The newest pest on the block: Ziinga

[weegillis]

Many of us will have received a text similar to this:

Congratulations, your number made Apple's winner Go To
http://apple.ca.wstw.cc and enter 4043 to claim your Apple Product!

No doubt, the apple.?. ? subdomain would match the TLD of your cell provider so it could be .com or .co.uk, etc. That would be my guess, since my carrier is dot ca.

The guys at the other end of this spoofed URL? Ziinga. They're obviously using every tactic in the play book, and being nicely tucked away on the British Virgin Islands makes them unreachable to pretty well everyone except those with very deep pockets. Using the texting tactic is sheer bottom feeding.

Only two months old and already 184,000 results on their posted phone number. Nearly every result points to a complaint or incident report site. 2200 hits on 'pissedconsumer', alone.

Report these people to your cell provider (611 worked for me, but like all corporate phone lines, they wade you through all the options, whereby I just went straight to technical and let them make a note on the system). They might tell you to text back, 'STOP,' but that would be pointless, imo, as it would only confirm your's as a hot number, and it would end up in a database somewhere, awaiting future attacks.

We could also block their number, but numbers are cheap when you're in the game like these folks are.

Only thing left to do is delete the message. This does nothing. The tactic will still live on, reeling in the suckers with the least to lose, they obviously can't walk into an Apple Store, which is why they would be piqued by "claim your Apple Product."

Anyway, the writing is on the wall for these guys. They're definitely not the next eBay.

[weegillis]

Their response:

Thank you for contacting Ziinga.com.
We do apologize for the inconvenience. We do not have any on going text messaging promotion. Whoever is sending this text message informing that you won something is not related/not with Ziinga. Please disregard the text message that you received. We have raised this issue to the Technical Department so they can further investigate regarding this matter.
Please be informed as well that all the details about the membership, its benefits and charges, are shown on the Payment page and in your receipt. More information are included in the Terms & Conditions, FAQs and How To page. How the website works and complete policies are made available and are clearly provided to our users. We encourage our customers to read all necessary information before completing any transaction. Furthermore, an e-mail receipt is sent to our customers upon purchase as a reminder about the membership charges and the 7-day free period. There is no intention to deceive as all necessary information is communicated to our customers.
Should you have any other concern, please do not hesitate to contact us again and we will be more than happy to assist you.
Regards,
Jex Marc

Ziinga Customer Support

[weegillis]

This is the letter they got from me:

To whomever this may concern,

You should know that I have reported this company to [my provider], and they have assured me the matter will be
investigated and their customers informed.
The URL apple.ca.wstw.cc is clearly designed to mislead, as anybody
who understands URL's will know. I followed the domain (without the
fraudulent subdomains) and still got to your Enter Code page, which
brought me to your ziinga page. This is shady tactics at best, and it
will be all over the blogosphere before night's end.
It goes without saying that you'll never see me registering with your
site, and will make for interesting conversation in the coming days.

You guys are creeps!

[morestar]

Very good weegillis, and thanks, if you can edit the title to the domain name or Ziinga, that would be good so at least searches will bring searchers here too and see how you actually figured out that it WAS from them in the end and STILL a scam.

Scams, god this is one part of the net I despise, when will the dishonesty end?

[weegillis]

Very good weegillis, and thanks, if you can edit the title to the domain name or Ziinga, that would be good so at least searches will bring searchers here too and see how you actually figured out that it WAS from them in the end and STILL a scam.

Scams, god this is one part of the net I despise, when will the dishonesty end?

Thanks, @morestar. Title revised.

This isn't the first text I've received, either, but generally I just delete spam without looking at. Yesterday I decided to take a deeper look.

[C0ldf1re]

Their response:

... We do not have any on going text messaging promotion. Whoever is sending this text message informing that you won something is not related/not with Ziinga...

This has brought to mind a recent increase in spam email, which "piggy backs" on the name of a reputable company. The email starts with an offer like, "Review the latest Apple iPhone, and then get to keep it", or, "$100 in Walmart vouchers, just for reviewing your last visits to the store." Sounds too good to be true? Yes, it is. First they ask you to answer a survey, just to check that you are eligible for the offer. The survey is actually designed to find if you are a prospective customer for anything from energy supply to laser eye treatment. You then include your contact details, so they can send you the iPhone or vouchers. You never get the promised goodies, but you get an awful lot of sales calls and/or more spam email. I have just had to explain the scam to one disappointed internet n00b, which brought it to mind. (Not, of course, that I mean to imply that I consider Ziinga to be a reputable victim in this matter. I just thought that the similarity was interesting!)

[weegillis]

If Ziinga is a victim here, then I take back all the nasty things; however, it seems odd someone would point to their sign up page, where is found all the hype on Apple deals. It's easy to play this game behind smoke and mirrors then claim to have nothing to do with it.

[C0ldf1re]

... it seems odd someone would point to their sign up page, where is found all the hype on Apple deals. It's easy to play this game behind smoke and mirrors then claim to have nothing to do with it.

True. But it is also common for 3rd-party marketing firms to sign on for an affiliate link, and then be pretty unscrupulous in how they channel people to that affiliate link.

[weegillis]

You got me thinking yesterday of how many ways Z could be the victim, and affiliations is one, as well as negative SEO campaigns being waged against them.