You betcha! Buyer beware.
UPDATE: A kind reader has informed us that Express Flux also goes by the name Conversionease.
Let us know if you see them advertising by any other names.
The following is a personal review of Express Flux for Shopify.
Recently a client emailed me an offer they had received via their website form. The offer claimed that for the low price of $US14.95, they would receive up to 160 unique visits per day for a month. Visits would be generated from a variety of sources including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Their offer also stated the following:
- Your website’s Alexa Rank will increase due to the increased constant traffic that you will receive after you place the order
- Long-term SEO benefits for getting constant traffic
- You URL is likely to get higher search engine results positions for the targeted keywords as well as for other long tail keywords
These are very bold claims indeed, and all for just $US14.95. Seems like a no-brainer right?
Well, given it was a Saturday morning and I was unable to attend my regular fitness Bootcamp due to injury… I decided to delve deeper into this offer from Express Flux, Shopify.
Now to protect the identity of the company offering this deal, I have decided not to name them. Lol… just kidding. Of course, I am going to call them out, they are a pest in our industry and are most likely scamming a scary amount of customers. So thank you for this opportunity to inform my readers – Express Flux Ltd (of Romania).
Here at Creative Digital, we run a small Shopify website selling print on demand t-shirts. We use this website to explore the increasingly popular Shopify platform and how it can benefit client projects, and it is a lot of fun!
So I signed up for Express Flux’s one month offer.
It is easy to see how someone could be fooled by their offering. Upon signing up, an email was received from Lara the “Shopify specialist @ Express Flux”, explaining the process and how I would receive an additional 5% visitors so that I am satisfied. Wow – thanks, Lara!
Next, I installed a script from the Full Story (www.fullstory.com) application that would track each unique visitor and their interactions with the website. This application is excellent for seeing how visitors use a website and where you are potentially losing them due to page layout etc.
We also navigated to the real-time traffic tab in Google Analytics. This function gives a lot of quick information about a visitor, including the referral source, location and number of page views.
Within the hour we were receiving new traffic. It must be noted that our Shopify website gets very little traffic currently, so any new traffic stood out dramatically. There was one referral source of this traffic – Facebook.
The locations appeared to be from 4 to 5 sources throughout the USA and Canada. What we also noticed immediately was that a large percentage of the IP addresses were coming from AWS servers (Amazon Web Servers).
Finally, the traffic came in waves each hour. Very consistent blocks, in fact.
Given we work a lot with Facebook advertising and know that it can take up to a day for an advertisement to be approved, it seemed very odd that they were able to generate this traffic organically via reasonable means so quickly.
The Full Story application gave us even more valuable information. Each “visitor” arrived at the homepage. They then clicked immediately on our home page banner – which is actually linked back to the home page (don’t ask). So in the space of up to 15 seconds, they arrived, clicked once and then left. Every single time. You could even see that the location of the actual mouse click was consistent… every single time!
The following article from The Wall St Journal outlines why the AWS origin mentioned above is relevant:
https://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2015/06/05/fraudsters-use-amazons-cloud-to-create-fake-web-traffic/
“But topping the list of “bad” ISPs was Amazon’s AWS cloud service. Unlike the other companies, AWS doesn’t offer high-speed Web access to consumers. Instead, its cloud computing platform has been twisted by fraudsters to create artificial bot traffic and to disseminate it across the Web.”
So to cut a long story short, it was pretty evident that this was not legitimate traffic. It is effortless and cheap to obtain Task Automation Software these days. In this instance, all that would be needed is one Facebook post that included the url for our Shopify website. The automation software would then click this link and undertake actions set by Express Flux eg. clicking a banner.
The following response was received from Lara when we questioned their offering based on the above analysis:
“Thanks for reaching out! I have no idea what you are talking about, we never had any such issues with past customers. Either way, to keep everyone happy and since you’re coming up with such accusations, I’ll go ahead and refund the full order amount. The money should be back into your Paypal account soon!”
Again, thanks, Lara. But no, we will not be recommending your services to our clients.
We hope this might help someone who is looking to pay for such a service.
Be extra careful and do some research first.
Our next article will be looking at platforms such as Freelancer.com and Fiverr.com who offer ridiculously cheap web design (amongst other services).
Hi! Thanks for this research. We got the same offer through our contact form and what made it suspicious to us was:
*Lara uses a gmail address, not so professional……
*There is no address or anything that mentions a business location or country on their website
*The chat window that is mentioned isn’t there.
*All ‘reviews’ have odd sender-names as if no one wants to fill out their real name.
*The ‘recent sales windows’ pop-up at regular (high frequency) intervals. This is just an app that anyone can install and adjust as desired . All senders/buyers are anonymous which isn’t the case if they are real sales.
Clearly these guys are running a fake business targeted to desperate unexperienced shop owners that can always afford 15 USD. I guess they are making a lot of money and there’s no one stopping them.
Crazy that they are able to operate unregulated eh?! Good on you for doing your research. I’ve had several clients talk to me about similar services after reading this article so the experiment was worth doing! Nice site by the way and thank you for commenting.
Thanks for doing this research. I just got this sketchy message from my store’s contact form and knew I should go to Google Detective Services first. Great article. Great service to the rest of us. Thanks, again!
No problems Scott! Good luck out there 🙂
Thank you for the leg work! I also just got the message and was looking into them first. Every little bit I spend as a small business needs to be productive. I will steer clear!
No problem, anything to get rid of loser companies like this one.
Hi Mike, Unfortunately i was one of the “suckers” and signed up for this crap. I too called out “lara’ about the service andwas given the refund. Unfortunately i then left a 1 star review on ExpressFlux on Trustpilot and have since been harraassed non stop by this ‘Lara’. Even though they refunded my money they started sending me the traffic again and threatend to “ruin your online reputation forever, both business and personal”. Like someone who doesnt know what they are doing they did send me all of this in writing which i have collected for my attorney. My question is do you know of any programs or anyway to block those fake clicks without affecting the real traffic coming through my store? Thanks for the info
Thank so much for your message Kayla. Sorry to hear you too were duped by this feral company. One device I could suggest is using the Cloudflare CDN. Cloudflare filters traffic to your website (as well as providing some really good performance enhancements). You are able to block IP addresses and countries – http://www.cloudflare.com
Actually sorry! I just spotted this, Shopify state they are using themselves?
https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/203464660-Using-Cloudflare-with-Shopify
Hmmmm… so sure we should be able to filter some way. Let me have a look.
Thanks Mike. Appreciate the info. This guy just doesnt stop. You say the company is in Romania, but the who is seems to be using a very well used phone number from MN and address from Panama. And with the way this person “talks” its pretty clear that they are very well versed in the American English language so I am assuming that they are in the US. My attorney is reaching out to other lawyers who are well versed in online activities in order to find out more info and pin down this person and their location but any additional information you may have will be most helpful.
The best of luck 🙂
I also got my refund but can’t get them to stop the bots coming to my website. Would love to know how to stop this. Did you all find anything out?
In all honestly I removed our site from Shopify and now have hosted locally using the Opencart framework. We have been able to isolate the bot IP addresses and block them using a variety of ways. You are VERY limited with Shopify.
Hi there. Thanks for posting this. I just received a message from a Nicole at an AOL address soliciting these services. This one claims that their services start at $25 and that you can select a plan or combo that is most suitable for your needs. Then, at the end, the message says to hurry up because the 50% reduced prices will return back to normal. It’s interesting that Shopify flagged this message as spam. Maybe this company has already been reported so many times that they are developing a reputation. That may also explain why they have seemingly upped their prices from the $14.95 that some of you mentioned here. I’m glad I looked them up and came across this review. That company needs to be shut down. I guess the best we can do is put the word out and hope for others to do their due diligence so they don’t fall prey to this scheme.
The internet is like the Wild West right now IMO. There are so many scams being advertised by large companies eg. Facebook without regulation. Unfortunately it seems money talks. Thank you for replying, your comment will help someone else for sure 🙂
You guys are heaven sent! Thanks for the heads up:)
No problem, glad we were able to help 🙂
Oh My Word!! Thank you so much Mike. I literally was one click from paying for the ”STARTER” for $24.99 . My guts told me something wasn’t right about these people, because I tried to find a review about ” EXPRESS FLUX on YOUTUBE and there was nothing, which was very strange. I wondered why something that good wasn’t reviewed on YouTube. Hahaha…
No problem 🙂
Hi, Thanks for posting this. We got the same offer from ms Lara and your researched prevented us from falling for it.
Very glad I could help 🙂
Do you all have any practical advice as to what to do if you are one of the naive and purchased this service?
Do I just write “Lara” and tell her I’ve discovered her targeted traffic is just a bunch of bots and to give me my money back?
Thanks, and sorry to sound so dumb!
Allison
NOTE: Express Flux also go by the name conversionease
I run a small shopify store, and on Aug 6, 2019, 7:52 PM, received a SPAM flagged email via our store contact form from [email protected] with contact number 0042322234215 (Czech Republic it seems).
The @aol.com contact address gave it away IMO. Also, I did a simple google lookup for ‘shopify conversionease’ and as you down the list, you see many small websites that have had their comments pages spammed with the same copy/pasted sales/intro blurb.
Yes, this is a scam, yes follow your hunch 😉
Thanks for this David. I will add an update to the article to mention their alternative name. With folk like you we will win this fight 🙂
Thanks Mike – great site.
No problems, thanks for reading 🙂
Hi guys, I was just looking at their service and always try to do some independent snooping and am so glad I found this article. I have been doing SEO on and off for years and at one point the non-bounce traffic would supposedly help boost your organic rankings but I am sure because of scams like this Google took it out of their algorithms.
Anyway, the email I received was from Kristen, her email is kristen dot jones87 @ aol dot com and now the link sends you to: conversionease dot com. And on the email itself you click on conversion-ease dot org (which makes it even more scary being a .org address). I am putting the new info on here in hopes that if someone searches Conversion Ease they will find this article and not get duped into buying fake traffic and what looks to be even bullied for an honest review.
Thanks!
This is fantastic Brady! I am so glad you posted this info. If ok, I will add your content to this post or a new one a bit later today. We might just win the war…
Hi All,
Good day to all… I was also thinking on signing a starter service with them… fortunately, my hunch just do not felt too good and so I snoop around…
Apparently, the have been using the following names:- conversion-ease dot org, conversion-eaze dot com besides conversionease dot com.
I did a Lookup and found these:
1. conversion-ease dot org is 2 weeks 1 day old.
2. conversion-eaze dot com is 1 day 13 hours old.
3. conversionease dot com is 2 months 3 weeks old.
4. expressflux dot com is 6 months 3 weeks old.
The 1st 2 sites will get re-directed to the main conversionease dot com.
Hope this helps…
Guan
Thanks for the comment. I took the links out of your comment if ok, as I do not want to provide them with any traffic.
Thanks everyone I will not be using this site as I too received an email from Martha from conversion ease or should I say conversion disease. Martha has an aol email too eew! So the only traffic I get is blimmin Martha from conversionease! Doh!
Shopify should stop them using their logos and stuff as it nearly made me trust the site. Thanks for the research
No problems, thanks for visiting Debbie 🙂 Cool store by the way.
So I found this a little too late. I have emailed them with no response and also opened a dispute with pay pal to get a refund. Anything else I can do?
Thanks,
NIcole
Hello, thanks for starting this post.
I found this today in my email. Yes I am slooow, had a lot on. I was immediately Suss…and googled, and i found you guys. Thankyou for saving me my bank account.. Cheers!
Just saved me some money, I had all intentions on getting reviews first before committing even though it’s not the most money in the world. Thanks for the heads up
Nice! Glad we could help 🙂
Please help me, I bought there $24.99 Shopify package for my Shopify store on the 29th Oct 2019. It is now 1st November and my paid for package has not even been activated yet. My dashboard says order still processing!!
I have sent them numerous emails and have had no response.
There is also no contact number for them and the “Chat live” feature doesn’t seem to work.
Please help, i need to get my money back.
Maggie
Apologies Maggie, there is nothing I can do as it is not my company. I hope you are able to get a response soon.
Hello Maggie
Unfortunately I am in the same position. They do not answer any emails, the chat live does not work. I received one email from them out of the 7 I sent to them when I accused them of being an illegal fraudulent company. This is the email I got in response denying I sent anything:
—–Original Message—–
From: ConversionEase | Customer Support
To: audreyreuben
Sent: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 14:55
Subject: Re: Are you a legitimate company
Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! Uhm, not sure what you’re talking about. As for the emails, what did you sent me? This is the first email I see from you.
Regards,
Victoria
Shopify specialist @ ConversionEASE.com
On 10/23/2019 4:46 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Sorry to hear Audrey.
Hello Mike
I reported this company to Shopify and here is their response:
Patricia C. (Shopify)
Nov 10, 11:29 EST
Hi Audrey!
This is Patricia, your Shopify Guru! Thank you for reaching out to us and I hope this email finds you in good health 🙂
I truly feel bad that you had this awful experience and I really appreciate your effort in reporting this to us. Let’s work on this together and don’t worry cause I’ve got your back.
I went ahead and sent a report to our Legal Team and informed them about this company claiming to be Shopify Specialists. Our Legal Team told me that they are already aware of this site and are doing their best to stop them from causing more harm to our valued merchants (that includes you!). You can trust that here in Shopify, we absolutely do not tolerate any type of fraudulent activities so rest assured that our Team will continuously work really hard to ensure the safety of our merchants.
Please don’t let this experience bring you down Audrey. If ever you decided to start selling your awesome products again, you have 30 days from the day you closed you store to reactivate it again. You have a team of people here that are always willing to help you leverage the platform.
That’s about it from me for now. Let me know if there’s anything else you might need help with. You may also contact us again through Shopify Support. We’re open 24/7!
Wishing you the best!
Patricia,
Shopify Guru
Thanks so much for this Audrey! I hope Shopify are genuine about this. Given the recent name change from Express Flux to Conversion Ease, lets see if they attempt a third name change. Eyes out people!! We are winning this fight slowly.
We have just received the following email to buy there services for our etsy shop. Figured I’d share it before trashing it:
—
Hi there,
My name is Sarah and I’m part of the team at ConversionEase, the world’s leading targeted traffic supplier for eCommerce websites. In working with a lot of Etsy sellers in your niche, I see that one of the key issues they’re struggling with is getting more sales.
During the last 7 years we helped A LOT of Etsy sellers reach new customers, resulting in more and more sales. How would you feel to be our next success story?
Our services start from $25 only and you can start receiving relevant and targeted eCommerce traffic in the next few hours. Simply go here [redacted] , select the plan or a combo plan that is most suitable for your specific needs, add to cart, proceed to checkout, submit the URL and you’re done. After this you only need to sit back and relax while we’re doing our best in driving the traffic to your store.
Hurry up! In less than 24 hours, our 50% reduced prices will return back to normal. Due to the fact that we provide results, our customer return rate is very high and I can almost guarantee you’ll come back again after trying our service.
Why choose us?
This is what we’ve been doing for the past decade and we’re not just good but great at it. We only deliver results that we’d be happy with for our own business. We’ve built our results driven system from the ground up and we’re proud to have architected the traffic strategy for 56,351+ pleased customers. There’s a reason why we have such a high number of repeat customers and everything can be described in 2 words: DEDICATION & RESULTS!
Regards,
Sarah
Etsy specialist @ ConversionEase
If you want to never receive a message from me again click here
56,351 customers huh… yeah right! Thanks for this Bas 🙂
Okay I have an update for you guys and one very serious question.
First of all I don’t have Shopify store but I work on several other platforms, most notably Etsy and it seems that the same group of people are now trying to scam people out of their money on other platforms as well.
This morning, when I received an email from Sarah who apparently is a part of the team at ConversionEase using a legitimately looking email address which means they have been paying attention to what you wrote I went on to read the email and see what do they offer,
However after giving it a couple of minutes I actually realized that the email address they used to contact me was not the email used for any of my platforms or shops, it’s actually my private email which is in no way connected to any of my business accounts. So I did a bit of search and found this article and thank you for writing it, it actually helps and will help a lot of people.
Probably the most important question is – how did they get hold of my private email address still knowing that I operate on these platforms regardless of the lack of connection between the email and the shops ? This is a serious privacy breach and makes you think twice about who these people are and how do they obtain their information ? Sure it’s illegal, we all knew that but this is a step up from simply emailing. They are actually gathering your private data illegally, emailing you with bunch of lies and trying to scam people offering fraudulent services and obviously expanding their “business” to other platforms as well.
Thanks to this article i was also saved from this scam. . I am just starting out so every penny is important. Thank you so much mike.
Not a problem 🙂
I just received the same email from ‘Sarah at Converease’. Being quite skeptical of people that offer you ‘this and that for a discount that will expire soon’, lol- I didn’t believe a word of it. Plus, I’ve been made suspicious of this sort of thing after receiving so many scam calls from India in the past from scammers. Out of curiosity I googled their company name and came across your article. I’d like to thank you for investigating their program and sharing what you learnt. I hope it’s saving a lot of innocent people from these scams.
Thank you for your kind comment. It’s a good feeling knowing I may have helped some store owners out there 🙂
Hi Mike and everyone,
Unfortunately I’m one of the people who fell for this scam company. I signed up for their Etsy Elite on November 21 . So Sad I just found you now, when it’s too late. I’ll ask for a refund and maybe contact Etsy to try and block them from my shop. They also didn’t answer my emails of course. Feeling so shitty about it now because I think it can effect my shop badly.
I am sorry you experienced this Irit. Hopefully Etsy take note.
Thank you for saving me $25 (the price I was quoted).
Thank you for explaining and researching this! I kinda thought it was too good to be true so I googled it and found you. Thank you again!
Thanks for this review! I got their email (ConversionEase) and was tempted. You’ve saved me money and a lot of wasted time.
You guys are heaven sent! Thanks for the heads up.