I've been running into this a lot lately, and it appears from other threads that I've seen that this is a growing practice among fraudulent webmasters: they get their hands on contact information for webmasters who are well-established and trusted, and use that information to establish accounts through which they then pass fraudulent signups. I'm sure the theory here is that using a known/established webmaster's info deflects suspicions concerning their account, and helps them stay 'under the radar' when programs scan for fraudulent accounts.
One common feature I've noticed with such accounts is the use of free email domains for their contact email address in combination with receiving their payments through ePassporte. Sometimes they will establish the account with the pay by method set to check, then log in later to change that over to ePass.
The contact email address they supply often looks consistent with the other information provided; for example, if they were using Xmoney's contact info to establish the account, they might provide an email address of xmoney@gmail or xmoney@yahoo.
I've shut down or rejected applications from at least a couple dozen accounts that are trying this scam, and it doesn't appear that they are letting up. My hunch is that a very small number of people are involved (maybe even just 1 guy), but they sure are persistent.
So -- program operators, if you find an account that appears to be cheating, and the URL and contact info supplied for that account is from an established webmaster, don't assume that someone legit has crossed over to the dark side... it's probably an impostor.
- Q.
One common feature I've noticed with such accounts is the use of free email domains for their contact email address in combination with receiving their payments through ePassporte. Sometimes they will establish the account with the pay by method set to check, then log in later to change that over to ePass.
The contact email address they supply often looks consistent with the other information provided; for example, if they were using Xmoney's contact info to establish the account, they might provide an email address of xmoney@gmail or xmoney@yahoo.
I've shut down or rejected applications from at least a couple dozen accounts that are trying this scam, and it doesn't appear that they are letting up. My hunch is that a very small number of people are involved (maybe even just 1 guy), but they sure are persistent.
So -- program operators, if you find an account that appears to be cheating, and the URL and contact info supplied for that account is from an established webmaster, don't assume that someone legit has crossed over to the dark side... it's probably an impostor.
- Q.
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