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Thursday 11 October 2012

ppinomore.com PPI SMS spam

These PPI spammers are at it again, this time promoting a website ppinomore.com.

URGENT you are owed £3350 for the PPI you took out, time is running out to claim, please visit www.ppinomore.com to claim, thank you. To opt out reply STOP.

The sending number is +447787446160 although this will change at they get blocked for spamming. If you have any more numbers, then please considered adding them in the Comments section.

If you get one of these, you should forward the spam and the sender's number to your carrier. In the came of T-Mobile, O2 and Orange the number to report to is 7726 ("SPAM"). Vodafone customers should use 87726 ("VSPAM") and Three customers should use 37726 ("3SPAM"). Hopefully the carriers will act if there are enough complaints.

The thing with these spam PPI messages is that they are also a scam. I don't have any mis-sold PPI, so I'm not eligible for anything, but it seems that the spammers are encouraging you to make a fraudulent claim, which is a criminal offence.

So who is behind ppinomore.com? It has anonymous WHOIS details so no clue there. They claim their address is in Pakistan:
PPI-Today
586, Park Towers,
Block 26, P.E.C.H.S.,
Shahrah-e-Faisal,
Karachi

And they're not regulated by anyone..
ppinomore is a marketing agent. Our partners are regulated by the Ministry of Justice in respect of regulated claims management activities - their authorisation number is available on request and their registration is recorded on the Ministry of Justice website 

So who are their partners. Of note, the ppinomore.com site is hosted on 217.23.12.215 which is hosted by Worldstream in the Netherlands, but actually allocated to a scam/spam friendly outfit called YoHost . The following sites are on the same server:

antismsspam.com
birthdaywishlist.net
buyfacebookfriends.info
claimsdirects.com
cpamatch.net
downloads4.biz
easyexplorer.net
englandinsolvency.com
filewizard.net
flywith.org
glasgowtrustdeeds.com
guystube.net
homeworkers.tv
ineedajob.tv
jizzin.me
kimdotcom.biz
liquidationadvice.info
megahost.tv
memorysticks.tv
monstercv.tv
mortgagecharges.info
myppi.org
numbergenerator.info
phoneapps.tv
ppinomore.com
ppinow.org
prepaidcards.tv
protectedtrustdeeds.tv
referafriend.info
rofl.hk
scotlandtrustdeeds.info
scottishdebtinfo.com
scottishtrustdeed.info
smsoptout.com
streamingloads.com
surveymonster.info
textforgold.com
transfermypension.info
txtforloans.com
whatsbetterapp.com
yadoo.tv

Some of these look quite interesting.. they're also using SMS and PPI themed sites. Almost all the sites have anonymous WHOIS details.. apart from myppi.org that is..

Domain ID:D166396094-LROR
Domain Name:MYPPI.ORG
Created On:21-Aug-2012 10:52:54 UTC
Last Updated On:21-Aug-2012 10:52:55 UTC
Expiration Date:21-Aug-2013 10:52:54 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com, LLC (R91-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Status:TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:ADDPERIOD
Registrant ID:CR122029936
Registrant Name:john mcneish
Registrant Organization:surveycentre
Registrant Street1:flat 3 11a whitworth street
Registrant Street2:opal house
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:manchester
Registrant State/Province:lancashire
Registrant Postal Code:m1 3gw
Registrant Country:GB
Registrant Phone:+1.614083744
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:gary@tetr.us
Admin ID:CR122029938
Admin Name:john mcneish
Admin Organization:surveycentre
Admin Street1:flat 3 11a whitworth street
Admin Street2:opal house
Admin Street3:
Admin City:manchester
Admin State/Province:lancashire
Admin Postal Code:m1 3gw
Admin Country:GB
Admin Phone:+1.614083744
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:gary@tetr.us
Tech ID:CR122029937
Tech Name:john mcneish
Tech Organization:surveycentre
Tech Street1:flat 3 11a whitworth street
Tech Street2:opal house
Tech Street3:
Tech City:manchester
Tech State/Province:lancashire
Tech Postal Code:m1 3gw
Tech Country:GB
Tech Phone:+1.614083744
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:gary@tetr.us
Name Server:NS19.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server:NS20.DOMAINCONTROL.COM


John McNeish? So why is his email address gary@tetr.us then? Probably because this is really Gary McNeish who has been involved in offshore SMS spamming before.

So, is Gary McNeish responsible for the ppinomore.com SMS spam? It could just be a coincidence that a server stuffed with dodgy finance and marketing sites contains both a site belonging to Gary McNeish and these ppinomore.com scammers, after all there's no indication that this is actually Gary McNeish's server, just that he has a site on it.

Still, hopefully the recently announced ICO crackdown on SMS spammers might have a positive effect.

Update:
Here is another link between ppinomore.com and Gary McNeish's myppi.org - if you search for the text "ppinomore is a marketing agent. Our partners are regulated by the Ministry of Justice" on Google, it also appears on myppi.org:


Funnily enough, the content for myppi.org has changed to some search engine called "Yadoo" since it was indexed by Google. It must just be a coincidence that the ppinomore text appeared on Mr McNeish's site, yes?

The following numbers also seem to be in use for this spam:
+447867368703
+447780458447 

Please add any more in the comments, thanks!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I have had loads of texts from this company, I delete them but here is another number 447867368703 they use.

Smsxprinc said...

I received today one with the same text from the number +447780 458447

What I should do to report it to Three UK? Cheers

Conrad Longmore said...

@smsxprinc: the spam reporting number for 3 is 37726 - don't forget to send them the spammer's number too.

Roy Robart said...

Here's another one: +447867 336503.

I'm with Virgin mobile and their solution is to change MY mobile number - they don't appear to have any equivalent to '7726' (or 87726 for Vodaphone, I think?) and in fact told me that 7726 is a premium rate number! Anyone able to verify this?