Got an interesting email today, supposedly from the President of the GreenZap company. I say supposedly because it links to a greenzap.net domain, which I thought was odd. However, virus scan shows it as negative, and there’s no spyware/trojans in it either. The link is to a .pdf document that has details about the company, the people behind it, and how they intend to reward people with $25 for signing up.
Here’s the entire document for your reading perusal:
Subject: Message from Mr. Sonkin, President of GreenZap
Date: May 9, 2005To our distinguished GreenZap members: I am privileged to offer my first report on the “State of Our Unionâ€. Before I do that, I would first like to thank each and every one of you for your enthusiastic feedback, trust, and support. For without you, GreenZap would simply be another company desperately trying to compete in a saturated, yet unsuccessful marketplace.
Over the last few weeks, GreenZap has received a number of questions from many of you regarding the dynamics of the company. We wanted to take this opportunity to answer as many of those as possible. Due to the elegance and uniqueness of our proprietary business model and rewards program, we decided to respect the integrity of our model to protect it from our competition. We will, however, continue to release information regarding our company, so that we, as one community, can all feel extremely comfortable taking our first steps together.
The most up-to-date information regarding GreenZap can always be found posted on the GreenZap website. We have recently added our Privacy Policy and our strict Anti-Spam Policy, as well as an updated Q&A section. We also wanted to let you know that public, full biographies on every member of our corporate executive team will be sent out and included on our website prior to our launch. I also wanted to take this opportunity to share with you why we started GreenZap.
For one, as we’ve been saying from the beginning, many of us have felt the frustrations that come along with using other transactional sites that exist out in the marketplace.
The online spending community seemed to be screaming for an alternative to what they were currently using. So, more than anything else, we strive to provide that customer base with a fun, positive, all around site experience.
Secondly, handling financial transactions via e-mail has been proven to be infinitely more efficient, convenient, and secure than through alternatives like: cash, checks, bank wires, or credit cards. GreenZap has made significant improvements to this process that we believe has added value to the GreenZap product. We believe that a simple $1 transaction fee is superior to what competing payment methods charge [1.9% + $0.30 (PayPal) or 2% to 3.3% (Visa, MC, Amex, Discover) or $25 (Bank Wire Fee)]. We also believe that rewarding our members fairly for expanding our community is critical to perpetual growth. Your feedback has affirmed these beliefs.
GreenZap will ultimately succeed due to the strength of the relationships that were built by members of the corporate executive team, through our distinguished investors, and through our quickly growing global community. The company that my partner, Michael Bernstein, and I founded, Strategic Business Development, (SBD) Inc., brings us a tremendous network of corporate clients, advertising agencies, marketing partners, and suppliers, who are all thrilled to reward
their customers and employees with the $25 rewards. Most corporations are choosing to appropriate the funds from our rewards program to the charities of their choice.
Some will be using the rewards program to fund their employee benefit programs. Most want to feature their products/services in our GreenZap store. As of today, we have over 70 corporate partners who represent over 330 million clients, employees, and contacts around the globe. They will begin rewarding their communities with $25 GreenZap accounts this summer when we officially launch.
Our investor group is led by Bank owner and Real Estate Developer, Myles Hubers, owner of MLS, Inc. Mr. Hubers has been instrumental in orchestrating some of our global corporate and banking relationships. As for all of you, we wanted to share what’s on the horizon for the GreenZap Community:
- Our GreenZap Store will be the place where preferred merchants, along with every GreenZap member, will be able to sell their products and services to our global community.
- Zap U, our online university, is currently in the works. Zap U will interactively teach our global community how to use our platform to efficiently communicate and transact with one another.
- New technology is being created to allow our community to link closer and faster together. More on this in future ‘State of the Union’s’.
- To accommodate growth, we will be moving to our new corporate facility in San Diego, California at the end of this summer, and we will send formal invitations to our members around the world to attend this monumental event
in our company’s history.We are working around the clock to deliver an outstanding service that we hope you all will enjoy. We look forward to rewarding each of you for helping us expand the GreenZap community.
Kindest regards and continued success,
Alexander Sonkin
President, GreenZap
If you’re interested, you’re welcome to pre-register under me if you’re interested in GreenZap’s service.
got the same. didn’t notice it was a .net domain until i clicked on it. thankfully no security compromises (so far).\
looks legit though
tried to click on your link (http://www.greenzap.com/mattjb) error msg displays…
The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.
http://WWW.GREENZAPSCAM.COM
Sadly Greenzap is a scam. Greenzap is the brainchild of known scammer Damon Westmoreland.
Greenzap was started in April of 2005, and has yet to deliver upon it’s service. It merely takes in $100 from hopeful people thinking this is their ticket to get rich without working.
The $100 goes towards your paying in to the pyramid ponzi scheme. The people above you get paid a portion of your “upgrade fee†and in turn for you to make money, you have to convince multiple people to sign up under you and send in the “upgrade feeâ€
To date Greenzap has been banned by ebay from being used as a word in auction listing, most email systems classify their emails as spam, and the webcash is unspendable.
Their are no auctions, the “Storez†are commission junction and linkshare affiliates that are unaware that greenzap even exists (you have to make your purchases via credit card, the “merchants†do not accept greenzap as a form of payment)
The $50 is not cash, it is a fake currency that was created by greenzap to act as a rebate coupon towards a percentage of a purchase from their commission junction affiliates. The rebates can take longer than a month to be reflected in your account, and may not be honored at the discretion of greenzap. The rebates are less than the discount offered by going directly through the merchant.
Webcash has no value. A gift of it of $50wc of $5000wc ammounts to a gift of ZERO dollars. It is fake, and merely a way for greenzap to pay only a portion of the rebate back to you that you would have gotten by going through the merchant directly(keeping the rest for themselves)
go to google and search for “greenzap†and “scamâ€
They are currently also in the process of selling valueless “pump and dump†stock.
The “400,000″ members are people that signed up thinking they would be getting $25 or $50 free, not until later did they find out that webcash is unspendable, valueless, and ammounts to a rebate coupon that is worse than the rebate offered by the actual seller.
All of what you said is true, and I’ve found out the hard way that it wasn’t a Paypal alternative, but another elaborate way to scam people out of their hard earned $100. It’s a shame really, as an alternative to Paypal would be nice these days. I just consider it a lesson learned, and make it a habit to avoid anything GreenZap related.
Sadly the scam goes further than just the $100.
Once you go gold, greenzap will try to sell you “debenture” stock at 50% the current stock price rate of 7 cents. you have to buy a minimum of $1000 worth and cannot sell or trade it from one year from the purchase data.
Through this method they plan to take in upwards of 2 million dollars before the stock becomes completely valueless.
They are using a classic “pump and dump” tactic and are giving the phone numbers of their members to people that have been promoting the scam, and compensating them for calling the gold members and getting them to buy the valuelss stock.
Chances are if you went gold, you will be getting one of these calls. These calls are in violation of SEC guidelines (as well as the pump and dump scam).
If they contact you, report it to the SEC internet fraud site.
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/cyberfraud.htm
Matt, you admit that Greenzap is a scam yet you still have your referral link at the top of the page.
Why don’t you just remove this page entirely?
The feds are about to move in on Greenzap, you don’t want to be implicated do you?
http://www.greenzapscam.com/?p=154
Richard: I told Greenzap, twice, to two different people, to delete my Greenzap account, do whatever they want with the worthless and remove all records of my account and information as well. Whether they have or not, I have no idea. You’re right, the link still has the referral, but it is not proper to delete information from a post (that’s why there’s the del tag for XHTML.) Information on the net should be the way they are.
As for me being implicated — for what, a link to a scam I fell under, too? Either that’s a baseless threat from you or you’re not very wise to the ways of the world. Thanks all the same for the comment.
File a Complaint with the office of the Attorney Generals office in California
http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL
Here is my complaint
To whom it may concern,
On Aug 24, 2007 Green Zap affiliated with http://www.mipayment.biz made a unauthorized electronic check withdrawal from my personal checking account in the amount of $59.84.
On or around Jan 2006 I requested to Green Zap to remove my personal information from their web services as I felt this company didn’t seem on the up and up. I was told in an email that they had removed my account and now after a year later they have made a fraudulent charge on my and my husbands personal checking account.
When I went to there website, it even states that I am no longer a user. I do have a picture of this and would be more then happy to share this with you.
Here is what it states “The account of the member who referred you has been disabled. Please enter another ZapID or leave it blank.”
I then went online and googled Green Zap Inc, http://www.mipayment.biz and I am unable to get a direct phone number to call and discuss with a actual person about what they have done with the fraudulent charge on my personal checking account. Also while looking them up on google I came across many many more people that have been ripped off.
Here is the link that shows people all over the United States are getting ripped off
http://www.badbusinessbureau.com/viewsimilar.asp?q5=Mazumah&ref=270372
I had to go to my bank file a affidavit
for the fraud on my Checking Account.
Today I hope that you will take a moment and review the information and do a full investigation into the business practices of Green Zap Inc
and http://www.mipayment.biz
Please stop the hundreds of Americans getting ripped off by this company.
In advance, Thank you.
Kind Regards,
Bxxb