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How to publicly name a scam client?

by Newbieee
11 replies
We have the review section to review or bring out scammers who are the sellers.

But clearly there are buyers who are scammers as well.

How do we do that here?


I had one guy who got in my member area for $1.49 when the actual price was $149 per week.

I cancelled his account and contacted my developer immediately to find the problem if there was any back door or error or hacking involved.

Mean while i cancelled his account in s2membership, and contacted him.

He has made no replies to me, and my developer got back to me saying that he changed the html on the buy page which means he "hacked" my sales page in lay man term. I still dont understand how this is done.

But it was done.
So now i have his full name, his email address, his website domain and his home address.

I want to expose him since i have his real identity from paypal.

What should i do.

Im gonna contact paypal tmr, now their office is closed.
#client #publicly #scam
  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    First of all I would make damn sure you have proof to back it up.

    Just because your developer says one thing doesn't mean it's fact.

    If you are going to go naming people then you will want to have more than a bit of here say.

    You may have left a door open that made it easy for this person to take advantage of something. It doesn't mean they are a scammer unless they did actually hack into your system which again, you would want proof of.

    Is someone who comes across a Clickbank product and buys through their own affiliate link a scammer? Technically not really. They are just taking advantage of a well known way to get cheaper products.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    I suggest you forget about it at least as far as the WF is concerned. You cannot post his details here... anywhere. Rule #1 of the forum. Read it.
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  • Profile picture of the author stoltingmediagroup
    Once you become large enough and your volume increases, this type of situation will not bother you as much. It will just become part of a daily routine. Most "professional" site operators (or their programmers) simply fix any illegal access issues that come up and move on. No public "exposing" of clients. If you are going to leave a door open, people might just walk in you know? And as WillR mentioned, "just because your developer says one thing doesn't mean its fact."

    He could possibly be covering his butt for not locking the door you see.

    And now for a spiritual moment of awakening....

    If you have ever used, or are currently using, one or more software programs valued at hundreds of dollars that you didn't purchase, where somehow you ended up having possession of a keygen cracked license / serial key that worked, or possibly you have shared music where the artists didn't get paid, or maybe shared someone else's product, or possibly broken a T.O.S. or two on someones website, it's then possible that "Karma" came knocking on your door.

    She always does.
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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    I think that even if you name names here, it will probably get deleted by the moderators.

    This is also very not professional and I think that you should move on. Focus on getting new customers and learn your lesson, what ever it is.
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  • Profile picture of the author thedark
    Let me explain to you what happened, why it will happen in the future, and how you can protect yourself.

    1. Different paypal buttons
    When creating a button with paypal, you can have it securely host it on paypal. You will add a small html code on your website where the button will stand, and you will only put a small html code on the website. However, paypal offers support for buttons to be generated trough html ( with hidden input fields ). While it offers you great support they cannot check if a html button is created by you or not.

    This is the situation of s2member. Since the buy buttons are created automatically, this is the only way it works.

    2. What the "hacker" did. He did not hacked into your website. He used Developer Tools, firebug, element inspector or any other extension for browser, to change the values from the hidden fields of the paypal form.

    Then he purchased your product and s2member allowed it to log-in.

    3. What you can do to prevent this. Keep your wordpress and s2member uptodate. I am sure that they know about this issue and they are trying to help it. It is simple to generate an encrypted hastag, based on the content of the input fields and whenever a purchase is made, they should check the hashtag returned and see if the user changed something, case in which he will get into a "moderation list" or something. It may be complicated to do this for s2member, but if you find a good programmer he might able to do this mod for 100-200$.

    I am using s2member and this did not happened to me so far. There are some security elements added into the button generated and automated tools don't work. But if someone knows s2member he will be able to trick it. I am not sure that they have extrasecurity so far, but they should do something in the future. Stay up to date.
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  • Profile picture of the author tristatemedia
    what is the purpose of a forum if we can not out the scammers so other warriors do not get scammed as well.
    i outed scammers on this forum before and got my money back.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
      Newbieee,
      How do we do that here?
      We don't.

      Contact Paypal about the order. From what I hear, they take that particular scam pretty seriously.

      I will also point out that the reviews section is for reviewing products, not sellers. The line can be fuzzy at times, but the intent is to keep it to the products.

      Will,
      You may have left a door open that made it easy for this person to take advantage of something. It doesn't mean they are a scammer unless they did actually hack into your system which again, you would want proof of.
      If someone changes the price the way I think they did, they're not just a scammer. They're a thief, and deserve to spend a month or two in jail. You can be quite sure they haven't only done this once. Or, if it's their first time, you can bet it won't be the last.

      The fact that someone doesn't have bulletproof security does not mean it's their fault if some creep steals their stuff.

      TSM,
      what is the purpose of a forum if we can not out the scammers so other warriors do not get scammed as well.
      Ya know, that might be sort of okay if so many people weren't so quick to leap to tall conclusions in a single bound. Or to outright lie.

      I'm not saying scams don't happen. If you could see what's really behind most of the allegations of scamming, though, you would probably dent the floor with your jaw.

      Example: A prospect in the US posted a note ("Sent you a PM") in a thread from a seller in India, at 4 PM Eastern. 2 hours later, he went on a rampage, posting in every thread the seller was involved in, accusing him of being a scammer for ignoring communications and selling a "crap" product. The guy hadn't even bought the product...

      Do the math to see why the seller hadn't replied. (Hint: zzzzzz)

      That's not even an extreme example. Just a recent one.


      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author Newbieee
        Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

        Newbieee,We don't.

        Contact Paypal about the order. From what I hear, they take that particular scam pretty seriously.
        Hey Paul!

        Yup did that today, they say they will investigate it.

        Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

        Will,If someone changes the price the way I think they did, they're not just a scammer. They're a thief, and deserve to spend a month or two in jail. You can be quite sure they haven't only done this once. Or, if it's their first time, you can bet it won't be the last.

        The fact that someone doesn't have bulletproof security does not mean it's their fault if some creep steals their stuff.
        Yup, once i found out, which fortunately was right away because i was awake at that time, if not he would have downlaoded my content before i could delete his account, I told my developer and luckily he was awake too, so he said he will investigate and try to "hack" it himself.

        10 mins later he found it, he said that the Paypal API encryption wasnt activated properly.
        So with html, he manage to change the price manually from $149 to $1.49 from the front end. So i guess the "hacker" was hoping i saw 149 and not the decimal point. Rather than making it $0 and i would realize it. In fact it almost worked, i only found out when i looked at my paypal receipt the 2nd time.

        Now we made sure the API encryption is working properly.
        My 1st time doing a membership site so alittle low on experience.
        Most of the time i did affiliate in the past.
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    • Profile picture of the author joseph7384
      Originally Posted by tristatemedia View Post

      what is the purpose of a forum if we can not out the scammers so other warriors do not get scammed as well.
      i outed scammers on this forum before and got my money back.
      I'm really quite surprised that you have been here for 2 years and you really have to ask this question!

      There are many reasons for someone to start a thread that publicly outs a so-called scammer, it could most likely be a form of revenge and without knowing all the facts, one persons interpretation of a scammer can be completely bias.

      Originally Posted by tristatemedia View Post

      what is the purpose of a forum
      Since you have to ask, I'll refer to a few quotes.

      A discussion forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a number of subforums, each of which may have several topics. Within a forum's topic, each new discussion started is called a thread, and can be replied to by as many people as so wish.
      Source: Internet forum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



      A forum contains sub-forums to discuss topics that are allowed in the forum, scrolling down the main index, I do not see any subforums on outing scammers so you have to assume that it is not allowed.

      Another reason for the exclusion of such discussions are law suits that can arise for defamation of character, although a forum owner and it's moderators are protected by the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act it is still a pain in the arse to deal with the legal issues of the whole ordeal.

      There are rules that need to be followed both online and offline and as long as you follow the rules of any establishment, website or a persons home, life will treat you well.

      I do my best to adhere to any and all rules, just as I added the source to the quote I used, to protect myself from copyright infringement.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeff Lenney
    $600 a month membership site? Must be gold
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  • Profile picture of the author brutecky
    Sometimes my software gets haxed and people get it for free. Sometimes Microsofts software gets haxed and people get it for free. Its just the cost of doing business. I mean try to prevent it as much as you can but dont go crazy when it happens .. because it will happen sometimes.
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