MySuperShares.com spam

In my view, all MLM schemes are almost always scams.. and MySuperShares.com seems to be just another MLM scheme, this time selling "ads" that only seem to display on the MySuperShares.com site. But the real carrot is the promise of downlines if you sign someone else up.. in other words, a thin product offering with a concentration on signing up other members rather than selling a real product.

The scheme itself is based in Australia, and I am no expert in Australian law. So, let's assume that this type of MLM scheme is legal in Australia for now.

Still, this particular email seemed unusually brazen..

From: MySuperShares.com <webmaster@mysupershares.com>
Reply-To: webmaster@mysupershares.com
Date: 28 October 2010 13:30
Subject: MySuperShares.com Confirmation Email
   
Dear 4612_210 4080_759,

Thank you for creating your account with MySuperShares.com.

To activate your account, please click the link below:

http://www.mysupershares.com/confirm.php?username=0000_000&id=00000

Once you have completed this step, you will be able to
login to your account.

Kind regards

Eva Browne-Paterson & Jullieanne Matheson
MySuperShares.com

The originating IP is 174.122.14.226, MySuperShares.com is hosted on 174.122.14.227 (i.e. the next IP address), so it indicates that the mail is genuinely from MySuperShares.com. Let's look at the WHOIS details for that domain:


Registrant:
   EvieB.com
   1 Keswick Island Drive
   Keswick Island, Queensland 4740
   Australia

   Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
   Domain Name: MYSUPERSHARES.COM
      Created on: 13-Oct-10
      Expires on: 13-Oct-11
      Last Updated on: 13-Oct-10

   Administrative Contact:
      Browne-Paterson, Eva  evieb@evieb.com
      EvieB.com
      1 Keswick Island Drive
      Keswick Island, Queensland 4740
      Australia
      411569782      Fax -- 749658019

   Technical Contact:
      Browne-Paterson, Eva  evieb@evieb.com
      EvieB.com
      1 Keswick Island Drive
      Keswick Island, Queensland 4740
      Australia
      411569782      Fax -- 749658019

   Domain servers in listed order:
      NS1.MYFREESAFELIST.COM
      NS2.MYFREESAFELIST.COM


It's unusual for fraudsters to include their real contact details in the WHOIS, in fact everything checks out as being legitimate, it you check out the MLM business model.

There are a few possibilities:

1. The people running the site are really stupid and think that this is a good way to get signups (rather than getting your site nuked)
2. Someone is using MySuperShare.com's own system to perform a Joe Job with deliberately false signups.
3. Someone thinks that they can make money by gaming MySuperShare.com's system with fake signups.

My best bet is that it is the #2 or #3 option, because I really don't think that the site operators are so stupid as to try spamming like this. Does that mean that it is a legitimate programme? Well, put it this way.. do you really think that it is feasible to make money by selling nothing of value?

Update:it does appear that someone is targetting these MLM "get rich quick" sites as another site called Rev2Share.com has also been hit.