Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

Blog about offshore outsourcing and scammer in the outsourcing industry

Do you like to know why the offshore call center industry is going down?

law hammerIf we take a look at the European Data Protection Directive from 1995, followed by the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation from 2012 then you’ll find out that personal data are not allowed to get stored as absolutely necessary. The company, which stores personal data, is full responsible for the usage a misusage of the data. A similar law is in the United States available too. There are even the fines for a misusage of personal data higher. 

In any case is the company, which has stored the data, in front of the law court responsible for the correct usage of the stored data and this one will get prosecuted first. If the company cannot guarantee that their data are protected then they cannot give it offshore for processing them in any way.

As we see in the following example taken from Facebook how this data are getting traded, nobody will take the risk and outsource some of his data processing where personal data are involved. This is an actual offer from Facebook. I have copied the content and marked the important sentence red. A screenshot gets found at the end of this article:

Aakash Gupta and 3 others commented on this.

 
 

How to Start a BPO (Own Business) ?

 
Like · Comment · 

 

The source of a data set, which is offered like above, can easily found by comparing the credit card data. You need only to compare the data with the data of the credit card companies. In such a case you’ll find out at which shop or company all this credit cards got used in common.

So for what reason a company shall outsource offshore if this industry is not trustful? They have to pay the fine for something what they are not feeling themselves guilty. The fine is higher than processing the data inside their own company.

Such black sheep in the offshore outsourcing industry have destroyed the whole industry. Nobody has done something against them, because everybody has been looking only at his earning. Now you get presented the bill for your greed and laziness.

Only offshore partner, which can prove that they are trustful, will have a chance to survive - all others will perish.

DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT SOMEONE WILL PAY YOU FOR BRINGING HIM INTO TROUBLES?

 

Facebook campaign offers from Amit Girje

 

systweak.com: a fraudster with Microsoft Gold Partner certification

Fraud AlertAt my research for the roots of the Tech Support scam offers in the call center industry I have found the company Systweak India - domain systweak.com. It is one of the sources of the "Tech support calls", which are getting traded at Facebook in the call center and outsourcing groups all over the Asia and India.

The scam is working the following way:

  • Once they have programmed system tools on shareware base. Maybe at this time they had some sense, but with the further development and improvement of Windows this tools have been coming obsolete. Other companies are even providing already such tools for free or including similar products into their own offers. So they have been coming greedy and added to their products scare warnings and are showing a phone number where their victims have to call for help.

  • This incoming calls get sold to call centers, which have more or less a script and some provided tools for giving paid help to the caller. The call center is billing for their service directly the customer. This makes the scam dangerous for the call center, because in this case the money flow shows that the call center is the scammer. They will get prosecuted even they know it or don't know it that they are helping in scamming others. 

  • If their victim calls the phone number he has to pay a high price for the help. If their victim agrees and pays the scam fee, then they are installing more fraud software on the victims computer. Even the call center agent, which should solve the problem does not know about the scareware which is included in the provided tools.

 

Even if the scam has not been planned from the beginning, the system "Pay Per Sale" leaded to the scam. The greediness of the call center owners has driven the agents to sell as much as they can. Each business need to try to earn from their investment. If they buy something on stock then they need to try to make profit out of this stock. Nobody can work for free because we all need some money to pay our daily needs. This leads to such a fraud behavior too. If this has been the real case then it has been the self shot for Systweak. Even if the paid help is planned for one or more years, the problem exists, that the customer is reaching another call center then this one he has paid for his subscription. This new call center likes to get money too and does not work for free - remember the service is a "pay per sale" offer.

They are selling the calls, because they are thinking that they cannot get prosecuted by doing this. The first, which is coming into the spotlight is the owner of the phone number and this one, which takes the money. Indeed it is difficult to follow all the trades, which are done between the brokers, but it is not impossible. The first one, which are getting prosecuted are the helpers of the fraud and scam. In this case are it the call center owners, their agents and the owner of the published phone numbers.

At easycounter.com can get seen how much traffic is generated by the site systweak,com, With this counters can get calculated how many computer user are falling into their trap. You can see a screenshot from April 21, 2015:

Systweak Traffic from esycounter 

In the following screenshot are the top countries listed where the traffic comes from:

SysTweak Worldwide Audience from Easycounter

 

It was a coincidence that I found the right domain. As the domain has been suspicious for me, because nobody can give up to 70% commission on his products if the product is competitive priced. I made my standard search procedure as following:

A short reputation research at scamadviser.com brought the result:

ALERT: Low Trust Rating. This Site May Not Be Safe to Use.

I found the following comments at scamadviser:

  • Susan Swanson Speulda
    Susan Swanson Speulda · Contractor at Apollo Education Group
    Totally got screwed. Owes me a $400 refund but said I had to pay $200 to get it
    Put a startup password on my computer but told me I had to pay to get the password. Told them I wouldn't and the said f you. Computer being worked on but may need a new motherboard. Don't do business with them!
     
     
  • Joanne Jan Naujokas
    Joanne Jan Naujokas · RITI
    I paid 198 for one year service and they have cleaned up my computer at least 6 times so far. I think they are from India but have always been great and polite and yes try to sell more but I don't accept.
     
     
  • openid (signed in using AOL)
    I'll tell you the truth. Systweak are an absolute nightmare, son't get involved, don't download shit from these parasites. They are all about scamming. Their "regcleanpro" software is just a hijacked app that they then use to extort more money from you. They are based in Jaipur and they will steal your money and ruin your pc. DON'T DO IT.

 

Norton SecuredMicrosoft Gold PartnerBy taking a look at http://systweak.com/ I have found the Microsoft PartnerGold Application Development Logo and the Norton SECURED powered by Symantec logo.

The Norton secured logo means only that they are using a security certificate from Symantec. This only confirms only that the correct server is communicating with you and certificate can get reviewed by clicking on the Norton logo. The result is shown in the following screenshot:

Norton Secured

 

More interesting is the Microsoft Partner Gold Application Development, which really leads to the site https://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-IN/Companies/4295548206 (see the site at the pdf attachment) and confirms the partnership of Systweak India.

As Systweak is offering a Premium Support at their website and the customer complains about "Owes me a $400 refund but said I had to pay $200 to get it Put a startup password on my computer but told me I had to pay to get the password." makes all the surroundings of this company a little bit suspect. So I decided to search a little bit at Google and other sites.

WOT (Web Of Trust) is rating them based on user comments are from 100 ratings 92 complaints about scam, malware and scareware.

Scambook.com reports:

Information about Systweak Inc. was first submitted to Scambook on Sep 10, 2011. Since then the page has accumulated 4 consumer complaints. On average users reported $106.80 of damages. Scambook's investigation team reached out to this company a total of 1 times, Scambook Investigators last contacted them on Apr 23, 2013.

In a comment at downloads.cnet.com we find:

"STOP!!!! DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT!!!!"

March 25, 2014  |  By dwillpirate

 |  Version: Advanced System Optimizer 3.1.648.6846

Pros

Initially it seemed to be a great system to search my entire computer, find errors and fix them, but....

Cons

I installed the program after what I now know were fake "HP Help" guys from India recommended it. First off, it would install older versions of drivers that would end up causing more problems. My computer ran fine prior to the program and continued to slow down more and more over time. Eventually it got to the point where my computer would freeze after 5 minutes of use. I bought a new hard drive and loaded ASO first, and immediately my computer began to run extremely slow, using 100% of CPU space. I called the tech support number and got another guy from India who again tried to sell me the same "maintenance plan" as before that cost $350. It is an absolute scam to try to get people to pay for more unneeded service.

Summary

DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT. If you have any version of it on your computer, get it off, it will cause you nothing but problems. It is a Trojan Horse that actually introduces more problems to your computer, which Systweak will "fix" for hundreds more dollars. STAY AWAY!!!

Similar complaints are getting found at the site RipoffReport.

At Postseek,com is documented, that the software is not easy to get uninstalled and it is very hard to get rid of all the pop ups.

At the Microsoft community is the scam well documented too. There are 11 pages full of this topic

At the complaintsboard.com you'll also find their fraud described,

2-spyware.com: Lists an uninstall solution and a lot of user comments about the Systweak product RegClean Pro:

As you can see from our review, RegClean Pro is legitimate application, but we do not recommend using it. After testing it, we found that it fails to detect all registry errors and also displays exaggerated scan results that are filled with doubtful issues. If you have already purchased it, its owners offer a money guarantee. We would recommend you to use it. If you want to remove RegClean Pro from the system, you can do that by using  SpyHunter or STOPzilla, or by following these manual removal steps:

Bleeping Computer.com has a removal instruction for the people, which cannot get rid of the Systweak product regclean pro. It shows how difficult it is to uninstall the malware from India.

Spybot has published a removal instruction for this kind of malware too,

This list can get endless continued. A Google search of "systweak scam" returns around 285 000 results, a search about "systweak malware" returns around 343 000 results and a search about "systweak scareware" 74 100 resuilts.

Even a court order for a similar scam gets found at onguardonline.gov:

A U.S. District Court recently ordered the operators of several international tech support scams to pay more than $5.1 million for convincing people that their computers were riddled with viruses and then charging for bogus support services.

We’ve (onguardonline.gov) written before about tech support scammers. They call and claim to work for well-known companies like Microsoft, Norton or McAfee. They say your computer is infected with malware and then ask for remote access so they can “fix” it. Or they place ads in online search results to trick you into calling them.

 

So don't use their software. You'll get scammed. The calls for the provided numbers are getting traded in the call center industry in Asia. There will be even some others get found, which try to copy the system.

Products from systweak:

 

  • Advanced Disk Recovery
  • Advanced Driver Updater
  • Advanced Email Backup
  • Advanced Email Printer
  • Advanced Email Utilities
  • Advanced Privacy Protector
  • Advanced System Optimizer
  • Advanced System Protector
  • Anvanced Vista Optimizer
  • Boost XP
  • CacheBoost Professional
  • Cacheboost Server Edition
  • Disk Speedup
  • Memory Zipper Plus
  • Mobile Junk Cleaner
  • Mobile Registry Cleaner
  • Mobile Startup Cleaner
  • Netbook Optimizer
  • RegClean Pro
  • Right Backup
  • System Speedup
  • Systweak Photo Album
  • Systweak Photo Studio
  • TuneupMyMac
  • WinClean Pro

 

 

systweak.com whois:

Domain Name: SYSTWEAK.COM
Registry Domain ID: 77920662_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.enom.com
Registrar URL: www.enom.com
Updated Date: 2013-07-29T07:59:02.00Z
Creation Date: 2001-09-28T11:40:21.00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2022-09-28T11:40:00.00Z
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Registrar IANA ID: 48
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4252982646
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: SHRISHAIL RANA
Registrant Organization: SYSTWEAK INC
Registrant Street: E-73,CHITRANJAN MARG,
Registrant Street: C-SCHEME
Registrant City: JAIPUR
Registrant State/Province: RAJASTHAN
Registrant Postal Code: 302001
Registrant Country: IN
Registrant Phone: +91.1412367857
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax: +91.911412562982
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: GO4HOSTING HOSTMASTER
Admin Organization: CYBER FUTURISTICS-GO4HOSTING
Admin Street: D-61,SHIV HEERA PATH,C-SCHEME,
Admin City: JAIPUR
Admin State/Province: IN
Admin Postal Code: 302001
Admin Country: IN
Admin Phone: +1.911412770440
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax: +91.911412363604
Admin Fax Ext:
Registry Tech ID:
Tech Name: SHRISHAIL RANA
Tech Organization: SYSTWEAK INC
Tech Street: E-73,CHITRANJAN MARG,C-SCHEME
Tech City: JAIPUR
Tech State/Province: RAJASTHAN
Tech Postal Code: 302001
Tech Country: IN
Tech Phone: +91.1412367857
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax: .911412562982
Tech Fax Ext:
Name Server: DNS1.STABLETRANSIT.COM
Name Server: DNS2.STABLETRANSIT.COM
DNSSEC: unSigned
 

Systweak India _ JAIPUR,...an _ Microsoft Pinpoint.pdf (308.08 kb)

Update Jan. 18, 2017:
Link to the Facebook profile Susan Swanson Speulda (https://www.facebook.com/susan.speulda) removed as it returns error 404 - not found.

 

SCAMMER: blackpearloutsourcing.com and blackpearloutsourcing.in

Blackpearl OutsourcingThat blackpearloutsourcing.com and blackperloutsourcing.in is a scammer, got now confirmed. Some LinkedIn members will remember that I have commented the campaigns from Black Pearl Outsourcing like the following text:

My opinion: Somebody, which hides himself in the anonymity of the Internet has a reason for it. 
SUCH ONE IS NOT TRUSTFUL AND NOBODY SHOULD MAKE BUSINESS WITH THEM. 
The risk to get scammed in such case is 99%.

scamadviser says about blackpearloutsourcing.com:
Alert Result: Registered contact email address is a free one
Alert Result: Technical contact email address is a free one
Alert Result: Administrative contact email address is a free one
Alert Result: This website is xxx Days old 
Alert Result: The website expected life (365 days) is relatively short.
Alert Result: The website appears to be less than six months old

An example of one of their LinkedIn campaigns is found at: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Do-you-have-data-entry-106055.S.5975947228437630979

The reason is seen, when we take a look at the Black Pearl Outsourcing incomplete staff list first. If you observe the list, then you'll find out that not one of their staff is able to show their face at the profile picture. Maybe they have done it one time already and are getting found by a picture search, where at the page is written that they are already identified scammer. Someone which lies already at his profile is not trustful as a business partner!

Aditi Patel

aditi patel
Business Development Manger at black pearl outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: black pearl outsourcing, Black Pearl Outsourcing

picture found at http://www.w2wlink.com/Articles/Style-Tips-Project-Right-Image-Work-artid585 and 52 other sites

Dhara Padia

Dhara padia
BDM at Black pearl outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: Black pearl outsourcing

picture found at 505 other sites

Heta Doshi

Heta Doshi
business development manager at black pearl outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: black pearl outsourcing

picture found at http://www.unica.ro/articol/cum-te-branduiesti-succes-41391 and 120 other sites

Jasmin Desai

Jasmin Desai
Business Development Executive at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: Black Pearl Outsourcing

picture found at http://ecowipes.com.pl/de/uber-uns/ and 723 other sites

Data Entry

Jenny G.
Business Development Manager at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad und Umgebung, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring

Work from Home - Ask me How!

jenny gupta
Business Development Manager at Black Pearl Outsourcing
IndienOutsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: Black Pearl Outsourcing, Black Pearl Outsourcing

Kashish Sinha

Kashish Sinha
BDM at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring

picture found at http://www.realtytrac.com/agent/proagent and 90 other sites

Kevin Joshi

kevin joshi
Sales Co-ordinator
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell BLACK PEARL OUTSOURCING
Ausbildung swaminarayan school

picture found at http://www.voyancedirecte-tel.eu/accueil.php and 107 other sites

Mansi Vyas

mansi vyas
Business Development Executive at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: Black Pearl Outsourcing

picture found at http://johnslanguagecompany.de/index.php?id=10 and 412 other sites

Cartoon

Mishty Sharma
Business Development Executive at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, IndienOutsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: Black Pearl Outsourcing

 

Moni Mishra

Moni mishra
BDM at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Marketing und Werbung
Aktuell: Selbständig, black pearl outsourcing, Black Pearl Outsourcing

picture found at http://corporateimageinstitute.com/how-to-dress-professionally-on-a-budget/ and 333 other sites

Black Pearl Graphic

Nithi Agarwal
BDM at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad und Umgebung, Indien Marketing und Werbung
Aktuell: black pearl outsourcing, blac kpearl outsourcing, Black Pearl outsourcing

 

Parita Shiroya

parita shiroya
Business Development manager
Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell Black pearl outsourcing

picture found at http://de.dreamstime.com/stockbilder-%C3%BCberzeugte-gesch%C3%A4ftsfrau-image2303484 and 259 other sites

Roshni

Roshni Black Pearl Outsourcing
Business Devlopment Manager at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, IndienOutsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: Black Pearl Outsourcing, black pearl outsourcing

picture found at http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-business-women-working-office-image7635339 and 48 other sites

 

Sophi Mackwan
Business Development Executive at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell Black Pearl Outsourcing

Trisha Darbar

Trisha Darbar
Business Development Manager at Black Pearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: Black Pearl outsourcing, Black Pearl Outsourcing

picture found at http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/karriarartiklar/article3785842.ece and 36 other sites

 

prakash pandit
Technical Head at Blackpearl Outsourcing
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Indien Outsourcing & Offshoring
Aktuell: Blackpearl Outsourcing

 

While I have been commenting all of there campaigns, they disappeared at LinkedIn. 

I have been surprised as I got at April 13 an Skype invitation from a staff member of Black Pearl Outsourcing (all time entries are GMT+1):

[13.04.2015 14:10:59] *** Mansi vyas möchte Sie auf Skype hinzufügen
Hi Rudolf Faix, I'd like to add you as a contact. ***
[13.04.2015 14:56:45] *** Rudolf Faix hat Kontaktdetails mit Mansi vyas ausgetauscht. ***
[13.04.2015 14:57:34] Rudolf Faix: Hi Mansi
How are you?
[07:26:25] Mansi vyas: not fine
[08:29:05] Rudolf Faix: Why?
[08:34:10] Mansi vyas: bcoz u make lots of fake comments on my comapanys discussion on linked in.....
[08:35:02] Rudolf Faix: Your company cannot show their real face, Maybe you are belonging to the organized fraud from India
[08:35:30] Mansi vyas: you are not real rudolf faix....
[08:35:49] Rudolf Faix: For this you all need to use fake pictures already
[08:36:15] Rudolf Faix: I'm real - you are only SCAMMER
[08:36:26] *** Rudolf Faix hat Mansi vyas blockiert ***

That has been the typical reaction of a scammer, which got caught from me. With other words a person, which is hiding herself in the anonymity of the Internet, tells to me that I'm not real. I think that such an idiot needs to show his face first and prove that he is real before he can say something about others.

As soon as I had blocked Mansi vyas I got a request on skype from aditi patel. First I have been thinking that she is the same person, only with another Skype ID. But if you take a look at the time, how long she needed to answer, then you get it that there have been more people in conference before she has written her answers.

[08:36:51] *** aditi patel möchte Sie auf Skype hinzufügen
Hi Rudolf Faix, I'd like to add you as a contact. ***
[08:38:37] aditi patel: Hello Mr.Rudolf
[08:38:40] aditi patel: How are you?
[08:47:11] *** Rudolf Faix hat Kontaktdetails mit aditi patel ausgetauscht. ***
[08:47:53] Rudolf Faix: Thanks I'm ok
[08:47:59] Rudolf Faix: How are you?
[08:49:15] aditi patel: Ya sir i am good,,,
[08:49:28] Rudolf Faix: That's fine
[08:49:36] aditi patel: Ya
[08:52:28] aditi patel: Have you word with miss.mansi vyas?
[08:53:57] Rudolf Faix: This one, which cannot show their real face in a profile has a reason for it. I think this peoplke are belonging to the organized fraud from India
[08:55:01] Rudolf Faix: That are the companies, which are changing only their name as soon as they cannot continue their scam!
[09:17:00] aditi patel: I am also form this company.
[09:17:22] aditi patel: And how many projects you take from black peral out sourcing..
[09:18:14] Rudolf Faix: My comments have been on this, which have been hiding themselves in the anonymity of the internet. That is not a way to make some business
[09:18:57] aditi patel: so every outsourcing company hide face
[09:19:13] aditi patel: so why you not comment on that post?
[09:19:27] aditi patel: Only on our company's post.
[09:19:34] Rudolf Faix: Not every outsourcing company is hiding their face. There are a lot, which are not hiding themselves
[09:19:57] aditi patel: I can prove that sir
[09:20:22] Rudolf Faix: Even real scammer have a real name in their dns registration
[09:23:25] aditi patel: But i had not seen any comment of yours another compan's post
[09:23:36] aditi patel: why only in our company???
[09:24:33] Rudolf Faix: Here you have an example of one which got immediately catched: https://blog.wwpa.com/post/2015/04/11/scammer-scisolutions-us
[09:25:09] Rudolf Faix: Here you find the scammer postings from me Scammer Exposed
[09:26:20] Rudolf Faix: From your company has been coming no reaction on warnings. You have been only lucky, that no one sent me some proves.
[09:39:20] aditi patel: But we are not fraud so you cant get proves
[09:40:17] Rudolf Faix: Than you need to act like a real business and not like a scammer. You need to show that you are real and not copy some scammer

You see in the above Skype conversation that they have only observed their own postings and not the other postings in the group. Why else she can have the idea that I have only commented the Black Pearl Postings. I have commented each posting where someone has tried to sell something and their profile had no picture, a logo or a picture from a celebrity.

Such a contact attempt has a reason. So I started my favorite search engine and found a link, which can be the reason. At Facebook I have found the following complaint about Black Pearl Outsourcing:

Black Pearl Outsourcing is a fake company they took 30000 from me now no one picks up the phone

 
Like · Comment · 1314

 

There are more scam warnings found by using a search engine. For example is written at http://jobs.trovit.co.in/black-pearl-jobs:

Black Pearl Outsourcing scam - Srinagar

Naseem Bagh, Srinagar, Jammu And Kashmir

Black Pearl Outsourcing is a total online scam, they ask submit some money to there Account. After that they send some 300 pages of scan copy in your Email... 
14/02/2015 in Quikr

Jobs similar to: bank state of jammu and kashmir

 

An address of Black Pearl Outsourcing gets found at http://www.justdial.com/Ahmedabad/Black-pearl-outsourcing-%3Cnear%3E-mamnagar-circle-Helmet-Circle/079PXX79-XX79-140922170047-C8X9__BZDET/?tab=moreinfo 

+(91)-79-40035142, +(91)-9033004119

rudhra complex, Helmet Circle, Ahmedabad - 380052, mamnagar circle

 

 

Skype profile of Mansi vyas:

Mansi Vyas Skype Profil

 

Skype profile of aditi patel:

Aditi Patel Skype Profil

Update Jan. 18,2017: Link to http://jobs.trovit.co.in/black-pearl-jobs and to the Facebook profiles Selwin Sam (https://www.facebook.com/BenneySelwin), Sajini Varghese (https://www.facebook.com/sajini.varghese.18) and Abhijit Dipak Gorawade (https://www.facebook.com/abhijit.gorawadde) removed as they already bringing up error 404 - not found.

 

Data of 280,000 customers stolen: AT&T lost over $ 25 million

The misbehavior of the employees is coming very expensive for AT&T. The group has failed to prevent that data could get stolen in their call centers.  They got prosecuted now with a thick fine of the US supervision.

AT&TThe US mobile giant AT&T has to pay millions, because employees have stolen data in the call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines from nearly 280,000 customers. AT&T had accepted a comparison of over 25 million dollars.

Employees had unauthorized access to customer accounts and provided data - have passed on to third parties – even sometimes sensitive information like social security information. The FCC assumed that the information was then used, inter alia, to unlock stolen smart phones.

"Today's actions show that supervisory exercises its full authority against companies that fail to protect the personal information of its customers," said FCC chief Tom Wheeler. The Authority had started their investigation in May 2014..

Triggers were three AT&T employees in Mexico, which should have sold during 168 days data from more than 68,000 customer accounts starting at November 2013. In the course of the investigation came out that a further 40 employees were involved in this illegal practice and additional more than 211,000 customer accounts were affected.

Source: http://www.fcc.gov/document/att-pay-25m-settle-investigation-three-data-breaches-0

 

Operator of revenge porn site sentence for a long time in prison

In February the operator of the website ugotposted.com was found guilty. Now the sentence is clear: He has to be for 18 years in prison for 31 counts of identity theft, extortion, and conspiracy.

JustitiaIn its judgment, the Court in San Diego, California, remained just below the possible maximum sentence of 20 years. According to the indictment, the 28-year-old Kevin Bollaert earned with his "business model" 30 000 US dollars: he published on ugotposted.com intimate images of women and men given to him by the ex-partners at the end of the relationship for having revenge. He invited others posting the pictures including name, age, residence and a link to their Facebook profile. However, authorities say he ran afoul of state laws against identity theft, which prevent even simple personal information like names and addresses from being used "for any unlawful purpose, including with the intent to annoy or harass."  At changemyreputation.com he offered to delete these pictures from the other website for a payment of $ 350.

Even before the verdict, which ran on identity theft and extortion, Kevin B. was sentenced to pay a fine in the amount of 385 000 US dollars for child pornography. The attorney of one victim announced in his blog post that the victim should have been a minor at the time of the shoot. Accordingly, the Court classified the images in two cases as child pornography, which contributed significantly to the amount of damages. It is also prohibited the defendants ever to publish pictures of the applicant again.

Evidence of the harassing effect was published in the state's complaint against Bollaert. One woman e-mailed Bollaert saying she started getting "nonstop harassing messages" after her photos went up on ugotposted. Another told him she was "scared for my life," continuing: "People are calling my work place and they obtained the information from this site! I did not give permission for anyone to put up those pictures or my personal information. I have contacted the police but these pictures need to come down! Please!"

One Jane Doe victim reported receiving dozens of Facebook and Instagram friend requests after she was featured on the site, as well as text messages with lewd photos and several phone calls, which made her "worried for her safety." Another woman had "over a hundred different sources" try to contact her after her information went up on ugotposted, and she ultimately changed her phone number.

This case shows that nobody can hide himself in the anonymity of the Internet. As soon as a case from a public prosecutor is opened the anonymity gets dropped and the fraudster ends up in the prison!!!