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When we first came together, Team 4WM decided that our first order of business should be to investigate DC-Marketing, the original scammers behind the infamous missed-call-marketing scheme in 2006.
Originally it was thought that a large European consortium was behind the scheme. However, working with our colleagues in the industry, we’ve uncovered the real low-down.
The whole thing was set up by a Melbourne based company, called Info Access, trading under different guises and names, some of which included InfoFM and PJ’s ONE900 PTY.LTD.
They are situated in 110 Chapel Street, Windsor, 3181 Victoria.
The mastermind and director of the scam was a Mr Kelvin Evans. The company can be contacted on 03 9558 0022 and Mr Evans’ mobile number is 0418 156 551.
We think it is important to reveal this information to the public, as the “scapegoat”, DC Marketing Europe Ltd, was nothing other than a shelf company for this operation. Being based in Europe with fake directors it was all fairly anonymous and the mastermind thought he was untouchable. When the shit hit the fan Mr Evans could not be identified as the mastermind because ACMA concentrated on chasing the local representation of the company, which at that time was nothing else than a highly paid law firm.
Evans managed to get away with not-quite-murder and continues to run his scams and 190 “promotions” even now (Predominantly call out promotions where you get called out of the blue and a recorded voice tells you you’ve won a prize)
He also managed to distract attention from himself by trying to blame other individuals who were peripherally connected to the DC Marketing/Info Access scheme. Scapegoats included:
- Other 190 providers who copied the scheme (Despite a $150k fine for the shelf company this was never announced to be illegal by ACMA, as missed call marketing to date still has not been included into the Spam Act 2003)
- Companies and individuals who worked as web designers and web masters for the different URL’s held by Evans and therefore had their names published on Whois entries
- Secretaries, Local Agents, officers who were employed or worked as contractors for Evans
We have been provided with documents which could stand up in court to bust Evans, however our job is not to bust these guys but to inform you the public of the truth.
Stay tuned for more information.
Posted by k on 11.27.2008 at 3:00 pm // Have your say »
Tagged: Featured, Mobile, Phone, SMS, Scams
Latest Post
In an unusual twist, Hyarchis has responded to ACMA’s earlier announcement of a formal spam warning. From Secure Computing:
Hyarchis has described the formal warning issued to it by ACMA over alleged SMS spam as a ‘slap in the face’ that sets a dangerous precedent for the entire web marketing industry.
The firm premium SMS marketing firm, which was last week formally warned by ACMA for alleged breaches of the Spam Act, has expressed its disappointment over the ruling, which SC understands involved three SMS messages sent to a single customer.
Full article here
Posted by k on 11.27.2008 at 7:07 am // Have your say »
Tagged: Featured, Phone, SMS, ACMA, Hyarchis, Spam
From Australia.to News:
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has issued a formal warning to Hyarchis Company Limited for alleged breaches of the Spam Act 2003. The alleged breaches were in relation to the sending of commercial electronic messages by SMS, without the consent of the recipient.
Commercial electronic messages can be sent by email, SMS, MMS and instant messaging. Under the Spam Act, potential penalties of up to $1.1 million per day may be imposed by the Federal Court for repeat offenders.
Full Article
Posted by k on 11.27.2008 at 6:34 am // Have your say »
Tagged: Featured, Internet, Phone, ACMA, Hyarchis, SMS, Spam
We’ve been under a fair amount of harassment both personal and legal that has forced us to take down a couple of previous posts. We’re leaving up what we can.
On a completely unrelated note, look what we got in our inbox:
You are being contacted via 4 Wise Monkeys by Sol Trujillo. Sol Trujillo has provided the following information so you may contact them:
Email: solownstheworld@telstra.com
Phone:
Website: http://
Subject: Other (explain below)
Message:
You big sooky wankers - Mommy mommy Telstra are big meanies…
Grow up and get a real job
While we don’t believe for a second that it’s really from Sol Trujillo (pretty sure ’sooky wanker’ isn’t in the Yank vernacular) it did come from someone on the Telstra network:
Host: bcbvo.tcif.telstra.com.au
Well, we’re not doing this for hugs and puppies.
Posted by k on 08.27.2008 at 10:47 am // 13 Comments »
Tagged: Carriers, Featured, Telcos, Telstra, harassment, Telstra
As you know, we get a lot of people contacting us regarding the various SMS services out there. Some are legit, many are out-and-out scams. One of the most common complaints regarding these services is that they don’t action ’stop’ requests, so you keep getting sent messages and charged even after you SMS in ’stop’.
In each case, we attempted to contact the service provider or aggregator to find out why. We discovered something very interesting.
It turns out that in a high percentage of cases, the carrier is not properly processing ’stop’ requests. In other words, you’re a customer who sends in ’stop’ - that message is, more often than not, not sent to the aggregator. So you keep getting charged because only the carrier knows that you want out of the service. Again it is unfortunately our beloved ex-monopoly carrier who is responsible for about 85% of all cases known to us.
So we encourage all premium SMS customers who’ve had difficulty unsubscribing, make sure that you:
1) Contact your service provider (use the shortcode lookup tool) rather than the carrier
2) Let your service provider know that you already sent in stop (provide date and time if possible)
3) Let them know which carrier you’re on and the date and time you sent in stop and they should be able to help you sort it out
Posted by k on 08.25.2008 at 4:58 pm // 5 Comments »
Tagged: Carriers, Featured, Mobile, Phone, SMS, Scams, Telcos, Telstra, Telstra Mobile, Telstra Scams, Scams, Telstra
TMG Company, the guys who brought the Australian public the ‘Wixawin’ and Woolworths scams that were recently featured in the media, have responded to public pressure….
…. by changing their marketing.
They’re not using the ‘Wixawin’ brand so much anymore, instead relying on a lot of smaller, less well known names. One of the bigger ones is 194060.com.
So beware, it might look good - but if it’s connected to TMG, watch your wallet!
Posted by k on 08.13.2008 at 2:30 pm // 1 Comment »
Tagged: Featured, Phone, SMS, Scams, premium sms, scam, SMS, wixawin
Here’s a great article in The Age from last year showing a different perspective. In many Western countries, broadband is fast, cheap and unmetered. That means that there’s no shaping once you’ve hit your quota, or in Telstra’s case, ridiculously excessive overuse fees.
Telstra has held back this country’s communications infrastructure for years.
This article explains how.
Posted by k on 07.19.2008 at 8:01 pm // 13 Comments »
Tagged: Carriers, Featured, Internet, Scams, Telcos, Telstra, Telstra BigPond, Telstra Landline, Telstra Scams, Scams, Telstra, Telstra BigPond
We know we expose ourselves to a lot of pressure, harassment and danger to “fight the 1000 pounds Gorilla” - but sorry, bringing out the truth is our nature!
Now you won’t believe this:
Secrets about Telstra’s Premium SMS Policy
As you are aware, Telstra cashes in heaps for delivering premium SMS. Now that’s the way it works: Every premium service in the country (including Telstra’s “own” PSMS Scams - see eg. http://mobilefun.telstra.com/?tR=1 ) has to be registered with Telstra. They take about 50% of the money you pay for every billed message for basically nothing else than using their existing network to allow the messages to reach your phone.
Telstra is ALWAYS AWARE 100% of how a service/promotion/scam works as the people who run these services have to supply Telstra with detailed information about the service.
Now get this: Once they cashed in, they keep the money for around 2 months before forwarding the share to the service provider. You may like the service and content providers or not (as we said, some are good, some are bad - not all of them are Scams), but at least these companies do not hide behind a public image of being “the good guys who don’t have anything to do with anything”.
Telstra actually cashes in but appears nowhere - not in any marketing material, not in any customer complaint number. So once customers (=you and us) start to complain, the following happens:
(a) Telstra refuses to take any responsibility and refers you to someone else (after you have been waiting in their helpline for hours, listening to crap music and marketing about their scams)
(b) No refund is EVER paid by Telstra - Telstra just keep their share. Therefore always try to get it from the Content Provider/Service Provider
(c) Telstra tries to keep their public image - meaning once they reach a certain number of refund requests and complaints, they “disconnect” the service - which entitles them to hold ALL the revenue back and not pay it out to the provider of the service.
So - long story short: Telstra takes YOUR money, blames someone else, and gets AWAY with it. A Scam is therefore most profitable for Telstra: They keep all the cash and appear to be the “good guys”.
Are you unhappy with this? Contact Telstra on 132200 and tell them how you feel.
They might also be happy to tell you about how much money Telstra made out of Missed Call Marketing - which would NEVER have been possible without Telstra’s support. More about this and the dubious deals and connections in the background and highly ranked Telstra employees cashing in in the near future.
Sorry we can’t be more particular at this stage, but to release more detailled information now will jeopardise our sources. We also have to get legal advice on this.
Stay tuned… and give us your opinion.
BTW did you know that downloading a 3MB mp3 file on a Telstra data plan will currently cost you $85? Just in case you got an iPhone… we already wrote to the ACCC about this. Please support our cause and write to the ACCC on http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/54217#h2_38about Telstra’s dubious business practices concerning your dealings with them.
Posted by p on 07.17.2008 at 8:53 am // 15 Comments »
Tagged: Carriers, Featured, Internet, Mobile, Phone, SMS, Scams, Telcos, premium sms, scam, Telstra
This information comes to us from reader ‘V’, alerting us to another Wixawin-like scam using BigW vouchers couched to appear as if originating from the respected supermarket.
The twist here is that you’re originally sent promos via email, making it look even more legit, but are really subscribed into a premium SMS service.
Here’s what V has to say:
Don’t know if you guys know about it already or not, but I’ve been getting emails giving me the chance to win BigW vouchers. I’ve traced it to a marketing company in Fortitude Valley, QLD called Vision6. http://www.vision6.com.au/about_us.html
It’s the same old $2 per question, $2 per answer thing, but the email looks like it’s coming from BigW.
I know there’s an article on here about Wixawin and Woolworths, but don’t know if this one is different or not.
Brilliant job you’re doing by the way. Thanks for the service guys.
Glad to be of service!
We’ll look into this further, but as we’ve said in previous posts, we’re not against premium SMS per se - it’s just this style of marketing, that trades on the good reputation of a completely unaffiliated company, is particularly deceptive.
Posted by k on 07.16.2008 at 9:52 am // 1 Comment »
Tagged: Featured, Mobile, Phone, SMS, Scams, BigW, Vision6, wixawin
In an earlier post outlining our issues with the Wixawin campaign, our position was that they used misleading tactics (i.e. the Woolworth’s campaign) that presented their campaigns as authorised by the companies featured in their marketing.
Today Tonight had a piece on Wixawin last night, that highlighted this misleading marketing in addition to their poor customer service.
Check out the summary here.
Posted by k on 07.10.2008 at 9:42 am // 1 Comment »
Tagged: Featured, Internet, Mobile, Phone, SMS, Scams, scam, wixawin
