Internet ScamBusters Subscribers Share More of Their Favorite Stories About Internet Fraud
We want everyone to be aware of all the scams we've found on the Internet so check out these previous Web site scam winners. They might still be around!
Internet Fraud 2
"Here's the message I received, "am sure many of you have already heard about this... There is a company that is going public called ******. To enhance its visibility, it's giving away 700,000 free shares of stock. Yahoo did the same thing when they went public (7/14/98 Yahoo closed at $186.50). You can get 3 shares right away and then 1 more for each person who uses you as a reference (up to 10 shares). ....click in the upper right corner "become a co-owner" and keep clicking on "continue" until they prompt for your e-mail address. After you get your PIN, go back to their site and copy and paste the address they give you and enter the PIN. Don't forget to include my email address as the referring email."
Upon visiting the Web site and following the instructions through multiple pages and links, you come to find out the following:
1-They are not a publically owned company.
2-They make no mention of any intention to go public.
3-You do not actually get shares of stock because the company can not have stock until it does go public.
4-The company is incorporated in the Bahamas... like all good little scam businesses.
Sounds like a ringer to me."
TCC, Arizona
"Cyber*****.com is the biggest scam of all time!! On April 2, 1998, I put one of their banners on my site titled "ghosts-spooks-evil things in the night." From April 2 - April 29 I made $480 in clicks from their banner. On May 5 my stats showed check sent $480.
"On May 18 I emailed them asking about the check.They replied please allow 7-10 days for check. On May 30 I emailed them and they replied "sorry for the delay....we're behind mailing checks." By now they had owed me more money... $245 and again my stats said check sent. Well, I had to take down their banners due to no payments.
"June 10 I emailed them again and they reported that I had frauded them and that I was lucky that they wouldn't press charges. On June 16 I wrote them an email telling them I would call the BBB and other places and report them. Also I would give messages to all newsgroups warning people of their scams. They replied to me telling me how sorry they were and that the checks have been mailed to me and for me to wait 7-10 days for the money. What a scam. I know I'll never see the money and have done what I told them I was going to do."
David H.
"I bought my fiancé this service for Christmas. It was $40 and the service was to keep track of the amount of hits he was getting and where the hits originated from. The Web page does not specify how many hits are too many to be considered to be bumped up to the corporate rate. I bought him the student rate.
"They decided that he was getting too many hits and that he would have to pay $40 a MONTH instead of $40 a year to continue the service. This was only the first unethical part of this whole fiasco.
"He decided what he would do was just have people hit one of his pages and take a count from that one page instead of all his pages to cut down on the amount of traffic on his page. So he was cutting back his service to solve the problem. When he did that he wrote an explanation to his page hitters explaining that they had decided that he was getting too many hits and that this was the reason for the re-route.
"W****W*** considered this acts of terrorism. They contacted his boss, the president of his company, his ex-boss, his network administrator, his ISP, and me. They decided that they were going to charge $500 a day ON MY credit card until he took the message off. So he took the message off and they canceled his account which was just bought in December. In addition, they have tried to charge my account $500. I had to report it to my credit card company, my fiancé got in hot water at work, and I am being harassed and threatened
"The biggest problem is that they are in Israel. In addition, people have heard about this story and have posted things on their personal Web pages about their fraudulent behaviors and W****W*** is still trying to charge ME $500 a day for other peoples actions. I have emails that I would be more than happy to pass on to you saying that we are "liers" (supposed to be liars) and that we are terrorists. He is threatening to get my credit card information among other threats that I am not real clear about."
Andrea
"Site asks people to send money for tornado victims to a guy's home address. (I looked him up in switchboard.com)
"Best part: Page on "Tornado Safety Information" is taken straight from the Web site for the movie "Twister."
Karen P.
"Just wanted to add one more horror story about a scam adult site. The site is http://www.***-****.com. This site has a one week trial for $5.00 after which you can cancel at any time...not! I received a cancellation notice but lo and behold they kept right on charging my Visa after the one charge. Their webmaster e-mail bounces if you try to cancel and their phone number in Monrovia....is always busy. I have disputed their Visa charges but they have hit me for 3 bogus charges. I'm sure there are many of these ripoff sites out there but the least I can do is warn a few people about the one that got me.
David W.
"http://www.*****.com/ -- They have a "contest" going to win a free car, of course when you read the rules the contest doesn't end until 2002! And they charge your phone bill for some travel card!"
Robyn W.
"I am an avid bingo player and found what I thought was the best bingo site on the internet. The games payed from 100 to 500 per game and cost from $1.00 for a single game to $5.00 for the coverall which if gotten within 48 numbers paid $100,000.
"I started out in this game doing beta testing and earning credits to play the real games and therefore never put out any money from my pocket. I was paid by check for one game I won in full and only part of a second game because I opted to have some applied back to my account for more credits to keep playing.
"All was going well for several weeks. Then I had accumulated several hundred dollars I had won and requested it sent to me and got nothing but promises it was on the way. I have still not received it.
"I was informed several days ago by an email that the company was under new management and would be up and running again and checks would be sent out that week.(They had not been running any games for almost a month and said they were getting a new server) I checked back to see if any games were running and for the last 3 days can't even get the page to load. All it says is the server is down."
Sharon B.
"At http://www.****.net they offer "cheap" Web hosting but can't provide it!
"About one week after I had sent my money I sent several e-mail messages to see if my money had been received but I never got an answer! I then called and was told "the technical department" was very busy and I would be notified!
"After a week I check with InterNIC but nobody had even bothered to transfer my domain!
"I called again and was told they were very busy and to do my own domain transfer with InterNIC. I did this and was eventually notified that the transfer was done but their "backup-server" had not been updated so I still coulnd't get service.
"Two weeks into this venture, I finally got them to clear the "cache" in the back-up server (which they didn't know it had to be done) and the domain was up and running, except, they can't provide any e-mail addresses (POP) and a simple mail program to mail forms, or the cgi scripts they promise on their Web site. The ftp often is impossible due to technical errors on their server and they can't provide any of the services advertised!
"Calling on the phone, one person blames the other and all e-mail messages remain unanswered! Period!
"I believe they collect a lot of "front-money" for their "cheap" Web hosting but can't provide the services advertised! They don't know ANYTHING about technical details to run a DNS.
"Finally, after 4 weeks they have put me out of business because I had to re-direct my order pages to another (extremely slow) server and I'm trying to re-start the business."
Ernest G.
"This outfit has changed over the past year, but this latest is quits for me. If you get sent the wrong or bad item it can take up to three months to get it corrected and your BankCard credited. They are one of these New InterNet Auctions, Was called **** Now Called....GSCI. I'm a small retail service, sales and repair shop for IBM computers in S. Oregon.
"This outfit is in Yankton, SD, Was selling items with $5.95 Handling charge on each order and $0.89 cents a pound, then they went to the $5.95 S/H and $1.19 per pound. Then last month they went to $4.95 S/H per order and $0.99 per pound per Order. This last auction I got several items and Boy Have They Changed! It's now S/H of $4.95 per Box and every item comes in its own box, plus $.99 cent per pound. I ordered 2 disk drive cleaners, 3 small Joysticks, 1 PCI Video Card and 2 3.5" Floppy disk drives, Would all fit in one small to medium size box, RIGHT? Not So--FIVE Boxes. Each with $4.95 plus $.99 cent per pound added on. Total Shipping and Handling $29.15 on a total of 4.46 pounds.
"WHAT A RIP!"
Dan M.
"I've heard of and experienced an Internet address where it's a casino online. They say they'll give you cash prizes if you win so many chips. I've won the chips... I ask for the prize. And it's nowhere to be seen. I wrote several times to them. No messages were replied. I lost $200 to them so far, and I know others have lost worse."
John
"This is pathetic...
"The site is: www.****lotto.com The scam is: One of the first things you see when you visit the page is 'FREE LOTTERY! 10,419 FREE CHANCES TO WIN YOUR SHARE OF US$1.2 BILLION (US$1,200,000,000.00)' in big, bold letters. There's a "Free $5000 instant win" game, too. You ALWAYS win... but in order to collect you 'cash winnings', you'll have to order lottery tickets! If this isn't a scam, I don't know what is! "
Lisa B., North Carolina
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