credit report.com

Family members got hit with this scam... spread the word....

Things to look out for (aside from IP address location, etc) are: rental price too good to be true, pictures of property don't match description, desire to have you fill out credit application directly from their site.

Here's the initial emaill (and it is a fake email address ... Matt isn't my real name):

From: Mary C. Collins <[email protected]>
Subject: Land Park rental
To: "Matt XXX" <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday, January 6, 2010, 2:10 PM


Hey Matt,
Thank you for your interest in my rental, Its currently available and I have attached a few pics from the property for you to look at.
I believe I covered this in the ad posting, but heres a little detail about the property: Its presently furnished (but I can easily put things in / get stuff out of storage to fulfill your needs) and the property is equipped with a washer and dryer. Also, there is a parking space and pets are fine.
If you would like to come and see the place, you will first need to take the following steps and then email me with times you're able to come and have a look around it.
To avoid pointless costs for both of us, I don't currently run a check on your rental history nor a background check but I do require a credit check be carried out. In order to rent my property you need to have a credit score of 575 or greater. If needs be, I am able to make exceptions but you must bring a copy of your report and an explanation so that we can discuss. You can get a copy of your score free below
http://www.e-creditreport.net
I respect your privacy so please do not email your credit report to me just be prepared to bring along a copy dated within the last week with you. As long as you meet the credit requirements you will not be required to put down a security deposit or pet deposit on this property.
Unlike most places you will not be charged an credit check fee or application fee because you will bring your own. Given the quality of the property and the volume of responses, I expect it to rent promptly, so if you are really interested, please act quick so as not to miss out.
Hopefully I can walk you through the place tomorrow or within the next few days - I will be organizing tours in the order in which they're requested, as I feel this is the fairest way.
Have a great Holiday!
Mary C. Collins

mod note: changed thread title, as there is no evidence that the email domain listed is involved in scamming--dotti

Please provide a little more detail as to how this scam progressed. Were your family members asked for a deposit by WU or MG? Credit cards charged? Identity theft?

The website listed looks like it is a faker--registered recently, for one year, seems to redirect to other site. WOT shows numerous spam/scam complaints. If I had to guess, I would say this is not typical advance fee fraud, but the scam here involves sending you to a fake credit report site, then charging your credit card for a bogus credit report, and/or using the information collected for identity theft.

If your family members provided their personal information such as SSN on this site, and they haven't done so already, please make sure they have also flagged the possible identity theft.

They did provide information that they shouldn't have, and have alerted proper authorities and agencies (within about 6 hours of doing it). As soon as I saw the email I knew it was a fake and we mobilized pretty quickly.

I can't tell how the site is working (see my other post) -- I was absolutely sure the link that they imbedded in the email was a phishing site but it doesn't look like it is. I would never put my private information in a site that I clicked through from an email, but I'm still trying to figure out how this scam works.

Credit card number was taken but never showed up as a charge (number was flagged and cancelled by bank).

Did a little digging on this and this is what I found out...

There are two types of reported ads currently being posted that ultimately lead to creditreport.com (other websites are listed, but ultimately they appear to redirect to this site). Ripoff report and other consumer sites show many complaints related to this site.

Essentially the way this works is simple:

-A very appealing rental ad OR a job ad is placed on various online sites.
-Buyer/job applicant (from here I'll just call him/her "applicant" responds to ad.
-Applicant is told that he is responsible for getting a copy of a credit report (legitimate landlords and employers generally do not require applicants obtain their own credit reports). He is given a link for a "free" credit report. The link may change, but ultimately the applicant will end up at creditreport.com.

Note that since these sites are privacy protected, it is impossible to say whether they are actually owned by creditreport.com. They might be independently owned sites, and the owners may be getting paid for referrals to creditreport.com A quick search on creditreport.com's affiliate program shows that they pay $24 per successful order to affiliates, so the payment from a single victim will cover their domain name and possibly hosting costs.

-Applicant will provide his information to obtain the "free" credit report, including credit card or paypal information. But here is the disclaimer he/she may miss:

Ongoing Services Disclosure

By ordering your free credit report and free score, you will begin a 7-day free trial of 3-bureau credit monitoring. You will receive email alerts whenever there is a significant change to your credit reports. After the free trial you will be billed a $14.95 monthly membership fee. You may cancel at any time. There is no obligation.
CreditReport.com is not affiliated with the annual free credit report program. Under federal law you have the right to receive a free credit report from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting agencies once every 12 months. To request a credit report under that law go to: http://www.annualcreditreport.com

-After report is requested, employer and/or landlord will tell applicant that vacancy/job has been filled, or will simply disappear.
-monthly charges will start appearing on credit card or paypal for a credit report subscription.
-When applicant tracks down company and attempts to challenge, he/she will be told that he agreed to a monthly report and there are no refunds. People who have tried to push further report that they have dealt with aggressive and hostile employees or their calls to the company would not be picked up by employees, even when they were clearly open.
-in addition, if applicant provided more in-depth information (I did not look to see what is requested), such as DOB and social security numbers, he/she could be at risk for identity theft.

If they signed up recently and haven't made a good faith effort to "cancel," your family members might want to do that and document their cancellation attempt (they should not provide any further credit card information while doing this). They also need to monitor their charge statements very closely for the next few months to make sure charges do not crop up. They might want to wait a while and then request a copy of their credit report that is legitimately free just to make sure nothing new crops up. http://www.annualcreditreport.com is the only legitimate free site with no strings/monitoring programs attached (it is the site sponsored by the major credit bureaus that fulfills the legal requirement to allow consumers one free look at their credit report per year). They can order all 3 reports at once, or order one report every few months, as long as they don't request the same report twice in 12 months it will be free.

Thanks for this information? So here's a question, if we follow the money, who's complicit here?

Is creditreport.com doing the billing? If so, are they using these corrupt third party dealers to sell for them? I'm guessing that the party sends them to their own site, which in this case is e-creditreport.net, which then forwards them to the "legit" site of creditreport.com. At this point, creditreport.com knows where the referral came from, and pays a commission on that signup. You think?

That scenario is a very strong probability, more likely than the probability that the site receiving the money is placing those ads (they are more likely to be prosecuted, and they know it).

This type of tactic has popped up several times with various "real" sites (by "real" I mean the site receiving the referral and actually charging the customer)--these sites are most often porn sites, but on occasion other types of sites (work-at-home, obscure cellphone sites) are used.

It is not uncommon for both "good" and "bad" sites to use affiliate programs, but the "real" sites involved in this type of scam generally have some or all of these characteristics:
-site has no screening process for affiliate programs--anyone can sign up.
-affiliate is not monitored in any way (even if they are aware of what is going on, the site will never admit to knowledge of these kinds of tactics being used--deniability is key)
-site uses questionable marketing tactics in other ways
-site is a known spammer
-site offers something "free" with strings attached that lead to automatic charges.
-site has extensive history of consumer complaints.

The affiliates are just opportunists out to make a quick buck.

Here is an example of a porn site version of this scenario:
http://scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2590&p=10000&hilit=affiliate#p10000

This is a scam.... they are posting fake rental properties on Craigslist all over the country. If you type:

"Amazing Solid Location" into craiglsist search you will see a lot of similar descriptions. I am flagging what I can but they keep popping up.

When the victim replies to say they are interested, they get an email with pics, and a request to click a link:

http://www.e-creditreport.net

and fill out a credit application. Then, the victim gets an email saying the place has been rented.

I noticed that both sites are hosted by Bluehost in Utah. I spoke with people there today and they are investigating. Hopefully they shut down both sites.

If you see ANYTHING with either of these sites, they are fake. Only reply to them if you intend to screw with them a little bit. I have about five different properties going right now.

Moved/Merged from Personal accounts of scams - Michelle

I live in the Sacramento area and recently fell victim to this scam. All of the details I have read regarding this scam from this forum are true and accurate.

1. You will not have the option of declining any services with re-occurring charges when you initially request your free credit report through http://www.creditreport.com

2. This site does not divulge any cancellation process hints to you. You must proactively search to discover how to cancel.

3. Once you call their cancellation department, they will insist (by making you feel guilty, unprotected, unsafe, unwise) you continue your enrollment in their program. I was forced to decline five times even though I clearly stated my decision during each instance; such that it would be impossible to misconstrue my objective. They force you to answer their questions and remain on the phone. How? They ensure you remain unsure as to the status of your subscription until the very, very end.

4. Once you have canceled, you must re-cancel again or be subjected to the re-occurring charges associated with your enrollment. More specifically, in order to truly cancel from their services, you must perform one final step which requires you to reaffirm your desire to cancel by fulfilling a requirement which is described in an email http://www.creditreport.com will eventually send to you. In the email, you are required to press a button which they present to you. Once pressed, you will be taken to their site where you must then enter the rather complex credentials they assigned to you long, long ago. Keep in mind, the whole point of this step equates to nothing more than simply having you cancel the same service you just canceled via your recent phone call to http://www.creditreport.com (yes, the same service the lady you just spoke with told you had been canceled). If you fail to complete this step, your subscription will continue and you will incur re-occurring charges.

This final step via email is not disclosed at any time. Clearly, the 'cancellation by phone call' requirement is a derivative of the scam itself. There intentions are not to cancel your service. Their real objective is to be afforded a second opportunity (by live person this time) to continue their begging tactics.

They leverage on the premise of their business; cleverly disassociating themselves from the 'trickery' behind the final cancellation by email step, by use of a frivolous but irrefutable claim that they are protecting their customers against the unauthorized cancellation of their service by someone who has stolen their identity.

5. Unauthorized charges have still been made against my credit card.

Stay clear of http://www.creditreport.com.

Hi PloNCryst916, Welcome to Scamwarners.

Thank you for your information and for sharing your experience with this company.