as the world looked down, they raided our senses, there can be no reconcile

In the middle of a quick graphic job on a voodoo doll skin (I really don't think I'm ever going to sell it, I just want to import it and see how it looks; it's the Sezmra skin base with overlayers of burn and burlap, essentially), I heard from sachi Vixen, calling everyone on her list to warn them about Virtualget.

I immediately grabbed what I could on their 'current listings' and sent notecards explaining the issue to Ghanima Uriza, among others, before leaving SL and working more on the dolly skin.

Miss Ghanima (she runs Blue Blood, if you don't immediately link up the name; very much gothic/EGL work, nice textures, and generous with sales and lucky chair/Midnight Mania items) wrote me back, and from there to the present, talked to the folks behind Shopping Cart Disco to send out an immediate screed on the danger.

Of particular importance, I think, is this run from the comments:

Domain: virtualget.net
Status: Protected

DNS:
ns1.realitychecknetwork.com
ns2.realitychecknetwork.com

Created: 2009-07-02 04:19:38
Expires: 2010-07-02 04:19:38
Last Modified: 2009-07-02 04:18:31

Registrant Contact:
Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Privacy Protected Domain Katz Global Domain Name Trust (domaintrust@katzglobal.com)
32 Maxwell Road #03-07
Singapore, SC, sg 069115
P: +65.67228356 F: +65.67258021

Administrative Contact:
Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Privacy Protected Domain Katz Global Domain Name Trust (domaintrust@katzglobal.com)
32 Maxwell Road #03-07
Singapore, SC, sg 069115
P: +65.67228356 F: +65.67258021

Technical Contact:
Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Privacy Protected Domain Katz Global Domain Name Trust (domaintrust@katzglobal.com)
32 Maxwell Road #03-07
Singapore, SC, sg 069115
P: +65.67228356 F: +65.67258021

Billing Contact:
Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Privacy Protected Domain Katz Global Domain Name Trust (domaintrust@katzglobal.com)


Apparently, they have over two HUNDRED domains registered, all out of Singapore. But this one caught my eye. From a user named "Hyb":

1-866-726-4678 Moisey Uretsky HOSTING THIS SITE located in Brooklyn NY

abuse@realitychecknetwork.com there is their email addy


Now that's the one that may get them into trouble. Singapore, well, there's not a lot an American web company--like, f'rinstance, Linden Labs--can do to effect punishment. But the Brooklyn, NY server host? That one they can go after.

And seeing as how that ties into a company that may well be just a dodge front for credit card fraud? That one could make Federal-level charges, and potentially Interpol charges, if they handle credit fraud.

The word races around the grid; don't be surprised if this is the next seven-day wonder for a bit. Me, I'm going to sit back and watch how fast the site gets pulled, frankly. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, DO NOT shop there, DO NOT give them any of your RL info, DISCOURAGE YOUR FRIENDS from shopping there. With any luck, no one will lose anything of importance, but the scammers.

Comments

Icterus Dagger said…
Saw this on their web page this morning:

The site is currently down for maintenance. Please excuse the dust, and try back later.
Registrations have been temporarily suspended due to members signing up during our development phase. Update: We have taken the store completely offline until we get things straigthened out. There is alot of misinformation about fraud which we would liek to address. We had 0 traffic on this site as it was for demonstration purposes only to show a client what the commerce script was capable of. Nowhere on the site were users able to put in billing information. There were 5 accounts created other than the development and system accounts and they were all created today. They have also been removed.

The products on this site have been loaded for visualization purposes only. Please contact support@virtualget.net (update: the mx server was not even setup for emails, we appologize, it now works) for more information.

To all product developers and creators: we apologize for using your content on this site, it was added via a crawler to populate the site. Rest assured, we have not sold ANY of your products and do not intend to display them without your permission, it was an automated mistake.

Any complaints sent to the host of the site and the registrar have been dealt with and we apologize to anybody who came across the site during its development phase.
- The Administrators of VirtualGet

The Admin / Webmaster has enabled maintenance at : 2009-10-07 01:56:18

Icterus Dagger
Rhianon Jameson said…
Ah, the Net giveth and the Net taketh away! Supposing the explanation Mr. Dagger reprinted is true, it's still not a great marketing move to appear to be a phishing site. In the bad old days, a few people might see your large-scale screwup; now, hundreds or thousands see it, and thousands more hear about it. Ooops.
Emilly Orr said…
Miss Jameson: Very much oops, and very stupid on their part, and--considering they say this was all on behalf of a client, so he/she/they could see what the shopping site software could do? ANYONE now associated with virtualget.net will now be tarnished from the outset. There's no win for them now.

Mr. Dagger: I saw the same thing, and I'm glad they reacted quickly, but--especially considering the current grid hysteria on stolent content--this was NOT the time to have an automated program scuttle off and leech images and ad content from XStreet and slapt.de. They should have known better.
Icterus Dagger said…
I agree, Miss Emilly. I'm still not clear what the heck they were actually DOING. Using Xstreet "mock ups" to show a client what their site would look like? That makes no sense.

The way things are swinging in-world I think I'm GLAD I give most of my things away and haven't seriously tried to sell everything I make.

-iD
Emilly Orr said…
And me, I *am* trying to make a go as a business, but right now my business is microscopic, and *I'm* actually grateful for *that*.

But yes, I'm thinking about doing more work for charities on the grid, more free or cheap releases, than full-price ones. The strange economic necessity of no one thinking I'm cool enough to hack.

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