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Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

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Re: Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

#31

Post by rcfox »

Interesting... Recently my friend noticed a fake Twitter account under her father's name. He's also doctor in Toronto.

The Twitter account is just repeating a Wordpress site's RSS feed. On that site, there's a link to .info, which according to a whois lookup was registered by someone at the "International Association of Healthcare Professionals" in New York. Google searches for that association reveal doubts of legitimacy[0] and scam warnings[1][2].

I haven't spoken to my friend or her father about it directly (I just noticed a tweet the other day) so I don't know if he was contacted about establishing a web presence or anything.

[0] http://www.quackwatch.com/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecorg.html

[1] http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/The-International-Association-...

[2] http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-877-447-8360

Re: Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

#32

Post by MichaelGG »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #4

This is a pretty normal offshore scam these days. File a proper DMCA/phishing complaint with their hosting provider & Google. File a phishing complaint with their upstream phone provider. All their shady SEO tactics will get them de-ranked in a few weeks regardless of what you do so it's only a short term problem.

Can you use DMCA for non copyright issues? Also, DMCA is a US thing, does it apply in Canada?

Re: Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

#33

Post by MichaelGG »

varsketiz wrote: post #23
hdevalence wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not sound like a decent idea. 'Decent' is not a word that fits with 'deceptive practices', 'impersonation', or 'extortion'.

Well, sorry for choosing a word you don't agree with. I could have chosen "interesting" instead of decent - it does not change my point. "'deceptive practices', 'impersonation', or 'extortion'" - this, however, is your interpretation and it is taking it pretty far. 'deceptive practices' - that I can agree with. No matter how you do it, it is deceptive. Then again, a lot of businesses were built with (oh, say Airbnb o…

If you're being clear that you're just gonna be attempting to relay info, then you're probably OK. The issue is that you'd discover it to be more profitable to lie, and pretend you're the actual business. That way, you're holding their reputation hostage. If they don't pay, those customers feel that the real company just ignored them.

It's not a terrible idea for targeting SMBs that don't have a website, so long you aren't misrepresenting things.

Re: Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

#34

Post by jsonne »

wesleytodd wrote: post #11

Agreed that you should have your lawyer contact them with a threatening email. Also, you could have a friend "hire" them for some small service just to get their information. Then provide that to your lawyer to pursue more substantial legal measures. My experience with SEO companies has been horrible. I worked for one for a month, have worked with them in the past at agencies I have worked at, and was given a list of…

That sucks. I jumped from the world of tech into starting my own agency. There seems to be a lot of crappy agencies and firms out there that use questionable tactics to get the job done faster and for cheaper rather than correctly. I think it stems from not wanting to leave any money on the table. Rather than only taking clients that are a good fit culturally or have realistic goals, they take everyone. When you take everyone it pretty quickly turns into a race to the bottom and you end up with shoddy work.

Re: Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

#35

Post by stan_rogers »

normloman wrote: post #25
wesleytodd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@sharkweek The problem here is that SEO companies are usually not equipped to solve those problems. Their developers are usually secondary roles in the company, and might even be second-rate themselves. Also, good/real SEO usually requires content writers. Which is an ongoing process, and is probably not worth the cost to most small businesses.

If all they do is write interesting content and promote it, why do we call it SEO? Last time I checked, that matches the job description of public relations writer.

It goes a little beyond content writing. At a certain level of resolution, SEO (the good stuff) and accessibility become nearly indistinguishable as well. So yes, there is a sense in which "real" SEO is merely a matter of writing web pages that give your users what they want with optimal markup, and SEO is probably a bad name for it - except that the people who need it are usually going to be searching for ways of getting good search results rather than advice on how to build more informative, accessible web pages.

Re: Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

#36

Post by toolz »

sharkweek wrote: post #16
BrainInAJar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SEO, as an industry, is shysters. Even "good" SEO is still a service designed to break search engines. A scummy industry is going to attract scummy people, it just becomes a question of to what degree they are scummy.

No, good SEO is designing a page that is perfectly crawlable by bots (this is still difficult for most people, especially for larger websites and people who aren't familiar with webmaster best practices), and researching/creating/promoting relevant content to attract links. There are of course shady people in the SEO world, but most of the "one cool trick to help you rank better" tactics are long gone as Google has d…

research/creating/promoting don't really fall under an SEO title. If search engine optimization is broadly defined enough to where content creation is considered SEO, then basically everyone with a website is an SEOer.

Re: Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

#37

Post by iharris »

malexw wrote: post #30

This is the second time now that I've seen this come up with somebody impersonating a doctor in Canada. Someone created a fake Twitter account and website for a Dr. O that I know. Can I connect you with Dr. O in case these two incidents are related?

Absolutely - I sent a brief e-mail to the address in your bio. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

#39

Post by logn »

> Interestingly, the fake clinic domain name is VERY similar (one letter difference) to another, legitimate clinic in the city.

Contact the organization administering the top level domain and file a typo squatting dispute.

Also, most likely these SEO people will stop impersonating the doctor's office when it's clear they won't win the account (edit: they'll start impersonating a different doctor). Their mistake was picking up the phone call. It's common practice and arguably ethical to set up and optimize a placeholder site. Any pre-launch website with a link to sign up is doing exactly this.

Re: Ask HN: An SEO startup is impersonating a physician. What should I do?

#40

Post by wesleytodd »

jsonne wrote: post #34
wesleytodd wrote: post #11

Agreed that you should have your lawyer contact them with a threatening email. Also, you could have a friend "hire" them for some small service just to get their information. Then provide that to your lawyer to pursue more substantial legal measures. My experience with SEO companies has been horrible. I worked for one for a month, have worked with them in the past at agencies I have worked at, and was given a list of…

That sucks. I jumped from the world of tech into starting my own agency. There seems to be a lot of crappy agencies and firms out there that use questionable tactics to get the job done faster and for cheaper rather than correctly. I think it stems from not wanting to leave any money on the table. Rather than only taking clients that are a good fit culturally or have realistic goals, they take everyone. When you take…

So true. This is one of the main reasons I am happy to be out of that sector. The #StartUpLife, despite the stress, is much more fun.
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