Porn MegaBucks says I'm a fraud

[Lisa]

We don't need fraudulent webmasters. Take a look at those screenshots and ask yourself what your reaction would have been.

Remember we are a recurring program...we make money when webmasters make money. We gained nothing from those fraudulent sales, they were all refunded. This is not a case of accusing a webmaster of fraud so we can keep the money generated by the signups...there is none.

Again this was not a personal attack on Sheepguy...I had no idea who the webmaster was/is...and don't care. The sales were fraudulent, and clearly not genuine...so they were refunded and the webmaster axed.

If Paycom comes back to me with an explanation that proves it's not fraud as I've said I'll apologise unreservedly and also notify CCBill.

It was not my intention to harm anyone's reputation for the fun of it. I didn't bring this to the boards.

[Maj. Stress]

Originally Posted by Lisa

We don't need fraudulent webmasters. Take a look at those screenshots and ask yourself what your reaction would have been.

5 credit cards, one ip (located in the US) and 5 different emails 3 of which point to France. My first guess would be someone was testing out some stolen credit card numbers.

[Bobc01]

Originally Posted by Lisa

We don't need fraudulent webmasters. Take a look at those screenshots and ask yourself what your reaction would have been.

Remember we are a recurring program...we make money when webmasters make money. We gained nothing from those fraudulent sales, they were all refunded. This is not a case of accusing a webmaster of fraud so we can keep the money generated by the signups...there is none.

Again this was not a personal attack on Sheepguy...I had no idea who the webmaster was/is...and don't care. The sales were fraudulent, and clearly not genuine...so they were refunded and the webmaster axed.

If Paycom comes back to me with an explanation that proves it's not fraud as I've said I'll apologise unreservedly and also notify CCBill.

It was not my intention to harm anyone's reputation for the fun of it. I didn't bring this to the boards.

In that case my reaction would of been to contact the webmaster first off to discuss the issue and go from there along with an investigation straight away with the billing company.

You've treated the guy like shit as if he's some kind of criminal without firm evidence it was him.

To me that has "unprofessional" written all over it.

[SheepGuy]

Lisa, how do you define a personal attack?
I include being accused of fraud as a personal attack, and repeatedly through your posts here you have accused me of fraud, referring to me as "the webmaster" or grouped in with "fraudulent webmasters" or whatever.
You have launched a personal attack on my integrity and my reputation as a webmaster who has flown straight for over 10 years now. This is the first time anyone has ever accused me of fraud, a polite term for theft, and yes I am severely pissed off.
I brought it to the board because I will not be accused, convicted, and sentenced for a fraud I did not commit, and quietly say nothing.
You picked the fight by not even consulting me before putting a black mark beside my name.
On the plus side, for your inept handling of this situation, you have certainly picked up some nice publicity for your program.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Lisa

Links to the screen shots are below.

http://pornmegabucks.com/pmb16985.jpg

http://pornmegabucks.com/pmb16985members.jpg

The referrer for all of those sales is listed as "http://www.google.com/search". Doesn't take much investigating here to figure this one out. If I do a Google search for the site in question, 4bdsm.com, using 4bdsm as the search string, SheepGuy's referral link is in the number one spot. So who ever created these 'fraudulent' sign-ups did so just as your screenshots indicated. They searched for your site, using Google, and SheepGuy became the unfortunate victim here due to him doing a good job promoting your site.

I usually charge for investigation, but I'll let you have this one pro bono.

I couldn't tell you what the guy's goal was, but I'm guessing he's toying with site security.

[DangerDave]

SheepGuy is NO fraud.. he is a long standing trusted member of this community(and many previous ones) I have no doubt what so ever that his word is true and honest.

Originally Posted by Maj. Stress

5 credit cards, one ip (located in the US) and 5 different emails 3 of which point to France. My first guess would be someone was testing out some stolen credit card numbers.

That would have been my first thought...

...and the referrer details would just about have confirmed it.


Lisa, just get Bill to pay Murray the 1K, it's owed to him and the onus is on PornMegaBucks is to get it to him... no matter what gets in the way..

DD

[MrYum]

Originally Posted by SheepGuy

You picked the fight by not even consulting me before putting a black mark beside my name.

And therein lies the real crux of the issue at hand.

Wow...simply wow...I would have thought an old school program like PMG would know better

A number of things could be responsible for that pattern. To blindly assume the webmaster is responsible is short-sighted to say the least.

[SheepGuy]

Wow! Thanks guys and gals for the support! It is greatly appreciated. The screenshots for some reason showed up unreadable on my screen, so thanks UW for digging into this for me
This truly is a great community!
Now I'm off to pull some links before I get all happy-weepy like and forgiving I'm still meeting my lawyer Tuesday.

[plateman]

kinda funny thread, whats funny is that now some old shit got kicked up, and a 1000 dollars are owed to murry for an old contest

murry make sure you get your money and pay a few bills and go out on the town on porn mega bucks, be sure and post a screen shot enjoying your winnings

[sue-fl]

Originally Posted by Maj. Stress

5 credit cards, one ip (located in the US) and 5 different emails 3 of which point to France. My first guess would be someone was testing out some stolen credit card numbers.

Same thing I was thinking after reading all these posts.

I really think it's wrong what has been said and done to SheepGuy and an apology is certainly due to him.

I don't promote you and am glad because if I did I would be pulling links right now

[Lisa]

It's fairly clear that few in this thread have ever been responsible for running a program

I have seen this EXACT pattern before, probably 15 or so times in the last 6 years and every single time it's been a 'webmaster' committing the fraud to their own gain.

IF I'm wrong this time, I will apologise as I've said, but it would be a first. The only person who stood to gain from this is the webmaster who would have been paid for the sales had they not been refunded.

Perhaps it's time to wonder who might have wanted this situation to occur...it's certainly not us. But maybe there's someone out there with an agenda against Sheepguy who thought this might be a tidy way to deal with it.

I'm not yet convinced that we haven't been defrauded by a webmaster, but I'm more than prepared to be proven wrong.

As to talking to the webmaster first, what would that prove exactly? Do you really think a dishonest webmaster would just admit to it when questioned? All anyone would do, regardless of their involvement, would be to deny it. So how is one to prove that the denial is based on innocence or further deception?

[Lisa]

Originally Posted by DangerDave

Lisa, just get Bill to pay Murray the 1K, it's owed to him and the onus is on PornMegaBucks is to get it to him... no matter what gets in the way..

DD

Murray was the one who opted to be paid by Amazon gift certificate, which was duly purchased according to his instructions. Given that all of the emails that I hit 'reply' to bounced back at me, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the email address which he asked the gc to be paid to was invalid also.

Debbie won a couple of months later and had her check in less than 3 weeks...

[Toby]

Originally Posted by Lisa

...I'm not yet convinced that we haven't been defrauded by a webmaster, but I'm more than prepared to be proven wrong...

That statement sums up the biggest issue I have with how this has been handled.

You've immediately assumed it was the webmaster that was responsible for the fraudulant signups and have placed the responsibilty on the webmaster to prove otherwise when it should be the other way around.

You should be the one proving that the IPs and emails involved are connected to the webmaster, as it's all but impossible for him to prove the negative.

[Lisa]

My assumption may be wrong, but it's based on many years experience with this exact issue. Call it learned behaviour, if you will.

If this is not fraud on the part of the webmaster it would be the VERY FIRST TIME that it is not the case.

And as I have repeated ad nauseum, if that is not the case, I will apologise, but I was not prepared to put our processing at risk by allowing those memberships to be charged back.

I've asked Paycom to investigate as they are the ones who processed the transactions. I haven't asked Sheepguy to prove anything at all.

If someone wanted to just try out some stolen credit cards they could have done it on the site without a referrer code...the use of a referrer code immediately places the suspicion, rightly or wrongly, on the webmaster, because they are the one who stands to gain.

The transactions are clearly fraudulent, no question there. The fact that they were all done by one specific reseller connects them to him immediately, far more definitively that any IP or free email address does.

[murray]

yes I did ask to get payed via an amazon certificate, that is not the issue. by the way lets not talk about who has email issues

ICQ Message
got your mail...i sent your info on to bill and wasn't aware he hadn't paid you yet

he hasn't answered the last few mails i've sent him tho so now i'm starting to wonder if i've gotten caught in his spam filters

i'm gonna try calling him this morning and find out what is up

So yeah please show me this recipt from Amazon. Incase you wernt aware I went over your head to Bill to get this sorted and it never did, even after he promised to get in touch with amazon.

also

How does a person who relies on the web for their income repeatedly have issues with contacting their boss?

[Lisa]

Give me an email address that works Murray and I'll forward it to you now.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by Lisa

The fact that they were all done by one specific reseller connects them to him immediately, far more definitively that any IP or free email address does.

WRONG!!! It simply proves that the person that truly is responsible had visited the site recently via one of SheepGuy's reseller links and had a cookie set in their browser. At that point returning to the site directly would have still credited any sales to the saved referral code.

Originally Posted by Lisa

...but I'm more than prepared to be proven wrong.

That sure looks to me like asking SheepGuy to prove you wrong.

This whole thing makes no sense. If a webmaster was going to go to the trouble to make fraudulent sales under their own referral code, why do so on a revshare program with a max sale of $29.95?

5 x $29.95 x 60% = $89.85. For an established webmaster, that's chump change.

[SheepGuy]

Originally Posted by Lisa

But maybe there's someone out there with an agenda against Sheepguy who thought this might be a tidy way to deal with it.

Funny. In the last 10 years in this biz I have made 1 enemy. A Swiss fellow who stole the design and images from a few of my sites way back in '99. That situation was resolved shortly after it was discovered, and I haven't heard from the guy since. Since then, I really can't recall anyone in the biz being pissed off at me. At least not enough to steal credit cards and try to frame me with a pissant sponsor like the one you represent.

A nice grasp at straws on your part, but wouldn't it be easier to admit that you fucked up? Not that it would necessarily be enough at this point since I'm still not sure what economic damage your reckless accusations have caused me, if any, but I'll be looking into that.

Keep talking, keep slandering me. I'm beyond being pissed off now, I'm enjoying watching you dig yourself deeper into a legal shithole.

[Lisa]

I'm not yet convinced I have fucked up.

You're all acting under the assumption that I knew that pmb16985 was an established webmaster to whom that money would be chump change. Wrong.

THIS HAS BEEN DONE IN THIS EXACT SAME WAY BEFORE. FRAUDSTERS TARGET RECURRING PROGRAMS BECAUSE OF THAT EXACT ASSUMPTION, THAT WE WILL NOT BE SUSPICIOUS BASED ON THE SEEMINGLY SMALL EARNINGS. TO SOME PEOPLE THAT IS NOT A SMALL AMOUNT OF MONEY. IN FACT, DUPLICATED OVER MANY PROGRAMS IT CAN REALLY ADD UP.

To us, pmb16985 was a webmaster who had signed up with us earlier this year and sent less than 3000 unique hits to the program. This does not scream established webmaster.

I'm leaving this in Paycom's hands and will wait to hear what their investigations reveal.

And Toby...we don't use cookies.

[SheepGuy]

Originally Posted by Toby

5 x $29.95 x 60% = $89.85. For an established webmaster, that's chump change.

Exactly. Another reason why this is so infuriatingly stupid.
What kind of a moron would I be to risk 10 years of full-time self employment in a biz where your reputation is everything, for peanuts
Fuck, if I was that stupid I'd have to go out and get a real job, and I really couldn't handle the idea of a boss. I'm just not made for that anymore.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by Lisa

And Toby...we don't use cookies.

Ahhh, so I won't get credit for any surfers that return and buy within a few days unless they bookmark a link that has my referral code. That's good to know.

[Lisa]

And you also won't lose sales because they visit another webmasters site before yours, click on their referral code and have their cookie already in their system when they click on your referral code.

It's called swings and roundabouts...

[murray]

Thanks for the recipt Lisa, hope we can get this sorted out soon

[tigermom]

Lisa, I can see how things must have looked from your end, and I can see your need to protect your billing system. All we're saying is that maybe you should do that little bit of investigating on your part, perhaps even disabling a webmaster's account while doing so, rather than labeling them as fraud and raising who knows which flags all over CCBill for it. If that flag is just within your own program and does not affect a webmaster's standing through out CCBill, that would be one thing btw. I am still not clear as to whether these things get logged on one's record in CCBill.

Useless Warrior here presented a most plausible theory, whereas Sheepguy's referrer ID comes as number 1 in Google search results for your site. Therefore, if anyone was trying to breach your security systems with stolen CC's using Google search for it (as your own logs indicate was the case) they are more than likely to be doing so using Sheepguy's codes, simply because he was doing better SEO than you guys.

It's not about knowing Sheepguy or realizing in advance whether this was an experienced webmaster or not. Now, I have not run a paysite or a program before, but wouldn't this kind of procedure be good: first cancel the transactions and suspend the webmaster's account for 48 hours or something, then contact them and tell them there is suspected fraud. If they are cheaters, I doubt that they'll bother denying it or even getting back to you. One thing is certain, they will not be trying it again with you guys. If on the other hand, you are dealing with an honest webmaster, you might just be able to get some credentials for them from other sponsors maybe, or from webmasters boards, and stop short of flagging their name for fraud in the system.

Again, this isn't about Sheepguy, to me (much as I love you, man!). It's about something that could happen to any honest working webmaster.

BTW. just because you've seen this 15 times before doesn't even mean they were all cheaters. Some of them could have been honest webmasters who just figured it would be easier to drop your links and forget all about it. And even if they were all cheaters, obviously it doesn't prove that the next one is a cheater as well. I'm saying obviously, because I think it should be clear even to you by now, that in this very particular case, you've hit on someone that is a totally honest webmaster.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by Lisa

And you also won't lose sales because they visit another webmasters site before yours, click on their referral code and have their cookie already in their system when they click on your referral code...

Huh?

That's something I've NEVER seen happen. And if it had, there'd have been a big stink on the boards.

Nice try, but I'm not buying it as a "benefit" of not using cookies to credit return surfers to the originating affiliate.