Wednesday, May 03, 2006

ScamFly AntiScam Forum

Yesterday I got a comment on my FBI email scam post. As you know when I get really good comments, I must share them as new posts:

There are so many west coast wellness scam online these days. I see it even where i live in Florida. I did come across a forum though that i can post about west coast wellness scam and its free. Here is the url http://www.scamfly.com/forum/

Posted by ChignikLake_561769 at 5/02/2006 10:17:53 AM


What an interesting idea. Lets look into it further. This blogger who left the comment had only 4 profile views when I checked shortly after the comment arrived. The domain was registered on May 1st for only one year with RegisterFly and their whois info protection service. They are building up content fast. There were 13 non default forums with a total of 56 posts when I visited. All the posts were by the forum's single registered user, admin.

An example of one of the posts in the site's forum:

Bedford to fight senior citizen fraud - Lynchburg News and Advance

Bedford to fight senior citizen fraudLynchburg News and Advance, VA - Apr 29, 2006... “Senior citizens are targeted,” Wheeler said. “They tend to be a lot more vulnerable to the door-to-door and the telemarketing scams.”. ...


Check out the link on that top line, it looks like a link direct from Google News's RSS feed. The funny characters in the post, are common on badly parsed/formed RSS feeds, as is as its truncated length.

The main site says they provide free blog hosting where you can "Tell your story" on your "I've been scammed" blog. What a nice guy, there just aren't enough free blog providers out there. Currently the only active blog listed is titled "affiliates" and has a couple posts on "VITAL HEALTH CARE PRODUCTS." There is one more blog named "pits," but so far it only has the default welcome post and Google Ads. Oddly, both blogs use the same Google Ad Client ID.

From the Features page, I discovered why the IDs match:

We offer this free blog service for a number of reasons. You will notice that on our free hosting platform we have a small Google adsense ad unit on the blog. This is a small way to help us cover bandwidth costs.


The logo in the upper left corner of the main site gives away some more info. It says ClubBlogs.com, but does not link to it. There are a couple other mentions of that domain, but no links. Going there yesterday gave this message along with some spamdexing looking content:

We are certain you will be delighted with the fruits of our online test which has sourced good file about to mail you to. An essential strategic assistance that cyberspace organizations obtain over non-net based organizations is that they can constitute changes when changes are demanded.

Detailed test all over the net resulted in this location about and capture the best sites from all those available for you to visit. Our web location is yet expanding so we have not much managed to comprehend volumes of support, however what we have done so far is researched the too best sites on the net. Our web location is yet expanding so we have not much managed to provide lots of file, however what we have done so far is researched the too best


Today the site looks totally different and that text is gone, it is an actual WordPress blog now.

Another site mentioned on ScamFly, but not linked was blogsilla.com. Today it contained this text with a somewhat similar layout to yesterday's clubblogs site:

We are certain you will be delighted with the fruits of our online test which has sourced good file about wikipedia to mail you to. An essential strategic assistance that cyberspace wikipedia organizations obtain over non-net based wikipedia organizations is that they can constitute changes when changes are demanded.

Our wikipedia website is too advanced so we have not much managed to assistance lots of content, however what we have done so far is researched the too best wikipedia sites on the net.

Locating essential and good wikipedia requires a considerably extent of skill. So we came up with this website. As online commerce continues to grow wikipedia.


Don't forget to check out blogsilla's sitemap. They have pages on lots of varied topics including: wikipedia, mesothelioma, health care, Titleist, and Diablo 2. But each page is basically the same with no actual topical content. It just inserts the page's keyword into the above text (where it says wikipedia).

Through domaintools.com, I discovered a related site with a design similar to today's clubblog design, 106th-park.com. The whois info even says "Visit: http://clubblogs.com." Wow, I didn't know you could advertise your other sites in your whois info.

So getting back to scamfly.com, is it just a case of spamdexing or a legitimate site designed to help scam victims? I will leave the conclusion to the reader.

Comments:
Hi,

I am the owner of scamfly.com. I am glad I noticed this... I didnt realize there were links left on the template I had modified. A freind of my sons had it and gave it to me. I will make sure I fix it right away.

I built this site because I was/am soooo angry about being scammed myself. I am owed a lot of money and am not getting any younger with the run around these online folks are giving me.

My kids seem to have a ton more experience than me online and they are teenagers :) so I lean on my daughter for help here and there as I learn. I am a pilot by day and privately...http://n204mc.com/ipw-web/gallery is my airplane construction. Great hobby...

I hope people will use this and I do plan to advertise it some so people can tell their stories. I feel it makes me feel a little better to tell mine so I will also.

You must of just found the site after it went online. I do appreciate the review. I will have it all buttoned up within a few more days. I did notice some code in the template thats not mine but I loved the template, it fit perfect for what I am doing and my daughters friend said he doesnt use it...

Chingilake

Oh yea, the forum. I felt I needed to populate it a bit with some feeds since it was empty. i really want people to use it and felt they wouldnt want to be the first one signed up. I did notice today however someone actually spammed my scamfly.com forum. Imagine...its unreal!!! How the heck can they spam a forum. I guess where there is a programmer there is a client to order more spam tools. Drives me nuts!
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Your shock at having your forum spammed indicates to me that you are unaware of the implications and irony of my post. I was unsure when I reviewed it, but your site looked very much like the kind of site commonly setup by web spammers. That in addition to your own comment spamming made me assume you were a spammer.

Leaving such advertising comments as you did originally is considered comment spamming. Lately I get a lot of traffic from people trying to find out what "west coast wellness scam" means. I assume that is because they have found your comment spammed in their blog's comments.

Whether you intentionally are a spammer or not, spamming is what you are doing by advertising your site in this way. I don't believe you are trying to be a spammer, I think you are just misinformed. There are a lot of totally legitimate looking sites selling and promoting spamming software making it look totally innocent. Basically, any site that promises to dramatically increase your website's traffic probably involves some form of spamming. I know you want to help others with your site, but your spam is hurting other people's sites and requiring time to remove.

Growing a site organically through links and posts from friends and relatives is far better than spamming. Especially for a site hoping to fight scammers. Scammers and Spammers are often closely related, you shouldn't become them to help stop them.
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