Agloco is a company run by the same team that previously ran AllAdvantage before it crashed a few years back. It seems to sell itself as a pay to surf program, despite the fact that it has been around for about a year now and no-one has earned a penny from it yet.
Whilst it is free to join, and use their toolbar, it most definitely seems to utilise a multi level marketing style of recruitment, despite the fact that there are no sign-up fees. Hence my interest and decision to see if Agloco is a scam.
Fraud
My understanding of why AllAdvantage failed is that they paid a fixed hourly rate to internet surfers for the hours they spent online using the company’s software. As you may expect, this led to all sorts of fraud, such as automated bots that could surf 24/7.
Agloco has seemingly learned from the mistakes of the past and changed the payment method but this is another contentious issue right now as you will discover further down the page. (more…)
Using the Report A Scam link (at the top of each page), Michelle C sent the email below:
I received an email saying I’d won a yahoo international promotions program lottery for 500,000 pounds uk money….here is the entire email including headers:
Subject: REF:YAHOO6/315116127/27 Congratulations from Yahoo! (You have won £500,000.00)
Dear Esteemed Winner,
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the YAHOO! International Promotions Program held on the 25th of July 2007. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number 883734657492-5319 with serial number 7263-267, batch number 8254297137 drew the lucky numbers 14-22-28-37-40-44 which consequently won in the 1st category, you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of £500,000.00 (i.e Five Hundred Thousand United Kingdom Pounds) in cash credited to file REF:YAHOO6/315116127/27.
To begin your claims therefore, you are advised as a matter of urgency, to contact the under listed licensed and accredited claims agent for the processing of your prize awards winning. Please contact your claims agent immediately, to begin your claims process:
MR GEORGE PARKER
REMMITANCE DIRECTOR
YAHOO PROMOTIONS UK
44 Moorfields London EC2Y 9AL UNITED KINGDOM
Email: agentgeorgeparker@yahoo.com.hk
You are to provide the assigned claims agent via email with the under listed information as soon as possible: Full Names, Contact Address, Age, Sex, Country, Occupation, Nationality, Telephone and Fax numbers.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Amelia Hunts
Online Promotions Manager
Uk Administrative Unit
Just in case anyone hasn’t worked it out, it is obviously a scam - Yahoo don’t run lotteries and people don’t win lotteries that they didn’t enter.
What’s more, since when did Yahoo have a comcast.net email address? And George Parker’s email address has a ‘.hk’ on the end which means that website is a subdomain of a non Yahoo site in Hong Kong!
Do you have unwanted clothes that you would like to dispose of to make room in your wardrobe? Would you like to make sure they go to a worthy cause instead of being binned?
If so, you may have been tempted to bag them up and put them outside to be collected by someone who has put a leaflet through your door, just like the one below.
However, what you may not realise, is that ‘Third World Clothing Collection’, or ‘Europe Suppliers Ltd’ as they call themselves, are not a charitable organisation. If you look at the bottom of the leaflet you will see a company registration number rather than a charitable organisation one.
If you were to check out that company registration number then you would find it belongs to an altogether different firm, Warison Ltd, based in West Yorkshire.
Europe Suppliers Ltd is actually believed to be run by Lithuanians based in Ilford, Essex. Previously they ran an identical company called Lairatex Ltd.
Whilst collecting clothes to send to Eastern European countries is not illegal, their leaflets have deceived a great many people into thinking they are dealing with a charity.
I don’t know about this particular company but there have been many cases of firms like this keeping the clothes for themselves and simply selling them for a profit. They take the money and then disolve the company before creating another one and repeating the process.
The fact that Europe Suppliers Ltd quotes a phony company registration number is certainly suspect though, that’s for sure.
What is also interesting is the fact that they ask for more than just clothes - they’ll take jewellry, CDs, prams, perfume, bedding, mobile phones and even underwear!
Why exactly desperate people in the third world (and, by the way, when did Eastern Europe become classified as the Third World??) see mobile phones as necessities I do not know.
More than likely the purpose for this and most other similar leaflets can be explained by the following video clip -
Trading Standards seem to be either far too busy, or disinterested, to deal with these types of crooks. They do, however, offer a phone number for the Charity Commission who can verify a company’s charitable status - 0870 333 0123. They also recommend only making donations to well known and trusted charity shops.
There is a new email scam doing the rounds right now that targets Hotmail account users in New Zealand and Australia.
The scam, which targets recent purchasers of goods online, is written in poor English and makes many mistakes with regards to correct customs procedures. The emails attempt to appear as if they are from customs by using ‘customs’ in the from field, however they are in fact from quite random domains.
These scam emails inform the recipient that they have custom duties to pay on their recent purchases and are quite simply an attempt at fraud. The receiver of the email is directed to forward payment for custom duties in order to release their goods.
In reality, most customs services around the world will contact recipients of packages detained by them via regular postal mail and not by email at all.
If anyone in New Zealand receives a suspicious email that alleges it is from customs then the validity of it can be checked by phoning the customs phone number - 0800 428 786.
Margaret Thatcher, despite the length of time she served as Britain’s Prime Minister, was never extremely popular amongst the population for many reasons.
However, her husband, the late Sir Denis Thatcher always seemed to give good entertainment value, enjoying his drink and not really being too bothered about what he said or to whom.
The following email I received claims to be from a Friar who is executing his will, albeit a good four years after his death. The purpose of the email isn’t made too clear - it will either turn out to be an advanced fee scam or a phishing attempt or maybe both.
I couldn’t find any information for the tail end of the ‘Friar’s’ email address - box.az - so I can’t be sure where this originates from, or at least where the scammer would like us to think it is from. My guess is az is a Russian republic but feel free to correct me if you know any different.
What is certain is that this scammer didn’t do his homework - it is ‘Denis’ not ‘Dennis’ and also Tony Blair is no longer Prime Minister here now. I reckon this is an old scam mail that someone has forgotten to update or delete.
Dearest In The Lord,
On behalf of the trustees and executor of the estate of Late Sir. Dennis Thatcher, I wish to notify you that late Sir. Dennis Thatcher, made you a (more…)
These scam emails inform the recipient that they have custom duties to pay on their recent purchases and are quite simply an attempt at fraud. The receiver of the email is directed to forward payment for custom duties in order to release their goods.
I couldn’t find any information for the tail end of the ‘Friar’s’ email address - box.az - so I can’t be sure where this originates from, or at least where the scammer would like us to think it is from. My guess is az is a Russian republic but feel free to correct me if you know any different.
Monday, July 30, 2007
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