Justin's Linklog

Here’s an interesting online scam. An anonymous friend, working in anti-spam, writes:

‘I’ve been covertly looking into rumours of a myspace scam and thought you might like to blog it – I don’t want to be attached to this in any way otherwise I’d write about it myself (I have a profile on there that I want to keep around in case other scams show up, but I don’t really want to advertise the profile).

It works like this:

You sign up for a myspace account and fill in your profile details. Then in a couple of days someone contacts you pretending they’re using their friend’s account because they haven’t signed up yet. They say something along the lines of “I saw your profile and thought you were cute, if you’re interested email me at (random)@yahoo”. If you email them, you get a reply back being all bubbly and cute, and a link to a web page that sort of looks like a “My First Homepage” – it even says “I’m taking a course at the community college in HTML”. There are pics on the page of a very cute girl, but at the bottom a teaser saucy picture in lingerie, and an Adult Pass signup to get more pics. Of course the signup is $40.

It’s a subtle scam, but definitely a scam. Here’s an example of the type of site you get sent to:

http://www.honesthost5mb.com/kristenssite/

Note the hosting service. Now delete the /kristenssite/ part and it looks legit, right? Until you click on a few links and realise they have nothing to sell.

Google has no knowledge of honesthost5mb – nobody links to them, so how did Kristen find them?

It’s indeed quite funny that there’s a terribly similar hosting service out there: http://www.jagflyhosting.com/ – yet for some reason all their links seem to work, and they have an accessible phone number. Shock. Horror!

I’m pretty sure the account being (ab)used on myspace is a stolen one – it looks pretty legit, including linked in friends and comments, so I’m suspecting a cracked password.

Anyway, thought you could blog this to warn others about it (feel free to advertise the above link – though I guess that’ll ruin the whole “google doesn’t know” thing ;-) I wish I had the guts to sign up for the extra pics to see what you end up with!’

They also passed on the email content, noting ‘here’s the email sent from yahoo webmail from an AOL account (sadly AOL proxies all web content so I can’t track it any further than New York proxies)’:

Hi [redacted] ! Hey you found me! I was a little worried you wouldn’t be able to :P so, how are you? I’m ok.. I’m sneaking a email in at work before my boss comes back in, so sorry if it’s a little short! I promise to write more later :)

So I promised you some pics:P well I will have to send you some of me when I get home (don’t have the pics here at work). In the meantime you can check out my personal homepage. It’s kind of playground while I’m taking this intro to HTML class, kind of like my blog page. Here is the link: http://www.honesthost5mb.com/kristenssite It’s not much yet but it’s getting there. hehe

So tell me more about yourself, are you a work to live or live to work kinda person? What are you looking for in a girl? Do you like myspace? I think I’ll make a profile soon, it’s free right? and you can add your own HTML? That would be cool.. So how is your 2006 going? Mine is ok, one thing I’m excited about though is that today is exactly 1 week before my birthday. Hey, maybe if we hit it off, we can go on a first date on my birthday, that would be really cool. :)

Anyways, enough with the 20 questions right? oh, I prefer to chat on IM, its more personal you know? Do you have AIM? im kriskat224 on there, msg me sometime ok?

Well I should log off and get some work done.. Write back soon! and take care!

xoxo ~ Kristen

Sure enough, a little further research on Google yields the following examples…

The earliest is this story at Jiveworld.net, of 2004-05-24, noting:

Aaron recently received an e-mail from someone he supposedly chatted with on Match.com:

Aaron: I had actually been chatting with someone I might have met there a LONG time ago. I couldn’t remember, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I thought it was SPAM, but hey, even my own e-mails sounds like SPAM sometimes. She sent me a picture in her e-mail, but the mail service she was using didn’t like it. So she sent me the link to her “website.” It initially seemed like a real personal web space until the big ADULT BUREAU logo appeared. Oh yes, very legitimate.

This was a unique experience for me since someone actually wrote a tailored response to my e-mail, responding to specific things I had mentioned. Even though the bulk of the e-mail seemed form generated, this had to have been a time intensive process for damn near no return. Well, after the ADULT thing, I thought my response to her e-mail was inventive. Since I haven’t received another response, it’s obvious she (Or he) took the hint.

Another: a thread at FordPower.net, 2004-09-24, with a link to http://www.4mbwickedweb.com/sites/melissa/ (since expired);

Another: a Fark thread posting, 2005-01-28, scroll down to the posting of ‘2005-01-28 10:42:28 AM’ by ‘XavierCrutch’, linking to http://www.stepstonehost.com/jesshomepage/ (since expired);

Another: this weblog post, scroll down to March 13, 2005, ‘Personal ads and the great porn conspiracy’, where the poster is snared, via IM with AIM user natkat224 this time, and is sent another link to a site using http://adultbureau.sweetheartsconnection.com/ to collect the $40 fee;

Another: another weblog post, 2005-10-28.

A google search for the AIM username ‘natkat224’ reveals plenty more hits.

So here’s a list of the sites found from those links, and via google, so far:

The common host, at all stages, is ‘SWEETHEARTSCONNECTION.COM’, registered to

INTERTRANS TRADING OVERSEAS LIMITED
VASILEOS OTHONOS 21, FANEROMENIX COMPLEX, OFFICE 102, 6030 LARNACA
N/A
N/A, CA N/A
CY

lots more detail here. SweetheartsConnection.com has terms and conditions that appear to prohibit spamming — but it turns out that they themselves have a pretty scary entry at RipoffReport.com, anyway, noting:

If you want a free LIFE TIME PASSWORD with Adult Bureau.. you have to apply for a 1 month membership @$39.95 to Sweetheartsconnection.com A DATING SERIVCE ….. charge appears as IT INTERNET SERVICES.

No matter if you request cancellation of service this company will continue to bill you ” it gets better ” then send you to there home made collection company ” Secure debt collections, ” two companies in one both fraud

Phony Notices will be sent to the home demanding final payment of a service NEVER USED. They will contact you, try intimidate you into paying a Balance of $200.00 (Sweetheartsconnecton.com automatically rebills your credit card every month @$39.95.

eek.

This weblog post, of 2005-10-28. is shaping up to be the canonical support group for victims of this scam; worth reading the comments there.

Quite a scam, and interesting to note the “personal touch” via email and IM.

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SweetheartsConnection.com – Interesting Dating Scam