The Scams Keep Coming

During the first year or so of this blog, I wrote several posts about my research into a scam outfit called Linda Christas. I haven't focused too much on any scams since, though like everyone else, they continue to sneak past my email filters from time to time.

Today I received an email ostensibly from a friend. I have no doubt that his email account was hijacked. I usually delete emails of this ilk out-of-hand, but this morning I decided to humor myself by taking a look at the gimmickry involved.

For starters, the link in the email takes one to a fake news site, News10 NBC. Almost all of the legitimate looking links on the page take you to a sleazy advertisement for an outfit called the Home Revenue System. The fake news article is filled with lots of emotive hooks and the dream of making thousands of dollars per month at home with little effort.

But the fake news article is missing one key component: news of any import. It tells you next to nothing about this supposed enterprise itself. It doesn't even suggest what the supposed business actually is. All it tells you are a bunch of vague generalities that don't add up to much of anything!

At one point -- to dupe you into believing that the Home Revenue System indeed is legit -- you read that it has received an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). There is only one problem with this declaration -- It's not true!

I went to the BBB website to look up this company. If you follow this link, you can see for yourself that the Home Revenue System has received NO RATING whatsoever. Enterprises that are not rated tend to be those who do not provide adequate information to the BBB.

Best of all, at least in my eyes, is the notice placed at the bottom of the Home Revenue System home page.

Anyone caught copying our website, or using our trademarked/copyrighted text and/or images without permission will be reported to their billing company, their hosting company, and any other related companies for account closure. We will also follow up with a copyright infringement lawsuit in accordance with the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

As I found with Linda Christas, scam artists don't like their scams exposed and so they go to great lengths to try to dissuade criticism by trying to intimidate people from the very beginning.

As a rule of thumb, anytime someone promises you unlimited income for little effort or that you can shed hundreds of unwanted pounds through no change of diet or exercise, you should know that it is a scam. And that's why the Home Revenue System has earned a place in my Hall of Shame!

More Research on Linda Christas

It started out as a solitary blog entry, no more or less. However, because of frequent goading by supposedly Linda Christas' staff, volunteers and students, I have taken it upon myself to continue to perform research on this weird American enterprise.

This research has been slow going. There's not a lot of information out there and it's often incomplete. As I've reported here before, most of the names on the so-called Advisory Committee only pop up in Google in relation to Linda Christas. I certainly don't view this finding as very beneficial to the company image.

I recently discovered that one of the reasons I've had such a hard time getting a handle on this enterprise is that there is more than one Linda Christas incarnation. According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), there are 3 Linda Christas companies: Linda Christas Education Services (LCES) of Cloquet, MN; and 2 different listings for the Linda Christas College Fund (LCFC), one in Sacramento, CA and another in Santa Ana, CA.

According to the BBB of Minnesota & North Dakota, the owner of the LCES is Ms. Christine Dusek, MS, a name I can find nowhere on the Linda Christas website nor has it ever been mentioned in any of voluminous correspondence I've received from LC-connected people.

According to the BBB of Northeast California, the principal person is Ron Bernard. However, in an interesting twist, Ron Bernard is also the stated dean of the Linda Christas Academy which it appears is owned by LCES. Seems a little murky to me.

According to the BBB, the other LCCF has no principal person at all. However, it does give this incarnation of the LCCF a CC Rating. Their are 11 ratings from AAA - F. The CC Rating is the 4th lowest.

According to the Linda Christas website, the enterprise is a private not-for-profit organization. My research has revealed that this statement is not completely true. From the BBB of Northeast California:

According to information provided by the company, Linda Christas College Fund is a not-for-profit political action committee advocating improvement of educational opportunities for middle school and high school students. The organization's website also refers to Linda Christas Tutoring Services. This is operated for-profit and sells on-line coaching and tutoring services. The tutoring service also offers recruits money making opportunities as tutors or college advisors working for the company and offers a two day training program. The program is intended to prepare individuals to market and administer the Christas program to the public. [emphasis added]

I've found nothing on the Linda Christas website that even hints at the fact that the educational services are provided by a for-profit company and that the advocacy services are provided by a PAC (note: ALL political action committees are not-for-profit entities). I'm also a bit confused because there seems to be yet another entity -- Linda Christas Tutoring Services -- that is not listed at all with any of the BBBs.

This information answers for me a nagging question I've had for some time. Most educational organizations on the web use .edu. I always thought it was weird that Linda Christas only used .org and .com. Now, it is clear that they don't qualify as the kind of institution that could use .edu.

There's another issue I'm trying to nail down too, but it may be a while until I figure out how to find a complete answer. Linda Christas offers a full-time academy that offers programs "which satisfy the requirements of the most elite colleges in the United States."

However, as documented in my last entry on this overall topic, Linda Christas is NOT accredited by any of the accepted educational accreditation agencies (so they created one of their own). Consequently, if a student enrolls full-time at Linda Christas, do they receive a high school diploma AND, if so, is that diploma recognized by anyone other than Linda Christas?

**** Addendum ****
Since the Linda Christas College Fund advertises itself as a political action committee, I realized I could look them up. I performed searches with the Federal Elections Commission and the California Secretary of States Office. Guess what? Neither have ANY listings for a committee with the words, "Linda Christas". Not a one.

In order to be a political action committee, a group must register with some governmental entity. So, this begs the question: What entity, if any, is the Linda Christas College Fund registered with?

Just to be thorough, I also performed searches on the IRS Charities database and the Charities Search with California Attorney General's Office. Again, I found zero (0) results. Finally, I tried the GuideStar search engine which records information on over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations. As with all my previous attempts, there is no listing for Linda Christas.

Though I certainly won't argue this amounts to an exhaustive search, from what I've been able to discern at this point, the Linda Christas College Fund does NOT appear to be a political action committee NOR a nonprofit organization. My research has also indicated it is NOT an educational institution.

So, what are we left with? A for-profit business -- which is certainly NOT the way the LCCF present itself to the public.

**** ADDENDUM #2 ****
As quoted above, Linda Christas claims that their programs "satisfy the requirements of the most elite colleges in the United States." So, I decided to visit the websites of many elite institutions of higher learning to see what they had to say about this enterprise. I would expect there to be a few documents that mentioned the exploits of students who've been awarded scholarships by Linda Christas or collaborations with Linda Christas' staff on the development of said programs or, possibly, a recommendation or two about how the Linda Christas program might aid students in gaining admittance in this competitive world. Basically, I was looking for ANY mention of Linda Christas and its services.

As with every other search I've conducted on this topic, I came up with the big goose egg. Not one mention of any document or web page which featured the words, "Linda Christas". Not even a measly one.

The sites I checked are all Ivy League Schools (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton & Yale), Stanford, MIT, Amherst, University of Chicago and Swathmore.

Adding to the Archives

The trolls at Linda Christas keep claiming that their business is a legit educational organization. So, I decided to visit the websites of several of this nation's leading educational magazines to see what they say about Linda Christas. Here's what I found (note: comments left by the trolls don't count):

American Educator - 0 hits
American School & University - 0 hits
Current Issues in Education - 0 hits
Education Next - 0 hits
Education Week - 0 hits
eLearn Magazine - 0 hits
Home Education Magazine - 0 hits
Rethinking Schools - 0 hits
Teachers College Record - 0 hits
Teaching K-8 - 0 hits

As you can easily see -- and verify by following the links -- not one of these publications has even mentioned Linda Christas in the same breath with the concept of education. They haven't endorsed them nor panned them. They are completely silent.

If you think about it for half of a second, that's really mind boggling. Here we have a supposedly well respected educational outfit that trumpets its plaudits on its own website, yet, when a person tries to perform some research on the topic, the result is zero. Nada. Zilch.

In fact, if you perform a search on the words, "Linda Christas" about all you will find in their favor are bunches of cut-and-paste comments posted on slews of bulletin and message boards. I know this to be true because I just spent the last hour looking at the first 120 entries on Google.

Is Linda Christas genuinely a bona fide educational organization? My continued research strongly indicates that it is not.

It Rhymes With SPAM

I'm sitting at home minding my own business and those pesky people at Linda Christas start sending me emails again. It's the same kind of nauseating blather as before. However, I was invited to check out the "new and improved" Linda Christas website. So, I did and it's even worse than the original one.

I won't bore you with endless analysis. I do, however, want to point out one thing that I think is really rich. The site lets you know that Linda Christas is accredited by the International Association of Schools and Colleges (IASC). Sounds really impressive, doesn't it?

Yes, it is impressive until you wind your way through their site to find the following statement: "A primary Linda Christas initiative, the I.A.S.C. serves to certify that an institution of learning is promoting a Student-First (SF) education model."

You see, Linda Christas has accredited itself! Since this is the only accreditation listed, it seems rather obvious that nobody else will accredit them. So what to do? Create your own important sounding accreditation organization, of course.

And, like almost everything else in my research on this questionable enterprise, I was unable to find ANYTHING on Google about the IASC, EXCEPT for references that point back to...guess who?

Me thinks this organization rhymes with a word that sounds like ham!

Who's Who?

Over the course of the last 2 years, I've written several times about a strange enterprise -- Linda Christas. It's supposedly an educational institution, but, from my own personal research, it seems to be nothing more than a well put together scam.

The only reason why I return again and again to this topic is because the people from this organization keep returning to my blog and many first-time readers find this blog as a result of a Google search.

So, today, I decided to visit their website again. If you go to their Board page, you'll see a few names that ring a bell like Pat Boone, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. or Sue Grafton. Beyond those names, however, are people who have little, if any claim to fame.

Here's the interesting part. Several of these people are described using words like "pioneering surgeon", "publisher" or "respected education consultant". Yet, if you do a search on ZoomInfo.com (ZoomInfo, the premier summarization search engine, delivers fresh, comprehensive information on over 33 million business professionals and 2 million companies across virtually every industry), the ONLY reference you will find on any of these individuals is...Linda Christas.

What are the chances of that happening? You'd think that at least 1 or 2 of them would pop up with references to professional boards in their field or a published article or something of this nature.

Even more interesting is the fact that, when you type the name of the 3 prominent board members into Google and you add "Linda Christas", the only hits you find refer back to Linda Christas itself or they come from remarks made by others. In other words, these three famous people don't mention their supposed association with Linda Christas on their own websites nor is it reported in any way by the media.

That simply seems really strange to me. If this is such an upstanding organization, why is it so difficult to find any information on their so-called board members?

To review my previous postings about Linda Christas use the following links:
Looking for a Few Good Saps
Getting Out the Heavy Lumber
The Continuing Linda Christas Saga
My "Friends" at Linda Christas

I'm a Linda Christas Kind of Guy

Back in March I wrote an entry about my experience and subsequent research into an online tutoring service for middle and high school students -- Linda Christas. It was just one little entry out of over 100 that I've written on my blog. But that one little entry -- plus the various follow-ups -- have put me on the map!

On many of the search engines, I hold the top ranking for various search terms which include the words "Linda Christas". In fact, there are many times in which I'm ranked higher than Linda Christas itself. I bet that really chaps their hide.

Since writing that first entry, "Looking for a Few Good Saps", I followed up with "Getting Out the Heavy Lumber", "The Continuing Linda Christas Saga" and "My "Friends" at Linda Christas". And now I'm writing about them again!

I've visited several alternative education sites and I've discovered something that appears quite odd. You'll see subject lines like "Linda Christas is a BIG Scam" or "Linda Christas is Bad for Children" and the entry does NOT match the title. These messages posted on various bulletin boards are ALWAYS singing the praises of Linda Christas.

Now, if you would take a look at your email In box, I will bet you that most of your messages have subject lines that are close to identifying the information contained in each message. Ya know, that IS the purpose of the subject header. I'm sure that, from time-to-time, the subject header and the body of the message don't match up, but these are the exceptions to the general rule.

Consequently, it appears that this must be a concerted and coordinated effort. It defies credulity to think that a bunch of parents and staff from one institution would all arbitrarily list fake subject headers for their bulletin board entries. No, the more obvious explanation is one of two things: 1) Linda Christas personnel encourage their people to do this (maybe with explicit instructions) or 2) There are a handful of Linda Christas staff who use form messages and sign fake names.

If this was such a fine institution, why would they go to all this trouble? Why not advertise in the usual manner? Why be sneaky about it?

My "Friends" at Linda Christas

For those of you who are regular visitors, you well know that I have engaged in quite a robust discussion with the staff and supporters of an educational tutoring outfit, Linda Christas. As a service, I thought I would update you on what they're up to.

For starters, as I think a counterweight to this blog, they started their own. Initially, unlike The Rambling Taoist, they did not allow comments. After I pointed out this fact, magically they decided to allow comments. Unfortunately, they must have changed their minds because they've now returned to the former policy of NOT allowing comments. (It wasn't because of me. I didn't attempt to leave any comments on their blog.)

Also, unlike The Rambling Taoist, you can't learn much about who is running their blog by looking at "View my complete profile". THEIR idea of "complete" is listing the name "LaTracy Renner". That's the ONLY bit of information they/she provide[s]. Makes one wonder what they would consider scant information to consist of.

I'm not a heartless person. I do feel a bit sorry for them. If you do a Google search with the words linda christas blog, their blog doesn't show up on the first page. Mine does, occupying the top two spots. Of course, as I've pointed out repeatedly, this is their own fault because THEY keep coming back.

If you change your Google search to linda christas blogspot, I still outrank them. I'm sure that is frustrating to them. It would be for me.

If you'd like to check out a potential career with Linda Christas Tutoring Services click here.

If you'd like to read past entry's on this blog about Linda Christas, including the interesting back-and-forth comments, use the links below:
Looking for a Few Good Saps
Getting Out the Heavy Lumber
The Continuing Linda Christas Saga

The Continuing Linda Christas Saga

Well, the people of or from Linda Christas continue to regularly visit my blog and leave comments. This has, as I've pointed out again and again, fueled my rise in the Google search rankings. This rise seems to upset them, so they visit again to leave more comments and, of course, they strengthen my ranking.

I'm almost beginning to think that they're doing this on purpose. Maybe they hope it will spur others to check them out. I don't know.

However, it seems that, among other strategies, they decided to launch their own blog called Linda Christas Faculty Comments.

I've visited their blog and offer two observations. First, they do NOT allow comments. Obviously, they want to control your interaction with them. For me, this seems in line with the overall way they like to operate. The seem to cherish one-sided conversations (which, in truth, isn't a conversation at all).

As you have noticed, I value freedom and the right to discuss opinions. This is why I have chosen to ALLOW comments. I write what I think or have researched. You, the reader, can agree or disagree with me. You can tell me what a wonderful fellow I am or you can call me an idiotic jerk. I cherish multi-sided conversations.

My second observation is that the LC blog seems to like to attack publicly-funded education. They don't come right out and say "Down with Public Schools", but their opinion of public education is not veiled.

Since LC's services aren't cheap, only families of a certain financial status can take advantage of the services offered. It almost sounds like they are advocating for a two-tiered education system: personalized attention for the rich and whatever one can muster for the poor and middle class.

We used to have an educational system like that, only it was maintained based on race.

Now let's wait for the LC minions to respond...which they will. They should just remember that I allow their comments; the LC blog does not!

Getting Out the Heavy Lumber

One would think that a multimillion dollar corporation (with offices around the country) would have better things to do than go after one solitary blogger out of Salem, Oregon. However, it seems I've riled up the big wigs at Linda Christas, a company that offers online tutoring services to middle and high school students.

THEY approached me about a job. I did a bit of online investigating and decided their offer looked like a scam. So, I wrote about my investigation on this very blog under the heading, "A Few Good Saps".

This made them very unhappy. It seems they don't like any dissent or criticism. They bombarded the comments for this post. (Interestingly enough, my tracking software indicates that the only way they seem able to FIND this entry on my blog was to conduct searches with Google and Yahoo. One would think that once they had arrived here, someone would think to add it to their favorites or bookmarks.)

In fact, various representives of Linda Christas (maybe just 1 or 2 people "posing" as a lot of people?) posted so many comments that this entry rose in the Google standings for searches for "Linda Christas" and "Linda Christas scam". Currently, the latter is ranked 5th.

In one of my comments, I pointed out this fact. I wrote that they were unwittingly doing more damage to their self-defined reputation than if they merely ignored my blog. Still, they left MORE comments. (Maybe Linda Christas doesn't teach analytical reasoning skills.)

Because THEY were making the "Saps" entry so popular, more and more people have read it. So, they decided they needed to devise a strategy to try to remove my criticism from the internet. They decided to file a Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) complaint against me for supposedly using copyrighted material.

Did I plagarize their web site? Have I violated the law?

What they are alleging was a copyright infringement was merely my quoting their website and saying I quoted their website. According to the Anti-DCMA website,

Copyright, in the United States, is an attempt to maximize the intellectual resources available to all. People who create works - literature, art, software programs, music, and others - are given a limited right to keep people from making unauthorized copies of their work. This allows them to sell copies for a profit and provides a financial incentive to create more works.

In exchange for this, the public demands a number of concessions, primarily the following three:

1. Fair use is the right to make unauthorized copies of works for certain protected purposes - mainly for academics, reporting, or criticism. When a student quotes a book in a high school paper, she is making a fair use, and can't be stopped by the copyright owner.

2. First sale is the right to sell a copy over and over again, once it is made, as long as you don't make any new copies. When you read a book, then sell it to a used book store to be bought and read by someone else, you're exercising your rights under first sale.

3. Limited time - copyrights are granted for a limited time. After that time expires, the work goes into the public domain - it can be copied and used by anyone, for any reason.

Since my post was a critique of their published work (I wasn't using it to make a profit for myself), it SHOULD be covered under exception #1. I'm sure Linda Christas is well aware of this fact, but why should law matter to be a big corporation? As the anti-DMC website states,

Unfortunately, this law is very poorly written, and is now regularly used by corporations to restrain the three primary concessions of copyright and otherwise prevent free speech activity.

In order to fight such a complaint, a blogger must file a counterclaim. Google provides an explanation of the process and, it should be noted, it can cost a pretty penny! Since I'm a cash-poor blogger and Linda Christas is a multimillion dollar corporation, they've basically decided to try to squash me with their economic might.

They may regret that decision.

Addendum: To read even MORE on this topic -- admit it, you just can't get enough -- go here.

Looking for a Few Good Saps

With unemployment in the Northwest continuing to be higher than the rest of the nation, many people are becoming desperate to find a job, ANY job. Knowing this, there are businesses, far too many of a questionable nature, ready to pounce upon desperate job seekers. I've discovered one such organization -- Linda Christas (LC).

Actually, I didn't discover THEM; they discovered me. Since I'm looking to change careers, I've posted my resume on several internet job sites. While I hope this helps me land a job in the field of social services (my vocation during the 80s), I've come to realize that it also makes me a target for many dubious outfits.

Here's the initial email I received from a "Sarah DeSoleil":

One of our School's human resources volunteers (They are retired good people with HR backgrounds who donate hours of free service to the community) has referred your posted resume to our office. He believes you are a viable candidate for the Academic Advisor position we currently have open in your area.

The resume was sent to Ben Bernard, one of our General Partners.

The Academic Advisor position we are recruiting for serves the function of briefing families of middle school and high school students regarding the Linda Christas programs, either in a seminar format or one-on-one. (The method of delivery will depend on your personal preferences and style.)

I was encouraged to check out this organization's website to learn how I could become an Academic Advisor. Unfortunately for Ms. DeSoleil, she had sent her email to a person who possesses not only a degree in journalism but a person who has worked as an investigator. It took me little time to quickly realize this smelled like a scam!

For starters, the Academic Advisor (AA) turns out to be a euphemism for SALESPERSON. The AA's primary function is to sign-up families for LC tutoring and internet-based middle or high school programs. With price tags ranging from $2400-$6500, the programs offered are only manageable for families of a certain financial standing.

In order to become one of the chosen Academic Advisors, the applicant must pay $400 to enroll in an online Professional Administrative Services Credential (Tier II) course. This program is taught by independent educational consultant "Dr. Ann Voisin" who, when Googled, only returns one solitary entry...Linda Christas.

The $400 course fee is refundable (giggle, giggle) provided the applicant meets several criteria, all benefiting LC. One of these criteria is that, after completing the online course, the unwitting sap (oh I'm sorry) the applicant must complete a practicum which consists of making 7 sales (sorry, again) I mean, 7 educational consultations which result in sign ups for LC programs.

Now, once the 7 consultations plateau is reached, then LC will generate mailings to prospective families FOR the AA, PROVIDED the AA meets a monthly quota of 5. Of course, prior to becoming a full-fledged AA, the applicant must shoulder the total costs of sending out mailings themselves.

From my vantage point, this is a very clever system. LC does a great job emphasizing the perks of the position while, simultaneously, doing a splendid job of covering up and masking the inherent costs. I'm sure they pull in a good number of desperate people who only realize they've been had once it's FAR too late.

Here's what I think is a likely scenario: Desperate job seeker is contacted via email by LC "volunteer". If the job seeker bites the hook, we now have an applicant. The applicant visits the web site and is dazzled by the seemly great pay for little effort.

To wit:

[section deleted] Explanation: Linda Christas is so FEARFUL of criticism that they filed a DMCA complaint alleging a copyright violation, this DESPITE the fact I indicated I was quoting THEM. Supposedly, according to law, you can quote somebody else's work IF you are commenting about it or criticizing it.

Now I could have decided to fight their complaint, but chose not to. Why? Because I'm a poor schmuck and Linda Christas is a multi-million dollar corporation. I'm sure THEY had this fact in mind when they filed their silly complaint.

Think about this for a minute. Why should this huge corporation feel so threatened by one blogger? Could it be they don't like having their own deception thrown back in their face?

The applicant thinks, "Wow. $500 or $1000 and appointments only take about 1 hour. Sign me up". So, the applicant spends $400 to enroll in the on line course.

Once the "course" has ended and the applicant enters the practicum stage, I bet most people come to realize that this is going to cost them far more than they thought AND that making the 7 required sales will not be easy at all.

For starters, as mentioned earlier, the costs -- postage and printing -- for the initial mailings to approximately 10,000 students must be borne by the AA who, conveniently, is an Independent Contractor. As someone who has worked for many years in nonprofit fundraising, I've calculated that said costs could be upwards of $5,000!

In other words, before seeing one penny in compensation, it is quite likely that the sap, I mean, the applicant will be out $5,000 or more. If the applicant struck it rich and signed up 7 families for online courses, this would mean a pay out of $7,000.

Unfortunately, as indicated above, the AA is an Independent Contractor. Therefore, self-employment taxes would be owed on that $7,000. Using rough figures, let's say the $7,000 is subject to a 30% tax reduction. This means the $7,000 becomes only $4,900 and, instead of having a big pay day, the applicant basically breaks even. (Note: If all of the 7 sales were for turtoring or a mix between tutoring and online instruction, the applicant comes out in a hole possibly a fairly deep one!)

But this result is based on the assumption the plebe ACTUALLY makes 7 sales. Anyone who knows anything about fundraising KNOWS that "cold call" letters generate a very negligible response rate of 1%, 0.5% or less. Consequently, 10,000 letters mailed would, at best, generate 100 people who are mildly interested. Of that 100, only a fraction will become seriously interested and of that small fraction an even smaller fraction will buy the product.

An average person could easily spend 100 hours to make 1 sale. If it took an average Joe or Jane 100 hours to generate 1 sale, they would soon realize their pay rate is less than minimum wage!

It's at some point during this practicum that I believe most people will realize they've been had. So, they will drop out of the program. Because they did not successfully complete the practicum, their $400 course fee becomes nonrefundable. And, since the person is an "Independent Contractor", they are also out however much money they spent on recruiting and marketing efforts during the practicum period.

From the way this operation has been cleverly put together, I believe that LC hopes that the vast majority of saps DO, in fact, drop out. It's an incredibly easy way to pocket hundreds (if not thousands) of $400 payments. Not only that, but LC most likely gets thousands of dollars of free advertising from applicants mailing out prospectus letters at the applicant's expense!

It would seem that ALL the benefits of this program favor Linda Christas and all the liabilities fall on the potential Academic Advisor.

To read more of the continuing saga, go here.

[If anyone reading this has had any dealings with the many faces of the Linda Christas programs, I'd be very interested in hearing what you think about them.]