Breaking the Silence

What happens when a site owner goes rogue? What if…instead of the members frauding the affiliates…if it was actually the owner of the site?

This question haunts the minds of GPT members, but wary of keeping their accounts (and their money), few rarely ever speak about this. Well, what would happen if someone did say something?  One day…the entire GPT world watched on as just such a situation occurred. I myself questioned a GPT owner’s actions….

 It began innocuously. One night, when speaking with a client and discussing how to design his site, he casually mentioned the infamous ExtraHolidayCash GPT site. I immediately informed of the owner, and of her past and present actions. Shocked, he asked why she had so many members. I went to the site, and started to point out several stats on her front page that had obviously been falsified…when something caught my eye. On the front page of her site was a banner to The Putter Palace.

Now, the Putter Palace used to be a favorite site of mine. A woman I am acquainted with was co-owner of the site. However, a week beforehand, she had quietly withdrawn her half of the ownership on the site, and had started her own. I was a bit surprised to hear about her decision, but pushed it aside in my mind. Little did I know that the small discovery I had just made was about to reveal a truly sinister reason behind why she fled the site.

Back to the banner I had found…

The banner linked DIRECTLY to the front page of the Putter Palace. Usually this means one of several things. It can mean that a person is promoting their own site. I highly doubted Samantha owned even a part of Putter Palace. It also can mean that someone did not properly enter in their referral code for the banner. Since the banner code is easy to copy and paste from the website, it’s usually very hard to mess it up. Third most common reason? Purchased advertising space. I was not sure if that was the case, but I wanted to find out. 

First I tried instant messaging Eliesha, the current owner of The Putter Palace. No answer there, so I tried her other screen names, also with nothing. Knowing she checked a forum online quite often, I decided to post there about what I had found. The first few replies to the threads were from some of the more active members of the forum, and all of the responses were the same. Most expressed shock or disbelief…wondering if it was really the actions of the owner of ExtraHolidayCash (EHC) instead of Eliesha’s. I explained that I had taken a screenshot of the banner being displayed, and then digressed a bit on EHC’s past.

Just as I had thought, soon Eliesha herself posted on the boards, mentioning that Samantha, the owner of EHC, was not a member of Putter Palace, and that she would be seeing if she could somehow have the banner removed. I asked how the banner got there in the first place, especially since it only directed to the main index page. She stated that Samantha was no longer a member of her site, and that she was banned. However, she suspected she had grabbed the code off the site at that point, and tried to use it.

Her explanation didn’t make any sense… First off, it was quite well known that Samantha had been banned from the site for well over a month or so. How did she manage to keep the banner code for so long? Secondly, Eliesha failed to address the question about why it redirected to the index page. When a member gets the code from a site to post a banner, it specifically lists a special URL in there for referral purposes.

I suggested that maybe Samantha had a new account on her website. Eliesha sidestepped the question, and announced to the forums that the banner was now completely gone. An observant poster noted that she still saw the banner herself, and that it also now redirected to a referral link for “islandonthemoon”. Suddenly, Eliesha posted a reply…with a vengeance:

“I dont know what you want me to answer, i know nothing about html, its your banner, you created it for putter through my partner, seraph, i have NO CLUE how it got there, irregardless she isnt a member of the site!”

Wait, is she now accusing me of having put it up there? I merely designed it for her site as a present for their first day of opening to the public! (This is the equivalent of blaming the person who wrote a book, saying that by reading it, you went and did something horrible. The technical term is “passing blame”.) She also still continued to deny that Samantha was a member, although others were pointing out the fact that the banner now mysteriously directed to a referral link.  I would not stand for the runaround any longer, or for that accusation.

Frustrated, I spoke out. I pointed out that she was just continuing to sidestep the questions that were being presented, and that her accusing me of the banner placement was uncalled for. I asked her to please address the issue instead of speaking around me and the others who were reading and awaiting a conclusion to the matter.

Little did I know of what was to happen next. A veritable firestorm of opposition soon filled the forum. One person tried to stand up for me, however…

Posted: Today at 6:04pm
She never answered the question. Not one little bit. You don't have to know anything about cars to know how yours got somewhere you didn't expect it, and you don't need to know anything about HTML to figure out how someone got your banner. The either took it, or you gave it to them.

Seraph didn't attack anybody. She brought something important to people's attention - if an owner is supporting (which, before you decide to attack ME, I never said she is or isn't) a fraudulent site, that means that something is up with them. It either means that scammer has created an account and has thusfar kept it, or that the owner (or some other third party) has paid them to place the ad..

Suddenly, Eliesha herself replied to my post.

Posted at 6:01pm
Seraph, this forum has turned into nothing but a mud slinging session for everyone and i will not participate in it, i rarely had any dealings with putter at all, so again, i will kindly say that i have no clue how she got it, i know nothing of design and html or anything of the sort! Bottom line is, she isnt a member and that is the end of this discussion, no one is accusing you of anything, all i said was the banner is your design that you did for putter through my partner! So hopefully we can rise above this stepping stone also!   Matthew 5: 9 says this  "Blessed is the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of god"!  So consider this my peace and goodnight!

More sidestepping…she still failed to address the problem. Now, even though she is the sole owner, she says she never really dealt with the site (which sounds fishy), and still denies that Samantha is a member. However, we all can still see the banner pointing to a referral link! So it’s obvious she’s still a member…so why is Eliesha continuing to deny something that’s painfully obvious?

Soon afterwards, the thread became snarled with vicious replies containing insults and swear words. More accusations followed, with one particularly nasty member even accusing ME of being Samantha herself.

Originally posted by momtoarias

Seraph, how would you know when the banner got there?  The only way to know that is either to be the one running that site or be the one who placed it there, isn't it?  Well then, hummmmm, what do we get from that?

I was shocked. But the worst was not over…

Posted at 6:23pm

<Serc*** is a fat ugly pig with no life> Get out no one likes you here, you think you are the sh** with your stupid site, who cares? your words are not law

Hurt, I stopped even reading the thread anymore. I was told afterwards by a friend that the thread got completely worse after that – she explained that it degenerated into a “Seraph-bash” as she called it. Anyone who tried to stand up for me was immediately preyed upon…so eventually everyone fled except for those who supported Eliesha. Then, she said something that immediately chilled my blood.

“Check your account on her site,” she warned. “I can guarantee you…it’s gone.” Shocked, I told her that there was no way…all I had done was try and question the owner…I had not cheated or broken TOS. Besides, I had almost twenty dollars on the site, money that was desperately needed. My friend insisted that I go check my account. So I did. Everything seemed to be working fine, I logged in…and then my jaw hit the floor. This is what I saw:

I was aghast. It was true…I had been banned from the site not for breaking the TOS…or for cheating…but because I had broken an unspoken rule and questioned a site owner. I quickly checked the other site…same situation.

Sadly…this was not over…Eliesha was not finished with me yet. Her retaliations on me had just begun.