An awesome tipster (send in your tips here) just sent in this email they received recently announcing something called the U.S. Consumer Debt Counsel and U.S. Credit Reform Administration.
Apparently the people behind this site have no idea which crap they just walked into by putting up this site and pretending to be a government agency. Even the email address the email came from is deceptive, uscreditrelief-govsite.info.
Email sent out:
From: administration@uscreditrelief-govsite.info [mailto:administration@uscreditrelief-govsite.info]
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010
Subject: Debt Assistance Programs for 2010-11
Government Approved Debt Assistance Programs for 2010 and 2011
(Program Availability through January 25)
New Credit Reform Laws have been passed for American consumer protection. For information on Federal Trade Commission approved credit card payment and balance reduction plans use the link below:
http://www.USCreditRelief-Gov.com
Economical recession has caused an increase in financial hardship for the majority of American consumers. For immediate eligibility, go to:
http://www.USCreditRelief-Gov.com/eligibility.html
U.S. Consumer Debt Counsel
U.S. Credit Reform Administration
Washington DC, 20037
Of course the most ridiculous line in the email has to be:
For information on Federal Trade Commission approved credit card payment and balance reduction plans use the link below:
http://www.USCreditRelief-Gov.com
That URL in the email leads consumers to the site below, presidential seal and all.
The media page for the site contains nothing but Obama videos.
And who is eligible for the bogus offer, apparently anyone. The site defines eligibility as:
“Eligible clients who are current on their credit card payments but have or may foresee a struggle to make future payments due to any Hardship Circumstance may Qualify. Due to America’s economic stress; as well as the Decline of the Housing Market, most candidates have faced some sort of qualifying Financial Hardship.”
Prior to hiding domain ownership for uscreditrelief-gov.com it was listed as being owned by:
Donnie Fikes
donniefikes@hotmail.com
1050 Broadway Suite 100
Nashville, TN 37212
The site was moved to it’s current ipage.com hosting on 4-27-2010 at which time Donnie Fikes was still the owner of the domain name.
There is also another site that makes more reduce claims, gov-uscreditreform.org:
And something called the U.S. Debt Reform Approvals Counsel at usdebtassistance-govonline.info:
And one more site at gov-uscreditreform.net.
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U.S. Debt Reform Administration Site Archive
Anytime Steve, this is the only way we can have any kind of level playing field. If I had to guess, I’d say that was a marketing/lead generation company. I’m sure Allison Brown at the FTC would find those claims interesting.
So here is what happened on this issue. The domain registrar removed the redirect and put the domain owner on notice that if it happens again the domain will be suspended.
Thank you Angelo for bringing that issue to my attention. As a team we took care of it quickly.
So on top of that site being a scam, now the owner has proven he’s a jerk as well.
So here is what happened on this issue. The domain registrar removed the redirect and put the domain owner on notice that if it happens again the domain will be suspended.
Thank you Angelo for bringing that issue to my attention. As a team we took care of it quickly.
So on top of that site being a scam, now the owner has proven he’s a jerk as well.
Angelo,
Thanks for the heads-up. On the phone with the legal department for the domain registrar USCreditRelief-Gov.com right now. They are not happy at the domain owner, at all!
Steve
This is both funny and serious.
Funny because it shows the USCreditRelief owner has a sense of humor.
Serious in that the redirect they put up pointing to this site could be abused.
Hey Steve…. fyi, not sure why or how but the link to http://www.USCreditRelief-Gov…. actually redirects back to your getoutofdebt.org site.
Hey Steve…. fyi, not sure why or how but the link to http://www.USCreditRelief-Gov.com actually redirects back to your getoutofdebt.org site.
This is both funny and serious.
Funny because it shows the USCreditRelief owner has a sense of humor.
Serious in that the redirect they put up pointing to this site could be abused.
Angelo,
Thanks for the heads-up. On the phone with the legal department for the domain registrar USCreditRelief-Gov.com right now. They are not happy at the domain owner, at all!
Steve
So here is what happened on this issue. The domain registrar removed the redirect and put the domain owner on notice that if it happens again the domain will be suspended.
Thank you Angelo for bringing that issue to my attention. As a team we took care of it quickly.
So on top of that site being a scam, now the owner has proven he’s a jerk as well.
So here is what happened on this issue. The domain registrar removed the redirect and put the domain owner on notice that if it happens again the domain will be suspended.
Thank you Angelo for bringing that issue to my attention. As a team we took care of it quickly.
So on top of that site being a scam, now the owner has proven he’s a jerk as well.
Anytime Steve, this is the only way we can have any kind of level playing field. If I had to guess, I’d say that was a marketing/lead generation company. I’m sure Allison Brown at the FTC would find those claims interesting.