One Injured four arrested in parking lot altercation.

This headline, (or a similar one), is going to be coming to a newspaper and TV station near you, very soon.

Two companies, Data Network Affiliates (DNA) and Narc That Car are paying people to gather information on their friends and neighbors as well as complete strangers.

Under the pretence of doing something “good for your community”, these bottom feeders are recruiting an army of misguided people to invade your privacy and that of fellow citizens without cause or reason, (other than to make a buck).

The “job” of these representatives’, is to record your car’s license plate number along with the location and time it was recorded. This can be done by hand, (writing it down) or by taking a photograph. The information is then entered into the databases of these companies where it is sold to….. well, who really knows!?…

Both companies pay for these invasions of others privacy but not nearly enough to offset the risk and the certain damage to the reputation of anyone foolish enough to try and make a business out of these activities.

One of these companies, DNA , reportedly will pay $2.00 for every 20 license plates reported. At the time of this posting I have no payout information for “Narc That Car”.

I can tell you that both of these companies have at least one thing in common. Neither of them will support you in any way should you get into legal trouble as you go about stalking your fellow man for money.

Let me ask you something here.

• Exactly how little do you have to care about your professional and personal reputation to get involved in something like this?
• How are your unsuspecting victims going to react to your efforts to get their plate numbers?
• When your neighbors discover you writing down their plate numbers or taking pictures of their car in their driveway, what are you going to say? How are you going to explain yourself?
• When you’re so busy writing down plate numbers from two dozen motorcycles parked at the “Claw hammer and gun club bar”,  that you fail to notice that the owners of those bikes are now standing all around your car,,,,, What are you going to do? Flash them your “Narc That Car” membership card? Good luck with that!

If I see you stalking my wife and kids to get your 10 cent plate number, I can tell you exactly how I’m going to react.

I’m going to invade YOUR privacy on the spot.

You and I will both be arrested and when the police see your notepad or the photos on your camera you can try to impress them with your membership card while I’m filing charges against you for stalking my family!

Come on people, isn’t your reputation and personal safety worth more than a lousy dime to you?

Does it really make any kind of sense to risk life, limb and law suits to collect license plate numbers at 10 cents apiece for a company that will hang you out to dry when you get into trouble doing it?

No! Of course it doesn’t!

Aside from the obvious unethical and dangerous implications of these two companies there are also major legality issues.

Both of these companies have set up network marketing type compensation plans for paying their people and are advertising themselves as a viable home business opportunity. The problem is that they are not selling a product of any kind through their network of reps. They are paying people to collect data for use by the company.

No product or service to sell to an end user and a network marketing comp plan?

That makes these models Ponzi / Pyramid schemes and as such, illegal by any and all definitions I’ve ever read.

Both companies are illegal in their comp plans and are encouraging unsuspecting people to participate in activates that WILL, at best, stray into very gray legal areas and, at worst, lead to violence, arrests and prosecution for both civil and criminal issues.

What can YOU expect?

It is entirely likely that if you participate in and/or promote either of these companies, you will forever after be known as… “ that guy that spied on his friends and family for money”.

With that reputation hanging around your neck, your future business prospects are very slim indeed.

People do not follow, respect or even socialize with those they distrust. By putting yourself in the “spying business” your trustworthiness is put into very serious question. Every one of your friends will wonder, (and likely ask), if you turned in their plate number and even if you didn’t, they won’t believe you.

Building a business in this industry is about YOU!

Nobody cares about your company, your product or your compensation plan.

They don’t join your company or your opportunity, They Join You!

If, (God forbid), your name becomes widely synonymous with scams, ponzi schemes, illegal pyramids and ethically questionable practices, you have destroyed THE MOST…… No scratch that… You have destroyed THE ONLY thing of real value in your business. YOU HAVE DESTROYED YOU and now, literally, have NOTHING of value to offer to those seeking to succeed in a legitimate home business.

This is very sad but even sadder is how often it happens to those that are guilty of little more than failing to recognize the differences between scams and legitimate businesses and naively following those that seek to deceive them.

This is the entire reason that I preach about ethics and reputation to anyone that will listen.

This is the reason why educating yourself sufficiently to recognize scams from legitimate businesses is so important. Ultimately, these things become the reputation that is the YOU that others will seek to follow or to avoid.

In my opinion, these two companies, (Narc That Car) and (Data Network Affiliates), present the greatest danger to your reputation of anything I’ve seen in years.

The damage you will do to yourself with these two will be wide spread and will start very close to home and be very personal and painful.

News of what are doing will alienate you from close friends and family by planting the seeds of distrust and the never ending question of whether or not you’ve violated their privacy and friendship to make a quick buck.

It will not matter that you haven’t done so. The question will always remain and every attempt you make to reassure them will only serve to heighten their suspicions.  Your very presence will cause your closest friends to become defensive and every time you even look in the direction of their car, they are going to wonder, “Did he just memorize my license plate?”

All this pain for 10 cents a plate?   I DON’T THINK SO!

Use the brains God gave you, keep the money you earn and never, never slow down!

Till Next Time