Hydra Network Facilitates Grant Scams

I have written a lot about grant scam affiliate marketers and their deceptive sites, and I showed you examples of grant scam affiliate marketers operating in ueber decepticon mode by creating complete fake organizations pushing useless pay per sign-up grant kit programs that end up costing the unsuspecting consumer a whole lot more than they bargained for.

As a refresher, here is what the Federal Trade Commission has to say about these grant programs:


In case you missed it, she said SCAM a lot of times, and her last statement was: 'Don't pay a dime to ANYONE for information about government grants'.

Shady affiliate marketers would not be able to promote grant kit offers without some affiliate network managing the affiliate program for the grant scam merchant.

In case you never heard of affiliate networks, they are essentially companies that are the intermediary between the advertiser (the grant scam merchant) and the publisher (the affiliate marketer / blogger / web site owner). The affiliate network takes care of conversion tracking, payouts, creatives (banners) and more, and obviously gets paid generously for this effort.

It is a good and legitimate business that unfortunately has its dark side - as should be evident from my postings on this blog.

By now it should not surprise you that there are several affiliate networks within the United States that do not shy away from managing cashing in on both domestic as well as foreign Grant Scam Merchants' campaigns whose sole aim is to extract money from the pockets of innocent Americans, many of which are simply looking for a financial break.

One such affiliate network is the Hydra Network. The Hydra Network was founded by apparent marketing wunderkind Zac Brandenberg, the current CEO of Hydra. His bio touts that

"Prior to founding Hydra, he founded patriotic products online retailer GreatUSAflags where he launched the official “Iraqi Most Wanted” playing cards. Grossing $10 million in just six weeks, it remains one of the largest e-commerce launches in history, and earned Brandenberg widespread media coverage and a reputation as an online marketing pioneer."

During my recent exploration of neverpayitback.com I noticed that the affiliate links from this grant scam affiliate site go through a place called lynxtrack.com. If you followed the Aweber story, you'll notice that they now changed their code and are no longer able to use Aweber since their account got cancelled:

<form method="post" action="http://www.lynxtrack.com/afclick.php?o=8628&b=2y1hfphh&p=38081&l=1&s=NPB">
<input type="hidden" name="meta_web_form_id" value="464423523">
<input type="hidden" name="meta_split_id" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="unit" value="npb">
<input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="http://www.lynxtrack.com/afclick.php?o=8628&b=2y1hfphh&p=38081&l=1&s=NPB" id="redirect_7b491cbcf5d57aa663f7837f3e30c800">

Lynxtrack.com is part of Hydra's affiliate tracking system.

Now that it has been established that Hydra indeed runs an affiliate program for Grant Seeker Secrets , which is operated by JRS Media Solutions in the Philippines, it makes you wonder what happened to "patriotic pioneer" Zac Brandenberg. It seems he is not so patriotic anymore, since the company he founded and presides over actively manages the affiliate program for a foreign-based grant scam merchant that rips off US Citizens.

Hydra's press section mentions the following:

"Topping $100 million in revenue in 2008, Hydra delivers over 25 million transactions per year for online direct response to Fortune 500 marketers, and just recently brought on its 1,000th advertiser according to Brandenberg."

And also that it was recently named

"the 2009 Internet/New Media Company of the year by the Technology Council of Southern California"

That's a lot of dough (little sour maybe?), and being named like that should mean something, well at least in the local business community I guess.

It seems that for Hydra grossing more than one hundred million dollars is not enough to ensure that the affiliate portfolio they manage only holds programs that are scam-free, decent, and honest. Or is it true that all those dollars make you blind and cause you to lose your sense of decency? And as for being named 'New Media Company of the Year', I take it the Technology Council of Southern California did not do their research very well.

This week I submitted the following e-mail to Hydra:

- - - - - - - - -

Hi,

I run a blog called 'freegrantkitscams.com' which deals exclusively with government money grant scams.

I am investigating 'neverpayitback.com' and its sister sites. This set of sites is advertised on radio as 'helping you get free money you will never have to pay back'. The sites' entry pages are simple forms with outrageous claims. The form originally was linked to an Aweber lead generator but I got Aweber to shut that down yesterday.

The affiliate links these guys use go through your network (lynxtrack.com), via this URL:

http://www.lynxtrack.com/afclick.php?o=8628&b=2y1hfphh&p=38081&l=1&s=NPB

So I have a couple of questions:

1. The cuddly folks behind 'neverpayitback.com' , 'nevergiveitback.com' (and others) cannot possibly be in compliance with your affiliate policies. Their account should be shut down.
2. Why are you running an affiliate program for Grant Scam Merchants in the first place? You know it's a scam, and you know the FTC is "not happy" with them.
3. Besides the 'Grant Seeker Secrets' (GSS) program for 'JRS Media Solutions' in the Philippines, what other grant (scam) related programs do you run?

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Also note that I may or may not publish this e-mail and / or answers to this e-mail on my blog.

Kind regards,

'Hunter O'Scams'
Blog Admin | FreeGrantKitScams.com
E-Mail: freegrantkitscams@gmail.com

- - - - - - - - -

Simple questions - a bit leading, yeah, but we're trying to get some results here! - that could have been countered with simple answers.

Not the case.

Instead I got the run around, pretty much saying that due to my anonymity (they wanted a phone call, I declined) as well as legal considerations, they could not respond in detail except for saying that Hydra 'eliminated all but one grant offer from our advertising network'.

Apparently the only grant offer they now run in their advertising network is the one (in its many variants, I presume) by JRS Media Solutions. It's easy to understand why that is; all US-based grant offers have probably flipped the switch due to increased FTC scrutiny and recent federal suits against some of these grant scam operators. The one grant offer Hydra currently runs is operated by a company that claims to be in the Philippines, more or less out of the Federal Trade Commission's direct reach.

I highly doubt that HydraNetwork's decision (if it was theirs to begin with) to stop representing all of the other 'grant offers' was for reasons of morality, the desire to run a clean business, or to look out for the financial well-being of Americans in economic despair. In proper corporate speak, it was probably in their best interest.

Hydra also did not elaborate on my questions regarding the neverpayitback.com site. I take that as a confirmation that according to Hydra the site complies to their publisher terms and conditions, which, we can conclude then, condones deceptive affiliate marketing practices. Fair enough, but at least have the balls to say 'yeah, kinda deceptive huh, but it's OK by our rules and we really don't care', instead of ignoring the question (if you thought sticking one head in the sand was difficult, try 9).

The question I am left with is WHY? Why would a successful company like the Hydra Network involve itself with shady grant scam merchants like JRS Media Solutions? Why would any respectable US company participate in schemes that prey on the financially weak?

I think I have the answer, but unless confirmed by Hydra it will remain just a 'hunch':

Money talks, mmm-hmm-hmm, money talks
Dirty cash I want you, dirty cash I need you, woh-oh
Money talks, money talks
Dirty cash I want you, dirty cash I need you, woh-oh

[From: Adventures of Stevy - Dirty Cash]

Up Next: Grant Scam Enabling Affiliate Network #2: MarketLeverage.com (it gets even better).