We’re not getting much work done here today at flyte. Everyone keeps running into my office and the conference room to watch the effects of the storm. The road/pier to the left of our office is fully submerged. There’s actually lobster buoys floating aimlessly down Portland Pier.

Good tires are a requirement for a day like today, which is an interesting coincidence, given the email below.

A client (OK, my dad), recently forwarded me this email from "PayPal" to confirm his concerns that this was a scam:

This e mail confirms that you have paid V***** Tire Sales
(sales@v*****tire.com) $379.00 USD using PayPal.
This credit card transaction will appear on your bill as "PAYPAL *V*****
TIRE".
————————————————————————

Payment Details
Transaction ID:    0EW23032ET502103Y
Total:    $379.00 USD
Item/Product Name:    Pirelli PZero Nero (M+S) P255/35ZR20 97W
Item/Product Number:    2528
————————————————————————

Business Information
Business:    V***** Tire Sales
Contact E-Mail:    sales@v*****tire.com
————————————————————————

Shipping Address
Shipping Info:    D*************s
4310 T***** ST
Dallas TX 75423
United States
Address Status:    Unconfirmed
————————————————————————
Wit h PayPal, you.re protected against unauthorized payments sent from your
account.This payment will not appear in your PayPal account until we verify
this transaction.If you would like to escalate this dispute to a PayPal
claim, you must do so or it will automatically close. A closed dispute
cannot be reopened or escalated to a claim.If this is transaction is not
authorized, click on the link below to fill a claim and cancel the payment.
                                 Dispute Transaction
————————————————————————

Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team   

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you
will not receive a response.
PayPal Email ID PP120

Although I couldn’t look at the original email and see where the link went (it certainly didn’t go to PayPal), I was able to confirm this was a PayPal scam similar to when Santa wanted my PayPal login info.

In other words: Ignore it!

Update: You may wonder why there are so many * in this post. I recently received a very nice email from the good people at V***** Tires. You can imagine how tough this has been on them, since they are in no way involved with this scam.

For whatever reason this post has risen in the search engine rankings and is hurting their brand. Since this scam seems to be past, I removed all of the references I could find.

I also want to thank them for writing me such a polite email rather than serving me with a cease and desist letter, or taking an aggressive stance. Other companies could learn from their behavior.

Thanks to Jonathan Braden for the cell phone photo of Portland Pier. It’s tough to make out in the photo, but that car is up to its headlights in water.

Rich Brooks
Waterproof Web Design

If you’ve recently received an email from the Domain Notification Central, you can delete it and be at ease.

This grammar-and-spelling-challenged company will try and scare Web site owners into buying redundant domains with the .us suffix. For example, from the email I just received:

Please be advised that the above noted domain name has now become available for registration.

Consequently the possibility of a conflicting domain registration may occur.

I mean, what the hell does that even mean? "A conflicting domain registration" doesn’t even mean anything. The email I received had paragraph after paragraph of meaningless, lawyer-like gibberish meant only to frighten people out of their money.

Since I can’t blog about every scoundral out there, here’s a good tip for anytime someone or some business you don’t know asks for money: Google them.

While the Domain Notification Central (the name sounds like it was written by an automated translation service) come up first for their own name, the rest of the Google results page are warnings against this company.

Googling a company’s phone number or fax number seems to give even better results, as often people share horror stories at their blog or in a discussion forum, sharing these tidbits of information. Googling 1-800-270-5944 brings up posts like:

• Web Piracy, Scams, and Dastardly Deeds – Smyrl.Biz
• Stupid TOASTEDspam – notificationcenter.us 0001 – 2004-07-26 …
• Consumer Alert and
• really great sex call 1-800-270-5944 in Printable view

I’m guessing the last one was a prank to get back at the Domain Notification Central, but perhaps further investigation is required.

No matter what the medium, there will always be people trying to scam you. At least with the internet, you’re one search query away from an answer.

Rich Brooks
Reporting Internet Scams

I received the following comment on my blog after I trashed the Official Internet Optimization Bureau for their fax spam.

Comment From:
————-
Name: mary
Email: info@ic.com.pa
IP: 200.115.171.89

Comment:
——–
we used their service and loved it.
we went up 30 numbers on yahoo and also big on google.
they may have faxed you but it sure worked for me….worth every dime

mary
church of the rock

Hmmm…Mary from the church of the rock. She must be telling the truth, right? Except that when I go to www.ic.com.pa I find NOT a religious site with good PageRank, but rather a Web site for a search engine optimization company. And when I look up their contact email it’s…wait for it…info@ic.com.pa.

Wow, that was a surprise.

Rich Brooks
Mary…Shame on You!

Do you think the folks at the Internet Optimization Bureau are working overtime? Just look at all these searches:

Here’s the original post. Feel free to link to it and help get the word out.

Rich Brooks
If It Wasn’t a Scam, They Wouldn’t Make It Look Like a Bill

If you have recently received a fax from the Official Internet Optimization Bureau your first step should be to clean the slime off of your fax machine.

Your second step is to place said fax in your circular file.

We received this fax with its "official seal" and cover sheet to forward to Accounts Payable–probably because these people have money but don’t know that this is a scam. It was also labeled "Second Reminder." Since I can count the number of faxes we get in a month on one hand I know this is the first one we’ve received.

In small print on the second page in a block of small print it does say that "you are under no obligation to pay unless you subscribe," but everything else screams "second notice" and "it’s that time of year again" and "annual website monitoring bundle" as if we’ve been paying this all along.

While there are many legitimate search engine optimization companies here in Maine and around the world, anyone who tries to trick you into working with them doesn’t have a lot of confidence in their own abilities.

Since many of these companies have multiple names, your fax might come from a different company. Generally, legitimate SEO companies don’t market by sending unsolicited faxes pretending to be overdue invoices.

But you knew that, right?

BTW, if you want to "opt-out" of this offer by calling 1-888-250-7163. I’m sure they’ll gladly take you off their list. Probably they hired that out-of-work AOL rep.

Rich Brooks
I Got Your Back

Tags: Official Internet Registry & Optimization Bureau | SEO Scam | Fax Scam | License # 7234Z45

The telemarketers at the Domain Registry Support must be putting in overtime, as traffic to my post on Domain Registry Support: Ignore It! from May, 2005 is generating huge amounts of traffic and has 94 comments as of today.

If you’ve been getting calls from these guys, or if you’re interested in who’s calling you from 323-510-2661 or 800-591-7398, check out the post and feel free to commiserate.

Rich Brooks
To Protect and Serve

Tags: Domain Registry Support | Internet Scams

Today I got a "solicitation" from ListingCorp.com. It was for my "Annual Website Search Engine Listing" for $65.

Although it does say "this is not a bill", it’s purposely made to look like a bill, including a notice date (giving it a feel that it’s going to be due soon,) and the "annual" in the title gives me the impression that I paid for it last year, so why wouldn’t I just renew?

If you receive this "solicitation" from ListingCorp, be sure to immediately place it in your circular file.

Rich Brooks
I Got Your Back

Tags: ListingCorp | ListingCorp.com | Annual Search Engine Listing

I’ve gotten at least four pieces of comment spam from American Dream Home Inspection in the past week. There are quite a few ADHI’s out there, but these are coming from the franchise in Westminster, California.

Although the comments have been left on real estate related posts, they are nothing more than spam, no better if they spray painted their name across competitors’ signs.

Hey, americandream1@cox.net! You have my attention. Now stop spamming me! If you want to market your services, stop acting like a leach and start marketing like a human being. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

OK, I’ve vented.

Rich Brooks
Pissed

Tags: American Dream Home Inspection | Comment Spam