Share Your Experiences Spam Scam
Yesterday, a comment was posted on RR…, supposedly from John Torrey, CEO of Shareyourexperiences.com, in response to myriad comments left by other visitors that the Share Your Experiences organization is a scam in the same manner as the seemingly defunct Word of Mouth Connection.
Unfortunately, I believe that John’s reply is just another set of lies — and that’s assuming that there really is a John Torrey behind this “new” entity. Given the history of the person or people behind WOMC and their propensity to use fake names, street addresses, and email addresses when registering the dozens of domain names used for the scam, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find out that John Torrey is just another pseudonym.
The first point of contention is that “John” states that “the root of the problem… is [his] site’s similarity to another, Wordofmouthresearch.com.” He continues to try to distance himself from Word of Mouth Research, otherwise known as WOMC, Word of Mouth Connection, and dozens of other aliases. The problem with that is that in March 2004, WOMC began the process of changing its name, probably due to the unerring bad press it had received. Now, emails that referenced Word of Mouth began coming from researchpeople.net, researchpeople.biz, backgroundresearch.us, find-the-truth.org, but still originating from the same IP addresses, setting a proven precedence of frequent attempts of hiding behind assorted entities and identities.
Torrey claims that Share Your Experiences doesn’t spam. Yet Wild West Domains, registrar of experiencenotification.biz, experienceshare.biz, experiencesharing.biz, learning-web.biz, share-experiences.biz, share-your-experiences.biz, and share1.biz (to name just a few of the many dozens of domains owned and registered by John Torrey and Share Your Experiences, or by Scott Kucera with the same mailing address of SYE) suspended all the above-mentioned domains, citing “spam and abuse”. Many of the spamming domains held by WOMC, including womc.info, word-of-mouth-connection.com, and womc.net are all hosted in Las Vegas by A+Hosting. Share Your Experiences just happens to host shareyourexperiences.com at the same ISP. Most WOMC spam emails are sent from Pacific Bell DSL accounts in Irvine and Pleasanton. Share Your Experience often sends spam emails from Pacific Bell DSL accounts in Pleasanton and neighboring San Francisco. Not one of those facts is dámnìng by itself, but each is a notch on the Belt of Coincidence.
In December 2003, I received an email from “WOMC Support Department” that claimed, “Someone has just begun to research your background via our website.” On that day, as quoted in my previous article, the Word of Mouth Connection website claimed that they “send an initial unsolicited email” and that their spam email “is not bulk mail because it is directed at one specific individual.” In May 2004, a RR… reader received an email originating from “SYEC Support Department” at shareyourexp.us that quoted “Someone has just begun the process of sharing opinions and experiences about you via our website.” And today, the Share Your Experiences website states that they “send an initial unsolicited email” and that their spam email “is not bulk mail because it is directed at one specific individual.” Sound vaguely familiar? Too exact for sensibility, but only one example of many instances. If these similarity were considered by themselves, Share Your Experiences could still claim separatism, and only be guilty of plagiarism.
In January 2004, a RR… reader received an email from WOMC that contained a link to “http://womexch.com/pass.php?a=search&b=5&c=[email address]“. In March 2004, someone else received an email from WOMC that contained a link to “http://womexch.info/pass.php?a=search&b=5&c=[email address]“. And in May 2004, a third email, this time advertising shareyourexp.us, linked to “http://8.shyexp.com/exec/1.php?a=search&b=5&c=[email address]“. While the domain and path information are obviously different, doesn’t it seem strange that two supposedly different companies would share the same input requirements of “a=search&b=5&c=[email address]“? If you know anything about web application development, you cannot reach any other conclusion other than that they are blatantly using the same web application, one developed in-house and not available or packaged elsewhere. If this fact stood alone without other similarities and if Share Your Experiences were to continue to assert itself as a separate entity, SYE might only be guilty of intellectual property theft.
Share Your Experience would have you believe that they are innocent, that this is all one big coincidence. Clearly, it is not.
Giving him what is in this case the ludicrous benefit of doubt, I publicly challenge the operator of the Share Your Experiences website the same public challenge I gave to Word of Mouth: 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.
One can hope, but I don’t expect “John” to take me up on the offer…
By the way, here is a short list of just SOME of the domains associated with John Torrey and Share Your Experiences: bhimsa.com, experiencenotification.biz, experiencenotification.us, experienceshare.biz, experienceshare.us, experiencesharing.biz, experiencesharing.us, johntorrey.com, learning-web.biz, learning-web.us, qeps.com, qeps.net, qeps.org, share-experiences.biz, share-experiences.us, share-your-experiences.biz, share-your-experiences.com, share-your-experiences.net, share-your-experiences.org, share-your-experiences.us, share1.biz, share1.net, share1.org, share1.us, share2.biz, share2.net, share2.us, share3.biz, share3.us, share4.biz, share4.net, shareexp.biz, shareexp.us, shareexperience.biz, shareexperience.us, shareexperiences.biz, shareexperiences.us, shareopin.biz, shareopin.us, shareopinion.biz, shareopinion.us, shareopins.biz, shareopins.us, shareye.biz, shareye.us, shareyexp.biz, shareyexp.us, shareyourexperiences.com, shareyourexperiences.net, shareyourexperiences.org, shareyourexperiences2.com, shareyouropinion.biz, shareyouropinion.us, shareyouropinions.biz, sharingexper.biz, sharingexper.us, sharingexperience.biz, sharingexperience.org, sharingexperience.us, sharingexperiences.biz, sharingexperiences.org, sharingexperiences.us, sharingopinion.biz, sharingopinion.net, sharingopinion.org, sharingopinion.us, sharingopinions.biz, sharingopinions.com, sharingopinions.net, sharingopinions.us, sharyx.biz, sharyx.us, shyex.com, shyex.net, shyexp.com, shyexp.net, shyxe.us, shyxpe.us, and torrey.org
As a final note, you do realize, “John”, that if you hadn’t visited my website to post such bold-faced lies in defense of your immoral scam that I wouldn’t have bothered “beginning the process of sharing opinions and experiences” about you, right? D’oh!!
NOTE: Folks, comment however you wish, but if you choose to leave copies of email headers and domain name registration details, please include only the most vital information, not the entire records. Thanks!
Ahh, the joys of new domains. Add sharingopinions.info [and share2.info] to the list. Decided to do a little sleuthing. The IP address in the header resolved to nameservices.net. Searching on Google Groups, nameservices.net is a notorious spammer domain. That is all I need to know.
Received: from velonews (adsl-68-124-41-67.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [68.124.41.67])
(envelope-from support_dept@researchbackground.biz)
Received: from norton ([127.0.0.1]) by velonews with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6713);
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 19:35:33 -0800
From: support_dept@researchbackground.biz
Subject: A user at our website is researching your background.
Message-ID:
Someone is researching your background at our website. Someone who knows you just began to research your background at our website. This person could be a friend, a family member, co-worker, business associate, or anyone else who knows you and wants to know more. Obviously, there must be some people in our world that have previous experience with almost any particular individual. The problem is that you may not know them, or know of them. Furthermore, many times the people you know are reluctant or unwilling to share information with you because they lack anonymity. For example, one person may not be comfortable sharing information about another person because of fear that same person would later discover he or she shared this information, and so on and so forth.
http://j.wres.us/sel.php?a=search&b=5&c=XXXXXXXXX
We foster the spread of word-of-mouth because we believe it is one of the most genuine and accurate types of information available. Sure, you can “Google” someone, but chances are the results you find in that kind of a search will yield less direct personal testimonies. At our website you will have the option to anonymously connect with the person who shared their experience, and to learn the kind of wordofmouth information he or she is revealing. We are solely interested in fostering a community of willing people to promote information exchange.
WOM Support Department
What is this çráp? ShareYourExperiences.com Daily Searching System Member Username: tgolding@augustatech.edu Please find your Daily Searching System search results for 2004-08-20 below Remember, the ShareYourExperiences.com Daily Searching System searches through Experience Requests posted at our website during the previous 24 hours. If any search results were found a link(s) will appear below that you can click on to view the Experience Request(s) found.
Email Address Experience Requests: http://shyex.com/switch/pass.php?a=search&b=5&c=tgolding@augustatech.edu
Business Experience Requests: There are no business experience requests that match your daily search today
Person Experience Requests: There are no person experience requests that match your daily search today
Postal Address Experience Requests: There are no postal experience requests that match your daily search today To turn off your Daily Searching System email notifications click the link below:
http://shareyourexperiences.com/user/dss_off.php?a=tgolding@augustatech.edu53
Sincerely, ShareYourExperiences.com
I did some searching on the internet, and it appears that Torrey’s address is ostensibly: John Torrey (we all know that’s a fake) 2711 Centerville Road Suite 120 Wilmington, Delaware 19808 516-214-8365 The number, which I called, is a dead end, of course, with a voice message about how shareyourexperiences.com doesn’t provide phone support, etc. Now, there’s another company on the net, called NC Software (www.logbookpro.com/Default.aspx), which provides aviation software to pilots. The address under the “Contact Us” section is the same as shareyourexperiences.com. This company also claims to not be able to provide phone support. Strange.
Not that strange. A similar search results in also finding Maxtele Domain Services, 12Ghosts Inc., JDE Internet Publishing, FISAT Inc., PhaseInvesting Technologies, Inc., NC Software Inc., Focused Initiatives Inc., Suvison America Corporation, Jobmonitor LLC, Maximilian Ventures LLC, Vignobles du Monde Inc., VI Laboratories, and Pro 6 AG LLC all using the same address. That obviously led to a search for companies in the area offering mail forwarding or rental mail boxes, finally leading to The Company Corporation, a business which assists people in creating corporations online and offers their clients mail forwarding services. - RDL
RDL Yes, I saw that yesterday. The only link to this guy is the phone number, which is unlisted. But it’s the same number he’s using to bill the credit cards. If someone could find out who’s phone number that is…through some soft of investigative service…that would be the ticket.
Ok… to add more fuel here… i just received one of these emails today, and after some research found this site… now intestingly enough, This John “Ðìçkhëád” Torrey did sell me that Logbook pro software, and since i have VERY FEW acquaintances that would use a service like his, I have to assume that he got my emaill addy from that softwares list… could this be used against him to prosecute?? I am willing, and can get a VERY good lawyer….
I’m absolutely furious about this site. I found out about it when traveling to a country with bad internet connections and tried in vain to get more information. So, I stewed over this thing until I got back. In ten years on the net, this is the first time I have ever been affected by spam and I DO want to prosecute! Advice is appreciated…
Perhaps unimportant, but the telephone number listed for John Torrey in his domain name registration is for Nassau, NY, not Wilmington, DE.
There are two listings for a John Torrey (if that is his real name) in NY: John E Torrey, (585) 757-6862, 12 Maple Ave, Elba, NY 14058 Grace M and John Torrey, (607) 757-0383, 337 Front St, Vestal, NY 13850