Related
Definitely another fraudster scammer
Note the horrible english and only an email address on hotmail for contact info.
These people pi$$ me off. Maybe I'll flood his email box from free anonymous email sites. 13,000 emails, coming right up!
See
http://www.419eater.com
http://www.419baiter.com/
Information quoted from the US Secret Service Web Site.
4-1-9 Schemes frequently use the following tactics:
An individual or company receives a letter or fax from an alleged "official" representing a foreign government or agency.
An offer is made to transfer millions of dollars in "over invoiced contract" funds into your personal bank account.
You are encouraged to travel overseas to complete the transaction.
You are requested to provide blank company letterhead forms, banking account information, telephone/fax numbers.
You receive numerous documents with official looking stamps, seals and logo testifying to the authenticity of the proposal.
Eventually you must provide up-front or advance fees for various taxes, attorney fees, transaction fees or bribes.
Other forms of 4-1-9 schemes include: c.o.d. of goods or services, real estate ventures, purchases of crude oil at reduced prices, beneficiary of a will, recipient of an award and paper currency conversion.
Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud Overview
The perpetrators of Advance Fee Fraud (AFF), known internationally as "4-1-9" fraud after the section of the Nigerian penal code which addresses fraud schemes, are often very creative and innovative.
Unfortunately, there is a perception that no one is prone to enter into such an obviously suspicious relationship. However, a large number of victims are enticed into believing they have been singled out from the masses to share in multi-million dollar windfall profits for doing absolutely nothing. It is also a misconception that the victim's bank account is requested so the culprit can plunder it -- this is not the primary reason for the account request -- merely a signal they have hooked another victim.
In almost every case there is a sense of urgency.
The victim is enticed to travel to Nigeria or a border country.
There are many forged official looking documents.
Most of the correspondence is handled by fax or through the mail.
Blank letterheads and invoices are requested from the victim along with the banking particulars.
Any number of Nigerian fees are requested for processing the transaction with each fee purported to be the last required.
The confidential nature of the transaction is emphasized.
There are usually claims of strong ties to Nigerian officials.
A Nigerian residing in the U.S., London or other foreign venue may claim to be a clearing house bank for the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Offices in legitimate government buildings appear to have been used by impostors posing as the real occupants or officials.
The most common forms of these fraudulent business proposals fall into the following main categories:
Disbursement of money from wills
Contract fraud (C.O.D. of goods or services)
Purchase of real estate
Conversion of hard currency
Transfer of funds from over invoiced contracts
Sale of crude oil at below market prices
The most prevalent and successful cases of Advance Fee Fraud is the fund transfer scam. In this scheme, a company or individual will typically receive an unsolicited letter by mail from a Nigerian claiming to be a senior civil servant. In the letter, the Nigerian will inform the recipient that he is seeking a reputable foreign company or individual into whose account he can deposit funds ranging from $10-$60 million that the Nigerian government overpaid on some procurement contract.
The criminals obtain the names of potential victims from a variety of sources including trade journals, professional directories, newspapers, and commercial libraries. They do not target a single company, but rather send out mailings en masse. The sender declares that he is a senior civil servant in one of the Nigerian Ministries, usually the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The letters refer to investigations of previous contracts awarded by prior regimes alleging that many contracts were over invoiced. Rather than return the money to the government, they desire to transfer the money to a foreign account. The sums to be transferred average between $10,000,000 to $60,000,000 and the recipient is usually offered a commission up to 30 percent for assisting in the transfer.
Initially, the intended victim is instructed to provide company letterheads and pro forma invoicing that will be used to show completion of the contract. One of the reasons is to use the victim's letterhead to forge letters of recommendation to other victim companies and to seek out a travel visa from the American Embassy in Lagos. The victim is told that the completed contracts will be submitted for approval to the Central Bank of Nigeria. Upon approval, the funds will be remitted to an account supplied by the intended victim.
The goal of the criminal is to delude the target into thinking that he is being drawn into a very lucrative, albeit questionable, arrangement. The intended victim must be reassured and confident of the potential success of the deal. He will become the primary supporter of the scheme and willingly contribute a large amount of money when the deal is threatened. The term "when" is used because the con-within-the-con is the scheme will be threatened in order to persuade the victim to provide a large sum of money to save the venture.
The letter, while appearing transparent and even ridiculous to most, unfortunately is growing in its effectiveness. It sets the stage and is the opening round of a two-layered scheme or scheme within a scheme. The fraudster will eventually reach someone who, while sceptical, desperately wants the deal to be genuine.
Victims are almost always requested to travel to Nigeria or a border country to complete a transaction. Individuals are often told that a visa will not be necessary to enter the country. The Nigerian con artists may then bribe airport officials to pass the victims through Immigration and Customs. Because it is a serious offence in Nigeria to enter without a valid visa, the victim's illegal entry may be used by the fraudsters as leverage to coerce the victims into releasing funds. Violence and threats of physical harm may be employed to further pressure victims. In June of 1995, an American was murdered in Lagos, Nigeria, while pursuing a 4-1-9 scam, and numerous other foreign nationals have been reported as missing.
Victims are often convinced of the authenticity of Advance Fee Fraud schemes by the forged or false documents bearing apparently official Nigerian government letterhead, seals, as well as false letters of credit, payment schedules and bank drafts. The fraudster may establish the credibility of his contacts, and thereby his influence, by arranging a meeting between the victim and "government officials" in real or fake government offices.
In the next stage some alleged problem concerning the "inside man" will suddenly arise. An official will demand an up-front bribe or an unforeseen tax or fee to the Nigerian government will have to be paid before the money can be transferred. These can include licensing fees, registration fees, and various forms of taxes and attorney fees. Normally each fee paid is described as the very last fee required. Invariably, oversights and errors in the deal are discovered by the Nigerians, necessitating additional payments and allowing the scheme to be stretched out over many months.
Several reasons have been submitted why Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud has undergone a dramatic increase in recent years. The explanations are as diverse as the types of schemes. The Nigerian Government blames the growing problem on mass unemployment, extended family systems, a get rich quick syndrome, and, especially, the greed of foreigners.
Indications are that Advance Fee Fraud grosses hundreds of millions of dollars annually and the losses are continuing to escalate. In all likelihood, there are victims who do not report their losses to authorities due to either fear or embarrassment.
Yup, these Nigerian spammers have flooded the PPCMag blog too...
My approach is just ignoring every offer / ad that has the word "Nigeria" in it
Well... rumors about it have been going on for quite a while now. Market analysts privvy to Google's Master Plan for world domination have been hinting at their phone service. Word is that google participated in a federal auction for network bands for that service.
That phone service being a very plausible motive for the development of Android. I mean... its not like a giant like Google would design a mobile OS just for fun and no money.
But that service...A phone service where your minutes, texting and data will be free. Well, not totally free, you have to spend some time on their targeted ads in exchange for those "free" services. Amazing though, isn't it?
Just think about the implications of it.
To put it in perspective, let's play around with a few numbers.
In 2006, the number of wireless subscribers in the US was about 236 million people. A massive customer base. Being conservative, on average, about $40 a month was spent on that service. Do the math...
About $8.5 billion monthly.
About $25 billion quarterly.
About $100 billion annually.
What would a free phone service do to that? Google rocking that industry is obviously an understatement. With current economic conditions, the number of people that would move over to Google would obviously be enormous.
Let's be generous and assume Google takes half the market share. Simply put that's $50 billion a year put back in consumers pockets. $50 billion that simply moves from those corporate giants like At&T and Verizon over to anywhere and everywhere else.
The layoffs by those companies would be enormous, but the growth of Google would rival that deterioration.
Giants recede, but one succeeds.
Wow I <3 google
this has been talked about for over a year now. It would be nice. And I could see it happening. And with google voice service that is going public soon, it seems to be on track. But you never know what they plan on doing.
APrinceAmongMen said:
Well... rumors about it have been going on for quite a while now. Market analysts privvy to Google's Master Plan for world domination have been hinting at their phone service. Word is that google participated in a federal auction for network bands for that service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google's involvement in the auction is OLD NEWS and hardly a secret as you seem to think it, this was well publicized for months. Further, you're a tool for spreading FUD by using any absurd terms like 'world domination'.
You also didn't follow the REAL news that came during the auction lead-up. It was well documented that Google's involvement in the auction was purely to ensure that the network bands would be left open instead of closed off for proprietary use only. They were also encouraging a higher cost of entering the bidding to ensure more money came from the final winner. They never had any intention of winning the auction. ALL of this was publicized before they even submitted their bid.
APrinceAmongMen said:
That phone service being a very plausible motive for the development of Android. I mean... its not like a giant like Google would design a mobile OS just for fun and no money.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right here, Google wouldn't design a mobile OS just for fun (actually, they might, but that's another story). Fact is, that OS is so heavily oriented towards using Google's various services, all of which give them more chances to push ads through their network, which equates to money. It's just like Microsoft creating a web browser that defaults to MS's own search and home pages, or any OEM adding another company's software (ie. AOL) to a pre-build computer.
Additionally, Google will make money on their App Market...much like Apple makes more on their app store.
APrinceAmongMen said:
Just think about the implications of it.
To put it in perspective, let's play around with a few numbers.
In 2006, the number of wireless subscribers in the US was about 236 million people. A massive customer base. Being conservative, on average, about $40 a month was spent on that service. Do the math...
About $8.5 billion monthly.
About $25 billion quarterly.
About $100 billion annually.
What would a free phone service do to that? Google rocking that industry is obviously an understatement. With current economic conditions, the number of people that would move over to Google would obviously be enormous.
Let's be generous and assume Google takes half the market share. Simply put that's $50 billion a year put back in consumers pockets. $50 billion that simply moves from those corporate giants like At&T and Verizon over to anywhere and everywhere else.
The layoffs by those companies would be enormous, but the growth of Google would rival that deterioration.
Giants recede, but one succeeds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
<shudders> Gawd where did you get this garbage???
First, why did you use numbers from 2006? Updated numbers from 07 or 08 are readily available.
Second, the math is far too optimistic, and it also ignores how many of those cell phones belong to corporations who would rarely if ever decide it was better to force their employees to stare at ads in place of doing work.
All of this post was based on old news and theories that were thrown out by even the most fanatical of the tin-foil hat crowd. I'm curious why you're posting it at all. I also seem to remember a post almost identical to this a few days ago, though it may have been from another user. Please stop spreading FUD.
Somehow, I doubt that Google is going to move into the physical service providers market. They already provide many online services that lure customers, number one being their search engine. Search, Gmail, Youtube, Calendar, Maps, Tasks, Voice Mail, there's not much you can't do with Google and internet access.
I don't see why they'd need to move into providing physical services, such as phone, cell, 'net or tv. It doesn't seem like that would fit Google's personality well. They seem to prefer to operate in the virtual environment, let another company provide access (internet, in this case) while they provide the service.
Take Android. Google is not a hardware company, nor did they dive into the hardware market. Much less could they have viably made a handset that could have punched such a hole into the market as the G1/Dream already has. No, instead Google focused on making a software OS that could perform well on multiple hardware platforms, and provide a modern, multi-tasking OS for smartphones. They orchestrated the Open Handset Alliance to push Android forward, and now we're seeing the introduction of multiple Android handsets this year from HTC, Samsung and presumably Motorola.
It seems uncharacteristic, given their method of pushing Android to the consumers (letting manufacturing companies and service providers step in rather than creating their own hardware and carrier companies), that they would be entering the phone service market. I can't see how Google would benefit in the end. What would they do, give you free phone service by forcing you to listen to an ad at the beginning of all your calls and voicemails?
I don't see it happening in the near future. If it did, I'd expect Google to purchase an existing carrier, rather than try to forge a new customer base out of nothing. With Android intending to hit multiple carriers in the same region (much like the WM and Blackberry platforms do), it seems unlikely that Google could carry Android exclusively to make their carrier profitable. Not even Apple took this route, preferring to let carriers carry their phone exclusively rather than trying to enter the market on their own.
Google Voice is now taking advanced invitations, go sign up now!
https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/
They say on the site that we are only a couple weeks away from it going live.
thats been there for a couple of months now. I signed up the first few days.
Signed up. Looks like a full fledged phone service might not be too far away. Also seems as though calls could be made via the website, could be a mis-understanding on my part. I can see making calls from my g1 browser and talking through my phone. possibilities are endless.
CactusVPN is relatively a new player in the industry launched in the early 2012. In fact, CactusVPN is the latest addition to the anonymous web browsing marketplace with the ability to OFFER anonymous IP and unrestricted internet access to their subscribers.
Being a new company on the market, CactusVPN has a lot to prove, and are certainly looking good to achieve a good portion of the market share with attractively priced packages. The competition in the industry is quite tough, which means that CactusVPN has come up with some unique strategies to OFFER good quality anonymous web browsing services to their clients and in April 2014, added support for Softether VPN protocol.
CactusVPN also OFFERS access to P2P traffic, which is something that only a handful of other VPN providers OFFER to their clients. And they offer the best in terms of browsing speed as well, which means this is one of the only few service providers that can stream online videos without any major buffering issues.
Unlike other VPN clients, you can sign up and use CactusVPN services for a free 24 hours. And that means you don’t have to pay anything for the 24 hours of subscription.
This mainly acts as a buffer or test phase where you can see for yourself if VPN services work as per your requirements. There is also a 30-day MONEY back guarantee if you sign up for a subscription package, but are not satisfied with their services for some reason.
Installing & Setting Up Cactus VPN On Your System
One should note that it is extremely easy to install and use CactusVPN on your system. Cactus VPN deserves full marks here, as they have gone all out to design an interface that works. Maybe a late launch into the MARKET has helped them understand the issues and pitfalls faced by existing VPN clients while accessing blocked content over the net. This is clearly evident in the way the CactusVPN platform runs and works.
As is the case with other VPN service providers, CactusVPN OFFERS PPTP, SSTP, L2Tp/IPSec and OpenVPN security protocols. No surprises here, but what is outstanding to note is that CactusVPN has gone ahead and implemented a new VPN protocol. The SoftEther VPN protocol is new in its concept and offers high speed connectivity over extra layers of security. SoftEther VPN protocol is only OFFEREDby a handful of VPN providers, and CactusVPN is one among them.
CactusVPN platforms are OFFERED for Windows, but not Mac OS, iOS and Android devices. Surprisingly, there’s also no Linux version available, but you can still connect to all of the mentioned platforms by using the built-in VPN feature. To do this, you will have to enter the login parameters that you received with your subscription. Using VPN without an application is actually preferable because that’s one less program to run on your computer and it just works.
All you have to do to get started with CactusVPN is to sign up, make payment and subscribe to CactusVPN from their website. Downloading the software doesn’t require you to sign up, but you need to obtain login parameters to log in to the server and browse the web anonymously.
Once you download and install the software, you will have to enter the login information, which will take you to the platform dashboard. Here, you will be greeted by a range of VPN options related to your VPN customization, but don’t expect any significant features such as static and dedicated IPs or the ability to choose a server of your choice(unless you have chosen the high end subscription pack). Still, the interface is pretty easy to use, and it runs in the background quite smoothly.
If you don’t want to use the platform, and are more comfortable with hard-wiring VPN on your system, you can directly configure your LAN settings with the user login parameters. Of course, that is your choice, and you have the option to choose either.
For those who prefer to use a VPN for streaming videos without buffering issues can also choose the Smart DNS option, which offers negligible lag while streaming videos and audio files.
Cost Of CactusVPN Subscription & Packages
This is really the best aspect of CactusVPN. They offer a wide range of features, with pricing options for servers in specific countries like the US, UK, and Netherlands. Their VPN with Smart DNS Technology is their most popular service, which includes 12 servers in all 4 countries at $6.99 per month. That is way less than the competition, and really cheaper than those VPN service providers that offer less than half the number of features as provided by CactusVPN. This means that they have certainly priced it right and is certainly a worry for the competition. If that doesn’t take your fancy, they offer Smart DNS on its own.
The only problem with CactusVPN subscription is that with some of the options, you only have a limited choice of servers, either from the United States, United Kingdom or Netherlands. And only the Netherlands server offers P2P access. It is in no way expensive, but the process of diversifying their packages can confuse some customers. Maybe a bit more aggressive pricing for a single package with all the bells and whistles would have been perfect. But we have no serious complaints.
You do get a full 24 hours of free usage with no strings attached. They wouldn’t even ask for your credit card details. This is pretty excellent from the part of CactusVPN, and they even offer 30 days money back guarantee. But if you are an online person, and if you have a blog, forum, website, or just about any form or online real estate with a PR or PageRank of at least 2, you can get a free VPN account from CactusVPN.
Yes, you can get a free account, but in return, you will be required to post a review or some text with a link back to the CactusVPN account. Therefore, the free VPN account is just a link-bait strategy, one that works for every party concerned (Disclosure: We received a free VPN account from CactusVPN in order to review their services).
The payment option is however, a weak point in the CactusVPN arsenal. Only PayPal and credit card payments are accepted. We all know that PayPal is blocked in some countries, and privacy credit card information is extremely valued by people who wish to be anonymous online. Hence, if you want to hide behind an anonymous IP without using either PayPal or credit cards, you should move on to other VPN service providers. Addition of multiple payment options can surely help CactusVPN beat the competition with the pricing on offer.
You can also get a decent discounts on bulk orders. The top end ‘VPN + Smart DNS’ package can be ordered at $17.99 for three months, $31.99 for six months and $54.99 for a year. For server specific packages such as US VPN, UK VPN and NL VPN, you can choose to pay $12.99 for three months, $22.99 for six months and $38.99 for a year. This result in an even cheaper pricing for your subscription compared to other competitors offering the same or similar set of features and services.
Speed Of Anonymous Web Browsing & Bandwidth At CactusVPN
Speed is another feature that truly works in favor of CactusVPN. Time and again, we have faced streaming issues with various VPN service providers. We couldn’t really complain about the loss of speed, because we understand that speed and bandwidth will be lost while rerouting traffic through different servers located around the world. But CactusVPN has given us what we had always hoped.
Instead of the standard 40-80% customary drop in available ISP speed with other VPN companies, CactusVPN was able to tap into almost 80-90% of the available ISP speed. Even we were surprised to find this was possible. This ensured that all streaming media could be viewed without trouble.
CactusVPN also offer unlimited bandwidth across the board, and there are no bandwidth restrictions. Good speed and unlimited bandwidth mean users with P2P traffic preference will certainly choose CactusVPN over other service providers. This does have its own disadvantages, as the NL server faces a few serious downtime issues, and at peak hours, there are issues of server outages. This trouble is not really that prevalent in the servers from US and UK. Adding a few servers will certainly solve this issue.
Number Of Servers & Server Locations
Number of servers and server locations is not really a strong suite for CactusVPN. At present, there are only three countries on offer, mainly United States, United Kingdom and Netherlands. The exact number of servers is not known, but expects it to be in the lower 20s. Unfortunately, this is a really low figure, and seeing that this is just a startup company, we can expect a greater number of servers in the near future.
CactusVPN Customer Support & Website Information
CactusVPN does not have what one would call a top-notch customer service department, but they aren’t any slouch either. The customer support is quite responsive, and you can send an email, submit a ticket or initiate a live chat. Live chat support is only offered to customers, and prospective clients will find it hard to talk to someone directly. Amazingly, there isn’t any direct contact phone number either.
The CactusVPN website on the other hand, is superbly designed and has all the right information. Even the tutorials are presented in an easy to read manner, which ensures that even a novice user can set up VPN on their system without any difficulties. You can find everything you need from their knowledge database, and if you do run into any issues during setup, the customer support team can be of great assistance.
Issues & Drawbacks Of CactusVPN
We have to be really picky to pick out the drawbacks of a VPN service that offer anonymous web browsing services at such an affordable price. But still, we have faced a few issues that we would like to be rectified. For starters, the number of servers is quite low, and we want a large number of locations added to the list as well.
This will also improve the overall speed and reliability, especially for users opting for the Netherlands server. Also, there isn’t an option for dedicated IP, not even as a paid option and this is something that people are willing to pay for. SSL security is also absent, which once again, is something that people will pay for. Combining these features and avoiding splitting up servers for the sake of offering low-priced packages should do the trick. CactusVPN is not overly priced at the moment, and we don’t get the theory behind mending something that wasn’t broken in the first place.
CactusVPN Verdict
This is a no-brainer. For under $5 and with an all-inclusive package available, this is certainly something that will get all the anonymous web users excited. It isn’t as if CactusVPN were conservative with their features. There are unique and standard features on offer, and for this price, CactusVPN is a good choice. We can certainly ignore a few shortcomings, and seeing the way CactusVPN are making changes to their services, we expect most of the issues to be sorted out at the earliest.
CactusVPN Discount Coupons & Offers
There is a free 24 hour trial from Cactus VPN, after which, you can enjoy another 30 days money back guarantee. This means that you can use the CactusVPN without worry for an extended period of time to test out the service.
Your Verdict
Now, you’ve heard our opinion of CactusVPN, but what are your own experiences? Did we hit spot on or do you disagree without verdict? If you have tried CactusVPN please share your thoughts with us using the comment section below.
CactusVPN Facts & Ratings
Name CactusVPN
Based Moldova
Established 2012
Servers 12+ Servers
Countries 3+ Countries with Servers
VPN Protocols OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, SSTP
Platforms Windows, Android, Mac OS/X, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, Linux
Key Features Torrents/P2P Allowed, Unlimited Data Usage, Unlimited Download Speed
Price 1 month $12.99
Price 6 months $22.99
Price 12 months $38.99
MONEY Back Guarantee 30 days
ADBOOT.NET is CPA, CPI, CPL and CPM ad network, use advanced targeting technology to ensure better results for these publishers. Puts simple publishing tools as Smartlink, PopUp, PopUnder, Redirect JS, Banners and others; Accepts all the categories of the website, blogs and traffic buying; sends the payments every day via the lease of PayPal, PayZa and Skrill; the minimum payout is $10 and a caliph support is always at your disposal.
Adbootp said:
ADBOOT.NET is CPA, CPI, CPL and CPM ad network, use advanced targeting technology to ensure better results for these publishers. Puts simple publishing tools as Smartlink, PopUp, PopUnder, Redirect JS, Banners and others; Accepts all the categories of the website, blogs and traffic buying; sends the payments every day via the lease of PayPal, PayZa and Skrill; the minimum payout is $10 and a caliph support is always at your disposal.
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