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Mark Timms is spamming Digg today
Posted by Smartie on January 4, 2008
Timms is back on Digg, spamming his scam. He did this some time ago with MyBowlAd, but as he’s now rebranding his scam to MySuperAd (probably in a very limp attempt to avoid all the bad publicity now permanently attached to MyBowlAd), he posted on Digg again with a very sad statement:
Mark Timms has succesfully raised $105,000 for a 2009 Commercial. Considering it will be 2.7 mill, he’s got a long way.”With Digg’s support this will go viral and once the AP picks up on it, I will sell out in a couple days! Less than 200,000 hits and 7 deals makes for pretty good statistics! With grassroots support of Digg, it’ll be easy!”
Notice how the sum of money he claims to have scammed out of ’sponsors’ (who haven’t received a THING in return for their money) has changed? Now it’s $105,000, but previously it was $150,000. And his website (before he HID it) was showing $75,000 worth of sales. Not too good with figures, is he? Hmmmm.
The person who made this comment:
The “winner” from the previous contest that never happened seems pretty pissed off about this:
Listed this url in their comment:
http://mediamorgue.blogspot.com/2008/01/superbowl-ads-and-internet-scams.html
And was a fellow contestant in the FuelMyBlog contest that I won. Remember that one?
Here’s a brief rundown on what happened, for all the latecomers to this tale. I’m getting a constant increase in traffic here. Many people are looking up Evan White and Mark Timms on Google, so you’re obviously wanting to know more about these two characters.
I entered a contest in May on FuelMyBlog.com - the prize was a trip to LA to witness the making of a commercial that was to be aired during Superbowl 2008, by a company called MyBowlAd LLC. At the time, MyBowlAd comprised of three principals; Mark Timms, Evan White and Robert Howie. Mark Timms has confirmed this structure in writing. Legally, that makes all three liable for any debts incurred by the company.
The hair brained scheme was to have 90 tshirts printed up with 90 company logos, walk around and be filmed. ‘Curious’ viewers would then (in theory) go to the MyBowlAd site for more information and there be bombarded with ads for these ninety companies.
90 logos in 30 seconds. Of completely unknown companies. You think you’ll remember any of them? No? Well, these three ‘geniuses’ thought it would be a great way for tiny companies who couldn’t afford the $2.7million required for a 30 second slot, to get their message out to the masses during the Superbowl.
Anyway, what did I care what it was about. I live in Australia and have always wanted to see America, and who wouldn’t knock back a free trip? So I entered, and after there was a vote off, I won. I had Evan White contact me initially, then start avoiding my emails as I got suspicious about the distinct lack of information about the prize, and the unprofessional website that showed me this little project wasn’t even close to being successful. They needed to raise at least $2.7m (not once did they actually factor in the expense of making the commercial, including having a large number of participants flown in from all over America, Canada and myself from Australia, plus filming, editing etc) and appeared to have only sold $75,000 worth of spots, to five companies.
I started discussing this on VoteForTheWorst, where I am a member, and the Worsters and myself started investigating MyBowlAd and these three guys. We found out a lot of disturbing facts. Such as the fact of Mark Timms attempting to be a real estate investor and ending up losing in foreclosure court numerous times, dating back to 2001. Evan White taking money from Timms and disappearing for months on end. White being affiliated with porn and spammers. White promoting illegal substances on his website. Timms using spam to promote the MyBowlAd site all over the web. Howie deleting the website and all traces of it on his own site. Then after Timms rebranded MyBowlAd to MySuperAd, breaching international copyright laws by using 21 multi national company logos without their permission, in a demo commercial he placed on his new website - a free blog called mysuperad.blogspot.com. He can’t even pay for website hosting, and he wants to raise $2.7million dollars?
Timms also joined in on VoteForTheWorst for a while there, and incriminated himself extensively.
Timms was also meant to speak at a function for PR professionals in South Carolina, where he is based, telling them about what a roaring success he is in the industry. Problem there is that he is not. So we let them know and they removed him from the speaking engagement.
White has lost several clients after we started investigating him and publicising what he was up to.
All three have been reported to Australian federal authorities (who have a case file on each of them), as well as state and federal authorities in America, including the FTC, IRS and Department of Justice in California and South Carolina. The complaint listed the fact that these guys ran several contests on different sites as well as FuelMyBlog, including YouTube, knowing full well that they did not have the funding to cover the prize of the plane tickets. This is illegal. They also ran illegal contests by not listing the correct terms and conditions. They also then tried backing out of giving me my prize, another no no.
I have a non existent tolerance to scammers and liars. Timms, White and Howie thought they could continue on their merry way, scamming money out of people for a non existent project, and (I imagine) deeply regret the day I got involved. But instead of dealing with this mess like men, they hide from me and pretend nothing is wrong. Well something is definitely wrong.
It is wrong to rip off people. It is wrong to lie to people. It is wrong to cheat and steal.
Edited to add:
He’s at it again!
He’s posted the text (partially) of an article on AdRants. A site who doesn’t appear to read its comments, as I’ve posted on there before warning them about Timms. Note the multiple entries by Timms below the article.
Yes, Mark Timms is actually this dumb & relentless. Hard to believe, isn’t it.
