Chiropractic San Diego

Thank you to everyone that has been making use of the chiropractic classifieds on Planet Chiropractic. I got some really good feedback from chiropractors that have been using the system nearly 10 years while I was attending the CCA Parker Seminar event in San Diego. Work is regularly done on the classified ad system but it’s not something users usually notice, that’s about to change.

Modifications that are expected to be live by June of this year include improved browser compatibilities, improvements over the scaling and display of uploaded image files, and several modifications in database functions. Most users rarely notice changes like these but they are essential in improving functionality for the classified ad system. Depending on how nice summer is in Los Angeles this year, we will be introducing an entirely new layout for categories. That is something nearly every regular classified ad user will notice.

As of today, there are 14 main classified ad categories, with 78 subcategories. When the classified ad system was first created we didn’t have any ads posted. Thanks to our users, we can easily see which categories are the most popular, which categories are the least popular, and which categories are often misused or contain misplaced advertisements.

We’re currently working behind the scenes on a category system that will feature 6 to 8 main categories, which means at least six primary categories will be phased out. That doesn’t mean users will have less options overall as the subcategories will be expanded from 78 to at least 100. The goal is to provide a long overdue improved hierarchy of places to post ads.

The 14 current categories are…

1. Chiropractic Practices for Sale
2. Associates
3. Commercial Chiropractic Products for Sale
4. Private Party Chiropractic Products for Sale
5. Computer Hardware and Software
6. Employment Opportunities
7. Commercial Equipment for Sale
8. Equipment for Sale by a Private Party
9. Financial Services
10. Income Opportunities
11. Internet and Web Related Services
12. Office Space for Rent
13. Substitutions and Locum Positions
14. XYZ And Everything Else

I won’t get into the list of 78 subcategories here, as we are currently still finalizing decisions on which categories are going to make it to the final 6 (or possibly 8).

Chiropractic practices for sale, listings for associates, and equipment for sale have been the three most popular categories. The commercial equipment for sale and equipment for sale by private party will become a single category. Those posting will be identified as a vendor, dealer, distributor, or private party (such as a chiropractor selling an adjusting table).

Chiropractic products being sold will follow a similar format, and will be merged into a single category, with options for users to sort by private party versus vendor and/or distributor.

The categories for associates, employment opportunities, as well as substitutions and locum positions, will likely be merged into a single job listings category, that will include several subcategories. Since the classified ad system launched in the 1990s, chiropractors have been hiring more acupuncturists, massage therapists, x-ray technicians, and other employees besides chiropractic associates, office managers, and chiropractic assistants. Subcategory expansion will include listings for all of these job opportunities and more. We’re also working on various ways users can post attachments like a curriculum vitae in PDF or other formats, as well as multiple photos per ad posted.

With more than 3000 advertisements currently posted related to employment, I feel the jobs related categories are the ones that will receive the most attention over the summer, hopefully helping many more find employment in the chiropractic industry.

There’s lots of chiropractors in the Pacific Beach area of Southern California. There’s so many chiropractors in the area, that it’s likely several have gone and hired social media experts and or SEO experts to improve their online rankings, and their presence in social media. Unfortunately, one chiropractic office in Pacific Beach has hired a low-level spammer.

The chiropractic office in this case was likely convinced by someone calling themselves an expert in search engine optimization and they employed the individual to promote business to their San Diego location on 1816 Garnet Ave. Spamming chiropractic classifieds is something I’d expect from overseas scammers and not local chiropractors. It’s unfortunate, but chiropractors continue to employ charlatan Internet marketers. Here’s a look at an advertisement that was posted in the practices for sale classified ad section on planet chiropractic.

Using the exact same formula as they did for a Carlsbad Chiropractic office and a chiropractic office in San Marcos California, the spammer created an account and spammed an area that is typically used by chiropractors to post their practices for sale. In more than 10 years, I’ve only seen this happen two or three times before, and in every case the advertisements get deleted (and accounts get banned).

No surprise that the website used for the Pacific Beach chiropractor in question is listed as owned by “Domains by Proxy, Inc.” What kind of chiropractor is afraid to put their own name on their website?

Maria Wendy (unlikely this scammers real name) has been added to the list of individuals attempting to con sellers of chiropractic equipment (and very likely sellers on other classified ad websites too) selling ads via the chiropractic classifieds section of Planet Chiropractic.

Using the Rediffmail account mariawendy@rediffmail.com, this user contacted chiropractors posting items like chiropractic adjusting tables, with a template email. I’m sharing it here so anyone searching to see if they are potentially being scammed can know this is fraud. Here’s the first email…

- – - – -

Hello,

I came across your ad and I’ll like to know the following questions regarding the ad.

Q#1. How long have you owned it?
Q#2. a) Have you owned it from new? b) If not how many previous owner?
Q#3.Why are you selling it?
Q#4. In your opinion, what sort of conditions it?
Q#5. Anymore available photo?
Q#6. How much are you asking for it?
Q#7. Do you accept a (PayPal)as a mode of payment.

I’ll like to have the response to these question in your earliest convenience..Hope to hear from you soon.

Have a nice day.
Maria Wendy

- – - – -

The 7 questions asked are similar to those seen in numerous examples of fraudulent replies I’ve seen to classified ad postings over the years. Here are a few…

Response To Your ITEM Posted For Sale
Daniel William Uncles Birthday Gift Classified Ad Scam
Helene Dido Internet Classified Ad Scams

The gift for a family member is a popular scam approach, and it’s likely very popular around the holiday season, don’t make your loss someone else’s Christmas gift. Here’s how Maria Wendy replied when contacted by a chiropractor replying to the template email (something I recommend against).

Hi,

I really appreciate your respond,I am an mining operator and am currently on mining ship at the moment, I located in pacific WA, and i want you to know that am okay with the flex/distraction status and also the conditions of the flex/distraction and the asking price as well, I am buying the flex/distraction as a gift for my Dad as a surprise for him,he wont know anything about the flex/distraction until they get delivered to him, i can only pay through PayPal as i don’t have access to my bank account on-line as i don’t have internet banking,but i have my bank account attached to my PayPal account and this is why i insisted on paying you through PayPal, kindly get back to me with your PayPal details if you don’t have PayPal account yet,it is very easy to set up at your bank and get it set up,after you have set it up i will only need the e-mail address you use for registration with PayPal so as to put the money through so i can proceed with the payment and after the payment has been done, i have a pick up agent that will come around for verifications and to pick the flex/distraction after i have made the payments for the flex/distraction.So I will need you to provide me with the following information to facilitate the making of the payment.

1.Your PayPal full name.

2.Your PayPal Email Address.

3..Your phone number.

Once again ,I will like you to know that you will not be responsible for shipping. I will have my pick-up agent come over as soon as you have receive the payment confirmation.

Regards.

Maria

—–

Notice how poor the grammar is? That’s very common for these types of scams. Also, the buyer appears to have no idea what a “flex/distraction” is as evidenced by the cut and paste approach in the reply. It’s nothing more than an attempt to separate sellers from their money, their items, or both.

Regardless of whether you are buying or selling online, be alert and perform at least a few searches on the email or user accounts of people contacting you.

I’ve joked that I’ve posted on this subject 1000 times, but I’ll post 1000 more, if it helps educate people using classified advertisement websites. It’s the Internet, and scammers are everywhere (but the community is kicking butt). Users of classified advertising websites, like the chiropractic classifieds by Planet Chiropractic, would love to believe that everyone they receive e-mails from can be trusted, but that’s not the case (that goes for any classified ad website).

Here’s two of the latest e-mail accounts (along with IP addresses) that have proven to be fraudulent accounts run by scammers intent on separating people from their money. The e-mail I received from a guy, several years ago, that almost shipped a motorcycle overseas, motivates me to continue posting information like this.

—–
Scammer: Maryannebumzy@yahoo.com
Sender IP: 96.43.138.252
Provider: Kansas City Joe’s Datacenter LLC

Hello, i am interested in the immediate purchase of your item place for sale, is it still available? if yes. tell me the final asking price, and send me more pics MaryAnneBumzy@yahoo.com i will be waiting for your email. Anne

Anne
Maryannebumzy@yahoo.com
—–

Make No Bones about Chiropractic Equipment Scams

Scammer: Williams Diehl (drwilliams.diehl@gmail.com)
Sender IP: 41.71.176.31
Provider: Nigeria Abuja Visafone Communications Limited

Template this scammer uses…

Hello Seller,

In response to your ITEM posted for sale. I am interested in making an immediate purchase of it.
After several consideration over the advert placed on the website, a friend doctor who has really shown interest in it and would want to issue the payment.
But before I proceed on this transaction I will like to ask some question as follows.

1. Is the condition of the ITEM what you have describe it to be ?
2. What is the final asking prize you can go at last ?
3. Do you accept a certified check as a mode of payment ?
4,Can the picture send to me via email for proper view?

Also I would like to restate clearly that this item will be shipped to Gambia and I have a shipping agent who would take good care of this. You are to cash the Check you will recieve and deduct the funds for the sales of your item and please have the excess funds sent to the shipping agent in order to schedule the pick up of the item.

All neccesary transfer papers will be dully signed by the shipper on behalf of my doctor friend when the shipping agents comes for the pick up of the item .

I will be willing to entertain more of your questions that might arise, please provide your

FULL NAME:
ADDRESS :
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP CODE:
PHONE NUMBER :

So that I can have it forwarded to my friend doctor for immediate payment issuance.Looking forward to hear from you.

Regards.

Williams Diehl
90-92, Mount Pleasant Rd,
Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN1 1RB

Williams Diehl
drwilliams.diehl@gmail.com
—–

I’d recommend to everyone not to do business with anyone contacting you from either of these two e-mail addresses. If you are selling an item on a classified ad website, and you found this post because you were doing a search to see if these contacts were fraudulent, rest assured that they are. Contact the site you have your ad posted with, and let them know you’ve been contacted by a scammer.

By Michael Dorausch, DC

Did you know that photographs placed in classified advertising posts results in far greater views of those posts? Imagine shopping for a preowned car on a classified ad site, and not getting to see any photos, those advertisements don’t get much action. The same goes for major auction sites. I can’t even recall the last time I visited an auction site that didn’t include at least one photograph related to the item being sold.

The same rule applies for chiropractic classified ads, if you include photographs, you’re going to increase significantly the amount of viewers looking at what you are selling. Let me show you some examples, starting with this Elite Chiropractic Table recently listed for sale in Boise Idaho.

This Elite Chiropractic Table gets more views than similar adjusting tables listed that do not include a photo. The picture you see above is a screenshot from the actual ad. When a user browses the ad page, they get a thumbnail of the image that they can click on. The expanded size image appears directly over the advertisement without taking the user off the page. That’s a new feature recently added.

Not only did the seller of the above chiropractic table include a good quality photograph (you can tell it’s Burgundy by looking at the picture), they provided a fairly good description of the table being sold. We’re told it has manual flexion, electric traction, and both lumbar and cervical drops.

Lets take a look at this Tytron C-3000 scanner being sold. What I like is that the individual selling this unit is showing a picture of it in what appears to be the chiropractic office.

This tytron scanner is located in Vista California (always include the location) and the seller explains that the item includes manuals, software, a carrying case, and instructional DVDs. I am unclear as to whether that laptop is included, which brings me to the reminder that if you’re going to list items for sale, include as much detail as possible.

It may seem silly, but we see it in commercials on television and in print, oftentimes we’re told about things that are not included. In the case of this advertisement, I’d state clearly “laptop not included” or “laptop included” just to be safe. If the laptop were included, there should be a lot more detail in the post.

Let’s take a look at this 16 x 18″ x-ray viewbox, it’s a great example of something people may not think to take the time to take a photo of. Personally, I appreciate it.

This 16×18 inch x-ray viewbox was listed for sale by a chiropractor in Canada. Even though that is mentioned in the location, I would clearly mention in the advertisement that the viewbox is in Canada. It’s a good idea to mention a location more than once within the post.

I like that the chiropractor selling this viewbox took the time to unplug it and take a photo. I would go one step further by neatly rolling up the power cord so that it can be seen in the photograph. If I was buying a viewbox for my office, I’d actually like to know how long that cord is, since some of my power outlets are quite a ways from each other.

I’m not certain if this was made of metal or wood or a combination of both. If it’s wood framed, be sure to mention it. If it’s white aluminum framed, tell us. Basically, share a little bit more detail, and you’ll likely increase the odds someone’s going to purchase your item for sale.

Including photographs of items for sale probably makes sense to you, but in my opinion it’s critically important when selling practices as well. As an example let’s take a look at this just advertised chiropractic practice for sale in Utah.

This Utah all cash practice for sale (listed here) has a photograph included in the advertisement. First off, the ad is terrific, as it includes great detail about the practice being sold. You may even notice that he formatted his e-mail address so that it wouldn’t be stripped. Read my thoughts on that.

What I really like is that the photo shows pretty much what to expect from this chiropractic office. I can see the plate glass window and traffic right out on the street. I can see that chiropractic poster peeling off the wall too. That happens in my office, especially when it gets hot, so we use a blue sticky substance to keep posters firmly mounted.

My point is that if you’re selling a chiropractic practice, I’d strongly advise you include a photo (of either the outside or the inside) so we can get a good visual.

What about hiring associates? That is a category where you may not think a photograph would be important. Personally, I think it would be a great idea to include a photo from inside the office, so that your potential new hires could see what kind of chiropractic practice they’d be working in.

If the chiropractic seminars I’ve been to during the past year are any indication, I’d say it’s pretty clear nearly every chiropractor I know, owns either an iPhone, a Blackberry, or an Android phone. It’s quite easy to use those devices to get good quality photos of items you’re selling, or of your practice environment. You don’t need to hire a professional photographer for classified advertising.

If you’ve got any thoughts or suggestions please let me know.

by Michael Dorausch, DC

This may seem like the oddest title ever for a classified advertising related scam post, but when you see the e-mails chiropractors selling x-ray equipment and adjusting tables were receiving yesterday, you’ll maybe understand why I chose this title. No, I don’t have a sexy red dress for sale, but I’ve taken more than my share of photographs of women wearing them. Being a photographer has its privileges.

When you’re done looking at the blonde woman in the red dress, look back over here so I can share the rest of this post with you. It’s actually important information if you ever post classified ads online (on any website).

Yes, I’ve covered this topic of classified ad fraud, classified ad scams, fraudulent e-mails, many times. I always get reminded of the guy who almost shipped his motorcycle overseas, to someone who turned out to be a classified ad scam artist, until he did a simple Google search and discovered one of my posts. As long as these perpetrators of fraud continue, I’ll keep posting their information.

Classified ad scammers are notorious for poor spelling and really bad e-mail templates, here are a few examples. What I thought was really funny about the following one, was that the e-mails were sent to chiropractors selling clinical equipment. Here’s what they received.

———————-

Hello seller,

I am John Spencer, i’m interested in this dress,i would like to know the condition of this dress and the final asking price because i am buying it as a birthday gift for my Daughter.i want you to know i can only make payment through paypal.I have a shipping agent that will be coming for the pickup in your location. So kindly get back to me with your direct email and paypal email address and phone number so that i can contact you. my direct contact email address is(johnspencer205@yahoo.com)

Pls get back to me as soon as possible so that i can proceed with the payment. Best regards

John Spencer

johnspencer205@yahoo.com
IP Address: 178.140.171.136 <- Russia

———————-

John Spencer (johnspencer205@yahoo.com) is obviously a classified ad scammer. According to the IP addresses  being used (178.140.171.136 and 89.178.145.109) he’s operating out of Russia. Something tells me his name’s not actually John Spencer.

If you’re selling a piece of x-ray equipment and someone e-mails you wanting to buy your dress, things become pretty obvious. It’s not so easy when you’re selling an adjusting table (or even a motorcycle) and someone sends a similar e-mail saying they want to buy your ‘product.’

Here’s the thing, two days prior, a chiropractor  selling a piece of equipment received a similar e-mail. Take a look at this one.

———————-

Hello

I am Amber Portwood, i’m interested in this item,i would like to know the condition of this item and the final asking price because i am buying it as a birthday gift for my Dad.i want you to know i can only make payment through paypal.I have a shipping agent that will be coming for the pickup in your location. So kindly get back to me with your direct email and paypal email address and phone number so that i can contact you.my direct contact email address is(amberportwood201@yahoo.com) Pls get back to me as soon as possible so that i can proceed with the payment. Best regards

Amber Portwood

amberportwood201@yahoo.com

IP address: 109.94.6.0 <- Russia

———————-

What a coincidence that someone named Amber also has an IP address based out of Russia and they’re sending nearly the exact same e-mail request (a birthday gift for a family member). Unfortunately, people do fall for these scams, so I don’t expect the fraudsters are going to stop anytime soon.

If you use classified advertising sites anywhere (not just on planet chiropractic classifieds) be especially aware of individuals seeking to separate you from both your money and your items for sale. Always a good idea to use caution when selling and buying online. Heck, it’s good to use caution and common sense even when selling locally face-to-face.

Many thank you’s to the chiropractors that take the time to forward  me these e-mails so I can get posts created and get IP addresses blocked. Your efforts are much appreciated.

By Michael Dorausch, DC

I woke up to a forwarded e-mail this morning from a chiropractor that was contacted by someone inquiring about a piece of chiropractic equipment he had listed for sale. I’m thankful he quickly forwarded the e-mail to me so that the sender’s information could be investigated. While I’ve covered this topic in what feels like thousands of times before, I don’t expect the practice is ever going to go away completely, so I’ll continue to post reminders now and then.

Bottom line: always be weary of those contacting you online regarding equipment for sale, this is the area scammers target most.

From the activity I see online, it appears that nearly everyone using the classified advertising system is taking the time to read directions, and users are posting/replying responsibly. Still, some have either skipped over reading directions, or continue posting in a way that is not recommended (we do delete and ban accounts regularly). The other day I posted classified ad e-mail address tips for this very reason, since some users prefer to post their e-mail information in the body of advertisements. I strongly advise against this, and the text I’m going to share shows my reasoning why. The following is what was forwarded to me…

williams.diehl001@yahoo.com wrote:
========================================
BELOW IS A REPLY TO YOUR CLASSIFIED AD
========================================

Items posted in Product Categories are frequent targets of Check and Money Order Scams.
We are working to reduce and eliminate fraud. Your assistance and support is appreciated.
If you believe this ad reply is fraudulent, simply forward it to mail@planetc1.com and then
delete it. Do not reply to any suspicious emails. It will only result in more SPAM.

Ad Number: XXXXX
Sender IP: 172.129.226.246

Ad Headline: Spinal Care 2000
Posted To: Chiropractic Classifieds

Hello Seller,

In response to your ITEM posted for sale. I am an agent interested in making an immediate purchase of it.

After several consideration over the advert placed on the website, my client who has really shown interest in it and would want to issue the payment.

But before I proceed on this transaction I will like to ask some question as follows.

1. Is the condition of the ITEM what you have describe it to be ?

2. What is the final asking prize you can go at last ?

3. Do you accept a certified check as a mode of payment ?

4,Can the picture send to me via email for proper view?

Also I would like to restate clearly that this item will be shipped to Australia and I have a shipping agent who would take good care of this. You are to cash the Check you will recieve and deduct the funds for the sales of your item and please have the excess funds sent to the shipping agent in order to schedule the pick up of the item.

All neccesary transfer papers will be dully signed by the shipper on behalf of my client when the shipping agents comes for the pick up of the item .

I will be willing to entertain more of your questions that might arise, please provide your

FULL NAME:
ADDRESS :
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP CODE:
PHONE NUMBER :

So that I can have it forwarded to my client for immediate payment issuance.Looking forward to hear from you.

Regards.
Mr William Diehl
Fleet court ,
fleet st torquay
devon england tq1 1dr x

williams diehl
williams.diehl001@yahoo.com
========================================

Thankfully the chiropractor using our advertising system relied on the built in contact form to be contacted regarding their equipment for sale. Using the form, we are able to capture the sender’s IP address, e-mail address, and other pertinent information. That information can be quickly forwarded to Internet Service Providers, state and local agencies, etc. We can also ban the sender’s e-mail address, making their scamming efforts slightly more difficult. The form also provides us with the information to create this post; so that people selling motorcycles, cars, household appliances, cameras, and all sorts of other items that appear unclassified add websites throughout the world, can be notified that this individual is a scammer.

To those that use the classified ad system, thank you for being a responsible member of the community.

By Michael Dorausch, DC

For quite some time now, it has been the policy on planet chiropractic, that users of the chiropractic classified ad system don’t include their e-mail address in the body of their ads. The reasoning behind this was that scammers, scrapers, and con artists, were grabbing those e-mails and contacting unsuspecting chiropractors. For the most part, the filter that we’ve put in place, has worked just fine. Even better, the majority of users know better than to post their e-mail addresses (for all the world to see) within the body of advertisements. I wouldn’t recommend that on any publicly available website anywhere. That being said, I’ve received several e-mails from those that want to include their e-mail address in the body of ads, primarily so they can receive curriculum vitae’s and resumes for job-related ads. In that case, there are some workarounds, but the user posting does so at their own risk.

Send resume to… screenshot

The screenshot shows the clipped body of a classified advertisement that includes a users e-mail address that has been filtered out. The red arrow shows where people visiting the site can click and send a reply to ad postings. I still strongly suggest that users rely on this system when contacting the posters of advertisements. Personally, I wouldn’t send out my resume or curriculum vitae, until I had a chance to know more about the office or individual I was sending it to.

If you want to post your e-mail address in any way shape or form online, and want to decrease the chances that it’s going to be picked up by a spamming scraper, you may want to do any of the following.

The most common methods are removing the @ symbol and . symbol, and replacing them with something else. As an example let’s use the e-mail address for >> DrMikeDorausch@worldsmostawesomebloggingchiropractor.com. Here are some alternatives…

You can pretty much do anything you want, and from what I’ve seen online, there is little problem arising from being creative. Seriously, in 2011, if someone can’t figure out your e-mail address when changes like those above are made, maybe they don’t have any business communicating with you anyways.

By Michael Dorausch, DC

There is a chance you are reading this post because you’ve received an e-mail, by a person named Daniel Monday, who says they want to buy your stuff. After hosting chiropractic ads for the past 10 years, we’ve discovered that the same scammers visiting our website, go to many others as well. While these posts appear unimportant for our normal readers (my apologies) they’ve reportedly been very helpful in thwarting online scam activity.

It’s been a productive weekend that the planet chiropractic office. We’ve been working on some upgrades to the classified ads system, in order to provide better service to those using the website for selling and buying chiropractic equipment.

Thanks to an incredibly engaged classified ad community, we’ve been able to cut back significantly on fraudulent e-mails reaching our users. Below I am posting and actual e-mail sent by Daniel Monday from his back2streetat40@yahoo.com Yahoo e-mail account.

Take a look at posts such as those regarding Mr. Benson in Nigeria, Mr. Smith Matt, Tom Marley, and Mike Rapp. These are all expected to be the same group of individuals (or even one individual) using different names and different e-mail accounts to target unsuspecting people selling items online.

Here is a reply to someone’s classified ad, from Daniel Monday, with an IP address of 65.49.2.157.

Reading the e-mail, you can see the telltale signs that this is a scam. #1 is that the sender asks whether cashiers checks or postal money orders are excepted as payment. #2 is that the sender mentions using a private shipping company to handle item delivery. Both of these are hallmark signs of online classified ads scams.

===================
Sender IP: 65.49.2.157

Posted To: Chiropractic Classifieds

Hello,
I came across your ad and I’ll like to know the following questions regarding
the ad.
Q#1. How long have you owned it?
Q#2. a) Have you owned
it from new? b) If not how many previous owner?
Q#3.Why are you selling it?
Q#4. In your opinion, what
sort of conditionis it?
Q#5. Any available photo?
Q#6. How much are you asking for it?
Q#7. Do you accept a ( Cashier Check / postal Money Order with cheque)as a
mode of payment.
Q#8. Kindly get back to me with ur FULL NAME,FULL CONTACT ADDRESS,TEL # so
that payment willbe issued and mailed to you.

Note that you dont need to worry about shipping as i have a private shipping
company that will take care of the shipping and delivery of the item once
payment is been received by you.I’ll like to have the response to these
question in your earliest conviniency.Hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks
Daniel

Daniel Monday
back2streetat40@yahoo.com
===================

If you sell stuff online, and you’ve received an e-mail similar to this one, I would contact the webmaster of the site you were using, and forward them all sender information, so they can take action.

By Michael Dorausch, DC

A real estate agent in Amherst, New Hampshire has done something unique when it comes to selling a chiropractic residence/practice. Like many other brokers and chiropractors selling practices online, he posted an advertisement to the chiropracticclassifieds (this link may be deleted after the office is sold, but you can view it here) pages on planetchiropractic.com.

Like the others, he included links to his web site, but he also did something I thought was quite creative. A video of the office and the community was created and posted on YouTube. A link is available to the YouTube video from the classified ad, but I decided to show it here in an effort to provide some creativity for those considering doing the same.

Here is the video in the form of a link, and I’ll also be providing it below, embedded into this post.

I liked the way the video starts from a satellite view. He talks about the area of Peterborough New Hampshire, describes the community, and talks about how many residents live in the area. The home office combination is on a beautiful piece of land, and there’s lots of video footage taking throughout the house, as well as outdoors.

The realtor is Harold “Buddy” Pope, and I think he’s done a great job showing us how one can promote their chiropractic office or property for sale online, using more than just text. I hoped to see more advertisements like this in the future.

By Michael Dorausch, DC

On October 28th, Daria had a planet chiropractic news article which included a screenshot of 32 chiropractic practices being added to classified listings in less than 24 hours. She gave a summary on some of those businesses listed and pointed out that the current number for practices for sale had exceeded 780 businesses. I noticed yesterday that 11 more businesses were listed (by a broker) for sale throughout the United States.

The screenshot here shows an additional 11 practices listed for sale, all are in the United States. That brings the current number 794. This may not be of any interest to most people, but I’m thinking if there are nearly 800 chiropractic businesses for sale, it appears like there’s some great opportunities out there for someone looking to move into an existing practice.

Taking a look at the list, office locations include northern New Jersey, Indianapolis, Austin Texas, west Phoenix, Southern California (Torrance area), North Dallas, Modesto, North Carolina, Gilbert (which is in Arizona), and a practice for sale in Italy.

There is even a single new listing for a new graduate seeking to associate in someone’s office.

With some creativity and good business principles, it looks to me like there’s some incredible opportunities to not only purchase someone’s existing business, but to find the right talent that will provide care for clientele.

It will be interesting to see how listings will look six months from now.

By Michael Dorausch, DC

It’s been a productive weekend that the planet chiropractic office. We’ve been working on some upgrades to the classified ads system, in order to provide better service to those using the website for selling and buying chiropractic equipment.

Thanks to recent activities such as yesterday’s visit from Mr. Benson in Nigeria, and previous visits from Smith Matt, Tom Marley, and Mike Rapp (three or four are suspected to be the same individual), we’ve added some new features that kick in when someone replies to someone else’s posted classified advertisement. Take a look at the screenshot below.

This is a screenshot of the new reCAPTCHA feature we added to the classified ad system. I don’t expect it will completely stop scammers and automated bots from sending e-mails to those with ads posted, but it should slow things down a bit.

Along with the regular form information are two words that need to be typed in in order to continue on (there is also an option for playing audio instead of reading text).

What’s cool about this CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) is that when people fill the information out, they are helping to digitize books.

According to the reCAPTCHA website, there are approximately 60 million CAPTCHAs solved by humans around the world every day. In each of those cases an estimated 10 seconds of human time is spent solving these puzzles. Putting this puzzle work to good use results in more than 150,000 hours of aggregating work done each day. The “solved” puzzles helped to get books digitized for the Web.

When I checked the site earlier today, there was mention that current puzzle solving was helping to digitize old editions of the New York Times. I think that’s pretty cool.

So whether you’re responding to a chiropractic practices for sale advertisement, chiropractic employment, or equipment for sale from a private party, know that you’ll be doing your 10 second part (or more if you’re responding to multiple ads) to help digitize books and other information to be put online.

Just a quick post to alert others regarding activity of a “Mr Benson Raymond” from Nigeria. Daria posted that other day regarding seperating you from your money and it looks as though this character fits the profile well.

Here is the email being sent to people posting classified ads on various websites…

=======

Hello,
I am Mr Benson raymond, I work in  with  a small retailing company.I actually saw the  advert you placed and I will like to know the last offer you want to let it out and gather more info about it and the major reason why you want to sell it, if  it has been damaged in any form or not. as soon as we agree on terms,I will arrange the payment  via check or banks draft.
Thanks,
Regards,
Mr Benson

benson
weaving112@yahoo.com

=======

A Whois Record lookup on emails he sent across our server show the ip address 196.3.183.73 which is based in Abuja, Nigeria. Webmasters may want to add the following IP addresses to their blacklists: 196.3.180.0 - 196.3.183.255

Whois Record Results…
inetnum: 196.3.183.0 - 196.3.183.255
netname: SubTel2
descr: Suburban telecom is an IP Wholesale Provider
country: NG
admin-c: LO1-AFRINIC
tech-c: Oa13-AFRINIC
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: SUBURBAN-MNT
source: AFRINIC # Filtered
parent: 196.3.180.0 - 196.3.183.255

Have a nice day.

By Michael Dorausch, DC

This scam topic must really be getting old for lots of people. Interesting thing though is I’ve received several e-mails from people across United States that were about to get scammed by 419 fraudsters and they fortunately did some research online and came across at least one of the fraud related articles we’ve posted during the past several months. That thanks goes to the community for sniffing out fraud activity.

Early this morning about a dozen people received the same e-mail from a person using a Yahoo.com e-mail account. The e-mail appeared very similar to those sent by the Tom Marley persona and others. Below is a copy of the e-mail…

========================================
BELOW IS A REPLY TO YOUR CLASSIFIED AD
========================================

I just place a look on your item and i am interested
in immediate purchase of this item,but before i proceed
on this transaction i will like to ask some question as follow.

1.What is the condition of the item?

2. Do you accept a ( cheque / money order) as a mode of
payment?

3. What is the final asking prize you can go at last?

4. Will you let our shipping company to come to your
house for the pick up of the item cos we don’t want you
to worry yourself about the shipping of the item.

5. Will you be able to send the remaining
fund back to the shipping company via western union
money transfer same day you receive and cash the
Cheque for the arrangement of the home pick up from your house.

6.if okay You are to send your
NAME,ADDRESS,CITY,STATE,POSTCODE,TEL #
to mail out the payment.

Regards.
Smith

smith matt
smith_matt110@yahoo.com

To Avoid Potential Scams & Fraud View Here First
==========

Whether you’re selling chiropractic adjusting tables, motorcycles (apparently these scammers have been targeting motorcycle owners in the U. S.), or any other item online, continue doing your research before you conduct any transactions.

All e-mails from this user were tracked back to IP address 64.62.138.97 and a DNS proxy service known as Dynaweb. Classified ad website administrators are encouraged to check log files for traces of DynaWeb activity.

By Michael Dorausch, DC

I’m on a roll. Turns out the subluxated fraudbag that targeted e-mails at the classified ad community has been doing so on other web sites as well. We received an e-mail yesterday from someone that was selling a motorcycle in a US state that was contacted by the same individual e-mailing users on our classifieds site.

Thanks to the participation of the community we were able to post information about the suspected fraud. While it’s frustrating for those seeking to sell items to others, it’s motivating to receive e-mails from people that have gained from reading the information we’ve collectively presented. You guys rock!

I got into this in major detail just last week with my 1000 mentions of fraud and phishing but I’m on a roll and I intend to continue posting this info (even if it only helps one other person).

On the topic of fraudulent e-mails when purchasing classified items posted online, here is some communication that should raise flags…

Hi,
Thanks for the mail and the content is well understood, the information has been receiveed, the check will be mailed out by tommorrow by my creditor and i will notify you with the tracking number of the payment….please note that the check will come with excess funds which will be used for the shipping and handling of the item,all you need to do once u get the check is to take it to bank and cash it instantly and then withdraw the excess funds and have it sent to the shipping company that will be contacting you once the payment is been received by you.

Notice the mention of excess funds, third parties, and shipping companies? This has scam written all over it.

Here is more from the same individual…

Thanks for the mail, the payment will be mailed out by monday, hope u understand that the check is going to come with excess funds so all you need to do is to get the check cashed deduct the funds for the item and then have the rest funds wire to the shipping company that will take care of the pickup of the item, thanks and i hope these is clear to you.

OK, sometimes I have bad spelling too, so that might not be a dead giveaway. But the mention of excess funds and the request to wire money to a shipping company is classic fraud language.

Regardless of what web sites you use for classifieds and / or auctions, pay attention and stay alert to the possibilities that often times the first person contacting you is the fraudulent scammer. They watch for items to be posted on web sites and they move quickly, hoping to separate you from your items before you catch on to what they are up to.