Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Who's Who scam


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 23:46, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Who&

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Fails to meet notability guidelines, heavily based on opinion with few, if any, reliable sources of fact FitzJD (talk) 12:53, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:44, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:44, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:45, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
 * Keep It would be absurd to ask for an 'other side' to this because the other side is perpetrating fraud; sourced well enough and a common scam. Definitely an expansion candidate much more than deletion.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 18:21, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep – This is a well-known scam. I have no experience with it myself, but have knowledge of it through coverage and cultural references as well. —Мандичка YO 😜 18:36, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - Agreed, this article should likely be removed as much of the information contained here is miscategorized, simply false, or completely subjective without any real citation or reference. Having spent years actually working at three different "Who's Who" companies and having intimate knowledge of the industry, I can attest firsthand that the majority of these companies aren't a "scam" and aren't participating in fraudulent business practices. Could one categorize some of these companies as a vanity publishing company? 100%, but that is by no means a scam. The article explicitly states that the "Who's Who Scam" involves the selling of fraudulent directories or memberships. In my experience the registries are produced and sent to the members while also generally filed with the Library of Congress. As far as the sale of membership goes, that's also true, but many of these companies offer an online networking platform (a la LinkedIn) as their main benefit of membership, which in turn means they are providing a service in return for a fee. Many of these companies also offer items of recognition such as plaques and certificates at an increased price. The point is that if a consumer sees value in membership or the purchase of a registry containing their information, and they go decide to pay a fee (on their own volition) for such a service, how exactly is that a scam or fraudulent business practice? The article is poorly cited from old sources that stem from subjective opinions/experience. The external links section provides little use and information on anything that would related to a supposed "Who's Who Scam". Also to challenge some other items in this article, in p2, the article says "This information can be included in the fraudulent directory, sold to other marketing firms, or used in future attacks such as phishing emails." - in my experience this has NEVER been the case. No company in their right mind would sell information of a paying customer. Furthermore, there's no source cited or proof contained that any Who's Who company has actually engaged in this practice. This seems purely subjective. p3 mentions that "recently incorporated companies are often behind these scams" - can someone provide proof of this or cite some source that says this? The text contained within p5 is also completely subjective and without reference or citation. Who's to say that A & C Black's Who's Who is any more legitimate or a point of reference than any other Who's Who? The bit about Tucker Carlson and Marquis Who's Who is also seemingly out of context and really seems a bit off topic in generally. In the see also section, it's also confusing to see why "American Biographical Institute", "Academic paper mill", "Employment scams", and "International Biographical Centre" are listed as none of them relate to a "Who's Who Scam" and are more suited to be listed under the vanity press article. Unless someone can provide some better references/citations that are fairly new and aren't completely subjective in nature, I would definitely say this article is a good candidate for deletion. Instead, a snippet of information pertaining to "Who's Who" companies should probably be created under the vanity press page on Wikipedia. --173.68.48.75 (talk) 13:32, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep candidate for improvement rather than deletion. Needs to be sectioned and explained that it is not a single scam but possibly two, sometimes related ones. The older is the vanity one, to offer to include a subscribers details in a publication in return for a payment or the purchase of the publication. Whether this is a scam or not is a matter of perspective, the subject of the scam does receive a service, that of having their ego polished for a fee; and most adult individuals will fully be aware of nthe nature of the transactiom. The newer phishing example in order to extract personal details to commit identity fraud is most definately a scam.--KTo288 (talk) 17:56, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   20:16, 16 April 2015 (UTC) Delete. This looks to me like a POV fork. The matter can be easily addressed in existing articles like Who's Who and Marquis Who's Who. Having a separate article like this appears especially inappropriate because the scam allegation seems to apply to the whole "Who's Who" business, rather than just a piece or aspect of it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:24, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a popular scam.  Looking over the article's history, I'm not too surprised that SPAs have targeted it.  Anyway, here's some coverage:  from the Los Angeles Times,  from The New York Times,  from Business Insider,  from Entrepreneur,  from Forbes Life,  from Journal Inquirer, and  from The Plain Dealer.  Some of these are focused more on specific instances, and others are about the topic as a whole.  I will accept that the specific cases could be added to their associated articles (such as Marquis Who's Who), but the ones that discuss the concept broadly do not fit into specific articles except this one.  There are also more relevant hits on Highbeam, but I'm a bit tired of reading about scams at the moment. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:03, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep the sources provided by NRP demonstrate that this passes GNG. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 23:07, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep I just looked up this topic on Wikipedia because I received an email containing what appeared to be a who's who scam. I agree the article needs to be improved with more specific references, but it serves a beneficial public purpose. Brettman32 (talk) 18:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.