Category Archives: Internet

Internet, SEO

Do you do web design in Ellesmere Port?

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Time for some blatant plugging; there has to be some benefit to running this website.

At Engage Web, based in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire (just round the corner from Cheshire Oaks) we’re looking for a web designer to join our team. We’re an SEO agency, but we also do a lot of website design. You can see our web design portfolio here for the sorts of sites we’ve built and the types of industries in which we work.

We’re looking for someone creative, although you don’t necessarily need to have worked professionally as a web designer, or have any formal qualifications in web design. We just want someone who has a genuine passion for web design and is in the Ellesmere Port/Liverpool area.

So, if you’re a keen web designer, or even someone with an interest in getting into website design, and you live in Ellesmere Port, or somewhere near (such as Liverpool, Chester or on the Wirral) then we’d like to hear from you at Engage Web.

Have a look at the job spec here and, if you’re interested in applying, fill in the contact form and send us your CV, together with some examples of your URLs. We’re looking to interview our first candidates next week, so you’ll need to act fast if you want to apply for this web design position.

Internet

Quality spam email from Co-op bank: New message-Secure Activation Confirmation

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I’ve written before about badly written spam, such as in this case with comment spam, and how it beggars belief that people obviously spend copious amounts of time and money spreading this crap around the Internet, that it seemed only fair that I applaud spam as well.

I’ve just received some of the best written spam I’ve ever had, this time for Co-Op Bank (who I’m not actually with). The email was very well formatted, and very well written. It has obviously been proof-read (which a lot of spam emails haven’t) and has been constructed by someone who understands the English language. In fact, if it weren’t the fact that the links go to valbis.com instead of the Co-Op, and that I’m not actually with the Co-Op, I may have fallen for this one.

Well ok, I wouldn’t have actually fallen for it, but I bet a lot of people will. Well played lads, that’s some good spam.

Here is the spam email in full, in case you received it yourself and weren’t sure…

From: The Co-operative Bank [mailto:notice.hl43@operative.co.uk]
Sent: 31 October 2011 14:34
Subject: New message-Secure Activation Confirmation.

Dear Customer,

This message confirms your activation of the The Co-operative Bank Online Secure Service on October 31, 2011 13:11:20(GMT). This service provides added safety when you shop online and is offered to you free of charge.

Please click on the following link.

Confirm your details

From now on, when shopping online at participating merchants or logging in to your Personal Account Manager, you will be prompted to enter random sequential characters from your password you created during the service activation. Please keep your password secret as you will need it for future purchases.

Please personalise your Co-operative Bank Secure account as soon as you can. When personalising your account, you will be able to select your own Personal Message and update your email address.
Access Co-operative Bank Secure

Additionally, at this site you will find more information regarding the service and participating merchants.

Alternatively if you have any questions or problems regarding registration, logging in, or shopping with NatWest Secure, we are here to help. Call us on 0875 212 212 or Textphone 0875 213 213. You can always visit the The Co-operative Bank Online Service site for further information.

The Co-operative Bank Secure password protection applies to all cardholders on the account. If this account has an additional cardholder, they should activate the service by visiting the above Secure site.

This is an outbound message only. Please do not reply. Calls may be recorded. Maximum call charge from a BT landline is 8p per minute. Calls from other networks may vary.

Your Bank and the Police will never contact you to ask you to disclose your online banking or payment card PIN’s, or your password information.

Thank you.
The Co-operative Bank Customer Service Centre

Internet, SEO

Link building mistakes: comment spam

2 Comments

Being someone who runs, shall we say, a fair number of blogs, I get one or two spam comments posted on different websites from people looking to ‘build links’ for SEO. Some of these comments are well written, and reference the blog itself, whereas some are just utter rubbish, written either by automated systems or by people who have only a passing familiarity with the English language.

Now, while it’s very easy for me to identify which comments are genuine and which are posted purely for SEO purposes, it is interesting to see which companies and websites employ SEO companies that use these black hat, spam tactics.

So, here are a couple of the best spam comments I have received lately, complete with the emails of the ‘people’ who left them, and the websites who have been using dodgy SEO link building techniques.

Posted by: mark clayson
URL: markclaysoncomputers.com
Email: VercherArrollo90@gmail.com
IP: 217.219.115.133
Submitted on 2011/10/05 at 10:07 pm

Hi my loved one! I want to say that this article is amazing, great written and come with approximately all vital infos. I?d like to look extra posts like this .

I’m willing to guess that ‘Mark Clayson’ didn’t post this himself, as the English is so poor it’s clearly not from someone who has English as a first language. The email address used, a disposable Gmail address, is a clear giveaway that the poster is in the habit of posting bulk comments and isn’t actually Mark Clayson.

Posted by: language blog, job market, bilingual jobs, multilingual jobs, expat employees, language jobs, blog
URL: blog.toplanguagejobs.com
Email: VerenChronister3005@gnumail.com
IP: 89.175.182.190
Submitted on 2011/10/06 at 12:11 pm

Thank you a bunch for sharing this with all people you actually recognise what you are speaking approximately! Bookmarked. Kindly also consult with my website =). We can have a link change arrangement among us

This meaningless drivel was posted on the same day, using a very similar email address format. What I like about this comment is that it’s absolute garbage, making no sense, yet is promoting a website offering ‘language jobs’. What a cracking advert for the website! I bet the marketing department at toplanguagejobs.com will be thrilled to have their website and brand associated with this kind of crap.

Building links for SEO is important, but not as important as building them properly. If you employ an SEO company or link builder that uses link building techniques such as this you’ll end up with some seriously poor quality links, and your brand damaged by the nature of the links – and you might end up as the subject of a blog on MrDaz.com, which is far worse!

Complaints, Internet, Rants

Groupon lies about over charging on Clouds Memory Foam offer

34 Comments

I recently purchased four memory foam pillows on Groupon from the company ‘Clouds Memory Foam’. The Groupon offer gave a great discount by offering 4 pillows for £55, instead of £239.96 – with just a £4.99 delivery charge (as you can see from the link).

However, when I came to place the order the delivery charge was £10 – not £4.99. As you only have a limited time to redeem your Groupon vouchers I had little choice but to pay the £10 and quibble about it later.

Knowing Groupon as I do (I’ve never had a transaction go without a hitch of some kind) I tweeted them immediately about the issue, and received an instant response saying to email their UK support team, which I did.

However – I received the following reply from Groupon’s email support:

Pal, Sep-27 00:05 (BST):
Hi Darren,
Thank you for your email. I am sorry to hear that you were charged £10.00 delivery fee for your Clouds Memory Foam Pillows.
I have checked our system and cannot find any other customers being charged this amount.
Please find below the contact number for the partner, to request a refund for this fee:
Phone Numbers: (+44) 203 086 7423 & (+44) 207 760 7562
Email: contact@cloudsmemoryfoam.com
Also did you follow the below procedure to place your order:
– Go to www.cloudsmemoryfoam.co.uk/bedding/pillows-3/super-deluxe-memory-foam-pillow-1
– In the checkout, enter your voucher codes
– Have your credit/debit card details ready to pay the £4.99 postage

It was the ‘I have checked our system and cannot find any other customers being charged this amount’ that interested me, as this means they have checked, and nobody else has been charged £10 for delivery – except of course that they have, and Groupon has lied. Not only has Groupon lied about this, they have knowingly attempted to deceive as they have indeed checked, and have sent me exactly the same email as someone else has already received – so they looked up the problem, found someone else had reported the same problem, saw the email they had already sent to them, and then forwarded it to me.

Pal, Sep-26 23:27 (BST):
Hi Lianne,
Thank you for your email. I am sorry to hear that you were charged £10.00 delivery fee for your Clouds Memory Foam Pillows.
I have checked our system and cannot find any other customers being charged this amount.
Please find below the contact number for the partner, to request a refund for this fee:
Phone Numbers: (+44) 203 086 7423 & (+44) 207 760 7562
Email: contact@cloudsmemoryfoam.com
Also did you follow the below procedure to place your order:
– Go to www.cloudsmemoryfoam.co.uk/bedding/pillows-3/super-deluxe-memory-foam-pillow-1
– In the checkout, enter your voucher codes
– Have your credit/debit card details ready to pay the £4.99 postage

How disgusting is that? They must have known for a fact that someone else had been charged the £10 in order to send me the exact same email. Groupon clearly can’t be trusted. Mistakes happen, that’s a fact of life. When a website becomes as successful as Groupon has become these mistakes will be more frequent, but it’s how you deal with these mistakes that sets you apart – and to knowingly lie to customers marks you out as a company that simply cannot be trusted.

I wonder what Groupon will come back with now, following this response:

That’s funny, because someone else has received this exact same email from you (GroupOn code error (ticket #906501)).

Seems you’re lying through your arse on this one. How many people have you sent this exact same email to, claiming nobody else has been charged £10?

This is a disgraceful lie that has been found out. I suggest you tread very carefully with the way you reply to this.

I await the next chapter with bated breath.

Humour, Internet

The Student Property Shop has their domain name forcibly removed

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If you remember a certain Leeds based letting agent named Providence Properties, who featured on many websites a few years ago and on BBC Watchdog, you may remember that they disappeared almost over night and new company sprang up in their place. Where Providence Properties once sat, The Student Property Shop rose like a phoenix from the flames.

The Student Property Shop

For legal reasons of course I should point out that I’m not in any way suggesting that Providence Properties and The Student Property Shop are connected, they just have the same premises, the same staff, the same vehicles and their websites are (or were) on the same server. No connection whatsoever.

The Student Property Shop was also the subject of a student demo a while back, over fees that weren’t being returned.

Anyhow, things have taken a new twist once again; you see, the real Student Property Shop (website www.studentpropertyshop.com) are absolutely nothing to do with the Leeds outfit ran by the Zamans. The owners of Student Property Shop were keen to distance themselves from the whole sordid affair years ago when they emailed me to point out the distinction, and now they’ve emailed me again… this time with some very good, and very funny, news.

You see, if you register a domain name that encroaches on someone else’s trademark or company, you can have ownership of that domain challenged – and Student Property Shop (the good guys) reported The Student Property Shop to Nominet, the body that governs .uk domains, and they have upheld the complaint. As a result the Leeds letting agent The Student Property Shop has had their domain name forcibly removed and given to the real Student Property Shop.

This means their website no longer works, their email no longer works and they can’t be found on Google. Freakin’ hilarious!

The email from the real Student Property Shop stated:

Following our complaint to Nominet (the industry regulator controlling the registration of .uk domains), the ownership of the domain name, thestudentpropertyshop.co.uk has been transferred to us.

Nominet’s ‘Dispute Resolution Service’ commissioned a report from an independent legal expert, who concluded that “an Abusive Registration” took place by the previous owner of the domain name, who would be taking “unfair advantage” of our rights to the ‘Student Property Shop’ name; the recommendation was to the transfer the domain to us on 19th August 2011 to protect our trade mark.

Of course, Providence Properties lost their domain name a while back so the whole Internet can see just what has happened during the course of this story. That’s two domain names that have been lost by companies at the same premises in Leeds. I wonder what they’ll do next?

Complaints, Home Delivery Network, Internet

Home Delivery Network Complaints Department

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HDNL, or YODEL as they’re now know, have been added as one of the founder companies to a new complaints website, The Complaints Department. This site has just launched, so is a bit sparse in content right now, but with listings such as Home Delivery Network it’s only a matter of time before the website is brimming with complaints from dissatisfied customers of the incompetent delivery company.

Who knows, perhaps even some of the HDNL drivers will get over there and mouth of as well? We can only hope.

Be sure to leave your opinions on HDNL over at their own page on the Complaints Department website.

Complaints, Internet, Rants, SEO

Recruitment Consultants won’t leave me alone

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The last few weeks I have been receiving numerous calls each and every day from recruitment consultants. I made the mistake of updating my CV on one website, just because it was out of date, and now I’m getting recruitment sharks swimming around me as though I’m clinging to a piece of driftwood while haemorrhaging blood from my leg.

Now I don’t mind so much the odd recruitment consultant calling me as I know they’re only doing their jobs and trying to fill positions – but seriously, some of them haven’t even looked at my CV before calling – if the jobs they’re suggesting are anything to go by. I’ve been asked about positions ranging from an SEO manager in Dublin (interesting, for sure) to a developer role in Bristol – even though I’m not a developer. I’ve been asked about entry level developer positions… I’m 34 (for a few more days at least) and have worked in Internet marketing for the last 11 years!

I’m half expecting to get calls from bakery recruitment or transport recruitment agencies, such is the irrelevance of some of the calls I have been getting.

What makes matters even worse is how some of these recruitment consultants handle being told that I’m not interested. Some of them are fine, and say sorry and wish me a nice day. This is good. Some of them argue, saying that they’ve seen my CV and think the role they have would be very suitable, even though they have already been told I’m not interested.

Some of them, however, decide that the best, and quickest, option is to just hang up on me, which is unacceptable. As anyone who knows me, or reads this website regularly, will testify I am known for remembering infractions such as this and, suffice to say, StuckOn won’t be using recruitment agencies where its staff have behaved in this way.

A little tip there for recruitment consultants; when you phone someone about a job it’s best you’re not rude to them when they say they’re not interested because, just maybe, they could be responsible for recruitment where they are now… setting fire to those bridges isn’t a good idea.

As a side note, I have even been called by BD Recruitment in the last two weeks. I told them to Google BD Recruitment and then never phone me again. A read of this post will explain why.

Humour, Internet, SEO

Providence Properties domain name expires

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If anyone remembers the student lettings company Providence Properties, you’ll know that I blogged about them on here a few times back in 2007 (and beyond) when they appeared on BBC Watchdog after being accused of keeping the deposits of some Leeds students. Following my blogs I had a phone call from one of the Zaman brothers asking why I was trying to destroy his company, and even a call from a lawyer – which was interesting.

Anyhow – after some years it appears that Providence Properties has let its domain name slip and it’s been registered by someone else, someone who still remembers what happened and has decided to make a website dedicated to the whole affair. How nice.

Little SEO lesson for you all there; no matter how bad things get with your company, no matter how much of a balls up you make, never let your domain name lapse.