By now many folks have seen the latest variation on 'Make Money Fast',
the one about a free computer if you go to website xxx and 'register'.
A further variation says, 'what is better than getting a computer for
free? Owning the web site where the free computers are given out ...'
That in itself isn't news. Nothing much here suprises netizens any
longer, at least not those who have been around since before that
invention of the devil called the World Wide Web and the massive
takeover of net resources by commercial entities to the detriment of
the rest of us.
But while most spam is just intended for petty larcency, some of it
gets a bit more involved, and even sounds like it is coming from a
real company and not just some two-bit con-artist with a computer
and his own domain name set up somewhere. Today I have such a case
for your consideration. **Please post this in all newsgroups and
mailing lists where apropriate, because reasonably intelligent people
are falling for it.**
This time, the guy is not spamming; he is sending out press releases
using the legitimate company name and people who read the 'press
release' respond to him or his web site so they can get fleeced.
Meet Johnnie Collie, of Muskegan, Michigan.
Mr. Collie is using the name 'National Research, Inc'. Never mind that
there is a *legitimate* research company in Michigan known as National
Research Corporation, which is registered with the state. Mr. Collie
is neither involved with that legimate firm, nor had they ever heard
of him. He does not have a DBA ('doing business as') license registered
for National Research. But I guess it always helps to have a legitimate
company name behind you if you want to want to scam people. When I
talked to Mr. Collie today, he told me the company was registered 'in
another state' but he did not seem to know or want to say where.
In this case, the scheme goes like this: to avoid complaints of
spamming, put out press releases to the internet news services like
Yahoo and others announcing that your research company has been
employed by a national manufacturer of computer hardware to poll the
public about its uses of computers. Toss in the name 'Packard Bell' or
"Hewlett Packard' for good measure. Let the internet news services
and the search engines do your spamming for you ... <smile> ... now
when someone sees your press release on their Yahoo ticker they click
to read the article and are given your email address for details, in
this case mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ...
A letter of inquiry to that email address gets back a note saying 'go
to our web page and register for the program' ... and the web page
address is http://www.getonefreepc.com ... there we find the deal
to be thus: sign up for a totally free computer and monitor, the works.
Fill out an online questionairre about how yourself and how you plan
to use the computer. Agree to fill out a more detailed questionairre
on the same subjects a year from now.
This project is being backed by National Research, Inc, therefore it
has to be legit, right? There is just one catch: to avoid simple
curiosity seekers, people looking for something for nothing, people
who defraud the company, etc ... there is a one-time registration
fee of twenty dollars to participate. This fee, we are told, covers
all the expenses of the polling, the distribution, etc. It goes to
show that you are acting in good faith and not just a con-artist out
to get a free computer.
So fill out your form, give them your VISA number, then sit back and
wait for your computer to arrive ... and keep on waiting, and waiting
and waiting.
The address given for the 'company' was 845 Allen Avenue in Muskegon,
Michigan. I traced that back to being in a strictly residential
neighborhood, and the residence of one 'Johnny Collie'. Switchboard.com
shows it as 'A Collie' with three phone numbers given:
A Collie
845 Allen Avenue
Muskegon, MI 49442
Phones: 616-773-7878 773-7985 777-7515
The first number is answered personally; the second number goes to an
answering machine which answers 'National Research'. I asked to speak
with Johnny, and the man who answered said that was himself. I asked
him when might the free computer be expected to arrive.
"On the web I never said it would be coming right away.
We are going to wait until we have the twelve thousand
replies we wish to receive, then all computers will be
shipped at one time."
Oh, you mean no shipments until you have received twelve thousand
'processing fees' at twenty dollars each? How long might that take?
"Well we just put our notice up this week ...
Baloney. I have seen a variation on this a couple months ago that
someone else mentioned, but anyway ....
"We are having some trouble getting this totally together,
it might be several months to a year before we have all
the names accumulated."
I told Johnny I had already talked to National Research Corporation
and they knew nothing about this at all; had never even heard of
him. I told him they knew of him now, since I gave them all the data
I had on him including copies of his postings, etc. That's when he
told me they were from out of state.
Already having done a DNS lookup and other stuff on www.getonefreepc.com
I asked Johnny where he got his ISP service, and who handled his
domain name. He acted totally ignorant, claiming that all he knew how
to do was turn a computer on and off, nothing much else. I asked him
if he 'knew anything about a company called America On Line' and he
said yeah, that was where he called in when he used his computer. I
asked him who was his credit card processor; again he acted ignorant
and said it 'is some outside service, you would have to ask the
programmer who did my web page'.
I asked to speak to that person, but of course he was not around
and his name was not known.
Using the 'Sam Spade' utility for Windows, we find a DNS record
which shows as follows for getonefreepc.com:
Administrative contact: J. Collie
Technical contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Note that the site name does NOT have a 'dot' between www and nexus
as in www.nexus -- that is incorrect. The name is wwwnexus, and
apparently no connection to the Nexus Corporation in Connecticut.
From what I could tell, wwwnexus.net is in Ohio somewhere.
Johnny gets his credit card service from pluto.safe-order.net and
he seemed very surprised that I was able to find that out. I told
him if you do a raw dump of his web page, just look and see where
the forms data sends its output,
i.e. http://pluto.safe-order.net/getonefreepc/
Whispering sweetly in the phone, I told Johnny the first thing I
wanted him to do was reverse that credit card transaction for me
which I had used in this experiment. I had already sent a note to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] and 'abuse' at the same site telling
them to void the transaction, and giving them the reference numbers.
I also sent a note to webmaster and [EMAIL PROTECTED] asking them
to review their relationship with Johnny Collie for possible
violations of their rules. And of course, for the little good it
did <snicker> I also sent a note to TOS at America On Line,
suggesting it might be worthwhile to review their subscriber's
screen name tccollie for possible violations.
I mention this today only to remind readers that some scams on the
net are far more sophisticated than others. Very few of us spend
five seconds reading or considering all the chain letters and make
money fast items we get each day. It being spam, we automatically
reject it for having no value. But when it appears in a respected
news source such as Yahoo, and carries the name of a legitimate
company -- although not actually from that company -- then we might
tend to read the item and act on it.
** DO NOT BE DECIEVED BY EMAIL OR NEWSGROUP POSTINGS OR
OTHER NEWS SOURCES SAYING THAT NATIONAL RESEARCH INC
IS GIVING A FREE COMPUTER IF YOU WILL PARTICIPATE IN
THEIR STUDY. YOU WILL GET NO COMPUTER, AND YOU WILL
LOSE TWENTY DOLLARS. NATIONAL RESEARCH CORPORATION IS
<NOT> INVOLVED IN THIS IN ANY WAY. IF YOU ARE WAITING
TO GET YOUR COMPUTER OR HAVE ASKED FOR THE RETURN OF
YOUR MONEY, TRY ASKING JOHNNY COLLIE, 845 ALLEN AVE,
MUSKEGON, MI 49442 616-773-7878 773-7985 777-7515.
And consider pressuring organizations such as wwwnexus.net
and pluto.safe-order.net who accept clients such as this. All
it does is besmirch their own reputation on the net as safe
places to be.
*PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS TO OTHER GROUPS AS APPROPRIATE,
WITHOUT SPAMMING TO DO SO. THANK YOU.*
Patrick Townson
Editor/Publisher
Telecom Digest http://telecom-digest.org
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2 - Registered
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