Wayne Schulz

Hats off to Michael Arrington. He’s taking on one of the unspoken problems with “Free” games on social sites like Facebook or MySpace. In a nutshell these free games offer you special privileges (better land, more powerful gaming tools) for either purchase or for signing up for special offers.

As Michael outlines in his post, Scamville:  The Social Gaming Ecosystem of  Hell.

A typical scam: users are offered in game currency in exchange for filling out an IQ survey. Four simple questions are asked. The answers are irrelevant. When the user gets to the last question they are told their results will be text messaged to them. They are asked to enter in their mobile phone number, and are texted a pin code to enter on the quiz. Once they’ve done that, they’ve just subscribed to a $9.99/month subscription. Tatto Media is the company at the very end of the line on most mobile scams, and they flow it up through Offerpal, SuperRewards and others to the game developers.

This video is of Michael Arrington during Q&A at Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco where he questioned Offerpal CEO Anu Shukla to explain the ethics of her business. Shukla went on a tirade, calling his points “shit, doubleshit, and bullshit”.

I believe what you are watching in the video below is the beginning of the end of these types of misleading offer practices.

[Techcrunch] and [Offerpal's Blog Response]

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About Wayne Schulz

Wayne Schulz is a CT CPA and consultant. In his spare time he enjoys hiking, New York City, blogging, technology and searching for the perfect smartphone. He lives in Glastonbury CT with his two children. Contact Wayne by email at wayne@wayneschulz.com. (Important: We are not the manufacturer or seller of any items we've blogged so unfortunately we are unable to provide support or answer questions about them).