AclarnINC.com Holdings, Inc
Scammers

First let me address this.
In order to understand the scam and its size, you need to imagine a spider web.
Each end point of the web on the border, will be for example one website.
Each website offers a product or service.in this case, several sites deal with paid surveys. Others exist simply as "bumpf" or in other words they fill space and make it look like something exists where it does not.
Example: < http://www.hi-shorts.com / >
It comes across as something of a mix of south park online.in truth whatever it was going to be, its an empty shell of a website, which only a few minutes examination shows. Dates, a critical piece of evidence in evaluating any website for "activity" are showing on the main news portion of the website to be around the 2006'es.
Given its 2010 now, I fail to be impressed.
Another example along the exact same lines, just a different approach: < http://www.splitshow.com / >
Here's a big hint. If this was a real-deal, their only video hosting would not be youtube. They would have full HD capability and their own hosting IN ADDITION to, youtube, the main point of youtube to generate marketing and advertisement not to cheaply host their show.
Also looking at dates again, last update was last year. Given yet again, we are well on our way to and well into 2010 now, this yet again fails to impress.
So we have two "bumpf" or space filler website examples. Lets see how they fit into the bigger picture.
Now to the center, so to speak of the web. < http://www.aclarninc.com > is the main website, however that is only one part.
This is the far more interesting portion of their entire 3 page "very successful" business website. < http://www.aclarninc.com/About.html >
I should point out at this time that Aclarn claims to have been in business from present. Yet, anyone who knows ahem jack shit about business, knows that any business that has been around multiple years can afford to take the time to make a multi page website to at least brag about their client list. Fancy graphics, flash media user interface, job opening postings, follow us on twitter, facebook, videos about the business, ect aside.
This is a bad sign already. Further looking at the pictures of the supposed corporate headquarters, or what people assume are pictures of a corporate headquarters, given the web-page you are on. You can see clearly not one single employee, and in fact not one of those pictures are unique at all they could have just as easily been pulled from Google images and may have been photo-shopped as well so only part of the picture that is useful to them is there.
As long as they have high resolution images they can cut things out and re-size the image to whatever they want and make anything look professional enough as long as you don't inspect it to closely.
Google any of their non filler aka "bumpf" websites with their names then a comma and the term "scam" and you find multiple hits.
In short, < http://www.aclarninc.com/About.html > is the link you want. It lists some of the websites this supposedly highly successful company has under its business model / owns.
All of the websites there generally fall into two categories.
Make money online, or crap websites designed and continued to be hosted only for the purpose of filling space and convincing the typical user to believe they run a legitimate business. With one exception, www.socints.com seems to be a late attempt to hop onto the social networking bandwagon.
The making money aspect of www.socints.com is not as straightforward to understand, but with enough hapless unsuspecting users who are "networking" they are also paying the bills of the scammers via their clicks, as long as they are linked to something like clickbank or they lead to "entertainment websites" that harvest personal information hiding behind terms like "Paid Surveys." This would be a good definition for social engineering online.
Most people only go to the about page, and then see a list of websites and automatically think "oh! Ok! They are alright then they have X number of successful businesses under them" or something very close to that.
The reality is the Aclarn people know their internet consumer psychology and know most people evaluate web pages in seconds.in more cynical terms they expect people to be lazy and not look more than skin deep into their background.
Most people glance at that lovely list of links on their < http://www.aclarninc.com/About.html > page and think all is well.
Do some in depth searching and judgment calls and you will find multiple reports here on Rip Off Report, and many hits on search engines involving one of their website-products and the term scam and more.
They have 9 websites, 10 if you include their master website of < http://www.aclarninc.com >
http://www.awsurveys.com / (Paid surveys, or at least they want you to think they are paid.)
http://www.adamsuccess.com / (Useless junk for filling space)
http://www.socints.com / (This is halfway between useless and scam, advertising from this makes them money.)
http://www.cretise.com / (advertising website links for $, known as referral links)
http://www.hi-shorts.com / (useless space filler website)
http://www.moneybumper.com / (A mix of a public favorite websites list and something like clickbank, only it uses your free labor to drive traffic TO a website)
http://www.splitshow.com (More useless junk for filling space, at one point advertisements made them some $ here. The site is dead as a doornail now.)
http://www.surveyking.com / (Another Paid survey site, same theme as other websites very short limited venues for contact and no address, phone fax ect provided.)
http://www.topsurveys.com / (a Tie - In website to go with the scamsters social website called socints.com this serves as a "activity" people can do while awaiting a new response from someone on socints.com in reality this is literally you giving them free information to sell.interestingly enough they seem to have switched tactics here, they list a number of legitimate operations websites at the bottom of topsurveys web pages.)
In conclusion we have several websites here who do make money and likely in a legal way but the money making is largely one sided. If they at all share profits with anyone who works with them its not very often and it qualifies for the term scam. Realistically some people probably do profit MARGINALLY from these web-sites however its not nearly the rate advertised, it makes sense to keep "baiting" people with the promise of just one more survey and you can cash out. Similar to the lure of gambling or lottery tickets.
Social engineering aka making a situation where its socially acceptable to give someone information they could sell either with your knowledge or not. Contrary to popular belief this does not have to happen face to face often social engineering is hidden in the form of entertainment and social networking websites.
I want to make it clear at this point I have not personally been "scammed" by these people however I felt the need to post this lengthy text wall (as some will call it) as a big fat warning. After years of navigating the Internet with plenty of success and being an I.T. Professional I feel it my obligation to expose useless digital crap and meandering morons like these for who they are.
Understand that they hide behind lengthy and long terms of use, likely their ill-gotten gains have allowed them to hire a lawyer or two, or they simply have some legal experience and did it themselves. Their terms of use back users into a corner if you will, while their web-sites do their best to give a "guaranteed impression of success" their terms of use spell out a much different scenario.
In some cases upon termination of a users account either by them or yourself, you are required to and this is a quote from http://www.surveyking.com/disclaimer.html: "Your Liability. You shall indemnify and hold harmless SurveyKing.com and all those related to its immediate operations, including affiliates, from and against any and all losses, expenses, damages, and costs, including reasonable attorneys' fees which result from your misuse of this Site in any fashion, any violation of these Terms, or the failure to fulfill your obligations here. SurveyKing.com may take over the exclusive defense of any claim for which we are entitled to indemnification under this Paragraph.in such event, you will cooperate fully with us. SurveyKing may also terminate this Agreement and your future use of this Site, with or without notice.in the event of termination, the restrictions imposed upon you with respect to material downloaded from the Site, the disclaimers, and limitations of liabilities set forth in this agreement survive. You must return or destroy any previously accessed or archived material within 24 hours of termination." End of quote.
In easier to understand layman's terms this may remind you of a bad dating relationship, legally this terms of use literally in advance states that anything that goes wrong is your fault no matter what. And no matter what "You must return or destroy any previously accessed or archived material within 24 hours of termination." You must destroy the evidence as well, and no matter what they are not to blame, even if they are. Mind you I am not a legal professional, thankfully most people legal professionals or not will tell you these kinds of agreements only stand up to so much.
So, no danger of signing away possession of your "soul", mortgage, house, kids, wife, husband, dog, cat, or anything particularly valuable. It won't stand up in court or to even casual inspection from the police or sheriff either. Whom, even the big banks rely on to successfully repossess many houses. So no worries there.
The bad news is unless serious charges of the felony nature with equally compelling evidence are brought to bear this terms-of-use will effectively shield them from all but the worst legal-shit-storms.
My personal favorite evidence that these are a couple amateur scam artists is in the following link. Http://www.surveyking.com/check.html
The funny part is in the pages heading, where it puts a title for the web page on your browser bars heading in the upper left hand corner? A shockingly professional Untitled Document is what your viewing. Not damning on its own, but its good evidence of sloppy construction of a website.
Also of note on the same page if you hover the mouse over their 2 "join" links they go back to clickbank. Link provided below for research purposes. This is the link on both join buttons on < http://www.surveyking.com/check.html > Please do not click the lower link, as it does result in the scammers earning money from your click. It is provided for research only. It was pulled via viewing page source. This means you see the HTML code, or whatever code is/was used to construct the website. Given the amateur nature of the page it is simple for even a novice to read. < http://www.clickbank.net/sell.cgi? Surveyking/1/SurveyKingDatabase >
Its reasonable to assume at this point they make money based on how many ill informed people they sucker in, if they get you to pay for a "membership fee" is entirely a bonus as far as their business model goes.
Internet advertising works in such a way that they don't even need you to sign up simply clicking the link thinking about it twice and not signing up after you don't want to give them X information about yourself is enough to generate a few cents for them.
As a final word, I did not evaluate each and every website on their network that they admit to owning, however this should be enough for anyone interested to establish their own opinion. I freely admit to being very slanted in my writing and opinion, my objectivity being compromised by an extreme dislike for this kind of "half-legal" scam.
I have no financial motive towards reporting this, and fully expect most users to find this and other reports second, after getting suckered in to some extent first. Don't feel bad these people have years of experience in doing this. As some closing advice I would stay away from any web-sites that are as blatant and forward as to show pictures of money to get you to like them. Real professional corporate websites and operations put people up on their sites, and don't "cut to the chase" by establishing set dollar amounts. Even if that is the only reason your there, they like to skirt around the subject and often the best sites to do surveys with or work for will not offer money directly for everything you do, but gift cards, and prize drawings instead for some work.
This may seem lame at first especially to job seekers in a pinch, who want money. But its also a good sign. Always check out who owns the operation before giving out your personal information. They should have an about us page, or a link to a parent company at the bottom of nearly every web-page.
A good example of a thriving corporate website would be the following: < http://www.luthresearch.com / >
< https://www.surveysavvy.com/ss/ss_index.php? Action=home > Is a good example, notice the Better business breau logo at the bottom? Clicking through to that should lead you to a report of some kind of this website. Also on Lith research'es website we have a physical address, phone number and credit given to the professional web developer company who built their website for luth research, Metal Toad Media.
Interested parties can click through the name metal toad media and find the following website < http://www.metaltoad.com/custom-drupal-development >
This should be where you realize a developing theme, short and sweet websites are more than likely a scam, where as the real deal has a wealth of information for a variety of reasons. Establishing a good impression, they have the money to develop a website with this much content, money to pay a professional development group like metal toad media and lastly a third good measuring stick, they actually have content for you to judge in the first place. No sleazy pictures of money to inspire baser instincts here.
Goodluck and Godspeed out there, the economy may not be brilliant but you need not be scammed either. May the road you take lead you to what you need. Which may not be what your looking for. Lastly, out of concern for privacy I am not signing my real name, if someone with interest wishes to contact me Ripoff Report has my details if someone serious about shutting these people down wants to speak with me. -Drake

Company: AclarnINC.com Holdings, Inc
Country: USA

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