Private companies getting into the snitching business

[ItsGrowTime]

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/04/ca...ighborhood-it-might-sound-like-a-game-yo.html

Can you make money just by writing down the license plate numbers of cars in your neighborhood? It might sound like a game your older brother made up to keep you busy -- but two aggressive start-up firms are telling consumers to do just that, and both are spreading the word quickly online. But how does it work?

One of the two, Dallas-based Narc Technologies Inc., offers a simple explanation. They want you to rat on your neighbors. The firm's Web site, NarcThatCar.com, is designed to collect license plate numbers and locations so lenders can more easily repossess cars when the owners default.

In other words, the firm wants consumers to become the repo man's informant.

Its chief competitor, Data Network Affiliates, says it has no intention of getting into the business of repossession. It says it plans to use its database of license plate numbers to help find missing children through Amber Alerts. It also hopes to sell the data to other information-hungry marketing firms, and to turn its user base into a kind of buyer's club.

In each case, members only earn a couple of dollars each month from basic license plate collection. But they stand to profit significantly if they convince friends and family to join -- a classic multi-level marketing ploy. And in each case, there are volumes of complaints about the companies online.

Before we get into the specifics, let's review a few basics.
1) Anyone who says you can make a lot of money by staying at home and doing very little work is almost certainly misleading you.
2) Multi-level marketing (MLM) is legal. Pyramid schemes are illegal.
3) What's the difference? Sale of a real product. Firms cannot design companies where the chief source of income is skimming a cut off of others who are talked into joining -- that's a pyramid scheme. But if company associates sell a real product, and merely enhance their income via "down line" percentages of sales from other hires they have sponsored, that's legitimate MLM.
MLM-like schemes, along with work-at-home scams, are a dime a dozen online, but they have really ramped up during the recession. Jobless workers with plenty of time on their hands sometimes try dozens of work-at-home ideas, trying to hit on something that will earn them a little cash.

The attraction of Data Network Associates is simple: Unlike most work-at-home jobs, there's nothing to sell, said marketing director Warren Anthony. Members simply write down 20 plates per month for their $2.
"It's so easy, this is something my 80-year-old dad can do. A college kid can do it," he said. He said they encouraged affiliates to gather plate numbers in parking lots at churches or malls in order to avoid spooking neighbors.
He said the firm has so far signed up 92,000 affiliates in only about three months. Together they have entered 1.3 million plate numbers into their database. Already, the firm's Web site ranks in the top 8,000 on the entire Internet, he said.
Joining the service is "100 percent free," but members are urged to pay $130 for software that makes it easier to enter the license plate numbers and for a package of travel discounts. One sales force member interviewed by msnbc .com who reported signing up 92 sales associates said paying for this "upgrade" was the fastest way to earn money.
But Anthony rejected the term upgrade.
"It is a package of products and services they are buying ... a business benefits package," he said.
The company's business is "turning data into cash," he said, and the firm has multiple strategies for raising revenue. Users will soon see ads when they log in to enter plate numbers. They will also receive member-only offers for services like Dish Network and ADT security systems.

Click link for rest of article but its mostly about pyramid scheme marketing and stuff. If the model proves even remotely viable then it will surely turn into a larger private snitch corporation that handles a lot more than just license plates.

 

[Open Eyes]

Joining the service is "100 percent free," but members are urged to pay $130 for software that makes it easier to enter the license plate numbers and for a package of travel discounts.

Not only do they want you to snitch but they want you to pay for this "privilege".

How dumb do you have to be to enter a license plate incorrectly? Well, if you are there looking at the site thinking that you are goign to get some money then you must be pretty dumb not to see the whole picture of what is going on with this "scheme".

Scary shit the USA is.........

 

[mcattak]

Scary...

 

[Maj.Cottonmouth]

Retarded scam, they are going nowhere

 

[swicker]

really strange, today i found a lady in our apartment complex photographing license plates from her ford windsor, i go excuse me can i help you and she said nope

 

[stratmandu]

I would have immediately photographed her and her license plate with my cell phone. In fact, I've done just that to some strange characters that were cruising the neighborhood, knocking on doors of neighbors that I knew weren't home. They left immediately. I found out later they were just Witnesses!

 

[Tylor Durden]

some one over looked the fact

some one over looked the fact

that most folks who are behind on payments often use bogus temp tags to keep their car from getting boosted this way. This is nothing new, cept for gulling the public into paying fees.

In the repo business you don't drive around looking for your car, that's simply not economical. You find your driver..then you let them lead you to the car.

What the have actually created is a stalkers and perverts resource.

Wholesale gathering of license plates while on the surface seems legal, try taking the tag numbers of undercover law enforcement vehicles and your heading straight in with a charge of obstruction ( at minimum)

Bad Idea all around, I give it 18 months tops. But yanno, you can make alot of money in 18 months

 

[hkush]

Yeah, not quite the next "killer app". It'll soon join the list of ideas that sucked. Like that email service that emails your freinds to tell them you died if you don't respond to an automated email once a month.

 

[cfltime]

really strange, today i found a lady in our apartment complex photographing license plates from her ford windsor, i go excuse me can i help you and she said nope

fuck that. i would have said....what the hell are you doing taking pictures of license plates? or call the police on her ass.

although, i dont think she has to say anything to you , if shes on official bizness or somthin

 

[RNDZL]

gross as fuck