Not-so-Xpert Plagiarism
Thank you Google Alerts! This morning we got a call from our client, Pulse Health, asking if we'd ever heard of a company called Xpert Marketing. After a quick trip through their website, it was obvious something a little odd was going on. Not only were they calling the website that we had developed for Fred the Device their own, a phone call to their office declared they were the "Home of Fred the Device." No kidding? Then how come Fred's never heard of you?
Their website claims "Xpert Marketing LLC provides business solutions to Fortune 500 Companies, Local and National Employers, Individuals and Direct Selling Companies." Which is fancy marketing jargon for "We don't do a damn thing." I'm still not sure if they are claiming they bult the website, the product, or both. They list a few other poorly hacked examples, from TruCash (something to do with credit card ads with their own text added from what looks to be PowerPoint) to my personal favorite: IDENTITY THEFT! My, these guys are bold. Or just really stupid.
Here's a great example of where they took a screenshot from the Fred the Device site and planted their own phone number on it with a special message at the bottom. The text kerning was done by their blind monkey.
The About page of their site has two images of "The Team" - I'm wondering what Google Image Search brought up these two poor saps who ended up as "Xperts" on the website. Is it just me or does Doug look an awful lot like Michael Douglas?
xpertmarketingllc.com is protected by Go Daddy's private registration proxy service, so I can't get much more info yet, but I have a hunch this company is run by people who look nothing like the two above.
What fun! Our first plagiarized work. I'll post updates as they become available.
[UPDATE]
Just got a call back from Pulse Health. They contacted all of the other companies that were listed on the Xpert Marketing website, and 4 out of the 5 (the 5th hasn't returned their call yet) had no idea who Xpert Marketing was or that they were being "represented" by them. Looks like they'll need to sit down and do another Google search to create a new porfolio!
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