Capital Alternatives [text deleted by MSE Forum Team]
Comments
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I know there are a few people on the forum who thinks this happens but I can't say I've seen any evidence of it. It's a lot of work to get a few dozen email addresses when large "suckers lists" [text deleted by MSE Forum Team] are available from scamming groups much more easily.
At worst I think it more likely to be solicitors trying to drum up business.
Agree, although the pulled thread on the Bandeaux Wine Company was, apart from being farcical, definitely a sweep to gather scam victims.
Talking of lists, There is a popular forum with a list of a couple of hundred 419 scammer emails which could come in useful oneday. I have never used them, but if I ever need to I have an excellent plan.
Take the telephone number of the person who has seriously wrecked your life, then email it to all 200 scammers with the following text:
'Hi, My friend passed on your details because she thinks I can help you with your situation, and I think I can! Please give me a call on xxxx as soon as you can so we can discuss this further. I work nights, so its best if you call after 3am when I will be in. If you get my cranky sister instead of me don't worry - she never understands why I try to help people! Just call again the next day after 3am. Yours in faith, xxxxx'Edible geranium0 -
I know there are a few people on the forum who thinks this happens but I can't say I've seen any evidence of it. It's a lot of work to get a few dozen email addresses when large "suckers lists" [text deleted by MSE Forum Team] are available from scamming groups much more easily.
At worst I think it more likely to be solicitors trying to drum up business.
Looks like Capital Alternatives or their solictors have been active contacting the MSE team to get mentions of their company removed!
We may think we have free speech here but the ease by which companies can get any mention of their name removed from the Google index is shocking.
One I am looking into has had the entire first page of Google searches for their company name stuffed with their own fake pages and all genuine reviews by customers removed by challenging Google that the comments are libel but without any proof or court order. It would impress China how easily information can be suppressed here and shocking how it can stop customers warning others of their experiences that would allow scams to continue far longer than otherwise would be the case.Remember the saying: if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is.0 -
I cant understand why my post was edited. I just looked at a cached copy on google to see what I typed and I made no allegation against that company. I just said that the unregulated areas in question are rife with scams.I am an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). The comments I make are just my opinion and are for discussion purposes only. They are not financial advice and you should not treat them as such. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser local to you.0
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Which is of course factually accurate because it's a far easier area for scams to thrive in by virtue of being unregulated. I doubt you had any intention of claiming that all unregulated schemes are scams, just that there are a lot more scams in unregulated schemes than in ones with full regulation.I cant understand why my post was edited. I just looked at a cached copy on google to see what I typed and I made no allegation against that company. I just said that the unregulated areas in question are rife with scams.
Regulation can't stop all disasters (Arch Cru and Keydata spring to mind), but it does offer additional protection against schemes which go wrong and it disincentivises promoters of dodgier schemes.I am a Chartered Financial Planner
Anything I say on the forum is for discussion purposes only and should not be construed as personal financial advice. It is vitally important to do your own research before acting on information gathered from any users on this forum.0 -
Oh, and your post will have been edited because it's easier to delete a comment claimed to contain defamatory comments than it is to evaluate every such claim in depth on a forum this size. Sad fact, but understandable when you consider how much traffic this site gets.I cant understand why my post was edited. I just looked at a cached copy on google to see what I typed and I made no allegation against that company. I just said that the unregulated areas in question are rife with scams.I am a Chartered Financial Planner
Anything I say on the forum is for discussion purposes only and should not be construed as personal financial advice. It is vitally important to do your own research before acting on information gathered from any users on this forum.0 -
Oh, and your post will have been edited because it's easier to delete a comment claimed to contain defamatory comments than it is to evaluate every such claim in depth on a forum this size. Sad fact, but understandable when you consider how much traffic this site gets.
That is exactly the problem.
What I find completely shocking is that Google will remove search results from their index pretty much on request that prevents you even finding the webpages that contain revealing facts about something that is a ripoff or scam.
The website containing the expose still exists and legally the contents are not libellous but no-one can actually see them because they no longer appear in Google search results. Bing will still give the results but pretty irrelevant as very few people use that.
As a result the rip off continues because no-one can actually see what others have found beforehand. Not far off 1984 and shows how hugely dependent we are on Google to give us the best websites for a search term. Most people pay no attention to the warning at the bottom of a Google search...
In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 5 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org.Remember the saying: if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is.0 -
The MSE censoring looks a bit bizarre. The content doesn't seem to bother them, just the use of a certain 4 letter word beginning with "S".
I am guessing that some potential investors wisely type that word into Google plus the company name to see what comes up, and companies such as this one don't like those potential investors finding forum posts discussing them.0 -
Reaper, I took your advice and googled Capital Alternatives and the S word. What was interesting was the way the company has protected itself. Have a look at these links - URL in full so you can see why they appeared in the search. They are from the company URL capitalalternatives.co.uk:
http://capitalalternatives.co.uk/tag/capital-alternatives-scam/
http://capitalalternatives.co.uk/tag/capital-alternatives-limited-london-scam/
When you go to the links, do a 'find' for 'scam' as this is what the pages are presumably about, and you get........nothing! No instances at all. Why have 'scam' in your page name, capturing a google search bot, if your page is not about scams?
However the Observer newspaper names them here.
As everything above is factual and from the company's own web site plus a link to the Observer I cannot see how this post can be libellous.Edible geranium0 -
Yes that's the same Observer link I used in post 2, which doesn't seem to be a problem for MSE. In that post 2 the only words that have been removed were "of s****" (I'd better not use the word) which wasn't even referring to the company in question, but unregulated investments as a whole. That's what makes me think its search engines they are worried about.
Interesting that they tried to direct people to their own pages. I have seen more extreme versions of that in the past (usually for some pyramid or HYIP scheme) where dozens of web sites have been registered using the terms all trying to get to the front of the Google rankings and when you visit them they all say something along the lines of "That's what I thought but it turns out it's legitimate". The practice would ring alarm bells for me I guess some sites think it is worth a try.0 -
Interesting that they tried to direct people to their own pages. I have seen more extreme versions of that in the past (usually for some pyramid or HYIP scheme) where dozens of web sites have been registered using the terms all trying to get to the front of the Google rankings and when you visit them they all say something along the lines of "That's what I thought but it turns out it's legitimate". The practice would ring alarm bells for me I guess some sites think it is worth a try.
Fake and scam model agencies use exactly the same techniques. By getting Google to remove all the genuine feedback on their company the first page of google ends up stuffed with their own blogs and sites using the scam word so anyone looking for that company name plus the s*** word will only see positive reviews. They register ones on Wordpress and Blogger as well as their own domains all of which then dominate the searches.
Until recently Google left all results untouched but a court case in Feb 2013 changed things and in the UK (as well as rest of EU) both blogger and search results are removed from the index. The content can still be accessed outside the UK via specific URLs but within the UK no content is visible.
It really is a shocking state of censorship that is seriously going to affect how consumers are able to find out about any form of money losing activities aka s-c-a-m-sRemember the saying: if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is.0
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