Simon Mcleod

I see the Herald has run a front-page story about the dodgy ratbags passing themselves off as Google, a story we covered 3 weeks ago on July 26.

Fraud police are investigating a New Zealand company calling itself GoogleDirectory – set up with no links to the internet giant but which has listed thousands of businesses and state agencies.

The company launched last month, but had been signing on companies since at least May, promoting itself as a new online marketing tool.

Detective Sergeant Aaron Pascoe, of the Auckland central police financial crime unit, said police had received several fraud complaints from businesses.  Read more »

Simon Mcleod hasn’t been a director of SMP Marketing Ltd for very long.  In fact, SMP Marketing Ltd is a new name for Chitosan Financial Limited.

Here is Simon Mcleod’s declaration that he’s allowed to run a company and he’s the right man for the job:

NO GUESSES as to who helped Simon with the paperwork.

No, no guesses, sorry.

Read more »

As we saw from the previous post, the chain of events roughly went like this

1. An entity calling itself googledirectories.co.nz is clearly passing off on Google’s intellectual property
2. They have been highighted as a potential scam by others
3. Former staff have gone on the Internet to complain about not being paid
4. The googledirectories.co.nz site says it is owned by Corporate Consultants & Advisory
5. The Companies Office tell us that the sole director is Simon Mcleod

Ok then.

This piqued my interest:  “On their FB page, SMP Markeing working in conjunction with GoogleDirectory.co.nz to launch NZ largest online directory, you are a joke. SMP are initials for the CEO’s name.”

SMP Marketing?  As in Simon Mcleod…. P?

A Companies Office Search into SMP Marketing shows us one Director

Good old Simon.

But then things get interesting.  What happens when you look into SMP Marketing’s shareholding?

Read more »

You’d think that passing off on Google’s name would get you noticed, but it appears Google Directory is going strong:

“But wait”, you say, “nobody is stupid enough to believe that is Google”.

And you would be right.  But this is what they send out in their spammy emails

Read more »