I have just received a whole load of emails that made no sense to me, at one of my email addresses.
They appear to all have one thing in common “lists.epwork.com”.
The first email was:
Hi ,
we are offering a big discount on all phpBB services from now till the end of this month .
contact us now and get 50% discount !!
email : sameh_nabil@ (ISP removed)
website : epwork.comthank you
This was followed by 9 emails from other people/companies, who all seemed to be replying to that first email, but I was getting the replies ???
The IP address that the original email came from was 174.137.57.42, no spam activity was found on the major spam databases, and the address seems to be in Canada.
A bit of checking found the owner of the website, in May 2009, trying to value these websites: EPwork.com, iKeve.com, Eippl.com.
Two hours after the first post began, I then received this email from the original sender:
We – eprowk.com – are very sorry for the problem that have occurred and result in sending some undesirable emails
so please to unsubscribe from this mailing list press this link :
1-unsubscribe@lists.epwork.com
we provide paid services to phpBB forums owners , we will begin to send tips and useful lessons to whom is interested
thank you for understanding .
sameh_nabil@ ISP REMOVED
www.epwork.com
I don’t like to un-subscribe to anything that I haven’t subscribed to in the first place, so I am not game to do that.
However, although at first I did think it was just spam, I now feel that they stuffed up somehow, and pretty badly, with using a mailing list, for their spam, that somehow ‘maybe’ added our email addresses to all replies made by the recipients of the original email.
Hence me, and probably others, receiving copies of all the replies being sent to the original sender.
One of those replies, included the words:
Seeing as how I never even opened you email I find that hard to fathom.
Congratulations – you are now on a black list.
Have a nice day.
That did make me smile, but I just hope that it is only the original sender, and not the innocent receivers, that is blacklisted.
I will also put a block on that email address: sameh_nabil@ as I also don’t really want any more contact from them.
They say that they work with phpBB boards, and I set one up yesterday, but not with them, and, as far as I can tell, I have never joined their email list.
For the non computer literate, I should point out one thing; by replying to their last email, using the UNSUBSCRIBE option, you actually end up giving them your default email address, and not necessarily the email address that they sent their email to.
SPAM annoys me.
I support:
208.1 - 867,987
Well,
I wished I had found these comments before I sent Mr. Ayad at EPwork.com $ 150.00! I received one of his emails. The sender said phpbb support, so I just assummed it was from them. I had just created a forum and somehow he got my email. THis is what he sends out:Hello,
phpBB’s new version ( 3.0.8 ) is now available .We recommend that you update your forum to fix some security bugs in earlier versions .
We provide paid services , Beside updating your forum we can :
+ Design for you a professional unique style with completely new icons and imagesets.
+ Install any MODs you like whatever its number or complexity.
+ Update your phpBB2 to phpBB3 with its many features .
+ Solve any problems that may face you in this moment.
If you are interested , please reply this email and we will send to you our resume .
Thank you so much …
He lead me on for about 2 weeks, I kept emailing him about my forum and he would respond saying he was having difficulties or that it was 75% finished. Always had an excuse! I contact 2checkout, the company he uses and they send him an email. I get a quick reply from him with a generic looking forum that has a mouse on it with my logo that was stretched out. It was awful. When I asked for a refund he refused, saying he had spent weeks working on my forum. HE is a conartist and I hope no one else gives him money.
I actually responded to one of these emails and got into a dialog with “Sameh”. I needed some phpBB work done, so decided to take a chance, give human nature the benefit of the doubt etc, and sent the guy $40 or so.
Sadly I was proven wrong – the guy turned out to be a con artist (as well as a spammer). He claimed that the special offer had expired, and when I showed him the precise dates of the exchange of mails, then said that he was “too busy”. All further attempts to get him to fulfill his side of the contract have been met with silence.
More fool me I suppose. But anyone looking to use EPwork, AVOID!