Ok so yesterday I found that Rich Femia is connected with ecn1.com, aka electroniccashnetwork.com (see
http://www.electroniccashnetwork.com/ne ... vemgmt.asp )
So I found a phone number (used
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search and found a link with a phone number) to contact ECN and verified that Rich Femia DOES indeed work their. The confusing part is that if he is the President (or Executive VP) then why did the person have to put me on hold to verify if he WORKED THERE. (That was my question:
Does Richard Femia work for your company? )
Any way it was confirmed that he did work there. So I used ecn1.com's contact page to send a message:
Info sent on contact page of ecn1.com wrote:Name: Mr.Escrow Fraud
Company: Escrow-Fraud.com
Address:
Address: ,
Address:
----------
Phone:
Fax:
----------
Comments: FOR: Richard Femia,
I am sorry to intrude on your life this way. I ask for your forgiveness in
advance.
The reason for my email is that I have received a response on my feedback
system on my website with a claim that YOU have launched websites that I
have impacted.
First of all let me explain that I maintain a website at
http://escrow-fraud.com that is intended to inform the public about
potential fraud sites on the internet. It has grown significantly since it
started with law enforcement agencies using it as a valuable resource.
I have posted the "Feedback" received from the person claiming to be you
(and may actually be you) on my forum at
http://forum.escrow-fraud.com/viewtopic.php?p=1420 and I am looking for
you to either CONFIRM or DENY that this is your request.
If it is, I apologize, and will remove all offending information, if it is
not, then I also apologize and caution you to verify that you have not
been a victim of identity theft.
Thank you in advance for your time. I anxiously await your response.
--
Escrow-Fraud.Com Admin
P.S. I did send this to
rfemia@ecn1.com but the message bounced.
The first response which was automated had the email of
RichFemia@aol.com which is where the first feedback came from. Then I did get an email response from Rich Femia
Email Response from Rich Femia wrote:Thank you for your prompt response and understanding. I am confirming that this is me (Richard Femia). This is impacting our business, as well as causing harm with negotiations with our investors. We are a start-up company looking to raise money and the web site is a work in progress. In my e-mail that I sent earlier, I mentioned my background (which is also on the web site), our companies contact information and the fact that we have a product to combat fraud on the Internet. Our research has shown that the complaint came from the e-mail below. The gentlemen filed an erroneous complaint.
I urgently ask you to correct this error and to activate the following sites that we have secured. They all point to the same web site
http://www.globalsecurepayments.comhttp://www.epayguardian.comhttp://www.epayterminal.com Your urgent attention to this matter would be greatly appreciated, as again it is impacting our business, as well as causing harm with negotiations with our investors.
Best Regards,
Rich
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: XXXXXX
To:
abuse@siteground.com Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 3:00 AM
Subject: fake ebay escrows
http://www.globalsecurepayments.com/ http://www.epayguardian.com/ the usual suspects using the usual template to steal money and property. please close it soon. the results of this request will be posted publicly.
thank you
So I responded:
response wrote:Rich,
I am not 100% convinced that the below sites are a fraud. As I have done some searching to try and validate the legitimacy of your site(s), I find that they are listed in several locations on the web as a fraud. This is not necessarily conclusive as many of the people in this various forums do tend to post/follow the issue on multiple sites.
That being said, I have disabled references to your site being fraud in my database, however, should further information be provided to verify that the site(s) are fraudulent, I will re-enable them.
Additionally, I (personally) had nothing to do with your website being disabled other than perhaps a reference in my database. Typically, we (those of us looking) look for clues in the information presented. This includes WHOIS info, as well as info on the websites. Matching information on various pages of a suspect site with information of legit sites is also a method used.
As you may have seen from my website and specifically the image gallery, vary often sites will use the same layout over and over to perpetrate a fraud. As you have 3 websites all using the same layout, (or pointing to the same location), WHOIS info in Hong Kong (Asia is a place where the fraud rate is on the rise) but a company in the US, a Newly registered company for a company that claims to have been around for significantly longer than the site has been registered for (i.e. a company claiming to be around since 2000 but only registered the domain last month.... especially if it's "technology" related).
You should know that it's the HOSTS responsibility to "Unblock" your site. Only the entity that controls the server can do that. (well, there are other ways to block, but are irrelevant to this discussion). It is up to (apparently) siteground.com to release your site. Your CTO, Derek Smith, should be aware of what needs to be done in this matter. (If he does not, then perhaps you need a new CTO).
Finally, I would strongly encourage you to have the MAJORITY of the links functional on the site before making it publicly available. Dead links and poor spelling and grammar are also clues to fraud.
Sincerely,
Escrow-Fraud.Com Admin
Ultimately, I have (at least for the moment) removed entries from the database , erroring on the side of caution, at least until such a time as I have enough info to conclussively say it IS or IS NOT legit.
