Complaint Review: I-deal Direct/e Solutions Media

At the beginning of last week I received an email to my AOL account telling me that i had won a shopping voucher and that all I had to do was visit a site (site along lines or 'yourdeals.com' - it has now been changed) to complete some online questionaires and refer friends to their site in order to claim the price.

I do not normally follow things of this nature up however it seemed quite genuine. I completed all the surveys required (some of which involved making payments) and then an external Plaxo window came up asking me if I wanted to download contacts from my email account and prompted me to add my username and password.

Although slightly skeptical I was re-assured by the fact that it appeared to be from Plaxo, a reputable external source and it clearly stated that they would not be saving my details permanently.

Once I had completed all the necessary steps I was very shocked to find that the account summary only stated that I had done a few surveys when in fact I had done over 14 and it also stated that no referrals had been sent

At this point I began to have my suspicions about the offer and left the site.

The following day when I went to check my email via the aol website I was very shocked to find that the whole site's design had dramatically changed, it looked like a very poor frontpage type design, far from the site which I had been used to. On the site it stated that the design had changed and prompted 'people' to comment. Despite this I tried to access my email as normal and was unable to.

At this point I started wondering if it could be a fake site so I went to yahoo and hotmail and they had been changed in a similar way. At this point I also realised that the phishing filter was alering me that the site could not be trusted.

As my computer was also running very slowly I at this point felt that my computer may have been hacked into so I searched for 'ghost' files which is what hackers use to enable them to hack and is the recipe if you like behind the hack

This just confirmed my suspicions. Several ghost files had been found camoflaged within music files. I immediately deleted them and as soon as
I had 'coincidently' all the websites reverted back to normal which I believe was the intention of the hackers, the ghost files re-diected me off the authentic sites on to poorly immitated sites in an attempt for them to gain my passwords etc and the comments on the aol sites were ones they had created to make their victims think that it was a server related problem of their email providers rather than a hackers plot.


Then I noticed that files had changed on my computer, the msn messenger icon photo suddently disappeared, my webcamera and video recording software started of its own accord, accompanied by an email from their offers account laughing and asking who was with me as well as telling me that they had seen my u tube video. At this point I decided to search the web and found my name linking to pornography sites! I also noticed that my screen started flashing for no apparent reason.

With all this in consideration I decided to do some background information in relation to the website which I had been directed to originally and did a whois check on them to find that it was owned by I-Deal Direct (registrant James Morrice as stated above). Through further checks I found out that they are also hiding behind the names of E Solutions Media, E-Research Group
Red Top Savings, Consumer Opinion Group, Web Rewards Central and
Public Research Panel

I also found an IP address which links to their company and has been trying to hack into my computer by UDP, RPC and normal remote access, which is 192.168.1.255 and 192.168.1.66


All their emails also go back to a 'Name Intelligence Inc'' which is apparently a legitimate Canadian firm which scammers regularly try to hide behind.


I also found out that the registrant of the site I-Deal Direct (possible owner or victim of ID theft??) is working on a short term contract basis (why not full-time- has another job or business perhaps?) sales person for a company named ASAP software (www.asap.com) covering the Ontario/Quebec area. As all the numbers on their site are toll free which can not be called from outside Canada, I called international directory enquiries, and they gave me a number for their headquarters based in Ottawa which I called and to my amazement James Morrice himself answered. Why would a casual sales person answer the reception phone of a multi- national firm?? Seemed a bit odd to me.

I then called their office in USA and asked about James Morrice's positon within the company who confirmed he just worked there occasionally as an outbound sales worker and they gave me his contact number and email address.

At this point I emailed him at asap address asking him about his connection to the company and have received no response at all which is ominous. If he had nothing to hide and was not related to them in anyway surely he would be quick to point that out and question what the problem was?

In addition, ironically enough, the company he works for specialize in making anti-spyware/ anti-physhing software so what a better position for a scam artist creating fake sites etc to be in to find out secret information?!

As well as ID theft, hacking, physhing and internet stalking it is clear that I-Deal Direct are also involved in issuing fake cheques (google search). These people are criminals and should be caught!

I am now strongly considering getting the police involved in the matter as they are still persisting in trying to hack into my computer and intimidate me.

If anyone else has bad things through this company please let me know and perhaps we can liase together to get these criminals sent down!

Likewise if anyone at ripoff report would like further details please do not hesitate to email or call me and I would be more than happy to help. If you manage develop your investigation please also let me know.

Kind regards

Beth

BethXXXXXXXXX
worcester, Quebec
United Kingdom

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