GOOGLE IMPERSONATOR GO-RISE SUFFERS A BIG FALL
aConman Jordan Woods ran a scam to fleece businesses that wanted to improve their Google ranking.
This story should improve his own online ranking, though I doubt he’ll be happy about it.
The 31-year-old from Blackburn was the sole director of Go-Rise Limited.
Its reps phoned businesses, posing as Google, and claimed to be calling to renew contracts to boost search engine optimisation and include them in an online business directory.
But they had no connection to Google, the directory was useless because it was password protected, and there were no pre-existing contracts.
A Facebook page set up by victims included the comment: “You don’t work in conjunction with Google, you are bottom feeders. Try working for a living.”
Go-Rise has since been shut down in the public interest, with Colin Cronin of the Insolvency Service saying it “provided no commercial benefit whatsoever to the company’s customers”.
Now Woods has been banned from running companies for 10 years for trading “in a manner lacking commercial probity”. And it turns out that this is not his only ban. In August last year he was filmed attacking a Burnley player and a match steward during a pitch invasion at a Blackburn Rovers home game.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and one of pitch encroachment and was given a three-year match ban, a suspended four-month jail sentence and a £450 fine.