Scams

Haiti Scammer Tries to Scam ESET Blog Readers

A little over a week ago we received a comment in response to David Harley’s blog post that read as follows: InterNations – the Network for Expatriates and Global Minds!   The Internations Management has decided to donate 10 Eurocents to Haiti for each text message!   Text “Haiti” to: +xxxxxxxxxxxx    Spread the Word!  

A little over a week ago we received a comment in response to David Harley’s blog post that read as follows:

InterNations – the Network for Expatriates and Global Minds!
 
The Internations Management has decided to donate 10 Eurocents to Haiti for each text message!
 
Text “Haiti” to: +xxxxxxxxxxxx    Spread the Word!
 
Regular messaging costs to cellphones apply InterNations always encourages charity http://www.internations.org/tour/charity
 
 
Follow us on Twitter
 
http://twitter.com/lnterNations

We decided not to approve the post because none of us on the blogging team were familiar with InterNations and we didn’t have time to verify the organization. Finally yesterday I decided to respond to InterNations and let them know that while we appreciated the intent, we could not approve the post because we couldn’t verify and make sure that we were serving the best interests of our readers. The response from InterNations was not what I expected.

As it turns out, nobody from InterNations had made the post. InterNations appears to be the victim of a disgruntled ex-user who was banned from their organization for highly inappropriate behavior.
It takes a truly mentally incompetent and sick person to try to capitalize on the misery of the Haitian people to extract revenge against an organization he or she has a problem with. The cell phone number that I replaced with x’s would have been an innocent victim who may have incurred charges for all of the texts.

I will tell you that when I did some searching on InterNations.org it does look like a very, very interesting organization! I might just have to see if I can get an invitation to join them! I am happy that we not only did not help the attacker in his or her mission of revenge, but that now InterNations has received positive coverage… exactly what the sick poster did not want.

The next step is to try to identify the ISP and see if they can take action against the poster.

Randy Abrams
Director of Technical Education

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