BuzzBot SCAM!!!
Just wanted to post this about the Founders of BuzzBot...I have received a couple of emails about it on here, and I have had a run in with these guys a few times...BEWARE as they make a LOT of money and then they disappear...do yourself a favor and do your research!
NOTE:
On Thursday the 12th of June, I started to receive a lot of spam claiming to be from Robert Kuntz and BJ Bishop. It was coming mostly from non-portable addresses, and it was very aggressive. Although Spam Assassin was diverting the spam to my spam folder, it was repeating constantly.
Going back through the system logs I noticed that several RTBLs were not available during the period June 09-15. So this might have been the result of a co-ordinated attack on various RTBLs.
At the time, my main concern was the sheer volume of spam being diverted to my spam inbox. It was the same email over and over. In order to stop it I black-banned the offending IP addresses in the postfix access DB.
This incident prompted me to finish a script that I had been working on for a while. It is a perl script that automatically black-bans offenders for 24 hours. I call this the SA (Spam Assassin) Sin Bin. As I have become confident of the fact that Spam Assassin will not return false positives (because I've tuned it that way), I now feel sanguine about implementing this script. I will try to release details of it soon.
I was so busy with the technicalities that I didn't bother checking further about Robert Kuntz and BJ Bishop. At the time I had thought it might be an early Friday the 13th type jape, which spammers seem to think is so amusing.
It turns out this was the work of a nest of very bold spammers. The domain which they were promoting, cashblasterpro.com, makes little attempt to hide itself or their operations or their phony, scamming, scummy intent. Their sites (and affiliated sites) are chock full of the most blatant, outrageous bullshit, sprinkled with technical jargon, that I have encountered this year. I won't even dignify the load of bollocks on their sites further by commenting on it. If you are curious go and visit them. Just be careful if you are low-level Microsoftie using IE. These guys are just the type to deploy rat-cunning malware dirty tricks against unwary visitors. It would be a lot safer to go to scam.com and read the thread about Robert (if that is his actual name) and his activities.
Cashblasterpro.com is registered by our old friends TUCOWS Inc, as are the domains robertkuntz.com and bjbishop.com.
Robert Kuntz (if that really is his name) is listed as the administrative contact for the cashblasterpro.com domain. The details are as follows:
Robert Kuntz
1560 NW 128th DR #108
Sunrise, FL 33323 US
BJ Bishop, if that really is his name, is listed as the administrative contact for bjbishop.com, also at the same Florida address:
Bishop, BJ
1560 NW 128th DR #108
Sunrise, FL 33323 US
Laura Lynch (if that is a real person) is also mentioned as someone who helped design these sites. Seems she works at the same address.
Another domain registered at this address is web2upgrade.com. Both web2upgrade.com and cashblasterpro.com use the same primary and secondary nameservers (ns11.cashblasterpro.com and ns12.cashblasterpro.com) Robertkuntz.com and bjbishop.com use the nameservers ns1.web2dashboard.com and ns2.web2dashboard.com.
Web2dashboard.com is another domain administered by our old mate Robert Kuntz, and operating from the same Florida address. It must be one busy little place there in Florida, operating all of those domains.
These sites appear to use a San Fancisco company, 123cheapdomains.com as their ISP. All of them are registered by TUCOWS Inc.
That busy little location in Florida appears to be a genuine address in Fort Lauderdale. Or at least Google Earth will take me there. It does seem strange that the address is in the middle of the road rather than one of the buildings. But maybe it's a very mobile operation.
It looks as if there is a block of offices close by. I cannot tell if there is an actual sign saying "Cashblasterpro.com", since Google Earth will not show me a street view. But the aerial view shows only a few car parking spots out the back. I don't know how all those people, Robert, BJ and their helper Laura and their staff and all the staff for web2upgrade.com and web2dashboard.com, robertkuntz.com, bjbishop.com, etc all fit in that tiny little space ... Especially if they really do work in the middle of the road!
It seems that Robert (if that is his real name) started out with the email address of stilladreamr@yahoo.com, which he has used as the Administrative contact for many of his domains.
It also seems at one stage, stilladreamr had an eBay account. However the account was suspended for non-compliance. He may have had an interest in motorcycles.
There is also a veritable splodge of sploggers (if I can coin a collective noun), creating bogus entries in various blogs about what a great new technology Robert and his spammer buddies have discovered and how they are going to make you rich, if you just give them your personal details. When I googled for Robert Kuntz (how do you pronounce that?) I found ample evidence of splogging.
The scam is a type of pyramid scheme, that these days is often referred to as Multi-Level Marketing (MLM). It probably also includes harvesting email addresses, credit card numbers and personal information. In the past they may have been involved with the mortgage spammers, who always had a strong presence in Florida. The mortgage spammers seemed to have connections with organised crime as well as the more shady side of the finance sector. However that is speculation on my part. To date I have not found concrete evidence for the mortgage connection. However, Florida has been a haven for mortgage spammers in the past. I imagine that the perpetrator is a small time fraudster with aspirations to make it to the big-time.
Now, you might consider me incredulous, but, I do make a living out of being a sceptic. And I couldn't help noticing that the names Robert Kuntz, BJ Bishop and Laura Lynch already have entries in Wikipedia, for different (and legitimate) activities. Which is why I suspect that these names are phony. Of course that doesn't mean the sites cannot be shut down. We know the IP addresses. We know who registered them. They can be taken down in a couple of milliseconds. We just don't know their real names and addresses.
Of course I could just be a mistrustful sceptic and there really are three conscientious little Florida citizens, Robert, BJ and little Laura, all of them working their little buns off just trying to get a sizable piece of the American dream before they retire early (with other peoples' money).
But on the other hand it would be possible to shut them down. If someone accused them of being affiliated with a weird Islamist group, they'd be off air in less time than it would take to type "Google" into "Google".
Last century, before the lawyers, scam-artists and spammers made such a big move on the Internet, a domain like cashblasterpro.com would have been taken down within a couple of hours. These days it will probably take weeks or months to shut these scam-artists down.
Of course the netblocks from which the spam originated have now changed hands.
This does not do a lot to promote confidence in the Internet or the US authorities abilities to enforce the law. It does foster Florida's inglororious reputation as the spam capital of the world and TUCOWS Inc as the spammers' preferred Registrar.
If anything it illustrates how ineffective and ineffectual US anti-spam laws are, when a crew like this can openly and persistently flout not only those laws but several other laws regarding fraud, identity theft etc.
NOTE:
On Thursday the 12th of June, I started to receive a lot of spam claiming to be from Robert Kuntz and BJ Bishop. It was coming mostly from non-portable addresses, and it was very aggressive. Although Spam Assassin was diverting the spam to my spam folder, it was repeating constantly.
Going back through the system logs I noticed that several RTBLs were not available during the period June 09-15. So this might have been the result of a co-ordinated attack on various RTBLs.
At the time, my main concern was the sheer volume of spam being diverted to my spam inbox. It was the same email over and over. In order to stop it I black-banned the offending IP addresses in the postfix access DB.
This incident prompted me to finish a script that I had been working on for a while. It is a perl script that automatically black-bans offenders for 24 hours. I call this the SA (Spam Assassin) Sin Bin. As I have become confident of the fact that Spam Assassin will not return false positives (because I've tuned it that way), I now feel sanguine about implementing this script. I will try to release details of it soon.
I was so busy with the technicalities that I didn't bother checking further about Robert Kuntz and BJ Bishop. At the time I had thought it might be an early Friday the 13th type jape, which spammers seem to think is so amusing.
It turns out this was the work of a nest of very bold spammers. The domain which they were promoting, cashblasterpro.com, makes little attempt to hide itself or their operations or their phony, scamming, scummy intent. Their sites (and affiliated sites) are chock full of the most blatant, outrageous bullshit, sprinkled with technical jargon, that I have encountered this year. I won't even dignify the load of bollocks on their sites further by commenting on it. If you are curious go and visit them. Just be careful if you are low-level Microsoftie using IE. These guys are just the type to deploy rat-cunning malware dirty tricks against unwary visitors. It would be a lot safer to go to scam.com and read the thread about Robert (if that is his actual name) and his activities.
Cashblasterpro.com is registered by our old friends TUCOWS Inc, as are the domains robertkuntz.com and bjbishop.com.
Robert Kuntz (if that really is his name) is listed as the administrative contact for the cashblasterpro.com domain. The details are as follows:
Robert Kuntz
1560 NW 128th DR #108
Sunrise, FL 33323 US
BJ Bishop, if that really is his name, is listed as the administrative contact for bjbishop.com, also at the same Florida address:
Bishop, BJ
1560 NW 128th DR #108
Sunrise, FL 33323 US
Laura Lynch (if that is a real person) is also mentioned as someone who helped design these sites. Seems she works at the same address.
Another domain registered at this address is web2upgrade.com. Both web2upgrade.com and cashblasterpro.com use the same primary and secondary nameservers (ns11.cashblasterpro.com and ns12.cashblasterpro.com) Robertkuntz.com and bjbishop.com use the nameservers ns1.web2dashboard.com and ns2.web2dashboard.com.
Web2dashboard.com is another domain administered by our old mate Robert Kuntz, and operating from the same Florida address. It must be one busy little place there in Florida, operating all of those domains.
These sites appear to use a San Fancisco company, 123cheapdomains.com as their ISP. All of them are registered by TUCOWS Inc.
That busy little location in Florida appears to be a genuine address in Fort Lauderdale. Or at least Google Earth will take me there. It does seem strange that the address is in the middle of the road rather than one of the buildings. But maybe it's a very mobile operation.
It looks as if there is a block of offices close by. I cannot tell if there is an actual sign saying "Cashblasterpro.com", since Google Earth will not show me a street view. But the aerial view shows only a few car parking spots out the back. I don't know how all those people, Robert, BJ and their helper Laura and their staff and all the staff for web2upgrade.com and web2dashboard.com, robertkuntz.com, bjbishop.com, etc all fit in that tiny little space ... Especially if they really do work in the middle of the road!
It seems that Robert (if that is his real name) started out with the email address of stilladreamr@yahoo.com, which he has used as the Administrative contact for many of his domains.
It also seems at one stage, stilladreamr had an eBay account. However the account was suspended for non-compliance. He may have had an interest in motorcycles.
There is also a veritable splodge of sploggers (if I can coin a collective noun), creating bogus entries in various blogs about what a great new technology Robert and his spammer buddies have discovered and how they are going to make you rich, if you just give them your personal details. When I googled for Robert Kuntz (how do you pronounce that?) I found ample evidence of splogging.
The scam is a type of pyramid scheme, that these days is often referred to as Multi-Level Marketing (MLM). It probably also includes harvesting email addresses, credit card numbers and personal information. In the past they may have been involved with the mortgage spammers, who always had a strong presence in Florida. The mortgage spammers seemed to have connections with organised crime as well as the more shady side of the finance sector. However that is speculation on my part. To date I have not found concrete evidence for the mortgage connection. However, Florida has been a haven for mortgage spammers in the past. I imagine that the perpetrator is a small time fraudster with aspirations to make it to the big-time.
Now, you might consider me incredulous, but, I do make a living out of being a sceptic. And I couldn't help noticing that the names Robert Kuntz, BJ Bishop and Laura Lynch already have entries in Wikipedia, for different (and legitimate) activities. Which is why I suspect that these names are phony. Of course that doesn't mean the sites cannot be shut down. We know the IP addresses. We know who registered them. They can be taken down in a couple of milliseconds. We just don't know their real names and addresses.
Of course I could just be a mistrustful sceptic and there really are three conscientious little Florida citizens, Robert, BJ and little Laura, all of them working their little buns off just trying to get a sizable piece of the American dream before they retire early (with other peoples' money).
But on the other hand it would be possible to shut them down. If someone accused them of being affiliated with a weird Islamist group, they'd be off air in less time than it would take to type "Google" into "Google".
Last century, before the lawyers, scam-artists and spammers made such a big move on the Internet, a domain like cashblasterpro.com would have been taken down within a couple of hours. These days it will probably take weeks or months to shut these scam-artists down.
Of course the netblocks from which the spam originated have now changed hands.
This does not do a lot to promote confidence in the Internet or the US authorities abilities to enforce the law. It does foster Florida's inglororious reputation as the spam capital of the world and TUCOWS Inc as the spammers' preferred Registrar.
If anything it illustrates how ineffective and ineffectual US anti-spam laws are, when a crew like this can openly and persistently flout not only those laws but several other laws regarding fraud, identity theft etc.
Add a Comment
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Comment by Norman German on July 2, 2009 at 12:04pm -
Hello David,
I have a question. I am pretty sure these guys are dirty little scammers as well. The reason being is they have a picture of me on the squeeze page that their link sent me to. I do not know where the hell they got that picture. It is a personal picture on my hard drive, I never gave them permission to use it, and where I am from that is called stealing. I would like to know what I should do as far as reporting them to the authorities and getting these people off of the internet so us real working people can provide our value to the Internet Society. Great Blog, by the way, keep up the good work.
Kind Regards,
Norman German
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Comment by Suzanne Del Negro on June 11, 2009 at 9:07pm -
Like Lori Bray, I joined the Buzzbot Web2.0 Community in late March 2009 and have not had any concerns, or fears that this is just another Marketing Scam. At present I am working with the Web Design Team now to create my own Dream Property, a Community For Women Members Only. So far NO COMPLAINTS! Perhaps you should see all the NEW changes and features the BUZZBOT INTERACTIVE DESKTOP offers.
Talk soon,
Suzanne/ http://www.web2wow.com/suzanneweidner
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Comment by David Foster on June 2, 2009 at 11:52am -
Hey Robert,
Well it's not "here we go again" it is still going....
First of all, like I said before all you had to do was tell everyone what you were going through and trust me that would have been totally understandable. We all have things happen in our lives, but when you have people who have invested time and money into you, you still have to communicate with them NO MATTER WHAT. I am sure that no one would have kicked you when you were down had we known you WERE down. People are pretty understanding when you are open with them and honest.
But when they are left wondering what the hell happened what do you expect?
So I again just looked at your system...and it appears that nothing works...give me a URL and I will check it out in great detail and inform you of what I find. I want YOUR link Robert as I do not want to sign up, I just want to look at it more since you have updated it because when I looked at it a few months ago, it did not work right...
I set up a new email address that I will use to set it up because I have had a few people tell me that since they signed up they have been getting SPAM. I WILL do my research and give you a fair shake so that when I come back in here I will be completely informed...does that sound fair?
I will report back once I have been inside and if I find that my blog here is no longer justified I will remove it...if not then I will report the issues that I found...and just curious..if it is Internet based, why are these properties selling for $2000+? Just curious...at least they were last I saw...
David
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Comment by Robert Kuntz on June 1, 2009 at 5:51pm -
David,
Here we go again... First off, you claim to have done your research and also claim to be a pro and warn people that "the software they created adds malware and spyware onto your computer" - yet you would know if you actually did your research that our system is 100% web-based and we do not install anything on our users computer. You know as well as I do that malicious software must be installed by the user and WE OFFER NO DOWNLOADABLE SOFTWARE - again, it's all web-based.
Regarding Y.E.S. That was a very difficult time in my life. I was taking care of my mom who had cancer at the time that YES was having the difficulties. My mother passed away during this time. You say we just walked away? I spent several months after the downfall trying to reignite the membership with system redesigns and improvements and could not make it a go. With the passing of my mom and the onslaught of problems with that company, I was beaten emotionally, mentally and physically. Have you ever been in a period in your life where everything seemed to be going wrong? That was me back then and here you are today still kicking me for when I was down back then. Cut me some slack!
Lastly you challenge people to come back in 6 to 12 months and report back in. They won't have to because by this time BuzzBot will be all over the web as one of the big overnight success stories. We are already in over 220 countries. This is my life and my passion and we have grown from a 3 person team just a few short months ago to a company with now over 20 employees, to include graphics, software dev, support, admin, etc. and I can ensure you, WE HAVE SOMETHING VERY SPECIAL and will be here for the long-term.
Stop bashing us and allow us to prove ourselves and our intentions...for the many supporters we have now, they have already seen the proof. You have not even given us a chance - and judging by your comments about the software, you have not even taken a good look at it. That's not "research" - that's judging us by a past upset and saying that we are crooks based on that limited information. That is not fair for us or our members. Put yourself in our shoes - what if the tables were turned???
So...with that said...we will let time tell all...
Regards,
Robert
BuzzBot 2.oh!
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Comment by David Foster on June 1, 2009 at 3:33pm
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Hey Jose,
No does not make me look sad at all. Shows that I care about people.
I already mentioned the 2 programs I was talking about 2 times in these posts which you obviously have not read. One was Cashblasterpro.com and the other was Your Easy Street.
I do not have to call Robert. He could tell me anything he wants to say here in public for all to see. Our conversation does not need to be private as people should be able to read it here...
I will never "bury the hatchet" when it comes to people's security and well being. If you truly cared about people you would do your own research. But obviously when people are brain washed they would not see the truth even if it were right in front of them...
Just consider yourself warned. At least I can sleep at night knowing that I will ALWAYS try to help people. What they do with this information is totally up to them You are welcome to disagree and if you think me a miserable person that is fine...but I am not miserable at all. So my next recommendation would be to stop reading what I am writing here. =-)
Have a great week!
David Foster
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Comment by David Foster on June 1, 2009 at 12:33am
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Louis,
I am sorry, but you have no idea what YOU are talking about. I know you may be a happy property owner, but one thing that you are missing here is the fact that the software they created adds malware and spyware onto your computer. That means that all the people who you are sending to this company for their "free" membership are at risk of having this crap on their computer, which by agreeing to install, they are allowing this to be put on their computer.
Now a non computer literate person will have no idea what this means, but I as a programmer/designer know EXACTLY what they are doing. You need to do your research on the owners of the company and you will find that over the years they are nothing but information farmers and make a large % of their money farming people's valuable information and selling it!
Before you just say what you are saying here, you should have some proof. Did you even read the post that I added on top? That is research that I did on YOUR behalf to protect you from being scammed...
I invite you to come back in here in 6-12 months and tell me how much money you have made, and how well Buzzbot is doing then...seriously...and if you can by then prove to me the legitimacy of this business and company then I will delete this post and re-write a public apology with YOUR link in it promoting your property....
This is my challenge to you. Please don't come into here with nothing to substantiate your claims. I can tell by what you wrote here, your main intention was to try to promote your product to people who read this...and like most people who promote things on here, they have nothing to substantiate their claims...
Anyway, just take this as sound advice coming from someone who has been around the Internet block a time or two. In fact, I have seen personally 3 companies that Robert and his father B.J. have been involved with and you know how many are still alive and kicking today???
ZERO!!!!
So just be careful is the ONLY message I am trying to give here so don't take it personal, just do your due diligence and investigate it on your own.
David Foster
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Comment by Louis Harvey on May 31, 2009 at 10:49pm -
Everything that your saying about this company is untrue. I'm a Property Owner, and have been with this company from the very beginning as a casfblaster member. I couldn't be more prouder in this company. We have come a long way and we're not stopping here. You can be apart of the team but don't put out bad information. We are proud Owners, and stand behind everything there doing.
Louis
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Comment by Louis Harvey on May 31, 2009 at 10:39pm
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Dave,
The information that you're sharing is down right incorrect. I'm a member of this company, and one of the 300 Property Owners. Everything that they are doing out weights everything your saying about this company the best thing you should be doing is joining and becoming a member and see for yourself whats going on you have a chance to do so its free to join and take a look around to see for yourself what a great company it is revolving into before everyone eyes. Take a look at my property for yourself your welcome to visit.
Louis
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Comment by Paul Hines on May 25, 2009 at 10:49am
- Glad to see you're on top of this Levi.
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Comment by David Foster on May 19, 2009 at 2:41am
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Hey Robert,
If you did not take the money and run with YES, then why were we not told anything and you just disappeared? I mean I know people who never got their commissions...and I really do appreciate you coming in here and speaking your side because I know that sometimes we make mistakes and I think we ARE allowed to...but what is WRONG is the way it is handled.
If you make mistakes then you openly tell people who have invested time and money into you. Bottom line. You OWE it to them to tell them what is going on and not just closing the doors and leaving people to wonder...THAT is the SCAM. Not the software...not the service or the comp plan...but the REPUTATION of the leaders running the company.
Please tell me why you did not let people know what was happening?
Thanks in advance,
David Foster
Let's Get Growing
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