Back in July and August we wrote a couple of posts warning readers about a website, onlinejobstoday.org, that claims to sell a database of “thousands of legitimate work at home jobs.” We thought what they were selling looked like a rip-off.

After receiving several abusive comments on our reviews we purchased their product and found out that they are, indeed, misrepresenting what they sell. Here are the details:

In December Vickie (Vickie Lasserre is the registered owner of the site)  left the following comment on our first blog post:

I’m with Sandra , ONLINE JOBS TODAY.ORG IS NOT A SCAM. I too purchased the Database, I get daily updates to over 2,000 real, genuine jobs. I also get to keep this database FOREVER! They are completely Legitimate.

Tom Harnish is a competitor of thiers (sic), and is only trying to trash there (sic) good name because he is a competitor and wants thier (sic) customers (sic) business.

What a shabby and unprofessional way to do business! Also, Tom you don;s (sic) know hoe (sic) to spell - stoopit is not how you spell stupid, so we can see that you didn’t even finish 7th grade.

Because several websites point out that she goes by a number of different names and actually has a business interest in the website, we ignored her truthless claim to be a customer, and pointed out that we are not her competitor because the jobs that are posted on this site are free. We also offered to review her product. She responded as follows, revealing that she lied about being a customer and admitting she is related to the site:

At Online Jobs Today, we sell a Digital Product. It is a Database that you download onto your computer, and within the Database are hundreds of companies and thousands of online jobs that have been pre-screeened (sic) for legitimacy. It is like a “Safe haven” where one can go and not have to worry about being scammed. NONE OF THE COMPANIES IN THE DATABASE COST ANYTHING TO APPLY FOR OR GET A JOB. Once you have the Database of Online Jobs dwonloaded (sic) onto your computer, you will receive AUTOMATIC UPDATES AND IT’S YOURS FOREVER!

So Tom, quit trying to get my UNIQUE NICHE and wonderful product for free!!!! LOL

We replied by again offering to review the product, and pointed out that legitimate companies have worked closely with us to help us evaluate their products and services. In fact, thanks to their assistance, we discuss them in considerable detail in our book because those companies offer a real service to people looking for telecommuting, freelance, and work at home jobs.

We also posted a more detailed description of the site and explained a bit further why we thought it was rip off. We backed our statement up with this from the Better Business Bureau (edited for brevity, click on the headline for the full text):

ONLINEJOBSTODAY.org Charges Upfront Fee for Service,
Calls Fee a “Donation,” Misusing BBB Online Reliability Seal

While it is not illegal for a group to be a “job offer” database steering you in the direction of legitimate job postings, BBB says be wary of groups that misrepresent themselves from the start, and use inflated language to try to convince you that what they are offering is legitimate, especially if they charge an upfront fee.

This group can’t guarantee that you will get any of the posted jobs. If they are misusing the BBB logo in their advertising, BBB says that you will want to be even more cautious of this group’s other claims, ie. that the jobs they share with you are legitimate.

You don’t want to get into a pissing contest with a skunk, it’s said, but that’s what onlinejobstoday.org seems determined to turn this into. A few days ago they posted the following at ripoffreport.com—a company we recommend in Undress For Success, by the way.

This is a sad, sad way to do business online. They defame all companies that are thier (sic) competitors. They do this intentionally, at their website, so that they can gain high page rank by linking to other companies that do have a high page rank with Google. They posts negative comments, all unfounded, about any company that they think will boost their page rank. This is SO UNETHICAL, they should be shut down!

Kathleen
boca raton, Florida
U.S.A.

Here’s how we responded:

RipoffReport.com offers a valuable service—one we  recommend to our readers online and in our latest book—but visitors need to realize that complaints are not reviewed for accuracy, honesty, or truthfulness. Anyone with an axe to grind can say anything they want about a company in an attempt to discredit them. OnlineJobsToday.org was unhappy with a review we did of their product and this , apparently, is their baseless attempt at retaliation. Here’s the real story.

Undress4Success.com currently provides information and advice to individuals, companies, and researchers who are interested in telework, freelancing, and home-based businesses. Our forthcoming book, Undress For Success—The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home, is published by John Wiley & Sons, one of the largest and most respected business book publishers in the world. Contributors to the book include world-renowned telework researchers and advocates. Our research has been quoted in the Washington Post, USA Today, Harvard Business Review, and many other esteemed publications.

Our web site offers free job information, as well as advice about the huge number of websites that are scams or rip-offs. Our reviews of such sites are based on the facts as we know them. We do not link to sites we review for the simple reason that out-bound links have no real benefit. Indeed, they may be detrimental to page rank if the linked site is a known offender of Google guidelines (onlinejobstoday.org has a page rank of 1, the lowest). In any event, when our opinion is disputed we’re happy to amend or abandon our position if and when new facts are made available that show we’re wrong.

One fact that led us to believe onlinejobstoday.org  is a rip-off is what the Better Business Bureau (see Tip #3) has to say about the site: “. . . be wary of groups that misrepresent themselves from the start, and use inflated language to try to convince you that what they are offering is legitimate, especially if they charge an upfront fee.” In fact, onlinejobstoday.org claims to be non-profit and misrepresents that the fee to see their so-called database is actually a contribution to run their website—although the site is hosted for free by Microsoft.

One commenter first lied about being a customer but then admitted, “At Online Jobs Today, we sell a Digital Product. It is a Database that you download onto your computer, and within the Database are hundreds of companies and thousands of online jobs that have been pre-screened for legitimacy.”

So we decided to see for ourselves. First we asked for access to their product for the purpose of review, something numerous legitimate sites have offered before we could even ask. When onlinejobstoday.org refused, we purchased the $20.99 product ourselves.

What we received was merely a 17 page PDF with 144 links to websites (two led to dead sites and two were duplicates). Among the 140 usable links were 43 job boards (free sites that list jobs), 43 companies that hire teleworkers (including uHaul and Amazon who may or may not be hiring),  11 “business opportunity” sites (most of which appear to be scams), 7 sites that only sell web hosting but no jobs (labeled as “HOT!”), and various other questionable “jobs,” including a company looking for “phone actresses” for telephone sex sites!

Did we get “…an extensive database filled with over 3000 legitimate online jobs“ as their site claims? Clearly we didn’t. If a list is a database, we could offer to sell one link, to Google, and claim we were selling a database of millions of companies and job opportunities.

If OnlineJobsToday’s web site honestly promoted the fact that the product they sell offers links to over a 140 job sites and other work-at-home web sites, we wouldn’t suggest that it’s a scam. A bad investment for such meager information, perhaps, but not a scam. Sure, you can find the same information on your own, but it is worth something to have it in one list. Our problem with onlinejobstoday.org is their sleazy mis-representation of what they sell, and their goofy dishonest blog comments.