Mashable haven’t always been the most discerning website when it comes to publishing infographics. But today’s offering takes the biscuit.
Not only is the “Top 10 Scams of the Year” infographic dull, by-the-numbers fare, it manages to undermine trust in the company that commissioned it it:
The Worst Call-to-Action of 2012
The “Top Scam of the Year” is awarded to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), who proudly proclaim that they’ve been running a phishing scam which will download malware to your computer if you visit the link which they ask you to click.
“Clicking on the link… downloads malware”
“Please Visit: <<Link>>”
Having read over the infographic three or four times, I think I understand what the marketing company (nowsourcing.com) was trying to do. They were trying to position BBB as the company that “scams the scammers“. And they’ve failed miserably, as these comments show:
Are they trying to say [the scammer is] someone *pretending* to be them? – Bobble Bardsley
Really poorly thought out. I’m surprised Mashable used it. – Andrew Isidoro
Despite the fact I’m pretty sure that BBB aren’t running a scam, and just haven’t realised that they probably shouldn’t portray themselves as phishing scam artists, I’m still not confident enough to visit their website. Which really isn’t the reaction a company with the strapline “Start “With Trust” should be aiming for.
Take a bow nowsourcing.com. You’ve dropped a clanger here.
UPDATE: 14/03/2012
Some detective work from Bobble Bardsley has shed some light on this. Apparently someone pretending to be BBB has been unleashing scam emails on the unsuspecting public.
Which means, of course, that the infographic makes it look like BBB are admitting to sending phishing emails instead of explaining that they weren’t to blame. Well done nowsourcing.com. I’m even more impressed.
4 comments
Stephen Da Cambra says:
Mar 12, 2012
Andrew,
Mashable continues to get closer to the bottom of the barrel to stoke their never-ending stream of stories that fuel so many twitter feeds.
After 3 or 4 read throughs, my take on the infographic is that BBB discovered a scam that used their brand and have decided to turn the episode into a PR campaign to position them as a great resource of information that small businesses can use to identify and avoid scams.
But I agree with you that nowsource.com fails miserably, evidenced by the difficulty we all have in determining what is the message.
More failure: instead of leading to a landing page that is formatted for mobile devices, the QR code leads to a standard web page with the heading “Scam Source”!
Andrew says:
Mar 12, 2012
I think that sums it up. Bobbie Bardsley’s no slouch at this, you’ve got a decent pedigree and I’m not the worst copywriter in history – and between us we STILL can’t work out what the message is!
It’s ridiculous. How exactly did this get approved?
Straygoat says:
Mar 12, 2012
They should have paid more attention to the actual spam emails because they make it very clear what they want the reader to do.
Clare Lynch says:
Mar 13, 2012
My brain is hurting. I got several of those BBB emails. Should I have opened them after all? Or not? Huh? Help! Not sure what’s going on. Er, hmm. Huh? What? Can you run that by me again?