Alyon Technologies Rip-off got me with the old modem switch too Norcross Georgia
I see that I'm one of many to get ripped off by Alyon.
I got an e-mail spam from them with just the following in the body: "Hey, check out my new page .
Since I know someone of that name who was designing a web page, it seemed worth a click. In retrospect, that was dumb.
My machine hung like there was a big flash intro, or a lot of graphics trying to load, then spawned a gaggle of empty pop-up windows. After clicking furiously to close everything, I started a new browser, and everying seemed to work normally, with the exception of being dropped and having to redial a few minutes later.
I later saw that I had been on for 19 minutes after I clicked the spam link, at almost 5 bucks/min.
I've written a letter denying that I owe them anything, but I wonder whan else can be done, other then complaining to the FCC, FTC, etc. Has anyone looked into a class action suit? I wouldn't mind being compensated for the time it took to eradicate all traces of Alyon from my computer, even if it were only $.02.
Jeremy
Uniontown, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
J
Uniontown,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Repsonse from Alyon plus my own theory
#2Author of original report
Fri, April 11, 2003
I recieved a response to my dispute letter today. It was basically a copy of the FAQ saying that Alyon doesn't make mistakes, and I do owe the money. They also said that they need a notarized affidavit of dispute. I guess that to not pay I have to prove that I'm me, but they can sell anyone their unwanted product without asking first.
They also describe a fairly bullet-proof sounding series of steps that they claim I went through to connect to their site.
Reading their letter about their complicated log-on procedure, a theory occurs to me. Could there be an additional bad guy (how many do we need?) here that we have yet to discover? Assuming that Alyon's procedure is as interactive and obvious as they describe, (and that may be a big leap) is there a rogue client distributing a script that automatically navigates Alyon's pop-ups?
Everything Alyon put on my machine is long gone, and I didn't save it to a disk. However, for the bright ones here that did, is there a pattern to what 3rd party porn provider Alyon is secretly connecting people to?