Another Con Job?

OK, I am a member of PayPal and get the occasional scam by e-mail trying to get my PayPal info. Today I got a notice from SwiftPay saying I had received a sum of money from John 94 and that if I did not have an account I would need to set one up to receive the money. Hmmm? No one said he would pay through "SwiftPay". Hmmm?
I checked my outstanding accounts. I do not find a John owing this amount or anything close to it. More hmmm?

So I clicked on their "link" to set up an account. Everything looks quite legit except for the top url. What is displayed there is
http://210.123.35.197/signup.pl

They do have the "home" and I click on that and am taken to http://www.swiftpay.com. When I click on sign up from there I get the same looking page EXCEPT that the state has an option box which the other one is merely blank to be filled in. And now the url is listed as
http://www.swiftpay.com/signup.cfm

You will notice that swiftpay.com is now listed in the url and the signup page is cfm, not pl. But it still is not secure. it is http, not https. Am I missing something here? Anybody else getting any of these notices?

You should not have followed the link. No doubt you are added to hundreds of spammer email listings now..

Congress just passed some kind of anti-spam bill. I wonder if it will enable someone to go after these guys?

[photo not recovered: 3e69bb3870f12ad5.jpg]

"If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead." -Johnny Carson

The new bill is a joke. Barely a slap on the hand. Almost not that. As Jerry Pournelle has phrased it, the only way spamming will stop is when something very painful and very permanent happens to a few spammers.

>The new bill is a joke. Barely a slap on the hand. Almost
>not that. As Jerry Pournelle has phrased it, the only way
>spamming will stop is when something very painful and very
>permanent happens to a few spammers.
>
>

Randy Powell

Heard this morning that 2 individuals in Virginia were arrested and charged with multiple felony counts for spam. It will be the first test of the new anti spam laws. I guess we'll see what happens.

Rick,

We can certainly hope.

>You should not have followed the link. No doubt you are
>added to hundreds of spammer email listings now..
>

Well, maybe so, or maybe not, but I wanted to see what would turn up. Right after I posted this, I called Swiftpay and they verified that this scam had already been reported by a number of customers. Well, I am still not a customer, because I never filled anything in, neither on the spoof site nor on the legit site. I just wanted to check them out and compare them. Not a bad impersonation, but not quite legit anyway.

I have a policy of never to buy anything that is sent to me by spam (not going to support the "industry") and also not to believe any url that is sent to me by spam. Ah, well, Korea, huh? That would appear to be about right.

I wonder what impact an "Anti Spam" bill will have on garbage coming in from another country?

The reverse DNS for the IP number you gave returns no listing, but tells us the server is in Korea.

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=210.123.35.197

It is not, clearly, a legitimate webserver for the Swiftpay or it would have a reverse DNS listing.

This is a spoof.

Here is a bit more information on the spoof IP number if you wish to follow up with a letter of protest or some such...

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=210.123.35.197

A search for the DNS record for Swiftpay.com tells us the IP numbers assigned to that domain, 66.212.226.144.

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?name=swiftpay.com&type=A

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=swiftpay.com&server=whois.bulkregister.com&cache=off

>You will notice that swiftpay.com is now listed in the url
>and the signup page is cfm, not pl. But it still is not
>secure. it is http, not https. Am I missing something
>here? Anybody else getting any of these notices?

The use of https for secure pages vs http for insecure: The URL listed for the page displayed indicates if that page was sent secure or otherwise, NOT what will happen when you click on "submit". You want the URL that is referenced by the "submit" to be https, and unless the form to be filled out contains sensitive information (like already being half-way filled in), it need not be sent secure.

OTOH, it's the PERCEPTION that counts! So it is common to send a blank form securely (using https) just so it LOOKS like it's secure, when it's really what happens NEXT that is important. (Why send a blank form using https? There's nothing in it needing encryption!)

PAYPAL POLICE. If a buyer refuses to buy insurance and the package is lost by the post office the buyer can file a complaint with paypal that he did not receive the item that he paid for. Paypal will then require the sell to email them proof of shippment. Paypal wants an insurance tracking number that can be checked online. Sence the buyer refused insurance the seller will have no proof to give to Paypal there fore Paypal will give the buyer a full refund. The seller looses the money and the items that was lost by the post office. I found this out the hard way thats one reason I no longer use Paypal. Paypal policy encurages buyers not to pay for insurance and if the item is lost by the post office the buyer gets a full refund.

Another reason I will not use paypal is they charge me a 10%
RIP OFF fee. A 10% fee is excessive. I refuse to be charge any fee
especially 10%. Paypal claims the maximum fee is 3%. A payment if $1.00 or less has a 33% fee.

When PayPal first came out they advertised "always free". I wondered how they were going to stay in business, especially since you could use your credit card to pay and someone had to pay the credit card debit. I don't begrudge them their small amount (dollar wise) that they charge when the credit card company will also charge them. However, this is a different company.

Gary,

If you order something from "Tower Hobbies" and it gets lost in the mail, you expect them to either replace or refund the item. It is the seller's responsiblity to make sure the buyer gets the item he has paid for. I know many who sell on ebay claim they will not be responsible; however, leagally the seller is liable. Paypal knows this and that is why they adjudicate in favor of the buyer.

I sell on ebay and always insure what I ship without charging extra to the buyer. It is neither the buyer's or seller's fault if the item gets lost in the mail; however, the seller is still responsible for delivering the product.

So, the insurance is to protect the seller, not the buyer. Expect negative feedback if you do not deliver the product, even if you claim it was the fault of the Post Office you are the one who has ultimately failed to deliver.

I don't like to force people to pay unwanted charges. Many people are willing to take the risk of having their package lost to save a dollar but if the post office looses it the buyer is mad at me like it was my fault. The post office will not insurance First Class flat mail large brown envelopes with printed material inside. I can send it Priority Mail with Insurance for abut $5.40 compaired to $1.00 first class. If I put the printed material in a box and don't tell the post office whats inside the box I can get insurance. It all ends up costing the buyer more money. Most people would rather save some money and have the items in an envelope. I can not get tracking on envelopes because they do not meet the 3/4" thickness requirement. If I stick a sheet of bubble wrap in the envelope to make it thicker then I can get tracking. An envelope with tracking has never been lost or damaged and it costs the buyer about $1.50 First Class compaired to $5.40 Priority Mail.

Tracking is Not insurance tho.

It costs the customer less and it serves the same purpose.