The internet if full of people who would just love to take your
money, your identity or just mess with your head. We are tired of it
so are dedicating this page to stopping the scamming, spamming and
theft of your identity and money. Please take these scams and hoaxes
seriously!!!
We
can't do it alone so please help us by forwarding any suspicious or
too-good-to-be-true emails to us. We will investigate them, post
them here and get back to you with what we find. You can also help
by sending a "Reply All" email to anyone who passes these malicious
emails on to you.
Submit a
Suspicious Hoax or Scam
Get added to our
Email Lists
If you prefer, you can forward
the email you
received to us at:
(or "Free $xxx XYZStore Gift Card - it's not
just happening to Nordstrom's)
Scam Email:
AKA: FillMyCloset.com
Concerns:
1 -
The ask for your email address.
2 -
They ask for a password! READ #2
below!!
3 -
This is their homepage. Is it misleading?
4 -
They are collecting data about you.
5 -
You have no way of tracking if you qualify - nor do THEY!.
Hazards:
1 - They are most likely only
wanting your email address to add it to a list that they
will sell to spammers (see #4). If so, you will be inundated
with junk email. THEY EVEN SAY so in their Privacy
Policy: "We may sell or market the email
addresses of registered users only to third parties. We
will not, however, sell or market any personal information
of any unregistered user to any third party."
[Well, duh, of course they won't sell
any information of unregistered users - because they don't
have it!BUT they WILL sell your email address!!
They only sell it to "third parties" ?? - that's anyone else
including spammers - exactly who you don't want to have it.]
2 - Most people will enter the
password they use everyday: their email password.
NOW THEY HAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
AND THE PASSWORD TO GET INTO IT!!! IF YOU DID THIS
THEN CHANGE YOUR EMAIL PASSWORD IMMEDIATELY!!
3 - This page is their
homepage!! Doesn't it make you wonder what the purpose of
this site is? Perhaps it's only to get your email address
and your email password.
4 - Their Privacy Policy
states, in part:
"FillMyCloset logs
standard user information and clickstream data for all
users, including a user's IP address, operating
system, and page views."
"We use cookies to save
UserIDs, session validators, and on users' browsers and
hard drives, and may use them to provide tailored
products or services to those users, as they become
available."
"From time to time we may
extend various offers from various partner companies,
including news or additional details on products and
services. A user's usage history may result in
specifically tailored special offer screens or
products." [Oh great, "extending
offers from other various partner companies" -
that means you will get stuff from other vendors, too
(some refer to it as getting spammed).]
"Third parties may
independently collect information about users from the
viewing of links or ads on FillMyCloset. Users should
contact those third parties directly if they do not wish
to receive communications from them, or do not want
those third parties to collect information about them."
[Now, how in the heck are you going to know who all these
third-parties are??]
Their No Spam Policy
states that "We at FillMyCloset.com are opposed to spam.
Our No Spam Policy and Terms of Service prohibit all
users from engaging in any activity involving spam on
our service." [How nice!! They have
already told you they will sell your info to
third-parties for them to use it in any way they want
(sure smells like spam to me). AND, notice how this No
Spam Policy is saying that YOU can't use them
to spam others - not the other way around!!]
5 - Their Terms of
Agreement states:
User must refer 5 new (to
FillMyCloset) users who join FillMyCloset, using the
User’s unique referral link." AND "FillMyCloset cannot
guarantee a User will receive credit for a completed
offer. Offers are managed through a marketing partner
who is responsible for reporting completions." [Now, how in the heck are YOU
suppose to know if 5 friends signed up (omg, and gave
them their personal data, too?) if THEY admit that
THEY don't even know???]
Their User Conduct
section states that "Users may not post information on a
website, forum, or auction that has to do with
"canceling the offers" including, but not limited to,
cancellation phone numbers, cancellation time frames,
and any encouragement or direction to cancel the offers
after signing up with them. [Have
you ever heard of such a restriction? AND why would they
require this?]
I would like to remind you
that by entering your email address and a password you have
agreed to their Privacy Policy and Terms of Agreement. That
means that you have agreed to all of the items listed above.
So, technically they and their third party associates are
NOT spamming you!
Reading the Privacy Policy
and Terms of Agreement before signing up for anything may
seem like a pain, BUT if you don't you have just given sites
like this permission to pass on your email address to anyone
they want.
NOTICE: We contacted
Nordstrom's and received this reply: "We have not authorized
FillMyCloset.com or CardGiver.com to use the Nordstrom name,
logo and copyrighted images, as we are in no way affiliated
with these websites. We are in the process of requesting
that all Nordstrom references be removed from their
websites."
There
is a chain letter circulating that claims there is a virus
called W32.MFG.Tassos@mm and according to the e-mail it will
keep making copies of itself until it fills your hard drive.
There are other similar emails using different virus names.
They are all the same: the instructions will crach your
computer.
Never following instructions to fix a virus unless you get
them by going to
Symantec,
McAfee or some other
reliable anti-virus companies website.
The instructions it gives for removing the virus is designed
to disable nearly any PC. If you follow the manual removal
instructions you could cripple your computer and in some
cases it will not even boot to Windows.
The
instructions tell you to use the manual removal
instructions. The problem with these instructions is they
direct you to delete some key files critical to the proper
operation of Windows. It instructs you to delete the
NTDETECT.COM file. This file is used by NT, Windows2000, and
WindowsXP to detect hardware components installed on your
system at startup and pass the info over to the Kernel.
Without this file these systems will not detect all the
hardware and probably won't even boot into Windows at all.
(SEE MICROSOFT PAGE ON THIS FILE)
If you
have Windows95, Window98, or Me instead of the above Windows
systems: The author instructs you to delete the Twunk_32.exe
file. This file allows 16bit and 32bit applications to
communicate. All of the systems above will have some 16bit
applications which are critical for these versions of
Windows to run.
It also
directs you to delete the run3dll.exe file and download a
new one. However, the Run32dll.exe file cannot be downloaded
from Microsoft and can only be found on your Windows
Installation, or Recovery CD. Do not delete this file.
This is
similar to the $250 free Gift Card in that they are just
stealing your email address and password. Several tactics
are used in these letters. Some have you click on a
hyperlink to get your Insta-Kiss and still others have you
download an Insta-Kiss screen saver, or program. In the
first instance when you browse to the site you are asked to
type your username and password into a form to receive your
Insta-Kiss. The download strategy gets you to download a
file which is really a password stealing virus program. It
then sends the password and username to the virus writer
without you ever knowing the program is on your machine.
REMEMBER: No reputable company (AOL, ebay, PayPal have all
been used in this scam) will have you click-through from an
email and enter personal information. You will always be
instructed to go to their site first.
Scammers are sending out
emails claiming to be from PayPal, AOL and Ebay requesting
that you click on a link in the email to update your
information. I received one from ebay stating that someone
had accessed my account and that I should click on the link
and and change my ebay password. What this email does is
send your "new" password (and sometimes other personal info
you have to enter) to the scammer, not the company you think
you are dealing with. This has also been used stating that
they are AOL Billing and you need to click on the link to
change or verify your billing information Their email even
copied the official look of ebay. Each time part of the URL
has the word paypal (or whatever company they are using) in
it somewhere, but with one notable exception none of them
are www.paypal.com (the correct address). Don't click
on the email link to log in to a site. Go directly to your
normal login screen.
You can complain to the ISP by writing a letter to the ISP
directly. Use: postmaster@www.???.com (just fill in the ???
part with the ISP address). A reputable company will NOT
send you an e-mail to "reconfirm" your credit card number,
or ask you for the password you use on the site.
The various sweepstakes
lottery names such as El Gordo Netherlands, Oy Keikkaus
Netherlands, Algemene Loterij, Werken Bij Delotto and the
Star Johannesburg all use roughly the same address,
presumably either a mail drop or fictitious, of Burdenstraat
21B which they suggest exists in both Amsterdam and
Rotterdam as well as in South Africa.
I just read a report in our
local paper in the last month (2005) about a women here
being sucked into this scam and losing her money.
You need oxygen, fuel, and
ignition to have a fire. Cell phones could cause a spark,
but according to the experts, only if the cell phone was
dropped and the battery popped off and hit something that
would short it out causing a spark. There are no cell phones
that have mechanical ringers, and thus no sparks would be
formed when your cell phone rings.
There is some truth to this
one. Car Dealer's CAN make a new key if they have the VIN#....BUT
the are required to get ID to validate ownership AND they
are very aware of this scam (there were a couple cars stolen
using this method back in 2002 but now that the dealer's are
aware - and probably liable if they don't check the ID -
this just isn't happening anymore). Kind of crazy for a
thief to go there and show their ID to the dealer, too!!
Some of the problems with this are that in most states it's
illegal to cover the dashboard VIN (hell, if it's covered
how can the cops write it down when they give you a parking
ticket, lol).
THIS IS A HOAX
Read more at:
Snopes,
TrendMicro (Thanks to Barb O. from NV for submitting
this to us)
AKA: FillMyCloset.com
