Tuesday, January 22, 2002

More one-on-onechat e-mails

Still getting e-mail about people who are checking into one-on-one chat and wondering if it's for real or if it's just a scam. Well, my opinion is that if it smells fishy, it's probably fishy. I really feel sorry for the one fellow who got taken for a good amount of money and he doesn't mind my posting his responses here (Randall, I hope you find a good gal). So here's the latest batch of e-mail for those interested.

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Hey Wuphon,

Read you Wuphon's Reach URL. I got the same jenny234unow@hotmail.com email. What a waste! I also got an email from jnson00@hotmail.com (Jen Benson) with a link to http://www.one-on-onechat.com/105.html. Pretty good looking catalog model. Too bad it isn't a real personal otherwise I'd be all over that. Anyway this Rev. Vincent Angst Chewbacca person is going to be cooked.

Ralph

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Count me in as one of those who is grateful for your archive of pages that discuss the seemingly obvious scams that come from www.one-on-onchat.com. I did a tiny bit of digging on another website that suspiciously pops up upon a visit to One-on-onechat.com - which is justdate.com - and looking at the whois data:

vipertel
dan steen
6506 Ridge Rd
Baltimore, md 21237
US
Phone: 4105741106
Fax..: 4106790397
Email: dans@vipertel.com

...is awfully similar to the one that you found for one-on-onechat.com:

v
d s
6506
B, MD 21237
US
Phone: 4
Email: revangst@excite.com

Thought you'd find that interesting if you hadn't already know. Anyway, regards - and I hope you are having/had a fine holiday season!

Joseph

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Hi,

This may come as a surprise, but I was recently contacted by a person claiming to have a voice profile on one-on-onechat. This is the second time this has happened, so I became immediately suspicious of a fraud.

I conducted a Google search on the domain name "one-on-onechat", and came across your BLOG archives. So I read through them and was quite astonished to see that I wasn't the only person who experienced these strange emails. Unfortunately, I didn't catch onto the hoax soon enuf. I ended up being taken for more than 280 dollars :( It's amazing that this company is STILL in business and successfully scamming people like this -- taking advantage not only of people's trust -- but breaking their hearts as well. It's disgusting. You'd an operation like this would be shut down by now.

Anyways, I just wanted to share my experiences, and thank you for sharing yours. Hopefully other people catch on sooner than I did.

--Randall

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Wuphons Reach wrote:
>
> OUCH!
>
> Well (sigh) yeah... I wish you had found it sooner
> (guess I'm just more cynical than most). Yeah... I've
> had to make sure I'm extra-careful with what I said
> about one-on-one (I think I'm okay with what's
> there... it's not defamation only statement of
> opinion).

Why be careful? They are powerless, as far as I'm concerned. With the second email, I actually called the number just to see if I could get through to the mystery "girl" in question. Unlike my first experience, this time a guy answered to take my CC info. He was also very rude. Everytime I'd pause even briefly to get my information, he would get angry and inform me how unbelievably slow I was and that he had better things to do than to wait for me. Sheesh!

And then when I did finally get on the voice chat, I asked her how she knew me. She said, she wasn't sure of who I was, because she had written several people. So I then asked why she emailed me. She said she wanted to get in touch with old friends again, because it's been awhile. So, I stated that if she know who I was, then why couldn't she have addressed me by my name in the saluation of the email. (I shouldn've also mentioned that the email was sent through an unidentified email gateway to mask her true origin, but I forgot). She said she didn't know. Then I informed her that I didn't had no friends by the name of [her name]. So she apologized and said it was just a mistake. "A mistake?!" I yelled. How do you just mistakenly write to a stranger on the Internet under the impression they are a friend, telling them to dial a toll-charge entertainment number simply to contact you? I proceeded to warn her that if she ever wrote me again, I would be pursuing a civil lawsuit for harassment. Then she got really upset, and said "Hold on now, Who do you...". Then I hung up and called the first guy back again and warned him that I was in the process of reporting OneOnOneChat to the Better Business Bureau and the National Fraud Information Center for scamming. Before he could even finish saying "Oh my", I hung up.

I still have a record of the URLs somewhere where you can see quite clearly that just one girl in particular, changes her race from being Oriental to being Caucasian in two separate profiles. Not to mention the same girl has over 20 separate profiles. It's an outright scam -- clearly begging for censure.

Trust me, OneOnOneChat is a company that does not deserve compassion. Defamation is one thing, but posting straight-out facts is another. And the fact is that people do not change race and that people do not contact you by email a friend and don't even know who you are. Companies also don't get angry at you when you are giving them your credit card number.

--Randall

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Hi there,

I just wanted to say thanks for writing. And I'm sorry for venting. Don't take it the wrong way. It just kind of builds up after so long, and to know that some stranger can use you like that and get away with it is very upsetting. :) Thank you for hearing me out.

Sincerely,

--Randall

posted by Wuphon's at 10:10 AM