I just got off the phone with a fellow who identified himself as “Mark Wilson” of Master Resorts. Mark had great news—because I had earned “golden points” on my VISA card, I had qualified for a free trip ((Jack, after I updated my status on Facebook suggested that they were offering a trip to Club Fraud in the Greater Scamtillies—those puns are too good not to go unmentioned)).
I have Mark’s name in quotation marks because I’m positive this was a scam—from the private caller / number on the caller ID to VOIP-quality phone connection, to the slightly-off “golden points”—this “free vacation” phone call screamed that I shouldn’t trust this guy. So, I decided to have some fun and waste as much of his time as possible.
Mark, after his initial pitch (where the premise of a free vacation from my VISA golden points was laid out), asked me to get a pen and paper so I could take down all the information he was going to tell me. The first thing that he wanted to do was give me his phone number so I could call him back (in case we got disconnected). So here is his number: 503-895-5755. When I asked him where the 503 area code was, Mark informed me that 503 wasn’t the area code: 01 was. Hrm. Someone not familiar with North American phone numbers?
Mark laid out the three places I could go: Cancun, Mexico; Orlando, Florida; and Daytona Beach, Florida. I was told all the fantastic things I would see and do, down to the child-safe balcony (and I would love to know what experience these scammers had to start describing the balcony as child-safe) in Daytona Beach. I was never asked if I was interested in the offer. It was assumed from the beginning that I was always along for the ride.
Then came the sell: I could get this $6000 transferable trip, good for one year, for only $600 in taxes, payable on the day of departure. I had been playing along to this point, and I decided that it was time to start fucking around with Mark. I decided that I was going to be a travel-phobic and tell him that I didn’t like to leave the country. Mark, without missing a beat, pointed out that I could transfer the voucher to a friend. How convenient. Time for me to change tack : I had no friends. Mark was good. Again, without missing a beat suggested that I would meet friends on this trip—and who knows, he added, I might even get a girlfriend. I wondered internally if I wanted to interrogate Mark’s hetero-normative assumption, but decided to play along. I told Mark that a girlfriend was an exciting proposition, but I was very, very ugly. No girls would date me.
I could tell that Mark was enjoying this. I could hear his chuckle over the line and I think he was enjoying my ridiculous arguments. He told me that from the moment he heard my voice, he knew I was a reasonable guy and I mustn’t be as bad-looking as I said I was. I said I really was and he replied with the same line: I sounded like a reasonable guy, so I couldn’t be as homely as I made myself out to be. Then I asked him if I was calling me a liar. The chuckle went out of his voice.
At this point, the line crackled and went dead for a bit. When the voice returned on the other end of the line, it was different. I’m pretty sure that Mark passed me on to another person, perhaps his boss, to try and make a deal. This new Mark re-iterated the prize and did that classic sales thing where you are asked, rhetorically, how wonderfully lucky you are and what a great time you’ll have, all for $600 at departure. I then told the new Mark that I didn’t have a passport. That stopped him up for a moment, then the circular argument continued, with the new Mark suggesting that I could give it to friends. I said I had none.
Then the pitch changed. The new Mark asked me how much I made. I told him I wasn’t telling him how much I made. He asked me if I wanted to add to my monthly cash flow. I didn’t respond. The new Mark’s pitch? Imagine, if I bought this $6000 vacation for $600 how much money I could make selling it to a travel agent. WTF? New Mark is expecting me to sell this to a travel agent? I told him that he was crazy. No travel agent would buy a voucher from me.
Then he hung up.
Sleuthing
Incidentally, after I got off the phone, I did a little google-fu on the number: it is listed as the North American contact number for Fast Track Communications based in Karachi, Pakistan. Their mission statement is a bit strange:
“ We provide the ordinary services in an extra ordinary way. We always serve the customers with the pleasant smile and we are present to mould the call centre industry in a new way. Because we always believe in
”
But they appear to be your run-of-the-mill out-of-country call centre. Certainly, they could be hired by some other entity to perpetrate the fraud. But they likely know that what they’re doing would be considered illegal here in Canada.
Or the US: the 503 area code is located in Oregon, but their US address is located in Tennessee. Searching for the address in Google maps is kind of fun. Look where their American address is located:
An empty lot in some strange subdivision. I know that the maps image may be dated and there could easily be a house there now, but it appears that the image is from 2009.
There is a North American contact:
Andy SmithPhone: +1(901)217-8681
E-mail: info@fasttrackcom.com
Mr. Smith’s number is located in Moscow, TN, a town 32 minutes down the road from the address provided in Collierville. Searching on-line for that 901 doesn’t reveal much—just that its a land-line. The number is traced to Ymax Communications, a communications company that specializes in VOIP communication and re-sells local numbers (including numbers in the 901 area code).
If the quality of the phone call didn’t convince me that Golden Resorts was a scam, nothing I found looking into all of this does anything to change my mind. If anything, it confirms it even more.
So who is behind Fast Track Communications? Well, no contact name beyond Andy Smith is given on the website, so I checked out the whois info, the site was registered on October 12th, 2009 to this fellow:
Adeel Ghaziani (adeel@cyberhosters.org)Alyabad colony
karachi
Sind(en),75950
PK
Tel. +092.03432504440
Is he behind Fast Track Communication? Hard to say. Mr. Ghaziani appears to be the CEO/owner of a Pakistani hosting company, CyberHosters. Interestingly, the CyberHosters website links to a group on Facebook where we can find Mr. Ghaziani’s own profile.
So where does this leave me? Nowhere really. And perhaps that is the point. If I had gone along with the Free Vacation scam, I imagine I would have been out of a trip and $600 without anywhere to go—physical addresses that are vacant lots, phone numbers that ring through to another country. In a hyper-connected world, these kinds of scams are easier and easier to perpetrate: it would little money and effort to get the ball rolling. And all it takes is a less-critical person answering the phone at the other end to turn my homely home-body into a willing participant.
Update (12/15/09): This post is now getting comments like this:
they call me they are so good ppl they give me my vication package its not a scam so dont worry its all rumors so guys dont worry u are in save hands
Which I promptly delete because the IP address comes from an ISP in Karachi, Pakistan.
Update (03/29/10): Someone with the user name Slobodyan posted a complaint about this website suggesting that I am “messing up [his] business name” and that Slobodyan is going to take “legal action”. I found out about this as Slobodyan then posted a link to the complaint as a comment to this post.
My response to Slobodyan: I won’t approve your comments when the website linked (rundi-ka-bacha.com) to your comment doesn’t exist. I’m not sure how you’re connected to Master Resorts, but its clear, based on the comments of others on this site, that people are being contacted with their VISA card numbers and personal information that they did not disclose. This strikes me, if somehow legal, as a very poor way to conduct business. If you are not connected to Master Resorts, then I would like to know how this post messes up your business’ name?