WOMC: Word of Mouth Connection Scam…
I keep getting these stupid scam/spam emails that say:
Someone has just begun to research your background via our website. This email has been automatically sent to you so as to make you aware that your background is being looked into. The popularity of our website is currently growing at a very rapid rate. If another person begins to research you in the future we will again inform you via email.
Then the Word-Of-Mouth email (sent by their Report Awareness System, aka Connection Awareness System) supplies a link to click on that sends you to a page that says that someone who knows you “very well” has, and is willing to share, information about you with others. To send an anonymous email to this nonexisting person to find out whatever the heck they are supposed to be saying about you, you must fork over a minimum of $19.97 for a one-year subscription to the WOM Connection, or $29.97 for a two-year subscription.
Please, DO NOT fall for this scam! It’s bûllšhìt!
Number Nine in the New York State Consumer Protection Board’s list of the Top Ten Internet headaches is scam websites. The CPB specifically mentions that “all types of scams are attempted on the Internet, including a relatively new website called Word-of-Mouth.org. This website, registered to a company in the Philippines, claims people can file gossip about someone they know using that person’s e-mail address to identify them. Now Word-of-Mouth is sending e-mail messages to try to get people to spend $19.97 to see the gossip that allegedly has been filed about them. CURE: Hit the delete button when you receive this e-mail.”
Some vital information:
- The womc.info domain is registered to Peter Kestler located in Davao City, The Phillipines.
- Other domains include word-of-mouth-connection.com, wordofmouthconnection.com, word-of-mouth.org, womc.net, and wordofmouthconnections.info. There are probably many more.
- Womc.info is hosted in Las Vegas by A+Hosting.
- Word-of-Mouth is listed on the well-known website that exposes frauds and scams, snopes.com. According to snopes, “nobody needs to pay $20 to find out nothing.”
- The WOMC site is “in compliance with all United States laws.” Yet the legal section of the website states that “WordofMouthConnection.com, however, is not covered by any of these laws.”
- The site’s “users are anonymous.” Yet “we cannot ensure that all of your private communications and other personally identifiable information will never be disclosed.”
- Word-of-Mouth claims that “there are no U.S. federal laws governing spam.” They also say that they do not send spam, although they “send an initial unsolicited email”, which they claim is not spam in that there is no commercial aspect. Apparently they are trying to convince you that offering subscriptions to “an online community” is not a commercial endeavor.
- The testimonials are most likely fake. “I searched for Word-of-Mouth Connections on our nanny and was reassured because I found no Word-of-Mouth Connections.” Or what about “I was aghast at the stories [my girlfriend's ex's] told me about her lying, unfaithfulness, and past drug and mental problems. As a result of their input I decided to break off the relationship. WordofMouthConnection.com saved me!” Puuuuhlease!
- The last sentence on their legal page cracks me up the most! WOMC claims that their spam email “is not bulk mail because it is directed at one specific individual.” That’s about as dumb as it gets! All the spam I get is obviously directed to one person, me. That’s why I get it. If it wasn’t directly to me, I wouldn’t get any spam at all!
Do not send $20! Do not click the link! Go directly to the delete button!
UPDATE: I received another one of these emails on 1/12 from womexch.org - RDL
UPDATE: I’ve received dozens more of these emails, most of which I deleted immediately. Now I’m looking at them a bit closer. I received one on 2/7. It was from 209.25.171.75 (peter.wominfo.info), a server hosted at Maxim Computer Systems in Fremont, CA. Next one on 2/8 was from 207.36.180.23 (support.wordofmouthreports.com and peter1.wordofmouthconnections.com), a server at CyberGate/ValueWeb in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Both directed potential visitors to a URL on s.wominfo.info (peter1.word-of-mouth-connection.com), hosted by A+Hosting/Premia Networks in Las Vegas, NV. This guy is sure spreading it around! Pun intended…
UPDATE: I got another one on 2/8! Sheesh! This one from 216.65.117.86 (support.wordofmouthconnections.net hosted by Maxim/HostCentric in Fremont) directing users to a page on womc.info (64.235.50.54, the same peter1.word-of-mouth-connection.com site hosted in Las Vegas listed above).
UPDATE: Another one on 2/16. From “WOMC SUPPORT” with email address notify.sys@wordofmouthreports.info, title is “Background research being performed on you.” Offending mail server is support.wordofmouthreports.info (207.36.180.112) hosted at CyberGate/ValueWeb in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Directs (again!) to womc.info (64.235.50.54, hosted in Las Vegas). The marketing pitch on this one was “Someone is looking for people who know you and have experiences and/or opinions to share about you via our website.”
Funny that I received one of these emails this evening about 3 hours after I updated my Monster.com profile. I did fall for it! However, due to problems with my PayPal account I was not able to pay the $19.97 to them (Thank you PayPal!!) I then searched the web and found you guys, I dont understand all this IP address stuff, but looks like you guys have done your research and well too!! KUDOS to YOU!! Thank you for saving me $20 Rich! I can tell you one thing…I will definately delete my Monter.com profile now.
Thanks for the info on these scammers. I just got one of these extortion emails so I did a google search on WordOfMouthResearch. For future reference, the scam email directed to me cam from 69.108.157.9 and a whois returned:
69.108.157.9 = [adsl-69-108-157-9.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net ] Pac Bell Internet Services PBI-NET-0803 (NET-69-104-0-0-1) 69.104.0.0 - 69.111.255.255 SBC Private customer SBC06910815700028040511150750 NET-69-108-157-0-1
69.108.157.0 - 69.108.157.15
Thanks again!
I got an e-mail from shareyourexperience.com at my office. As I am in a community non-profit role, I will admit to being concerned about such a site and the ability for just anyone to “share business information” about me through a “personal reference” type effort. I just did a search this evening on the site. I did click into their link from the office, but when I saw the “pay up front” request I thought it might be a scam and I had better research it some firt. Thanks for posting this information. I was glad to hear that my instincts were correct. Appreciate your time on this.
Thanks for posting this. God bless Google! I got one today from “Share Your Experiences” and wanted to add yet another domain name to everyone’s block list for future çráp from them: sharingopinions.us The WHOIS info for this domain shows the following:
Registrant: SHAREYOUREXPERIENCES.COM 2711 CENTERVILLE ROAD SUITE 120 WILMINGTON, Delaware 19808 United States
Registered through: LuckyRegister
Domain Name: SHARINGOPINIONS.US
Created on: 23-Jun-04
Expires on: 22-Jun-05
Last Updated on: 22-Jul-04
Administrative Contact: TORREY, JOHN JOHN.TORREY@SHAREYOUREXPERIENCES.COM SHAREYOUREXPERIENCES.COM 2711 CENTERVILLE ROAD SUITE 120 WILMINGTON, Delaware 19808 United States 5162148365
Technical Contact: TORREY, JOHN JOHN.TORREY@SHAREYOUREXPERIENCES.COM SHAREYOUREXPERIENCES.COM 2711 CENTERVILLE ROAD SUITE 120 WILMINGTON, Delaware 19808 United States 5162148365
Domain servers in listed order:
SCRATCHY.SHAREYOUREXPERIENCES.COM
NS1.SHAREYOUREXPERIENCES2.COM
NS1.SHARINGEXPERIENCE.US
Here is the header and body of an e-mail I received o August 8, 2004 from: Viewing Full Header - View message Return-Path: Received: from host20.host20-server.com (root@localhost) by .ca (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id i789kAg23072 for ; Sun, 8 Aug 2004 05:46:18 -0400 Subject: One of our members is looking for opinions about: sales@cybertime.ca From: Experience Posting Date: Sun, August 8, 2004 4:45 am To: sales@cybertime.ca Cc: ########Submission About You######## A member is trying to share Opinions and Experiences about you via our website. The purpose of this email is to inform you that a submission has been made about you at our website. This is email is not commercial in nature. If this email message was delivered to your spam or bulk email folder please notify your ISP or spam filtering company regarding this mistake on their part. To view this submission use this link: http://share2.info/lx.php?a=search&b=5&c= ShareYourExperiences.com, as the name suggests, is a place where members can meet each other for the purpose of sharing the experiences they have had with people and businesses. IMPORTANT - To add this email address to our Do Not Email List click here: http://6.share4.info/lx.php?a=donotemail&b=.ca Sincerely, SYEC Support X-ClientAddr: 216.117.177.162 Received: from mail.sharingopinion.org (nameservices.net [216.117.177.162] (may be forged)) by host20.host20-server.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id i789jlq23033 for >; Sun, 8 Aug 2004 05:46:10 -0400 Received: from mail.sharingopinion.org (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.sharingopinion.org (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i788j559028331 for >; Sun, 8 Aug 2004 04:45:05 -0400 Received: (from apache@localhost) by mail.sharingopinion.org (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id i788j5VD028330; Sun, 8 Aug 2004 04:45:05 -0400 Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004 04:45:05 -0400 Message-Id: To: Subject: One of our members is looking for opinions about: .ca From: Experience Posting
Our Web site, Shareyourexperiences.com, is absolutely not a scam as some irresponsible slanderers assert. Shareyourexperiences.com is a valuable research tool, and our team has worked hard to create a legitimate, and highly useful, resource. My name is John Torrey, and as the chief executive officer of Shareyourexperiences.com I feel the need to issue this response to defend our product, and assure our users that they are contributing to a valuable meeting place for people around the world. Our accusers, while not even providing one verifiable piece of evidence to support their claims, suggest that Shareyourexperiences.com is a scam. Unfortunately, a lot of people have taken their word as gospel, and have not bothered to check the truth. In fact, that is the purpose of Shareyourexperiences.com - to introduce people to one another who can share common experiences (both positive and negative) so that everyone can make more informed decisions. The root of the problem, it seems, is our site’s similarity to another, Wordofmouthresearch.com. A quick search on the Internet shows that the slanderers disparaged that site and are now trying to do the same to Shareyourexperiences.com. Both sites serve similar purposes (though I would say ours is better) but have fallen victim to an unexplained campaign of distortion and falsehood. We have tried hard to track the perpetrators of the lies against Shareyourexperiences.com, and have found out that the culprits form a small group of approximately 3-5 Internet users. For whatever reasons - perhaps users of our service identified them as people of ill repute - they have decided to damage our reputation in order to save theirs. They post accusations that our Web site is a scam, and then hope that in so doing Shareyourexperiences.com will be shut down. The ultimate losers in this campaign, if they are successful, are ordinary everyday people like you and me, who seek to find others who have information to share about people, businesses and more. By posting their lies on online forums, these slanderers are hoping that people will accept their statements as truth and discredit the site. In fact, Shareyourexperiences.com is wholly legal within U.S. law, and is indeed an invaluable research tool. The site’s goal is to create a community of users who do not back down from or get cheated by liars and slanderers, and thus we will not shut down the site. We are so confident of our value that we invite everyone to visit Shareyourexperiences.com to learn that the site is not a scam but an important tool and resource. It is free to check it out, and while we understand the concept may be difficult to grasp at first, we are certain that once people try it, they will see that Shareyourexperiences.com deserves to be used daily. To summarize, I have full confidence in Shareyourexperiences.com, and I encourage you not to be dissuaded by slanderers who offer no proof to their allegations. Please feel free to contact us via our Support Page, which can be found at https://shareyourexperiences.com. Sincerely, John Torrey, CEO, Shareyourexperiences.com