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.”
I was so freaked out. I started to research their site and couldn’t find much more information without paying for it. I even setup an account to back into the type of information someone could be searching for and then added a connection that I had information on my e-mail address. I noticed that the first e-mail came from a notification.system@wordofmouthreports.com and the second notice (from me) was from notification.department@wordofmouthconnection.info. This got me thinking that maybe it was a scam and after doing a search on Google and found there were dozens of others just like me who were also freaked and threatened by the e-mail I felt it was my duty to also add some input on the subject. I will probably file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission because I believe that is an infringement on my privacy. Ok, I’ve vented. [Interesting that I can not find any online complaints that reference a "notification.department" email address, but countless that refer to "notification.system". - RDL]
Max- You sure do seem to be spending a lot of time defaming these guys from wordofmouth. I wonder why you spend so much time? You probably just think that you can get some money out of them through a lawsuit of [sic] something. Anyway, those are interesting articles you have collected. Sorry to point it out though, the assertions made that the site is a scam have absolutely no basis in fact. There is not one piece of evidence. Only pure assertion and some of the arguements [sic] are downright specious. [Defamation is "an intentional false communication" and I do not believe that anyone here making comments against WOMC is making them intentionally false. I publicly challenge the operator of the WOMC website to grant me full free nondestructive (read-only) access to any and all his web and development servers and applications in order to ferret out the truth. I would even honor and sign both a non-compete agreement and a confidentiality agreement specific to the source code and any proprietary information. Per the agreement, the only information I would be allowed to publish or disclose would be related to architecture and methodology, as well as forensic data of specific test cases of my choosing. - RDL]
thanks andrea, or should I say PETER KESTLER
Andrea- No need for me to defame the persons at WordofMouthConnection.com. It has already been done. A quick search on Google you’ll find WordofMouthConnection.com together with the words “Fraud”, “Scam”, and “Buyer Beware”. Could so many people be wrong? Also, I admit that I spend way to much time on this subject. Hey, but it is worth it. Some people are freaked out by these emails! This is sad especially if these emails are bogus. I myself am searching for my biological parents. After receiving the WordofMouth emails, I thought could this be my parents trying to contact me? So, I signed up. I had 5 connections, I contacted all of them multiple times through the anonymous system. I have yet to receive one reply and several weeks have passed. Also, I noted that all the connections state they had recent contact with me. However, the email they used is an email I have not used in over an year and will soon expire. Plus, only my friends and family would have this old email and there would be no need for them to contact me anonymously. I think your right about the Website there does not seem to be anyting illegal about the site. However, I think you should sign up for the service. I myself have a Power User Account and a regular user account. I did a little experiment. About a week ago using my Power User Account I made 2 email connections. In theory I should have received emails to these accounts from WordofMouth that someone was looking into my background. I have yet to receive such emails. I did however receive emails from WordofMouth confirming that these emails were sent. I just tried it out again yesterday, this time using regular account and my Power User account. I created 4 connections with each account with 4 differnt email accounts with 3 differnt domains. I got 8 confirmations saying that these emails had been sent. Well, folks I have yet to receive one email stating that someone was looking into my background. Very Curious! Also, the confirmation emails come directly from A+Hosting of Las Vegas. This company hosts WordofMouthConnectio.com I ask you, should not these supposed emails that people are getting about persons researching their background also originate from the A+Hosting. In fact they do not, they originate from places like Pacfic Bell, CyberGate Inc., and Dialtone Inc. Why keep changing companies? Could be they are violating these companies use policies by sending out SPAM? I was examining one to the WordofMouthConnection emails that was posted on the net.
Folks if you plug in the originating IP 68.124.55.146 into the ARIN WHOIS Database you get:
Search results for: ! NET-68-124-55-144-1
CustName: Knud H Padborg
Address: 268 Bush St. #5000
City: San Francisco
StateProv: CA PostalCode: 94104
Country: US
RegDate: 2003-10-09
Updated: 2003-10-09
Gee, could this be any relation toKristian Padborg. As, you know Kristian was listed as a registrant of the domain name WORDOFMOUTHCONNECTIONS.INFO. This information has changed but can still be easily found on the Internet with Google. So, as of January 16th there is still an association between Padborg and WordofMouthConnection.com.
Don’t forget about the email address womipaypal@sbcglobal.net. Also WOMC is now using Authorize.net for payment processing on their website (with the merchant login ID of “pureimmers7994″)
Also, a suspicious person might notice that Andrea’s ISP changes from Pac Bell DSL in Pleasanton (coincidentally in Alameda County) to a Level 3 Communications dialup in San Francisco. That same suspicious person might make the connection that the first IP address Andrea uses to make a comment on my ramblings is an IP address associated with a “Yasuo Monno”, who has a Japanese first name not uncommon in the Philippines, AND is the same IP adress used to spam the above WOMC message to Max… - RDL
You’ve confused me, Max. Just about everything you include in your note argues very strongly against WOMC, yet in your 3rd paragraph: “However, I think you should sign up for the service. I myself have a Power User Account and a regular user account.” Huh?
My guess is that it’s for testing purposes. I, myself, “signed” up for the useless Power User account for free, utilizing a flaw introduced by the website creator’s abysmally poor coding. Because the website uses the popular authorize.net for merchant transactions AND because any real web developer knows how to submit authorized test requests to the authorize.net service AND the scam website creator has no idea how to create a secure application, I now have a Power User account as a result of simply submitting a test request! Apart from the reassuring message that I am “A Power User”, there appears to be no real benefit. Of course, I’m not about to put in my real email address so that I can get spammed some more… - RDL
I say that these scam artists should be strung up, thank you for having this page of sanity on the net.
Sean- No one should sign up for this service, the sign-up comment was directed towards Andrea who felt there was nothing illegal about the service. Also, RDL was asking about the California law. California Business & Professions Code Section 17538, places several regulations on businesses advertising and making sales over the Internet or other electronic means of communication. Section 17538(d) states that in any transaction involving a buyer located in California, a vendor, before accepting any payment, must disclose to the buyer in writing or by electronic communication (e.g. e-mail or on-screen notice): (1) the vendor’s return and refund policy; (2) the legal name of the vendor; and (3) the complete street address from which the vendor’s business is conducted. Another provision governs the means for disclosing the vendor’s legal name and address by on-screen notice. Try requesting this information from WordofMouthConnnection.com.
I myself have received 3 of these emails! I also responded by email stating how appauled I was that this info could be shared without my permission. I received an email back stating….nothing different from the first. This was about 2 weeks ago. I have been having extreme difficulties with my boss and thought it could be him researching me. I almost paid the $$ to find out for sure. I’m SOOOO glad your website was here to inform me first. Thankyou