How you can help StopECG

StopECG is devoted to stopping all guides and directories that send Business to Business (B2B) contracts which are easily signed in error. We also try to offer advice and warnings on many common scams and frauds affecting small businesses. Unfortunately some companies we feature do not like the publicity. This means we face threats and legal challenges which can be time consuming and expensive!
You can help in many ways, while donations are the simplest route, please read all the options below, your time may be more precious than money!
We are also collecting old contracts and scam guides.... Do You have any?

CONTENTS
  1. Cash Donations
  2. Pledge support Can't give cash now but would help if we end up in court
  3. Practical assistance, Incorporating
  4. Linking to this resource
  5. Other Help
Cash Donations | Return to Contents

In 2003 StopECG had to fight to stave off an attack from the ECG who claimed that we had infringed their copyright. We won, but with no money we had to do all the research ourselves. Had people not willingly given their time we would have been in trouble! A fighting fund was established soon after, this will enable us to get proper legal advice. In September 2005 our service provider received legal threats from Novachannel AG and we have had to remove some pages while we appraise the content. Looks like we may be spending some of the money in reserve!

Where possible we will also use funds to assist any individual taken to court by a guide we feature. Donors will be able to request details of our expenditure.

Paypal - Click the Button!
Not A Paypal User? If you have a credit card, you can sign up, Click Here

Cheque/Snail Mail
Please make out to "Scamstop" and send to:

Scamstop,
20 Bracecamp Close,
Ormesby St Margaret,
Great Yarmouth,
Norfolk,
NR29 3PR,
UK

If you require a recipt please enclose an SAE with your payment.

Pledge your Support | Return to Contents

If you cannot give cash now but would help defend us in a court battle please sign the pledge! If this ends up in court on the current arguments the issues will be as much about freedom of speech as about the morality of the companies we discuss.

Practical Assistance | Return to Contents

If you just have time on your hands and a bit of expertise to share you really can make a difference to our cause. Please offer help, if what we come back and ask for will take up too much time you can always decline! Below we have detailed the specific areas where we need assistance.

Legal | Return to Contents

Top of the list is legal advice; there are many aspects to the threats we are receiving including contract law, tort and copyright, a second or third opinion on an aspect of the site could save our bacon at a later date, if you have time to read over pages, or to assess the threats we are getting, Please email!

Mirror/Hosting | Return to Contents

There is no copyright here. Please feel free to take pages or whole chunks of the site and to reproduce them (rules/notes). If you can host the site, even just for a few days in order to keep us online, Please email!

Press/Media | Return to Contents

The more coverage we can get the more likely that people who can offer assistance will find out about our plight. If our company works in the media or has a press room and can help with creation and/or distributing press releases, If you can help, Please email!

Web/Tech | Return to Contents

This is a big area, and if you work in IT you can almost certainly help with some aspect of the site

We need assistance in all aspects except basic HTML. We would like to be able to offer surveys/polls in order to gather data on the guides (Preferably with a login so they cannot be abused)

We would also welcome advice/assistance in search engine optimization.
If you can help in any of these areas, Please email!

Translations | Return to Contents

The Content of this site is almost exclusively in English, while many people do read it though online translation tools, there is no substitute for finding advice in your mother tongue. If you can translate basic advice accurately, Please email!

Secretarial | Return to Contents

One legal issue which we will acceded to in the short term is to remove the scans of contracts which some guides have claimed infringe their copyright. While images may have to go we can still reproduce the small print of the disputed contracts. If you can transcribe yours, or any other contract, Please email!

Time | Return to Contents

Time is pretty precious, there are always little jobs we need to undertake that require no specific skill, just a little bit of time and dedication. If you can offer half an hour or so, Please email!

Linking To This Resource | Return to Contents

Links to StopECG from other sites are critical in assisting those who are out there looking for help. Your links not only bring people directly to the advice we offer, they also help us get better placement on the search engines. The guides know this and have spent thousands on Link Farms, in a crude attempt to get ahead of us. Placing a link on your site costs you nothing and need only take a few minutes

If you are in a rush, you can grab the ready made code below and place it on your site, preferably at the bottom of your front page (but anywhere will help!). If you have the time or inclination to give us a more specialised link please read please scroll down to the section on how to best to do this. We have tried to explain why we want these sorts of links, so in helping us you may actually learn a little bit about search engines which could help your own online business!

Ready Made Links | Return to Contents
Below is the code for a text or a banner link, first you see what the link will look like on your site and below that (in the orange box) is the raw code, simply highlight the code by dragging the mouse over it, right click and select 'Copy'. Then in whatever HTML editor you use paste the code onto the frontpage of your site. Job done!

Text Link
STOP THE EUROPEAN CITY GUIDE!
If you run a small business you could be next!

<!-- Start ECG Code -->
<A HREF="http://www.stopecg.org/"><B>STOP THE EUROPEAN CITY GUIDE!</B></A><BR>
If you run a small business you could be next!<BR><BR>
<!-- End ECG Code -->


Banner Link
FINED AND CLOSED in 2003 for mailing misleading contracts, the ECG is has sent contracts in the 2 years since that many people have disputed.

<!-- Start ECG Code -->
<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.stopecg.org/"> <IMG SRC="http://www.stopecg.org/ecgbanner.gif" alt="FINED AND CLOSED in 2003 for mailing misleading contracts, the ECG is has sent contracts in the 2 years since that many people have disputed." border=0></A><
<BR>
<!-- END ECG Code -->


Making Your Own Link | Return to Contents

It helps us more if your link is not identical to every other. The simplest way for you to get around this is to take the text above and paste it onto your site, and then carefully delete the bit in capitals that says STOP THE EUROPEAN CITY GUIDE! And replace it with text of your own. (Before you do this please read the notes on word selection, below)

Word Selection | Return to Contents

When a search engine looks at the content of a page it also looks to see what words are used on incoming links. That is the words that comprise the actual link which you see in blue on a page. These words are known as Anchor Words. If you use the ready made text code the anchor words will be STOP THE EUROPEAN CITY GUIDE!

While the words around the link have some value, it is the anchor words that really matter. Please think about what YOU typed into a search engine to get HERE! Then select those words and incorporate at least some of them into the link. The words should be relevant to the aims of StopECG. This is all we will say on this topic as we want you to choose words without any prompting from us!

NOTE: It is vital that your link makes sense, if it is just a pile of keywords visitors to your site may not follow the link as they will not understand it!

Where To Link To? | Return to Contents

After 3 years of steady growth StopECG has so much information that a link to our frontpage is not always the perfect solution. You may well be here because of a guide other than the ECG. It will help people to find the advice we offer if you link to the page that brought you here. For instance if your beef is with the Fair Guide please link direct to our page about them
http://www.stopecg.org/construct_data_fairguide.htm
and please include keywords in your link that are relevant to that that guide such as
The FAIR Guide and Construct Data Publishers Verlag AG

Creating A Specific Page or Weblog | Return to Contents

You may feel the desire to go into more detail on your own site or on your Blog page about how you were affected. Having other pages on the web that are devoted to guides in general or to a specific guide and which then link to us is the best case scenario for us. If you have a Weblog, please consider writing up your experiences and finishing off with a link to us.

NOTE: If you devote a page to exposing a company you oppose it is important that you Do Not Link to them, even though you are criticizing them your link will be picked up by search engines and will be seen as a vote for their site!

Linking To Other Sites | Return to Contents

There are several sites that discuss the directories which continue to mail contracts that are often signed in error, there are also government press releases such as those by the OFT (UK) or seco (Switzerland). StopECG welcomes all inbound links, but it would be dangerous if we were to become too central to the fight against these guides. The more well linked sites there are, the more futile it becomes for the guide companies to launch legal attacks such as those we have suffered. Name, Shame and spread the word, we really don't care if the link is not to us, as long as the end result is that guide victims can easily find the advice they need!

Other Help | Return to Contents

If you think that you can offer any other assistance that will help us to fight back, Please email!



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