Duane's Blog

Auto Insurance Letters Sent By Mail

2023-08-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

People are receiving letters like this in the mail (picture sourced from this address)

I first learned of these letters from a Facebook group to which I belong and many people have automatically assumed that it was a scam. Since running a scam through the US Mail is a federal offense, that is a serious accusation and shouldn't be made lightly, especially since it could get the US Postal Inspection Service involved.

Definitions

To be clear: If someone offers to provide a service to you, in exchange for money and you pay them, but they don't provide the service, that makes it a scam. However, if you pay them and they provide the service, you haven't been scammed, even if they overcharge you.

Who and Where They Are

Using a burner account, I called the given number, 800-889-0871 and spoke to a woman who answered. She was very friendly and forthright when I asked for the name of the company and their actual location,

According to her, the company sending the letters is called "AutoProtect USA" and is based in Maryland Heights, Missouri. While she couldn't provide me with the company's physical address, she gave the mailing address as PO Box 1827, St Charles, MO 63301.

She also mention that, while based in Missouri, AutoProtect USA is registered as a business in Florida. When I looked for the business registration on the website of the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations, I couldn't find it, either as a registered name or as a fictitious name.

I also asked if AutoProtect USA is a registered business in Missouri and she didn't seem to know. So, I looked it up myself on the Missouri Online Business Filing site and discovered that AutoProtect USA is registered as a business in Missouri as AutoProtect USA, LLC. It was registered on December 22, 2021 and its registered agent is Cody Moore. Its physical address is 50 Wedgewood Dr, Troy, MO 63379-2005 and Google informed me that another company, Mechanic On Wheels LLC, which also seems to be associated with Cody Moore because I found their phone number and a quick search shows that the number for Mechanic on Wheels is registered to him. Cody Moore is also mentioned on AutoProtect USA's Bizapedia page.

Cody Moore is the registered agent for AutoProtect USA and several other companies, most of which I won't mention here because they are irrelevant to this blog post. While he might be annoying people who receive his letters in the mail, he doesn't appear to be breaking any laws.

Who Is Cody Moore?

Mr Moore really does have a license to sell insurance in the State of Missouri, He received his licenses for Motor Vehicle Extended Services Contract and Insurance Producer, effective as of February 2022. So, he's been licensed for less than 2 years, as of this writing.

Since I live in Hawaii as does the person in my Facebook group who received the letter, I checked to see if Cody Moore is licensed to sell insurance in Hawaii and his name didn't show as being actively licensed here. It's possible that he may be licensed in other states, but I don't feel like devoting the time I would need to search all 50 states and there seems to be a lot of other people out there named "Cody Moore".

About AutoProtect USA

A Google search shows an AutoProtect USA based in Texas, but that company no longer seems to exist, due to tax forfeiture by the state government as of July 2023.

The Missouri company, AutoProtect USA, LLC is listed by the Better Business Bureau and they have given it a D- rating. The BBB also contacted AutoProtect USA about complaints the BBB had received and they posted this on the website:

Better Business Bureau is advising consumers to use caution when considering doing business with AutoProtect USA. BBB has received a pattern of consumer complaints alleging misleading advertising, failure to cover needed repairs, failure to remove consumers from mailing and no-call lists, high pressure sales tactics, failure to cancel contracts, failure to provide refunds and poor customer service.

On April 19, 2023, BBB sent a letter to AutoProtect USA. The company did not respond.

They also posted this:

In September 2021, Better Business Bureau questioned AutoProtect USA's marketing email which stated:
“CALL BEFORE: September 29, 2021”
“Our records indicate that you have not contacted us regarding the vehicle service contract on your vehicle.”
“You are receiving this notice because your factory warranty has expired or may be about to expire.”
“By neglecting to activate your coverage you will be at risk of being financially liable for any and all repairs after your factory warranty expires. However, you still may have time left to activate coverage on your vehicle before it’s too late.”
“This may be our only attempt to contact you about activating your Vehicle Service Contract.”
According to BBB Code of Advertising, “The primary responsibility for truthful and non-deceptive advertising rests with the advertiser. Advertisers should be prepared to substantiate any objective claims or offers made before publication or broadcast. Upon request, they should present such substantiation promptly to the advertising medium or BBB. Advertisements which are untrue, misleading, deceptive, fraudulent, falsely disparaging of competitors, or insincere offers to sell, shall not be used. An advertisement as a whole may be misleading by implication, although every sentence separately considered may be literally true. Misrepresentation may result not only from direct statements, but by omitting or obscuring a material fact. In addition, according to the Missouri state statute 15 CSR 60-7.020 (1): “A seller shall not make a representation or statement of fact in an advertisement that is false or has the capacity to mislead prospective purchasers.”

BBB requested the business substantiate, modify or discontinue the claims made in its advertising. The company did not respond to BBB’s request.

On the BBB listing, Cody Moore's name does not appear. Instead, an individual named Jeremy Stout is listed as "Director of Customer Relations". If Mr Stout is supposed to be handling customer relations, he doesn't appear to be doing a very good job.

I even found Mr Moore's Facebook and LinkedIn pages and there is no mention of AutoProtect USA, which is a bit odd because he's the registered agent for that company in Missouri. However, he does mention working for another company, HomeProtect USA, on his Facebook page, as well as his own insurance company, Moore Insurance Team.

I will not reveal the link to his Facebook page because he has pictures of his children on it. So, let's leave his family out of it, okay?

Some Conclusions

It's difficult to determine exactly how involved Cody Moore actually is in the day-to-day workings of AutoProtect USA, aside from being the registered agent of the company. According to the BBB listing, Jeremy Stout appears to be more involved, especially since he actually mentions it and HomeProtect USA on his Facebook page, while Moore does not and I cannot determine if they even know each other.

If Cody Moore finds this blog post and if he had been previously unaware of the accusations of AutoProtect USA being some kind of scam, then I sincerely advise him to take some sort of action to correct the situation. People don't like receiving suspicious letters in the mail.

As I already stated above, Cody Moore and AutoProtect USA don't seem to breaking any laws by sending out the letters, as annoying as they are for recipients.

I advise anyone who receives one of these letters to simply throw them away. The BBB listing advises caution when dealing with them and even Cody Moore himself doesn't mention them on his social media accounts. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Duane Browning

Hacker Temporarily Stole My PayPal Account

2022-09-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

On 11 September 2022, at 4:55pm Hawaii time, I received an email notification that a new email address had been added to my PayPal account. Since I was doing laundry, I wasn’t paying attention to my email account and by the time I realized what had happened, my email address and phone number had been removed from my account and the hacker had replaced them with his own.

Upon noticing the email change, I tried to login to my account, but was unsuccessful.

While the hacker takes primary responsibility for his actions, I have to admit that I have to accept some blame because I hadn’t changed my password in a very long time and I should have known that my login information would eventually leak out and some malicious actor would take the opportunity to steal my account.

Realizing that I had to act quickly, I canceled my PayPal debit card and ordered a new one. Fortunately, there was no money in the account for him to take. I also transferred money from my linked bank account into another one to prevent the hacker from spending my money.

The hacker had acted at just the right time, stealing my account about two hours after PayPal’s customer service office had closed, giving plenty of time to do whatever he wanted with it. I had no choice it to wait and worry until the office reopened.

Given the steps I had taken, I hoped that whatever damage had occurred until such time as I could regain my account would be minimal. Remember the old saying: “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst”.

When the office finally reopened, I was already on the phone and it took less than ten minutes to regain complete control of my account. It appears that the hacker had only changed the email address and phone number on the account, it hadn’t altered anything else.

The email address the hacker used is: BNiederme153@gmx.com

The telephone number he used is: 304-318-3023

Naturally, I changed the password on my PayPal and GMail accounts and enabled two-step security measures.

Not to be foiled in his attempt to take what wasn’t his, the hacker soon noticed that he no longer possessed my account and tried to take it back by sending a Gmail password change request. I immediately realized what he was doing, since I hadn’t requested such a change. A few hours later, I received two automated phone calls, supposedly from PayPal. I didn’t respond to them and instead called PayPal myself to find out that they had placed no such calls to me. It’s obvious that the phone number was spoofed to appear to be PayPal’s customer help line. I had no choice but to block that number.

So, I’m a little wearied from yesterday’s hack, but I’ve learned not to be so complacent from now on.

Duane.Browning

Fighting Back Against Fake Fansly Pages

2022-01-30T16:29:00.004-08:00

Introduction

I first became aware of this problem when it happened to someone I know.

She works as an exotic dancer in Honolulu and someone created a fake Instagram page with a username very close to her own, with a "_" added at the end. The scammer then proceeded to follow all of her followers with the enticement of offering them access to her "exclusive adult content". Once the follows were completed, the scammer then blocked the original account to prevent her from reporting them to Instagram for impersonating her, which was really smart.

It was only after I contacted my acquaintance to ask if it was really her page and she told me that it wasn't, that I began to have a look at the scam page more closely to see how it worked and to take steps to have it shutdown.

If you want to skip ahead and just find out how you can shutdown the scammers' site, scroll down to "The Short Version".

Getting Started

Of course, the first step would be for the scammer to setup the Instagram account. At least one picture would be copied from the original timeline to serve as a profile picture.

From there, the scammer would follow most or all of the original account's followers and then block the original to prevent the original account from reporting them for impersonation.

Since Instagram doesn't notify you when you have been blocked or unfollowed, the original account is completely unaware that something nefarious is underway, until one of their followers actually contacts them to ask if the new account is really something they created.

At this point, the only option left to the original account is to notify their followers and ask them to report it, which may not do any good since Instagram is very slow to shutdown accounts.

The Shortcut

On the fake profile, a shortened link is provided for interested people to click to be redirected to the adult content site. This shortened link is typically from tinyurl.com. If the tinyurl link is cutoff, you cannot access the link to which it redirects and the scammers' work on building the site on the other side is wasted, until they can create a new shortcut.

TinyURL does not want its service to be used to facilitate criminal activity and they are legally obligated to cutoff access when they are notified of it.

Send an email to privacy@tinyurl.com with the subject line "Reporting Phishing Site". Include the tinyurl.com link itself and the site where it redirects. TinyURL will then investigate and the shortcut link will likely be shutdown within 24 hours, as it was in my case.

I have become aware that rebrand.ly is also being used as a shortcut, send an email to support@rebrandly.com with "Abuse" in the Subject line.

The Main Site

From what I have seen, the scammers' current method of operation involves using free services to help get their scam started. TinyURL is a free service and you can create a free website using Wix. The reason Wix is so appealing is that you don't even need a credit card or any form of identification to open the account, just an email address.

The scammers have attempted to obscure their activities by making their Wix site appear to be a Fansly account. Initially, I thought that the scammer had actually setup a Fansly account, but a quick look at the URL informed me that I was really seeing a Wix page made to appear to be a Fansly profile. Since it wasn't a Fansly account that stole my acquaintance's pictures, notifying Fansly would do me no good, at all.

So, if I wanted the pseudo-Fansly site shutdown, I had to report them to Wix's Abuse Department. Simply go to https://www.wix.com/about/abuse, scroll down to "Phishing or Spam" and click on Send a Report". A chatbot will open and all you'll need to do is copy & paste the offending Wix site into the chat when the bot asks what site you are reporting. When it asks why you're reporting, simply enter that it's a phishing site. After that, you'll need to provide them with your name and email address. Once that's done, click "submit my report" and it's all in their hands now.

As an added measure, you can also post a message on Twitter to make sure the ball gets rolling. There are two accounts which are relevant for our purposes: @Wix and especially @WixHelp. It may take a few hours, but you should receive a reply from @WixHelp with instructions to DM the URL of the offending site. The staff will go back through the abuse reports they've recently received, find your file and give it priority status to get it shutdown as soon as possible.

In your initial tweet to Wix, post something like this:

"I have filed a report with @Wix and @WixHelp regarding a phishing site that was made to look like a @fansly account.
I eagerly await their reply."

Yeah, it does come-off as kind of smarmy, but you need to get someone's attention over there.

So, with the initial report you send through the chatbot, followed by a follow-up tweet, the ball should be moving fairly quickly and the scammer site should be down fairly soon.

Follow the Money

You've seen me refer to the people behind these fake Fansly accounts as "scammers" who are involved in phishing and may be wondering why I have made such allegations. Well, I don't make such accusations lightly.

First of all, the scammers aren't doing all this as a prank, they are in it to make money. The use of free services (i.e. Instagram, TinyURL and Wix) simply helps keep their costs down and improves their bottom line.

When you go the the fake Fansly page, there will be links provided for you to subscribe to the account or to create an account. The links will take you to this page.

You may have noticed the link is to a site pcnghw.com which is not one of the services Fansly uses for its subscribers. No, they aren't even based in the United States, but in Nicosia, Cyprus.

According to its website PCNGHW is a subsidiary of Wesicron Limited and is physically based at Nikiforou Foka 33, Flat/Office 6, 1036, Nicosia, Cyprus. The building also appears to contain a nightclub and I have no idea if the owners and staff of that nightclub are involved in the ongoing scams taking place.

For whatever good it would do, if you want to take a chance and actually contact PCNGHW or Wesicron, here is the contact information they provided, aside from the address:

PCNGHW:
E-mail Support: cs@pcnghw.com
Phone Support: (888) 498-5733
Wesicron Limited:
Email: info@wesicronlimited.com
Call: 3-572-200-7758

Personally, I wouldn't waste my time. Wesicron/PCNGHW has a rather bad reputation, judging by reports from Scam Detector, StopThatCharge and OnlineThreatAlerts, among others. It would be a better use of your time to simply have the scammers' site cutoff and shutdown.

The Short Version

If you wanted to avoid my blah, blah, blah and just get straight to the point of shutting down the scammers' site, here you go:

Shutdown the Wix site: Simply go to https://www.wix.com/about/abuse, scroll down to "Phishing or Spam" and click on Send a Report". A chatbot will open and all you'll need to do is copy & paste the offending Wix site into the chat when the bot asks what site you are reporting. When it asks why you're reporting, simply enter that it's a phishing site. After that, you'll need to provide them with your name and email address. Once that's done, click "submit my report".

Shutdown the shortcut: Send an email to privacy@tinyurl.com with the subject line "Reporting Phishing Site". Include the tinyurl.com link itself and the site where it redirects. If they're using rebrand.ly send email to support@rebrandly.com with "Abuse" in the Subject line.

Report the Instagram account: if you are not blocked, report them for impersonating you and ask all of your followers to block them. If you are blocked, ask your followers to report and block the scammers' page.

A Final Word

Scammers are certainly resilient and change tactics when their old methods no longer work. So, it's likely that I will have to update this blog post at a later date.

To support and encourage my work send $1 to:

CashApp: $postmates808

Venmo: @postmates808

Duane Browning

Do Not Be a Victim of Disability Benefits Scams

2021-08-08T19:42:00.007-07:00

Following-up on my post about National Disability Benefits, I've decided to post a guide for people to avoid becoming a victim of disability scams.

I've tried to make this guide as easy to follow as possible. But, since you are trusting these people with your personal information, as well as your hopes of receiving disability benefits, you could greatly benefit from following the advice that I've given.

Check the Website

If someone sends you a link to click on, which will take you to a website where you will enter some personal information - name, age, telephone number, email address, etc - in order to apply for assistance, it is very simple to check to find out exactly who is the registered owner of the website.

Okay, for example, you get a website like https://www.disabilitybenefits.com

Use a WhoIs site, like

Domain Tools https://whois.domaintools.com/
Network Solutions https://www.networksolutions.com/whois

Enter the website disabilitybenefits.com in the Search bar, ignoring the https://www part of the link. The search results will tell you who the registered owner of the site actually is, along with an address. If the website's owner is using a service that allows them to keep themselves anonymous (i.e. concealing their name and/or address) then you shouldn't trust those people, because they are obviously trying to conceal their identity from you.

The same thing applies if they use a link like https://www.disabilitybenefits.com/abcdefg

Ignore everything after the / mark, so /abcdefg is irrelevant to determining the identity of the site owner, Just do the WhoIs search as I have already described.

If the people behind the website are legitimate, they would not have the need to conceal their identity or location from you. So, if they withhold their name and real location from you, you should not trust them.

Got an Address?

While I was investigation National Disability Benefits, I found an actual street address mentioned on their website. This was a rare find, especially since they had registered their website anonymously.

If you actually manage to get a street address on the people you are trusting to help you get disability benefits, a simple Google search can be helpful. In order to get the best results, you should puts ""s around the address when you do your search.

"123 Anyplace Street Suite 123 Anytown, AnyState 123456" gets a better result with quotes than without.

Simply copy the entire address and paste it into the Google search bar. The search results should display any individual or business associated with that street address. As I discovered with National Disability Benefits, you may learn that the address is also/has been used by an Internet marketing firm.

Do not trust anyone whose address is shared with an Internet marketing firm because they could use the information that you give them as part of of a marketing campaign. They could sell or share your information with anyone they wish and you could find you could find yourself receiving calls, texts and emails from companies who are trying to sell you something.

How to Apply for Disability Benefits

At the federal level, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has a webpage where you can begin the application process https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/disability/

Only five states have State Disability Insurance programs, which are funded by mandatory deductions from an employee's paycheck: California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. These benefits are meant to partially replace wages lost when you are too ill, injured off the job and unable to work.

Here are the links to individual states' official websites where you can learn how to apply for disability benefits:

California https://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/

Hawaii https://labor.hawaii.gov/dcd/

New Jersey https://www.myleavebenefits.nj.gov/

New York http://www.wcb.ny.gov/content/main/DisabilityBenefits/employee-disability-benefits.jsp

Rhode Island https://dlt.ri.gov/tdi/

Other states only provide disability benefits for state employees. I suggest that you contact the Department of Labor in your state to see if there is something available to help you.

In the event that you live in one of the five states I mentioned above and you were denied benefits for some reason, you can try to appeal the decision or you may have to contact an attorney. If you need an attorney, contact your local state Bar association for recommendations.

See? You don't have to provide your contact information to some anonymously-registered website to find out how you can apply for disability benefits. The resources are already out there for you!

As an added bonus, the federal and state governments won't be sharing or selling your information to Internet marketing companies.

Duane Browning

Venmo: @Duane-Browning-1
CashApp: $DuaneBrowning

Suspicious Website nationaldisabilitybenefits.org

2021-08-07T21:23:00.001-07:00

I was asked by a friend if the website nationaldisabilitybenefits.org is a scam and I decided to check it out.

The Website

First of all, the actual owner of the website is not mentioned in the registration information that comes up with a WhoIs search.

The site was purchased on May 20, 2019 through Namecheap and its IP is located in Lansing, Michigan.

A second website national-disability-benefits.org was registered a few months after the first and its registrant information is also withheld.

In my opinion, if I am going to provide any of my personal information to a website, I think I have a right to know who's running it. Granted, the only information they ask is for your age, name, telephone number and email address, but there's no way for you to know what they plan to do with that information and if they plan to share/sell it with others.

They also have a Facebook page which mentions that the page administrators are located in the United States, Canada and the Cayman Islands. No personal names of the admins are provided, though.

Digging a Little Deeper

A phone number is provided on the Facebook page, so I had a look for 833-610-1114 to see what came-up.

The number was purchased through Bandwidth.com in June 2020 and I cannot definitively find a personal name for the person who purchased it.

On the Privacy Policy page of the first site, I found an address: 301 W. Platt St., #616 in Tampa, Florida.

Doing a simple search of the given address, it appears to be a shopping center, as verified by doing a BeenVerified search of the address. However, other businesses also seem to be associated with this address when I did a Google search:

Blue Modo Media (an email marketing firm)
DailyProsper (website offering guidance for managing your money)
EnergyWise.Solar (helps you find out how you can have solar panels installed for your home)
LegalCompensation.org (legal help for people who have been injured in an accident)

My Conclusions

Personally, I wouldn't trust National Disability Benefits with any of my information.

First of all, they've taken serious effort to conceal whoever it is actually running the website. Whether on its Facebook page or either of its two websites, no names are provided to the public so that we can know exactly with whom we are giving our personal information. I can find no business registration in any state for National Disability Benefits.

Secondly, it goes without saying that people who are disabled either by birth or through an accident would be particularly desperate to receive some sort of financial help. Back in 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued this warning for people who may be the targets of scams. It wouldn't be unusual for someone to pose as a company or agency offering "assistance" to people seeking financial benefits for the disabled.

Third, there is really no telling with whom, if anyone, National Disability Benefits will share your information. Since Blue Modo Media is associated with the same address as National Disability Benefits, this makes me wonder if they might benefit from whatever contact information is shared with National Disability Benefits, since they would have the most from which to benefit, compared with other businesses associated with that address. Catherine Cosipe is listed as the "Head of Technology and Support" for Blue Modo Media and shows-up twice when I searched for her name on a Scampulse page.

So, there is no real reason for me or anyone else to trust National Disability Benefits and everyone is advised to not shre any of your personal information with them.

Duane Browning

Venmo: @Duane-Browning-1

CashApp: $DuaneBrowning

Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Grant Scam

2021-07-19T23:14:00.002-07:00

I was recently contacted via Instagram private message by someone posing as an old friend. I have known the individual they were impersonating for about twenty years and I am already following that person on Instagram. Since the real person was active on Instagram earlier that day, I found it odd that he would set-up another account. A quick check of the real account showed no mention of setting-up another account and the poser had simply copied one of his posts and his profile picture.

Right away, I knew that I was dealing with an imposter. But, I wanted to colect as much information as I could about whatever scam he was running, in order to warn others. But, I also thought it might make an interesting blog post.

So, I led him on, rather than just block him outright.

Setting the Stage

The scammer's PMs started-off on a rather friendly vein, asking me how I was. But, since time is money, he got right to the point of trying to lure me into his scam. I've condensed the posts a bit, but you'll get the idea.

l'm doing great, is good to hear from you Just checking on you and wondering if you heard about the recent good news lately.?
I meant the personal grant donated to selected people by the DHHS subvention program, have you heard about it yet?
It's a new program specifically based on helping paying for Medical Bills, Buying a home, Salesman Starting their Own Business,Retired Teachers, with Seniors old and Retired people. Did they come to your home?
Actually I was granted some amount of $75,000 from DHHS agent when I applied and you don't have to pay it back, I think as a citizen you also have the right to benefit from this program and I wonder if you've gotten yours too?

I don't know many people who use the word "subvention" in regular conversation. Add to that the needless and out-of-place capitalizations and I soon realized that this person is not a native English speaker and was trying to use fancy-sounding words in order to impress me. With the financial hardships faced by many Americans during the COVID19 pandemic, the thought of getting large amounts of financial aid from the federal government would sound like a dream come true.

The scammer must have thought that he had me on his hook, so he offered me the way to quickly get my hands on some of that sweet, sweet money.

Should i give you the AGENT text number where i applied so you can also apply there too?
(412) 587-4682
here’s the agent private text number who helped me got the grant money so text them now for me to confirm maybe I have you there right contact

So, I'm supposed to send a text to the "agent" in order to apply for a grant?

Let's see what the DHHS really says about applying for a grant:

Quick Facts about the Government Grant Process
Government grant applications and information about them are free.
The names of agencies and foundations that award grants are available for free at any public library or on the Internet.
The only official access point for all federal grant-making agencies is www.grants.gov.
There are no fees associated with applying for a government grant.
ALL government grants involve an application process to carry out projects with a public purpose and are not intended for personal use.
You will not be contacted by the government to make you pay for a grant.

You can apply for a DHHS grant by going to https://www.hhs.gov/grants/grants/get-ready-for-grants-management/index.html

I Go Deeper

So, after being given the text number of this fake agent, I also sent a text to that number, using a burner account and here are the responses I received

HELLO! My Name is Attorney THOMAS SCOTT the administrator in charge of the ongoing DHHS grant program which is an empowerment of the UNITED NATIONS to promote international monetary cooperation, facilitate international trade, foster sustainable economic growth, make resources available to members experiencing balance of payments difficulties around the world.This program is a worldwide promotional tour embarked on for the disabled, Unemployed, Student, Workers, Retired, Young & Old people. the on going grant isn’t a loan and you do not have to pay us back. Are you ready to apply..?

YOU WILL HAVE TO BE HONEST AND TRUSTWORTHY WITH ME SO THAT I CAN HELP YOU GET YOUR GRANT MONEY AND YOU’LL HAVE TO FILL OUT A REQUIREMENT FORM WITH ME NOW SO THAT WE CAN LOCATE YOUR DESTINATION AT THE POINT OF DELIVERY....ARE YOU READY TO FILL OUT THE FORM NOW SO THAT I CAN PROCEED WITH YOU IMMEDIATELY..?

REQUIREMENT DETAILS .
FullName——
Full home address—
City——
State———
Country———
Zipcode-——
Age_________
Male or Female——
Monthly income——
Cash or check________
Do you want your grant delivered by FedEx or UPS....

FILL IT OUT AND SEND BACK THE ANSWERS TO ME HERE ONE AFTER THE OTHERS

Much like scammers I have written about in the past, there was an awful lot of needless capitalization throughout their messages to me.

Back on Instagram, I was informed that there is supposed to be some sort of "tracking fee" that I would have to pay before I received my grant.

All you just have to do is to fill out a fedex form with them so they'll be able to locate your home address where your money will be deliver to you after 5hours you pay for the tracking fee
I was just told to pay $300 and I got the money delivered to my door step after 5hours my payment confirmed

I've never heard of the federal government using anything other than the United States Postal Service to deliver its letters and/or checks. So, the idea of the DHHS using FedEx to do the job was ridiculous on its face. Using the USPS almost guarantees that your mail will reach your address, while UPS and FedEx delivery drivers have a bad reputation for simply leaving your packages at your door where anyone can pick them up. Given a choice between USPS, UPS and FedEx, I'll take the US Postal Service every time, especially after that time UPS really put a knot in my jockstrap.

But, what the hell is a "tracking fee"? Sure, USPS Priority mail does offer tracking, which is included in the price, while FedEx automatically provides you with a tracking number when you send a package.

But, charging $300 for a tracking number?

Seriously?

So, I texted the "agent" and asked about the "tracking fee". Here's what he said:

When looking for financial assistance, remember that there are differences between grants and loans. You are required to pay back a loan, often with interest. You are not required to pay back a GRANT,you only pay for the delivery fee.

The amount charges will be determined by the amount you qualify for but the delivery fees lowest price is 200 kindly fill out the form and send back the answers to me here one after the others so that we locate your destination at the point of delivery and to proceed on your winning

Yes you will have to fill out the form now so that we can locate your destination at the point of delivery and your age for the winning amount you will be qualify for from the DHHS

Notice how a "grant" became a "winning"? Did you notice that? I noticed that because I'm smart, while the scammers are too stupid to stay on-script.

This momentary slip in their narrative makes me think that these people were pulling-off fake lottery scams or something like them before they branched-out to DHHS scams.

The Instagram PMs I received told me how very easy it was to get them money, only taking five hours to get approved, which is light speed compared to how tediously slow the federal government approval system really is for the rest of us.

Yes I already got the money delivered to my door step after 5hours I got qualified so when j received the money I quickly pay off my old bills and save the rest to the bank so bank verify its real not fake it's too good to be true the blessed can't be complain and I'm really thanking God for the blessings
I got a check delivered to my door step from there fedex delivering men

Of course, the "agent" laid a little marmalade on this turd biscuit with

Grants are awarded to individuals each and every day. Grant program are not loans. You can also decide on how much you need as long as the amount is lawful and you meet up the Foundations and Government Agencies requirements. The money is yours to keep and never needs to be repaid. Grant money is non-taxable,non-refundable and interest-free.

They Start to Get Impatient

When I didn't respond fast enough to the "agent's" request for my personal information, he tried to hurry me along

Awaiting your response to avoid unnecessary delays and complications

He even called me on my burner account, in an attempt to speak to me directly. He called twice at about 2:00am my time and three times about eight hours later, but I didn't answer.

The fake Instagram account was shutdown due to complaints from the real person whom they were impersonating. The second imposter account was also shutdown fairly quickly. I forwarded the usernames of the fake accounts to my friend as soon as I became aware of their existence. He quickly filed complaints against both accounts, which resulted in their termination, I will admit that I would have preferred to have kept them around a little longer, in order to squeeze more information out of them without hinderance. But, my friend has his reputation to protect, so I simply had to get whatever I could.

Not being willing to give up on what they may have felt was a ready victim, the Instagram contact sent me texts via 412-547-6346, using the same number I had been using to contact the fake agent. He claimed that he had found my number in his email, but I never shared my burner number with my real friend and I really haven't had it for very long because it was only set-up by me after I discarded my previous burner number.

So, the individual was either in direct contact with the "agent" or they are the same person. Both numbers share an area code.

The "agent" 412-587-4682
The imposter 412-547-6346

The 412 area code is in Pittsburgh, PA and the area code for Washington DC is 202, which is where the DHHS is based.

Doing a search of both numbers, I could find no definitive information of their actual owners. The number 412-547-6346 has no known past owners, so it makes me wonder if it's a burner account and 412-587-4682 has three potential owners listed on Been Verified, which makes me wonder if it's a real number now being used as part of a scam. Since I have no idea if the listed owners are running a scam, I will not be bothering them. However, I did send a report to ScammerBlaster to see if they could do anything about the numbers.

When I expressed my reluctance to the imposter, stating that I feared that it was some kind of scam, he sent me reassurances

You know i can never lie about this okay trust me for that. you know i hate scam and hoax, but this is real, i got the money for real,you know if i knew this is a scam i wont tell you about it. i am planning to start a business buy a house soon. so you have nothing to worry about okay?

When I didn't respond in a way that he liked, I sense that I may have hurt his precious, little feelings

Now you get your money Duane and you don't know me again well it's yours not mine so keep blessings

Epilogue

It's been almost twelve hours since I was last contacted by the scammers. However, I will update this post if anything else comes my way.

If this post has helped you protect yourself from being scammed, alerted you that you have been scammed or you just want to help me in my quest to buy and electric bicycle, I'd appreciate a donation to my Electric Bike Fund.

Duane Browning

Venmo: @Duane-Browning-1

CashApp: $DuaneBrowning

Saved by Rugged Thread in Bend, Oregon

2021-05-02T00:40:00.001-07:00

In June 2017, I bought a Vandal backpack from Mission Workshop. It seemed to be everything I ever needed for my job as a courier for Honolulu law offices and title companies. It has a capacity of 65 liters, much better than the messenger bags and backpacks from Chrome Industries I had previously bought and used. It was also more comfortable and better balanced than the Ultimate OS I bought in 2005 from PAC Design, a Canadian company that has since gone out of business.

Being accustomed to the layout of Chrome Industries' Kremlin, Berlin and Warsaw bags, it took some time to learn how to switch to the Mission Industries "Vandal". But, the capacity of the available Chrome bags wasn't large enough to carry the large and heavy workloads that I encounter on a daily basis. I needed a large capacity bag that I could wear as a back pack and has sufficient water resistance to protect the legal documents that I often carry. The Vandal seemed to be the answer.

For about four months, everything seemed to be going well. The Vandal carried what I needed it to carry and it didn't strain my back, like the over-the-shoulder messenger bags had done.

Then, I began to notice the zipper giving-out on the main compartment. This was a bad sign, since the main compartment zipper protected the documents and allowed me the 65L capacity. The outer zipper, which provided the main water-resistance, could still seal the bag but would only allowed a 29L capacity, because of how the backpack was designed. The loss of the 36L space would severely affect how much cargo I could carry.

Closer examination of the zipper showed that the zipper's teeth were being bent or were falling out. Even worse, the stitching that held the zipper to the fabric of the bag was coming loose.

I couldn't allow this to continue. I had to send the bag back to Mission Workshop for repair or replacement. After sending them a repair request and pictures of the damaged zipper, they decided to send me another bag, while letting me keep the first bag as a spare.

I still have my PAC Design Ultimate OS, which I use for everything from grocery shopping to carrying my laundry. It has a large capacity to rival the Vandal, but it's not as comfortable to wear when carrying large loads. So, I placed the first Vandal into storage and hoped to find some use for it later. Given its handicap of only having a 29L capacity, it didn't seem that I would be using it for very much.

After the second bag arrived, I began using it for work. It carried the same size loads as the first bag had, though I was a bit gentler with it. But, that didn't help. In about four months - roughly the same span of time that I had used its predecessor - it also began to have the same problems with its zipper.

This was a very confusing situation for me. Other messengers in Honolulu have owned and used Vandals for a long time. In one case, it been his bag-of-choice for years. In fairness, I don't think any of them consistently carry loads as large and heavy as I do on a daily basis. It appeared that my daily workload actually exceeded the Vandal's strength and endurance.

Contacting Mission Workshop again didn't seem to be a viable solution. If they sent me another replacement bag, then I'd have two half-usable bags in my apartment, instead of just one. If I sent the bags in for repair, they'd likely only fix one bag - they would likely have simply replaced the broken zipper with one just like it, which would likely have also broken in 3 or 4 months - and not the other, since I had only paid for one bag and the second bag would have been either sent back to me without repairs or simply discarded.

I needed another option. I didn't want a bag that would basically "expire" in a few months.

Local tailor shops couldn't replace a backpack zipper and upholstery shops wouldn't likely be able to help. So, like many people in my situation, I turned to the Internet to solve my problem.

That's how I found out about Rugged Thread, a company located in Bend, OR that repairs broken zippers in all manner of items: tents, jackets, sleeping bags, backpacks, etc. If it has a zipper that needs replacement, Rugged Thread is where you can send it.

After sending Kim pictures of the broken zippers on my Vandals, I sent both to her shop. She actually had to physically examine the bags to provide me with a specific price quote and I mailed her a check after she called me on the phone to inform me of the type of work needed on the Vandals, though I could have made payment over the phone. Shipping is extra and they only get the final shipping costs when they pack the items for return, so I had to pay for the shipping before they would be sent back to me. Rugged Thread uses US Mail Parcel Post, so took a couple of weeks to get them back.

According to Rugged Thread, the Vandals main compartment each had a #8 zipper, which she replaced with a #10. I had no idea that zippers were categorized this way, but you live and learn. The #10s are more durable and could even outlast the backpacks themselves.

With the return of both of my Vandal backpacks, I am now back in the swing of things at work. The #10 zippers seem to be far stronger than the #8s they replaced, so they should last far longer this time around. The added benefit of having two Vandals, instead of just one, I can always put one in the laundry and give it time to dry while I use the other one.

As for my faithful PAC Design, it's back to its old job of carrying my groceries.

Duane Browning

Venmo: @Duane-Browning-1

CashApp: $DuaneBrowning

My Own Experience With Domestic Violence

2021-04-28T11:57:00.001-07:00

Years ago, I was in a relationship with a woman who I will refer to here as "Anna".

When we first met, she was working as a bartender and I had gone in to her workplace because I had walked past there numerous times, but never gone inside. It was a fairly popular place back then, but has since closed. We hit it off fairly quickly and I went in there to see her several times before I finally worked-up the courage to ask her out. She had just left a relationship, but was eager to get back into The Game.

We were about the same age, she was a little shorter than me, but still pretty tall - she's 5'10" and I'm 6'2" - and we had a lot of things in-common. We began dating regularly and the relationship turned sexual after the third date. One rule she had was that if we were sexually-involved, the relationship was an exclusive one. So, neither one of us would be having sex with anyone else, which was a rule I also followed.

We had some fun times together, great sex and spent a lot of time simply talking on the phone or in person. Things were mostly good. When I say "mostly", it's because of her best friend, Stephen.

Stephen was an out gay man who had worked with Anna and they became an inseparable team at work. They hung-out together after work, partied together and confided in each other. They were as close as siblings and Anna loved him. Anna wanted Stephen and I to also be friends.

The problem was that Stephen hated me for reasons I still don't know and he never bothered to hide his dislike of me, even recommending to Anna to end our relationship. I tried to get along with him and even tried to ignore his rudeness toward me, but to no avail. Stephen hated me and there was no changing that fact. I soon grew to dislike Stephen and actively avoided him. Despite Anna's efforts, there was no bridging this divide and she had to accept it.

I loved Anna and I would have done anything to make her happy. But, I simply couldn't be friends with Stephen.

A few months into my relationship with Anna, Stephen was diagnosed with bone cancer. It was advanced enough that the prospects of survival were pretty low. Anna was distraught and spent every available moment with him, promising him that she would be by his side through the chemotherapy and radiation treatments that she assumed he would be undergoing.

However, Stephen had other plans. Instead of going through with the chemotherapy and radiation, as well as the pain and physical disability associated with cancer, Stephen decided to commit suicide. He wrote a multi-page suicide note to Anna and another short note to his friends. He then took an overdose of drugs to end his own life.

Anna was devastated. I did my best to comfort her, having lost my own mother to cancer some years prior. But, the simple fact was that Stephen and I had not been friends before his death and could even have been described as enemies.

On the day of Stephen's funeral (he had been cremated and he left a note for Anna to scatter his ashes in the ocean) Anna was getting ready and I assumed that I would be going with her, so I also got ready to attend. I called her before I went over to her apartment to ask at what time I should come over so we could go together. She told me that she didn't think it would be appropriate for me to be at Stephen's funeral, owing to Stephen and I having hated each other and she believed that Stephen wouldn't have wanted me there. I wasn't going for Stephen's sake, I replied, I was going to offer comfort to her during the funeral.

But, no. If Stephen wouldn't want me there, then Anna also didn't want me at the funeral. She went to the funeral without me and I felt a sense of foreboding, wondering how this would affect our relationship in the future.

It wouldn't be long before I found out.

A couple of weeks later, I was at Anna's apartment after she had invited me over for dinner. Anna had taken time-off from work to grieve and was still trying to cope with the giant, empty space in her life that had been left with Stephen's death.

We were in the kitchen as Anna was cooking and I noticed that she seemed to be having a hard time concentrating. She was forgetting things, losing her concentration and seemed unable to keep her mind on what she was doing. Finally, she stopped what she was doing, turned to me and began screaming at me. She said things like that I had never tried to get-along with Stephen, hated him for no reason and that I was glad he was dead. Of course, none of this was true and I tried to say so, but she wasn't listening to me.

Finally, Anna slapped me, hard. I was actually knocked backwards by the blow. Stunned - physically and emotionally - I straightened-up and looked at Anna, hoping for some sign of regret in her eyes. But, no, she didn't look sorry. The only look I saw in her eyes was anger at me and grief for Stephen. She yelled at me some more and finally grabbed me by the shirt, yelling at me to get out of her apartment. Dragging me to the door, she hit me a few more times, seriously putting some muscle into those slaps and finally flung me outside.

I stood outside her door as she continued her tirade, being in complete shock at how the woman I loved had just beaten me. I then asked if she wanted me to call her in a few days, after she had calmed-down. Anna actually laughed and told me to never call her again, slamming the door in my face.

This relationship was over.

I then had to walk past Anna's neighbors, who had been alarmed at the noise and were standing around, looking at me. I left her building and walked home. I was crying, both from the physical and emotional pain of what had just happened to me.

I had hoped that Anna might call me, after realizing what she had done, perhaps on the same day. But, that call didn't come, not on that day or in that week. I didn't call her and avoided going near the bar where she worked.

I'll be honest, I still loved Anna, even after she had hit me. We had some really good times together and I had even been open to the idea of marriage. But, my feelings for her began to change as the days turned into weeks.

I became angry with Anna, even bordering on outright hatred. I was angry with myself, even briefly wishing that I had hit her back. But, I've never hit a woman in my life and I wasn't going to start. I eventually accepted that the relationship was over and decided to go on with my life.

About three weeks later, I got a visit from Anna's cousin, Christine. They were first cousins and had been very close back in their home state. Christine moved to Honolulu to be close to Anna and stayed here for a couple of years before moving back. Christine was an insanely-attractive woman, but I never made a play for her, as I was already dating her cousin. Besides, Christine was completely out of my league and we had little in common and she was something of a snob.

Christine tried to act as a peacemaker between Anna and myself, feeling that I had been very good for Anna and that she needed me back in her life. I was not happy with Christine's interference and expressed my outrage at being hit multiple times and physically thrown-out of Anna's apartment in front of a crowd of strangers. Christine expressed her doubts about how hard Anna had actually hit me. After all, how hard can a woman actually hit a man?

Pretty hard, Christine! Pretty fucking hard!

I asked Christine to leave and she did, with no complaint. She called me the next day and asked if I wanted to go out with her. Fearing a set-up, I asked if Anna would also be going. Christine said that it would just be the two of us and we both agreed to not discuss Anna or Stephen, whom Christine had also disliked, but for different reasons. Christine had previously been in some bad relationships while in Honolulu and she wanted to date someone "safe", so she chose me. Not seeing much of a future between us, I still agreed and we went out to dinner, where she picked-up the tab. She took me home with her and I spent the night with her. Having sex with Christine was very different than with Anna for reasons I won't divulge, but it was very nice.

We dated for a few weeks and I began to get used to the situation, feeling that I had finally gotten over Anna.

About six weeks after our breakup, Anna called me and left a message on my answering machine. I heard the message when I got home from work. I have to admit that I was both surprised and happy that she had called. But, those feelings quickly turned into anger and I actually yelled at my answering machine.

Her message was very sad, she expressed her sorrow at losing me and wanted to get back together. I brushed-off her message and erased it, feeling pretty good at myself for being able to finally get some sort of payback. Besides, she waited six weeks before calling me. As far as I was concerned, the expiration date on my forgiveness had already expired. Besides, I had Christine who was a great date and wasn't violent.

I mentioned the message to Christine and to my total surprise told me that I should give Anna another chance. I was very surprised at this revelation, to say the least. But, Christine admitted that she really didn't see a future between us, despite the fun times we had together. The differences between us were insurmountable, in her eyes. Besides, she wasn't looking for a relationship at the time. She had grown tired of the Honolulu dating scene, but still wanted to go out on dates and have sex. Since she felt that I was a safe option, she chose me as a temporary fix to her problem. She advised me to give Anna another chance, because she herself had plans to move back to the Mainland in a few months.

I still wasn't convinced that Anna and I were meant to be together. I mulled it over for awhile, not being sure if I wanted to take a chance on someone who had already hit me multiple times in one day.

Anna is nothing, if not persistent. She called me several more times and I let all of her messages go to the answering machine. I didn't erase those massages and even replayed them all, several times. Finally, I got off work one morning and went home. Sitting on the steps outside my front door was Anna. She was thinner than I remembered, her hair wasn't as neatly combed as I had remembered and she looked very sad. Reluctantly, I walked up the steps until I stood a few feet away from her. She stood and tried to hug me, but I quickly backed away from her, the memory of that first slap again very clear in my mind. She broke down and began crying, telling me how sorry and ashamed she felt and how she had been too afraid to call me earlier than she did. She considered herself a coward for not calling me sooner.

I did not invite her into my apartment to talk privately. Instead, we sat on the steps outside and talked for a long time. We both agreed that we would have to start over from the beginning. No sex, no going into each other's homes, just going out and if things didn't start to improve, we would end it completely. Before she departed, I finally hugged her. I remember feeling her body against mine with the smell of her perfume filling my nostrils and realizing how much I had missed her. I wanted to try again, I really did.

So began the months-long process of repairing our relationship. It was a slow, painful process which was briefly complicated when Christine finally admitted to Anna about having briefly dating me during the breakup. Anna actually found it to be funny, realizing how alluring Christine was to men. But, Christine was already back on the Mainland by then, so she wouldn't be around to tempt me in the near future.

Anna and I began having sex again and the relationship improved to the point where we began living together, I again began to see marriage in our future. Still, every time we had an argument, I would worry about her hitting me again and made a point to not be standing too close to her when we argued. Anna was aware of this and swore that she would never hit me again. She never did hit me, but I was always afraid that she would.

This happened every time we argued. Every, single time. The cloud of that first slap never quite went away.

Due to interference from Anna's family, who thought of me as some low-born, mixed-race gold digger out to marry into money, our relationship began to crumble. I will not describe here the steps they took, especially Anna's mother, to separate us, but they took a heavy toll on our relationship and arguments became more frequent.

I didn't want Anna to hit me again, neither did I want to allow myself to hit her. That could not be allowed to happen and I had to finally accept that our relationship was dying.

Rather than continue fighting the formidable conspiracy launched by her mother, Anna and I agreed to end our relationship while we still were on good terms. I moved-out, but we dated a few more times before she decided that being in the same city as me would only make my life more difficult as her family wanted me out of her life completely and Anna moved back to the Mainland. We stayed in-touch for years after she moved back.

The end.

PS, the next woman who hits me is going to jail with an assault charge and I will prosecute. 😁

Duane Browning

Venmo: @Duane-Browning-1

CashApp: $DuaneBrowning

Illuminatiam: The Raging Dumpster Fire

2021-04-06T06:26:00.000-07:00

You may recall my earlier post about Illuminatiam, so I won't revisit it.

You may wonder if anything has changed since then and there have been some interesting things happening in IlluminatiLand.

They've Gone Silent

Illuminatiam primarily used their Twitter account to post their missives, typically consisting of encouraging their followers to purchase items from them. These items included - but, were not limited to - things like: medallions and spiffy boxes to keep them in, posters, clothes and books.

However, the Twitter account has been silent since September 2018 with only a couple of retweets from another account after that. Furthermore, their "public relations department", Lir.im doesn't seem to have done anything and emails that I sent have bounced-back as undeliverable.

Using a throwaway account, I rejoined the Illuminatiam website and even got into their Members' Portal, my original account under which I had previously registered having already been unsubscribed and apparently blocked, which didn't surprise me because I had roasted them alive in my previous blog about them. Under the new account, I received several emails encouraging me to buy their stuff. I sent them several emails inquiring about whether or not Illuminatiam was still around and never heard back. After I hadn't made any purchases, I stopped receiving their emails.

It's a good thing that I never tried to buy anything from the Department of Distribution, because Illuminatiam's listing on the Better Business Bureau gives them and "F" rating and many people have posted complaints about having ordered products and never receiving them. Given that most people probably don't even know about Illuminatiam having a BBB listing, it is entirely possible that other people have paid money for Illuminatiam stuff and never received it.

The Department of Distribution's website registration was actually due to expire earlier this year, but was renewed, just in time. I suspect that the two main accounts will likewise be renewed, though I don't know if they will begin posting on the social media accounts again.

It would be hilarious if the Illuminati had forgotten their passwords.

Meanwhile, On Facebook

With the absolute silence of their Facebook account, numerous other groups have been actively posing as either the Illuminati or as Illuminatiam, attracting numerous follower, mostly from Africa. They frequently use images from Illuminatiam's website to foster the notion that they are, in fact, the very same people. For the majority of individual and group scammers, the preferred method of communication is either by email or WhatsApp.

However, the main difference is how they recruit new members: while Illuminatiam publicly states that membership is free and that no fees will ever be sought or accepted, the Facebook scammers openly require prospective members to pay for membership. Joining a group called "Illuminati Official", I was asked to pay $70 for membership, either with gift cards or Bitcoin, which are both untraceable. I was promised generous rewards for joining, such as large amounts of cash delivered to me on a regular basis, a house, a car, etc. Contact with the leaders/recruiters is usually done via Facebook Messenger.

This is fairly typical behavior of Illuminati scams.

Also, while Illuminatiam never made opening religious statements, numerous Illuminatiam clones on Facebook openly proclaim their allegiance to Lucifer, the Devil.

I still remember when Illuminatiam openly bragged about having "imposter" accounts shutdown on Twitter. It's interesting how this "powerful" and "elite" organization seems to be completely powerless to shutdown the numerous scam groups operating while using Illuminatiam's name and website images.

Where They Got Their Stuff

I was curious about where Illuminatiam even got their stuff to sell. So, I did a Google search of "Illuminatiam LLC" (their business registration name in the state of Wyoming) and discovered that they had items shipped to their Beverly Hills address from China. I do not know what was actually in the shipment, but there is only one recorded in January 2017. The receiving address is the same as the registration address for their main website, which appears to simply be a mail drop.

I have to admit that I've long suspected that they would have been getting their crap shipped from China.

Business Problems

Having a new look at Illuminatiam LLC's business registration in Wyoming, I discovered that they actually had their registration revoked for tax issues back in March 2020, only getting it back in March 2021 after they cleared that up and filed two annual reports that they were supposed to have already done. They did also have a business registration in the state of California, but that was as a "foreign" (out of state) company and their main registration is in Wyoming. The California registration is no longer active and the California Secretary of State has revoked their license. This could have been done for not filing the required paperwork on-time and/or not paying the required taxes. By the way, their California business registration mentions them as a "Publishing and apparel e-commerce" company.

So, Wyoming is all they've got, as far as I know.

Isn't it a little odd that an "elite organization of world leaders, business authorities, innovators, artists, and other influential members of this planet" can't even pay their taxes and file their paperwork on-time?

How To Actually Contact Them

Lots of people have posted complaints against Illuminatiam on the Better Business Bureau website, which lists them as being in the zip code 34470, which is Marion County in Florida. The only company using "illuminatiam" as their registered name is Illuminatiam Films Corp, which was first registered in 2018, four years after the first Illuminatiam video was posted on YouTube. I seriously doubt if there is a direct connection. As you can see, there is no street address listed on the BBB page.

Since I'm here to help "guide you to the Light", I've decided to post the address of their registered agent in the state of Wyoming. A registered agent's job is to serve as a point of contact with the public, including the delivery of legal documents in the event of a lawsuit. When business owners don't want to get unsolicited mail filling their mailboxes, a registered agent really come in handy. Understand that this is publicly-available information and that I am not doxxing anyone. If you send them harassing letters in the mail, that could be a Federal crime and then you'll have the US Postal Inspectors on your ass.

Here is the address:

Illuminatiam, LLC

c/o Registered Agents Inc

30 N Gould St Ste R

Sheridan, WY 82801 USA

So, if you ordered something from the website and haven't received it, send a polite letter of complaint to the registered agent, along with proof of purchase. What happens after they receive your letter is really up to them.

What The Future May Hold For Illuminatiam

To be honest, I really have no idea what Iluminatiam will do after having made nice with Wyoming. They could simply return to spouting drivel on Twitter and Facebook, while simultaneously hawking their Chinese-made trinkets. If they do that, it's really not that important to me. They really never posted anything truly meaningful. It's entirely possible that Illuminatiam may resurface, possibly with a story about how they've been secretly working behind the scenes to improve the Human Condition or some other such bullshit. Since their California registration has gone inactive, they'll probably have to renew or refile it in order to receive future shipments of medallions from China.

But, what they should do is work to recapture their brand and move against every website and Facebook group that has been using them to further assorted scams. They should publicly name and shame each one of them, for all the world to see,

The obvious upshot of it all is that Illuminatiam went silent for a few years and didn't say anything about their images being copied & pasted across the Internet without their consent, Threatening to sue scammers based in a foreign country would be totally useless because they are outside the jurisdiction of the United States. Sure, they could threaten to sue US-based scammers and copycats, but that would only work until someone calls your bluff and is willing to actually go to court. Then, you'd have to provide proof of ownership and identify the people who actually first designed the images.

Then, the Illuminatiam will be revealed not as an "elite organization", but as just a bunch of guys who drew some pictures and sold their shit on the Internet,

The best approach would be to have a separate page on their site where they name every website, Twitter account, Facebook group, etc as "fake Illuminati" and tell their followers to stay away from them, If Illuminatiam can maintain and grow their following, they should be able to overwhelm the fakes by sheer weight of numbers.

Otherwise, who or what is there to stop someone like me from making my own Illuminatiam rings, medallions, etc and selling it on eBay or Etsy?

Final Thoughts

If Illuminatiam wants to spout their New Age drivel and sell their trinkets, it doesn't really bother me. My main concern are the gullible, desperate people being scammed by the Illuminatiam knockoffs on Facebook and around the Internet.

If Illuminatiam makes good for all the people who bought stuff on the Department of Distribution website, then I will have some respect for them. Doing the right and honorable thing is always better than doing nothing.

But, I think it will be fun to watch if Illuminatiam actually makes a move to shutdown or discredit the scam sites, Facebook groups and Twitter accounts.

I would truly enjoy an Illuminati Civil War.

Duane Browning

Would-Be Blackmailer Seeking Bitcoin

2020-09-19T02:48:00.002-07:00

The following email has been making the rounds recently:

Message-ID: <954466015635897980204376@pop.eamale.com>
Date: 18 Sep 2020 13:12:57 +0600
Subject: [SPAM] Commercial offer

Hi!

Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you.

Several months ago, I got access to the device you are using to browse the internet.

Since that time, I have been monitoring your internet activity.

Being a regular visitor of adult websites, I can confirm that it is you who is responsible for this.

To keep it simple, the websites you visited provided me with access to your data.

I’ve uploaded a Trojan horse on the driver basis that updates its signature several times per day, to make it impossible for antivirus to detect it. Additionally, it gives me access to your camera and microphone.

Moreover, I have backed-up all the data, including photos, social media, chats and contacts.

Just recently, I came up with an awesome idea to create the video where you cum in one part of the screen, while the video was simultaneously playing on another screen. That was fun!

Rest assured that I can easily send this video to all your contacts with a few clicks, and I assume that you would like to prevent this scenario.

With that in mind, here is my proposal:
Transfer the amount equivalent to 1500 USD to my Bitcoin wallet, and I will forget about the entire thing. I will also delete all data and videos permanently.

In my opinion, this is a somewhat modest price for my work.

You can figure out how to purchase Bitcoins using search engines like Google or Bing, seeing that it’s not very difficult.

My Bitcoin wallet (BTC): 13dk8JbVeEKGmHq7aevbdVxjg2cHYFT4kg

You have 48 hours to reply and you should also bear the following in mind:

It makes no sense to reply me - the address has been generated automatically.

It makes no sense to complain either, since the letter along with my Bitcoin wallet cannot be tracked.

Everything has been orchestrated precisely.

If I ever detect that you mentioned anything about this letter to anyone - the video will be immediately shared, and your contacts will be the first to receive it. Following that, the video will be posted on the web!

P.S. The time will start once you open this letter. (This program has a built-in timer).

Good luck and take it easy! It was just bad luck, next time please be careful.

If you're panicking after having received this message, you can stop now. This email has been received by lots of other people.

In fact, the Bitcoin Abuse Database has received numerous reports about this Bitcoin address recently, so don't feel like you're a special case. Bitcoin even offers guidance for people who receive threatening messages from scammers like this.

This message is just a potential scammer sending an email to hundreds to thousands of people in the hope that someone whose online behavior matches that described in the message. If just one person falls for it, the scammer gets $1500 in free money for doing absolutely nothing.

Stop worrying, delete the email and go on with your life.

Duane Browning

Valerio and Their "Brand Ambassadors"

2020-08-30T16:22:00.006-07:00

Most of my Social Media Presence is either on Facebook or Twitter, but I sometimes also post on Instagram. Outside of family members and personal friends, I don't have many followers. I'm not an "influencer" by any stretch of the imagination.

I Am Approached

So, imagine my surprise to receive a comment to my Instagram post from an account who was not even a follower of mine, valerio_com, asking if I wanted to do a collaboration. This account has about 30 followers and doesn't post very often. In the comment, I was asked to send a DM to another account, shop.valerio, which has many more followers and seems to be the main account for them with valerio_com being used to leave comments on other Instagrammers' posts.

Until yesterday, I had never heard of Valerio and had no idea who or what they were about. In the picture I posted, I was wearing my cycling helmet, so I first assumed that they might be a company that deals in cycling equipment.

How wrong I was! Valerio in an online company that sells fashionable sunglasses and wristwatches. According to this Quora profile, they are described as:

Valerio online store provides the Italy top watch and sunglasses brand. We offer the best designer watches and trendy collection of sunglasses of various types. Visit Valerio Sunglasses and Watch Outlet .

I guess English isn't Aliza Thomas' native language.

Okay, I was a bit confused, at first. For one, there is nothing in my post or over the entirety of my Instagram account that even suggests that I wear designer anything, like clothes, sunglasses, watches, etc. Also, I live in Honolulu, Hawaii and sunglasses are as easy to buy as t-shirts. I could easily find high-end designer sunglasses anywhere in the city, especially in Waikiki. I also wear eyeglasses, so the lenses on any sunglasses I wear would have to be prescription or I'd have to wear contact lenses under them.

I sent a DM to them and received this reply:

Hi, thanks for reaching out. We have been looking for a few people who fit our style, to potentially collab.
We would be happy to offer you 50% off on any item in our store so that you can try out our elite sunglasses and watches and become an official ambassador! You will earn money that is 30% commission for every purchase using your ambassador code. Plus, we also do FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE.
All we ask is that when we move ahead together, you tag us in a pic of you wearing our gear and we will feature you on our IG & website! Does that sound good?

At least their English proficiency improved.

When I didn't just jump right in, they upped my discount to 60%.

This seemed a bit weird to me. I still couldn't figure-out exactly why I, who have no sense of Fashion, had been contacted. Besides, I had a dental appointment yesterday and obviously had more important things on my mind.

Eventually, I decided not to participate in this "collaboration" and politely declined. They came back with an "offer" to have me pay for my initial purchase in installments, but I still declined. Their final message to me was very polite and they left the door open for me to take them up on it at a future date.

Who Are These People?

Now that my interest had been piqued, I decided to try to learn a little bit more about Valerio.

I first wanted to know if they are really an Italian company, so I did a WhoIs search on the website.

What I discovered didn't really surprise me. For one thing, shopvalerio.com is a Shopify site, which is not a bad thing, but the site is registered anonymously. You would think that a legitimate company wouldn't keep its website registration as a secret. It just makes me wonder what else they might be hiding.

The site was first created in 2019, so it's barely a year old.

I had another look at the main Instagram account to check their posting history. This was too difficult to do quickly because they have over 1000 posts and I didn't want to attempt to scroll to the first one only to be disappointed if I didn't find anything. However, I did check their account history and discovered that the account had first been set-up in 2014 and had other names used for it before their current one.

While not a deal-breaker, it doesn't look good for a legitimate company to simply recycle an existing account, rather than set-up a brand new account for themselves, in my opinion.

For what it's worth, there really is a company in Italy using the website valerio.it but it's a web marketing company and they don't sell sunglasses or watches. There are actually many companies that use the name "Valerio" in Italy and it's a common surname in that country.

This reminds me of that time when Payless Shoesource opened a brick-and-mortar store under the name "Palessi" where they sold Payless shoes at designer label prices, just to see what would happen. Sure enough, the prank showed that if you put a fancy name on the door and charge high prices, people will pay whatever you ask for.

The Products

I didn't see anything on the site with the brand name "Valerio" on it. It seems to just be the name of the store.

Brand names just for watches offered by Valerio include, Swish, Hannah Martin, Lige and Golden Hour. Each of these brands has a website where you can buy the watch of your choice at a lower price than what Valerio is asking you to pay. Sometimes, the price is a little lower and sometimes the prices are dramatically lower when you buy directly from the company and some of these brands can even be bought at your local Walmart.

What is even funnier is that you can buy these watches off of AliExpress for even lower prices, though it will take a lot longer for your package to arrive from China, between four and five weeks. If you want it faster, buy it from Amazon or Walmart.

As far as sunglasses are concerned, I personally couldn't justify spending $100+ on a pair of sunglasses. You can buy a good pair locally or from a online retailer with an established reputation, like Amazon.

In a nutshell: Valerio isn't selling anything they made or designed themselves. They are selling other companies' products at higher prices than you would pay if you bought them directly from their respective companies.

If I had to guess where they get their products from, I'd take a stab in the dark and say that they might have bought them through AliExpress. Buying a watch for $20 and selling it for $100+ would make a good profit for Valerio.

The "Brand Ambassadors"

As best as I can tell, Valerio seems to be targeting random people with their "offer", without regard for the actual content of their Instagram pages. In these difficult economic times, Valerio is offering a generous commission to people who may be financially struggling. Even if an "ambassador" never makes a sale, Valerio still has their money from the initial purchase and they've received lots of free advertising. Even at the 50-60% discount, Valerio is still making a profit from the first purchase and any orders made through the "ambassadors" is just gravy.

A Quick Disclaimer

I just want to point-out that I am not saying that Valerio is a scam. I have no doubt that if you order a product from them that you will receive what you paid for. You'll just be paying more.

If you paid for the product and didn't get it, then it would be a scam.

What I am saying is that Valerio doesn't seem to be anything other than an online store that someone set-up and that doesn't seem to be linked to a company in Italy. They put a fancy, foreign name on the site and are selling products at higher than normal prices.

My Verdict

Many of us on Social Media have been approached by someone we know, someone we knew in the past or even total strangers who wanted us to either buy some product from them or join them in working for Herbalife, Lularoe, etc. Many of us soon resent being approached like this and hounded into buying something or signing-up to be in their downline.

While Valerio isn't engaging in multilevel marketing, they are recruiting people into being their "brand ambassadors" and into providing them with free advertising. Personally, I don't want to be That Guy to my friends and relatives.

Personally, I'd advise you to decline Valerio's "offer".

Duane Browning

Police Officers' Support Fund

2020-01-04T19:32:00.000-08:00

I received a call from an organization calling itself "The Police Officers' Support Fund" today and the number they were using is 855-837-1020. I was able to call them back, so it's not a spoofed number.

There isn't a live person speaking to you, but a set of pre-recorded responses to statements or questions asked by the person being called. I believe that there is a live person listening who has instructions to use an appropriate response to anything the person being called says. It may be to solve a problem of a live person not being able to speak English properly and it also keeps the responses uniform.

Who Are They?

I know that this is an actual organization because they've filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the name of their treasurer is Robin Wimberly. According to their FEC filings, their physical address is 7901 4th St. N, Ste 4072, St. Petersburg FL 33702. This is not their actual physical address, but the address of a company called "Registered Agents, Inc.", which acts as their registered agent in the state of Florida. The Police Officers' Support Fund is registered in Florida as a foreign (i.e. out-of-state) not for profit organization as of March 28, 2019. According to the Florida filings, the home state of this company is Washington DC.

There are three principals on-record with this PAC:

Melinda Wimberly (president)
Robin Wimberly (treasurer)
Timothy Sucher (secretary)

According to records, Robin and Melinda Wimberly have made donations to the Fund, with Robin claiming to be a disabled veteran. I found Facebook profiles which I think are theirs, but both have been inactive for a couple of years. Neither mentions anything about Robin being disabled or a veteran.

Their Website

The Police Officers' Support Fund has a website, which I found after a lot of searching:

https://posfp.org/

The website was purchased through Godaddy and is registered anonymously with Domains By Proxy acting as the registrant.

Yeah, nothing like an anonymously-registered website to build trust with your potential donors.

The site is rather bare, using stock photos and includes contact information. The "services" they claim to offer are to lobby government on behalf of law enforcement personnel, help elect like-minded people to public office and to fight for tougher sentencing for convicted criminals.

They don't spell-out how their company is any different from others that do, pretty much, the same thing. The main difference I see is that these other organizations aren't making unsolicited phone calls to random people.

Are They Legitimate?

I really don't know if they are who they claim to be. A person named Robin Wimberly has been associated with other companies registered in Florida, supposedly to help wounded or disabled veterans. If it's the same Robin Wimberly as the Police Officers' Support Fund, she doesn't seem to have a good track record since most of the companies with Robin Wimberly listed as an officer have gone inactive and I'd advise anyone thinking about making a non-tax deductible donation to send it to another organization that has a proven track record, which has been around longer and which doesn't resort to spam-calling random people.

Seriously, these calls have even caught the attention of Nomorobo and Robokiller who have put the number is on their blacklists. Their number is currently listed on the Nomorobo website as one of the most-active robocallers in the last 24 hours as I type this blog!

The website gives the contact phone number as 888-983-2993. Assuming that it's still active, I called the number and left a message for them to remove my number from their calling lists. I don't seriously think that they will pay any attention to what I want, but it's worth a shot.

Should I Make A Donation?

Personally, I would not. I admit that I'm a little pissed about these people spam-calling me.

If you'd like to make a donation in support of police officers injured in the line of duty or their families, think about sending some money to Concerns of Police Survivors.

Duane Browning

Need Abortion Services?

2019-12-30T02:27:00.000-08:00

Introduction

I found this posted on Reddit in r/TwoXChromosomes by u/cartuspier900 and decided to share it here. I have added some content as I saw fit.

Caveat

Please keep in mind this news report from the Guttmacher Institute about the hazards of ending a pregnancy on your own. The link to the study can be found here and a related news release was published specifically on this topic.

The Original Post

If you cannot access abortion services for any reason, AidAccess.org will mail you the abortion pills for a donation amount of your choice.

If you’re in an area where abortion is banned or restricted, you aren’t out of options. Aidaccess is run by physicians and women’s rights advocates who offer abortion services internationally to women who may not otherwise have access. This includes the USA where abortion is heavily restricted in some states and often very expensive.

After a brief questionnaire, an advocate will mail a valid prescription, instructions, pills (plus some extras) and will even walk you through the steps if needed via SKYPE. The organization is based on donations, no minimum amount required.

You can support Aidaccess.org buying their merchandise or making a transfer.

Bear in mind that there are certainly people who oppose what they are doing, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the state of Texas.

Other Useful Links

* The Fake Abortion Clinics Of America (2014) Women seeking abortions are accidentally booking appointments at Crisis Pregnancy Centers, pro-life, government-funded religious centers that do not provide abortions. Using misinformation & misleading practices they try to talk women out of doing it.

* Other website that provides abortion pills globally as well: www.womenonweb.org.

* If you are either having a miscarriage or doing an abortion with pills outside of medical care and you need to speak to a doctor, there is a hotline: https://www.mahotline.org

You can text or call this hotline from 10 am to 10pm.

* PlanCPills.org - small but mighty team of veteran women’s health advocates, researchers, and millennial digital strategists works toward a shared vision: of a world in which the ability to end an early pregnancy is in the hands of those who need it most.

* Abortion Funds Org - A network to connect you with organizations that can support your financial and logistical needs as you arrange for your abortion.

* Emergency Contraception Doses- There are nearly two dozen brands of pills that can be used for emergency contraception in the United States today. The table on the website lists all of the brands of oral contraception available in the U.S. (though some of these are used outside of the US and may be available to people outside the US) which you can use to prevent pregnancy in the few days after sex. For information about how to use a specific pill as an emergency contraceptive, click on the brand name in the table.

* Emergency Contraception Worldwide - from the above link, but you can search by brand or country if you are not in the U.S.)

Please feel free to cross-post it to whichever sub you see fit, or social media. The more people it reaches, the more women will know they have a choice to have a safe abortion instead of being forced to give birth. What you do with your body is nobody's business but yours.

Scam Email Received

2019-11-01T03:43:00.000-07:00

reply-to: laarnibibal2@gmail.com
date: Oct 27, 2019, 6:29 PM

subject: $1MILLION DONATION TO YOU

Dear Sir / Madam,

This is a personal email directed to you. I am Laarni Bibal I won a Mega Millions jackpot of $522 Million on June 2019, 2017 and i have voluntarily decided to donate the sum of ONE MILLION Dollar to you as part of my own charity project to improve the lots of 5-10 lucky individuals all over the world plus 15 close friends and family.

I believe that this wonderful opportunity came to me from God and i cannot keep it to myself alone, Your contact was submitted to me by Google Management Team and you received this email because i have short listed you as one of the lucky recipients, If you have received this email then you are one of the lucky winner.

You can verify this by visiting the web pages below and send your response back to me.

www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-woman-claims-half-billion-dollar-mega-millions-ticket

And one more thing, this donation is made out to you as to enable you strengthen your personal issues and mostly to generously help me extend hands of giving to the less privilege, orphans and charity organizations within your locality.

You are required to get back to me on how to receive the donation.

Good-luck,
Laarni Bibal

************************************************************************************

reply-to: laarnibibal@aol.com
date: Oct 27, 2019, 8:53 PM

subject: Re: YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN $1MILLION DONATION TO YOU

Dear Sir / Madam,

This is a personal email directed to you. I am Laarni Bibal I won a Mega
Millions jackpot of $522 Million on June 2019, 2017 and i have
voluntarily decided to donate the sum of ONE MILLION Dollar to you as
part of my own charity project to improve the lots of 5-10 lucky
individuals all over the world plus 15 close friends and family.

I believe that this wonderful opportunity came to me from God and i
cannot keep it to myself alone, Your contact was submitted to me by
Google Management Team and you received this email because i have short
listed you as one of the lucky recipients, If you have received this
email then you are one of the lucky winner.

You can verify this by visiting the web pages below and send your
response back to me.

www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-woman-claims-half-billion-dollar-mega-millions-ticket

And one more thing, this donation is made out to you as to enable you
strengthen your personal issues and mostly to generously help me extend
hands of giving to the less privilege, orphans and charity organizations
within your locality.

You are required to get back to me on how to receive the donation.

Good-luck,
Laarni Bibal

Want to Sell Lularoe, But No Money? No Problem!

2019-09-29T00:38:00.002-07:00

In honor of my mother, who died of ovarian cancer in 1992, I set-up a GoFundMe page to benefit ovarian cancer research. You can find the link here.

But, that's not what this post is about.

While setting-up the page, I remembered hearing about a woman who is fundraising on GoFundMe in order to pay for the shipping of her leftover Lularoe stock to Africa. Apparently, she had decided to quit selling Lularoe clothes and was unable to get Lularoe to respond to her requests for them to buyback her remaining stock. I'm sure that her heart is in the right place, though I wonder why she just doesn't take it all to Goodwill, like a lot of other former Lularoe sellers have done.

After browsing her page, I was curious if there were any other Lularoe-related pages on GoFundMe and I did a search, upon which I noticed some women trying to raise money to pay Lularoe's onboarding fee so that they can sell the products themselves. I guess it makes sense, since the onboarding fee to join Lularoe can run into the thousands of dollars and it's easier to risk other people's money instead of your own.

But, I've thought of a better way, even though it will involve spending some of your own cash, though not as much as it would to sign-up directly with Lularoe. I'll occasionally quote from the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, which I hope appeals to fans of Star Trek.

Have You Got The Gift?

After you're spent between $3000 to $5000 to join Lularoe is an extremely bad time to find-out that you're bad at selling. Selling a product that most people don't normally look for is very hard to do and most people can't do it. It's not because they're bad people or that they're stupid, it's just that they don't have the talent for it.

It's not like trying to sell cars for a living. You don't have to pay money to get a job selling cars and if you can't sell the cars, you lose your job but you're not stuck thousands of dollars in debt.

I learned a somewhat similar lesson years ago. I signed-up to fundraise for various charities to benefit people living with HIV or to raise money for cancer or diabetes research. I learned that I am extremely bad at fundraising. I couldn't get most of my friends and family to make contributions to the charities I was trying to help. It didn't matter for which charity for which I was fundraising, I simply couldn't raise very much.

After several attempts with various charities, I realized my shortcomings and stopped. The current GoFundMe page I created will likely be my final effort in that vein.

The difference between myself and someone who signs-up to work for a multilevel marketing company is that I wasn't left under a pile of debt for my failures. I tried, I failed and I admitted my inability with only my pride a bit damaged. I'd say that I got-off easy.

So, You Want to Be a LulaGirl?

Let's say that you've heard all the negative stories being circulated about people who've tried to sell Lularoe, but you're not dissuaded. You may even have seen the numerous videos posted on YouTube posted by former Lularoe sellers whose lives are in ruins because they couldn't make it work for them.

But, somehow, you think that you can succeed where they failed. Your head is filled with images of success and riches. Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!

But, there's just that tiny problem of the onboarding fee. You don't have the five grand to sign-up and you have no idea from where you'll get it.

Let me help.

Become a Vulture

Sure, vultures are ugly, but they don't starve to death. You need to become a vulture if you want to find-out if you have what it takes to sell Lularoe without risking $5000 of your money.

There are lots of former Lularoe sellers out there with leftover stock. They might have a few dozen pieces, they might even have hundreds or even thousands of leftover items that they can't sell or even get Lularoe to buyback. Many of these people (usually women) are in a financial hole that will take them a long time, if ever, to climb out. You'll see them trying to sell their leftover stock on eBay, Craigslist, garage sales or at flea markets.

"Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to."

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #3

Buying Lularoe at flea markets, garage sales or swap meets is your best bet in order to physically examine the pieces before you buy them. Go to flea markets in your area and look for any Lularoe booths. Try to go there early and watch them set-up, watch them as they wait all day for someone - anyone - to come over and look at their stuff and later watch as they take down their booth at the end of the day, probably after having sold nothing. Go back the following week and see how much stock they have. If they have a few dozen pieces, offer to buy them at $4 each. This is less that they initially paid for them, but it's more than anyone else is offering, unless they want to pack it all up at the end of the day, like they did a week ago.

If you find someone with hundreds of items, look through everything and make an offer to take it all for $1000 cash, if they're in sell-able condition. If they don't agree to sell it all, offer $4 per item. If they agree, pick out 250 items.

Sure, it won't cover the initial cost they incurred and it won't make their likely financial troubles go away, but $1000 might be the difference between eating or not eating that day, paying rent or getting evicted, etc. Desperate people will do desperate things in order to survive.

"Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack."

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #109

Sure, this sounds cold-blooded, but you are not the cause of their financial troubles. In all honesty, they went into it with their eyes wide open and fell flat on their faces.

Before you pay for anything, look over each item to check for tears, mold, bad stitching, etc. If there's anything bad or off about a garment, don't buy it. Bring friends with you, preferably part of your team (see below) to help you look through everything. In this case, you'll have an advantage that they didn't in that you actually have a chance to physically examine the items before you pay for them and you can refuse to buy things that you don't think will sell.

Once the purchase has been made, if they have leftover stock, get their contact information. That way, you'll have a ready source of more stock in the future. But, also keep on the lookout for other former Lulagirls selling their stock.

The Golden Rule

Don't be an asshole.

Remember, you're buying your stock from people whose lives are likely in ruins because of their involvement with a multilevel marketing scheme where they were soon in over their heads and eventually drowning in debt. They're probably wrecked financially, psychologically, spiritually and even physically. Marriages have been damaged and people have lost their sense of self-worth because they feel stupid for having gotten involved with Lularoe in the first place.

They don't need to take any shit from you. Speak to them with respect and compassion. If they respond with anger and disrespect, just walk away.

It Takes a Team

Most people who've tried to sell Lularoe have gone into it working alone or with the help of another person. Some people can manage like that, but most cannot.

You should have a team of between three to five people with everyone sharing the initial expense of buying the starting stock. Assuming you have five people in your team, the initial $1000 purchase came from five people risking $200 each, instead of one person risking $5000 to on-board with Lularoe.

Let's assume you have a team of five people. Once you have your stock and have sorted everything, you'll need to get a plan together to sell it and make a profit.

Let's assume that out of the five people, two turnout to be really good at selling, one is middling and two are just plain bad at it. Just because someone is bad at selling doesn't mean that they are useless to the team. Instead of selling product, they can build your presence on social media and keep their eyes open for new stock to replace whatever you sell. You'll also need someone to keep track of the money, because losing control of your finances will doom your effort quickly. You need to keep profits up and costs low.

If one of your team is a bad seller, but is good with numbers, have them keep track of the cash-flow, money coming in versus money going out. A friend with a car or truck could be the individual whose job it will be to look for other former Lularoe sellers who are trying to sell-off their product at flea markets or on Craigslist. If a member of the team travels out-of-town, they can check flea markets in that area for possible new stock.

Don't sell your product at the same prices as regular Lulagirls, sell it for less. Since you didn't pay as much for your stock as they did for theirs, you have lower costs and you can pass the savings on to your customers.

You should also set-up a website with photos of your available stock and every member of the team should post the link on their social media accounts.

Every member of the team should be involved and there should be no slackers. Anyone not pulling their weight should be refunded their initial investment and removed from the team if they won't straighten-up. Sure, everyone has a life of their own to live and Lularoe shouldn't be 100% of it. But, if you want to be successful, you'll have to have a team with everyone working together toward a common goal.

If you know someone who owns a business, ask for their advice on how to run yours.

Things Take Time

Lots of people have tried and failed to sell Lularoe. It's entirely possible that you'll also fail, despite all your hard work. But, success or failure can be determined by how much patience you have in seeing this through. You won't get rich overnight but, your minimal financial investment won't result in overnight failure or financial ruin either.

There will be a learning curve and you will make mistakes. Failure can be an even better teacher than success. Learn from your mistakes and keep moving.

Caveat

I'm not aware of how Lularoe would react to someone who hasn't on-boarded with the company going-around selling their product. Lularoe has already made their money from the initial sale to their former distributor and they're not making any money from you. So, any profits you make selling Lularoe are entirely yours and the only money you're spending is going to former Lularoe distributors, not to the company. So, don't announce yourselves as Lularoe distributors or call yourselves "Lulagirls", just tell people that you're selling clothes, which is true, it's just that a lot of the stuff you're selling is Lularoe.

To make the demarcation even more clear, checkout local thrift stores for vintage clothes that you think you can also sell that aren't from Lularoe. If a member of your team is an aspiring clothes designer, you could also list their product on the site. It's possible that this could possibly go from you selling Lularoe to marketing clothes that your friend has designed, launching her own fashion line. You never know. If Lularoe can be your stepping-stone to the launch of an independent fashion designer's career, feel free to step on them!

The prices you'll need to charge for your items should be lower than your competitors. Since your stock was purchased at a lower price than the Lulagirls, you can pass the saving on to your customers. What you bought for $4, you should charge $8, not including shipping. The least you should charge for an item is $6, not including shipping, for people who buy multiple items from you.

A general rule for markup is:

Cost of Purchase multiplied by two for regular purchases;
Cost of Purchase multiplied by 1.5 for larger purchases.

"Good customers are as rare as latinum. Treasure them."

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #57

If It Doesn't Sell

Eventually, you'll have stock that no one wants to buy, even if you try to sell it at cost or even lower. Don't toss it into the Goodwill donation bin right away. If members of your team are good at sewing, you can try to upcycle the item into something else that is useful or you can sell them on Etsy for someone else to purchase them in bulk in order to upcycle the items themselves.

The Competition

You may attract the attention of Lularoe distributors with whom you are in competition. This is to be expected, since you are not on-board with Lularoe, but are selling the product at prices much less than they are charging. They may send angry and outraged emails to you, complaining about your undercutting their prices.

Try to be diplomatic with them. After all, you haven't invested as much money as they did and they may be struggling. Offer to buy any stock they haven't been able to offload themselves. But, you went into this venture in order to make money for yourself and your team, not to lookout for your competitors' well-being. To paraphrase the 211th Ferengi Rule of Acquisition:

"Lularoe and its distributors are the rungs on the ladder to your success, don't hesitate to step on them."

The Future

Once you've made back your initial $1000 stock investment, you can look around for new stock to add to your inventory. Buy more from the person/people you bought your original stock from and anyone else you can find who's trying to offload theirs.

You may even want to diversify your inventory by buying clothes from other former MLM distributors like Stella & Dot, Ectcetera, W By Worth, La Senorita Jolie or you could even buy some Paparazzi jewelry. Look for former distributors doing going out of business sales on Craigslist or at flea markets, like you did for Lularoe. Buy your new stock at rock-bottom prices, like you did with your first purchase.

Just stay away from Herbalife and other alternative medicine MLMs because those products have an expiration date and take up too much space.

It All Goes South

"What is it fails?", you may be asking, "What if I and my team work really hard and we still can't make it work for us?"

In that case, you could either keep trying or you can fold-up your tent and stop before you're buried under a pile of clothes you can't sell. Failure after making a small investment isn't nearly as bad as failing after making a large investment. You've only risked a few hundred dollars and your time, while many others have failed after investing thousands of dollars.

You've gotten off rather light, compared to many others. Don't let it make you feel that you're lazy or a bad person. It's just that selling clothes just might not be what you're good at, but you may be good at something else.

Just don't let your pride and fear of failure keep you involved in a failed endeavor. Sometimes, you just got to admit that you've come to the end of the road and it's time to move on.

"The greatest teacher, failure is."

Master Yoda

Duane Browning

Some Jerk Scamming Postmates Couriers

2019-09-06T03:47:00.000-07:00

For several months, someone has been scamming Postmates couriers out of their hard-earned money.

How It's Been Done

The scam works like this: the courier accepts an order and travels to the restaurant to fulfill it. Shortly after they arrive, they get a call or text from the "customer" telling them some kind of story of which there are several varieties. In my own experience, the "customer" told me that they placed the order to make sure that I was actually out on the road. Others were told that Postmates Support placed the order in order to make sure the app was functioning properly.

The courier is then thanked for their hard work and told that they will receive a bonus and the amount of the supposed bonus has ranged from $20 to $100, but it doesn't matter because it's a lie anyway. All "Postmates Support" needs to give you this bonus is your log-in information, consisting of your email address and the password you use to log-into the app. Of course, this is bullshit because Postmates can send money to your account without having to ask for this information.

As soon as the scammer has this information, they will log-into your Postmates account and change your payment settings, adding their own credit card to receive your payment and they will promptly take every last dollar you still have in your Postmates account that you hadn't already cashed-out.

Since the app masks the phone numbers of both the customer and the courier, it is impossible to know from where the scammer was actually contacting you and it's most likely that they are in another state. Couriers from around the United States have reported receiving these calls.

Scamming Via Text Message

Most of the time, the courier is contacted via text message and the scammer requests that you text them back with your full name, email address and log-in password. No link is sent.

A lot of Postmates couriers are already wise to the scam, but posts from new victims always seem to arrive on Facebook or Reddit.

If you are contacted by a scammer in this fashion, you have two choices:

Cancel the order immediately. You won't get paid for the job and you should contact Postmates immediately to let them know about it and so that cancelling the order won't count against you with the company.
Fulfill the order. This is a good option, if the delivery point is close enough. Obviously, you won't get a tip out the job, but you will score some free food and it's extremely unlikely that the scammer will actually meet you at the delivery site. The scammers typically place very small orders (e.g. a bottle of water, an order of onion rings, etc) so you're not getting a full-course meal of of it. When I received a scam call like this, I was tempted to add a large Coke to the order, but the taco, small root beer and onion rings were enough for me, even though the scammer was probably never going to file a complaint against me with Postmates for increasing his order without his permission. Just send them a fake email address and password and make the delivery anyway. Once you arrive at the delivery spot, click the button that indicates that there's no one to accept the delivery and wait the required five minutes. The scammer won't cancel the order themselves, because they'll get billed for the job. But, they will get billed if you fulfill the order. Remember that the money they'll lose in the order's fulfillment is money that they've likely stolen from another Postmates courier, so fuck those guys!!!

Whatever decision you make, take screen shots of whatever the scammer sends you. If they call you, tell them where you are is too noisy and you'd prefer that they text you. If they won't text, just proceed however you wish.

You should especially take screen shots if the scammer texts you and tells you to call/text them at another number. Do not call or text any number the scammer gives you from your own phone number because you don't want them to have it. I have a Talkatone app downloaded to my phone with a burner number that I use to call suspicious numbers. Call them using a burner account to make sure the number they gave you is valid. Post the screenshot on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit with the hashtags #scam and #scammer, so other people can put the number on blast.

A New Twist

Some tech-savvy scammers finally decided to set-up a website that couriers and even customers could go to and enter their log-in details. The first one of which I am aware was

postmatessupport.online

The site is no longer active, having been repossessed by GoDaddy, the company from whom the scammer purchased the domain.

Not to be deterred from scamming people out of their hard-earned money, the scammers went and purchased another domain from GoDaddy on 2 August 2019, which is

postmatesonline.co

and this site's registration information is readily-available on GoDaddy's website.

Rather than take the chance that the registrant will alter this information after becoming aware that it's out in the public eye, I'll summarize it:

Registrant Name: Shawn Andrew

Registrant Organization: Transportation

Registrant Street: 78 idlewild rd

Registrant City: Edison

Registrant State/Province: New Jersey

Registrant Postal Code: 08817

Registrant Country: US

Registrant Phone: +1.415-2563-2154

Registrant Phone Ext:

Registrant Fax:

Registrant Fax Ext:

Registrant Email: shawn.andrew8766@gmail.com

Please understand that this information may be false and I have no idea what steps GoDaddy takes to ensure that the registrant's information is accurate. The scammer may have entered false information and Shawn Andrews may be completely innocent.

To be perfectly blunt: DO NOT CONTACT "SHAWN ANDREWS" IN PERSON, BY PHONE OR BY EMAIL BECAUSE HE MAY BE 100% INNOCENT OF ANY WRONGDOING.

Steps That Have Been Taken

I sent an abuse report to GoDaddy, with a CC going to Postmates Support (the real one) as well as to agencies of the Federal Government that handle phishing websites.

Here is the official response from GoDaddy that indicates they had received my complaint.

However, after a few days, GoDaddy had taken no action against the website.

Postmates' Reaction to the Scam

In my experience, Postmates has never responded to any notification I have sent them regarding scam sites targeting their couriers.

To be fair, Postmates does have a notice posted on their app in the Newsroom section that warns us to never share our log-in information with anyone and that Postmates will never ask us for that information themselves. So, Postmates has done all they can really be expected to do. It's not their fault that people either didn't read the warning or have ignored it.

People have wondered if the Postmates app had been hacked, but the scammers are placing orders in the app, knowing that it will conceal their actual phone number. The scammer who contacted me was using a burner phone which he shutoff once he realized that I was wise to what he was trying to do and so that I couldn't call and harass him anymore.

Testing the Scam Site

The scammers will undoubtedly become aware that this gravy train may be coming to an abrupt end sometime soon and are probably already working on the website to replace the one they are currently using.

As you can see, the fake website does look like it could pass for the real one.

Scrolling to the bottom, you find the section where you "verify" your account

and here's what this section looks like after you enter your information.

I took an old email address that I seldom use and tried to see how they would react if I entered the email address and a fake password. I wondered if the scammer would write to me to say that my verification attempt failed. So far, I haven't heard back. It's possible that the scammer doesn't pay much attention to the site, except at times when they are actually out scamming.

Striking Back

Sending an email report to GoDaddy didn't result in the site being taken down and it's impossible to know how many people have actually filed a report after being contacted by the scammer or even after having lost money.

I decided to take a different approach and actually use GoDaddy's Help Center and file a complaint about the phishing attempt. I visited the GoDaddy homepage, found the Help Center and clicked on the Report Abuse link. I selected "Phishing", filled-out the complaint and submitted my report.

I think if everyone who knows about this scam site were to do the same thing, GoDaddy is more likely to take action.

Since the stated email address of the site's registrant is a GMail account and Google links appear at the bottom of the homepage, I sent an Abuse Report to Google and GMail. Honestly, I really don't expect to hear back, one way or the other.

Next, I reported postmatesonline.co as a phishing site. I did this with Google Safe Browsing and I sent an email report to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) which can act under the authority given to it by the United States Government.

In an attempt to have the site blocked from view on Android and iPhones, I contacted Google, Android, McAfee and Apple Support on Twitter and reported the phishing site. If they can block the site from being viewed on people's smartphones, it will be harder for them to scam Postmates couriers and customers.

You may be wondering if hiring a hacker to take down the site would be a good idea and I don't think that it's worth it. I visited the Hackers' List website and looked at the price quotes that are expected for taking action against websites and the costs can run into hundreds of dollars. Since a scammer can simply create a new website very cheaply and in a very short period of time, it just doesn't make financial sense.

UPDATE: As of 15 September 2019, this website is offline.

The Next Generation

A new site - postmates.pro - has come onto the scene. While the site may have once been active, it no longer seems to be online and you only get the 404 warning now. Here is their registration data from GoDaddy:

Name: postmates.pro

Registry Domain ID: D503300001162786830-LRMS

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com

Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com

Updated Date: 2019-09-13T17:05:04Z

Creation Date: 2019-09-13T17:05:03Z

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2020-09-13T17:05:03Z

Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC

Registrar IANA ID: 146

Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com

Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4806242505

Registry Registrant ID: CR388272312

Registrant Name: john smith

Registrant Street: 1044 noble ave

Registrant City: Bridgeport

Registrant State/Province: Connecticut

Registrant Postal Code: 06608

Registrant Country: US

Registrant Phone: +1.9412468042

Registrant Email: postmatestakemoney1388@gmail.com

I received no response when I sent an email to the registrant or text and they didn't answer when I called their phone number.

If You Have Lost Money to This Scam

You should immediately file a report with the Internet Crime Complaint Center at this link. Make sure you have all information ready, such as screen shots of any texts that the scammer may have sent you.

More To Come?

I will update this blog post if/when I hear back from the companies and agencies to whom I sent reports.

Duane Browning

Text-Spammed By FUNDSJOY.COM

2019-08-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

A couple of hours before I was supposed to wake-up and go to work today, I received a text message from 872-444-6210 that said:

84480 Installment Money Get up to $ 5000 - @.www.theapprovalmoney.com

A few days later, I received a second text message from a different number, 402-935-8893

86834 Installment Money Get up to $ 5000 - @.www.thedebtconsolidationmoney.com

I've received text spam before, but these were quite unusual because the messages had been sent to nineteen other phone numbers, all at once. Prior to today, I think text-spammers had messaged me and maybe four or five other people at a time.

I immediately noticed that the initial numbers - 84480 and 86834, respectively - were sequential. Even though I had thus far only received two texts, it is possible that they have multiple people sending out these texts and that there may be a set number of texts being sent out toward an eventual final sequence.

My Fellow Recipients

Rather than simply delete the first message and go on with my day, I decided to run a search on all the other numbers in this block:

Thirteen of the numbers - including mine - were in the 808 area code;
Six of the numbers were in the 317 area code;
One of the numbers was in the 617 area code;
One number - the sender's - was from the 872 area code, but this appears to have been a burner account and I doubt if they will use this number again right away;
Of the twenty recipients, only two numbers could not be tied to an actual person. Running all the numbers through a search engine (yes, I actually took the time to do this) located the number's registered owner's name. The numbers which the search engine could not identify the owners were both from the 317 area code.
Of the numbers for whom I could acquire the owner's name, all eighteen of them have Facebook pages.
Aside from all having received the same text message, the identifiable owners seem to have nothing else in-common. There were eleven women and seven men. The recipients have various occupations, ranging from being employed by others to being self-employed. The names weren't even close to each other alphabetically by first or last name. The recipients were apparently texted at random.
I have no connection to any of the other recipients on Facebook, not even to the people who live in Hawaii. We don't belong to any of the same Facebook groups and we don't have any friends in-common.

Since none of the other recipients responded to the text message, neither did I. I'm going to assume that they simply deleted the message upon reading it. As a precaution, I blocked the sender's number and the two numbers whose owners I could not identify, since it's possible that they might be used to text-spam me again in the future.

The second batch of recipients were more varied in terms of their area codes. I checked a few of the numbers and they all had Facebook accounts. I only blocked the second sender's number because I realized that they would simply use a different number if they ever texted me again.

My attempt to call the senders back using a burner account of my own got no results other than a recorded message telling me that the TextMail subscriber was unavailable.

The Websites

There seem to be a lot of websites that offer $5000 loans to people, but few seem to be sending me text-spam. Since I had some free time, I decided to see who these people are:

THEAPPROVALMONEY.COM is registered in India and is a very new site, only being created on 8 August 2019. The registrant's name is redacted for privacy (funny for someone going-around spamming people) but their organization is listed as a2zsolutionindia, which is a company in India that sells passports. So, it's possible that an employee of this company has gone out on his own to try to make a quick buck at my expense, but I have no evidence to that effect.

THEDEBTCONSOLIDATIONMONEY.COM is also registered anonymously and its servers are located in India.

This sites actually has no content of their own and serve only as a redirect to the site to which they really want you to go.

Clicking on the links provided in the messages led me to FUNDSJOY.COM and it is an anonymously-registered website under the privacy protection of Domains By Proxy. The site was originally purchased from GoDaddy and its servers are from DigitalOcean, LLC out of Santa Clara, CA.

FUNDSJOY makes a point of telling you that they are not an actual lender, but they only serve to put you in contact with companies from who you can borrow money.

I Have An Address

At the bottom of their homepage, they posted this address

1041 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Oakland, CA 94606

Googling the address for a picture of an actual building revealed a red brick building which looks almost like a school. It seems to be well-kept.

However, a search for neighboring businesses showed that other loan companies were using the exact same address as FUNDSJOY and all their websites are registered anonymously:

Cash Green Loans

Cash Maxlend

Cash Rise Loans

Cash Spot Loan

Cashspotloan

Extra Lend

ExtraLend

Get Loan Hour

GreenLoansCash

Ignite Capital Loans

LoanSolo, this company apparently had a complaint on-file with the Better Business Bureau and when the BBB sent them a letter about it, the USPS returned the letter;

Opploanscash

PayDayloanpay

Payday Loan Central

Payday Loan Dollars

SilverCashFinance

Speedy Payday Loans was formerly known as Speedy Payday Loan Cash Advance,

There could be more, but I'm too tired to keep looking. Let's just say that if a "loan company" is operating out of this address, it's probably the same people.

My Verdict

Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing any business with FUNDSJOY.COM and here are my reasons:

Reputable companies don't rely on text-spamming random people to advertise their services;
A reputable wouldn't hide its real website address behind a redirect link;
Reputable financial companies' websites aren't registered anonymously. Here are some examples: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and CitiGroup. If someone wants your personal information, but they don't want to tell you who they really are, you shouldn't trust them;
The sheer number of "loan companies" operating out of this single address should be a gigantic red flag for anyone with more than one brain cell.

Stay as far away as possible fro FUNDSJOY and every other "company" operating out of this address.

The Federal Trade Commission

What people might not know is that sending spam messages is illegal under Federal law. Therefore, I have filed complaints with the FTC against FUNDSJOY.COM and I encourage everyone else who receives text messages from them to do the same.

Duane Browning

RIP Medical Debt Campaigns

2019-08-08T22:52:00.001-07:00

I have decided to post this list of all active campaigns launched through RIP Medical Debt for the purchase and forgiveness of unpayable medical debt in the United States. I am including states and territories, along with the links directly to the campaign page.

Who is RIP Medical Debt?

RIP Medical Debt (RIP) is a national 501c3 nonprofit organization with a mission to empower donors to forgive the billions of dollars in oppressive medical debt at pennies on the dollar. RIP locates, buys, and abolishes destructive medical debt for individuals, veterans, and families. Since inception in 2014, RIP has relieved more than $600 million in medical debt for individuals across the U.S., impacting over 250,000 individuals.

RIP, working with third-party credit data providers, searches through large debt portfolios to locate accounts meeting their criteria for relief. RIP then negotiates to buy millions of dollars of this debt at a steep discount, usually a penny or less on the dollar.

Facts about Medical Debt

42.9 million Americans have unpaid medical bills, which creates an adverse impact on debtor patients, physicians, and hospitals (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)
Six in 10 of both insured and uninsured people say they have difficulty in paying other bills as a result of medical debt. Over a third were unable to pay for food, heat or housing because of medical bills. (Kaiser Family Foundation & New York Times)
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults under age 65, or 116 million people, had medical bill problems or debt, went without needed care because of cost, were uninsured for a time or were underinsured — insured but had high out-of-pocket medical expenses or deductibles relative to income. (Kaiser Family Foundation & New York Times)
Medical debt contributes to more than 60 percent of the bankruptcies in the U.S. Until satisfied, debt lingers on a person’s credit report to negatively impact their ability to buy a home, get a loan or even gain employment. (The American Journal of Medicine)

Whose unpayable medical bills does RIP forgive?

Individuals who make less than 2 times the federal poverty level
Individuals with financial hardship - 5% or more of their annual income goes to out-of-pocket medical expenses
Individuals who are insolvent (debts greater to their assets)

Why Donate to RIP Medical Debt?

Your dollar goes a long way! On average, $1 abolishes $100 of debt.
100 percent of your donation goes towards abolishing medical debt.
RIP Medical Debt is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, and our EIN number is 47-1442997. Donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law.
We have specific programs for veterans and active service members of the US military.
There are no tax consequences for those whose medical debts are forgiven. The forgiveness is a gift from a detached and disinterested third party (RIP) is an act of generosity, so forgiveness of the debt does not count as being income to the gift recipient.
RIP Medical Debt's Federal Tax ID: 47-1442997

Disclaimer: In the event that a campaign is unable to meet RIP Medical Debt's local campaign contribution goal, all funds will be attributed to our national funds for general or veteran medical debt.

National Campaign

Appalachia (encompasses several states)

National Campaigns to Abolish Medical Debt for Veterans and Active Duty Military
Cure Vet Debt
National Veterans Medical Debt Relief Campaign
RIP Ride 4 Vets

Alabama
no active campaigns

Alaska
no active campaigns

American Samoa
no active campaigns

Arizona
Statewide Campaign
Phoenix

Arkansas
Statewide Campaign

California
Bay Area
Los Angeles

Colorado
Statewide Campaign

Connecticut
no active campaigns

Delaware
no active campaigns

Florida
Statewide Campaign
Lee County
Cape Coral (also benefits Kankaee County, IL)

Georgia
Northeast Georgia
Atlanta

Guam
no active campaigns

Hawaii
Statewide Campaign (also benefits Texas and Florida)

Idaho
no active campaigns

Illinois
Statewide Campaign
Kankaee County (also benefits Cape Coral, FL)

Indiana
Statewide Campaign

Iowa
no active campaigns

Kansas
no active campaigns

Kentucky
no active campaigns

Louisiana
Statewide Campaign
Central Louisiana

Maine
no active campaigns

Maryland
no active campaigns

Massachusetts
Andover

Michigan
Southwest Michigan

Minnesota
no active campaigns

Mississippi
no active campaigns

Missouri
no active campaigns

Montana
no active campaigns

Nebraska
Statewide Campaign

Nevada
Statewide Campaign

New Hampshire
no active campaigns

New Jersey
Egg Harbor Township

New Mexico

Statewide Campaign

New York
Syracuse

North Carolina

Statewide Campaign (also benefits South Carolina)
Mecklenburg & Cabarrus Counties

North Dakota
no active campaigns

Northern Mariana Islands
no active campaigns

Ohio
no active campaigns

Oklahoma
Oklahoma City

Oregon

no active campaigns

Pennsylvania
Delaware County and Philadelphia
Western Pennsylvania

Puerto Rico
no active campaigns

Rhode Island
no active campaigns

South Carolina
Statewide Campaign (also benefits North Carolina)

South Dakota
no active campaigns

Tennessee
no active campaigns

Texas
Statewide Campaign
Dallas

U.S. Virgin Islands
no active campaigns

Utah
Statewide Campaign

Vermont
no active campaigns

Virginia
no active campaigns

Washington
no active campaigns

Washington, D.C.
no active campaigns

West Virginia
no active campaigns

Wisconsin
no active campaigns

Wyoming

no active campaigns

Text Spam from Alkatone Keto

2019-07-19T07:30:00.001-07:00

A few days ago, I received this text message.

DUANE, this dieting solution is making headlines! This is your only chance for a a free bottle!
-> iowark.club/11493/sHXaoKTxt Stop to end

I wasn't particularly alarmed that it was addressed to me by name, since my phone number has been added to innumerable spam lists for as long as I've owned it. Aside from text spammers, IRS scammer groups have called me and already possessed my full name and address.

Anyway, back to the message.

The given URL is obviously hiding behind a URL shortening link, like bit.ly and a quick WhoIs search reveals that iowark.club is an anonymously-registered website, purchased from Namecheap and hiding behind WhoisGuard, Inc in order to prevent people from knowing who is actually running the site.

if you click on the shortened link, it redirects you to

http://prayandlove.club/GPS/ak.php?cep=0-5kClu_-eEZVeYiQq23E3RTcaU-RqcVwQif--1BgnU22QLievTgmeeJb-wqzV8BeprDmudZF1Vnm9Bf-pNNi0PccG3J5qFpn-Lr2zZV8WBG_19KMKCMMsRBR3ZM9NCUozqj1y15HxbGIOqcNrgjRAF9LAPpSSyR3kDnXfe66vYhoZgkf6V8DWuIP6x7vULK9CYqLtkBihsMrIvly7-H6R22vGu4j9fw7jxO_9Zx1mKocMnYX6xcCeAkUCqhOyp02Q0sEcHa_ksLfkIAjBDJQ-KiXfD1t3IsN_Hh5RBKAjcd175fPkzSDBEm9WXMEWAi_PHbw-bWjPYEtn5A5Lhi-uQxVuGxjZKTxzK92r-CWSc&lptoken=151c6320538400890642&ad=%7Bad%7D&s=%7Bs%7D&groot=%7Bgroot%7D&c2=%7Bclickid%7D

The site playandlove.club is also anonymously-registered and is probably run by the same people as iowark.club which should tell you how much trust you should put into what these people are trying to sell you.

A Big Pile of Lies

Clicking on the link sends you to a webpage that is made to appear like it's part of GadgetPush, but it really isn't. Clicking on any part of the page send you to the site where you can purchase what these people are selling. Even the footer of the page that is supposed to contain links to other sections of GadgetPush really don't do anything. So, they're impersonating GadgetPush, which is yet another reason not to trust them.

The page itself mentions two sisters - Anna and Samantha Martin - who supposedly appeared on an episode of Shark Tank where they gave a sales pitch to the Sharks in an attempt to get them to invest in their company, ALKATONE KETO. A picture of the sisters was provided:

This is another lie. The names of these women aren't Anna Martin or Samantha Martin, their real names are Sarah Nuse and Megan Reilly. They are sisters, but they weren't selling a diet supplement. They were on Shark Tank looking for investors into their company, Tippi Toes, which teaches children how to dance.

Mark Cuban even responded to the claims being made about Alkatone Keto being featured on Shark Tank

This is a scam. If you see anything like this please report them to the @FTC https://t.co/naXO47HQcj
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) July 5, 2018

Here's the actual video of Sarah and Megan talking to the Sharks

So, this whole sales pitch for Alkatone Keto is just a big, steaming pile of bullshit!

Checking It Out

Going to the purchase page, reveals a bit more shadiness on the part of these people.

The website Alkatone.com was purchased via GoDaddy in August 2018, is registered anonymously and uses Cloudflare as its server. Anyone familiar with Cloudflare's association with questionable websites in the past wouldn't be surprised by Alkatone's choice of server.

Alkatone even uses stock photos on their site, such as this one.

I was only able to use the Google Image Search on that picture, but I think we can safely assume that, aside from the pictures of the product, all photos of actual people on the page are likely to be stock photos. So, Alkatone is either too cheap or lazy to hire some models for a photo shoot.

Naturally, they post "reviews" from "satisfied customers" on their site, which don't mean anything because the reviews could have been written by the people running the company and I couldn't find them anywhere on Facebook. They state on their site "Why does it (Alkatone Keto) have Scientists, Doctors and Celebrities Buzzing?" without mentioning exactly which scientists, doctors and celebrities are supposedly "buzzing" about it.

Who Are They?

The true identities of the people involved is difficult to determine without getting a lawyer involved.

The toll-free number 1-800-938-8182 was purchased from ATL Communications and I haven't found this number being associated with any other product.

Under their Terms and Conditions, the following address is provided for customers to mail back returns:

AlkaTone Returns

PO Box 30111-51

Salt Lake City, UT 84130

Now that I have an address, I can see what other businesses have used it in the past and they seem to be selling supplements of various types:

Visual Enhance RX that sells pills that they claim make your eyes better or whatever;
MelaLuna that they say will help you sleep and
Absolute Keto more weight loss pills.

Even though they all use the same PO Box mailing address, they use separate toll-free numbers, which is pretty smart, I guess.

Social Media Activity

They have a Twitter account, with zero followers and no tweets. However, they has been an enormous amount of activity on behalf of Alkatone Keto, as you can see with a simple search.

I've also noticed activity on Facebook regarding Alkatone Keto, from dedicated pages to posts offering "reviews", which read more like advertisements selling the product.

On YouTube, there are many videos "reviewing" Alkatone Keto and even a channel who really seems to be concentrating on singing its praises.

Considering how much exposure products like Alkatone Keto is getting and remembering how various fake cures for tinnitus have received similar exposure on social media in the past, I'm wondering if there are companies or agencies that you can hire to advertise health supplements on social media. The reason I'm beginning to suspect this is because these accounts seem to go from advertising one product today to advertising another product tomorrow and people don't usually advertise a product unless they truly believe in it or are getting paid.

Does It Work?

Every time I post a blog like this, someone asks "How do you know it's a scam? Have you even tried it?" and I have to laugh when I get a stupid question like that. Even Alkatone Keto posts this disclaimer at the bottom of their own website:

Notice: The products and information found on this site are not intended to replace professional medical advice or treatment. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Individual results may vary.

You see, they have to post this disclaimer. If they didn't, the Federal Government could file criminal charges against them for practicing medicine without a license.

I don't have to try the product to point-out their use of falsehoods and how they take extreme steps to conceal their identity. If their product was so good, why hide who you are and where you really are?

The Truth is that you can't buy health out of a bottle. If you want to try the Ketogenic Diet, I advise you to consult a doctor. Expecting to substitute the hard work of putting yourself on a ketogenic diet and keeping yourself on it by simply taking a few pills everyday is lazy and a waste of money.

The Final Word

Personally, I wouldn't purchase any product where the people selling it were:

Advertising it by sending out unsolicited text messages,
Making false claims about their product being featured on Shark Tank,
Make unsubstantiated claims of support from doctors, scientists and celebrities,
Post unverified reviews from supposedly satisfied customers and
Taking extraordinary steps to conceal their true identity and location.

Alkatone Keto is just another scheme where people are looking for gullible individuals who want good health without doing the hard work.

Avoid them like the Plague!

Duane Browning

Oh, Look! Another Cure for Tinnitus!

2019-01-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

I've come to the realization that people who sell these fake cures for tinnitus have run out of imagination. They seem to follow the same script, the only imagination they seem to possess is to think-up new names for their product.

My first step to my latest discovery was here where I was informed that

"A dedicated medical librarian with over 30 years of experience that uncovered the real root cause of tinnitus and how it affects the brain. After watching this video, you'll soon be able to shut off that cringing sound that's been ruining your life and feel completely normal again."

If you don't know what a medical librarian is or does, have a look at this web page. The job requires between six to ten years of higher education, so not just any slob off the street can just jump behind the counter and do it.

I would also like to point-out that directly under the button you're supposed to click to discover this life-changing miracle is this disclaimer;

"THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT AND NOT AN ACTUAL NEWS ARTICLE, BLOG, OR CONSUMER PROTECTION UPDATE.

Representations regarding the efficacy and safety of Ear Clear have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA only evaluates foods and drugs, not supplements like these products. These products are not intended to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease. Click below for scientific studies to find evidence of a test, analysis, research, or study describing the benefits, performance or efficacy of Ear Clear based on the expertise of relevant professionals."

That should tell you everything you need to know about how truthful the advertisement really is. If they're not going to stand behind it, why should I believe them?

Let's Meet Greg!

So, I clicked on the link and was sent to this website where I was introduced to the newest product to come our way: Ear Clear Plus.

Embedded in the webpage is a video which I cannot embed in this blog because it is an unlisted video on YouTube, so it won't show-up in the search engine. However, I can provide a link to this video. That way, you'll be able to pause and backtrack in the video, if you want. You'll also be able to open a transcript and read it, if you'd rather not endure the nearly 62 minute video of "Greg Peterson" telling you his bullshit story.

By the way, comments on the video are unsurprisingly disabled.

So, who is Greg? That's tough question to answer because he doesn't show his face onscreen, but he sounds like some of the other voice actors who've done videos for products like this. I wouldn't be surprised if he's done this sort of thing before.

He claims to have worked as "medical librarian at one of the most prestigious universities for over 30 years". Most medical researchers - real ones, I mean - aren't shy about telling you where they've worked, but poor Greg is a bit shy. The name "Greg Peterson" is generic enough to make verification of his identity very difficult, if not impossible. Medical librarians, unlike medical doctors and surgeons, aren't listed in a central database that I can find.

Anyway, Greg claims that his tinnitus began about ten years ago. He didn't know what it was and it was driving him crazy. I'm actually surprised that a medical librarian wouldn't recognize or know about tinnitus, but whatever.

He then went to a "top-notch ear specialist" who he doesn't name. This specialist then revealed "The Secret", that tinnitus has nothing to do with the ears, but is a symptom of a much more serious problem. This isn't a new claim and I've blogged about this before. Essentially, the argument is that there's something wrong in your body, specifically in your brain. Rather than being something bad, tinnitus is supposedly an alarm going-off to warn you about this illness. The claim is that if you treat the underlying illness, the tinnitus will go away. Peterson goes further by stating that if you started having tinnitus while you were suffering from a cold or flu-like illness, then you need to go to your doctor immediately because you might be suffering from meningitis!

Okay, calm down. While meningitis has been known to cause tinnitus, tinnitus isn't a symptom of meningitis. If you want to know what the symptoms of meningitis really are, go to this website.

So, following in the footsteps of Tinnitus 911, Silencis Pro and Tinnitus Miracle, Ear Clear Plus is taking an old claim and trying to make it new again.

The Super-Secret Side

A lot of people like books and movies about spies, murder mysteries and conspiracies. Greg Peterson then injects a great big helping of this during his presentation by claiming that a cure does exist for tinnitus, but is being kept secret and is only being given to treat The Elite. Start watching the video at 23 minutes, 14 seconds and you'll hear about the Secret Cure that the US Government reserves for use only by Mensa members and other people in the Secret Brain Trust, leaving the rest of us peasants to suffer with tinnitus for our entire lives. Supposedly, Mensa members have access to The Cure because the US Government needs these super-smart people and tinnitus would interfere with their abilit to think clearly.

So, these two selfless individuals decided to take matters into their own hands. They stole and replicated the formula, making sure that the ingredients exactly matched those of the Secret Formula that The Elites had selfishly kept for themselves. They did all this at the risk of losing their jobs, going to prison or even being killed!

Greg even claims that Big Pharma is hunting him and Mr Parker "like dogs" for releasing this miracle cure and that Ear Clear Plus has "sent shockwaves through the medical establishment", which somehow escaped the notice of news organizations around the country and the ever-watchful membership at TinnitusTalk. As with previous "cures" for tinnitus, Greg makes the claim that Big Pharma is getting rich from selling drugs, while doctors get wealthy from performing surgical procedures, even though, as I have so often said, no medicines or surgeries are prescribed to treat tinnitus.

This story reads like a cheap spy novel. Of course, it's all bullshit.

Let's understand something about Mensa and high IQs: having a higher-than-average IQ does not make you smarter than everyone else. At least, that's what Yale University has to say on this topic. Also, if Mensa needed some sort of miracle cure for anything, it wouldn't be tinnitus, it would be Asperger's Syndrome, while afflicts a disproportionate percentage of their members.

Greg's claims that "They" are out to get him before he can reveal the Super-Secret Formula to the Unwashed Masses of the World, falls pretty flat when you consider that an ad posted on dctribune.com is how I discovered this web page in the first place. Add to that the fact that even though he tries to sound like we should hurry before "They" take down his site, it's been up for over a year and the video was posted on YouTube in October 2018. So, either a) Greg is lying or b) the Elite don't know how to pull a video off YouTube, block his ads and hack his website. Take your pick.

The Websites

You may have noticed that the link to the main web page is unusually long. I tried going to tinnitustrick.com to see what was there and the main page is blank. However, that didn't stop me from digging-around.

Not surprisingly, tinnitustrick.com is anonymously registered through GoDaddy and the listed registrant is Domains By proxy, LLC.

Okay. that seems like a brick wall to most people, but not to me. I ran a check of the site's IP address and got this result: 185.62.238.21 (c38336.sgvps.net).

What does that mean? It tells me that the site uses a webhosting platform from Siteground, a company with offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Spain and Bulgaria. The IP trace reveals that the website is actually run out of Sofia, Bulgaria. So, it's a Bulgarian-owned site, not an American one. So, unless Greg Peterson's wife or Mr Parker is from Bulgaria, I'd guess that this whole thing is a scam.

"But, wait, Duane!", you might be saying or thinking, "Who is actually manufacturing and shipping Ear Clear Plus to my home? It can't be coming all the way from Bulgaria, right?" I'm glad you asked/thought.

The website allianceorganicsusa.com, the company sending you the shipment of Ear Clear Plus, is also anonymously registered by Domains By Proxy, LLC and its IP address is exactly the same as for tinnitustrick.com which, as I said, is in Sofia, Bulgaria.

I'll take a guess here and state that they probably have an American company to manufacture and ship the product, though I don't know which one. It doesn't really matter. Ultimately, the profits will find their way back to Bulgaria.

A Final Word

In my opinion, the people behind Ear Clear Plus copied the presentations of all previous "tinnitus cures", threw them into a blender and poured the resulting mixture onto their website and video. Almost nothing is different about Ear Clear Plus' approach compared to the others.

The main differences were the detail they went into regarding Greg Peterson's suicide attempt and the conversation between Greg and Mr Parker, which sounds like someone is an aspiring writer who thinks that going into so much detail somehow makes the product's claims more believable.

Let's make a list:

Tinnitus made the speaker feel suicidal? It's been done
Speaker had attempted suicide? It's been done.
Speaker alleges that Big Pharma actively stopping a cure for tinnitus? It's been done.
Speaker claims doctors don't care because they get rich prescribing tests, drugs and surgery? It's been done.
Secret government conspiracy hiding the cure for tinnitus? It's been done.
Speaker claims to have done their own research and invented the cure themselves from all-natural ingredients? It's been done.
Speaker claims that we should hurry-up because Big Pharma, the government, etc will takedown their website very soon? It's been done.

I could keep going, but I think my point has been made.

I keep looking for new "tinnitus cures" to see if/when someone will do something different.

Imagine my disappointment with Ear Clear Plus' pathetic efforts.

Duane Browning

Hitting Back At Scam Calls

2018-09-08T06:54:00.000-07:00

I have enjoyed many hours of listening to recordings of scambaiters calling telephone scammers and harassing them. Their goal is typically explained that, by wasting the scammers' time, they prevent the scammers from harassing someone else.

Scammers, usually either based in India or staffed in other countries by Indian expatriates, have posed as Microsoft Tech Support, the Internal Revenue Service, Canada Revenue, the Social Security Administration, etc and have stolen millions of dollars from people since these scams were first created. Recent arrests in India and the United States of scamming operations appear to have done little to stop scams from continuing. It's easy to start a scam operation, once you know how it's done, especially if people who participated in one scam operation simply move on to start their own.

While wasting scammers' time with baiting is enjoyable to do and to watch others do, I think that it would be far more effective to identify the phone numbers used by scammers, discover the company under which their phone number is registered and then contact that company in order to have the number shutdown.

Twitter is my primary source for the initial discovery of phone numbers being used by scammers, but I will keep my eyes open for other sources,

My primary tool for discovering the company that owns the number is Phone Validator, which is usually reliable. Otherwise, you can use Free Carrier Lookup. If these two sources disagree, simply file reports with both of them. However, neither of them can trace toll-free numbers.

For toll-free numbers, I use either 800ForAll, TollFreeNumbers.com or Toll-Free Number Search by ATL Communications.

In case none of those sources can provide me with the information I need, I have to do a little extra digging and make my best guess.

The following is the contact information for all companies whose numbers have been used by scammers. If the information is out-of-date, I would appreciate corrections posted in the Comments section of this post and I will update the information here.

In order to keep the list up-to-date, I will remove numbers after about two weeks unless reports continue to be posted about them. Do not scambait the numbers listed on this blog. If you received a call from one of the numbers listed here, simply use the provided contact information to file a report. When making your report, please remember to include the date and time when you received the call.

382 Communications
Contact information: email support@382com.com

Aerialink
Contact information: http://www.aerialink.com/about-us/contact-us

Alcazar Networks
Contact information: Phone 484-664-2800
Contact information: Toll Free 800-349-6192
Contact information: Fax 866-740-4548
Contact information: info@alcazarnetworks.com

ATT
Contact information: https://www.att.com/esupport/report-call-or-text.html

ATL Communications
Contact information: https://atlc.com/contact-us/

AVOXI
Contact information: https://www.avoxi.com/contact-us/

Bandwidth.com
Contact information: https://www.bandwidth.com/legal/report-a-phone-number/
Contact information: call (844) 567-5064

Blitz Telecom
Contact information: investigate@blitztelecomservices.com

Century Link
Contact information: https://www.centurylink.com/business/resources/customer-support.html
Contact Information: email fraudoperations@centurylink.com

Conexiant Telecom
Contact information: email info@conexiant.net

Dialpad
Contact information: email support@dialpad.com

DISTRIBUTEL
Contact information: https://www.distributel.ca/

Five 9
Contact information: email info@five9.com
Contact information: email privacy@Five9.com
Contact information: Twitter https://twitter.com/Five9

Enflick
Contact information: email abuse@enflick.com

Exiant Communications
Contact information: https://exiantcommunications.com/

Grasshopper LLC
Contact information: call (800) 279-1455
Contact information: https://twitter.com/Grasshopper

H2O Wireless
Contact information: https://www.h2owirelessnow.com/mainControl.php?page=ContactUs

IDT Corporation
Contact information: https://www.idt.net/contact-us.html

Immediate Services, LLC
Contact information: 303-222-1540
(Note: this number may not be current. I called it and there was neither an answer or a recorded message. I cannot find a website or email address)

Invoca
Contact information: https://www.invoca.com/company/contact/

Inteliquent (dba: Broadwing, Broadvox, Neutral Tandem, Onvoy)
Contact information: https://www.inteliquent.com/contact-us

IPTelX
Contact information: http://www.iptelx.net/contact.php

Iristel
Contact information: email feedback@iristel.com

JM Telecom
Contact information: https://www.j-m-telecom.com/contact-us/

Level 3 Communications
Contact Information: http://your.level3.com/AbuseIssues
Contact Information: email fraudoperations@centurylink.com

Local Access
Contact information: https://localaccessllc.com/

Mayfair Communications, Inc
Contact information: 800-629-3247
(Note: I called this number and heard a recorded message identifying themselves as Mayfair Communications, but I cannot find a website or email address)

OneVoice Communications
Contact Information: email info@onevoiceinc.com

Paetec
Contact information: https://www.windstream.com/contact-us/form

Peerless Network
Contact information: https://www.peerlessnetwork.com/contact-us/contact-hq/

Plivo, Inc
Contact information: https://support.plivo.com/support/tickets/new

Primus Canada
Contact information: https://primus.ca/index.php/ont_en/contact-us?unit=home

Real Time Cloud Services
Contact information: http://www.myrealdata.com/contact-us.html

Resporg Solutions Customer Service Number 800-804-3471 Customer Service Email info@resporgsolutions.com

Rogers Wireless
Contact information: https://www.rogers.com/consumer/support/contactus

Telengy
Contact information: email info@telengy.net

Telnyx
Contact information: https://telnyx.com/report-abuse
Contact information: email support@telnyx.com

TELUS
Contact information: Twitter https://twitter.com/TELUSsupport
Contact information: https://www.telus.com/en/bc/support/contact-us?linktype=footer

TextNow
Contact information: abuse@enflick.com

THINQ
Contact information: 1-877-506-0747
Contact information: info@thinq.com

Time Shift
Contact information: http://www.timeshift.net/contact.html

Twilio
Contact information: https://www.twilio.org/contact/
Contact Information: https://twitter.com/TwilioHelp

Vail Systems
Contact Information: https://www.vailsys.com/contact/

Verizon
Contact information: email ResearchandCompliance@verizon.com

Vitcom
Contact information: https://www.vitcom.net/contact-us/

XO Communications
Contact information: email abuse@xo.net

YMAX Communications
Contact information: email ReportAbuse@magicJack.com

Duane Browning

The "Final Expenses" Scam

2018-08-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

I received a letter from

Distribution Processing Center

PO Box 689

Marietta, GA 30061-9901

which stated that I may qualify for a state-regulated program to pay for my final expenses, which I assume means funeral expenses. The mailing contained no information regarding the company who actually sent it to me, nor did it include any information about how I could have myself removed from future mailings.

A quick Google search showed this to be part of a long-running scam that has been discussed on various forums and websites over the years, with no one able to figure-out exactly who is sending out these letters. I was able to find several reports regarding this company and others, using assorted Post Office Box addresses in Georgia. Switching PO Box numbers so frequently would be the typical response from a company or individual who may find their address being the recipient of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by people who are attempting to sue them, since the USPS will release the PO Box owners' information to a process server.

One thing that most people have agreed-upon is that the claim of a "final expenses" benefit is fictitious and anyone who replies will simply have their contact information sold to other marketing companies.

Aside from simply throwing the envelope in the trash, some people have stated that they've mailed-back the included return envelope, either empty or with shredded paper inside. I'm not sure if the company who mailed them out would get charged for the return postage or return postage costs are included in the mass-mailing fees initially charged to them by the US Postal Service.

One idea that may tempt some people is to attach the reply envelope to a heavy box and mail it back with the intention that the mailer will get charged for the extra postage. That will not work because the Post Office will notice it when it gets into one of their distribution centers, flag it and remove the heavy item. You can see verification of this in the video below:

Personally, I understand how people would want to take some small measure of revenge against scammers like this, but don't waste the Postal Service's time doing something like that.

If you want to do anything, you could simply mail back the empty envelope or run the contents through a shredder a couple of times before sending it back. As long as everything fits inside the return envelope, the USPS won't flag and stop it.

Just don't include a threatening note inside the envelope. The recipient could then report you to the US Postal Inspection Service and you could find yourself getting charged with a Federal crime for sending threats of violence through the US Mail.

Duane Browning

Workplace Compliance Services

2018-07-28T01:15:00.004-07:00

In July 2018, letters were mailed to owners of limited liability companies (LLCs) in Hawaii that were apparently sent by a company calling itself "Workplace Compliance Services". The letter and the envelope made it very clear that they had not been sent by a government agency, but by a private entity. The letter was a form filled-out with the LLC's business registration information, along with a request for fees, which would pay for Workplace Compliance Services submitting the annual report required of all limited liability companies operating in Hawaii.

The fee charged by the State of Hawaii when submitting your annual report is twenty-five dollars and Workplace Compliance Services was asking for an additional $75 as a "processing fee", for a total amount of $100 that LLC owners were being asked to pay. I would also like to point-out that there is no way to tell if these people will actually take care of filing your LLC's annual report, even if you pay them. They could just take your money and run.

Workplace Compliance Services and similar outfits have worked their respective schemes in several States already, so Hawaii isn't their first rodeo.

I've Got Their Number

The toll-free number they provide to contact them is 877-770-3555 and it comes up in Internet searches related to past and ongoing mailings these people have sent. The top result of my first Googling of this number reveals what may be either a previous or simultaneous incarnation of this company, called "Business Compliance Services", which was reported in Georgia. I've seen other posts about a company calling itself "Corporate Compliance Services", which was active in 2016 but there are no recent posts about them.

People have also reported receiving calls from that number, though messages weren't left on their voicemail, so it seems that mailing letters is their preferred method of operating. The reports are found on WhoCallsMe and 800Notes.

Interestingly, the phone number also comes up in a search as having been posted in a classified ad in The Employment Guide Northern New Jersey in the October 20 -26, 2014 edition on page seven. I tried a WhoIs for the website GuitarsForCash.com and came up with nothing. I doubt if it's the same people, though. The toll-free number was probably abandoned by the guitar guys and later purchased by the new ones.

The postal stamp on a letter received in Hawaii indicates that the place of origin was in zip code 33912, which is Fort Myers, Florida.

I actually called the number to see what would happen and heard a voicemail message. It's a professionally-done recording and the woman's voice betrayed no accent. The voice seems to be of a Caucasian woman, which is the only thing I could get out of listening to the message twice. Their business hours are from 9:00am to 5:00pm Eastern Standard Time, which lines up well enough with the Florida zip code on the letters received.

The mailing addresses provided in their mailings across the United States indicate a preference for using UPS Stores to receive their checks. A few examples:

Georgia: 4279 Roswell Rd NE Atlanta, GA 30342-3769
Hawaii: 4348 Waialae Ave #700, Honolulu, HI 96816
Louisiana: 721 Government St #103-118, Baton Rouge, LA 70802
Louisiana: 7350 Jefferson Highway, Suite 485-220, Baton Rouge, LA 70806
New Jersey: 1977 N. Olden Avenue Ext #650, Trenton, NJ 08618
Oregon: 2755 Commercial St SE Ste. 101-260 Salem, OR 97302
West Virginia: 3501 MacCorkle Ave SE #152, Charleston, WV 25304

Either they have a co-conspirator picking up the mail from these places and forwarding them to their actual headquarters or UPS may be forwarding them, but I don't know if UPS offers that kind of service.

In one letter sent out to Louisiana businesses, the letter states that all orders will be processed and shipped from their corporate office in Lansing, MI. So, we've gone from Fort Myers, FL to Lansing, MI which is over a thousand miles away.

My Call to Workplace Compliance Services

Being curious about how they would react to receiving a phone call that made more direct inquiries about their company, I decided to take a chance and give them a call. Using a Talkatone number, I called the number provided. After the initial recorded answer, I was forwarded to a woman named Emma. I asked her about who they are and what kind of services they offer in exchange for that $75 "processing fee".

Her response was fairly straightforward: they would file my report for me. I mentioned that LLCs in Hawaii can do all this in-person or online, without any additional fees, saving themselves any sort of extra charges. Since Workplace Compliance Services doesn't have an attorney or accountant in Hawaii to represent them or act on their behalf and they aren't even registered to do business in Hawaii themselves, sending them my money simply made no sense. I didn't mention I also didn't see what would stop them from just keeping my money and not doing anything for me.

She got a little cocky when I mentioned that the Better Business Bureau in Hawaii had posted a warning about those letters and she replied "The Better Business Bureau isn't the government.". In reply, I informed her that the DCCA had also posted a warning and that the DCCA is a government agency in the State of Hawaii. She had no answer to that point.

I also pointed-out that they're using a UPS mail drop in Honolulu as their mailing address, further raising suspicions about their legitimacy. If you've read this blog's other entries, you'd already know how scammers use mail drops, rather than a real address, in order to obscure their true location and prevent people from finding out where they are so that they could be served with court papers.

I asked for their actual location and was quite surprised when she gave it to me:

7718 Northport Drive

Lansing, MI 48917

A quick search reveals this to be a warehouse, rented for industrial use. There are listings of other companies using this as their mailing address and it's a pretty big place, too.

This fits-in quite well with what I noted earlier, that the orders placed with them would be processed from their office in Lansing. Of course, I'm left to wonder why they stopped putting that information on the mailers they sent out. It's probably because people are far less willing to send money out-of-State to a company they've never heard of to take care of something they can do themselves. Using a local address would make people feel easier, until they realized that it's a UPS mail drop. So, if there's no local office or representative, there's no one in your vicinity to whom you could complain or sue if the paperwork isn't filed. It just looks like they're just trying to lure people in by letting them think they're dealing with a local company, rather than outsiders.

The Company Behind the Mailings

I decided to find-out if Workplace Compliance Services is even a registered business in Michigan. Again, I was quite surprised to discover that it is and you can see their registration here. Workplace Compliance Services is actually a dba (doing business as) company under the parent corporation which is called ANS, Incorporated. There are several "assumed names" - as they are known in Michigan - operating under the umbrella of ANS, Inc:

BUSINESS COMPLIANCE SERVICES
FLORIDA ASSUMED NAME SERVICES
FLORIDA FICTITIOUS NAME PUBLISHING
MAIL PROCESSING CENTER
NATIONAL PASSPORT EXPRESS
WORKPLACE COMPLIANCE SERVICES

Business Compliance Services and Workplace Compliance Services were both registered on the same day, 7 February 2018.

The company is owned by Steven Fata and the address on the registration matches the address Emma gave me, so that part of it was truthful. Steven acts as president, treasurer, secretary and director for ANS, Inc.

The Unsinkable Fata Brothers

Steven Fata may be engaging in some questionable behavior with these mailings to LLCs in Hawaii, but he's not an idiot. Acting as his registered agent is attorney David R Brake of the law firm Knaggs Brake, P.C. in Lansing, MI. and David is a certified attorney in US District Courts, as well as the US Supreme Court. That kind of expertise must have come in handy, when Steven faced legal repercussions for some bullshit he tried to pull in the past.

For your own edification, here is Mr Brake's contact information:

DAVID R BRAKE, ESQ

7521 WESTSHIRE DR STE 100

LANSING, MI 48917

TELEPHONE: 517-622-0590

Back in 2013, Steven Fata got into a bit of trouble for allegedly misleading small businesses where his company, called Corporate Records Services, offered a service in exchange for money. That's not a problem in itself, except that they had no real right to charge for it.

The Better Business Bureau put out an alert on another company Steve was associated with, The Mandatory Poster Agency, Inc., which he co-owned with Joe Fata and Thomas Fata. The three brothers were also sued in 2015 by the Michigan State Attorney General who filed a suit to shutdown that company.

Steve and Thomas got into more trouble in 2014, when they got sued for alleged misleading mailings sent from their company, Corporate Records Services. Several States had initiated legal action against the Fata brothers.

Even a State as far from Michigan as Delaware was a legal battleground for Steve and his brothers. If you're such an asshole in Michigan that Delaware hates you, you're probably not going to have many friends in the other 48 States.

I have to admit that, it must be worth it for them. After all the legal trouble into which they've found themselves embroiled, they must be making enough money from it all or else they would have quit years ago.

Then again, they could just be too stupid to realize that they'll eventually always get caught and sued.

I'm Such A Rat Fink

Taking the information I've gathered about Workplace Compliance Services and collecting it all on one page (actually, the back of one of the letters they mailed to a Hawaii LLC) I paid a visit to the offices of the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs in Downtown Honolulu and handed it off to the clerk on-duty.

When I mentioned the letter from Workplace Compliance Services, she immediately reached over to a stack of papers next to her on the counter and handed me one. They've received so many complaints about those letters, that they keep a stack of the DCCA's statement and warning on the counter to handout.

But, I showed her the information I'd gathered and told her where I got it from, her eyes immediately brightened and she greedily read all the information like it was a map to buried treasure. Hawaii State attorneys are apparently already gathering information on their own for potential action against the people behind it. They may already have had the information I gave them, but it didn't hurt to offer a little help.

Hawaii State attorneys may soon get in-touch with ANS, Inc's attorney, Mr David R Brake, Esq. As I said, he's a pretty qualified attorney, but let's see how good he is if history repeats itself and he has to deal with dozens of lawyers from across the country. The Fata brothers' track record isn't exactly stellar in the courtroom.

The Fakery Continues

This is an update that I'm posting on 12 January 2019.

I just learned that Workplace Compliance Services has a website and here it is
https://www.workplacecomplianceannualreport.com/optin

I found it interesting that Steven Fata is doubling-down with his little endeavor by actually building a site for it. However, if you scroll to the bottom, the links for Contact, Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions haven't been established. They also have a Twitter page and a YouTube channel. While the Twitter account has over 90 followers, the YouTube channel has only one subscriber and the videos all have comments disabled, which isn't very brave of them.

The main website is anonymously registered through GoDaddy and the registrant is a company called Domains By Proxy, LLC. The IP address is out of California and the server is Cloudflare, a company I have previously mentioned for its affiliation with less-than-savory websites.

But, I really got a laugh out of those "testimonials" near the bottom of the page with the accompanying photos. Let's have a look:

This is actually a stock photo. Here's the source page.

Another stock photo. You can find it here.

The best-dressed of the three, though also a stock photo.

UPDATE: all of these pictures and their accompanying "reviews" have been deleted from the site.

Conclusions

The only real way to stop Steven Fata is to hit him with a fine so big that it would easily eclipse all the money he's made with Workplace Compliance Services and Business Compliance Services. If he makes more money than he loses, it only encourages him to keep going. Why stop when it's profitable?

There's a saying that Steven Fata seems to have lived by: "Stupid people deserve to get swindled.".

Workplace Compliance Services and Business Compliance Services have only been around for five months, as of this blog post. In that short amount of time, they've already achieved nationwide notoriety.

Sadly, they aren't the only people out there doing this and the only way to make them stop is to hurt them financially more than they've hurt other people. If the States don't burn these guys down to the financial ground, they'll just keep going.

Duane Browning

Jedi Meditation Made Easy

2018-07-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've found numerous websites and Facebook groups founded by people who claim to be following a version of the Jedi religion from the Star Wars saga. It always amuses me how people can refer to themselves as a "Jedi Master" when there really isn't a Jedi Order to bestow such a title on anyone. Of course, I realize that these people likely gave themselves that title or it was given to them by the group to which they belonged.

That being said, I've done a bit of research on such groups (being a fan of Star Wars, myself) and decided that I have as much right as any of them to offer instruction in two methods of Jedi meditation.

So, here I go:

The Greater Meditation

This method involves a total involvement by the person meditating and requires committing yourself for a certain period of time, as opposed to the Lesser Meditation described below.

Before you become accustomed to this method, it is advised that you allow yourself to be as physically comfortable as possible. I suggest that you bathe, brush your teeth, wear comfortable clothes and have something to eat or drink, if you feel the need. Not taking care of these things beforehand may prove to be a distraction while you are meditating. You may eventually be able to meditate even if you were covered head-to-toe in mud, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Set a timer to for about twenty minutes before you begin. This is advisable when starting, though you can eventually progress to meditate for longer periods of time. As you needed to learn how to crawl before you could walk and walk before you could run, you should start with a short period of time before you begin meditating for longer stretches of time, if you feel the need to do so. I think twenty minutes is just about right. Playing a twenty minute clip of "meditation music" may be helpful for some, but it could also provide a source of distraction. Do whichever works best for you. Personally, I prefer to meditate in as quiet an environment as possible.

I advise that you sit while doing this meditation, as standing may become disorienting and tiring. However, you could remain standing, if you are comfortable with it. However, you should not lay down, as you could accidentally fall asleep while meditating.

First, assume a seated position that is comfortable. You can sit in a chair with a back or sit cross-legged on the floor, whichever you prefer. The Lotus Position can be uncomfortable and distracting to people who are not used to it, so I advise against it. When seated, keep your back straight and your hands in your lap, palms up. Set the timer and close your eyes.

Allow yourself a minute to settle-into your meditation. Simply breathe in and out for about a minute.

When you feel settled, mentally repeat this mantra in your mind without speaking it out loud:

"I am one with the Force; the Force is with me."

Yes, you first heard that line in the movie "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story".

Repeat this mantra when you breathe in. Take slow, even breaths and try not to rush.

You may find yourself becoming distracted by external stimuli. This will be a problem when first starting-out, but you'll begin to be able to block out such distractions with enough practice. Don't worry about your becoming distracted, but do not allow yourself to remain so. When you become aware that you have been distracted, mentally pull yourself away for it and return to mentally chanting the mantra,

Breathe in,

"I am one with the Force; the Force is with me.",

Breathe out,

Breathe in,

"I am one with the Force; the Force is with me."

Breathe out,

and so on.

You may find that you've lost track of time and may start wondering how much has actually gone by. Don't worry about such things.

Breathe in,

"I am one with the Force; the Force is with me."

Breathe out,

Eventually, your timer will sound. Reach over and shut it off. Remain seated for a couple of minutes to allow yourself to ease-out of your meditation.

That's it.

The Lesser Meditation

In some ways, the Lesser Meditation is more versatile than the Greater, because it can be done anywhere and for any amount of time, long or short. You could do this while seated, standing or laying down.

Like the Greater Meditation, you breathe in and mentally recite the mantra "The Force is with me; I am one with the Force." and then exhale. There is no need for you to close your eyes and I would usually advise you to keep them open during the Lesser Meditation.

This method can be done when you are waiting in line at the store, when you find yourself getting angry for some reason, you're stuck in traffic, having a hard time sleeping, etc. There is no such this as this meditation not being long enough. It simply allows you to calm and center yourself as needed.

Conclusion

These methods could each have their respective place in your life. The Greater Meditation should be done once or twice everyday, depending on your available time. Some may prefer to do it once in the morning as they get ready to start their day and once at night as they prepare for bed. A minimum of once daily is advised.

While the Greater Meditation involves a dedicated amount of time, the Lesser Meditation can help you relieve the stressful things that arise throughout your day and can be helpful in maintaining your inner balance and peace.

So, each serves an important function.

This blog entry isn't going to encourage you to go out and buy a lightsaber, Jedi robes or any books. Instead, I offer to you instruction on meditation techniques that you can easily learn and use.

If you try either of them, let me know in the Comments section how it's going for you. I will not allow anyone to try to sell merchandise in the Comments section and such comments will be deleted.

May the Force be with you.

Jedi Master Duane Browning

Possible Vacation Rental Scam

2018-06-17T04:55:00.000-07:00

A friend asked me to check into an ad that she saw posted on Craigslist, under the "Volunteers" section.

ATTENTION!ATTTENTION!!ATTENTIO!!! (O'ahu, HI)

We're currently seeking for someone that can post ads on craigslist for 2-3 hours daily and earn 300$ weekly. For more info you can buzz Fred on (802) 851-0347.

NOTE: You must be 18 years or more and no pranks please.

First, I found it rather odd that the ad would be posted under "Volunteers", instead of under "Jobs". I also noticed how they posted the ad five times in one day on June 6th, which pushes a few buttons on my Scam Sensor, right away. Plus, reading the ad indicates that they might not be a native speaker of the English language.

Okay, the phone number uses a Vermont area code, which is already a bad sign. Accepting any kind of job offer from someone out-of-State is usually inadvisable, unless you can verify their identity.

Attempting to call reveals it to be a Google Voice number, which provides a great deal of protection if you want to conceal your identity. The person behind it did respond to text messages, though. The phone number doesn't show-up in an Internet search, of course. So, there's no way to verify their identity.

From what I was told, the "job" consists of working between two and three hours a day. In that time, you'll be given about twenty ads to post for vacation rentals in South Carolina and in Hawaii. After a week's work, you'll get paid three hundred dollars, via Paypal, bank transfer, cash bank deposit or check. If you work seven days a week, three hours at a time and make 300 dollars, that comes to a little over 14 dollars an hour. If you're only working five days, that's twenty dollars an hour.

That ain't bad.

Before you begin posting ads, you're expected to set-up a new GMail account specifically for this job with an accompanying Craigslist account, the passwords for both accounts are to be shared with "Fred". His reasons for wanting the log-in details? He claims that he needs your passwords in order to verify the accounts. This is, of course, bullshit. You can verify any email account's existence by simply giving the other person your email address and telling them to send you a message. My friend did that and received an email from an account registered to James Owen, not Fred Jose. Supposedly, this is yet another person that had contacted Fred about the job and provided the log-in details for his GMail account. Another possible victim may be someone named Favian Hernandez. So, Fred won't send you anything using his own email address, preferring to use other people's.

He also claims that he needs to monitor the ads and follow-up with the responses. I've always understood that working in the vacation rental business involves working long hours and struggling for every dollar you can get your hands on due to the intense competition in that line of work. If I was working in the vacation rental business and had other people posting ads on my behalf, I'd have them forward the responses to me, so I could respond to them with my own account, answering any questions they had and close the sale. I certainly wouldn't trust some lackey with what is likely to be my main source of income.

Note: when people work for real vacation rental companies, they get a company email account, they don't use GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. That's one way to tell the real people from the frauds. You should also read this.

The person sending the texts to my friend identified himself as "Fred Jose", originally from Vermont, but has lived in Hawaii for five months. A search on Intellius reveals no person by that name in their records as having resided in Vermont.

He also claims to work for Holiday Lettings, which is a company based in the United Kingdom. Again, there is no listing I can find of anyone named "Fred Jose" working as an agent for that company.

In addition to setting-up a GMail and Craigslist account, then giving "Fred" the log-in details, he also wants you to provide him with your full name and address, along with your preferences for how you want to get paid.

You may be wondering why he would go through all this trouble? Why not simply set-up fake GMail and Craigslist accounts on his own under fictitious names?

Well, one reason is that one person can only post so many ads in a day or even a week. If you have two people posting 20 ads a day, seven days a week, that's 280 ads a week, adding 140 more ads per person that you recruit. However, the main answer is that it provides an extra layer of protection for himself. After all, when people learn that they've been scammed, they'll file a complaint with Craigslist, GMail and law enforcement to discover the identity and location of the scammer. All Fred has to do is add your address to the GMail account and the cops will come for you, not him. It's also quite possible, even likely, that Federal law enforcement could get involved with an investigation like this. After all, you're potentially defrauding people in other states and anything that crosses state lines automatically becomes a Federal matter. So, you could find yourself on the hook to reimburse people the money they lost, along with maybe doing time in a Federal prison.

As for Fred, he'll be safe and sound somewhere, spending your money on hookers & blow.

Yes, I have no doubt that "Fred Jose" is running a vacation rental scam, apparently targeting people in South Carolina, Hawaii and possibly other places. Why else to hide behind multiple email accounts and a Google Voice number? Fred offers no proof of his identity or employment, you're supposed to take his word for everything.

So, if you've answered the ad posted by "Fred", ask him to send you a picture of his business card, along with his company email address. If he won't, it's likely that he's running a scam and you can move on from there.

UPDATE: I have been informed that Fred was asked to provide a picture of his business card and refused to do this. He stated that he only provides his business card when people are actually renting the property. Instead, he sent a picture of his supposed Colorado ID, which has the name "Daniel Madrid Jose", instead of "Fred Jose". He claimed that "Fred" is a nickname given to him by his friends.

Duane Browning