Major DVD sales sites scam. I'm on the case but support is needed!

[NeverGiveUp]

Listen up people, and give a hand!

A major scam is going on, with 10+ DVD sales sites selling DVDs with popular series recorded from cable TV. The series are sold as legal even though they'll be illegal in 90% of the world.

However, the worst part might even be that people who buy these series in good faith soon find out what trouble they are in: They receive is useless and almost random recordings in bad quality, extra money are drawn from their credit cards and when complaining one is met with stalling until the credit card company can no longer withdraw the money, then utter silence.

There are miles of information about these frauds on the net, but still people are being scammed on a daily basis and the governmental services are notoriously slow to react. Right now these pages are known to be scams with the same owner, with several other sites and owners pending:

SCAM! -> AllMyFavoriteShows.com
SCAM! -> DVDAvenue.tv
SCAM! -> DVDDonkey.com
SCAM! -> DVDPlanet.com
SCAM! -> TVAddicts.tv
SCAM! -> TVDVDWorld.tv
SCAM! -> TVMilk.com
SCAM! -> UltimateDVDShop.com

I am on this case and working to gather information and support. For this purpose I'm using the blog http://fightinternetfraud.blogspot.com/ to gather and give information. I hope that by including this forum we can begin the real hunt for these scammers.

Best regards,
Søren Ekelund
www.fightinternetfraud.blogspot.com

(Yes, my name is on the net, and the scammers will come to know it better than they would like, should they try to use it! I just won't offend the rules of the forum by using name and picture in my post.)

NB: Can it really be correct that this forum does not contain even a single post with the word "dvd", as the search engine claims, or do we have a malfunction?

[NeverGiveUp]

Please collect all the information you can on your transactions and communication with the company, from offers and prices to business addresses, shipping addresses, phone numbers, bank accounts, owners and all other data relating to the company in question. Save e-mails and letters, copy chat logs, tape phone calls or write down date, time, name of the supporter and notes from the conversation.

Read this before you post!
Take note; this is a publicly accessible forum so please do not post personal data such as bank account, full address, phone or fax numbers, as these might be used by scammers alike to those who we are already hunting.

Best regards,
Søren Ekelund
www.fightinternetfraud.blogspot.com

Originally Posted by NeverGiveUp

NB: Can it really be correct that this forum does not contain even a single post with the word "dvd", as the search engine claims, or do we have a malfunction?

As you have not seen where this site started you would not know the reason why there is no mention of DVD's. FraudWatchers started out exposing and warning "419" frauds; That's West African EMAIL fraud a-la Advance Fee.

Later we began to get posts concering fraudulent commercial operations abusing alibaba and the like, and subsequently one of our Support staff joined the Moderation team over at Alibaba. This has driven the commercial FAKE SELLER alerts (usually Indonesian and Chinese scams) onto the forum.

DVD's is not something mentioned here due to they types of people making the reports. You are breaking new ground with your alert here at FraudWatchers, and we always happy to see something new in the way of internet fraud reports.

[NeverGiveUp]

Thank you; made me that bit wiser!

Funny thing though, as it means that the sort of people who buy the DVDs will probably never find the warning here, while the other way around it means I've just reached a possible audience of 12,000 people for the warning.

I'm sad though that it's not possible to edit posts around here, because as such it makes the forum not much better than the blog I offer.

Best regards,
Søren Ekelund
www.fightinternetfraud.blogspot.com

The edit button is available after a period of time and a number of posts. This has been implemented because some people have been coming here, posting alerts and then returning to remove the original post after a discussion about the scam/potential scam. This negates an entire thread of conversation and destroys the continuity of the forum. It'll take a while but keep going it will come to you as a surprise.

The internet is a funny thing, and having links here, exposed to internet search engines will do much more in your favor than not. If it drives only a single person to your rather nicely laid out blog, it will be worth it, and it will certainly help in spreading awareness of something even I haven't even considered before.

[Rob]

Looks like you're doing a good job, Søren, keep it up!

You may want to add Todvdornottodvd.com to your faker list.

Maybe you'd like to head over to www.aa419.org, they are specialized in finding and taking down fraudulent websites. While this scam is right now not their business, they may be able to explain how you can find and kill these websites.


cheers


Btw, maybe you should consider to edit out your personal details on your blog. I don't know much about the scam that you're dealing with but it's usually better to stay anonymous on the internet if you're dealing with criminals. You don't really want to have them knocking on your door.

[NeverGiveUp]

Thank you Rob! It's such information that makes me love forums like this one

http://www.todvdornottodvd.com/ added as being a child of DvdDonkey.com.

www.aa419.org doesn't have a mention about the TV DVD scam. I'll look into that...

Now, regarding my lack of anonymity, I would like to explain that. First of all thank you for the warning; it's definitely true in many cases. However, I have quite a few reasons to stay personal:
1) Anonymity breeds suspiciousness, and should always do. If you can't stand up for your cause in person, you are either a scam (!), not serious enough or the cause is so dangerous that no unprofessional should partake (No offence intended; I understand full well why you prefer anonymity). A face and a name confer a trust you just can't show through reassuring words. Of cause I could use another's name and photo, but then how can I blame scammers using that trick when I'm not honest myself.
2) It wouldn't help me to be anonymous here or on my blog, as my name, e-mail, picture and IP can be found on half a hundred other sites that I visit and support. And where I'm profiled in person or by a widely known alias, for reasons noted above. Staying complete anonymous in this case would require me to erase myself from the net, something that'll be extremely difficult bordering to the impossible as my name has caught many an obscure search engine that still has lingering snippets of profiles even from websites and profiles I've closed long ago.
3) With anonymity comes a false sense of security. Regardless of how anonymous I would seem to be, we all leave traces in the real world and on the internet in particular. Those traces are the same I've used to track down scammers in the past, each clue leading to the next from website to host to first fake ID until real faces and names appear at the root bank or post office or fake identities are traced to a real address. Of cause anonymity makes the hunt somewhat more difficult, but when compared to the effort of a world trip to silence annoying anti-criminals its like installing a physical steering wheel lock in your care; it takes 30 seconds to ready and hampers the car thief in 5.
4) These criminals are clever, and they don't want attention. By going for me they hit not only the person, but all of the organisations and people who I'm in contact with. The immediate result will be that instead of having removed a single annoyance they've created a hundred. Same goes for hitting my personal network, or my computers in the least case; each action will attract a counter-action in kind but far more powerful. Indeed, a direct attack on me will help my cause, so please, go ahead!
5) As noted above this leaves me only to deal with the stupid and desperate part of the criminals; not many of these among serious internet scammers. However, even if some bozo or rat-in-the-corner should act without thought on the consequences, I will be able to tackle him. I've had to deal with governmental services, international companies, hackers, thieves, trouble makers and street gangers before, and almost everything in between, so I'm prepared for much and ready for anything.

Take care, Rob

Best regards,
Søren Ekelund
www.fightinternetfraud.blogspot.com