Today I shut down a scam site and got free beer!

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Posted: Wed May 04, 2016 6:14 pm

I feel bad for posting a "click bait" title but I can't help but gloat a little bit.

Some of you may remember me (I also went by Stealth1290) from MANY years ago (7+ years), I was pretty heavily involved with the phone lads and at my peak I was closing down hundreds of email accounts a day and even had a few Vlad and Asian lad sites shutdown (that had been operating for years... the trick was getting the legal departments from the brands they were "selling" involved")

Anyway, I digress. while I don't think this will mark a full or even part time return for me (I had a heck of a lot more free time back than, that's for sure) but today's rather strange events brought me back to my time spent hanging out here.

I was doing some shopping and happened upon a site that had all the ear marks of a "man in the middle" front. For those that aren't familiar with this scam it works like this, you buy from the site, pay via paypal (usually to an "internationally verified" account), they use stolen credit card info to order the item and ship it to you, by the time the victims are aware of the scam the scammers are long gone.

They tend to use very generic website templates that rarely coincide with the products they're selling. They also tend to have a bunch of listings for items nobody would be interested in, but they also have one or two "target items" that are popular (I've seen everything from Dyson vacuums to Asus routers) and they sell it at a steep discount. Typically $20-30 cheaper than any other retailer. This gives them some Google Shopping rank and quick access to a "customer" base.

Well, today I stumbled across one such site and did my usual bit of digging, I check the "about us" page to see what address they're using, run a WHOIS, and... that's about it. Except in this case I actually recognized the street name and general area of the address. I travel quite a bit for work, and I knew this area to be a great place to hit up the bar scene... not the warehouse scene. After some quick Google-fu I found the bar who's address they skimmed, it turns out I've stopped in for a few beers in the past.

I called up and spoke with the owner, described the scam, how it works, and that I felt it best to let him know so he could take action. It wouldn't be unreasonable to imagine some mis-informed victim deciding that this business was behind the scam or in some way involved. Usually they use addresses for warehouses listed for sale or lease... or famous landmarks... but to risk a small business' reputation, that's a new low.

The owner asked me to write out my explanation so he could pass it along to his attorney and the authorities. I offered up my assistance in providing any further clarification or help along the way, and said I'd be sure to swing by and properly introduce myself next time I was in the area. I figured that was the end of it and I was more than happy to walk away with warm fuzzies having helped someone out... not to mention a reaffirmation that I've "still got it"

Apparently the owner thought I deserved even more, and emailed me a gift certificate for $200... It was certainly not necessary but damn if it wasn't icing on the cake. What'd I do today? I stopped the bad guys and got free beer! Not half bad.

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