First digg scam outed? Please help me confirm.

Filed under: Netscape

Update: Mulife does an excellent job of explaining exactly how this mess started. In this case it wasn't a straight up cash for diggs situation, but rather some offers for free service (which were not taken). SuperNova17 did have his account banned, he did do a redirect (a big no-no), and digg did reinstate him after he apologized. That being said, I still have a PR firm that claims they are paying people cash, and the CNET reports are still out there. Clearly this is one of a number of instances and the best thing we can do as a community is to put sunlight on them. best j

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Well, this cost me $100... but it *might* be worth it.

NOTE: I don't have any of the facts confirmed here yet. I'm looking for verification of these facts from anyone else who got the email, digg, JetNumbers.com Kevin Rose, and SuperNova 17. THIS IN UNCONFIRMED. CONSIDER THIS INFORMATION INCORRECT UNTIL WE ALL GET CONFIRMATION.

I was just told--and I don't know if this is true yet--that digg's number five user named SuperNova17 took the offer, was caught by digg, and had his account killed. He later apologized and had his account restated.

SuperNova17 did submit a story bout JetNumbers here:

http://digg.com/tech_deals/JetNumbers_New_Approach_to_Virtual_Telephone_Numbers

The story links to http://elagora.com/numbers.html which redirects to JetNumbers.com.

Note: Do you know anyone doing this on Netscape or Reddit?

Here is the reported email--again, this could all be a scam.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nathan Schorr <nathan@jetnumbers.com>
Date: Dec 7, 2006 12:15 PM
Subject: Using your ranking on Digg, work with us and get somethng out of it
To: [A TOP DIGG USERS]

My name is Nathan Schorr and I have been recently promoted as the Business Development Manager at JetNumbers Inc. Our company sells virtual telephone numbers. My job is to get people interested in our site, but my problem is that I have not had any success. While searching the web for possible business partners, I started to read about Digg and its popularity...that's where you come into play.

Given the fact that you are the number 8 user at the website, I am contacting you to see if I can somehow recruit you to start getting the word out about our service.

Please check us out, see what you think and get back to me.

Regards,

Nathan Schorr

Business Development Manager

JetNumbers Inc.

www –dot- jetnumbers –dot- com

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, another digg user has the JetNumbers story as their #1. Odd story to have as your number one huh?

... and here is who dugg the story. We don't know who out of these group were paid and who just decided to vote for it based on merit.

Tags: digg, jetnumbers, netscape, supernova17

Dec 12th 2006 12:24AM
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1. Jason,

Great scoop!

Although, kind of funny:

"THIS IN UNCONFIRMED. CONSIDER THIS INFORMATION INCORRECT UNTIL WE ALL GET CONFIRMATION."

Newsflash: Jason Calacanis is a transgendered marsupial...consider this information incorrect until we all get confirmation. ;)

In any case, very interesting stuff. It very well may be the case that you were actually *late* to the game in terms of paying submitters, but you did it in an ethical way. Kudos.

Posted at 12:47PM on Dec 12th 2006 by doug

2. Jason, why are you so "obsessed" with what's happening at your ex-competitor?

Sites like digg will not work in the long term, that is no secret.

Posted at 12:53PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Klaus

3. Klaus: I'm not obsessed with digg... I'm obsessed with the entire social news space. :-)

This is really interesting stuff in my mind.

Also, I love digg, Netscape, and reddit. These sites are the future.

Posted at 1:18PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Jason

4. I don't know if this helps any but a digg user who goes by "MalShootsFirst" and whose name is Nathan also dugg that story as did his friend "flicknut." Here is a google cache of this relation. Also, LinkedIn has a profile for a person claiming to be Nathan Schorr and lists him as an account executive at JetNumbers (could have been created by anyone though). Of course this doesn't prove anything but it does support this claim of yours.

Posted at 1:18PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Mark B

5. I don't know if this helps any but a digg user who goes by "MalShootsFirst" and whose name is Nathan also dugg that story as did his friend "flicknut." http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:4HJVMlHvCPwJ:digg.com/users/MalShootsFirst/friends/dugg+jetnumbers+nathan&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a. This is a google cache of this relation. Also, "flicknut" is not longer a Digg user.

Also, LinkedIn has a profile for a person claiming to be Nathan Schorr and lists him as an account executive at JetNumbers (could have been created by anyone though). Of course this doesn't prove anything but it does support this claim of yours.

Posted at 1:22PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Mark B

6. Regardless of how this turns out, I think Kevin needs to initiate some kind of conversation with the "top" digg users, or possibly the whole community. These are the situations that almost require some kind of instant comment or response from those in charge, otherwise the user base gets a talkin' and anything said later looks like spin.

Posted at 1:42PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Andrew

7. Haha, great scoop my ass.

Why is there even a blog post about this. Yes, I submitted the story, but only because I thought the service was legit. I can share my entire email exchange if anyone wants it, drop me a request at supernova17@gmail.com. I was offered an affiliate link and minutes from their service, however I never accepted either.

Also, if anyone has enough motivation they can look through all the stories I've ever submitted and see that this is the only service I've ever promoted.

I'm so glad I didn't sell my soul to AOL, take those $12k and buy someone else.

Posted at 1:52PM on Dec 12th 2006 by supernova17@gmail.com

8. Just wanted to stop the witch hunt before it goes out of hand. I see people are starting to rat users out for digging that story. It's very common that people digg each others' stories, especially when you're a top user and have many friends. So if supernovawhatever did get paid for the submission, it's one thing, but don't go crucifying everyone who dugg this story.
Boy, am I happy I didn't digg this one!

Posted at 1:53PM on Dec 12th 2006 by charbarred

9. flicknut was a multihomed user. In other words, it was a group user account used to submit stories and each user's individual account was used to digg it.

I had not heard that flicknut was banned from digg, but I had been making a stink about this in the comments of the digg stories posted by flicknut.

Posted at 1:58PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Gabriels

10. >These sites are the future.

We will see, IMHO these sites will develop to simple re-blogging sites that pay/employ a few dozen "users" - all others will only be allowed to influence the KIND of stories that are published.

I asked you before, what is the point in employing 30 people at Netscape to fight the gaming and fraud of the system?

How can this compete with sites like Techmeme?

And what is the point of using digg when there are already excellent blogs out there that cover your interests.

IMHO blogs and blog networks that offer more user participation are the future.

Posted at 2:11PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Klaus

11. If you would have read the blogs of your (former) top navigators you had already know this :
http://themulife.com/?p=406

And in that digg, there is even a referrer to a comment written by supernova : http://digg.com/tech_news/Another_Top_Digger_Gets_Banned#c4187673
or read the comment here : http://themulife.com/?p=400#comment-4713

Jason, why oh why does someone who has that many things to share/could tell us that many things, always have to go for the drama?
Jeebus, sometimes you sound like my neighbour's wife.

Share with us what you really have learned in the corporate environment, tell us what you think could be further ways to improve the blogosphere and the internet all together.
Always happy to hear/read that stuff, the other stuff obviously I and many others read it at digg way before you even pay for.

No bad feelings, you know that I think black-white for you. ;-)

Posted at 2:34PM on Dec 12th 2006 by franky

12. Jason
I thought your promise was to keep tips confidential? Wouldn't this line in the email give it away:
"Given the fact that you are the number 8 user at the website"
No 8 user, and we know it's a Top Digg user, it's not hard to find out who is No 8 on Digg.

Posted at 4:12PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Duncan

13. Great snooping day transgender marsupial! SEO and social network gamers are idiots. I believe that your intentions are true so keep up this interesting dig(pun intended).

Posted at 4:26PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Kevron

14. I think you should really verify all the information before unleashing this.

Posted at 4:37PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Dave Davis

15. JetNumbers.com sure is getting a lot of free publicity today! Guess their Digg manipulation scheme paid off in the end. ;)

Posted at 5:48PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Dave Zatz

16. Actually, it's probably a good thing someone is interested in this. It almost has to be happening as lucrative of an opportunity as it is, it's probably best to get it out into the open.

Posted at 10:39PM on Dec 12th 2006 by Rick

17. Jason, I'm amused at how you twisted this story. We all get aprroached, but the sad part is I can't be bought.... ever. Try me, you have my e-mail, 1 million maybe 2 million, believe it or not we police our own at digg. I've made my money, well, even a few times over. I Dugg the story because it sounded interesting, not because I'm gettin' paid. Check my posts, really digg deep into my digg history and try to find a story I've posted because I've been bought. Bring it on, and be careful not to bite the hand that feeds you, it might come back to bite you in the ass.

Posted at 2:06AM on Dec 13th 2006 by Zaibatsu

18. Jason thanx for this great story I have written about it in my German Blog.

And I also want to say and beg you that you will bring more sunlight on it, more as it is at this moment.

What is that for a conclusion that there was never the talk about money and therefore Karim get unbanned.

A free number in a country of your choice is that not a good offer that let a lot of people think about to do something whether they know that it is wrong.

I have been banned by Digg because of I have sent my own posts to them and every mail I send to digg team for begging to get unbanned hasn't been answered till now.

And the fact is that I didn't know about it that it isn't allowed to send my own post there, I haven't got second chance.

And this guy got a lucrative offer and made something which is Scamming and he get unbanned in a short period of time, that is very uncool I think and therfore I wish you good look by lightening this story.

Thanx a lot for the truth!

Posted at 4:10AM on Dec 13th 2006 by Stefan Julius

19. Let's face it, digg is mostly a spam site

Posted at 12:17PM on Dec 13th 2006 by Peter Granger

20.
Great article!!! Good discovery. Did you get this guy's (Nathan) side of the story, because i have read all over the place about how JetNumbers tried to contact people and that maybe it was a phishing scam...but not one person asked him i guess...
Also from a moral point of view, you should maybe post an opinion about what JetNumbers tried to do; if you really look at the situation, it seems that JetNumbers just tried a new type of marketing scheme and it was up to the user if they wanted to take advantage of the situation.
Keep up the good reporting.

Posted at 1:15PM on Dec 13th 2006 by Nestor Rodriguez

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