General Consultant Discussion

Is creating a research site the next VAR scam? http://www.softwarefit.com/

@WayneSchulz - do you know who is behind this? Appears to be based out of Boston.

I downloaded a couple docs from here. Then followup emails from them. I htink this is most explanatory: Hi Jerry, I see that you downloaded a white paper from our site softwarefit.com in the last two months I hope it was helpful to you. We are seeking to build a site with Amazon/Yelp style reviews and would love your help. Softwarefit is designed to help people find and select the best software for their business needs. We are seeking honest reviews from users and tech savvy people. We are giving a $25 Amazon.com gift card to the top contributor of reviews on our site for this week and the following week. Please submit your reviews to the relevant applications here: http://www.softwarefit.com/products/?cat=marketing-automation Thank you in advance for your time. Best, Anna Anna Banks Lead Software Analyst

@MikeFitzgerald I don't. Seth told me that it was two people but not who. I see that Brainsell is a contact on two of their social accounts so it would not surprise me if they were part of it. My guess is that this is some type of collaborative but not sure.

Anna seems to be in the middle of it. She is the only person that comes up on a LinkedIn search for ""softwarefit.

Is she a real person? She has quite a short LinkedIn profile for someone who you'd presume was Social Media savvy .. slightly NSFW - scroll all the way down and tell me if Anna isn't the same model as on this page? Or her twin... http://instantvirgin.thevipclub.net/

I believe she may sell mortgages too http://www.corecommercialcapital.com/

And I have no idea - maybe it's an odd coincidence. But if it's not and it turned out that there's a bogus model posing as a person with software VARS behind this - then is this dangerously close to fraud?

Here's a copy of the LinkedIn profile in case it suddenly disappears or has the photo updated

This looks damn close to the same person - http://howiwillreachmypotential.com/ - which makes me wonder if it's a stock image used for the profile photo on LinkedIn. Either that or maybe Anna is also a stock photo model who poses for pictures to be used on other web sites.

You bring cynical skepticism to a new level. I hadn't given it much thought because I had no interest in participating other than downloading some materials. You've pretty much proven that it's a front for somebody. Not good.

Wouldn't be surprised if Wayne has pulled criminal background checks on all of us. :)

You think he stopped with criminal background checks?

Any time you see a generic web site it's usually for some reason. Either the ultimate owner doesn't want to be found out or the ultimate owner doesn't want to be found out. And for all I know Anna is just camera shy and pulled down a random picture for her profile. I'm not saying that I know anything here - just asking the question of whether it looks like a scam to anyone else.

If its' a scam, I guess I haven't been around the block enough to easily see how it makes the big money. It claims to get paid when a match is made. How will that work? There are some operations essentially sell a ""qualified lead"" to resellers. I don't think they work that well, but I'm probably mistaken. One I used in the past was pretty good, and then they descended to trash, and I found a group of resellers with the same experience. If the materials are bogus, obviously favoring one vendor, then I could see that as a ""scam."" A ""scam"" implies that somebody is being ripped off under false pretenses. I don't understand how this could be ... but I'd love to learn what I'm missing!!

Software we have reviewed"" is misleading if this is some type of marketing collaborative between vars.

I see where you're coming from now. Does anybody feel like raising their hand to them, getting a ""consultation"" and see how they handle questions and referral? A legit question for a prospect to ask is, ""How did this referral partner get on your list?

This is by Brainsell. http://brainsell.net/resource_center/whitepapers.asp has a number of these comparison papers, and on page 15 of the ERP Comparison white paper they forgot to replace ""About Brainsell"" with ""About Softwarefit"".

I'm not going to get into a pissing war with these guys - but the press might..

Sounds like something Jim Ward would do ... you gotta watch your back when working with him.

@JerryNorman - Amen to that.

I love that they appeared to have pulled the wool over the press

@WayneSchulz - some days I think you are the last actual journalist left...

You have no idea what kind of problems that has created.

Holding Company CSEOs are the best funded enemies of a free press...

Did someone ask these people about the LinkedIn profile? I see they've since changed the picture so that it's not what appeared to be a stock image. Now the image is the softwarefit logo.