Archive for scam warning

UNDP Jobs Opening: everything about it says ’scam’

Jan 21 | by Sam Deeks | scam warning
No Comments

Don’t reply to email claiming to offer UN Jobs worldwide – no matter how much you want to make a difference

If your heart is breaking about Haiti, go make a real cash donation to a known, real-world charity via your bank or somewhere dependable.

If you’ve reached a point in your life where you want to make a difference in the world, go find a real-world aid agency and ask them how you could go about it.

The return address on this email offering ‘UNDP jobs’ is ‘unitednationdevelopprogr@hdrmut.net’.  A quick look at the domain associated with it takes us to an Arabic site.  By contrast, this is what the real UNDP site looks like.  Which one do you trust?

Anyway, my spam-assassin report says its spam.  So there. :-)

Avoid.

TEMDI – The European Medical Directory: scam or not? You decide

Jan 14 | by Sam Deeks | Scambusters!, scam warning
2 Comments

Is TEMDI another directory scam ripping people off with misleading forms or a reputable company?

As usual, you decide.  And to help you, we’d like to build up a list of comments from anyone who feels they’ve been fooled into signing a ‘contract’ for services they don’t want by TEMDI – The European Medical Directory.  If you want to know more, then consult the ever-vigilant Jules Woodell on his site ‘www.stopecg.org’ where you can find full histories of this and many other scams, plus all kinds of other useful information.

My advice is the same as that for another version of this scam (the Expo Guide scam which is currently still very much out there judging from the ever-growing list of comment on this post): don’t pay and don’t even contact them.

Remember, paying once tells them you’re worth bullying for more.  Contacting them by phone tells them you’re afraid and worth bullying.  Responding to them at all ‘qualifies’ you for a step-up in harassment.

The people behind TEMDI – Novachannel AG – have a long and ugly track record of this kind of practice.  The form they use is very similar to those used in all the other directory scams and is carefully designed to make you think you’re signing for a free listing when in fact you’re signing for a 3 year contract at 950 Euros a year. Would they stand a chance in court?  No – but going to court isn’t (never has been) a part of their, ahem, business plan.  They make their money from frightening you into paying.  If a tiny percentage are scared enough to pay, then out of the millions of mail-outs they send every year, they’re making a pretty packet.

We look forward to hearing  your experiences of TEMDI – The European Medical Directory.  The more people report their experiences on sites like this, the harder it wll be for these directories to rip people off.

If you’re approached by an online business directory (of any kind) you should use my simple, common-sense test to find whether they’re worth the money.

You just need to ask two straightforward questions. This test works as well for legal businesses like TouchLocal as it does for scams.

Click the thumbnail (left) to zoom into the test

Smallbusinessdirectory.co.uk – scam or not? You decide…

Jan 14 | by Sam Deeks | scam warning
No Comments

I’d love to be able to tell you whether the spam I got today from ’smallbusinesdirectory.co.uk’ comes from a scam..

…but unfortunately it appeared to be defunct by the time I got there.  Fast work, Tiscali!

By the way, if you are trying to set up a legitimate business in this current plague of worthless and outright scammy business directories, you really need to think hard about your approach.  Introducing yourself via spam isn’t a good start.  You’re going to have to go an extra mile to create confidence.  That’s quite a challenge.

And you’re going to need to use English properly.  And be sensible with your claims.

Ah well, I was kind of hoping for a home-grown business directory scammer to play with on this blog, but seems that I’ll have to wait :-(

Mind you, judging by the feedback coming in to this site, there are plenty of legal, ‘respectable’ online business directories it sounds like we ought to be looking into a bit deeper.

Any more you want to point me at?  Just leave a comment below.

EmpathUK: scam or not? You decide (we’ll help you…)

Dec 11 | by Sam Deeks | Scambusters!, scam warning
1 Comment

Empath UK fails the ‘mu:kaumedia 12 point ’scam-detector’ test

logo
Someone pointed me at this site today to cast my beady eye over it.

I’m not saying EmpathUk is a scam (you can make up your own minds on that).  What I am saying though, is that it presents itself like one.

Here are some key points to watch out for generally when you’re trying to judge the credibility of an organisation online (particularly in the Third Sector):

1) Do you trust their motive? ‘We’re here to help you give…….’ Do you need their help to give?  Or are they just hoping to cash in on your charitable nature?

2) Is it accredited with or linked to any charitable organisations?  EmpathUk has no connections, partnerships or references therefore no credibility.

3) Does the website look like it was thrown up in a day? Their website is unprofessional and unconvincing and looks like a front that cost little or nothing to put up.

4) Are there any real people to hold accountable? Responsible organisations are fronted by real people who are contactable.  A Google search turns up almost nothing for ‘Mr. Peter Fayle’ (named as ‘Director’ on site).

5) Is it registered with Companies House or with the Charity Commission? Nope and nope. If it’s not a registered organisation how can Mr. Peter Fayle can’t be a ‘Director’?

6) Does it hide its location? EmpathUk gives no evidence of any real world address.  I do, however, know the exact London block of residential flats that the domain is registered to in Peter Fayle’s name (thanks to Google street map and WhoIs domain name registration search)

7) Does it ask you for personal information? EmpathUk wants more details about you than it is prepared to offer about itself.  Look out, it’s phishing time.

8) Do the FAQs fail to answer your most basic concerns? EmpathUk’s FAQs look like they were written to tell you only what they want to tell you.

9) Can you find any history for this organisation or person online? A Google search turns up nothing for EmpathUk.  A genuine new organisation will know that if it has no history it has to make sure that at least its people are real, traceable and have a track record.

10) No useful contact details. No address, no phone number – just a single email address ‘peter.fayle@empathuk.org’. By chance, I did find the following via Google:

Picture 4

Interestingly, note that none of this information is visible on EmpathUk’s website.  The phone number (above) is only visible on this particular Google summary and not on the page it links through to which (you’ll notice) isn’t EmpathUk’s website.

11) Were the website domains registered, er.. like yesterday? EmpathUk’s were.  Ok, that’s unfair.  They registered them two days ago.  On the 9th December 2009 to be exact.

12) Does your gut instinct tell you this is dodgy? If you trusted this, you wouldn’t be here checking.  Whatever you felt, you were probably right.

So there we are.  Is EmpathUk a scam?  As always, you decide.

If you are trying to do some good work for charity and you’re new in the game, then you’re going to have to work hard to give people confidence in who you are, what you’re doing and why.  EmpathUk fails 100% to do that for me – whatever its motivation.

OysterCard max fare: somebody needs to make it clearer to the ‘out of towner’

Nov 22 | by Sam Deeks | GRRRR!!!, scam warning
2 Comments

Have you been had by the OysterCard ‘max fare’? I bleedin’ well ‘ave

Seems like to avoid getting hit by max fare charges, I would need to have used my ticket to exit the overground rail system and then come back in with my Oyster.  I’m not a Londoner; how the bleedin’ ‘ell would I know that?

Somehow I’ve missed that information.  Don’t you get caught out.

OysterCard taking me for a ride?

Nov 21 | by Sam Deeks | GRRRR!!!, WARNING!!, scam warning
1 Comment

oyster

Is Oystercard profiting from ‘out of towners’ like me?

Last week, I was surprised – and inconvenienced – to find my OysterCard had run out of credit.  Again.  I went to the ticket window and asked the woman to put £5 on it.

“You’ve got a negative balance” she said after swiping the card.

“What’s that?” I asked. ‘Look” she said showing me her little screen “It says -£2.20’ “

“How the hell did I get a negative balance?”  I asked.  She printed a list of my journeys over the last couple of days.  The first thing that struck me was how many of them were £4.00 journeys, not the usual £1.60.

“Why was I charged £4.00 for travelling two stops between Richmond and Gunnersbury?” I asked, confused.

The lady printed out my ‘Oyster Usage Statement’ for the last two days:

19/11 08:00 – Gunnersbury No Route Data £4.00
19/11 16:47  Pre Pay entry Gunnersbury £4.00
19/11 16.47 Add Pre Pay Gunnersbury £10.00
20/11 10.41 – Gunnersbury  No Route Data £4.00
20/11 13.52 Pre Pay Entry Gunnersbury £4.00

ending up, of course, with the attempt to get through gate with a negative balance

20/11 18.21 Rejected Exit (Code 36)

She explained that the reason this had happened was that somehow I hadn’t registered the start of my journey.  Her explanation was that often, the card doesn’t register properly – but still opens the gates.

Eh? Hang on a minute.

It failed to register my card properly yet still let me through?  And given the gates opened to let me through, how was I supposed to know I was being charged £4.00 each time for a £1.60 fare?

I was, as you can imagine, outraged, thinking “I’ve been overcharged by nearly £10 by a system that’s programmed to let me through a gate and then secretly charge me more than double the fare!!”

Well, apparently, it’s much simpler than that.  I found out today that if you take a train (main line) to Richmond – as I did – you either have to exit the train station with your mainline ticket and come back in with your OysterCard or find a machine to ‘touch in’ to start your journey.

Apologies to TfL.  I got it wrong.  I’ve obviously had to learn the hard (expensive) way :-) . But what the lady at the ticket office said worries me. Does the system really allow people in through the gates without properly registering the start point of their journey?

Expo Guide and World Business Directory: Could Twitter kill off these nasty scams?

Nov 5 | by Sam Deeks | Scambusters!, Twitter, scam, scam warning
2 Comments

Could the wisdom of the business crowd decide the fate of Expo Guide and World Business Directory?

TwitterMonsterThe challenge

You’ve arrived here because of my Tweet about the Expo Guide and World Business Directory scams.  First of all, thanks for coming.  Second, I’d like to invite you to take part in an experiment.  Could Twitter kill these nasty scams stone dead?

Have a look at the evidence (below) and if you want to play a part in stopping these scammers, then please RT the Tweet that brought you here to people in your network and let’s see if we can help stop people getting ripped off.

The Scam

As some of you may already know the world of business is still being swept by a family of scams which deliberately set out to fool people into inadvertently signing expensive contracts they don’t want.  An early and well documented version of this is what’s known as the “Construct Data scam” originating from Austria.  The most recent variants of this scourge are European City Guide, Expo-Guide and World Business Directory.

How it works

  • You get a letter in the post (or email with pdf attachment) from the company.  It’s designed to make you think they’re offering you a free listing in their online directory.  It asks you to sign and stamp the form.  You do and send or email it back
  • Nothing happens for a while
  • A couple of months later you get a demand for something in the region of €3,000
  • Their demands direct you to the form where – for the first time – you notice to your horror the tiny, faint small-print saying “signing and stamping this form constitutes a contract for 3 years entry into our directory at c. €900 per year..”.
  • A couple of months later, you start getting various demands.  Eventually, you get formal letters from a debt collection agency.  Now you start to worry.  What if they take you to court?  What if your boss finds out?
  • You write back to the company saying it’s a rip-off and you don’t feel you should have to pay.  Eventually, they graciously agree to let you off with just one year’s fee out of three.  Maybe you pay up so you can put this whole traumatic episode behind you.

This scam has been running for years and shows no sign of stopping.  Why?  Because there will always be enough people out there who can be bullied or shamed into paying some – if not all – of this extortionate fee.

Governments seem to have little or no interest in stopping it.  Watchdogs aren’t particularly bothered.  It’s down to a few individuals like Jules Woodell to campaign against it – see http://stopecg.org/ and http://stopecg.blogspot.com/ for a thorough history of all the main mutations of this scam.  For my own posts on the subject (and to read more than 50 comments from victims) click here.  You’ll get some idea of the kind of worry and distress this scam causes.

This scam is real and current and it’s costing business people like you and me a lot of money, stress and worry.  This site gets 20+ new visitors every day searching for help on this issue – most of whom are new victims of the scam from all over the world.

Personal

For your information, I didn’t get stung personally by these scams (too long in the tooth!).  However, like millions of others, I regularly receive their scammy emails.  My motivation is to use the blog / Google platform to mess up their operation a bit and prevent others from being ripped off ;-)

Facebook ads: scammy? You decide *yawn*

Mar 3 | by Sam Deeks | GRRRR!!!, scam warning
No Comments

How come Facebook doesn’t give a damn how dodgy its ads are?

Because it’s too busy making money to care, that’s why.

Take a look at these ads.  Yes, you guessed it.  They’re for ‘get-rich-without-doing-much’ Google schemes.

Now before Dustin or Andrew get mad with me, look closer.  They seem to have, ah, accidentally borrowed each other’s testimonials.  Doh.

Dustin’s:

“Jordan S says:

February 6, 2009 at 1:17 am

I want to add my testimonial on this blog. Here you go Dustin. I was wary about working from home, because I’d heard horror stories about the Internet. But I’d heard that there were rounds of layoffs coming at my company, so I figured I should do something to try and have a backup should the worst happen. I was amazed when I got your kit. It started working right away. By the time the layoffs happened, I was already making more money from Google than I was in my job. Now I use Google full time and have a great income.”

Andrew’s:

Comment by Danny J

January 25, 2009 @ 9:36 am I want to add my testimonial on this blog. Here you go Andrew. “I was wary about working at home, because I’d heard horror stories about the Internet. But I’ heard that there were rounds of layoffs coming at my company, so I figured I should do something to try and have a backup should the worst happen. I was amazed when I got your kit. It started working right away. By the time the layoffs happened, I was already making more money from Google than I was in my job. Now I use Google full time and have a great income.”

Etc, etc, etc.  Links to ‘Dustin’s’ site here and ‘Andrew’s’ site here.  And guys, don’t get p*ssed off with me – I am promoting you for free after all :-)

Since I’m such an eagle-eyed old skeptic, I regularly click through to see just what kind of junky ads Facebook is happily targetting susceptible members with.

My unscientific research shows me that so far, a majority of those I’ve clicked are for what I’d consider pretty dodgy schemes.  Yeah, yeah, they’re probably legal – but ask yourself who is hiding behind ‘Dustin’ and ‘Andrew’?  And why does he have to make up testimonials?

I’d like to think that the fact that it doesn’t occur to him that someone like me would compare his testimonials means he’s stupid.  Unfortunately, all it really means is that he knows how desperate – and uncritical – his intended recruits are.

All this on the day that I read the Government’s report on Digital Britain – a document that insists that ‘being digital must be within everyone’s grasp’ without any mention of what’s going on beneath the happy family broadband facade.

What’s infuriating is that Facebook knows damn well what it’s doing as this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald shows.

Online scams: time to be more vigilant

Jan 14 | by Sam Deeks | Scambusters!, scam warning
No Comments

Recession brings with it scammers looking to take advantage of you in tough times.

The harder the recession hits, the greater the need for vigilance against online scammers and exploiters of all shapes and sizes.  More and more are going to be aimed at businesses desperate for more customers and  ignorant of the online environment.

The last two we’ve seen take the form of ‘business directories’ that end up costing people (who thought they were getting a free listing) several thousands of pounds instead.

The threat this poses to businesses in a recession is obvious.  Scammers are going to be hungrier, sneakier, more resourceful and more aggressive than ever before so you need to start taking an interest in the kinds of scams that are going around to make sure you don’t fall victim to one of them.

If you’re approached with an ‘offer’ (whether on the street, through the post , or – more usually – via email) from a company you don’t know, do your ‘due diligence’.

The simplest way to do this is to use Google.  If you just search on ‘Joe Bloggs Ltd’ in Google you’ll probably just get what any scammer wants you to find about his company. Type ‘Joe Bloggs scam’ into Google and you’ll start to find interesting results pretty quickly.

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