I’ve just receive an email spam that attempts to prey on folks who are having trouble paying their mortgages - which is pretty cruel. I’ll use this an an example of how to identify potentially fraudulent spam emails, what the CAN-SPAM act is, and how you can report folks that violate it.

Just this evening, I received a message that contained this:

Subject: Your Payment

From: Payment Services (email address was [email protected])

The following message is for Homeowners who are UNABLE to refinance their homes or afford their current payments:

Tired of being told no by the banks? Modify your existing loan to terms that you can afford to pay. Stop your foreclosure and get a clean slate. Visit us to see how.

* H.E.L.P. NOW program
* We negotiate with your lender on your behalf to obtain terms you can afford.
* Typical results include: Reduced mortgage payment, Three to Twelve months without a mortgage payment, reduced interest rate, reduced principle balance (loan balance) and fixed rate.
* We also offer access to our Real Estate attorney, credit repair program, CPA and client tracking system.

Don’t lose our home! Contact us today to learn more. We are here to H.E.L.P. Now

Doesn’t matter if your upside down or behind on payments. No credit checks either. Most of our clients have a high LTV and/or damaged FICO scores. Our negotiation agents can see if you qualify to have your loan rate or amount or terms modified so you can stay in your home and afford your payments.

Call now for details ….888-892-3339

To get information about this successful program to save your home CLICK HERE.

The “CLICK HERE” link contained these two email addresses:

[email protected]

[email protected]

Here are some warning signs on how to detect fraudulent spam:

1. The “From” email address isn’t from a real business, but rather from a free email account like yahoo or hotmail or gmail…you get the idea.

2. It has a misleading subject line that tries to scare you, like “Your Payment”.

3. There is no identifiable individual or company.

Furthermore, there’s a law now, called the “CAN-SPAM” Act. According to the US Federal Trade Commission’s website:

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them.

The law, which became effective January 1, 2004, covers email whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site.

The Federal Trade Commission’s website gives a summary of what the CAN-SPAM Act contains:

1. It bans false or misleading header information. Your email’s “From,” “To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.

2. It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.

3. It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests.

4. It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.

Let’s use this email as an example and check to see if it violated the CAN-SPAM Act. The From email is [email protected] - can you tell who sent it? I can’t. The subject line is “Your Payment”, is this deceptive? You bet. Is there an opt-out method? Nope. Is it identified as an advertisement and does it include the sender’s valid physical postal address? No and yes, it claims to unsubscribe you if you send email to [email protected].

This email clearly violates the CAN-SPAM act, and as such, I’ve personally done two things.

First, I looked up gmx.com, and found that they’re a company that provides free email services. I’ve sent them an email telling them that a customer of theirs is violating the CAN-SPAM act.

Secondly, I’ve filed a complaint with the FTC. They have an online form on their website for filing complaints.

This is the first time I’ve done this - and I’ve done it because with the current economic crisis and all those folks out there who are struggling to pay their mortgages, the last thing we need is someone trying to take advantage of their fears. After I submitted the complaint, I got this message:

Thank you for contacting the FTC. Your complaint has been entered into Consumer Sentinel, a secure online database available to thousands of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies worldwide.

I can now go to sleep, hoping that this blog article, and my complaint, will help someone avoid getting cheated.

UPDATE 10/15/08:

This morning I did an online search for the phone number 888-892-3339 and found two websites. The first was topforexnews.blogspot.com, which was offering “fax blasting”, which sounds like fax spam to me. Note the email addresses were again from gmx.com, so it’s a pretty good chance the same person/company is involved ([email protected]) The second website is an Ontario Canada Hunter Outfitter Review of Robinson 2 Outfitters. Strange.

Another way to report SPAM, is to use SpamCop.net - I haven’t used this before, but I just gave it a try and it was pretty cool. After I logged in, it gave me a special email address to forward the spam to. Then it processed all the info, and seemed to determine that the spam originated from sprintpcs.com - just fascinating. It’s really hard to tell where emails come from sometimes, the truth is hidden in a bunch of email header info - but apparently SpamCop deciphers it and then alerts the sending domain owner.

UPDATE 10/19/08:

I just got another email from H.E.L.P. Now - identical to the first, except they’ve changed the phone number:

800-791-1567. If you Google that number, you’ll find this website: mymodifiedmortgage.com and the company’s name is listed as “Dyer Beech” with an address of 4655 Cass St. Suite 210 San Diego, CA 92109

If indeed this spam is from Dyer Beech, I wonder why they didn’t note this on the email, or list the address as required by law for unsolicited emails. I went ahead and sent Dyer Beech an email asking them these questions. Will post here when (if) I get a response from them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 11:10 pm and is filed under the Spam & Scam Watch category. Read other Aldebaran Website Design Blog articles by returning to main blog page. Need a blog added to your website? Click here to read about blog installation services or click here to contact Aldebaran Web Design. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.