JuiceBoosted

[jokach]

I'm not sure if anybody has read up on this ongoing scam throughout the summer claiming to 'boost' your internet speed. Looks like it finally disappeared...

JuiceBoosted a scam
October 4, 2004
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/columnists/9812863.htm?1c


Posted on Mon, Oct. 04, 2004

JuiceBoosted a scam

BY JEFFREY C. KUMMER

Pioneer Press

Q. QI've been using OnSpeed to boost my dialup connection for the past few months. Recently I was directed by a friend to sign up for a similar product called JuiceBoosted. It purports to do the same as OnSpeed but at four times the speed. And it's free. Is this a con, or a genuine product?

A. With friends like the one who recommended you sign up for JuiceBoosted, who needs enemies?

No, this is not a legitimate product, but it has been a hot topic in Internet circles for several months now. Some call it a scam, some say it's a Net-based pyramid scheme. But no one calls it genuine.

The whole idea behind this "product" is to drive traffic to certain Web sites affiliated with the folks behind JuiceBoosted. It relies on referrals, often provided unwittingly by people like your friend, who presumably was enticed by the company's claims. Among them:

• An Internet connection through ordinary phone lines up to 40 times faster than a regular dialup modem and twice as fast as broadband.

• You will never receive junk e-mail again. It will also protect your computer from viruses and pornography forever.

• On the remote chance something should slip through, the company will pay $900 for each occurrence.

• And it's all absolutely free.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

So, of course, it's not true. Had you visited the JuiceBoosted site to sign up for your free software, you would have likely been directed to follow a trail of other links to other Web sites. Each mouse click you and others make bumps up the number of so-called "hits" on those pages. That, in turn, gives legitimate advertisers a false sense that their products were being seen by millions of extra potential customers. And that means more money for whoever's behind it all.

When I checked the JuiceBoosted site last week, I found a message saying it was temporarily unavailable. When I returned this week, it was gone entirely. But don't let your guard down. These sorts of things have a way of reappearing under different names and in different forms.




jokach

[cybertrax]

I signed up for this, both as a consumer and as an affiliate. However, unlike most others, I didn't do any further advertising on theri behalf, as I was sure it was a scam. I just signed up to make sure I had my chance registered, just in case it did turn out to be genuine.

My belief is that the people behind it were collecting email addresses; this list could then be sold to reputable companies. Obviously this would have been an international list, numbering the tens of millions. They could have charged upto £100 ($180) a time for this list, and raked in the money. I take my hat off to them, as as far as I can see they have not broken any laws. They have not asked for any money, and so cannot be 'done' for fraudalent activity.

[Dreamer]

According to you I don't think its possible for anybody to break any laws, unless they think your breaking a law than they must be breaking a law.

I don't think its a prerequisit that money be exchanged for it to be considered fraudalent activity.

[jokach]

My opinion is that it was misleading in making people believe they were going to be able to get high-speed internet that is better than anything out there, and at a lower cost. They may not have taken any money from people directly, which makes me think as well that no laws themselves were broken with the consumer, but they still did an injustice to the advertisers who thought they were getting real traffic by the click-throughs. The advertisers paid money to the JuiceBoosted website to put their advertising on the website, I think if anybody should be angry, it should be the advertisers since they were defrauded.


jokach

[concerned]

I guess in this case, cybertrax is ignoring the fact that there are laws against identity theft. When someone asks you for your information and doesn't tell you that they plan on selling it, then that is also against the law. I guess Dreamer is right. In Cybertraxland, the only law is this:

Cybertrax is the only person that is allowed to be right. If you dissagree, then you break the law.

It's a good thing I don't live in Cybertraxland, or else I would be in Cyberjail.

[cybertrax]

Concerned; I have warned you before in other threads about the manner in which you make postings. There is no need to make things personal - I do not do this to you. Please only make comments relating to the issue at hand - refrain from attacking me or any other members in a personal manner.

Incidently, how would this be identity theft? Do you know anyone or any organisation called Juice?!

I think you are trying to comment on the sale of your email address without your consent. I am not 100% sure on this, but I believe in the Juice small-print there was probably some text somewhere stating that you agreed to receive 3rd party emails. This would then release Juice from the point you were trying to make.

[MatrixWatch]

Cybertrax,
He was not making anything personal. He is commenting on your rationale when you defend scammers and the scams they operate. You often bring up how it really isn't all that bad and that the law doesn't completely deal with it. Your arguments will often never respond to the issue at hand, and insted you will divert the subject when your back is against the wall after being proven wrong.

Take this thread for instance. You said that there was nothing fraudulent about the issue, Concerned called you out on a bad assumption you made, and then you said, "Stop attacking me personally". Notice how you don't respond to the issue, but instead divert it by playing the victim.

This is a common method employed by various get-rich-quick schemesters who have come here to our discussion boards. They know that their arguments will never hold up, so they instead play the victim and then try to get banned. They then go to those whom they scammed and tell them, "Oh, those MatrixWatch people.... Beware, they are so close minded... They banned me..."

Just respond to the issue, and don't weasle out by diverting the issue. If you think it is getting too personal, then send someone a PM, but don't avoid the topic as your defense.

[concerned]

I think you are trying to comment on the sale of your email address without your consent. I am not 100% sure on this, but I believe in the Juice small-print there was probably some text somewhere stating that you agreed to receive 3rd party emails. This would then release Juice from the point you were trying to make.

Well, since the Juice Website is closed down, we will never know that, will we?

[MatrixWatch]

And his argument is useless anyway. Cybertrax seems to think that placing something in fine print suddenly makes it legal. The fact is that there are laws against placing certain things into fine print. You need to clearly give a consumer the option to opt-out of third-party communications. Anti-spam laws have begun to drive this issue home. Yet, Cybertrax seems to think that by hiding it all in fine print it somehow limits liability.

Cybertrax has also clearly not read the lawsuits available for download. These sorts of "fine-print protection" issues are raised. Please get the facts right.

[cybertrax]

Please people!!

Why is it suddenly 'pick on Cybertrax' day?!!
I have not said anywhere on this thread that it was right what Juice appear to have done. I was simply trying to be devils advocate - something that has escaped you. I also note that everybody here seems to think of it as a scam - please tell me what your reasoning is for this? We do not know for certain what has happened to Juice, or the people behind it. All that is talked about here is speculation - yet you are talking about it as if it is proven fact!

Any web designer will tell you that there is easy ways of getting round issues such as opting-in for 3rd party emails. One of the most commonly used is where a tickbox is provided, but it comes already ticked. This is actually known as an 'opt-out' box, and is completely legal. You have to actually untick it in order to opt out of receiving 3rd party emails. I do not know if this was done by Juice, or even if they did sell email lists - if you look at my postings I simply stated that was my belief.

It is important to look at all the facts before judging others.

[Dreamer]

http://www.legal-definitions.com/fraud.htm

fraud is defined as a deception deliberately practiced
to secure unfair or unlawful gain

Funny...nothing there about money being exchanged. But, if money is a requirement, what did they do with their database? Sell it? So, they made money off you by misleading advertising.

When you read a newspaper ad, why do they usually say something like "Prices subject to change without notice. Business is not responsible for typographical errorer" or somehting along those lines. Its obvious they want to protect themselves in the even that mistakes were made when printing the ad.

Money is a good motive for gain, but thats not it. If I can steal your identity and become more popular, or more powerful, thats a way better gain than money for some people.

[cybertrax]

I may be wrong in the 'fraud' part. However, as I said before, it is not good practise to judge others without knowing all the facts. We do not know for sure that Juice was a scam - and we do not know exactly why it started.

It is best not to cast aspursions on their name until it is proved that they HAVE done something wrong.

[Dreamer]

Ok. You have a point. What was their purpose of starting up that site? I don't know. I'm guessing to harvest email addresses of indiviiduals who are most likely to respond to emails and who are most likely to buy stuff or believe stuff. If it was this, we will never know.

Was it fraud? Yes. They offered a service that is impossible. There is no way to make a dial-up connection faster than broadband. I'm sure I did some of my stupid analysis on this site months ago on a different thread. It is nothing but fraud to represent something that you claim to have or can offer when in reality that you cannot offer in in any light.

There was a movie out there...I forget what it was called, but it had like .net or some obvious net term in the title about these guys who create this technology to offer real time streaming. In the press interview they show how it is possible and their computer blows up. They were attempting to create a technology that would change the internet. They failed (I think they ended up figureing it out at the end but I dont' remember). But, this juiceboosted promised something that is impossible to deliver.

[cybertrax]

Actually, they havnt offered this service at all. They have in fact offered an option to pre-book for a place on this service - they havn't actually offered the service itself. I know this is only a technicality - but I believe this is the way they probably managed to get around the law. I totally agree that as far as we know there is no way of obtaining what they claimed - but as we do not know any insider facts, it is impossible to rule their statements out. After all, 10 years ago we would never have even dream't of broadband!

All the reports I have seen have been written in the media, and are people's opinions. I have not seen one article on Juice written by a government official or legal expert such as a judge, and so I reserve judgement.

[concerned]

Please people!!

I have not said anywhere on this thread that it was right what Juice appear to have done.

Yes you did. You said this:

I take my hat off to them, as as far as I can see they have not broken any laws. They have not asked for any money, and so cannot be 'done' for fraudalent activity.

However, as I said before, it is not good practise to judge others without knowing all the facts. We do not know for sure that Juice was a scam - and we do not know exactly why it started.

I know that you like that "technically" word a whole lot, so let's use it here. Why don't you go back to the very first post in this thread. You will notice that it states that another site is calling Juice a scam. So, TECHNICALLY nobody here ever called it a scam.

[MatrixWatch]

But that is what scams do! They try to extract money from people through schemes that are based on shadowy areas of the law. The reality is that they cannot "get around the law", because many laws are precidential in nature, that is they have firm principles that can be applied to varied situations. This is exactly the approach that the matrix lawsuits took.

Now here is what really confuses me... You say that you reserve judgement because you have not seen anything written by judges, legal experts, etc. You really don't need to see any of that. Just use your common sense. However, there is a wealth of resources available for reading up on the matrix sites both online and here at MW. However, even with all of that information you choose to side with the matrix sites.

So, no information on a scam means you won't make a decision. But, more information just puts you more in favor of the scams. I don't get it.

[cybertrax]

I do not judge others without having seen evidence. It is not logical to make assumptions without having cold hard facts. It is possible (although unlikely) that the people behind Juice have new technology that can produce some of what they are claiming. My point here is that as nobody knows for sure, it is unreasonable to judge.

I have an open mind, therefore I am open to new ideas. It is closed-mind mentality that will not listen to alternative ideas. After all, it wasnt so long ago that people refused to believe that the world was round! And those of you that have intelligence will no doubt recall that Newton was ridiculed for his theory on Evolution (I think it was Newton?) - in fact even now some people refuse to believe in the theory of evolution, despite factual evidence. My point here is that people with closed minds will refuse to accept new ideas - I like to maintain an open mind.

It is possible that Juice may come back - nobody knows for sure.

[Andrew2]

I read the claims that JuiceBoosted posted at their site about their service.

They are simply ludicrous.

No more 404 pages? Give me a break.

I don't know what they are about, but there is certainly something fishy about it.

[Dreamer]

The technology doesn't exit. The technology can't exist. Did you notice that they stopped making modems faster than 56k? How many years has the 56k modem been out? Surely they would have made a quicker modem. Wait, in the states there is a 53k speed limit on data transfer.

Broadband 10 years ago? Yep. On my universitys internet connection I was downloading a meg a minute. Compared to the 14.4 my friends were using, that was broadband. Hell, thats just below DSL right now. What will the speeds be like in 10 years? Average t1 and t3 once oc1 and oc3 become standard for universities and government. So, thats not a good argument. We are just getting the expesnive technology from yesteryear now that its more affordable.

But I do like how you think that the wording of a promise can get around the law. I guess our lawmakers are so darn stupid that they didn't think of that, huh?

http://www.juiceboosted.nl/

* DATE: 02 September 2004

It has been brought to our attention that the J_UICEv3 site is scheduled for re-launched on the sensitive day of the 11th of September. We have, therefore altered the re-launch date to the 12th September to meet with the approval of our USA aff_iliates and meet with general taste.

We apologise for any discomfort or incon_venience for choosing such a monumentaly di_stasteful date.

I like their use of _'s

http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=22793

I just got this email about a new broadband service!

FREE FASTER than broadband connection....

PLUS no more Internet bills or call charges, ever again.

We have just released the new improved version of our ADSL/Broadband
package and would like to invite you to upgrade your existing slower
connection and benefit from its increased speed FREE.

FASTER than broadband is 4 times quicker than your existing broadband
connection and 40 times faster than dial-up, however the best thing is it's totally FREE and available via any telephone line worldwide.

It is revolutionising the way millions of people are connecting to the Internet. It is unique and takes 1 minute to install and is very easy to use.

Where is the technicality again?

From juistboosted.nl

Our current domain name service provider has recently terminated service on our our JUICEv2 marketing site's URLs and this is why our site is not on-line at this present time.

Ok. No more 404s but you don't own your own service provider? Wait, I thought you were offering a service quicker than broadband for free now your saying its a marketing site? Can somebody help me understand this?