KickstarterForum.org

[FRAUDWATCHMAN]

Summary

UPDATE: Crowd PR has no association with any of these companies. I received a PM from the founder of Crowd PR and an offer of a skype chat. During this chat, I was shown clear evidence that Crowd PR is an active agency producing results frequently. I apologize for my accusations.

In the last week alone, there have been reports here about Crowd PR Guru, Crowd Co, Crowd PR, and Crowd PR Ninja (as well as Crowdfunding PR Ninjas). Following is links to all of those discussions for all to see.

Links about Crowd PR Guru: crowd-pr-guru-is-a-scam-t7935.html
Links about Crowd PR Ninja: anyone-heard-of-the-crowdfunding-ninja-t7773.html
Links about Crowd PR & Crowd Co: crowd-co-is-now-crowd-pr-beware-t7939.html
Links about Crowd PR Angels: is-crowd-pr-angels-legit-t7938.html
Links about Crowd PR: has-anyone-hired-crowd-pr-t11437.html

It seems these companies (or company) is very active as of late. I felt it was necessary to do a full post an round up all the reports and investigate any links between these companies. Due to the similar sounding names, I as well as others in the community have been wondering if there is a connection between all of these companies, and wondering if they are all run by the same person or people. Something of a "group" of companies with slightly different brands who target projects and use the multiple brands to statistically increase their odds of closing a deal. If this is the case, then this "group" is one we all need to beware of as project creators. Evidence is scarce, but based on my research alone I believe there is a way to connect the dots. Following is my analysis of each company in the potential "Group" and any findings that may indicate they are connected. The conclusion section of this report includes a summary of my findings and the strongest evidence of all connections between these companies.

About Crowd PR Guru
There have been at least 2 scam reports on this company in this forum alone, and a very long thread about them in another crowdfunding forum that dates as far back as 2014, see that here: http://crowdfundingforum.com/showthread.php/12490-BEWARE-of-quot-Crowd-PR-guru-quot-SCAM-SCAM-SCAM!

This company is using another company's website (PR Hacker). It is the exact same website and a clone. Based on what I have read online, it is not possible to clone a website unless you have access to the backend of that website. I have read posts that the company they cloned their website from is something of a franchise, where they allow other companies to use their brand association in order to get more customers. Again, this was but a casual mention I read about this so it may or may not be true. Read more about the "parent company" arrangement here: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/13/where-did-national-dessert-day-come-from.html

They may be the exact same company, a franchise, or there is still the chance that they were able to clone their website without proper login credentials. You can see a more in depth report as well as a full domain registrar analysis at the link below. There is also a person who has been posting daily about them online for over 3 years who says this company is also TopLevelPR, and TurnkeyPR. Read my full report about this here: crowd-pr-guru-is-a-scam-t7935.html

Following is the first report I cam across about Crowd PR Guru by the person who has been posting about these companies for years. Dated 2016: https://www.quora.com/Do-you-have-experience-with-Toplevelpr

Notice how their domain says guru, but their whole website says hacker:

guru.png (237.9 KiB) Viewed 4052 times

About Crowd Co
This company has a long and ongoing thread on the forum here, several disgruntled former clients, but there does seem to be some arguing as to if they are actually a scam or not. Here's that thread: http://www.kickstarterforum.org/anyone-used-crowdco-t5431.html

But keep in mind: I reported yesterday that there are 2 companies with the exact same name in the exact same space. Perhaps this is some sort of slip up by the group where they allowed their names to be too similar and people began to catch on to it. A rookie mistake indeed. This easily identifiable naming structure does give credence that multiple brands are being used. A link to that thread about Crowd Co and Crowd PR can be found in the first paragraph of this post. Keep in mind that the link between Crowd Co, Crowd PR, and Crowd PR Guru is based only off of their similar names.

Whois data as well as confirmed threads in this forum show that Crowd Co is based out of Los Angeles, and their domain was created 2013-06-06. This is inline with what their website says and what they have said in other places online about themselves (Crowd Co http://www.crowdco.co). Again though, I want to make it clear that is is just the similar names that are making people wonder if it is the same company as Crowd PR or not. You can see the full report and in depth analysis in my more direct post on this company in the thread here: crowd-co-is-now-crowd-pr-beware-t7939.html

About Crowd PR

UPDATE: Crowd PR has no association with any of these companies. I received a PM from the founder of Crowd PR and an offer of a skype chat. During this chat, I was shown clear evidence that Crowd PR is an active agency producing results frequently. I apologize for my accusations.

There is a recent thread about how Crowd Co has rebranded as Crowd PR, but that post was confirmed to be just speculation due to the similar names (Crowd PR and Crowd Co have the exact same number of letters in their brands). The Crowd PR domain (http://www.crowd.pr), according to official whois registry was created on 2017-06-01. Due to the more recent creation date, it is quite possible that this company is a rebrand. The names are eerily similar as well, and they are even similar to Crowd PR Guru and Crowd PR Angles. The registrant contacts are different (compared to Crowd Co), but domain registrars allow you to enter any info you want into those. This company has shown up in the same posts by the disgruntled former of client of Crowd PR Guru who has been posting for 5 years. Here is one of those posts from 2016 where Crowd PR Guru, TopLevelPR and TurnkeyPR are all claimed to be the same company: https://www.reddit.com/r/Crowdfunding/comments/4kzbqg/crowd_pr_guru_aka_toplevelpr_is_scamming/

I think it is even the same person who has setup this website http://www.crowdpr.review which is just a website that has a few sentences of text saying that Crowd PR is not real (note the Crowd PR confirmed website is http://www.crowd.pr).

Due to the length of time this person has been posting and possible instability of the poster, I do not consider this to be proof but I do consider this to be something of a potential link between these agencies. Although this company has not been around for 5 years it is quite possible they are indeed a rebrand of other agencies like Crowd PR Guru and Crowd PR Ninja. Also, this company does show up in a thread on a different crowdfunding forum about Crowd PR Guru, which is another potential connection (see the link above to the crowdfunding forum post about Crowd PR Guru etc.) I do think the mention is from the same person who has been posting for years where their posts include all of the other companies (or company).

About Crowd PR Ninja
This company has been proven to also go by the name of Crowdfunding PR Ninjas according to whois data. Here we have clear evidence of rebranding. This company does the same thing as all of the other companies mentioned here, which is another dead give away of the connection in both naming and type of service. Their whois data includes the exact same contact info and company LLC names, so it's safe to say without a doubt that these 2 are the same companies operating behind different but similar brand names. There are confirmed reports on this forum of these ninja companies scamming, see here: scammed-by-crowd-pr-ninja-aka-crowdfunding-pr-ninjas-t7936.html

Here is the ninja site for all to see:

ninja.png (239.68 KiB) Viewed 4052 times

Conclusion
The first red flag here is they all have the same name, and the same kind of service is provided. We have found whois matches for Crowd PR Ninja and Crowdfunding PR Ninjas. There is also people who claim to have worked with Crowd PR Guru, TopLevelPR, and TurnkeyPR, and claim that these 3 are the same companies (see Crowd PR paragraph about for link). The link between Crowd Co and Crowd PR based solely on their similar names.

Wired has a great article about avoiding scams that is a must read if you are considering hiring any of these companies, see that here. I applied the same methods mentioned in the article during my research here and it helped me tremendously. I highly recommend any project creators do the same thing when evaluating companies which are not mentioned by the community here, because new agencies crop up all the time and agencies rebrand all of the time. Here is that article in Wired for you to read: https://www.wired.com/2015/04/one-companys-quest-save-crowdfunding-scammers-flakes

[trent.palo.smith]

Your claim that Crowd PR is the same company as Crowd PR Guru just because they have Crowd in their name is insane. Crowd PR is a big company and I'm sure lots of small companies like to copy their brand.

Their websites are nothing alike. Crowd PR Gurus website even says "PR Hacker" as their company name:
http://crowdprguru.com/

Crowd PR actually has a professional website:
https://crowd.pr/

Plus those PR domains are not cheap.

I posted in one of the threads you mentioned yesterday. I think you're probably right about Guru and Ninja using different websites and names, but again you're just saying all of the other ones are all the same company just because they have the typical naming scheme?? I've checked references on both Crowd Co and Crowd PR and no one mentioned they were the same company.

But that would be weird if they were actually the same, and I don't see the point in doing that because it would limit the number of references they had, but I guess you could make the argument that it could increase the number too. It just seems like too much work and not enough pay off for someone to do all of this.

[littleguy101]

If Crowd PR will not work for shares in your company instead of actual money, then they are not worth working with. Crowd PR and any pr agency who will not work for shares in your company (stocks, bonds, etc) is not a real marketing agnecy then.

A big conspiracy just to scam us all out of all our money, that's what this is! This is why I never even consider working with anyone unless they accept payment all on the backend in the form of class b stocks.

Never ever ever consider anyone else. Ever. What a load of garbage. Every marketing person on earth is a scam as far as I am concerned. Even marketing itself is one big giant scam. None of those record setting campaigns ever did any marketing, they just launched and it worked out! So if that's what the best of the best do, then why should we do anything different? Focus on your product and quit messing around with marketing. It's all a load of scams and frauds anyways.

[danishlatif853]

I am sure of it too. We will be sure not to fall for the scam. Same name is the same name and can't be trusted. If they don't want to sound like a scam then change the name, it is not hard to do. I see that the website does not match the domain either and I wonder who would fall for such a thing? They must not be good at research or very smart for doing that. For my campaign, we will be smart and look at every one of them all the way before hiring anyone at all. And we will never pay upfront ever. Only the good and the best are able to work for nothing upfront, because then results are guaranteed. I need guaranteed results and I will be sure to avoid all of these scams mentioned here. Everyone else should do the same.

I will say that I think PR is a scam compared to facebook Ads. Ads are guaranteed but with PR you pay money and nothing happens at all. Plus you can do that yourself, you don't need anyone else. You can even do ads yourself. We have chosen to keep everything to our own team, its the only way of trust and the only way of guarantee success.

[FRAUDWATCHMAN]

trent.palo.smith, you forget that there is a person posting online for several years who claims that crowd pr guru, crowd pr, toplevelpr and turnkey pr are all the same company. So it's more than just the similar sounding names. But I personally think all the names are way too big of a coincidence. It looks like literally every company in the crowdfunding market has unique names except for this group.

I think given all the evidence it was worth mentioning to the community, and letting them draw their own conclusions based on the facts that I have outlined. Crowd PR Guru literally uses the same website has PR Hacker and that is more than just speculation, see the image above that I posted please.

UPDATE: Crowd PR has no association with any of these companies that have Crowd in their name. I received a PM from the founder of Crowd PR and an offer of a skype chat. During this chat, I was shown clear evidence that Crowd PR is an active agency producing results frequently. I apologize for my accusations.

[trent.palo.smith]

trent.palo.smith, you forget that there is a person posting online for several years who claims that crowd pr guru, crowd pr, toplevelpr and turnkey pr are all the same company. So it's more than just the similar sounding names. But I personally think all the names are way too big of a coincidence. It looks like literally every company in the crowdfunding market has unique names except for this group.

I think given all the evidence it was worth mentioning to the community, and letting them draw their own conclusions based on the facts that I have outlined. Crowd PR Guru literally uses the same website has PR Hacker and that is more than just speculation, see the image above that I posted please.

Yeah I know and if you read my post you would see that I agree with you about the guru website. I think anyone who spends 5 years making negative posts everyday about a company has to be kind of crazy though.

[FRAUDWATCHMAN]

Just to clarify that further. The first 4 years of posts form that person included the names of Crowd PR Guru, ToplevelPR, and TurnkeyPR. Then sometime late last year they began to include Crowd PR. So yes, I think it's important to take all of this with a grain of salt. I do agree that this person may not be the most credible, because with 5 years of time they could have filed a lawsuit in small claims court which would be more effective than posting on reddit etc every day. But on the other hand, there must have been something that set this person off on this trajectory of daily posts.

UPDATE: Crowd PR has no association with any of these companies that have Crowd in their name. I received a PM from the founder of Crowd PR and an offer of a skype chat. During this chat, I was shown clear evidence that Crowd PR is an active agency producing results frequently. I apologize for my accusations.

[BeetBlueJohn]

Although I am a bit biased because my day job is with a large ad agency, I am certain that marketing as a whole is not a scam, and it's actually the only way to make money off of a product or service. Those big campaigns you see don't tell everyone what they were doing for marketing, and it's not smart to tell the world that because it makes the product seem less magical.

But as a project creator I can testify to the fact that every company that sends you an email seems like a scam. There is an only saying in gambling that it's easier to win when you're not using your own money. It's because when your emotions get into play when you are taking risks you are likely to get scared and make mistakes. And I have been guilty of that as much as the next person.

But this is interesting research here I see. But I doubt they would benefit much from using different brands if all the brands sounded the same. I know of giant ad and pr agencies like Ketchum and Edelman who make billions of dollars a year and they all own tons of other agencies. But they don't all have Ketchum or Edelman in the name, they are all totally unique brands. I know they do this because some agencies can be alot like products. When you go to the grocery store for example, you have 10 different brands all selling the same paper towell. Some people are attracted to paper towells that have different looking logo's or a more folksy feel to them, it's just the way it is. But I don't think a company would benefit at all if all the brands were similar, because then they would miss out on certain kind of customer profiles who are more attracted to specific queues and spirits of brands.

I really doubt it's the same company behind all of these brands. There's really no benefit to it with similar brands, and it's not like the crowdfunding market is even that big, most projects are junk and there are a finite amount of projects that are launched each day.

[boygeniuswonder]

I was scammed by crowd pr guru!

my post crowd-pr-guru-is-a-scam-t7935.html

http://crowdprguru.com/
https://prhacker.com/
https://www.crowdfundingninjas.com/
https://crowd.pr/
http://crowdco.co/

[FRAUDWATCHMAN]

Hope you saw my post in your thread over there. Do you mind sharing more about what happened? We are trying to asses if these are all the same companies or not. Was it Crowd PR Guru you hired, or did you speak with all of the other companies as well?

UPDATE: Crowd PR has no association with any of these companies that have Crowd in their name. I received a PM from the founder of Crowd PR and an offer of a skype chat. During this chat, I was shown clear evidence that Crowd PR is an active agency producing results frequently. I apologize for my accusations.