The Google scams have been an issue since early this year. They got a lot worse last month and finally Google began banning advertisers who are promoting these Google scams.
Google has taken this to the next level by blogging about it on the official Google Blog. Google outed the scam finally and clearly, by saying:
We're seeing disturbing cases in which websites, emails and advertisements claim that you can make large amounts of money from home with very little effort using Google products and services. They're designed to look like they were written by a regular person, just like you, who stumbled across an amazing opportunity to make their monetary dreams come true. What they don't tell you clearly is that Google is not affiliated with these sites and that they may add extra charges to your credit card or misuse your personal information.
So don't fall for it, too many people have already and I hope you don't. Google offered ways to detect these scams as well as ways to report them, here is how to report them:
- If you've been ripped off, or suspect others are, report the site and file a complaint with the appropriate agency.
- If you come across many sites with duplicate content or common templates intended to direct users to the same product or scheme, please let us know with a spam report.
- If you've been contacted to place suspicious links on your site for money, let us know with the paid link report form. If you have your own website or are in charge of advertising on a site, think carefully before accepting ads or entering into affiliate programs that will lead your users to schemes like those mentioned above.
- If your site's forums or comment sections have been spammed with fake offers of fabulous financial gain, you may need to take steps to fight comment spam. Spammers will take advantage of any user-generated content sections of your site, and will even generate thousands of fake user profiles to try to slip under the radar.
- If you receive suspicious messages that claim to be from Google, these may be phishing attempts. Please report them to [email protected].
Forum discussion continued at Google AdWords Help.
