Speaking of media companies that give a higher priority to advertisers than their readers (see yesterday’s post), the Employment Guide is still running ads for work-at-home scams and bogus job opportunities. These sham companies, who thrive in part because of the blind-eye turned by second-rate publications that desperately need the advertising revenue, do nothing but steal money from people. Dominion Enterprises (formerly Trader Publications), which publishes the Employment Guide in about 55 markets around the country, apparently has no regard for its readership and will take money from any advertiser, no matter how corrupt, fraudulent, or criminal that advertiser may be. $5,000 to stuff 1,000 envelopes?!? And placing a weak disclaimer next to these ads does nothing to absolve Dominion of their guilt. The Employment Guide is, without question, aiding and abetting these hacks that prey on uninformed consumers.
The postal ad is a particularly egregious example. This company has been running the same scam for years, charging $24.99 for an application form from the U.S. Postal Service that is freely available on a variety of federal government web sites. How this guy has stayed out of jail is beyond me, but the fact that the Employment Guide publishes his ads week after week in all their publications, ignoring complaints from readers and with full knowledge of what is going on, constitutes a horrendous dereliction of responsibility. It’s one thing to run ads that annoy or even offend your readers. It’s an entirely different league of disservice to run ads that facilitate criminal or borderline criminal behavior against your readers. The Employment Guide’s management should be tarred and feathered for their negligence. Or perhaps, seeing as how the Employment Guide could barely fill 8 pages in its Twin Cities paper this week (during peak recruitment advertising season, by the way), the publisher’s advertisers are taking matters into their own hands. It’s about time.