Update: This scammer is using different names. The names used that I know of are: Rayan Meyer, Killian Blanchard, Mathis Gaillard, among many others. Please read this post to understand the modus operandi and then go to the site mentioned below for even more details. Good luck!
Scams are everywhere, it seems. Yesterday I received a comment on one of my other websites. The commenter asked if I was interested in placing a banner ad (from a major company) on the site. The person apologized for making a comment instead of emailing. I realized that I didn’t have an email address on the site and this made his comment sound legitimate.
Now my site isn’t as popular as this one. It’s about kitchens, kitchenrenovation411.com , and probably isn’t a site that an advertiser would pick for a banner ad. This should have twigged me that this was a scam. However, the company that this person was supposedly going to link to the banner is a very reputable company. Maybe the clientèle from my site fit the demographics they were looking for. Hey, it’s money, right?
I emailed the person and quoted a figure then did some heavy research. It seems that this kind of thing has been going on for quite a while. Here is a site that describes the dilemma that many WordPress bloggers find themselves in and the tricks scammers use to gain access to websites: http://keepsafeonthenet.co.uk/2011/07/martin-dumont/comment-page-1/#comment-87842 .
Here are some tips to avoid losing your website to a scammer:
1. If it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Whenever money is involved, our eyes light up and we start planning for the future. That’s human nature. Most WordPress sites don’t make any money at all. If someone contacts you about a site that isn’t very popular, you know it is a scam.
2. Do your research. Search Google using the complete email or comment on your blog. This will almost certainly lead to a forum or another site that the scammer has contacted. Read what has been posted and confirm that your contact is fake.
3. Advertisers don’t send their advertising code in a zip file. If you get a zip file from someone who has contacted you through your website, you know it’s got a trojan in it. The contact that I am writing about insists that they will not use any java code, simply a link to the website of the advertiser. Baloney! There will be a zip file coming, I can guarantee it.
4. Brand name companies don’t work through small advertising companies. The website of the person who contacted me looks very professional but it hasn’t been updated since 2007. The website is also exactly the same as another company listed in the link above. Both sites are identical, the only difference is the person who is sending out the emails.
5. If you’ve been taken in by this kind of scam, you should consider your website to be compromised. Links will likely take users to other sites or, worse, your site may be used to email spam. Work with your hosting company to rid your site of the malware on it.
Hopefully this post will help you avoid this type of unusual scam. This kind of thing is criminal activity and should be considered as a threat to your site as well as to your hosting company. Once this kind of thing is on a server, there are many ways for it to spread. Hopefully your host can stay on top of it.
Thanks for reading.