SiriusAddict.com

So in the past few days, I’ve been watching some spam pop up on Cingular phones. The text message is from some random girl’s name and tells the user that “Someone is looking to buy or rent ur timeshare! Go to webuyresorts.com for more info.”

I go to the site, which is clearly a scam in itself and submit some fraudulent information. The webmaster bans me because I’m providing nothing useful to his “service” so I switch to another IP address and same result.

Point is, I’ve contacted Cingular about it and they can’t and aren’t doing anything about it. They’ve told other people to “reply with STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE” which just verifies a true number. Besides, you cannot do this as the number is 101010000x (where x is a random number based on the text messages you’ve received so far from cingular.com’s webpage).

There are other threads about this, too. Link 1 Link 2

I’ve signed up, as per Cingular’s FAQ to stop web-based texting from their site, but it’s a huge security hole if they don’t let you either 1) log in before sending a message, 2) verify the number the text is coming from is real, 3) allow you to be mass spammed via their site.

How can it be stopped? Submitting fake data to the site only gets your IP address banned, according to those threads. In addition, the phone number the site is registered to just gives a fast busy signal. The site “owner” is based in Skyesville, MD. which is probably fraudulent anyway. Any ideas?

Update: The WHOIS record has changed, further proving it’s SPAM. I’ll be reporting it to INTERNIC. The WHOIS was previously:

domain: webuyresorts.com
owner-address: 7185 Lakefront Rd
owner-address: 21781
owner-address: Sykesville
owner-address: Maryland
owner-address: United States of America
admin-c: JVK4-GANDI
tech-c: JVK4-GANDI
bill-c: JVK4-GANDI
nserver: ns1.webuyresorts.com 70.119.45.87
nserver: ns2.webuyresorts.com 70.119.45.87
reg_created: 2006-10-25 17:45:47
expires: 2007-10-25 17:45:47
created: 2006-10-25 19:45:40
changed: 2006-10-25 19:45:40person: Jason Van Kurt
nic-hdl: JVK4-GANDI
address: 7185 Lakefront Rd
address: 21781
address: Sykesville
address: Maryland
address: United States of America
phone: +1.4105569697
e-mail: b5f4e80bf816d5582a4e7fa9fb63994a-jvk4@contact.gandi.net
lastupdated: 2006-10-25 19:38:57

The number was called and just always goes to a fast busy signal. I addition, the address is not even a valid street name in Maryland. The WHOIS is now reported as:

domain: webuyresorts.com
owner-name: webuyresortscom
owner-address: 49 avenue du chien qui aboie
owner-address: F-75021, Paris
owner-address: France
admin-c: BT61-GANDI
tech-c: BT61-GANDI
bill-c: BT61-GANDI
nserver: dns0.webuyresorts.com
nserver: dns1.webuyresorts.com
reg_created: 2006-05-15 05:39:47
expires: 2007-05-15 05:39:47
created: 2006-05-15 05:39:47
changed: 2006-05-15 05:39:47person: webuyresortscom
nic-hdl: BT61-GANDI
address: webuyresortscom
address: 49 avenue du chien qui aboie
address: F-75021, Paris
address: France
phone: N/A
e-mail: a0+webuyresorts.com4431375c.2130@whois.gandi.net

Update 2: If you contact Cingular, they will refund your money spent on text messaging from this spam company and will tell you also how to block messages via their online system (their web form to send SMS). Sure, you’ll only be refunded $0.10 per message incoming from this company, but it’s still worth it since it was unsolicited.

Update 3: After contacting Road Runner, INTERNIC, and GANDI (all of which are in some way or another related to the two sites in question, sellyourresort.com and webuyresorts.com), both sites have been taken offline. I love it when that happens!