and (C) exceeding query rate or volume limits. The data is provided on an 'as-is' basis and may lag behind the register. Access may be withdrawn or restricted at any time.

Beware!!!Beware!!!Beware...d!!!fraud!!! _ LinkedIn.pdf (348.55 kb)

Paul Rowe _ LinkedIn.pdf (8.62 mb)

Facebook Castle Pension Solutions.pdf (26.26 mb)

Google plus Castle Pension Solutions.pdf (26.26 mb)

Nick Danks _ LinkedIn.pdf (17.08 mb)

Update September 29, 2016: More than one year later I got the following email from Nick Danks:

Von: Nick Danks [mailto:Nick7danks@Googlemail.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 27. September 2016 01:37
An: rudolf.faix@wwpa.com
Betreff: CC Scam e-mail - Reporting abuse

Good afternoon,

I have discovered a blog post about a scammed and I have been included in the post to which I beleive to be an outrage. I help the business setup a basic website a few years ago but I have zero involvement with the business or the business owner. I pride myself on helping people in business and the reason I have been mentioned was due to a mistake on registering the domain in my name rather than the client due to the setting on my hosting.
I feel that the comments made about me personally should be removed as this is slander against me when it has nothing to do with me or what I am involved with.

Feel free to keep the post about the invididual but i hope you can see by reading the post that the comment and image about me is undeserved so please can you remove.

https://blog.wwpa.com/post/2015/05/24/scammer-castle-pension-solutions-castlepensionsolutions-co-uk-paul-rowe-nick-danks-follow-up along with the main post that this relates too.

Any questions please let me know and I would be happy to answer any questions needed to have this removed.

Kindest regards
Nick Danks

---

Author information

Name: Nick Danks
E-mail: Nick7danks@Googlemail.com
IP address: 151.225.8.50
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; SM-G925F Build/MMB29K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/53.0.2785.124 Mobile Safari/537.36

Nick Danks has been the domain owner from castlepensionsolutions.co.uk at the time when the scam has happened and he is the only verified source in this case because Nominet, the British domain registry has verified his name and address. The LinkedIn profile from Paul Rowe got never verified and could get created by everybody. For this reason I tried to get a good explanation why the domain got registered on his name:

On 27 Sep 2016 01:33, "Rudolf Faix" <rudolf.faix@wwpa.com> wrote:

Hi

You are included in the post because you have been the owner of the domain at this time. As owner of the domain you are responsible for the content. If you have helped someone and this person has used the domain for fraud then you are in this case a partner in crime of the fraudster. Each attorney will give you the same answer.

best regards
Rudolf Faix
Affiliate Marketing Reviews
Fraud & Scam Systems
Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

I would never register a domain for someone other by using my name. This would make me responsible for the content of the website. If someone is not able to register a domain by himself then he need to provide to me his exact data including credit card details for the payment options for beeing able to enter it into web form.

Von: Nick Danks [mailto:nick7danks@googlemail.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 27. September 2016 18:01
An: Rudolf Faix
Betreff: Re: AW: CC Scam e-mail - Reporting abuse

Thank you for your response.

The website was created and transfered to the client but it took quite a while to complete the amends therefore I was named until I was paid. Which I wasn't and lost money whilst working for that business. I was infact a supplier not a partner and believe I should be removed as I have not had any business dealings with the individual apart from suppling a website. I'm not even sure the business is still going as I've tried to seek payment myself.

Please can we work together to resolve this issue and remove my details and image

Kind regards
Nick Danks

The domain got really transferred on July 8, 2016 (more than one year after the scam had happened). But the new domain owner does is a Anthony Gregory and not a person with the name Paul Rowe. So I tried to find out if Paul Rowe is in reality Anthony Gregory. Even the new site content has been very suspicious. There is a online shoe shop but without any price information and an imprint with name and address, which is required by the European law is missing too. Here a screenshot:

For this reason I have written:

On 27 Sep 2016 11:53, "Rudolf Faix" <rudolf.faix@wwpa.com> wrote:

I think it is not a big issue as “Paul Rowe” mentioned by himself in his email “Also nick danks if you had looked in to things properly he is just a Web creater.” (https://blog.wwpa.com/post/2015/05/24/scammer-castle-pension-solutions-castlepensionsolutions-co-uk-paul-rowe-nick-danks-follow-up)

The domain castlepensionsolutions.co.uk got transferred on July 8, 2016 to a person with the name Anthony Gregory, 21 WALSALL WOOD ROAD, WALSALL, WEST MIDLANDS, WS9 8QU, United Kingdom. Is this the original domain owner or a name which got found in a public phone directory? The actual content of the site does not really fit to the domain name. Shoes are something different than a pension system and the content is from cazpoo.co.uk – another scam site https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/cazpoo.co.uk?utm_source=addon&utm_content=warn-viewsc

Missing prices are not really something what someone is searching at an onlineshop and a missing imprint on the website does not make the site more trustful. It is even against the European law.

The problem is that I don’t believe into so many coincidences. Do you have any explanations?

best regards
Rudolf Faix
Affiliate Marketing Reviews
Fraud & Scam Systems
Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

The answer from Nick Danks has been coming, but not with any expected explanation:

Von: Nick Danks [mailto:nick7danks@googlemail.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 27. September 2016 19:05
An: Rudolf Faix
Betreff: Re: AW: AW: CC Scam e-mail - Reporting abuse

What would you like me to explain? I created the website and asked for payment and didn't received anything so I'm in the same situation as you as a supplier which is why I'd like me image and name taken out in the post as it is damaging to my credibility and I help alot of businesses and charities.

If Paul Rowe has done things wrong then that's his problem not mine. From what I can see if he has asked for a service and it was received then he should of paid regardless of the excuses.

I know it doesn't seem like a big issue but to me it is as it's my name being damaged due to someone elses wrong doing.

Thank you for your help.

As Nick Danks has been the owner of the domain castlepensionsolutions.co.uk he has been responsible for the content of the website and for the case he has given it for rent he has been responsible that the website is not getting used for any crime. The UK law got already broken by the content of the website as it represented a business where whether Paul Rowe nor Nick Danks had the required permission or licences for it.

On 28 Sep 2016 01:02, "Rudolf Faix" <rudolf.faix@wwpa.com> wrote:

I told you that it is not a big deal to change the information in the posting for the reason as in the email of the other guy is written that you are only a web creator.

I have asked you: “Is the actual domain owner, Anthony Gregory, 21 WALSALL WOOD ROAD, WALSALL, WEST MIDLANDS, WS9 8QU, United Kingdom, your previous customer?”

best regards
Rudolf Faix
Affiliate Marketing Reviews
Fraud & Scam Systems
Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

Nick Danks replied to my questions above:

Von: Nick Danks [mailto:nick7danks@googlemail.com]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 29. September 2016 03:32
An: Rudolf Faix
Betreff: Re: AW: AW: AW: CC Scam e-mail - Reporting abuse

No the domain owner was Paul rowe and he's the one tahys stung people by the looks of it. Not sure who the other guy is.

The argumentation from Nick Danks has a big problem. If I have a hosting customer, who don't pay, I'll turn off his website for giving him a reason to pay his bills. As the WayBackMachine - archive.org shows, got the content from castlepensionsolutions.co.uk between June 22, 2014 and March 13, 2016 exactly 9 time captured and the content from the site got even changed.

Even the actual content - the online shoe shop without prices and without any imprint showing the owner from the page - from castlepensionsolutions.co.uk is nothing else than a scam. It is a copy from the website cazpoo.co.uk.

At my research for the roots of the Tech Support scam offers in the call center industry I have found the company Systweak India - domain systweak.com. It is one of the sources of the "Tech support calls", which are getting traded at Facebook in the call center and outsourcing groups all over the Asia and India.

The scam is working the following way:

• Once they have programmed system tools on shareware base. Maybe at this time they had some sense, but with the further development and improvement of Windows this tools have been coming obsolete. Other companies are even providing already such tools for free or including similar products into their own offers. So they have been coming greedy and added to their products scare warnings and are showing a phone number where their victims have to call for help.
  
  
• This incoming calls get sold to call centers, which have more or less a script and some provided tools for giving paid help to the caller. The call center is billing for their service directly the customer. This makes the scam dangerous for the call center, because in this case the money flow shows that the call center is the scammer. They will get prosecuted even they know it or don't know it that they are helping in scamming others. 
  
  
• If their victim calls the phone number he has to pay a high price for the help. If their victim agrees and pays the scam fee, then they are installing more fraud software on the victims computer. Even the call center agent, which should solve the problem does not know about the scareware which is included in the provided tools.

Even if the scam has not been planned from the beginning, the system "Pay Per Sale" leaded to the scam. The greediness of the call center owners has driven the agents to sell as much as they can. Each business need to try to earn from their investment. If they buy something on stock then they need to try to make profit out of this stock. Nobody can work for free because we all need some money to pay our daily needs. This leads to such a fraud behavior too. If this has been the real case then it has been the self shot for Systweak. Even if the paid help is planned for one or more years, the problem exists, that the customer is reaching another call center then this one he has paid for his subscription. This new call center likes to get money too and does not work for free - remember the service is a "pay per sale" offer.

They are selling the calls, because they are thinking that they cannot get prosecuted by doing this. The first, which is coming into the spotlight is the owner of the phone number and this one, which takes the money. Indeed it is difficult to follow all the trades, which are done between the brokers, but it is not impossible. The first one, which are getting prosecuted are the helpers of the fraud and scam. In this case are it the call center owners, their agents and the owner of the published phone numbers.

At easycounter.com can get seen how much traffic is generated by the site systweak,com, With this counters can get calculated how many computer user are falling into their trap. You can see a screenshot from April 21, 2015:

In the following screenshot are the top countries listed where the traffic comes from:

It was a coincidence that I found the right domain. As the domain has been suspicious for me, because nobody can give up to 70% commission on his products if the product is competitive priced. I made my standard search procedure as following:

A short reputation research at scamadviser.com brought the result:

ALERT: Low Trust Rating. This Site May Not Be Safe to Use.

I found the following comments at scamadviser:

• 

  Susan Swanson Speulda · Contractor at Apollo Education Group

  Totally got screwed. Owes me a $400 refund but said I had to pay $200 to get it
  Put a startup password on my computer but told me I had to pay to get the password. Told them I wouldn't and the said f you. Computer being worked on but may need a new motherboard. Don't do business with them!

  Reply · Like · Follow Post · January 19 at 5:29am

   

   
• 

  Joanne Jan Naujokas · RITI

  I paid 198 for one year service and they have cleaned up my computer at least 6 times so far. I think they are from India but have always been great and polite and yes try to sell more but I don't accept.

  Reply · Like · Follow Post · December 7, 2013 at 1:31am

   

   
• openid (signed in using AOL)

  I'll tell you the truth. Systweak are an absolute nightmare, son't get involved, don't download shit from these parasites. They are all about scamming. Their "regcleanpro" software is just a hijacked app that they then use to extort more money from you. They are based in Jaipur and they will steal your money and ruin your pc. DON'T DO IT.

  Reply · Like · 2 · Follow Post · October 15, 2013 at 5:55pm

By taking a look at http://systweak.com/ I have found the Microsoft PartnerGold Application Development Logo and the Norton SECURED powered by Symantec logo.

The Norton secured logo means only that they are using a security certificate from Symantec. This only confirms only that the correct server is communicating with you and certificate can get reviewed by clicking on the Norton logo. The result is shown in the following screenshot:

More interesting is the Microsoft Partner Gold Application Development, which really leads to the site https://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-IN/Companies/4295548206 (see the site at the pdf attachment) and confirms the partnership of Systweak India.

As Systweak is offering a Premium Support at their website and the customer complains about "Owes me a $400 refund but said I had to pay $200 to get it Put a startup password on my computer but told me I had to pay to get the password." makes all the surroundings of this company a little bit suspect. So I decided to search a little bit at Google and other sites.

WOT (Web Of Trust) is rating them based on user comments are from 100 ratings 92 complaints about scam, malware and scareware.

Scambook.com reports:

Information about Systweak Inc. was first submitted to Scambook on Sep 10, 2011. Since then the page has accumulated 4 consumer complaints. On average users reported $106.80 of damages. Scambook's investigation team reached out to this company a total of 1 times, Scambook Investigators last contacted them on Apr 23, 2013.

In a comment at downloads.cnet.com we find:

"STOP!!!! DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT!!!!"

Pros

Initially it seemed to be a great system to search my entire computer, find errors and fix them, but....

Cons

I installed the program after what I now know were fake "HP Help" guys from India recommended it. First off, it would install older versions of drivers that would end up causing more problems. My computer ran fine prior to the program and continued to slow down more and more over time. Eventually it got to the point where my computer would freeze after 5 minutes of use. I bought a new hard drive and loaded ASO first, and immediately my computer began to run extremely slow, using 100% of CPU space. I called the tech support number and got another guy from India who again tried to sell me the same "maintenance plan" as before that cost $350. It is an absolute scam to try to get people to pay for more unneeded service.

Summary

DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT. If you have any version of it on your computer, get it off, it will cause you nothing but problems. It is a Trojan Horse that actually introduces more problems to your computer, which Systweak will "fix" for hundreds more dollars. STAY AWAY!!!

Similar complaints are getting found at the site RipoffReport.

At Postseek,com is documented, that the software is not easy to get uninstalled and it is very hard to get rid of all the pop ups.

At the Microsoft community is the scam well documented too. There are 11 pages full of this topic

At the complaintsboard.com you'll also find their fraud described,

2-spyware.com: Lists an uninstall solution and a lot of user comments about the Systweak product RegClean Pro:

As you can see from our review, RegClean Pro is legitimate application, but we do not recommend using it. After testing it, we found that it fails to detect all registry errors and also displays exaggerated scan results that are filled with doubtful issues. If you have already purchased it, its owners offer a money guarantee. We would recommend you to use it. If you want to remove RegClean Pro from the system, you can do that by using  SpyHunter or STOPzilla, or by following these manual removal steps:

Bleeping Computer.com has a removal instruction for the people, which cannot get rid of the Systweak product regclean pro. It shows how difficult it is to uninstall the malware from India.

Spybot has published a removal instruction for this kind of malware too,

This list can get endless continued. A Google search of "systweak scam" returns around 285 000 results, a search about "systweak malware" returns around 343 000 results and a search about "systweak scareware" 74 100 resuilts.

Even a court order for a similar scam gets found at onguardonline.gov:

A U.S. District Court recently ordered the operators of several international tech support scams to pay more than $5.1 million for convincing people that their computers were riddled with viruses and then charging for bogus support services.

We’ve (onguardonline.gov) written before about tech support scammers. They call and claim to work for well-known companies like Microsoft, Norton or McAfee. They say your computer is infected with malware and then ask for remote access so they can “fix” it. Or they place ads in online search results to trick you into calling them.

So don't use their software. You'll get scammed. The calls for the provided numbers are getting traded in the call center industry in Asia. There will be even some others get found, which try to copy the system.

Products from systweak:

• Advanced Disk Recovery
• Advanced Driver Updater
• Advanced Email Backup
• Advanced Email Printer
• Advanced Email Utilities
• Advanced Privacy Protector
• Advanced System Optimizer
• Advanced System Protector
• Anvanced Vista Optimizer
• Boost XP
• CacheBoost Professional
• Cacheboost Server Edition
• Disk Speedup
• Memory Zipper Plus
• Mobile Junk Cleaner
• Mobile Registry Cleaner
• Mobile Startup Cleaner
• Netbook Optimizer
• RegClean Pro
• Right Backup
• System Speedup
• Systweak Photo Album
• Systweak Photo Studio
• TuneupMyMac
• WinClean Pro

systweak.com whois:

Domain Name: SYSTWEAK.COM
Registry Domain ID: 77920662_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.enom.com
Registrar URL: www.enom.com
Updated Date: 2013-07-29T07:59:02.00Z
Creation Date: 2001-09-28T11:40:21.00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2022-09-28T11:40:00.00Z
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Registrar IANA ID: 48
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4252982646
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: SHRISHAIL RANA
Registrant Organization: SYSTWEAK INC
Registrant Street: E-73,CHITRANJAN MARG,
Registrant Street: C-SCHEME
Registrant City: JAIPUR
Registrant State/Province: RAJASTHAN
Registrant Postal Code: 302001
Registrant Country: IN
Registrant Phone: +91.1412367857
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax: +91.911412562982
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: GO4HOSTING HOSTMASTER
Admin Organization: CYBER FUTURISTICS-GO4HOSTING
Admin Street: D-61,SHIV HEERA PATH,C-SCHEME,
Admin City: JAIPUR
Admin State/Province: IN
Admin Postal Code: 302001
Admin Country: IN
Admin Phone: +1.911412770440
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax: +91.911412363604
Admin Fax Ext:
Registry Tech ID:
Tech Name: SHRISHAIL RANA
Tech Organization: SYSTWEAK INC
Tech Street: E-73,CHITRANJAN MARG,C-SCHEME
Tech City: JAIPUR
Tech State/Province: RAJASTHAN
Tech Postal Code: 302001
Tech Country: IN
Tech Phone: +91.1412367857
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax: .911412562982
Tech Fax Ext:
Name Server: DNS1.STABLETRANSIT.COM
Name Server: DNS2.STABLETRANSIT.COM
DNSSEC: unSigned

Systweak India _ JAIPUR,...an _ Microsoft Pinpoint.pdf (308.08 kb)

Update Jan. 18, 2017:
Link to the Facebook profile Susan Swanson Speulda (https://www.facebook.com/susan.speulda) removed as it returns error 404 - not found.

New Delhi - An uncomfortable officer has been placed in India for the 45th time. The NDTV Indian TV channel reported that Ashok Khemka got now moved to a simple job in the Department of Archaeology and Museums of the State of Haryana. Khemka is known all over India, because during his 23-years career he has uncovered numerous corruption scandals - and he was removed from his positions by various governments again and again.

Before Khemka has been transport officer in Haryana. He tweeted after the takeover of the position a few months ago: "We have to decide between road safety, protection of the public good and the environment on the one site and private profit on the other side". He said he wanted to tackle license purchase on the black market and make the names of all illegal profiteers public.

It never came. Now he tweeted: "I have taken great pains to fight corruption and enforce reforms in the transport sector, although my room was very limited and many stakeholders were involved deeply. That moment is now very painful."

What can we expect from a country where such a corruption and fraud is already public and nobody is doing something against it? 

Why should in such a case the business to be honest? 

India is a land of scam?
No! There are after all honest people there too. Don’t throw all into one pot. A good example for a honest person is Ashok Khemka. He leads by being a good example and I hope that many people will follow his example.

From a posting in the social network Sperian Engergy has been coming into my focus. I decided to ask for more info and got the following response:

Thank you for reaching out, sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. We are looking for centers that can commit more than 10 existing seats to selling electricity in our Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland and/or New York markets. We pay a Cost per Acquisition commission and each center purchases their own leads. We consistently maintain competitive rate plans in all markets. If this is something you feel your center can assist in, let me know and I will send over commissions, agreements, etc. for your review. This year we are focusing on less partners and building up the production seats with the partners we choose to bring on. We want the best relationships with the best partners.

Sean Wise
Channel Manager
Sperian Energy
O: 702-757-2691
C: 408-355-3480
www.sperianenergy.com

On the first view the offer does not look so bad and does not differ to the standard offers at LinkedIn. As they are searching for a few call centers, which need to buy their own leads, are the following questions open:

• How are the centers coordinate their leads?
• How the centers can exclude already existing customers from Sperian Energy from calling them?

I also have taken a look at the website of Sperian Engergy for getting some price information. There you'll find that you have enter the zip code for a price information. Ok, take it easy and revoke a few zip codes from the US. The site mapsofworld.com let you select the country, state and town/city. 

I have taken tried three cities from Illionois:

The result has been negative: We do not currently offer service in the area for the zip code entered. Please check back soon or call us for immediate assistance at 888.682.8082.

How a call center can offer in such a case a change of the energy provider, if the prices cannot get announced? To say only that we are the best and cheapest is not enough to convince people.

My summary: The same way like Sperian Engergy is searching for the best call center, the call centers are searching for the best partners. The problem is only that Sperian Engergy is at the moment even not a good partner for a call center as long as they are not doing their homework. Maybe they even don't have enough income to update their own database or they like to find customers, which like to change their energy provider first. In both cases is this not a good campaign for a call center. Call Centers can expect that they not getting paid for their work, because their referred customers are not living in the supported area from Sperian Energy. The referred customers are kept by them for a future expansion. As they don't expect to pay something, they even did not offer any amount per referred customer in their offer.

I think that the way Sperian Energy is making their offer, that they are only time waster or they are even not sure what they like. The information given in the email could be written in their posting at LinkedIn too. In such a case they would make some better impressions to their future partners. I expected to get more information then only marketing blah blah on my request.

The first impression a company makes is important for a business relationship. Sperian Energy made the impression of a time waster for me. Call centers have something better to do than to beg for more information.

I think too, that the same way they handle the call centers they are handling their customers, which does not lead them to a good reputation. Sperian Energy need to get more than a very good call center. They need to replace at least their marketing manager and the responsible staff, which has sent me such an email.

Gmail - LinkedIn - Sperian Energy is looking to add Call Centers.pdf (220.8KB)

Recently I got again a real slavery offer. As the company, which is offering it does not expect to pay something to the center they have even forgotten to add any earnings in their offer. Read first the offer and my explanations afterwards:

Hello,
Thank you for your interest in the Virtual Voice Technologies (VVT) Cruise campaign where you will have direct access to the cloud VVT system from the Clients servers in Florida, US, this campaign is only available to Pvt. Ltd companies that are registreded with the Minestry.
This is the system and man power requirements to get this campaign for 2 logins per agent, each agent will handle dual systems, minimum 10 agents. NO EXCEPTIONS and you will get 2 free agents login so please use them from day one so you have 12 agents working from start.
It’s important for you to start with all the required emplyees from day one, if not you will not be profitable and you will be terminated right away. we do not accept call center with bad working habits, all required conditions need to be meet from 1st day of dialing such as man power, working hours, working days.

• 10-12 agents.
• 20-24 PC’s
• 20-24 Monitors,
• 20-24 Mouse
• 10-12 Split headset (Mobile headset)
• Min 3Mps up/down
• TeamViewer installed on 1 PC
• 2 logins per agent (20-24 total)
• Logins should be used 9 am – 9 pm Est Mon – Fri and 10 am – 5 pm Est on Saturday.
• 200+ calls per agent each hour (2,400 in an 12 hour day)
• Mandatory recordings must be played and the appropriate responses obtained from the customer prior to transferring the call
• At least 1+ >60 transfers per agent/hour
• You will need to provide the following items (per agent) on before we can start:  Video Skype, 2 computers (total 20), 2 monitors (total 20), Split Headset, 300k bandwidth (per agent) and Windows XP or newer operating system.

Agreements will be send from end client after there final approval.
Campaign Charges:

• VoIP, weekly around $300- $375 weekly for unlimited VoIP dialing for 10 agents.
• VVT Login for 10 agents, 10 x 2 X $10.00 = $250.00 weekly, deducted from commissions.

To get started please send me a copy of your company registartion and a full email signature with all your company information such as , full name, title, company email, web site.
If you have any questions to any of the information, please contact me right away for clarifications.
If you wish to proceed please let me know and I will set it up right away.

if you take a look at the world largest cruise ships at Wikipedia then you see that the average capacity of such a cruise ship is around 4000 passengers. 

Why this offer is a slavery offer?

• Ship cruises are expensive. The last minute discounted prices around US$ 100/night/person. The promoter of such tours have the problem to sell the beds at a normal way. For this they are offering last minute tickets with discounts up to 75%. Think about how many cold calls you have to make
  
  
• You see in their offer, that an agent has to handle two calls at the same time. That means they don't have already enough money to make a lead generation on a normal way.
  
  
• The center has to rent their technology
  Sorry, but if someone likes that you use their technology, than they have to provide it for free and they have to pay for the time the agents get their training!
  
  
• The center has to pay for the VoIP minutes
  Sorry, but for whom they agents are calling? This one, which likes to earn has to pay for the VoIP minutes!
  They even like to reduce their phone bill, because the transferred call will run on the call centers bill!!!
  
  
• An agent has to make 200+ calls each hour
  That are 100 calls per line and hour. In average speaking time (sorry playback time - they like to use Avatar) is 36 seconds for each call. if I get such a call then I'll hang up immediately. With such a system is a sale not possible. In this case we can use speech recognition too and don't need agents for it. The caller cannot say more than Hello, yes and no in this time.

I would not buy or accept such leads. In such a case I can buy phone directory data too! They are even cheaper.

In summary is this offer more worse then a SCAM. The client likes even to earn from the call center!!!