When sex and greed are motivators, webmasters must make the attempt to not only protect the surfer, but also the name of the adult industry in general.

It all started with this: “Make money the easy way… No experience or PC required. Would you like to earn ‘tens of £1000’s’ a month without selling, experience, administration, stock, investment or having to answer the phone EVER again? Make a ‘lot of money’ from over 252 countries around the clock without having to translate, ask for payment, process orders or worry about exchange rates. Simply take one of our ‘NO Credit Card or Membership’ adult entertainment web site packages for a £50 down payment to pay for your site’s domain name, then pay £1950.00 for the business once you’ve started earning over £10,000 commission a month.”

Operating since about Feb/March 2001, this technically feasible, extremely sophisticated and well-thought out scam originated with British-owned www.090isp.com, and is currently doing the rounds on the net. Allegedly, it has ripped off at least 24,000 “wannabee pornmasters” for a minimum of £50 (Approx US$72.50) each. By the lowest conservative estimate, this scam has produced $1,740,000 for this unethical company. The number of webmasters that have been affected by 090isp could be as high as well over 100,000.

The scam operates with a self replicating, dialer-equipped website promising a “guarantee” that reads, “If YOU don’t start earning over £10,000 [Approx US$14,000] a month within six months (with our help), we’ll give YOU the business for FREE. You can become an owner of one of these very special ‘rip off FREE’ web site opportunities where ever you are in the world. We pay commissions in any currency equivalent to the English Pound.”

As you can imagine, surfers were – and still are – paying their £50 per site in droves to get in on this scam, with many buying multiple sites. The scam also offered £500 (approx. US$725.00) commissions for every new referral signup brought into the program. Unfortunately, many people unwittingly joined and perpetuated the scam by giving credence to this part of the offer via their own motivation to make a quick buck.

The mainstream Internet was soon awash with ads promoting 090isp, before it hit adult webmaster resource pages. Over the last few months, I counted more than 200 “Is this real, is this a scam???” messages on adult sites. It’s interesting that the mainstream web ads from 090isp came before the adult web. To me, it proves fraudulent intent. Most adult webmasters KNOW that a dialer company will NOT pay more than a couple of cents per minute for some smaller revenue, third-world countries; yet 090isp was promising the same (US) 35 cents per minute rate as the eight major dialer countries.

Space doesn’t permit the background and investigation report to be included here, however, anyone who’d like a copy of it is welcome to request a copy by emailing cheapweb@internettv.net.au (with 090isp in the subject line). The report is also available at www.sponsorpost.com/thegate.htm (http://www.sponsorpost.com/thegate.htm) along with close to two dozen other on-going or closed investigations concerning dubious adult offers we should all be aware of.

THE VICTIMS

It’s more than a pity when one realizes that this relatively new type of marketing – viral marketing – that promises an exciting future for adult webmasters, has gotten off with such a bad start. It’s also a sorry state of affairs that very little can be done to reverse the losses of the thousands of victims; many of whom were single parents, welfare recipients and low-income earners.

The only advice I can give here to the losers is to file formal complaints with the British Police at New Scotland Yard (http://new.scotland.yard@met.police.uk), or have your country’s embassy or trade commissions (such as the FTC) make the complaint for you via their legal officer (FBI).

VICTIM SUPPORT

There are two groups where some solace may be found: one on delphi.com (http://www.delphi.com/090forum/start) and the other on Yahoo! (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/090ispsiteowners). Both groups are very well informed about current 090isp events and remedies which may be affected, although my preference is for the YAHOO group as it tends to have a more positive “fix the damage and recover” outlook; the Delphi group, however, will be a good place to get it all off your chest.

THE FUTURE

My educated guess is that it will take a while for 090isp to die a natural death, but in the meantime they are collecting money from all over the world like it’s going out of style — and not giving anything back. The scam CAN be slowed down however, and finally eradicated, if all readers of this article will place a warning statement on their websites. This would have the added benefit of helping the adult industry. To those of you who do this, I’ll give you a free, no obligation graphic link on any one of my own sites.

CONCLUSION

Scams such as the one 090isp has committed attracts the untrustworthiest characters according to the adult webmasters: government regulators. So it is our responsibility to take responsibility for how our industry evolves and to police our own ranks, before government regulators do it for us. Many adult webmasters do an excellent job with child protection, and it now rests with us to do a similar job in the areas of other illegal or shady practices.