History...and evolution...
ga.to
But this wasn't Dorian's first foray at spamming. Project Takedown participant T.P. reports:
"In March 97 there were spams from ibb.com. NOTE: it looks like that domain was reassigned on
12/30/97, no current web site is active at www.ibb.com. Somebody named 'Dave Mann' was
hawking Internet billboards from Rancho Cucamonga (another Orange County site). Sounds like
Dorian, and Dorian was the whois contact for the site. See
studio42.com
In May of 96, dave@ibb.com got reported to uunet for spamming and forging headers on UCE
solicitations for 'Internet Site Auditors'."
Did she really find two MLM experts in such a short amount of time? Who knows. I do know,
however, that chain letter scammers invent Imaginary Lawyers all the time. In the first "four
reports" version of his site, Dorian claimed to have a "legal staff." Regular readers of this site may
recall that Kal Schmidt, Mega$Nets scammer extraordinaire, claimed to have two lawyers, and
when I asked to speak to one of them, I got e-mail from a man named "Paul" who admitted that he
wasn't exactly a lawyer, but that he had "researched" Mega$Nets. John Binns, one of my favorite
chain letter scam artists, told a reader of this site "I can get five lawyers who'll tell you that this is
perfectly legal." And so on. Many chain letter variations even claim to be written by a "retired
attorney," or include spurious "testimonials" from attorneys, like the infamous "Phillip A. Brown,
Esq." whom Dorian featured on the first version of his site. It's the classic tactic of the con artist.
My hunch was that rather than speaking to professionals herself, Lilly called up Dorian and had a
conversation something like the following:
Dorian: "Circle K, may I help you?"
Lilly: "Hi, it's Lilly. I got this weird e-mail from a guy telling me that I should talk to a legal experts
about this Web page you asked me to endorse."
Dorian: "Oh, don't worry about that. My company roster includes two lawyers who have declared
the whole thing legal. Why, in fact, not only is it legal, it's 100% legal!"
Lilly: "Gee, thanks, Dorian. I know I can always trust you!"
And thus Lilly sent me the e-mail. She didn't mean to be dishonest -- she was just passing along
what Dorian told her.
But, like I said, this was just a hunch. So I sent her a reply, telling her that I would absolutely love
to talk with the lawyers she'd spoken with, that I'd be more than happy to pay whatever consulting
fees were necessary, and that I'd tell them that she'd referred me. Could she please reply with the
lawyer's names and phone numbers, or pass my e-mail address along to them?
I never got a reply.
Next: Report Three: Dorian Takes The Bait!
Participants in Project Takedown began sending notes to Dorian.
Among the first participant to get a nibble was R.H. He adopted the persona of a senior citizen
("John DeMerde") who lived just a few blocks from Dorian. Our aim was to find out:
Was Dorian comfortable with taking money from a fixed-income retiree?
Was Dorian comfortable with suckers coming by the office to meet him in person -- that is,
was the prospect of $5.00 enough to get him to pick up all the dirty socks draped over the
8-track player?
From: John DeMerde
To: contact@yougotmoney.com (contact@yougotmoney.com)
Date: Wednesday, January 21, 1998 5:17 PM
Subject: New member question
Hallo.
My grandson send me your www address and I must say I'm very impressed with your information.
Id like to get going with the program very qucikly, so could you tell me if its OK to come over to
your office to pay the $20, since I live in Fullerton?
Please reply!
John
PS. Since Im over 65 years old and have little money, can you drop the $5 administration fee - Ill
help you do the paperwork that this
probably covers when I come over.
"John" received a reply very quickly:
From members@yougotmoney.com Wed Jan 21 16:15:47 1998
Reply-To: "You Got Money!" (members@yougotmoney.com)
From: "You Got Money!" (members@yougotmoney.com)
To: "John DeMerde"
Subject: Re: New member question
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:16:43 -0800
Dear John, Thank you for the note about being ready to go! This program is all done via e-mail
and postal mail. We could hardly afford at 20.00 to provide a more personal program. You also
mentioned that the money is quite dear to you right now, my suggestion is that you have several
people you trust look over this opportunity before you spend the time and gas to drive from across
town to pay money on any program, perhaps your grandson could be of some assistance. This is a
new program for us (only 1 week ) and although we have high hopes, I would hate to have you risk
your money! Perhaps you want to wait a while when we get it going!
Take Care
Reports Galore
Although Dorian was honest enough to inform "John" that the program was new, the message was
clear: sorry, no discount -- and please, for the love of God, do not come to my apartment.
"John" dropped Dorian another note:
Hi again.
I was only kidding about the discount! Ill be more than happy to pay $20 - hell with a program that
can make so much money in such a short time $20 is nothing!
Ive read through youre info quite a few times and it seems simple to do, even for an old guy like me.
I'll be over first thing on Friday morning to pick the reports up and drop off my $20. One of your
pages says your open from 9am until 4pm - I hope youll have 5 free minutes for me on Friday!
Thanks again,
John
Dorian's response was...nothing. He was strangely silent.
Next: how would Dorian feel about taking money from innocent grade-schoolers? Participant S.R.
cast his line...
Hi,
My name is Sue and I saw something about this on the newsgroups in my computer class in school
today. Kewl! My Help Our Planet Earth club is thinking about how to rise money for our club to go
to the zoo and look at endangred animals. I think this is what we need to do. I do not know what
MLM is. How do I find more about MLM. Please help us to get to go on feild trip to zoo. Will you
take our clubs checks. What do we do.
Thankz! Sue
Dorian bit:
Hi Sue, Thanks for writing. Sounds like a great project. Yes, we will accept a check from your
club, simply fill out the order form using your name or your clubs, it's ok either way. The program
is doing fantastic....so don't just sit there, (smile) let's get going!!!
Hope to hear from you soon!
Warmest Regards,
Dorian
Reports Galore
S.R. raised the stakes:
Hi Dorian,
This is Sue and we voted on sending our check to you today so we could start on getting the money
for out trip to the zoo to help us find out more about endangred animals. We all think its a great
idea and we want to start as soon as we can and our club sponser who is a realy neet teacher is
giviing us a bad time. He says this sounds like a chain letter and does not want us to do it. We told
him it was leggal and that you had layers that said it was and he wants to talk to them before we
send out check. Will you send us your layers name and number so Mr. Washington can call and talk
to them so we can send our check and start.
Thankz!
Sue
Project Takedown, Report 3, Continued
Confronted with a request to speak to the company's imaginary "layers," Dorian was, again,
strangely silent.
Next, participant J.C. also took the "will Dorian actually take money from a minor?" approach, and
decided to see how Dorian would react to a few stupid questions.
Hi,
I just saw an ad for your website on the bulletin board at school. It sounds great! $20 is a big
chunk of my allowence but if i can make that much money I dont mind. 2 questions before i send it
off 1) Can I send you a check for $20, or do you need four checks for $5 each? 2) How long til I
get my reports? I can't wait!
Thank you!
T--
Dorian was quick to reply:
Dear T--,
Great to hear from you! Yes you can send a check. This is a serious money making program and
the money is REAL!!!
As to when we send reports....the same day we receive funds! We want you to hit the ground
running! Hope to hear from you soon!
Warmest Regards,
Dorian Reed
YGM
The stupid questions began:
Hi Dorian,
Wow! That sounds great! I'm ready to send in my money, but you didn't say if I need to send in one
check for $20 or four checks for $5 so its easier to distribute to the other participants.
Oh and I had another idea. Do you buy reports? Like one of those mail order term paper places? I
was thinking mabye if you had more reports, more people would make money. Anyway, I wrote this
really cool paper all about weasels for my science class and I got an A on it. Maybe you'd like to
buy that and send it out too.
Thanks again for this grate opportunitty!!!
T--
But once again, Dorian was -- everybody say this along with me -- strangely silent. However,
when Dorian came up with his redesigned site (covered in Report 5) a few days later, it offered
surfers to submit their own reports. Did J.C. give him the idea?
Dorian began telling others of his new site before it went online. Participant Charlie Prett had a
conversation with him which revealed some clues about the sudden redesign of his site. Apparently
somebody had scared him pretty good, and he'd made an attempt to go legitimate (if you can call
an enterprise which actively engages in Usenet newsgroup spamming "legitimate"). In Dorian's
response you'll recognize some of the buzzwords used by experts in MLM law.
C.P.'s first e-mail to Dorian went unanswered, but he hooked him with his second note:
Dear Reports Galore:
Two days I contacted you expressing interest in getting involved in your report-selling business.
Now, I have realized my error. A true businessman would have been willing to contact me
concerning my mail with answers to my questions.
You burned me, and now I can laugh at you, I just got involved in business with somebody who
operates a similar business that distributes software, that has even better returns.
I am in a good mood today, so I will give you one last chance to contact me about this. I may still
get involved if you do.
1. Should I get a P.O. Box to prevent theft?
2. Do you know of an ISP that allows me to bulk e-mail this plan?
If you choose to respond, then thank you for your time, and I will still consider doing business with
you as if the previous delay had never happened.
Now, my usual tactic when I get a letter containing the phrase "now I can laugh at you" is to send
a reply which includes a certain phrase that rhymes with "duck shoe," but Dorian replied:
C.P. , As you can now tell from our NEW website, we have changed our marketing approach to
truly do what our name reflects "Reports Galore" we sale a "real product" to "real people" we
have a "real bank" and "accept checks", we sale our product "retail", the cost of our product is
"relational to it's value". Each member advertises their own product and sale it direct with no
overrides or commissions paid upline or downline, it's all co-op advertising. We are Not MLM,
although they are not all scams.
We are not a chain letter covered business, Junk Reports, Software ect.. It appears that's what you
are desperately seeking a chain letter type company....we are not it. We regret that we did not
research the scummy side of chain letters before we released our first site which by the way was
only up about 5 days before we started, getting a flood of e-mail from all these Hotmail, Juno and
all the other free "Cloaked" e-mail services. As far as we are concerned we want nothing to do
with any kind of get rich program.
Please Check out our site NOW!, NO Testimonials No Claims of income,No promises of any kind.
We really do sell HOW TO REPORTS WE NOW HAVE OVER 10000 and the site has over 250 on
it now. So C.P. we are not forgetting you, we just want to forget about any chain letter type
approach to selling our How-to-reports!
I get the impression that his use of "quotes" around these MLM "buzzwords" and "phrases" like
"relational to its value" means that Dorian had talked to somebody "smart" who'd looked at his "site"
and told him to "clean up his act" or he might end up going to the "big house" where he'd meet a
large man named "Frank" who'd insist that Dorian be his "sweetie."
Note Dorian's reference to the deluge of e-mail messages from Hotmail, Juno and other bastions of
throwaway accounts. As you've probably guessed, many of the project participants swarmed all
over these services like they were the last helicopters out of Saigon. Dorian was beginning to figure
out that something was afoot.
C.P. decided to try to have a little more fun with him:
Thank you for taking the time to respond to me. I too have wisely decided against participating in
a chain letter. A friend of mine to whom I was discussing the new program I was involved in told
me it was likely a chain letter, and was highly illegal. WHEW! I was just set to send away $80 cash
to receive distribution codes for it!
Maybe your approach does sound a lot more legal. I still have a couple of questions, based on this
letter and my visitation to your changed site.
1. Your letter to me commented that the cost of the product is relational to the value. Does that
mean that different values are assigned to different reports? For example, a report on, say, "How
to Fully Enjoy Beavis & Butthead" would cost .50, while a report on "How to use Microsoft
Word" would cost $10.00? How is a report's value determined?
2. If I do decide to get involved, is it OK to pay with a money order? I am not currently living in
the United States, and it is difficult for me to acquire U.S. currency where I am.
3. What type of reports seem to get the best sales reaction? Should I go for an obscure subject that
people such as university students would be willing to pay a lot for, or ones with a general interest
and a great demand?
4. In your member service center, you state that you will be starting radio, television and
newspaper ads. When will this be starting? I would love to be involved in a company that has a
national advertising campaign!
Thank you for taking the time to write back to me. You have made me think twice about these
get-rich-quick schemes.
But, alas, Dorian was not to be fooled. He fired back with:
Hi C.P. I got your response letter and it appears fairly obvious that you are an investigator of
some kind. Please help me to save time by 1.) Identifying WHO you are. and 2.) provide us a list
of ALL of your questions at once.
We have no problems in sharing with you how's, what's, when and where's of our program. You're
questions are way to far reaching and peering to be just some bumbling passer-by who can't make
heads or tails from reading our website.
We await you answer. We may not have any additional time to answer you again today, so please
wait until Monday or Tues.. to get a response to you inquires.
Project Takedown!, Report 3, Continued
I also took a bit of time to do my own baiting. When I first visited the YGM site, I eagerly clicked
on the "GO GET YOUR NEW MEMBER ID#" link and eagerly filled out the information required.
This resulted in the following automated message in my mailbox a few hours later:
Subject: ORDER CONFIRMATION FORM
NAME: Rolf Schmidt
MEMBER ID#: 0001459
[and a bunch of other personal details, like my address, but I may have accidentally given them the
address of my local postal inspector's office. I forget. -- Rolf]
Report #1 How to make $250,000.00 through MLM sales
Report #2 How to build the world's fastest downline-online or offline
Report #3 How to reach millions of hot new prospects for your online business
Pay Position #1 0001076
Pay Position #2 0000815
Pay Position #3 0000847
Please, mail in a copy of this confirmation form with payment.
Reports Galore 11388 Kenyon Way Suite B172, Alta Loma, CA 91701
When the site was re-done and it appeared to be almost devoid of the claims of the stupendous
amounts of money to be made, I forwarded the form back to them with a comment:
"Hey, what happened??! If I don't have a chance at making $147,000.00, then I don't really want to
participate. I sent my money yesterday. Can I have it back?"
I wasn't disapointed. The reply:
We have no order confirmation that you ever ordered at all, however we will be happy to return you
payment un-opened. As you can now see on our site, we really do sell reports! Its seems to me that
you're looking for a program thats different. We regret that fact that we ever set up the pervious site
in the first place.
The good news is that it's gone and so is any association with a program the even resembles a fast
money program. I sorry the new site does not appeal to you. But It's has always been our intention to
sale reports as a business not as a cover for some kind of scheme. Thank goodness the site was only
up a few days!!! We do not want that kind of business.
Sorry for any trouble we may have caused you. All the best in whatever you're looking for.
There's a little more to the story.
One of the most clever approaches was a failure -- Dorian didn't reply at all. M.S., A participant
with his own domain set up a fake business e-zine. He cleverly crafted it to appear to be a
publication of the type which would eagerly eat up Dorian's sales pitch. It really is a great piece of
satire that deserves to be appreciated, so I've asked the owner to keep it up for a few more weeks.
Take a look:
zevils.merrick.ny.us
Again, just to be clear: WebSource is fake. A hoax.
WebSource's "editor" sent a few notes to YGM:
To: Dorian
From: "[M.S]., WebSource Magazine"
Subject: An E-Zine I think You'd Be Interested In... Good Advertising Op.
Date: 15:51:07 -0500 21 Jan 1998
Dorian, this is [M.S.], head of public relations for WebSource Magazine. WebSource is a web-based
weekly magazine which finds, researches, and reports on ultra-low-risk, rapid returning investment
opportunities. You'll find us at zevils.merrick.ny.us . Our article list is pretty full for the
next few months, but we thought your plan would be the kind our readership would be very
interested in. I talked to our economic experts, and they were very enthusiastic about your plan. I
can guarantee that you will be approved for advertising. Let me know! M.S.
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