sms.ac turns into fanbox
When I got the second e-mail from someone I didn’t immediately recognize, inviting me to answer a question at fanbox, I thought it was one of those irritating invitations from some application I haven’t installed at Facebook.
But when I got the second identical e-mail, I got irritated enough to check it out.
Turns out it’s from fanbox.com, which is a new incarnation of sms.ac, which I’ve blogged about before:
sms.ac continues to send invitations
By now it’s not visibly centered around text messages (which to me looked like a scam that would quickly result in huge cell phone bills if you were unlucky), but rather a desktop application.
But I kinda doubt this person I got the e-mail from actually tried to send me a question. I might find out, because I’ve figured out the e-mail address (which isn’t in the e-mail from fanbox).
I think the same caution goes now that it did before: Do NOT give them the password to your webmail account, if you decide to join. Because they’ll spam your friends to death, and they’ll get angry with YOU for it!
Come to think of it, they’ll most likely get your webmail password no matter what, because this is a desktop application! The point is storing important documents, mail and passwords (presumably, I haven’t actually tried it, but it’s what I’d want to use a desktop app for, if I found one I trusted). Geez, I would NOT trust them enough to use them as a desktop app, based on their history!
Wait, I forgot to include the actual letter I received:
xxxxxsomeoneyoumayormaynotknowxxxx asked you a question. View the question and answer it.
FanBox.com is the web-based desktop that instantly turns every computer into your computer. It includes over 10,000 web applications and games to choose from, including the Question It application.
This email was sent by xxxxxsomeoneyoumayormaynotknowxxxx while using the Question It application on FanBox. Go here to learn more or stop receiving emails from friends using Question It. FanBox: 255 G Street #723, San Diego, CA 92101, USA
Update: I heard back from the person who supposedly sent those messages. She said she’d gotten starting yesterday too, and didn’t know why. But I also found I’d gotten another message, supposedly from her, and this time to a Yahoo groups listowner address. She’s on AOL, and I’m guessing she has a setting adding all senders of e-mails she receives to her address book automatically.
Cheers for the heads up …….. I actually wrote about sms.ac back in 2005. Stupidly thought they’d have “gotten it” by now
http://mysteryfcm.co.uk/?mode=News&date=22-07-2005
same here, hate being suspicious of everything these days, but ….
Yep I traced the friend who had ’sent’ the invite. No she hadn’t sent it, and I have since discovered that you cannot delete an account. This looks like a scam of epic proportions, in fact I found this blog by typing ‘fanbox scam’ into Google.
The consequences of making your files and passwords available to the cronies that are running the fanbox site are horrendous. They are obviously trawling address books and sending fake emails which is a pretty good indication that they are crooks.
I recieved a suspicious e mail from fanbox similar to someone with a email prefix followed several digit number ‘asked you a question…. I have not replied to the e mail but have been searching the web for info….looks like I’ve found it…. these people want inside my computer, some how my e mail address was tracked from someone I know who had sent me a message about 30 min. prior to recieving the message from fanbox…. whats going on here?
Hi John C.
What I’d ask the person who sent you that message, is if they’d given sms.ac or fanbox permission to e-mail people in their addressbook. That might have happened months or even years ago. Users give the service their password. So, if that password is never changed, theoretically, fanbox still has access. And perhaps, according to their initial agreement with the user, that access is valid - still.
Here’s a test: Sign up for fanbox. Give them your password for your webmail account. Have a few test account addresses in the address book. Then change the password, but access the account with the new password from inside fanbox. Then add another address to the address book - another test account. Then sit back and see if you receive one of the invitations from fanbox to that new address. If so, then they are listening for new passwords, and access even if they’ve been locked out - and would have continued to be locked out unless the user accessed the account from inside the fanbox desktop.
Another test is this one: Sign up for fanbox and give them permission to mail your friends. Give them the webmail password. Then, AFTER doing that, add another friend to the address book. This one should also be a unique test account. See if that one receives an invitation to fanbox. If so, they keep accessing the address book after the initial download.
Hi, I just had a run in with them, I changed my password about 10 minutes after getting an email from them and getting that dumb thing opened on my desktop, you say its a DT app, does that mean even after I closed it they can still get my info? I am pretty versed with computers but not clear on how that end works, I closed out of it, deleted the ‘profile’ they made for me, it reminds me of that 180 search engine, making you use it against your will.
Yesterday I got fanbox “questions” (do you like snakes?) from a person who died three weeks ago. Spooky!
So Obviously a phishing job, ie, getting folks data.
Someone asked me if I believe in Krama or Kharma (I don’t remember). I think this is stupid.
I recently got the same question from someone on my yahoo messenger friends list. I answered the question without thinking and it prompted me to sign in through yahoo. Which I did and immediately my yahoo messenger closed and popup stated I had been logged off onto another computer. I quickly changed my password. ..Hmmm..on this little ordeal..I hope the changing of my password has prevented any misuse of my yahoo account. . .
Umm, so, because you were prompted to log in through Yahoo, the Yahoo service detected another computer was logged into your account, and logged you off on YOUR computer?
I believe they immediately go for your address book, so I wouldn’t be surprised if your contacts immediately got a “question” from you. I would ask a few on your address book if they got one of those and tell them to ignore if they did.
Hey Guys,
You actually have to give them access to your email account while signing up much like other websites do such as
http://www.linkedin.com
http://www.myspace.com
http://www.spock.com (myspace’s professional networking site)
and various others… This means that it is in fact the users fault when you an email asking you to join.
I am from San Diego and know the Company and its technology. They have a good concept, but with it being open to public use, you get a lot of the negatives such as the “spam” you receive.
Really, the desktop App is only accessible while you login to the site and not it does not access your info while you are not there.
The only info it retains is the info you give it knowingly. Its very similar to myspace, facebook, and so on, only there are more additional features built into it. Such as the storage capabilities.
NOTE* only the files you put into your SHARED area on the site are accessible to people who you befriend.
I hope this helps clarify some!
-Cody
To Codeucd19,
I’ve received invitations from lots of services, including LinkedIn. The invitations from LinkedIn arrives ONCE in my inbox from each sender. Other services send invitations over and over. sms.ac was one of those that just wouldn’t stop.
Then there’s a question of how well it’s explained what will happen once a service has your password. Many users have weighed in on how they didn’t know that Fanbox would do what they did. And we have a case of a dead person sending out questions. Presumably he or she signed up for sms.ac once upon a time, and then Fanbox used that info and sent out invitations again - long after the person was dead!
Now THAT is morally shady in my opinion.
I’ve got myspace accounts, and bypassing the signup for sending out invitations to your address book is no problem. I haven’t signed up for fanbox, so I don’t know exactly how that happens. But maybe I should, in the interest of finding out exactly how the signup process happens.
I think you’re a shill, sent by the company to muddle the waters.
thank you for your information some one try to fan box me and i say i dont used that i say why cant we chat here no respond so i deleted him from my list.
Thanks for the heads up - I got a “question” from someone who does have my email address, however I know would seriously not be asking me anything… and probably would prefer it if we were never in touch ever again if you know what I mean…
Simple answer is don’t give websites your email address if you can avoid it, and least of all your acct password! If you have enough time to prat around on “networking” sites, then clearly you’ll have enough time to initially manually plug in the addresses of the people you want to “network” with..?!
Admin: No, I am definitely not a “shill”.
I agree there may be issues with the way the emails “re-appear” even after the initial “ok”. That may be something that linkedin has scripted into their software and that others such as sms/fanbox should also incorporate.
Throw it at them in a anonymous suggestion…
About the dead person deal, throw that in a suggestion as well because it would be interesting to see a response or explanation. Maybe a shared computer?
Sam: I agree… add people manually… Then you know who you are inviting…
[...] So after a bit of foraging I found this: http://spamhuntress.com/2007/12/15/smsac-turns-into-fanbox/. Seems like the company running FaxBox got in trouble for doing this crap once before. Funny, isn’t it, how you can just change your name and suddenly all your past sins evaporate! Well, not on the Internet, apparently. Your past sins can and do come back to haunt you. [...]
Thanks. I just copied your post to my site (with credit to you of course). I received two of those emails in the past week and deleted them both unread.
Confusing though - I thought at first it was Facebook but didn’t recognize the sender.
fanbox.com, and this url and others reporting about the fraud at fanbox.com have been reported to the IC3 division of the FBI, and the better business bureau.
Thanks for info on fanbox. I clicked on the link without looking at it closely assuming it was facebook.
When the page opened i realised it was something dodgey.
More cheers for the fanbox posting. I was wondering about it, having just received a “Question” from “Jenny”. I appreciate the caveats!
Please how do I stop this question it thing from getting to my contact list. They really have been getting irritated with me over this. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks
so if I openned the fanbox email, does that mean they can get into my contact list, or into my email folders or account? How about if I did this from the library rather than from my own computer? someone have the answer?
Note to all, I got a bad feeling about Fanbox too, now I am here finding the truth out. I also got the “Alyssa sent you a comment on FanBox” form letter. TRULY a SCAM site!!!! I am deleting my account now, if possible.
I dont feel that the link the moderator provided answers my previous question–so moderator–please, can a person whose fanbox email I recieved and opened from a library computer have gotten access to my email account through that action?
To Prisca,
Only opening an e-mail from fanbox won’t compromise your e-mail account. If you however go to the link provided in the e-mail and then sign up for the service, they make you believe giving them your password is part of the process. I haven’t tested it myself, so I can’t say exactly if it’s possible to sign up without giving them that password. Probably it is, since not everybody uses a webmail e-mail address.
i’ve got a question. Is it possible that people can send real questions via fanbox??
Question is, why would they want to when they could just e-mail it?
Hi guys, my hubby has had this email from fanbox on monday and has entered his details on the website, now msn messenger wont work at all on his pc and when he tried to log onto msn on my pc it wont let him either. Also now msn messenger wont work for anyone on either pc.
What do i do to get rid of this virus or whatever it is??
Wow - so glad I didn’t click the link provided in the email. A good rule these days says that if you get an email from somebody you don’t know, telling you to click a link, it’s malware and could seriously mess up your computer. I googled “fanbox” and found this article and the comments. Thanks all, for confirming my suspicions.
The Fanbox email I got wasn’t a question, but from somebody who shared an interest in music. I think this site is a spider that crawls the web, looking up searches and then grabs ip addresses or domain names. Simply going to the site fanbox.com by opening a browser and by not clicking on an email link shows how shady the site is. “One moment, preparing your desktop” or some such message. I exited out of there, quick.
LOL, these comments are awesome. As an engineer I feel compelled to educate and bring all of us into 2008:
1) Fanbox definitely sends a bunch of emails. So does facebook and other social networks. Is that good? I don’t know as I like spending my time with non-digital friends. I get more emails about male enhancement and cheap prescription pill than fanbox emails. Fact: If you don’t download and run a program, 99.9% of emails can’t do anything to your computer.
2) The fanbox “desktop” is a fancy webpage. The only difference between this blog you’re reading and the fanbox desktop is that fanbox uses a ton of javascript to make it look like a desktop. Browsers (IE, FireFox, Opera, etc…) do not allow Javascript to access your computer/file system, period. If they did, just viewing a webpage could harvest everything on your computer and would make the internet pretty lame.
3) There is no way a webpage can effect MSN Messenger. All the content you download while viewing webpages (css, javascript, cookies, html, images, etc…) are locked into the domain they came from. So if you log into myspace.com, download the cookie they send to you for identification, only myspace.com code can read/write to it. Fanbox, can’t touch anything outside of fanbox.com. My gut says you have a bunch of other programs installed on your computer that are fighting for resources (aka the real problem is somewhere inbetween the keyboard and your chair).
4) How is sending email a scam? I equate a scam with making money. If we could make money off of sending dumb emails with a question in it, I think we’d all quit our day jobs.
Welcome to 2008! The internet isn’t such a scary and confusing place anymore…
I just got another one of these messages a few seconds ago. I casually deleted that one, just like the other ten that I received in the past week. I never recall registering for such a site and, likewise, would never want to access all my home files remotely. In fact, I never heard of the site until I started getting these unsolicited e-mails from the service.
Granted, that might be a novel idea for somebody on the road but I still see such a platform to be dodgy in the sense of account phishing.
I forward all my spam to SPAM@UCE.GOV they put it in their data base to try to bust the A-holes!
Got am email like this:
Hi [My_NAME]!
XO-Michelle-XO wants to be your loyal fan!
Automatically sign in to view XO-Michelle-XO’s profile and/or photo, and accept or reject her fan request.
Registration Info You Provided:
User Name: [the_user_name]
Password: [the_password]
>4) How is sending email a scam? I equate a scam with making money. If we could make money off of sending dumb emails with a question in it, I think we’d all quit our day jobs.
Well, It would be easy to verify, but let say they use It to confirm valid email adresses that are effectively in use? That can be resold with a premium to spammers. The simple fact to click the unique URL associated to your email address is enough to confirm your address. And if after you sign on, you are probably more naive and more likely to get caught by other scams or answer positively to some spams, especially if you give them some personnal informations. And using your own valid email can help them pass trough many spam filter.
LOL, the comments of “Codeucd19′ and a “Web Programmer” are either so naive or a FanBox plant. As a lawyer I feel compelled to reply (sounds familar yet?)
If you signed up for sms.ac and now your email address and/or your contacts are being used by a spin-off company or the same company for a purpose other than for what you signed, we called that misrepresentation — so would the FTC and they would like to see copies of such emails at spam@uce.gov
If you didn’t sign up for sms.ac, the received emails are probably a violation of the federal CAN-SPAM Act and similar state statutes.
So report the nice #$%@&!!’s to the FTC at spam@uce.gov Oh, and send a copy to “Web Programmer” above, as he doesn’t seem to mind receiving spam. While you are at it, copy Codeudc19 too
All spam is a scam — our time is our money — and not anyone else’s to steal. How do you think Google became one of the largest corporations in the world — it acquires and sells the free time of millions of individual users/suckers to view the ads of others.
For my transparency in bitching: These nice #$%@&!! at Fanbox have also been spamming me for about a week now. Yes, I once signed up for sms.ac — about three years ago. I soon realized they were getting paid by the carriers to spam my phone with txts and the carriers were charging me for each spam!! I got Verizon to refund me over $150 and cut the nice #$%@&!! off — had them blocked. I never gave sms.ac access to my contacts/addr book. I respect my friends too much to visit such a spam hell upon them. Neither would I send my friends an email from within an online periodical to share an interesting article - better to click the print hyperlink and cutNpaste the non-ad version into your email application or if you really want to be respectful of copyright, just send the damn link and hope the recipient opens it before the content is moved to archives.
Meanwhile, set your email filters to “Fanbox” equal trash - but only after you have sent at least one copy to the FTC database.
We received one asking a question from someone we used to know, so i did click on it, it came through my husbands account. Now I see that on his msn messenger beside his name it has http://www.fanbox.com then his hotmail email! What can I do about this?
Also received the same as above this morning.
thanks for sharing. I hate those annoying emails too. For now, just filter them out through spam settings. Those people have nothing to contribute to the soceity.
Yeah, you realise as soon as you open the site that it is dodgy. They just have that certain feel about them. A couple of months back I had the same thing with a site claiming that they could list the people that had deleted me from their msn list. I stupily typed in my password as it was the first time this had happened to me, and subsequently friends on my msn list were being sent invites to the site, allegedly from me. I changed my password theresfter of course. Now I am very cautious. They’re batards!
Anyway of fixing the msn instang messenger though so that the url isn’t there?
[...] Ive found only 2 people talking about this on the net Here and Here. Steve Riley suggest blocking the domains on your email black lists. [...]
I received a question today, Are you a passoinate person” some such rubbish, arrived in my hotmail junk folder. Reported as a phishing scam which I guess it isn’t quite, but seemed best category after having read all comments above. Thanks to all contributors.
I received several question mails from girls with sarcastic names from fan box; I have answered those questions (what a stupid boy I’m) but the problem is this.
If they stole my password would they delete some important answer of my email account? Also they have created a profile that I didn’t remember to create myself, they putted a nick name relationship with my fan video games and martial arts , it was something about Mr karate and also they made my profile with a picture of that fiction video game character that I have in my own computer, if I don’t remember to create that profile and appeared a pic that I have in my own computer it means that they have entered to my computer?? .
The most important is if they deleted important mails from my e -mail , I mean is there a any intention to delete the answer that you got on your mail? Or the reason is just stole your contact address account? without counting the death Spam to my friend hopefully none of them show up signs of angry for Spam mails.
It would be cool if anyone of you guys can help me to resolve this doubt. Thanks for you patience and time.
Cheers
PD: I change my grail password today hope that is going to be enough to rid out those bastard from my network
I never signed up for anything but did answer a question recently that I thought was from someone I knew. Ever since then, I am spammed several times daily with these damn “Question It” emails.
When you click on the link at the bottom that should allow you to unsubscribe, it starts trying to install the damn desktop.
HOW CAN I GET IT TO STOP???!!! HELP! I was STUPID and opened and answered the first email and it has become an undesirable growing cancer and it won’t stop. I even responded to the email telling them I would report them and it bounced back undeliverable.
It’s almost brilliant, isn’t it? I am so cautious about what I click on, but this came from a friend who has a gazillion memberships of social networking sites, and I was bored, so I thought I’d answer his question. I also wasn’t sure if it was a site that I could have joined ages ago on another occasion when I was bored. Anyway, I saw the desktop idea and thought ‘that’s quite a neat idea’. Only then they asked for my login details for my email account.
Obviously not a legitimate question - any site that ever asks for any other site’s password (Plaxo springs to mind, and a couple of other social networking sites) is clearly not entirely on the up and up.
So I clicked cancel, and then, probably stupidly, did not immediately close the window.
Lo and behold, ten seconds later, I have two new emails in my inbox from Fanbox. I have now consigned them to spam and reported them to google (for whatever good that may do), and I hope that I am not going to be bombarded.
I assume that, as I gave no personal information away and am using firefox, that should be the end of it.
Oh, I also emailed my friend and warned him that his name was being used in vain… Perhaps he’ll be a little more careful in the future too. I know I will!
How do you delete the account they set up for you on FanBox… it is absolutely crazy. I have requested several times to delete the account and nothing…. no response.
I received a question this morning from someone I do know except their email address had an extra number in it. The question was; “Would you go to jail for a cause you believe in”. I did not click the button because this really scared me. Reading all of the blogs it appears you all think this is spam and in reality this is a SCAM!
It appears this can also go internationally and if so you have just given Nigerians access to your email address book. They steal identities and pictures to use on professional dating sites. I should know, this week I found out I have been scammed and now I am being asked to keep ongoing communication. I am due to receive a package containing counterfiet money. Once they begin communication; they can shut down your computer to delete any information you may have on them.
I really do not believe in coincidence and knowing what I now know and have been through I believe this fanbox site can be used by Nigerian and Russian scammers to steal identities and photos.
I have reported my scam to the IC3 and the US Postal Service and will now report Fanbox to them too. Please be careful - they are good at what they do!!
Are there any web based desktops that are secure enough to use? I like the idea of Fanbox, but hate their execution, strategy, etc.
http://corp.fanbox.com/
this is their corporate website. go there for insight.
Yesterday I got a email from some guy fans@smsafriend.com saying that I registered with a username and password that I have never given to anyone. I have never registered for this service or heard of that site. I am worried about how they got the info.
I recieved an email yesterday, and knew better than to enter in any information. Today I when I checked my email again I had recieved another email. This one was not the QuesitonIt feature but rather a Friend Request. App. they took it upon themselves to open an account for me!!! Now it will not let me delete the account! Even worse when I went into my trash folder there was an email stating that the account had been opened. I never entered my password so I am not sure how that happened.
Michael Pousti is a crook and a liar…stay far away.
A silver lining!!! There must be some amount of justice in this ol’ world after all!
A week or so ago some chick on a dating website I belong to showed some interest in my profile. It was one of those “women” that sounded too good to be true - her profile pushed ALL my right buttons! I receive missives from these dream girls all the time! Dang, I must be some kinda hot to be so freakin’ popular!!!
I can smell them a mile away! (It ain’t that hard really…)
Her MO was pretty slick and convincing. I was bored and felt 3 things that day:
1) A certain sense of adventure
2) A certain amount of disgust at all these scammers
3) Curiosity - What do these scumbags really have to gain by scammin’ me in this fashion?
Put these 3 things together and I just had to finally see what thier game is.
I played “her” like a fiddle as she attempted to do the same. It was kinda fun actually! A battle of wits, a cat ‘n mouse kinda game.
As you might guess, after I professed undying love to “her” and made it clear to her that I must have “her” and I would quit looking for another woman, she asked me for my screen name and password to the dating site so “she” could verify my level of committment to “her”.
Being so immediately in love with “her”, I faithfully complied. I gave “her” my real screen name on this dating site. Which, of course, she already knew. Then I asked “her” if she was ready for my password and after a suspenseful pause I typed “f**k you”.
Here’s the funny part - “she” actually tried to log on with the info I had thus provided!!! OMG!!! Can you believe it?!!!
She hit me with another IM scolding me for my lack of cooperation and then poofed!
But here’s where justice comes into play…
Her screen name appeared in an e-mail today from fanbox, very similar to the ones previously described in this forum.
“She” is either associated with the whole fanbox scam or “she” fell victim to the scam herself. I would prefer to think it was the latter condition.
All I can say is that I hope this fanbox desktop application is every bit as nasty as this forum seems to think it is!!!
Yes, friends, there may be some justice in this ol’ world after all!
I keep getting these fanbox questions from people I do not know and at 71 years old I am not really interested. How do I get rid of them coming in.
[...] What I am wondering is, how on earth did they get hold of just my e-mail id ? Or have other people also been getting this ? Read more about this here. [...]
Cancel my fanbox i dont even want to see it .
Well, now I know what this is. I got the first email the other day “from” a friend of mine and before I knew it I was getting others. Now the stuff just won’t stop. ugh.
Thank you for posting this as I have never heard of anything of this sort.
CHALLENGE FOR COMPUTER WIZARDS:
Design a program with accessories that identifies all Facebook, Fanbox etc designers and
Puts their dangly bits (nipples and genitals) in a wringer. Wringer to be tightened every time one of these programs sends out a mesage.
Deducts $1000 from all current and future earnings of these same people to go to a worldwide charity each time a message is sent
Such incentives to cease only when they dismantle their programs and networks
Incentives to be instantly reinstated should they, even accidentally, come within 100 yards of any computer linked to the internet between now and the day they die.
Hi, folks. Boring old grownup here; prepare your sulky face and a hearty “harrumph”….
The Internet is a big fat red light district full of thieves, pickpockets, assorted scumbags and jerks. When you connect to it without sufficient filtering, you are no longer safely in mommy’s house, you’re in Times Square–BEFORE Giuliani cleaned it up.
Learn to protect yourself or don’t go there.
One of our employees who’s not computer literate (in fact has never used a computer) recieved an email from FanBox on our business email address. It looks like FanBox had somehow created an account with this person’s first and last names, birth date, city and country of residence and the name of her daughter. Seriously, wtf?? This blows my mind.
sms.ac = scam.
fanbox = scam.
the net used to be safe.
Ironic that rearringing the letters of sms.ac gives you scams.
Forgive Web Programmer; he’s an engineer. Enough said.
As an i.t. tech and web designer, I would just like to add my two cents. I have no knowledge of this site/company in its former incarnation; what I am concerned about, is that I apparently “signed up” for this crap by just clicking on the link in my email.
I clicked on the link to see what it was all about - I have protection on my computer and I didn’t intend to “sign in” into anything. As long as you don’t give them your password, you are 99% of the time (unless there is a virus-loader in the background) okay. Even though I provided no password or sign-in information, Fanbox saw fit to create a profile and account for me - with my email address’s user name and a bunch of numbers behind it. I then received an email about my “new account” and welcoming me to Fanbox (they already had my email address, obviously, from the YM user they culled it from).
I deactivated the account on their page - there is a place to do that, thankfully. We’ll see what happens now. I ran Spybot afterwards, just to be sure, and nothing was downloaded onto my system so it doesn’t seem to be that type of evil site; just one that sends out thousands of unwanted solicitations/spam and has to get members nefariously. Obviously not something I - or anyone with sense - would want to be a part of.
It seems to be fairly innocuous, but I would definitely warn people against signing up for it or using it. Though nothing was downloaded to my computer, the site used info from my email account/Yahoo! profile to generate my “profile” (it had my state, city, etc. listed on there). Any site that gathers information without your permission and/or joins you up without your desire to be so joined is *not* a legit or reputable website.
And I don’t think anyone here is “scared” or “afraid”, as Web Programmer so charmingly decries - there is wisdom in knowledge and awareness, especially in today’s online world where people are scammed or their identities stolen on a daily basis. In my line of work, I see it all the time and I thank Spamhuntress and everyone here that provided info for their time and effort. Knowledge is power…and the more people are aware of the dangers, however seemingly harmless, of the Internet, the better.
And one more thing, if “Web Programmer” honestly believes you *can’t* make money sending spam emails, he’s the one that needs to be welcomed to 2008! These scammers and spammers make millions - that’s why they keep doing it! Beware of scams and spams, people - always be dubious and always do some checking before signing up for anything. Better safe than sorry.
I found a way how to deactivate it (sorry if this is already posted…)
Anyways, when you recieve one of those Question It mails, on the bottom there is a miniature link in this sentence:
This email was sent by Katie Robinson while using the Question It application on FanBox. Go here to learn more or stop receiving emails from friends using Question It. FanBox: 255 G Street #723, San Diego, CA 92101, USA
When u click on here in the sentence it leads you to the page where you can deactivate all those emails (i sure hopes it works!)
After that, you can deactivate the account by choosing Account status
I chose other and wrote that i Hate them (LoL)
Then clicked on Deactivate my account
i really, really hope it works!!
I hope i helped a bit
If you are using Outlook there is an excellent feature which allows you to delete mail from the server so that it will never be downloaded into your inbox - and maybe not even get to your ISP inbox - not sure about that one but most people don’t check their mail through their ISP anyway.
Click on message drop down and go into create rule from message - it will automatically pick up Where the from line contains people, then on the next drop down menu select delete from the server.
I tried cancelling my fanbox account twice now and it still doesnt’ work!!!
I have been spammed by fanbox for a couple of weeks now and I am getting extremely annoyed. It started with an email seemingly from my friend to answer a question. I clicked on the link despite the fact that I hate those social sites and also are wary of those them (but I didn’t want to offend my friend and clicked it against my better judgment) and now I can’t get Fanbox away from my email inbox. I tried cancelling my account twice now from their website and apparently it doesn’t work - I still have an fanbox accout and am still receiving their emails… I reported spam and I still see them in my inbox. I am going to forward them to spam@uce.gov. (Thanks for those who pointed out that email address!)
As for what Cody says, he’s totally wrong. I did not give them my password. ALL I did was click on the link to answer my friend’s question and i looked around the website, perhaps a couple of clicks to briefly get the gist of the site (which looked so suspicious to me). The spams started to flood in. I am not sure exactly which step started the spamming but I certainly did not knowingly nor willingly sign up for an account - they most definitely did not have my consent to create anything using my email address.
What makes me mad now is they won’t even cancel my account. My email address has my real name on it and I have been protecting this email account from phishing sites and spammers… and this is the worst I’ve seen.
Yeah, i’ve been getting a lot of those too. But all i can get up to is where its preparing something. It seems to take a long time too.
I find these very annoying.
So, is this something that Windows live should be concerned about?
Marked as SPAM. This is a total SCAM!
I got a message this morning for the first time from someone requesting to add me as a “fan”, whatever that means. So I clicked on the link that was in the email and was surprised to find that a profile had been created and my photo there in the profile! I did some looking around my profile, that I had not created and found that I have supposedly been a member for several months and had 45 new emails in my inbox! I can not get through to this company to find out if my account can be closed and how the HELL my photo got there in the first place! No luck yet.
Ditto.. I got a message to my Yahoo email, allegedly a question from a woman I spoke to in an internet chatroom, so I clicked on the question..
I now had a Fanbox profile, and keep getting “fan requests” to my Yahoo account..
I’ve tried to delete it -it won’t delete -and emails to “contact us” at Fanbox just don’t go through..
Authorities in the country where Fanbox lives should act on these assholes..
wasup everyone in the fanbox.i am a new member and i dont know what the fanbox is all about.may somebody help me.
The fundamental issue is that they try to get your email password (Yahoo in my case) - now why would they want that? The only reason is because they have a use for it - and that ‘use’ will be a gross invasion of your personal privacy. Right now this behaviour lies somewhere between ‘unethical’ and illegal’.
When I didn’t give the password they still tried to sign me up.
I got a Fanbox invitation and it seemed like a nifty app, but the fact that I was getting a random invite seemed suspicious, so I searched for “fanbox” and the second result (after the actual site) was this one, so thanks for letting me know.
People who do crap like this Fanbox thing should be shot.
[...] a lot lately. Keep the emails coming, I’ll keep posting. No Comments Leave a Commenttrackback addressThere was an error with your comment, please try again. name (required)email (will not be published)(required)url [...]
I’ve posted several blogs about fanbox SPAM already.
Couple of things:
Codeucd19 is a seeder. I even wrote a blog about seeders like this!
Web Programmer is a seeder as well
And all this nonsense about the Virtual Desktop being available only to people with accounts… Enjoy my comical ready about SPAMbox admitting to being a SPAMMER and a Phisher on their own website LOL
http://jaredude.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/fanbox-admits-to-being-a-spammer-and-phisher/
P.S. Glad to see the Spam Huntress back up!
I just got snared by these @#$#@ers. I got an email from my girlfriend (it was her handle, followed by a date) asking me to answer a question. I let me guard down for a moment, clicked the link and answered the question “No” and closed the window. The next thing I know I get an email welcoming me to FanBox! Haha unbelievable. What $%^holes.
They have to be breaking a law, don’t they?
I found a way to deactive the fanbox. you have to :
1) go into account.
2) click on edit personal account
3) click on deactivate account
4)click the reason and (if you want to) leave a comment
5) click deactivate again.
[...] Previously, Fanbox went by another name: SMS.ac. This company was in the business of cross genus SPAM. Utilize text message goodies to help generate large amounts of SPAM to your Inbox. Great scheme, but it looks like it didn’t quite pan out for them, so along comes Fanbox. Or, perhaps it was so successful for them that they wanted to pursue more methods of generating SPAM. [...]
I joined this site a couple months ago. I have had NO problems with it.
There might be some spam to put up with, but the irony is that it has
drawn so many people from all over the world that THERE ARE SO MANY
“REAL” PEOPLE ON THE SITE. Yes they have the bots of the “dream girls”
(and guys) who send messages to entice you to stay…but thats just marketing 101. I do not work for fan box, have no idea who they are..
but I can tell you that from all the other social/dating sites out there,
this one has the most “real” people. I have been on the internet for about
for about 15 years. I know all the scams…i know how they operate.
Love the mostly nigerian and asian schemes where their sweet young
and very sexy girls need your money to get out of some sort of captivity.
And in turn they tell you how they would “do whatever you want”..age
old scam. That said, i have made friends with a lot a real girls from
this site…talked to on the phone..and never got an email from anyone I
didnt know..or invite. If you keep you virus programs up to date..and
your firewall intact…use and update your spyware programs..You will
never have a problem…I haven’t in 15 years. (another hint for all you
“internet whores” out there…..dont add 300 people to you buddy list!)
hmm, i just got an email from them, i use hotmail and they are great with catching spam emails. but for some reason this one got through to my regular inbox, when i opened it it said that it might be a scam..so then i googled the address it says it was from. very strange..i don’t even know any one named Felix?? just glad there were warnings about these guys on the net before i fell for it =D
fan box is a huge pain. i have a million people thinking i am asking them questions TO FIX — as in delete account… do the following.
when you receive an email from a “fan” or whatever, at the foot of the email will be the following:
You can change the frequency of this type of notification. Visit our Terms of Service or Privacy Policy.
FanBox - 255 G Street #723, San Diego, CA 92101, USA
click on “change” (underlined in blue) an a box comes up with what you want to change. at the foot of this box is an option to totally delete fanbox account.
• 1 week ago
• Report It
Asker’s Rating:
Asker’s Comment:
This was the best news that I have received today. I wonder if any others find this FanBox a nuisance as I do?
what i did was leave one question from an actual friend and it worked. I also deleted most of my yahoo adress book. This is a nasty one lol poceed ith caution
I just flag them as spam when they come into my mailbox. It’s cut down on 95% of the fanbox “invites” that I get.
I just went through a big deal with FanBox. A friend sent me a question, dummy me clicked on it, and the damned thing ate my computer. Every time I tried to “end task” it morphed itself into another one. OMG.
Here’s the company’s contact information: Fuk the bastards, call them again and again until they want to kill themselves.
http://corp.sms.ac/contactus.php
John is a cluster F*. What a total line of crap! Dude, you are obviously a SPAMployee of that craphole company.
Katrina>
RE: getting through to Hotmail boxes
They have people dedicated to email campaigns and test delivery to Hotmail and Yahoo boxes daily
RE: Don’t know anyone named ‘Felix’
There are algorithms that randomly choose a ‘From’ user and a fake comment and post it on your profile, or add you as a friend, all to simulate user-generated activity. A lot of these will go to peoples’ phones as well for messaging charges. Seems like fraud. Phone companies won’t do anything either because it’s adding to their bottom line.
To talk to a live person, you can give them a call at +1 (619) 696-1300 or visit them at 741 F Street in downtown San Diego.
Here is another twist to fanbox.
When you try to close their window after answering no to one of their questions they attack you PC. They put up about 100 fanbox windows all at once.
Talk about sick!
They should be able to be closed down for doing that I would think. That has to be illegal.
Maybe someone could explain why they aren’t closed down for doing that.
Real simple.
You are on your webmail app and you click the link from the email that says “such and such person has asked you a question” and you go to some website to answer that question. You never entered a password, you never even typed in your email address. But you DID click the link, which in their system, will create some fake account that is attached to your email address. They DO have your email address because you DID click the link from inside your email. Even if you never go to their homepage website, they WILL send you spam emails constantly since they have your email address.
This fake account they have created will ALWAYS contain the prefix from your originating email. abcdefg@yahoo.com will create an account in their system as ABCDEFG12345@fanbox.com. It will take the prefix from your email and throw a bunch of numbers on the end. This is the Account name. The account ID will only be the prefix, it will show up as your username being simply “abcdefg” without any numbers and without any @emailaddress.com. Account name and User ID. Account name is how one would theoretically log in to a website, User ID is what other users will see you as.
If you are person A who has never gone to their main homepage website, you will never need to worry about them getting your password, they will never have access to the inside of your webmail account and address book, they will only have your email address name. They will send you tons of spam, but they can’t send any spam to your contact list.
If you are person B, things become more sketchy as how they work. If you have cleared your history in whatever web browser you use and try to go to the main homepage of this website, you will not be there under any username, it will create a generic username with a generic number, same kind of system that is a click counter. It just gives you a generic temp username that will be assigned to your web session until you clear your history and temp folder again. If you do this, from a fresh start, they will have a “log in” window and a “create account” window. If you create an account using your any email address as your user name, this website will gladly save any passwords you type in. If you are a very dumb person, you will use the same password as your webmail password. The system is designed to attempt to log in to email accounts given when you create your fanbox account using whatever password you entered. If you create a different password, they will never gain access to your webmail account, never gain access to your contact list. If you use their system to browse around and give both your REAL webmail address and REAL webmail password, that instance will green light with their automated system and all the people in your contact list will now get spammed. No matter what password you use, their servers are designed to attempt to use ALL passwords recorded in their browsers on the REAL webmail sites. If they succeed, the system green lights. If they don’t succeed, the system red lights and your contact list will never be in danger. Keep in mind, though, that every time you type in a password thru their browser, it will likely be attempting to use that password with any attached REAL webmail accounts. This whole situation will be called person B1.
Person B2 will be in a similar situation, yet different. Person B2 has already clicked buttons, giving the REAL webmail address to the system creating lots of spam to only you, same as person B1 and person A. But person B2 has not cleared out the history in his browser window since clicking that button from their email account. Person B2 goes to the fanbox homepage and is somehow magically signed in already to their fanbox account, even though they never entered any information and password. And this is where you really need to remember - as soon as you clicked that button from your webmail browser to answer that question, 2 things have happened. 1-your address has been added to their spam list and 2-a fake account has been created with your email address prefix. If you are in your webmail email looking at your messages and have never cleared your browser history or cookies, your browser will remember that you clicked this button before. If you go to the fanbox webpage, it will look for these cookies, and upon finding the required information, it will automatically log you in to the REAL FANBOX ACCOUNT that is attached to your webmail email address. Now yes, it is a fake account in the sense that you yourself have never created it, but I am saying it’s real because it is the ONE account that has your current webmail address attached to it. If you are able to deactivate this fanbox account, you will likely be able to stop the spam unless somebody else has you on their contact spam list. Wether or not you can really deactivate and cancel this account, I do not know for sure, but I can guarantee you that THIS is the account you need to focus on turning off. The person in B1 is not logged in to this account, they have created an account from scratch with their own unique and manual password. The reason why I am making this distinction is because we want to figure out how to stop the spam, and that means we need to access the fanbox account that has your email address attached to it. And being that the fanbox server browser has created that account the moment you clicked the button, you will potentially have no idea what your password is. The fanbox server browser has assigned a generic password to your fanbox account and you probably don’t have any way of retrieving it unless you can find a “forgot password” link somewhere. We need to be able to log in to THIS account so we can stop the spams coming to your inbox.
My personal experience has been this:
I clicked the button for the question answer. They logged my email address and created an account with this email address using a generic password. I later paid it no mind and went thru my usual process of closing my browser session and clearing the history and temp files and cookies.
I later came back and saw spam in my inbox, so I went to their fanbox homepage. I was not automatically logged in to the account name that all the spam was saying to me in my email. I was given the option to manually log in or to create a new account. As a sidenote, as a general rule of thumb, any time I open a webpage and it “automatically” maximizes my browser window by stretching the sides across my whole screen, I know it is bad news and I need to avoid it. Spam pages love to do that because it’s like throwing a 50 foot billboard right in front of your face, they design the website to do it automatically. Fanbox is this exact kind of webpage, it stretches the page to your full resolution. For me, the moment I went to this fanbox homepage and it stretched my browser window, I knew it meant business and it was imperative that I get it shut off ASAP. But my first visit to their site did not automatically log me in, but rather asked me to do so manually. I can’t do this with the account they automatically created when I clicked that button a few days ago, because they gave me a generic password and I don’t know that password. And Like I said for person B2, it is THIS account that I need access to, THIS account that I need to deactivate.
I was able to get access completely by accident. I went back to my webmail account and pulled out the original “such and such has asked you a question” email and clicked the link on the bottom of that email where it says
[This email was sent by 'abcdefg12345' while using the Question It application by Curiosity Solutions. Go HERE to learn more or stop receiving emails from friends using Question It. 255 G Street #723, San Diego, CA 92101, USA]
I clicked that go here link and was brought to a page that says something along the lines of “Control emails you receive from anyone on the Fanbox platform” I tried to click the “NEVER” button and the “SAVE” but it would not allow me to click never, I am sure that was intentional. Nevertheless, I did still click Save. In so doing, I believe this automatically logged me back in to my account on the Fanbox homepage, with the account attached to this webmail address, because when I went back to the website again, it told me that I was logged in. I can only surmise it was because I went to that “QUESTION IT” link and clicked save. Once I was inside the actual Fanbox account that I needed, it was a simple matter of clicking “Privacy” on the top of the menu page and finding my way from there. Wether or not it actually works deactivating it like I did, I do not know, it gives a message that there is a 24 hour processing period before it is finalized.
Anyway, I hope all of this is informative to you and helps you to understand what happens when you have clicked the button, versus what happens when you manually type in a password, versus trying to get logged in to the actual fanbox account attached to your webmail email address which is causing all your spam.
i love to use fanboxand i got invitations also,but in dubai that site is blogged.pls help me to chat with my loveable friends,pls.
I got caught recently with that Fanbox crap. i was actually emailed by a someone i knew with the same email address and dummy me answered the question, shortly i received an email welcoming me to fanbox. but, i never gave them my password..wooo I then emailed my friend askin if they sent it, they replied no clue.
So that same day i got another email from a melissa saying she wants to be my fan, on the bottom of the screen i clicked change, i went thru the steps hopin it was resolved. But 3-4 days later which today I received another fan. So went into it, with disbelief they had a whole page. I again(about 5x) tried to remove myself, fanbox said it’ll take 24hrs. I then started doin research and found you guys.
The best advice i got from Jenn on April 14, this one seem to wrk, cause after the steps the whole pge seem to disappear. Soo lets see what happens. i also spamed it n my filters and changed my password just in case.
I haven’t seen any discussion about how this thing puts REAL friends on the your friends (the one you get the original email from) “fanlist”. My friend had 5 ‘fans’ already listed by the time I answered the questions and visited their profile page. Where is it getting our usernames from? The persons IM or Email contact list?
[...] Fanbox is the rebranded sms.ac but I would like to adopt gadgetpanel.com’s description of fanbox, “Fanbox is SPAM. They will phish your password and SPAM your friends.” Take note of the word phishing. [...]
i have fanbox it is about 2 days i cant sign in in fan box i dont know why if is posible pls solve my problem thanks
O! i had many troubles 2 find zs. Can u pls make it clear 2 find.And even though i find it it is so diffcult to sing in And at last i got in and i read all the fans it was cool but bfore i new it I was retired so pls get me back.
OMG! Jenn! I love you. I did exactly what you said and it worked.
I’ve never heard of fanbox before, but today came an email from my wife’s neice in the Philippines (we live in AZ) saying that she had signed us up with a spambox email address (our site@fanbox.com). Her email referred to “FanBox, the world’s first spamfree email.” What should I do about this email address? Ignore it? Figure out a way to get rid if it? Go ahead and try it? Help!
Irish
Sorry for the typo. I meant to say she signed us up (it was without our permission) with a FANbox (not spambox) email address. That was evidently a Freudian slip demonstrating my scepticism about the whole thing. Hope to still get a response or responses to my question of what to do. Thanks.
Irish
thankyou for this site!
i have a question, i got the spam and googled Fanbox. I dont remember opening an email with the link that will phish your stuff, but after i googled the name i clicked on the website link. (fanbox.com only)
I want to know if this can affect anything in any way?
can they still get my password and such even though i didnt click the email link?
and also, how do you know youve been ”infected” with the spam (besides maybe finding out that people in my contact list are getting spammed?)
thankyou again!
The solution to receiving those fanbox emails is simple, just add the word “fanbox” to your email word filter (or block them any other way your mail filter allows).
I can’t believe that so many people still get scammed these days.
The first rule of email security is NEVER click on a link in an email.
To Joel .
Thanks you!
I too have been a victim of Fanbox and its truck load of spam. But I used a an account that I don’t use that often when I clicked on the answer a friends question link. It did come from someone I with whom I was acquainted, so it appeared legit. For grins I do log in on occasion, just to see how many 20 something hot women want to be my loyal fan. The latest spam scam is these people send out broadcast messages saying they are bored, lonely, horny, whatever, and want to “chat” via YIM. Ok, let’s give it a shot. Turns out they want to perform on cam for you. All you have to do is log into some other site, provide your credit card number and you can “see” them perform.
SOOOOO glad i googled “Fanbox” before i went threw with adding the application (which havent added)
thought it was a lil suspicious that she didnt have any idea what i was on about when i asked her, then thought it was even stranger that couldnt do ANYTHING with out giving my mobile number out, which dont like to do to computer programes anyway,
thank you to everyone on here! i might have secomb and been stupid enough to add this program if hadnt been for everyone elses previous experiences, just set as junk mail now.
oh thank you all for the comments!
now, I know what to do, I hope,it will work.
these spams are the horror,
especially when you get annoying mails like” tell …. how you really feel”
or “…wants to kiss you”
and in fact, they’re talking about your real boyfriend you just broke up with two weeks ago…I don’t know how they do it, but even I know it’s just a stupid spam,
it f*** hurts!
so,thanks a lot for the information, and maybe one day some justice will kick the ass of those persons created that thing!
good luck for everybody to stop these spams
I would like to add a comment about FanBox I see so many people having trouble with the site as well I have too. I have tried to cancel my account and couldn’t . What is more alarming to me then anything else, is the fact that no one has done anything to them for doing this. It has been said they were doing it before and changed there name and are doing it again and I see that alot of people including myself have reported them, but they are still doing this over and over everyday to people. My question is WHY??? Why are they still letting them do this, I wish that you people would start asking that same question, the longer they let them keep doing it they are. Shut there asses down and say good riddins to them for good, The company heads need to be arrested, especially if they have done this before like they say. So instead of everyone writing blogs about the company why not do something more productive and get rid of them. Just my thoughts, but please keep informing people to steer clear of these creeps.
Two things… Firstly, someone should post an article on Wikipedia about these mfs… and two, I don’t want to encourage violence, but someone should find out where they are located and pay them a visit…
1. ‘I clicked it”…call em instead
2. noscript addon for firefox..alot of people have a hand in every webpage
3. turn email headers to full…my ie: Received:from 208.69.101.180 (EHLO smtp180.sms.ac)
4. browser status bar on..always make sure the link matches the text ur clicking on.
maybe some of u computer ppl can tellme if turning off windows script service helps..if u dont use scripts.
like Minsky Says..add fanbox to your email filter..if u havent clicked
any info=money
[...] Today, 12:49 AM Found this on Google. http://cantalktech.com/2008/05/30/ho…g-fanbox-spam/ Lots of complaints about it here: Spamhuntress » Blog Archive » sms.ac turns into fanbox If you get more spam from them forward it to . I think reunion.com has a similar scam going. I’ve received spam from them several times. It acts kinda like a worm that takes all your contacts and sends emails to them without your permission. Report spam text messages and cell phone harassment. Got questions? Get answers here - BlackBerryFAQ [...]
Can someone please tell me how to delete myself from Fanbox…II call the number posted and it says the mailbox is full and cannot receive new messages. The email address they give comes back as undeliverable. I receive 20-30 requests from people wanting to “be my fan” a day. They’re all cam whores trying to get you to sign up for there site!!!! Is there someone we could write and complain to?????
ok so im on fanbox and all the apps ask for a mobile phone number. i have unlimited texts but are there other things to pay and should my boyfriend and i delete our accounts off there. as i said b4 i have unlimited texts but i dont want a huge bill from other charges y do they do a number. and all the emails are the worst things possible.
Desi:
Unlimited texts won’t help you. You’d be paying fanbox to send you those texts. So with unlimited texts you won’t be paying twice for the texts, but you WILL pay.
same here i keep gettng e-mails from it from people ive never even heard of and its starting to bug me last week i got 47 from them HELP ME!!!!
hey i tried to delete fanbox after i went to google.com and checked out what it really was i thought like the rest it was something like face book or my space guess i was wrong
tripped over your blog whilst trying to find some dirt on fanbopx myself (see my post of today about them).
Gave you e mantion and a link. Keep up the good work, someone has to bring these cretins to book. KP
I WANT OUT OF THIS STUPIDEST THING THAT I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED AND IF I CANT FIND A WAY IF HAVE A FRIEND IN THE FBI WHO DEALS WITH THIS AND WILL GET HIM ONTO IT…MY EM ADD…rbyn_ck@yahoo.com, get off my f…….g back ..got it moron
yes a reply to myself as it seems Im not going to get one from anyone else…..how many brains do these people have who think these things up…complete and utter morons…GET YOURSELF A LIFE RETARD
To Robyn: You wait two minutes, then decide no one is going to reply? You’re a moron.
And to most of the rest of you, to you see a common thread here. Most of you clowns profess to ‘know better’ but go ahead and click the link anyway!!!! Freakin’ morons, you deserve to get your machine infected and totaled because of your stupidity. And then you come here (and other places) and whine about it. But you bozo’s will still click on the next scam, too. Freakin’ losers!!!
i was sent one of those you have been tagged and i clicked on to see what it was and i have been sent a message of 4 .99 for subscription and i tried to replie stop but was returned undeliverable what can i do to get rid of them
I need a lot of help, how in the helll can I get this fan box spam thing off my computer ! I cant seem to find anything to delete it.. I am sick of this coming on everytime I check my email and it has added all of my contacts to it.. Any help would glady be appreciated..
Joe
Codeucd19 Says:
January 4th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Hey Guys,
“You actually have to give them access to your email account while signing up….”
————————————————————————————
Of course you do pal, while you’re at it you might as well hand over your Bank Details, Sortcode, DOB, address and any other personal details.
You complete a$$, go and jump off a bridge you scumbag.
“I am from San Diego and know the Company and its technology”
Of course you do, you’re probably on the payroll, you fcukwit. Again, go and jump off a bridge, this time head first with hands cuffed behind your back.
People should never give anyone you don’t know or trust access to your webmail passwords/accounts, or any other personal details. EVER.
DELETE ALL MESSAGES FROM THIS PAIN IN THE AR$E SPAM SCAM.
Hmmmm well I am not sure who these people are but I received an email saying I had a note from love letters or something like that. I never click links through my email…however I searched for the site with my browser. I found it the first thing you notice is how good the site looks and so I tried the button that lets you in without having to sign in. I was presented with a page full of peoples pictures. I clicked on one and the and the virtual desktop opens, however my hard drive was going crazy at this point and I decided to close down my browser. I did a check on the site to see its worth cash at http://www.yourwebsitevalue.com and by the way your site is worth $9,063 but could be worth $18,318. Fanbox is worth $26,322 but could be worth $86,549 which means they get a lot of visitors but as the report at yourwebsitevalue.com says I quote “It seems that this website has a lot of traffic, but not alot of web recognition. This probably means that it get a lot of direct traffic (bookmarks). This can be good. It may also indicate that all traffic is paid for. In such a case, we would estimate this website real worth to be no more than $26,322″. I am not sure how long this site has been operating but going of the stats they are getting a hell of a lot of hits. Not sure what these people are up to?
I just got an email from a friend with a “KISS” from Fanbox. I had never heard of this company. Consumer Product
support@corp.fanbox.com
Careers
hc@corp.fanbox.com
Business Development & Carrier Relations
partnerships@corp.fanbox.com
Investor Relations
investors@corp.fanbox.com
Press & Media Inquiries
media@corp.fanbox.com
Phone: (619) 788-1398
Fax: (619) 923-9993
Our AddressMailing Address:
255 G. Street, Suite 723
San Diego, CA 92101
United States
Click to View Map
This is the listed contact info for Fanbox. I called the number and got a recorded message with no way to contact a real human being. Left an angry message. My friend had 1242 KISSES sent out from her Fanbox account without her permission. That’s THOUSANDS of emails, all at once. I cancelled the account Fanbox had made for me from her email address they had for me, changed the email address itself (!) and forwarded the info the the FTC. Fanbox, your days are numbered. This is an official notice to you that I will find your liable for $100 for each email I recieve because you broke into an email box that you did not have permission to enter. This is your final notice.
Matthew
Sacramento, CA
Umm Matthew, they send out e-mails in your name IF you provide them with the password to your webmail account (yahoo, hotmail, gmail). I haven’t heard of cases where they send out e-mails if you don’t give them your password. But if you do, all bets are off. The answer is to NOT give them your password.
I got an email a little different from the ones mentioned here, mine said “a name of some one I know” has sent you some love, click link to get you love. I opened it thinking it was some kind of cheesey e-card and it asked for my webmail password then when I clicked the close window X (inside there page that looks like a desktop) it insisted on my mobile number, then I closed the whole tab. Now I’m getting spammed by them every day. This is just another example of aggressive marketing/pyramid scheme dancing on the edge of legality. Their corporate web site is down right creepy all smiley and stuff, claiming to be super popular and growing like myspace or facebook (really it’s all sleeze, it’s like the phone company convincing millions of people to post there family pics in the phone book to encourage people to dial up strangers).
If I understand right I have nothing to worry about but a few spamails but what about my friend who apparently did give her password, is changing her password enough of are there other considerations?
Hello all of you.
I started recently receiving messages from FanBox that a friend of mine had posted me a prayer - click on the link to read it. After a few times’ laying off, I decided to check it out. A login screen asked for my e-mail details and pw!
Of course I didn’t want to grant them access neither to my correspondence, spamming-adresses to my dear friends, or the authentication to actually impersonate me on the web!!!
So I started clicking elsewhere, and actually managed to enter the site without giving up info.
It looked very promising.
A web based virtual desktop. Why not?
BECAUSE THEY WILL STEAL YOUR ONLINE IDENTITY!!!
A little prying around revealed that FanBox knows 2 of my
friends’ names, and that there never actually were any message
waiting for me. So it must be a hoax. Considering the discussion here on the web, the potential damage is quite severe, and somebody ought to alert the Echelon.
But maybe those are too busy, doing exactly the same thing??
Seasons greetings and a Happy New Year 2 all.
David
When I start a blank tab in Firefox and enter the address fanbox.com, firefox tells me that it has prevented the page from redirecting to another page, and I end up with a blank page.
Experience tells me to just close the tab and go browsing elsewhere.
Question is, how can my cousin get rid of this now that it has it’s meat hooks in him?
Someone asked if there are any internet desktops that are NOT shady like this one. Answer is yes.
SUN Microsystems, a big corp that been around for decades, supports a free desktop that looks like linix. I don’t work for these people but have been using this desktop on and off for a couple years with no issues like this at all.
http://desktoptwo.com/
I first heard about these jerks when my BF sent me a kiss. He’s a romantic kind of guy, sounds like something he would do. So I click on the link in email and suddenly this desktop application is asking for passwords. Umm, no. I looked at the email in more detail and saw that it said lots of women had sent him kisses and money. I KNOW he is faithful because we are not apart long enough for him not to be.
We did some research and found the SMS.AC info on file with the California Secretary of State:
SMS.AC, INC.
Number: C2283454 Date Filed: 6/26/2001 Status: active
Jurisdiction: California
Address
741 F STREET
SAN DIEGO, CA 92101
Agent for Service of Process
CATALINA VALENCIA
Lo and behold — little Cathy is also corporate counsel — busy girl! — and here is her info per the CA Bar Assn:
Bar Number 75156
Address Catalina Valencia, A Professional Corp
3115 Xenophon St
San Diego, CA, 92106
Phone Number (619) 206-7022
Fax Number (619) 255-1514
Supposedly the VP is one Brianne Pederson, bpederson@corp.sms.ac
Believe me, these addresses are going into my spambot magnet (posts spammer emails on my web site so the bots will pick them up and spam them. Ain’t karma a bitch? LOL)
hi i dont give my website
I got FanBox spam emails also. The email claims to be one of my friend send me a Prayer, and I opened it, luckily I was suspicious enough when they asked my email address and password and I did not enter it.
They kept spamming me daily even after I marked their messages as spam in Yahoo Mail. They have different variant, “Prayers” “Kisses” “Loyan Fan” etc.
DO NOT OPEN IT!
If you used Yahoo Mail, you can probably add filter, it helps eliminating the spam emails I received from Fanbox. You can go to HELP ->Edit My Accounts, then you have to sign in, then go to Options (on bottom right corner)-> Filters, click on Add, and fill all 4 boxes with fanbox, and choose move Message to Trash folder.
Hope that helps.
I have to admit, it is all a hoax to farm your email addresses and passwords. If you would like to stop getting spammed - tough. Also, please click the “unsubscribe” link in your received email, so we know that we have your active email. It will not, however, unsubscribe you from the “services”
See how easy it is?
I have to say that the closer to the bottom these comments go the crappier they get, mostly because they seem to be sent by fanbox people (it might be just my paranoia). Would be interesting to see IP addresses of comments.
I wouldn’t recommend clicking unsubscribe, as with scams like that, they tend to use the “unsubscribe” link to actually subscribe you to their spam. Some people seem to claim that that is a solution, but i see that a lot more have complained they still receive spam (and i guess it might have gotten worse as well).
Trick is: the moment you click any link - even unsubscribe - you confirm that that email is your active email (that you check it at least from time to time). BAM - hooked.
I received an email from a friend who was sending me karma (or something like that) through that site. I have NOT clicked any links in the email, i have however googled the name fanbox up. This was one of the sites that popped up, fortunately enough.
I have gone to their homepage and tried to browse around. I have not signed for anything and i have not given them any information. I still am getting spammed by fanbox. So my guess is that they target everyone on the contacts list of the person who signs up. I do not think they go through your cookies, as the only address that is being attacked is the one that my contact knows, so my guess is that they go through a person’s email address and search for contacts.
My guess on how to solve this:
-If you have provided them with your details, run an antivirus and an antispyware software. Noone seems to have complained about malware yet, so my guess is they don’t do that, but you can never be too safe. After that, change the password of your email account.
-If you’re getting spammed, i say just list the emails as spam and they should be filtered out. Also, report the spam.
http://www.spamfo.co.uk/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,20/Itemid,2/
http://www.spamcop.net/
Eventually they should be sent to jail and/or fined for service/abuse they provide.
A little note at the end to everyone who is wandering how spammers are getting money and how much.
A university (forgot which one) did a spam research. They “zombied” a couple of computers and started sending spam advertising “cheap medz” or something like that. After a couple of months they had a potential earning rate of about $1000/month from people eager to buy that stuff
I have found the solution to FanBox, SMS.AC (even Verizon, RoadRunner and others ISPs) spam:
Block all IP ranges of all these providers.
Why ?
1. Me, my company and customers have no interest in getting or sennding emails from them.
2. Even if they are notified, they don’t take any action.
3. Getting tired and frustrated to fight in vain.
4. I’ve understood their idea of making money with all costs.
5. I found right to apply a radical solution which cannot be ignored:
Solution in three (2) steps
and five (5) minutes of your time:
1. take the sender ip address from one of the spam messages header and make a Whois query (on web or using terminal command - Unix based OS).
2. The query will return one of their range ip address which you can take it and set your email server (any product) to reject the messages from that range.
Have Fun without JunkMailBoxes!
take the value of netrange bellow:
OrgName: SMS.ac, Inc.
OrgID: SMSAC
Address: 255 G Street #723
City: San Diego
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 92101
Country: US
NetRange: 208.69.96.0 - 208.69.103.255
CIDR: 208.69.96.0/21
NetName: SMS-ELS1
NetHandle: NET-208-69-96-0-1
Parent: NET-208-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: NS1.P27.DYNECT.NET
NameServer: NS2.P27.DYNECT.NET
Comment:
RegDate: 2006-08-08
Updated: 2008-09-10
OrgTechHandle: TECHN424-ARIN
OrgTechName: Technical Staff
OrgTechPhone: +1-619-696-1300
OrgTechEmail: siteadmin@corp.fanbox.com
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2009-02-07 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.
I get spammed by Fanbox emails.
I did nothing. Nothing at all. A friend ‘joined’ fanbox and put my email address in it somehow.
I will not go to their webpage under any conditions. Not to ‘unsubscribe’ or anything else. that’d be like jumping into a pit of vipers.
The best way to deal with it right now (until something really good comes up) would be to Filter all email with ‘fanbox’ in the subject and destroy it. Anything that comes through keeps reporting as ’spam’.
Use Yahoo or someone equally good, eventually they’ll come down on fanbox and flag ‘em as spam and it’ll be all over.
If you can get an email address for any employees or officers of the company, forward any emails you get back to them, make up a standard ‘complaint’ letter and send it to them on a daily basis, forward copies to an govt or internet anti-spam, anti-scam outfit.
that’s what I’m attempting to do.
and note, it was my dillbrain friend looking for love in all the wrong places that brought this down on me. don’t be like him.
ab
I just got an email from FanBox claiming that someone I know just sent me Virtual Money. Given what I know about this person, I doubt that she could afford to send me money any more than I could afford to send her any. I’m sending her an email to let her know that her computer may have been compromised.