Research Break – HOW DO I ROB THIS?

Scamming of the Fittest – Fitzeri Scam Takes Bots to the Next Level

Honestly, respect where respect is due… When Fitzeri reached out to us with a sweet brand ambassador deal, for a second we doubted they were scammers. I mean, not really. It was fairly obvious from the getgo, buuuuut (and that’s a super tight glutes maxed out butt) not as obvious as it is with others.

They are learning, they are evolving!

Parts of the MO remain, they still have a generic looking shop site using stock photos and no company address. Let me spell that out for you: Major Red Flag!

Major Red Flag as in coming home to a guy’s bedroom that’s plastered in Snyder Cut posters and full of Funko Pops. Major Red Flag as in she says her husband enjoys just watching, but then halfway through he pinches your bottom and starts whispering in your ear. It happened to me, it could happen to you, too!

But the funny bit is their burner accounts. Because they still user burner accounts to reach out, so that them getting blocked, reported, deleted doesn’t result in the scam having to start from scratch. These burner accounts are branded and there’s lots of them.

So, when I say lots of them, I mean lots of them. Lots of lots of them. Looooooots of them. Lots and lots. And lots. And then some.

At first glance you might even think, if you’ve listened to our most recent episodes, that this is a step up. Because you’re no longer getting contacted by a random bot account, but by a branded account. We even said that if a company wants to work with you, they’ll reach out and this is precisely what if fucking looks like!

Good stuff, really good stuff. Good enough for some, I’m sure. But not good enough for us.

Editorial note: What’s up with these prices? 20-29 USD per item? You can get decent sports clothing for that price, even some branded items. A good adidas or Nike shirt is in that price range. Calling bollocks already.

Rebranded AliExpress merch, if you receive anything at all.

Kudos again, they are really trying.

That’s a shared office building by the way, we checked. Good improv work, so they didn’t have an address, then must’ve glanced at the manual with suggestions for countries in Europe, went with Austria and then went to the length of researching (Google searching) an actual office building that could feasibly be their headquarters.

That’s some next level effort for these scammers.

I love that they appreciate our kind words, too. Let’s see, if that’s still the case once people can read up all the Fitzeri scam alert info they need in one convenient place and they start losing actual revenue. Smoothmyballs seems to have taken it pretty hard, OfficialHerTeam changed their brand identity… let’s see what Fitzeri does next.
It’s like a game of four dimensional chess, presuming your opponent is an idiot expecting an even more gullible opponent and ate five pieces before they even started.

Once again they are using NameCheap as a registrar, just like our enemies over at Borextrade (a site that seems to be now closed for business). Nothing much to be gained here, but they have been around for a while.

Their Trustpilot rating is mixed… All the real customers seem to be rather upset about the AliExpress quality and the off brand knock offs they get in colours and cuts they didn’t order, that certainly don’t justify the prices.

But all the paid reviews seem to be really good.

So, let’s take a closer look at the Fitzeri merch, shall we?

Jogger Pants, pleasing image, nice brand identity, the logo has been photoshopped onto the pant leg. Poorly photoshopped, I may add. And for only 93,28 EUR. What a bargain! Makes me want to go back to the brand ambassador deal, so I’d only have to pay 20 Dollars.

But… I think I’ve seen that image before… somewhere.

Ah, yes. Our trusty AliExpress. And for only 14.23 – 16.26 USD it’s much cheaper. Even cheaper than shipping and handling they expect the brand ambassadors to handle.

I think that also solves the mystery of brand ambassadors flat out receiving the wrong items. Fitzeri just orders their Chinese merch in bulk and you get whatever’s on hand.

I mean… not surprising, the return address is in China as well.

And by the way. We aren’t here to bash on these products manufactured in China. If you’re paying 15 bucks for these pants, that seems absolutely fine. Most customers on AliExpress appear to be absolutely fine with what they’re getting.
It’s just bullshit dropshipping companies that feed into the hopes and vanities of people that we do take issue with. Discount. Brand ambassador. Our arses.

Fitzeri is one of those miserable scam brands no doubt run by some witless rich prick with his eyes in the sky jerking off to the idea that people actually fall for this nonsense.

An army of underpaid employees and clickworkers in the shadows uploading pictures to instagram to maintain the illusion of an actual brand.

I’m thinking they must have a shared database on their servers, randomly pick the images from that and then create a bulk of new profiles to reach out.

That’s a lot of work for something so fragile. I mean… can you imagine someone putting all this information in a convenient place for people to check… Then… you know. You might have to rebrand all of your accounts. All. Of. Them.

Simply because you built your pyramid scheme with the tip facing down, making it remarkably easy to topple.

It’s fitting that a “company” that appeals to the vanity of the miserable should also come crashing down due to their own vanity.

It’s almost ironic.

Your fit criminals on the run,

S+O

You can reach How Do I Rob This on Twitter: @HowDoIRobThis

Or find out more about our heist plans on Instagram: @HowDoIRobThis

Or follow our two mastermind criminals @theoskarbrown and @smweissbach

New episodes on the 7th of every month. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and YouTube – and please feel free to leave us a sweet, sweet review!

OfficialFemfire and ThatSoundsGayUSA – Instagram Scams for Girls and the LGBTQ+ Community

Research Break

UPDATE NOTICE: Between publishing this post, HerTeamOfficial has yet again rebranded to OfficialFemfire on Instagram. Might be their regular schedule, but I’d like to think that we had a bit of a hand in this…

So first of all! Thank you, everyone for reaching out and for getting in touch about various scams. That’s much appreciated. We thought about veering into that direction, but it turns out all these scams are very, very similar. Once we can get back to regularly recording our regular show (which is fictional heist based on real world research), we’ll do that. Give it a listen maybe, we’ve got some fun episodes.

We still thought we’d take a closer look at some of these scams, because what the heck, right? And trust me, you wanna read this blog post till the very end for a satisfying twist.

So, it all starts like these things usually start. With a bot account reaching out to us:

That’s very kind, Michael with a handle that says Vanessa, but who are we to judge someone whose name is mostly random letters and numbers?

Okay, so the business practice is eerily similar to Smoothmyballs. What you do is hire (acquire?) a bunch of bots and let them target hashtags. As to what they targeted here specifically is hard to say, but maybe I used #girlpower as I was listening to the Spice Girls doing the dishes? Hard to say, really.

The reason these “brands” don’t contact you directly is always the same though. They don’t want to get caught out for spamming and lose their followers, if they get reported. So they use these burner accounts.

In the case of HerTeam I’d actually argue that not all the followers are bots, they post randomly generated empowering memes, they surely have some real followers. I actually know one of them and am certain she isn’t in on the scam and only followed the page for dank memes and (presumably stolen) illustrations overshadowed by boss babe claims.

That was on my (Sebastian) private account though and I got in touch and chatted with someone @herteamofficial. Which was fun. And a chatbot.

Girls Get it Done – Officialherteam Chatbots Talking Down and Dirty

So, we had some fun with it.

Anyway, we got the same responses we got when we initially sincerely responded expecting a human to reply. No big deal. But what are we dealing with here specifically?

HerTeamOfficial is an instagram channel dedicated to that Boss Babe Girl Power brand of “feminism” – yay, we need more white upper class women in positions of power and as entrepreneurs wrecking society and the planet as long as we’re empowering ourselves. Yassss, Queeen! Their website even claims they are all about empowerment.

But unlike other scams, Her Team actually has a fairly bad rep.

That’s a generic scam alert page. But users are also repoting the page to be anything but empowering (https://www.complaintsbureau.org/her-team/)

But okay, maybe that’s one case? Well… actually, a lot of users are complaining in the instagram comment section as well. They never received their overpriced merchandise. Some people do though… like, we looked into the stories they shared and the profiles looked legit.

Kudos for every girl for empowering these scammers by paying 40 USD for a tee that doesn’t look half as good as these shirts do on these already not great looking photos.

It’s literally just a t-shirt with a piss poor print and an ill fit. Hope you’re feeling great, gurrrrls.

Surely though that can’t last forever? At some point your name will be burned beyond recognition and you have to fold. Or… rebrand perhaps?

And in fact they have rebranded twice since 2019.

Most of their merchandise seems straight off of AliExpress and is obviously far cheaper in China where it’s being manufactured. Now! As to why some people never receive any products at all, we’re thinking it has something to do with what’s available.

I mean, you don’t wanna mess up a perfect looking website like this, do you? Some girls get their overpriced tees, some get nothing. Doesn’t matter in the long run. It’s 3 or 4 USD more in mark up and as soon as the scam is plain for all to see, they’ll just rebrand. Again. And again. And. A. Gain.

Also, they literally just registered their site on March 19th 2021:

Obviously that’s never a good sign, but their business model isn’t meant to last in this ever changing world which we live in.

More about HerTeam:

OfficialGirlsInc

https://thefashionfrenze.com/2020/09/21/ambassador-program-is-the-official-her-team-a-scam-or-not/?v=3a52f3c22ed6

Too Gay to Be True – ThatSoundsGay is a Scam, too

But that’s not all for today, kids! Because the lovely Blue Budgie Productions has found us (@howdoirobthis on all socials) and she has made us aware of a scam making the rounds in the LGBTQ+ community.

ThtSoundsGay on Instagram. And no! Not our typo, it’s theirs. We have our very own typos, thank you.

Another generic online shop that sells… we wanna say free stock photos?

Their instagram page is looking very similar to Her Team, but not empowering straight white girl babes, but the pride community instead.

Impressive follower count and as with the girl scam, I wanna say not all of them bots. I mean, look at the account. Pretty pictures of Wall Mart quality tees and meme images they probably stole off of some artist’s page.

The MO once again is the same. A random bot with 0 followers targets you and tells you to get in touch with Thtsoundsgay. The -A- in that is massively overrated anyway. But looking at it, nothing would strike you as suspicious. Except for those cheap arse shirts. I mean, seriously. I know they are cheap AliExpress merch, but the manufacturing must be the same for a good fit, no?

And like all good scammers, they too got to rebrand a couple of times. You know. Burn a name, get a new one. Thrice bitten, fource shy.

But! Unlike HerTeam Thtsoundsgayusa have provided us with a company address. Which is always like JACKPOT, except it never really is.

The PMB is a private mailbox located in this here store:

Nice enough Postnet store, certainly not their fault for hosting a mailbox company. But… yeah. That’s the company address. And if by now you haven’t figured out, that that’s anything but legit… they have no offices, no storage, no foosball table, no intern scouring the webs for memes to steal, no rainbow flag, just bots, potentially your hard earned money, and a postbox in Massachusetts, USA. Disappointing.

Their website was also very freshly registered, which isn’t great for these brand ambassador deals. How would any page – let alone a store – get to almost 900k followers in a few months?

It was registered on March 19th 2021. Through eNom, LLC with a registrant in MA, USA. Hang on! Scroll up there, cowboy or -girl. That looks familiar! That’s the same company that HerTeam used and they registered the site on the same day that HerTeam registered theirs. They are even selling almost identically atrocious looking fashion with cheap prints and the registrant is also living in MA. Or – well – their post box is.

The tees are even priced the same. 40.00 USD for a t-shirt. Look at them! LOOK AT THEM! On the bloody promotional pics, that’s the best they could make them look for fuck’s sake!

So, case closed? Same scammer, two companies? Probably more. Always the same brand of empowerment and openness standing up for oppressed minorities and feminism and equality and lack of printing quality, when really it’s just a cash grab.

I guess… so, the lesson here is: If an account with no or few followers contacts you for a brand ambassador deal for a different site, it’s probably too good to be true. If a brand really wants to work with you, they’ll get in touch, not their mechanical flunkies.

Proud to say that HerTeamOfficial and ThtSoundsGay have officially been exposed as scammers. Glad we could help, nothing to do but close our wrinkly trenchcoat and strut out of here.

Just One More Thing!

Imagine we were on our way out of the door as we turn heel, walk back in, and with our eyes crossed ask for one more thing!

Because while we couldn’t identify the registrant (due to their privacy being restricted), we could identify the company registering the domain. Registrar as they are sometimes referred to in Muso-terms.

A company called Enom, which — terrible name, not gonna lie — and as always it’s hard to tell how much they are in on the scams and how much they are just convenient and/or have high privacy standards. But looking at their site one thing pops out.

They are a member of the Tucows family. Tucows, the company that registered the Smoothmyballs scam from their HQ in Canada.

Rest assured, we’ll stay on the Tucase and keep a close eye on Tucows and the very day we can pin them down with enough evidence we’re gonna have ourselves a nice Tusteak.

Your friendly neighbourhood gentleman thieves,

S+O

You can reach How Do I Rob This on Twitter: @HowDoIRobThis

Or find out more about our heist plans on Instagram: @HowDoIRobThis

Or follow our two mastermind criminals @theoskarbrown and @smweissbach

New episodes on the 7th of every month. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and YouTube – and please feel free to leave us a sweet, sweet review!

Smooth My Balls Exposed (Again) – Follow Up from the SEO-Wars

Research Break

It is the day of our Lord (Buckethead) May 30th, 2021. And we find ourselves at war. Why? Why the fuck not. So, here’s an update from our “friends” at smoothmyballs. I’m really happy to say, we’ve made it, we are their archnemeses now. We are the one pube between testicles and arsehole even their trimmer cannot remove.

If you’re new to the whole situation and just wanna know what the fuck is going on, here’s some recommended reading:

We have a whole podcast episode dedicated to Smooth My Balls. Click the link or find How Do I Rob This? whereever you listen to podcasts and listen to episode #31. That’s number 31, not hashtag 31.

You can also read more about Smooth My Balls here: Previously on Smooth My Balls vs. How Do I Rob This?

So, without further ado, let’s dive right in, shall we?

Smoothmyballs on Instagram – Bots, Followers, and “Brand Ambassadors”

First things first: For a “brand” that has gathered 470k followers within a few weeks and only 12 posts, they had surprisingly little growth in the past month. And they even have three new posts. But, who are we to judge with our modest following over at @howdoirobthis on all socials *wink*

Let’s take a closer look at one of their new posts:

This is something that has always been the case, they just didn’t want it to go really public. But technically even last month, you could’ve simply gotten your affiliate code without going through the hassle of ordering their 70$ test kit.

But it’s not shared to over 400k people, it’s over 400k bots. But these AIs are getting better, so we probably shouldn’t be judgy. Sooner or later some of them will pass the Turing test and shave your balls or labia so smooth, you’ll see your own reflection in them.

Update JUNE 1st:

They’ve actually lost followers and are now on 469k. Did people unfollow? Did their bots get reported, did they expire, are they preparing the robo apocalypse?

Smoothmyballs is Planting Trees, Because of Course They Are

But there’s more, they are now like every other dumb start up on this dying planet:

They’re even planting trees now, are we all of a sudden anti-planet? Here’s the thing: If you buy their products at regular retail prices or buy from cheaper (and potentially better) competitors, even major brands like Philips or Manscaped or smaller brands like SmoothNutz or whatever no-name brand name you can find on Amazon, you’ll save money.

And that’s money you won’t feed those grifters. Money that you can then in turn use to plant trees yourselves. With https://onetreeplanted.org e.g. or any other charity, because – fun fact – companies don’t use these charities out of the goodness of their balls.

They are deductibles. So for every cheaply manufactured Chinese trimmer you buy via Smoothmyballs.com, they then get a tax deductible. If you however donate the money directly, YOU get the deductible. Win-Fucking-Win-Situation.

You find flexible tree donations right here (we’re not sponsored, but it’s the same charity SMB collaborates with): https://onetreeplanted.org/products/plant-trees?variant=31367539589182

Oh, and we checked.

Because of course we checked. Initially we found it a bit suspicious that they didn’t tage OnePlantedTree, but at least their collaboration seems legit-ish.

Content Marketing and Warfare Below the Waistline

They’ve also stepped up their content marketing game, they really want to win out over us via search engine optimisation.

So, how does this work? If you type “smooth my balls” into google, you’ll find their site and a few reviews, videos, etc. Scroll a bit and you’ll find our podcast and a few scam alerts, but they have to bank on most people not scrolling that far.

But what if you do get suspicious and you want to know, if they are a scam? So you type something like “Smoothmyballs scam” into google, which they know, right? So, they are trying to position the word “scam” wherever they can in their content marketing.

It’s in their URLs:

In their YouTube channel description:

And now even in blogs that review their products:

You can find this absolute banger on a website called geeksaroundglobe.com – it’s one of those websites with loads of clickbait, fringe right wing content your boomer uncle shares on WhatsApp, and purchased blog entries to optimise google content searches.

This was cleary paid for content, probably done by a freelance copywriter on a crowdworking platform. Their 3D product mock up of the trimmer comes from a similar crowdworking platform, artstation.com

Tracing the Untraceable: Who Are Luke durghouse and SmoothMyBalls Trimmer?

But here’s something new, a contact and a company address. Let’s check who (or what)’s behind Luke durghouse.

hmm… suspicious. Then again, that’s Ecosia, cause we’re so in love with planting fucking trees. Let’s see how the big G handles it:

similarly just 1 result. Okay, but maybe there’s something at their company address to found, yeah? Let’s see who’s squatting at *checks notes* 8 ballhouse road, UK

Okay, so the road is fake. On brand, but fake. There’s a few more content marketing attempts, all by one Mr. Smoothmyballs Trimmer. He must be busy as a b(all).

He’s even taken the time to write a review about his own — well, purchased in China — product!

SmoothMyBalls Trimmer, if that’s his real name, also has a profile on LinkedIn competitor XING. Under this name, I shit thee nay:

Are SmoothMyBalls Located in India not Canada?

Did we screw up? Are Smoothmyballs located in India, after all? Chances are good, one of their videos on vimeo is narrated by a speaker with a strong accent… Even though it sounds like it’s narrated by Tommy Wiseau.

https://vimeo.com/user130751613

For comparison, here’s the cheap Morgan Freeman:

Now these two geniuses here who ordered the Turf Chopper 3.0 test kit for 70$ (again 8$ product) talk about the one negative and that’s the shipping time, perhaps indicating a delivery from India. Could still be that SmoothMyBalls are shipping from Canada and simply had to order new product from China. It’s hard to tell, but we’ll stay on it.

Mr SmoothMyBalls Trimmer – Brand Loyalty

But that’s all that XING would spit out, no further information on SmoothMyBalls Trimmer. If that’s his real name. Gotta commend him for his loyalty though, he’s been toiling away at SmoothMyBalls for more than 20 years now. Even though the company didn’t exist till November 2020. Marvellous.

They’re also on TheDots, which looks like yet another LinkedIn. It’s fine, we’ve already got LinkedIn and that’s bad enough, isn’t it?

There’s more fun content like this post on phenomenal. Which… cool. Most of the products don’t exist, but cool.

They’re also on Reddit now, where we regularly harrass them.

SmoothMyBalls on Twitter

And stepped up their twitter game also with more than 400 followers now.

The usual suspects though:

So, mostly bots and podcasters that didn’t do their research properly. We’ll try and mess with them as much as possible on Twitter and maybe Instagram in the future, so if you see comments from us. A like or heart is much appreciated to boost our reach and ball punch them out of the water.

For the moment we’ve given up on reaching out to their brand ambassadors and affiliates, simply because they – for the most part – aren’t helpful. Either unwilling to talk or in denial about having been scammed out of too much money for cheaply manufactured products.

But we’re still open for input, if you have worked with them! Just get in touch.

Why Do We Bother with SmoothMyBalls at All?

And that’s it for now. But you, dear reader, if you are still following this wild tantrum might be asking yourselves, why? Why, why, why go to all these lengths to get on the balls of an instagram scam only the dumb, the gullible, the self important fall for? Why on Gaia’s green earth?

Maybe it’s even you, Nick, reading this. Or Tom. Or SmoothMyBalls Trimmer or whoever you pretend to be today and maybe you’re wondering why two gentleman thieves on the far side of the world are giving you guys such a hard time.

Because we can. Because we don’t like scams, grifters or multilevel marketing schemes. Because they’re giving criminals the world over a bad name. And mostly (!) because they got in touch with us and they tried to mess with us. And honeys of Smooth My Balls! You don’t play a player!

With the ballsiest regards,

S+O

your champions and cojones of justice

Update – The Return of the Bot Network

June 10th and this is where we’re at: We were wondering, if maybe Smoothmyballs have changed their targeting practices. We were actually fairly certain they hadn’t, because our site is still getting a lot of hits, mostly from google traffic. So obviosly people are searching for smoothmyballs, but what is science without evidence?

So we actually thought about reaching out and checking, if people were still being targeted by the bots on Instagram. Low and behold:

Same message, same targeting practice. 0 followers, 0 following, 0 posts, good stuff.

Update 22/06/21: Mr. Smoothmyballs Trimmer Is on WordPress!

Okay, so… YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Botstagram… it’s just not enough, is it? It’s never enough. Now Smoothmyballs have a blog. The world’s most generic and random blog and they didn’t even bother paying for the bloody wordpress domain or the premium package.

So this is the domain:

THIS?! Holy ballz! And this is what the smoothmyballs blog on wordpress looks like:

You can reach How Do I Rob This on Twitter: @HowDoIRobThis

Or find out more about our heist plans on Instagram: @HowDoIRobThis

Or follow our two mastermind criminals @theoskarbrown and @smweissbach

New episodes on the 7th of every month. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and YouTube – and please feel free to leave us a sweet, sweet review!

Yet Another Instagram Scam… Borextrade, EliteCryptotrade, Coinprofitmax…

Research Break

So, I was just casually hanging out on Instagram, looking for borderline nudes with girls staring down the barrel of the lens when I got a DM!

Finally, my chance to get rich quick! And quick!

*also I didn’t black out any names, because what the heck. It’s all made up anyway, right? I’m a bit proud to admit that he’s actually blocked me after my last message. Anyway, let’s get right into this week’s instagram scam!

I love making small talk with these guys and keeping them busy. Initially I thought we’d have to actively search for the next instagram scam, grift, ot multilevel marketing bullshit. But hey! They came to us!

I also love that they really got the wrong account when they’re DMing us. Like, all it would’ve taken was not to get in touch with us and they’d be fine.

Can’t say we didn’t warn them… but I admire the confidence on these guys thinking their scam is so damn good, so waterproof, that they are beyond being fucked with.

So at this point I did a little digging. Two things came up.

A: They registered their domain with namecheap.com – which… look… if you’re trying to sell people on you being a legit trading platform, maybe spring for a better registrar. Or, I mean… one that doesn’t sound as cheap at least.

And B: They have a company address. Not what I expected, but I take what I can get. They are registered under 56 Burnley St, Richmond Vic 3121, bloody Australia, MATE!

Must be nice, let’s check it out:

Uhm… okay…

Gonna be nice one day though…

But it’s not just the site that “Dave” “Francis” made up, Borextrade.com that is a scam registered in Melbourne. If you just type the address into google…

There’s a lot of sites registered in 56 burnley st, richmond vic 3121 – must be getting pretty crowded, in the garages alone… can you imagine all those poor ferraris squatting one next to the other like poor people on a train? I think I’m gonna be sick!

Here’s a neat trick to save money, if you’re a scammer operating on Instagram with multiple pages: Just use namecheap for all (or at least most) your domain registrations:

I mean, you get the point. But these websites look nice. And legit. Or at least legit enough. They all look the same though. So, I’m presuming it’s the same website using a different theme every single time:

Again, these don’t look bad, not at all. Not much different from a professional trading site and certainly a lot more professional than our Robin Hood blog here.

But, man! This dude is relentless. Somebody must’ve told him, that if he lures people into a conversation they’re more likely to fall for the scam. Kudos for still trying, Dave! If I can call you Dave. Can I?

The balls on this guy, smooth or otherwise.

And then he ghosted me. Alas. Or maybe he got reported, who knows?

But this is where this scam ends for us. For now. Partly, because “David” has – see above – blocked me. Or blockchained me, whatever.

I first thought somebody must’ve reported him, but really, his amazing page still exists.

David, please! What have I done to you? Can you forgive me? I’ll trade anything with you, anything! Just to look at your cars and screens one more time… oh, those rosy cheeks, so mischievous, so full of shite.

Anyway, it’s been fun! More scams please, get in touch! We are @howdoirobthis on socials and we are very gullible! *wink*

Cryptically,

S+O

your Bitcoin Bandits of Big Dick Energy

PS: We’re not the only ones in the know. So, PSA – if something looks to good to be true, or someone is offering an investment opportunity on Instagram of all places, be wary!

For SEO purposes, here’s a list of all crypto investment scam sites we could find:

https://elitecryptotrade.com – SCAM

https://coinprofitmax.com – SCAM

https://fastpayoption.com/ – SCAM

https://bitclubinvestment.net – SCAM

https://fx24options.org/ – SCAM

https://ameritdtrade.com/ – SCAM

This one doesn’t even have a dedicated e-mail for convenience’s sake

https://cryptostockstotrade.com – SCAM

and again, the same site, but what’s with the domain? What’s a stocksto?

We’re sure there are more, just google the address.

You can reach How Do I Rob This on Twitter: @HowDoIRobThis

Or find out more about our heist plans on Instagram: @HowDoIRobThis

Or follow our two mastermind criminals @theoskarbrown and @smweissbach

New episodes on the 7th of every month. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and YouTube – and please feel free to leave us a sweet, sweet review!

Smooth My Balls – Uncovering a Scam

Research Break

Research and Resources

__How Do I Rob This_30_Smooth My Balls Brand_LOGO

You can listen to episode 31 of our podcast on pretty much all platforms, if you want to find out more about @Smoothmyballs, their “company”, their MO, and their affiliate model. In the meantime, we can also provide you with some evidence to uncover why we come to the conclusion that Smooth My Balls is a scam, and how you could identify them and other similarly dodgy business models.

SmoothMyBalls Messages on Instagram – Is This a Scam?

On April 25th we received the following message:

I didn’t look into the account at this point and thought it was just some generic affiliate rubbish. Promote a product you’ve never tested, offer a code, etc. – fine, whatever. But the brand sounds funny, we love things that sound funny. So why not hit them up. I sent them a message and this was the reply I got:

I merely skimmed it and only later clicked on the link to find out… well, it’s not actually free, is it? We’d have to purchase the discounted kit first. And paying anything to be part of a programme… well, that’s multi level marketing scheme material right there. Don’t worry, if you’ve received the same or a very similar message. We’ve checked and double-checked and triple-checked. There’s no Dana, only copy-paste. So, why bother? Why engage with them, at all? Because we steal from people that deserve to be stolen from. Everything looks professional enough… at first glance, so let’s start with their socials. 12 posts on Instagram and… 470k followers? Whoa! Big brand right there.

Let’s check their facebook and twitter next:

Those numbers aren’t quite as impressive, but I guess SmoothMyBalls didn’t have the money to buy bots across platforms. Their twitter even uses their old logo. Alas, bots these days… Interestingly, they only liked one tweet:

Screenshot 2021-05-03 at 20.30.19.png

Good stuff. Seems that Smooth My Balls really focuses on the far right testicle. But people have brand ambassadored for them, right? And they’re waving around a product. The Turf Chopper 3.0 – wait, that also sounds familiar…

SmoothMyBalls – Looking Like a Proper Brand with Alibaba Products

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But that’s not fair! There’s only so many ball-lawn-jokes one can make. Granted, so let’s take a look at what they’re sending out and asking podcasters to pay for in return for a “free” review kit:

Screenshot 2021-05-07 at 12.13.25.png

*the price went up since last I checked. It used to be in line with Manscaped. But okay, fine. This is supposedly the best product on the market, that you can get nowhere else in the world, right? Let’s do some product research and…

Screenshot 2021-05-07 at 12.15.36.png

Hey, this looks familiar! And it’s much cheaper.

Sidenote: no disrespect for the product, but if you want it, buy it from Guangzhou Aimei Intelligent Technology directly. You can order just one for only 8 USD, that’s more than 90% discount and you don’t even have to worry about a discount code.

Funny story: Alibaba also let’s you see where companies ship their goods to. This’ll be important later. Screenshot 2021-04-29 at 16.47.39.png

The SmoothMyBalls Male Grooming Kit – Generic Products Rebranded

But surely their other products are legit, right? We have the 25 USD HEDGE CLIPPERS

aka a 7pcs manicure set you can get on Amazon:

They even ship them in different colours! Red looks much better tbh. But what about the PUBE MUNCHER?

Incredible deal at only 55 USD, you’d normally have to pay 18.99 EUR for the same product without the Feed Me Pubes-sticker. Which some call a bonus.

They’re even cheaper in blue. The resemblance is uncanny… that must be some pricy sticker…

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Other SmoothMyBalls Products – Suspiciously Sold Out

None of their other products exist. They’re 3D mock ups only. So no ball balm for you!

UPDATE: I wanna talk about one other product that doesn’t exist, the SACKMAT. Which is a yoga mat with a misaligned print. So, good stuff.

All those products are always suspiciously SOLD OUT, so fair to assume there never even was a Ball Freshener! Even the scammer’s dog is ashamed:

Alright, fine. They’re overcharging and they’re asking podcasters to review their products. They even give away a PS5 in a giveaway that has no terms and conditions via a website that has no company address and was set up via shopify.

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Targeting the SmoothMyBalls Scam Where It Hurts (the Balls)

But that’s it, right? We’ve dismantled them, shown they’re a scam, this is surely where we stop. Right? They sent us a friendly reminder that they can’t keep the ReservedKit021 that leads to a generic affiliate site (https://www.smoothmyballs.com/pages/review) reserved for much longer… the pressure was on!

Naturally I tried to get them on the show. It looked promising for a while.

That’s where my love affair with “Nick” ended. Poor Nick, I’ll miss you and there’s always a special place for you in my balls. Nothing to do but browse their website, I guess…

A Closer Look at SmoothMyBalls “Real” Reviews from “Real” Customers

Okay, typically for scammers: everything looks good at first glance, but take a closer look and the peices fall apart. I mean peaces. Pisces! PIECES! But they’ve had real customers like:

Tom Mulligian! Who purchased the SMB products before their website went live.

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If only all of us had this much foresight in our crown jewels. Let’s get in touch with @ItsMuli123

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Oh no! The wild west cowboy shaved his balls so hard, he trimmed himself out of existence. Same story with these other geniuses. Also, I’m fairly certain the fake surname is Mulligan, not Mulligian or Mullgian. Please respect their centuries old fake family history.

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Comparing the Turf Chopper 3.0 to the Alibaba Male Grooming Trimmer – They Didn’t Even Change the Packaging

Let’s give their product a closer look on Alibaba:

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and compare it to an instagram post:

They didn’t even change the packaging and their logo only appears to be on the mock up. Good stuff. Who in their right mind would host this website?

Investigating the Hosts and Registrars Behind SmoothMyBalls

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Shopify Canada? I knew I shouldn’t have sniffed the maple syrup flavoured ball balm. But that’s just their server, that tells you nothing. Precisely, so let’s dig into the website records, shall we? The registrant contact should provide us with all we need:

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We’ve got an address, let’s check it out.

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Who on this forsaken planet would want to work next to the Toronto Carpet Factory in 96 Mowat Avenue Toronto, CA? Who, I ask you? But let me answer that question for you: A company called Tucows that apparently register and sell domains. They are legit – and we checked. They’re also on LinkedIn and have an actual website, so actual business, but… There’s always a but and they are notoriously harder to shave than balls:

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Not looking like the best of class in best practices, at least when it comes to choosing their clients. Tucows might just have high privacy standards and thus be the go to partner for scammers, or they are in on the scams. It’s hard to tell at this point. But here’s one other bit of information that leads straight back to Canada: The Male Grooming Kit aka Pube Katana 3.1alpha hasn’t exactly sold like hot cakes on Alibaba, only a few shipments ever went out and one of the largest ones went to:

Screenshot 2021-04-29 at 17.02.53.png

(a slightly larger one went to the Philippines, so I’d say both are likely candiates for Scam My Balls HQ, but I’d bet my money on Canada. Not my balls, I’m not insane. I like all three of them.) And that’s what we have so far. We’ll update the story as it unfolds. Do we know who’s behind SmoothMyBalls? Not yet. We don’t have a face and we don’t have a name. All we have is an Apple Watch, an arm, and a used Pube Muncher.

But we’ll get there!

Signed,

your friendly neighbourhood gentleman thieves!

UPDATE 21/05/21:

Congratulations to everyone who overpayed to write a review for Smoothmyballs that they would otherwise have to pay copywriters for, you made it! And by it I mean you got published! On their website. You’re a published author now.

26 reviews and counting…

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Still nowhere near the 75 reviews that don’t exist.

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But I love how they are doubling down. Real reviews from REAL customers. Screenshot 2021-05-12 at 18.13.37.png

Also, would you check out their URL ffs? They’ve literally put exposed (which is a pun, I get puns) and scam (!) in their URL, so people searching for smoothmyballs scam get to their review site. Pathetic.

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Sure, I mean they payed to review your product and you coerced them into your MLM. Other than that, real. For sure. All reviews go through judge.me and we’re looking into it. They are hard to find on there.

Also, the price for the TURF CHOPPER has gone up yet again, which makes me wonder, if the page autocalculates the dollar price based on a nother currency.

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UPDATE: 14/05/21

We must’ve really gotten under their (wrinkly ball) skin, because they keep adding “exposing scam” to all their descriptions to intercept traffic.

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Can’t say we’re not loving being their arch nemesis!

UPDATE: 13/05/21

Came across an incredibly similar company today. Called SmoothNuts

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Just to compare: They are legit, they have a company address and much fairer prices. So, if you really, really, really want one of the products from the SMB line-up, there are much better alternatives.
Disclaimer: We’re not sponsored, and we’ve never used the product. But we can tell a real company from a fake one.

UPDATE 20/05/21:

There’s now a review for one of the products that aren’t real. And I’m A-Z loving it.

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Everything else is still stuck at the fake reviews from May 8th. There’s 19 for the trimmer.

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Even though the product page says there’s 79, they really missed a chance to make it 69. The inconsistent pricing is also brilliant.

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And just because this post is getting incredibly, unreadibly long: we made a follow up with the latest shenanigans SmoothMyBalls are up to. So, check it out, if you wanna know yet more!

With smooth regards,

S+O

Your ballsy bandits of nether region nudity

You can reach How Do I Rob This on Twitter: @HowDoIRobThis

Or find out more about our heist plans on Instagram: @HowDoIRobThis

Or follow our two mastermind criminals @theoskarbrown and @smweissbach

New episodes on the 7th of every month. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and YouTube – and please feel free to leave us a sweet, sweet review!