A new client of mine just sent me this to let me know why she has to change hosts. Looks like ADDR.com is no more.

==============================
Dear Addr.com customer,
> >
> > Due to the unfortunate events that have occured during the past week, we
> > are unable to continue operations at Addr.com. You have previously been
> > advised that a hacker obtained a partial database of client information,
> > including credit card details. Addr has been working closely with Visa
and
> > Mastercard and has given its full co-operation to assist them in
minimizing
> > consumer fraud as a result of this incident.
> >
> > However, our merchant bank has decided not to continue to allow Addr to
> > accept credit card payments from Visa and Mastercard customers in the
> > future, and to freeze all recent payments made within the last 30 days
by
> > clients. Our management team have been working around the clock to try
and
> > secure a resolution to this situation but unfortunately we have been
> > unsuccessful.
> >
> > The freezing of a large amount of working capital and the bank's
decision
> > not to allow us to accept future payments has resulted in our inability
to
> > maintain service to our clients beyond this week. This decision has
taken
> > the financial future of Addr out of our hands.
> >
> > All servers will be turned off by our provider between Saturday 14th
April
> > and Monday 16th April.
> >
> > We apologize for the severe inconvenience this will no doubt cause you.
> > Please do not try and contact our company via telephone as they are no
> > longer being operated. If you would like to request a refund for unused
> > service fees you have prepaid then please make your request in writing
to
> > the following address:
> >
> > Addr Refund Requests
> > 3031 Tisch Way
> > Floor 10, Suite 1006
> > San Jose, CA 95128
> >
> > If you need to contact us by email then please use the following
address:
> > addr_help@yahoo.com Our website and email at the addr.com domain will
be
> > discontinued shortly and will not function. We cannot reply to email
from
> > our domain.
> >
> > Addr.com will attempt to make a refund of all unused service fees if
> > possible, when funds are made available by our bank. We cannot guarantee
> > that a 100% refund will be available, but will make every effort to
> > reimberse all clients as far as possible.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Addr.com Management
> > ======================

as stated in a post somewhere, that email is fake. why would they use a yahoo email: addr_help@yahoo.com

ROFL!!!!!!

It is fake.

Oh well.....

You should have read the thread a few posts a down: Here's a link to it:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=8311

That email is blatantly ridiculous and false.

They seem to be operating perfectly fine to me. You would think their site would not be up or accepting orders. That email was obviously a fake.

You would think their site would not be up or accepting orders.

Actually it wouldn't be the first time a company has gone to the wall trading like mad to get a bit of extra cash before the axe falls.

but in this case, yes it's untrue (at least in regards to that e-mail). There are big and ugly enough to weather this problem. ***** was reported to have lost 20-50% of their customers when they screwed up, but they came back bigger than ever.

Greg Moore

Fake or not .. I have seen a flood of ADDR customers moving all sayng ADDR is closing

I'm no volture, so I tell them that can't be, they are too big (Heck 40K customers) .. but people get scared, and they don't care, they just move

SCARY if you ask me, as it can happen to any of us :(

Originally posted by Tim_Greer
That email is blatantly ridiculous and false.

While it's obvious (because of other posts) that the e-mail is indeed a fake, your statement that the e-mail is "blatantly ridiculous" is, well... let's just say that what was contained in that e-mail is actually quite possible.

We ourselves, about a year ago, had our merchant bank withhold funds from us. It was a fiasco - turns out that when we got our merchant account 3 years ago, they put a $10,000 monthly limit on it. About 18 months later we started to regularly exceed that (unknowingly), and a year or so ago they decided that "something is wrong about a company with a $10,000 limit charging $20,000 or more per month", so they froze all funds.

The problem was that they didn't even bother telling us about it until checks started bouncing because of lack of funds in our account (at which time I got a print-out of deposits from our bank and discovered that no credit card deposits had been made in almost a month).

We eventually did get it straightened out, but it cost us over $2,000 in legal fees to do it. And yes, it very nearly put us out of business.

In any business, you absolutely depend on cash flow. And if 90% of your cash flow comes from processing credit cards, when that source gets shut off, it can very easily put your entire business in jeopardy.

Other people have posted that Addr.com isn't going out of business, that the e-mail was a hoax. I'm inclined to agree. But I will say this - if MC/Visa did decide to pull Addr.com's merchant account and hold up funds, it's very possible that they would be going out of business in such a situation.

So I guess my point is - don't dismiss it simply because you think it couldn't happen, because it could. I know first hand.

Thanks,

Jason

Originally posted by Jason Ellis


While it's obvious (because of other posts) that the e-mail is indeed a fake, your statement that the e-mail is "blatantly ridiculous" is, well... let's just say that what was contained in that e-mail is actually quite possible.

We ourselves, about a year ago, had our merchant bank withhold funds from us. It was a fiasco - turns out that when we got our merchant account 3 years ago, they put a $10,000 monthly limit on it. About 18 months later we started to regularly exceed that (unknowingly), and a year or so ago they decided that "something is wrong about a company with a $10,000 limit charging $20,000 or more per month", so they froze all funds.

The problem was that they didn't even bother telling us about it until checks started bouncing because of lack of funds in our account (at which time I got a print-out of deposits from our bank and discovered that no credit card deposits had been made in almost a month).

We eventually did get it straightened out, but it cost us over $2,000 in legal fees to do it. And yes, it very nearly put us out of business.

In any business, you absolutely depend on cash flow. And if 90% of your cash flow comes from processing credit cards, when that source gets shut off, it can very easily put your entire business in jeopardy.

Other people have posted that Addr.com isn't going out of business, that the e-mail was a hoax. I'm inclined to agree. But I will say this - if MC/Visa did decide to pull Addr.com's merchant account and hold up funds, it's very possible that they would be going out of business in such a situation.

So I guess my point is - don't dismiss it simply because you think it couldn't happen, because it could. I know first hand.

Thanks,

Jason

I understand what you're saying, but I don't agree at all with it. Primarily, due to the fact, that not one, but two company's both refuse to accept orders for them at the same time. The fact that they were to be suddenly shutting down with only 4 or 5 days total notice. The fact that it was from and told people to reply to a @yahoo.com email address. Yes, definitely, beyond any reasonable doubt, completely fake and obviously so.

CC company's only refuse to accept payments for company's that are committing out and out fraud, without any doubt about it. Addr had no indication they were doing it -- yet the email stated it was due to a "hacker" issue. That makes no sense. If their merchant account withholding funds, they'd simply have gotten another one with another bank in the meantime, or from then on out. They are too large to let some screw up put them out of business, no matter what. They'd simply go another route.

The fact that they would have only gave 4 days notice, is ridiculous in itself. And, why would it be a Saturday (14) OR Monday (16)? Seems it's be a Friday or Monday. That's not solid evidence of anything, of course, but if they wouldn't shut it all off. They'd have sold to someone else, not shut it down 3 or 4 days after emailing some people telling them. Impossible. There's no way they'd just let it die and just shut down. It's ludicrous to assume otherwise.

The @yahoo.com... come on, that's the biggest reason to not buy it, if anything. The way that email was worded says a lot too. Yes, it was definitely and obviously fake and ridiculous. Things can happen, but not like that, no so quickly and not with those terms, no way.

Originally posted by jayglate
It is fake.

Dang. Too bad. If it were true, couldn't have happened to a nicer outfit...

<<MODERATOR EDIT>>

Don't quite your real job.

Please note that aside from what people think about Addr, I think a representative of the co. should come and start a thread regarding this email. Normally this would be against the rules (to a degree), but I find this whole matter to be ridiculous, and important enough for an announcement regarding the matter.

If any host on this board was getting attacked in this manner, especially by who it might be, then I feel an announcement would be needed. I find this tactic lower than low.

I wonder if experthosting.com sent those emails out. They did send links to the msn article talking about addr.com getting hacked.

I think its sad that a company has to resort to something like this to get clients. This reminds me of the other incident last year. I think it was Communitech that spammed ***** clients when ***** had a major outage. Or it may have been some other company.

That's affirmative. It was Communitech.net who spammed the unfortunate ***** clients during the company's extended outtage.

Somehow, I was lucky enough to be caught up in both of these dilemnas. My biggest concern now, having confirmed that this email was sent by a prankster/fraudster is that ADDR failed to contact me to clarify this. I presently have 17 accounts with ADDR, but was forced to spend the better part of the day shopping around for a dedicated server to support the sites out of the fear that this was a valid email.

If an ADDR rep simply emailed their members, they could have saved me (and a few thousand others) a great deal of time, money and stress.

That notice "from" addr is just someone capitalizing on a bad situation that addr got themselves into. Again, it is fake and I hope they sue the underwear off the dolt that thought he could get away with it!

Originally posted by teck
why would they use a yahoo email: addr_help@yahoo.com
Because their domain was going to stop working... isn't that obvious?!? :)

Seriously though, I had an account at a now defunct Internet Services site and one day I went to check my account... and low and behold there was a nice friendly little notice that informed of the discontinuance of their services and alerted me to the existence of their new yahoo email address! Which, by the way, I never received a response back from regarding my angry email informing them of 4 months work down the freegin' tubes!

Yes, whenever you see a company using a yahoo email address it should be a red flag, but, in the case of closings, it does not necessarily mean it's not from the company.

Regards,
Michael

There was an msnbc article stating that addr.com is possibly going to sue. They are doing legal consultations at the moment to see if they can sue.

All servers will be turned off by our provider between Saturday 14th April and Monday 16th April.
Umm, guess not. They look up and running to me, ordering system is up as well.

If I were ADDR (and right now I'm glad I'm not!) I would put *something* up on their site about this situation so at least their customers could be reassured. A Press Release or What's New page would go a long way...

Originally posted by shpilkus

Umm, guess not. They look up and running to me, ordering system is up as well.

If I were ADDR (and right now I'm glad I'm not!) I would put *something* up on their site about this situation so at least their customers could be reassured. A Press Release or What's New page would go a long way...

Yeah, but then the problem is, that they now make a lot of people aware of this issue, that probably would never have known otherwise. Figure, 10% of their client's saw the article and got emails from the idiot trying to pose as Addr, you risk looking bad to the other 90% that wouldn't have otherwise known. A company that wants to hide the facts that make them look bad, I assume.

I think ADDR needs to get an email out to all their clients and reassure tham that they are still in business, and that the email was a fraud.

Also, I think they should find any way possible to get that guy in court, and take him for every penny he has.

That is a blatent atempt to harm their business in a big way. They would win in any US court, and many non US courts. The trick is just tracking him down, and that is not impossible even with a yahoo email account. They keep mail logs and have his ture IP logged.

I hope they get him good.

Tim L

Originally posted by superiorhost
I think ADDR needs to get an email out to all their clients and reassure tham that they are still in business, and that the email was a fraud.

Also, I think they should find any way possible to get that guy in court, and take him for every penny he has.

That is a blatent atempt to harm their business in a big way. They would win in any US court, and many non US courts. The trick is just tracking him down, and that is not impossible even with a yahoo email account. They keep mail logs and have his ture IP logged.

I hope they get him good.

Tim L

Most people agree, especially about this specific issue and whom might be involved. However, it's not so easy, just because it has the IP displayed and logged. Firstly, it's highly unlikely, especially by the headers alone showing otherwise, that the email was actually sent FROM a Yahoo account. In fact, I'd assume that the person that did it never will even check it, since it seems likely it was just to add more concern so the people go with the previous email's hosting offer from expertdoofushosting...

Likely, the person ran through a proxy and even more likely, that proxy doesn't log the accesses of people that run through it. That right there, makes it very difficult to find out whom it was. Even if they did, it could be a dialup account that was signed up with a bogus name and account information anyway -- which Davey/Peter did before, he'll do it again, I'm sure. So, it'd have to be tracked through the proxy, if they log it, find out where they were coming from and if it's another proxy, etc. until they get to a dialup account and prove it wasn't a spoofed address. Once they do that, if they get that far, they have to contact the ISP and hope that they have good logs and who's account it is.

Then, they'll find it's not a real postal address or number. So, they'd have to trace the call, which is too late for that, or check the call logs -- you think the law will do that in another country because of an email that contained a lie? Then, they have to go and grab him. Take it to court and convince people beyond any doubt that it was him and not someone that broke into his house, used his line to "frame him", or spoofed his IP or took over his session. I know that's stupid, but...

Anyway, then they'll have to prove they lost so much business to collect so much money. That's a civil suit if anything and is hardly or outright criminal, and this scum bag, assuming it's Peter/Davey should be in prison, not a court room. This might all point directly back to him, but that all takes time and proof too. I'm just saying, that's how ridiculous it's going to be, if they do track him and try and pursue it. Remember, I don't think PEter/Davey is even 18 yet... Peter is a funny little boy in that aspect... as well as every other aspect.