WARNING! Internet scam aimed at small businesses

vinylmusic

I think that I had this once before last year
If I remember rightly they were offering free advertising for one year which needed to be updated.
What wasnt made clear was that after one year if you hadn't renewed with payment a couple of months before the deadline they expected payment for the following year.

They dont send out any reminders before the deadline probably knowing that most people will forget and subsequentially not cancel in time

I also seem to remember that when you speak to them on the phone they are very aggressive and appear to have african accents. Possibly Nigerian.

They use scare tactics which possibly work with enough people to make it worth their while.

If its the same company as last time I called their bluff and after some more threatening letters and emails they finally backed off.

This time I'm going to pass it on to the Office of Fair Trading

If you get such an email DON'T respond in any way
DON'T divulge any details
IGNORE IT

Heres a copy of their email
Note that they call me "Dear Customer" and don't address me by name
Also the attatchment contains a trojan horse virus which happily my Anti-virus scan deleted.
Because of this I have no idea what was in the attachment
...................................................................

""Message-Id: <20060412210310.8D51A9A268@badtzmaru.sd.valuehost.com>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 10:03:10 -0700 (PDT)

Dear customer,

We have received a notice from your card service stating that there was a chargeback made by the owner of the card that
you paid for your account with. This is a very serious matter. I have deducted the amount of the chargeback, GBP 119.40,
from your account and added our standard fee of GBP 25.00 as well. (Now you can see your payment details in attachment.)

If there was some mistake, please let us know immediately so that we
can get this situation resolved. We ask that you have the chargeback
removed as soon as possible, as our account has already been debited for the amount in question.
If you would prefer to make your payment using a new payment
method that would be fine as well (you can use a different credit card or you may send a money order payable to
Valuehost).

This is a time sensitive issue and must be resolved promptly at the
request of the card service. Please email the billing team using the Web Administration Panel with information about how
you are going to deal with this situation.
I thank you for your time and hope to hear from you
soon.

See your payment details in attachment.

Sincerely,
Mark J. Burnett
Valuehost Billing Department
*Edited to remove link.*

5limJim

got the same email in my personal inbox today, just deleted it as SPAM as I do have a business setup, but we arent trading as such so havent spoken to anyone about anything like advertising etc....

ukbill69

If you sign up for anything you dont know or not herd about and get charged then its your fault lol