I give my cellphone number out to very few people. Friends, relatives, Scamdex-related business and the occasional on-line order, if they insist. So when I get a call, it’s normally someone I know personally or business. So I was surprised to get a call from an outfit called ‘Auction Profits LLC’ (http://www.auctionprofitsllc.com) , asking me if I want to make money with drop-shipping on eBay.
After listening to their inept spiel which seems to involve mentioning eBay and MONEY as often as possible, I asked them where they got my phone number and name. The claim was that I had placed an order with another company called ‘Online Supplier’ (http://www.onlinesupplier.com) . They knew my name, address and phone number and indicated that they had additional credit card information as well.
When I persisted, I was zapped to the supervisor who blustered about how I must have bought something from them before and, anyway, how about making some money on eBay?
He completely missed the point that I made that I run a website devoted to exposing scams (such as his) and he dropped my call. I got a weird ‘private’ call a few minutes later (2 minutes of static followed by a ‘sorry wrong number’) which I strongly suspect was them.
Research
A quick search shows that these people are well-known to the consumer reporting community.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?q1=ALL&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0&submit2=Search!&q5=Online+Supplier
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/onlinesuppliercom-c3440.html
http://www.auctionhints.com/message/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/3212
Even among the drop-ship community, they don’t get much of a review:
http://www.dropship-review.com/review_online_supplier.php
Modus Operandi
Every time the complaints get too much, the company and domain name changes. They like to hide the registration details too, using Private Registrars – a sure sign of people with something to hide.
Disclaimer: Scamdex uses a such a service too, but that’s to protect us from personal attacks.
AUCTIONPROFITSLLC.COM (Domains by Proxy)
2 similar web sites are also hosted on the same server (and about 25 more) DNS Server is NS1.EXAMPLETECHNOLOGIES.COM
ONLINESUPPLIER.COM (Moniker Privacy Services)
DNS is NS1.OSPOWERLINE.COM
… and another thing
Take a look at the image on the right – from their site. Not sure eBay would approve of the ‘Power Sellers’ logo being adulterated with ‘ON STAFF’. And what is that A+ ‘Certification’ for?
