Ben (Behnam) Behrouzi, the CEO of Dotnext Inc., and his startups (namely ePerks and LeapFish) had been often at the center of my attention in the past three years. I had good intentions to abandon the topic in the past. But there was always something in the back of my mind that prevented me from staying away from Mr. Behrouzi and his schemes. Just little over two years ago, the CEO of LeapFish and Dotnext Inc., being dissatisfied with the outcome of the lawsuit he brought against me, he purchased two domain names (vladzablotskyy.net and vladzablotskyy.org) with a clear intent to damage my reputation – a threat that Mr. Behrouzi has never carried out. As of today it appears that Mr. Behrouzi will not be renewing the above mentioned domain names. This of course leaves me with no reason to continue my coverage of Mr. Behrouzi and his “startups”. Should the above mentioned domains be renewed, I will make sure to post an update.

Happy, healthy and prosperous 2011 everyone!

UPDATE May13, 2010: Things pertaining to LeapFish.com, their founders and management, along with related startups are no longer of interest to me, therefore no further comments are allowed on this post. There are also more reliable sources out there (such as Better Business Bureau) to help you make an informed decision about LeapFish.

***You may also want to know that the Law Firm of Daniel Bakondi, in San Francisco, CA, is investigating a possible Class Action Law Suit Against LeapFish.

Ben Behrouzi, the CEO of dying ePerks and LeapFish has registered VladZablotskyy.org domain:

UPDATE: Thanks to a tip from the regular reader I have learned that ePerks and LeapFish CEO Ben Behrouzi has also registered VladZablotskyy.net:

So what does Behrouzi plans to do with these domains? Probably nothing befitting a CEO of a company. I am curious nevertheless.

In the comments below Behrouzi indicated that he purchased domains to document the “real Vlad Zablotskyy”- smells like cybersquatting to me.

This is not the first time Mr. Behrouzi threatened to ruin some one’s reputation. Back when he worked at at Reply.com, Mr Behrouzi left this message on the phone of his employee:

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Update: Bellow are the links to more LeapFish reviews.

A Brief Tale Of Sleaze- LeapFish should take Rob Shore’s advise and never lie to their potential clients.

Three Scams and Rip-Offs to Report – Kit Eliot describes his “encounter” with LeapFish.

Leapfish Review – Is LeapFish.com an opportunity, scam, or just another meta search site?- short but to the point rundown about advertising on LeapFish- needless to say the author passes on the opportunity to advertise or invest in LeapFIsh.

LeapFish Affiliate Program. Can Giveaways Keep It Afloat?- a post by yours truly. I thought it was a mistake to link their affiliate program to the basic function of their website- the search function. Their widgets also contain SEO friendly links back to their website- my conclusion their affiliate program is really a linking scheme to gain rankings in search engines.

LeapFish.com advertisers beware – yet another account of dealing with LeapFish sale people.

Following our initial review of ePerks, one of the comments was quiet negative:

I’m a Real Estate agent in Northern Virginia and was duped into buying into this ePerks thing. I bought two zip codes and they have taken the money out of my account and now I can’t find a single ad for them, and they refuse to answer any of my e-mails. I’m afraid this is just another flash in the pan, get rich quick scheme to rob Agents of their hard earned money. Every year new ones pop up with great hype about how they are going to flood you with clients and all you get are large bills and no responses.

And then this YouTube (see below) video showing a Realtor hit by a truck- evidently meant to convey a message that a potential customer will get a better deal using a Realtor listed on ePerks. However Realtors are/were one of the first after whom founders and creators of ePerks “went after”. So what do you think about ePerks? Is it a gem? Is it a scam? Please leave your comments below. Here is the video:

UPDATES:
This post is long overdue for some updates. The Brabus Ventures (now DotNext Inc) lawyer Ron Cook sent me a cease and desist threat on February 13, in which he accused me for having “fabricated” all the negative comments on this post, and of course he was very upset over the fact that I challenged few “positive” comments made most likely by the employees of ePerks. I certainly feel vindicated in this regard, when the astortufrifng on behalf of Brabus/DotNext Inc’s newest startup LeapFish.com became so obvious that the worlds leading technology blog TechCrunch had to block their IPs to stop them from astroturfing.

In June of 2008 Brabus Ventures file a civil claim against me and this blog- the case was settled in October. I have to say a huge thank you to Greg Swan, Andy Beard, Lord Matt, Trace Richardson and hundreds of other bloggers for supporting me during this time. Without you support and spreading the word about my troubles I simply would not have been able to afford an attorney to defend myself.

I have to point out that for over one year comments on this blog post were closed, however the dissatisfied clients continued to express their frustration- out of all websites I would like to point out two in particular – the Ripp Off Report and BBB.org

ePerks Reviews on Ripoff Report:

• Eperks Ripoff Company wanting your money and your commissions!!
• Eperks – BRABUS Ventures Corporation TOTAL LIE AND SCAM Pleasanton California
• Eperks Eperks is very bad company. Don’t trust them. Pleasanton California
• Eperks eperks is a scam! They threaten collection action without providing what they promised Pleasanton California
• EPerks Dba EPerks Real Estate SCAM RIPOFF BEWARE Pleasanton California
• EPerks is a Complete Scam and now they are threatening me
• Eperks Real Estate Service Scam Pleasanton California

However, if you hesitant to believe things written on Ripoff Reprot the BBB.org website has updated their rating of ePerks to Unsatisfactory.

In recent days many agents trying to demand a refund are given an answer that ePerks is to file for bankruptcy and offering a 20% discount. It is very likely that many of these dissatisfied agents are not aware that Brabus/DotNexInc have just launched a new startup called “LeapFish.com”.