Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Watch Out for this one

[DDT]

We have a couple of hosting ventures both in "niche" markets. About a month ago we received an order from andrewthomas@repairman.com.
This was noticed because very few customers ever "sign up" and proceed with absolutely no other contact at all (at least some question for support, asking which version of what we are running, or something) or at least just to check our phone or support times.
So this was an unusual "sign up".
We sent our usual e-mail welcome (offering to pre-configure the account for FrontPage or any other special needs a customer might have) and never received a response. His domain name was autorepairhelpdesk.com if I remember correctly. Sounded legitimate enough for a forum or such.
A week went by and nothing had been uploaded to the account and we checked the domain name & the name servers had never been moved. It was still parked at the registrar.
Then we checked his e-mail repairman.com and found it was just one of those links to everything you can think of pages. Our TOS prohibits those so we e-mailed repeatedly. Fearing the worst we suspended his account and sent an e-mail saying as soon as he was ready to upload a web site we would be glad to turn it on.
A week later he e-mailed us to turn it on but we noticed his domain name was still "parked" at the registrar. So as a precaution we put a tight "throttle" on his account's max e-mails per hour and sent him an e-mail it was turned on.
In less than an hour we had over 400 e-mails stacked up in his queue all for "Get Viagra, Valium etc. on-line". So we shut him down again.
Almost immediately we get a demand for a refund and even though our TOS says no refunds if you violate the TOS we immediately refunded his money and said we were doing so only as a courtesy since he violated the TOS by sending junk mail.
He even kept demanding refunds until we finally sent him a copy of the receipt where he had already been refunded the day he asked. He was obviously trying to get multiple refunds.
So watch out for this guy. The domain names & such look legit enough but he's a "pill spammer". We caught him because we are a niche provider and he just didn't fit in with our usual customers, but if you are just an "open" provider to the general market he could have you blacklisted or at least suck up all your resources in no time...and then demand his money back when you catch him

[GideonX]

We've got this guy also. Paypal actually notified us about this character, seems he used a compromised account to pay for things.

Here's the IP he signed up with: 206.225.92.13

[rmMark1]

We had him too....He has a suprise coming;

http://real-marketing.com/nospam.htm

[WO-Jacob]

We had him sign up as well... actually paid, but the phone number was bad, so his account never got signed up.

You guys should phone verify, and you wouldn't have this problem

[zabtek]

Had him to, sounds like he gets around.

[GideonX]

Hope it's not another medistar clone

[IMeanWebHosting]

Originally posted by rmMark1
We had him too....He has a suprise coming;

http://real-marketing.com/nospam.htm

Hahaha! The $500 clause rocks

[DDT]

He's got a working phone somewhere. He completed all the phone verification (ours is automated though) That's another unusual thing for us, the spammers usually won't use a real phone, this one did.
I think his e-mails were forged as "Pillz-R-US"
I'm sure he was hacked when he figured out we had him limited to either 10 or 15 "sends" per hour.
These guys are ruthless and like the other one he's USA based

[Jay Suds]

Originally posted by Bohica
Hahaha! The $500 clause rocks

Good luck getting $500 from an account that was probably opened with a phished eBay account or stolen credit card number.

[IH-Rameen]

We got this guy too!

But while doing fraud checks and background checks, I didn't have a good feeling.

We never activated the guy and he has disputed the transaction with PayPal pending reversal.

Good thing we never activated the account

[IGobyTerry]

Damn. We all got this guy.

Yep, we got him too. Worse yet, he got by out fraud verification.

[WO-Jacob]

Originally posted by stealthdevil
We got this guy too!

But while doing fraud checks and background checks, I didn't have a good feeling.

We never activated the guy and he has disputed the transaction with PayPal pending reversal.

Good thing we never activated the account

Do I want to know why you kept the guy's money after determining it was fraud?

[DDT]

At least for us it was a courtesy refund since he clearly violated out AUP and TOS... just not worth $7 or $8 to get a hassle with PayPal which he would surely do.
But he was legit as far as domain name parked & waiting, clear PayPal, clear anti-fraud. Valid e-mail & phone. etc. but nothing to indicate he or his PayPay account was a fraud...no fraud just that that funny feeling that is almost always right....something was wrong...he was a useless spammer!

[okihost]

He signed up with us also, never was able to get in touch with him on the phone for phone verification so he order was refunded 48 hours later.

I have noticed so far that no spammer we have gotten will use a valid phone number where they answer, usually wrong number or fax etc but sometimes they get a voicemail box so it seems legit but you really can't be too careful these days it seems.

[VintageHost]

Had this guy as well. Fortunately, he spelled his e-mail address wrong, and never recieved his sign up information.