Is theTRAFFICplan a scam? Well, like all things cutting edge, controversy seems to follow. I noticed something posted in Google from Scam.com regarding “Bob DeCecco / thetrafficplan with Jack Weinzierl.”
Frequently I look through the Google listings for the search phrase ‘theTRAFFICplan” to see how well we are doing at TrafficPlanPro.com, and happened upon the scam.com listing ragging on some guy named Jack Weinzierl… and consequently Bob DeCecco and theTRAFFICplan. If you read the posts, they come up with some fairly heavy handed accusations/muckraking that come to the conclusion that theTRAFFICplan is a scam (some type of guilty by association premise.)
Was I shocked? Why of course. Believe it? Nope… not a bit (with a caveat.) So what do I do with the information? Well, that’s when the past training as an investigative journalist comes in handy.
First lesson in investigative journalism… check the facts. Is there subterfuge? (Subterfuge is an artifice or expedient used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, hide something, etc. As scam.com states that Jack Weinzierl… no that’s theTRAFFICplan uses the free offer to “lure people in.”) Let’s see if we can unravel this he said…she said of accusations.
Fact: I don’t know Jack Weinzierl. Never heard of Jack Weinzierl until I saw this show up fairly recently in Google. Upon further inspection, I see he was involved with an MLM type training program that went out of business. At that point the rumors started and accusations we’re made by some that it was a scam made to part people from their money. Lawsuits were filed, and judgments…legal judgments were made. At no point are Bob DeCecco, Franco Gonzalez, Jeff Long, nor theTRAFFICplan involved. End of story…right?
But somehow, one of the moderators on scam.com decided to make theTRAFFICplan “guilty by association” due to Jack Weinzierl joining theTRAFFICplan training program. Now to clarify what this means, this is from the site, FallacyFiles.org -
“Guilt by association” is the attempt to discredit an idea based upon disfavored people or groups associated with it. This is the reverse of an Appeal to Misleading Authority, and might be justly called “Appeal to Anti-Authority”. An argument to authority argues in favor of an idea based upon associating an authority figure with the idea, whereas Guilt by Association argues against an idea based upon associating it with disreputable people or groups.
Target - The person or group being criticized
Link - An idea that the Target shares with the Bad Thing
Bad Thing - A person or group of which the argument’s audience disapprovesEXAMPLES:
Person P accepts idea I. Therefore, I must be wrong.Hitler was a vegetarian. Therefore, vegetarianism is wrong.
All communists are civil rights supporters. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a civil rights supporter. Therefore, Martin Luther King, Jr. is a communist.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/guiltbya.html
Get the idea? Simply by having someone they don’t like join theTRAFFICplan, the moderator at scam.com made theTRAFFICplan and Bob DeCecco “guilty by association.” Is Jack Weinzierl guilty of what the scam.com site says he’s guilty of? Don’t know…and frankly I don’t care. It’s all hearsay really. But is Jack Weinzierl somehow a mystery owner or principle of theTRAFFICplan? Good question… I put that along with a few other question straight to Bob DeCecco. Here are Bob’s answers:
WAYNE: Is Jack Weinzierl is somehow involved as a principle of theTRAFFICplan?
BOB: No
WAYNE: What exactly is his involvement with theTRAFFICplan?
BOB: Same as you, a Premier Member of theTRAFFICplan
WAYNE: Do you have an “official statement” regarding this “guilty by association” tactic being thrust upon theTRAFFICplan by scam.com?
BOB: No. I spoke with Jack about this personally. Long story short, the woman has made it her mission to hurt Jack because he is a strong Christian that professes his Faith openly, and she sees Network Marketing as pyramid schemes, etc.
WAYNE: Will Jack Weinzierl, aside being an affiliate, have ANY fiduciary involvement in the the company at all?
BOB: “No. Unfortunately, the upside of the internet is also the ‘downside’; no ability to hold people accountable for their actions or written word. My position is simple…I live my life as full of integrity and righteousness as possible. One post… can only harm the reputation of a person or business to the extent it deserves. All anyone has to do is “follow the yellow brick road” and do proper due diligence before arriving at a conclusion and the truth will be forthcoming. The mere fact that she lumped ME and/or theTRAFFICplan into this is proof positive, there is no basis to her claims. If she has a legitimate beef with Jack, it would be focused on Jack. The fact that she has taken the time to co-mingle ME and theTRAFFICplan with something that has nothing to do with us is just further validation that she is nothing more than someone with too much time on her hands.
To use an analogy, I guess its not much different than the “National Enquirer” and what “Celebrities” must go through on a daily basis.
Wayne, we are free to enter, so people can come to their own conclusions without risk.”
Anyone having any experience in business will tell you there is no way to control what happens on the internet. while it’s harmful to anyone’s brand to have such muckraking spread about them, it happens to Fortune 500 companies too. You would never see a Fortune 500 company respond to such attacks publicly, and I see theTRAFFICplan taking the same position. I would go as far to say that even if Bob himself actually asked the woman what beef she had with him since I don’t believe he knows her and hasn’t done nothing to harm her…. it would do NO GOOD.
Let me reverse the tables and show you how this “guilty by association” can come back to haunt the accusers.
Does scam.com support selling and providing illegal drugs like steroids and pornography? What if I could show you “proof?”
Let me state, to my knowledge, they (scam.com) do not. But it’s a great example proven by the next story.
I recall reading a story by Brad Konia whose website was found “guilty by association” and BANNED by the search engines simply because they shared the same IP address of someone “guilty.” Let me share his story here:
What if you’re sure that you’ve followed all the rules, you’ve established some external links to your site, and the search engines are still not listing you? In that case, it’s possible that your Web site is using a “tainted” IP address.
What’s an IP address and how could it become tainted? An IP address is like a phone number, but it identifies a Web site connected to the Internet. Every computer connected to the Internet has at least one numerical IP address. When someone types your text-based domain name into his or her web browser, that person’s computer quickly looks up the corresponding IP address for the domain name and establishes a connection to that IP address.
This is kind of like looking up someone’s name in a phone book to obtain his phone number. The phone book of the Internet is called DNS, which is short for “Domain Name Service.” When you type a domain name into your web browser, your computer does a DNS lookup to obtain the IP address for that domain name.
IP addresses consist of four sets of numbers separated by periods. Each number can be between 0 and 255. For example: 192.168.0.1 would be a valid IP address. If you do the math, you’ll discover that this yields about four billion possible combinations of addresses. This may sound like a lot, but believe it or not, the Internet is running out of the addresses. Consequently, the groups that regulate the distribution of IP addresses have made it somewhat difficult to obtain a unique IP address. So, instead of having a unique IP address for every website, many hosting companies will use a single IP address for hundreds or even thousands of domains. In fact, the majority of Web sites today utilize shared IPs.
If all this technical talk is making your head hurt, please bear with me just a bit longer. It’s really important that you understand this if you want to prevent your website from becoming banned by the search engines. A recent Harvard Law School study found that 87% of all web sites use a shared IP address. The fact is that unless you’ve paid extra for a dedicated IP address, your website is probably using a shared IP address.
Now what happens if any ONE of the hundreds or even thousands of web sites that are sharing your IP address breaks the rules of one or more search engines? Yes, the search engines may remove or ban that website domain, but guess what…they may also remove every other website using the same IP address. Since it’s easier for search engine spammers to get new domain names than it is to get a new IP, search engines often choose to ban IP addresses for abusive behavior.
This means that your site can become banned even if you follow all their rules to the letter. You’re guilty by association! In fact, the April, 2002 issue of this newsletter carried an article about AllTheWeb.Com, an engine that claimed to have blacklisted over 30 million websites based on their IP addresses.
Brad Konia is the CEO of Market My Site, a leading search engine optimization and online marketing firm. http://www.marketmysite.biz/
So let’s compare the facts…
1) The IP address of scam.com is 207.226.161.2
2) The Hosted domains on that IP address are w3bhost.com, ns1.rackco.net, and ns1.scam.com
3) Other sites (the nameservers for) related to that specific IP address are
10minuteworkouts.net
agilitydrills.net
aminoacids.net
anabolicreview.net
100freeadultsites.com
100meter.com
11sexstreet.com
bizvend.net
camel-cigarettes.net
2dozenroses.com
40wattfuneral.com
abslikestone.com
absolutestardesign.com
abstractmodelportfolios.com
abstractweddings.com
and HDPornTV.com previously on racko.net
I count one site that sold anabolic steroids (illegal) and three pornography sites.
See how you can bend the facts to accommodate “your truth?” Scam.com should know better than making theTRAFFICplan and more specifically Bob DeCecco guilty of anything. Jack Weinzierl is only a member, and that’s all the influence he has. It doesn’t matter what he’s supposedly done, it doesn’t affect anyone who’s looking to join theTRAFFICplan - at all.
Is offering free training a foray into emptying out the pocketbooks of unsuspecting members? Some of today’s most savvy marketers are doing the same thing. No one is emptying out anyone’s pockets, much less theTRAFFICplan. What they are doing is smart business… in these economic times, Bob DeCecco, Franco Gonzalez, and Jeff Long are meeting the market where it is, and on it’s terms.
I like one of Bob’s comments to me when he said “we are free to enter, so people can come to their own conclusions without risk.” That’s smart by association if you ask me.
G. Wayne Clayton is the founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Integerol LLC along with SocialMarketingExpert.org. He’s a former newspaper publisher and investigative journalist. He has been seen seen and heard on CNN, Fox News Talk radio, quoted in The Toronto Star and is a Guest Blogger on FastCompany.com.
