Over the last couple of days I have received many emails from a "Melissa Thompson" saying she has place a link to one of my various sites on her main entry page at http://www.torontorealestatedirect.com

When I click on her link in her email to check, sure enough the link is there under the "Recommended Sites" heading and the page has a PR 5 - wow! Looks terrific - a free PR 5 link!

Except all is not as it appears. If I go to another computer connecting through a different IP (or through a proxy server)and check her site using the site's url and not by clicking on her email link - my links are not there.

Clicking on her email link ends up making it look like your link has been placed on her site but it really has not been. Obviously the intent is for me to link back to her in gratitude and judging by her PR many have already fallen for this scam.

Be aware!

Thanks for the warning. You might want to disable the link to her site in your post. No need helping a scammer with another link.

First e-Mail from Melissa T**:

Hello,

Recently I visited your website http://allreopreservation.com ; while visiting your site I noticed that you link to http://zillow.com at this address: http://allreopreservation.com/. As we are closely related to them, I would love to exchange links with your website, currently there are about 5,000 - 7,000 people per day that goto my site and search for information, Therefore I would to link to an excellent site like yours.
I have taken the liberty of adding your site to my home page: http://www.**.com to determine if it is of any benefit to you, if you have a stats program you can check it and let me know. By looking at my stats, it looks like today I have sent you 12 visitors but it may change by the time you receive this email.
Some website owners do not like when other sites link to them so I thought I might ask first. I think the information on your website could be useful to my visitors; and maybe you could receive some extra relevant traffic if you want. Please get back to me when you have a chance to let me know if its ok to link to your website like this.
Have a good week,

Melissa T**


email: melissa.t**@**.com
website: http://www.**.com
Ref: 1TAOP

My response:

Linda Hall to Melissa
show details Feb 13 ReplyHi, Melissa ~

I'm a little confused. I visited your site and didn't see my link, I didn't find any traffic from your site in my stats, and I didn't see where you were similar to Zillow.

Maybe you can explain in more detail about what I should be looking for regarding the similarities and my link at your site.

Thanks!

Linda

Last E-Mail from Melissa T**:

Hello,

The page is a bit busy I just took a screen shot of it for you you can see it here : http://www.**.com/screen1TAOP.jpg
As far as our two sites being relevant I think you would be surprised what people find interesting as both of our sites provide excellent information about our market, I think the way they offset each other would work out quite nicely.


Thanks for letting me add your site to my directory. Your site will be a great addition to the website and of great value to my users. Today I actually received an email from one of my users about your site, it was very positive which reinforces my initial thoughts about adding you.
I was wondering if my site would be of value to your viewers and if so would you be able to add it to you site as well? If you have an available spot on your home page that would be really great but anywhere you think my site would fit in would be fine. I've put my site information below for you to look over.Let me know either way if you could.
Title: T** real estate listings
URL:
Description: Find all you need for ** real estate listings
Have a good week,

Melissa T**

Sorry for the colors but I wanted to keep the e-mails separate and it was the easiest way I could think of. I've used ** where her info is so she can't be searched here. [If it's a scam, why give her one more place to advertise?]

What exactly is the scam? Is her website coming up in searches for my company name? I've had almost 40 cases of plagiarism of my website to deal with but I'm still new to scams and such.

BTW. I never added her link to my site. I didn't see any relevance between hers and mine.

Linda