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Is this banner offer for real? Or is it a scam?

Posted by Frank on Nov 4, 2011 in Text

A ‘media marketing agency’ is offering me to place a banner on my site. But they want me to download & install a plugin on my WordPress blog before they can pay for the banner. The agency’s domain is only 10 days old, and they hide who’s behind this website. They claim to have prepared a banner campaign for a big company as Lacoste, but they don’t mention any references on their web site. Is it a genuine business offer, or is it a scam?

On October 26th, I received this email:

Hi,

We are looking for new advertisement platforms and we are interested in your site www.letmecolor.com. Is it possible to place banner on your site on a fee basis?

Best regards,
Noa Morin
site: www.karaagency.com
e-mail: [email protected]
phone: + (0)9 78 62 31 00

Since I don’t mind to make a few bucks, I decided to try them out. I responded “That is possible, all timeslots are available. What kind of banner did you have in mind?”

Within 15 minutes Noa sent me an email back.

“At the moment we are preparing an advertising campaign for Lacoste Company (it is a French company producing clothes, footwear, perfumery etc.) We already have designed banners for the campaign, they are the following sizes: 160×600, 240×400, 300×250, 336×280, 468×60, 728×90. What can be your price for one banner (banner should appear at ALL pages of your site) of abovementioned sizes (please specify the place for the banner – top, bottom, left, right)? Please mention a normal link for banner, without javascript code and set prices in US dollars per month.”

Since this would be the first bannerspace I would sell (apart from Google Adwords), I didn’t want to ask too much. I thought that $275,- ex 19% VAT (BTW in Dutch) per month would be pretty descent for a 160×600 ‘above the fold’ banner on my blog, that received 75.000 pageviews in the prior month.

Noa responded a few hours later that they liked my price and that I had to install and activate a WordPress plugin on my site and that:

“Before making payment, advertiser must approve location of the banner. The banner will be shown on your site when you add special code to your web- address (for example: http://www.letmecolor.com/?adv_test=1). It means, that visitors will see the banner only if it is approved and payment made. To get installation instruction for your site type pass to: http://docs.karaagency.com/wp_install” which linked to their WordPress plugin installation guide.

Yeah right. Installing software on my site before payment. Software that is only available on their website, and not, as is common for trusted WordPress plugins, in the WP plugin repository. When plugins are distributed through the WordPress website they can be checked, tested and rated by all users: a dirty plugin can be noticed faster than you can smell a fart.

Of course I checked out this agency’s website quickly before I even answered the first email. But now I thought it couldn’t harm to investigate this Kara Agency a bit further. At first I thought it was not a terrific site, but hey, they can’t all be winners. I remember finding it also a bit weird that a conductor was used as a logo for this ‘media marketing’ agency, but I see weirder logo’s sometimes.

But at the second look I noticed something else: they do mention ‘references’ like “Transport”, “Prêt-à-porter” and “Tourism”, but they don’t have any customer company names mentioned on the site. Which is rather strange, if you claim to have a company like Lacoste as customer, right?

I decided to look into the Whois.net database. It turned out that the domain www.karaagency.com was registered on October 16 2011, only 10 days before I received the first email. Strange. Furthermore, there is no information about persons or addresses available. These data are hidden by PrivacyProtect.org, that offers Whois privacy for domain name owners in order to “protect the owner from spam and phishing attacks”. But a service like this is also very convenient for domain name owners who have less honest intentions, right?

All of this is not very reassuring. But there is more. The IP address the first email was sent from (46.105.31.17) seems to be in France, Europe, while Noa asked me to make my offer for the banner in US dollars. And a search for “Noa Morin” brought me to Facebook. Noa has an account there, but seems to have no friends. Ouch, that’s sad. Via a Google search I found several other web sites that Noa has contacted to offer a banner deal from Kara Agency. Noa left comments, in which she asked to delete that specific comment. Spammy!

I thought now was the time to send Lacoste an email and ask if they are familiar with ‘Kara Agency’ or ‘Paris Media Marketing’. Eventually I got on the phone with Karel Schreuders from Fros International, Lacostes distributor in the Netherlands. Mr. Schreuders told me that whenever Lacoste plans a campaign, he knows, because he’d have seen a presentation about it. “And I have never seen a presentation from Kara Agency or Paris Media Marketing”.

I decided to confront Noa with this information, so I sent an email again:

Hi,

Today I had the Dutch distributor of Lacoste on the phone. Whenever a promotional campaign is planned, he knows about it. But he told me that he has never heard of Kara Agency or Paris Media Marketing.

How do you explain the fact they have never heard of your agency?

Kind regards,
Frank De Kleine

And as you might have guessed, I am still waiting for an answer…

4 things web site owners should keep in mind

(WordPress): Installing third party plugins that are not available via the WordPress repository might be risky! They can take control over your blog, steal your data, steal your traffic, steal your add revenue, and so on.
Be aware when someone tells you that installing this third party software is required anyway.
Don’t believe everything.
Always stay in control.

What if you have installed Kara Agency’s plugin on your site?
Contact your webhost for advice. But prepare to install a clean backup as soon as possible.

Thanks to

Mr. Karel Schreuders from Fros International, who made time for my call and answered my question about Kara Agency.
John Bolyard from marketoneweb.com, who shared his knowledge about WordPress plugins via Twitter.

Cars Coloring Page: The Great Lamborghini Countach

Posted by Frank on Apr 15, 2010 in Cars

>> Cars coloring pages.
>> All coloring pages.

If you’re into coloring cars, this is one you’d love to put on your fridge! It’s a real classic in the history of sports cars; the Lamborghini Countach. And it even has got the famous scissor doors open! Get it for free, here at LetMeColor.com.

This cars coloring page is part of my Coloring Book (pdf, 1,9 MB) Coloring Cars – Lamborghini, which contains only FREE coloring pages of all the finest Lamborghini sport cars; these are all printable coloring pages.

Some rights reserved (Creative Commons). This coloring page is created by Frank De Kleine. Original photo by Exfordy. See license of original photo here.

Disney Coloring Pages: the 25 Very Best

Posted by Frank on Mar 22, 2010 in

It’s hard to find the best Disney coloring pages online. To make it easy, I’ve selected the 25 best free Disney coloring pages available today. This Best Of – list contains these Disney coloring pages: Mickey Coloring, Disney Princess Coloring and Tinkerbell Coloring. Have fun!