Wellsphere Health Blogger Scam

Back in September 2008, I received an email which is at the bottom of this post. It was the most convincing email I have ever received that actually was a scam. It wanted me to join Wellsphere and become a blogger using the content I have already published on this blog.

As it turned out several months ago, I somehow missed this, anyone who signed up for Wellsphere turned over full rights to their published work.

I encourage you to read the following posts for more detailed information. I am really quite upset that an MD would defraud thousands of health bloggers.

I never was tricked into signing up with Wellsphere, but I did think about it as the email was very hard to turn down.

http://www.getbetterhealth.com/how-the-health-blogosphere-was-scammed/2009.01.28

http://www.chronicbabe.com/articles/797/

——-

Sept 25, 2008

Hi ,

I was searching online for the best health bloggers when I discovered your blog at blog.teethremoval.com. I want to tell you I think your writing is great. My name is Dr. Geoff Rutledge, and I’ve taught and practiced Internal and Emergency Medicine for over 25 years at Harvard and Stanford medical schools. I’m also the Chief Medical Information Officer at Wellsphere (www.wellsphere.com), where we are building a network of the web’s leading health bloggers — and I think you would be a great addition.

Wellsphere is a fast growing, next-generation online platform that is revolutionizing the way people find and share health and healthy living information and services. Our platform connects millions of users each month with the valuable insights and knowledge from health leaders and knowledgeable writers like you.

We recently launched a new series of health communities, and I would like to invite you to be a featured blogger in the Dental Health Community. By joining our network of over 1400 of leading health and healthy living bloggers, you will be in great company, and will benefit from exposure to the expanded audience of the Wellsphere community (now over 2 million visitors per month, and growing fast). When you join, we also will feature you on our very popular WellBlog (http://www.wellsphere.com/blog.s), with a link back to your blog.

We will republish the postings you’ve already written for you, and feature them not only on the  community pages of the site, but also on our WellPages, where we give users a comprehensive view of expert information, news, videos, local resources, and member postings on topics you write about. Your profile page on the site will give you special status as a featured blogger on Wellsphere. If you are an active contributor, we also will feature your posts on our homepage at www.wellsphere.com.

By connecting to the Wellsphere platform, you will greatly expand the audience for your postings and attract additional readers to your blog. Also, your posts will link back to your blog, so you will benefit from Wellsphere’s high ranking and large readership interested in your topic, which will give you more traffic, additional relevant audience, and a higher ranking for your blog.

If you would like to be a featured blogger on Wellsphere, just send me an email to Dr.Rutledge@wellsphere.com. You can see examples of our WellPages on our live site. For example, take a look at http://www.wellsphere.com/wellpage/diabetes

Good health,

Geoff

—

Geoffrey W. Rutledge MD, PhD

Chief Medical Information Officer

Wellsphere, Inc.