This is interesting. I noticed a surge of spam comments on posts that mention online shopping services on the site whenever I mention a service like myus, myusabox, Aramex, etc. The latest surge were from a site named Viaddress. Here are a few screen shots from my control panel:
Same IP address, an Arabic name and even a link to an Arabic forum post about Viaddress (on ADSLgate, a well known Arabic forum). Where some “new” members joined the forum just to defend Viaddress.
I urge everyone to avoid Viaddress at all costs, hopefully these points will convince you:
- They hired spammers or spam bots to advertise their “service”.
- Viaddress facebook page have over 1600 members and no customer interaction at all. Wall posts have no comments but if you look at the links section you will notice a few comments saying that Viaddress is a fraud.
- Over 72 complaints about Viaddress on “Complaintsboard” and the comments on each one is vicious. Many are accusing Viaddress of hiring people.
- Another example on suspected “hiring” to “get a good word”.
- Viaddress twitter page is also empty, with many followers and no interaction with their followers. Found this tweet talking about Viaddress scam and this tweet about Viaddress hiring people to review them!
I simply won’t trust a company that hires spammers *edited my tone here*.
Update: So I get these messages from a “Misty Sparks”:
Message 1:
Subject: Your offensive comment about http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;Viaddress.comWe have received a comment on our Viaddress Facebook Fan page of an offensive nature, could you please tell us what is the reason behind your offensive comments?
Message 2:
Subject: Your blog about ViaddressDear Khaled,
It was brought to our attention that you have posted a an offensive blog about Viaddress where you have made some false accusations about Viaddress and you pointed to complaints on the complaintsboard.
Please note Viaddress has not paid anyone to post on your website and if you read the complaints on the complaintsboard, you can clearly see that they were all posted by http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;Shipito.com, a competitor to Viaddress.
We have served many customers in Saudi Arabia and we have never had a single problem with any customer in Saudi Arabia.
Our goal when start serving a particular country is to accumulate friends and not make any enemies. We certainly want to make you a friend rather than an enemy.
We would like to solve this issue in a timely manner so we ask you to kindly remove the blog that you posted about Viaddress.
Message 3:
Subject: Blog posting about ViaddressHi again,
One of your readers informed us that the posting pictures of the comments on your site were posted by IP http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;64.134.232.34 which has no relation to our IP http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;67.20.121.126.
Please remove your offensive blog about Viaddress as it offers misleading information to your readers by making false accusations about http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;Viaddress.com
Message 4:
Subject: Re: Blog posting about ViaddressDear Khaled,
I’m still looking forward to hear from you regarding the offensive postings on your website. I have sent you several messages but I still haven’t received your answer.
The comments on your site were posted by IP http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;64.134.232.34 which has no relation to our IP http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;67.20.121.126.
Please note that posting misleading and offensive information about an Individual or an organization is against WordPress Section 5 of Terms of Service (http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;en.wordpress.com/tos) and may lead to the suspension of your WordPress account.Message 5:
Subject: The blog posting about Viaddress.Please delete your blog posting about Viaddress because it is falsely accusing Viaddress of spam. Please understand that we have no control of what someone else posts on your website.
We will also delete our posting on Myus fan page accordingly since we don’t want to create any tension between Myus & Viaddress.
I would like to see proof to that. My Facebook page comments were deleted instead of answering them publicly.
I should note that we received spam comments from Myuspostoffice.com as well.
Saying it one last time, THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MYUS, DHL, ARAMEX or ANY OTHER COMPANY. This is about using spam bots.
This is scary, i was going to sign up for a service like this a couple of days ago after i came across a blog post. I think it was usaddress.com. Just had a look at the VIAddress site and it looks pretty legit too!. i guess we just have to be careful out there. thanks khaled! u are my hero.. lol
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Khaled A. Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 2:15 am
I can guarantee that the ones listed here
http://www.sauditechview.com/en/mail-forwarding-to-saudi-arabia
are legit, me and others have tried them.
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Sachee Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 2:19 am
Awesome! saves me a lot of trouble!
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Also, type in the fedex tracking numbers into the fedex website’s tracking page. its a bit dodgey
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Khaled A. Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 9:41 am
What do you mean ?
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Make friends? Enemy? Offensive? What kind of language is that? If they are so professional shouldn’t they hire someone with better communication skills that possibly has further education than grade school?
No one is forced to remove anything from the web even if it was a false accusation (which isn’t the case here). If you think you have the right, take legal action. Why are you wasting your precious time asking “politely” where it could’ve been spent making more friends.
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Khaled A. Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
indeed.
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viaddress is good company because i use it before
i think it’s a best company i see
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bla bla bla
liers
i have tried Viaddress, and other members in adslgate.com u can see our experiance there
i hate this way in competetion u can be better than other companies without ling
it’s really bad way to treat others
by the way, i’m not an employee in Viaddress and they didn’t pay for me to say the trouth
thanks for lying
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Same spam in other forums. In this case in several forums in Germany with the topic “borderlinx”…
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Khaled A. Reply:
March 26th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Interesting
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Mark Reply:
March 30th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
I have nothing to do with that! lol jk.
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I love how it had to be a “mohamed” with broken english when it came to praising their services.
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I agree with sister Salam123 and Mohamed, Viadress is a great company.
After reading the forums on adslgate.com it’s abvious that the author of this article is affiliated with Myus.com, the competitor of Viadrress, more here: http://www.facebook.com/myuscom
Allah tells us how He will deal with the liars, the lying sinful liars, in surah Al Alaq. (chpater 96).
“Allah will grab him by the (naseyah) [frontal lobe of the brain], the lying sinful.
I encourage all the Saudi brothers and sisters to confront Myus.com about this wrongdoing against Viaddress, or even write blogs how Myus.com hires bloggers to diss its competitors.
Brother Khaled, you should be ashamed of yourself…
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Khaled A. Reply:
March 30th, 2010 at 1:36 am
So Mr Salem, I took the time to hire bots to spam for another company? or myus did the same and hired spammers to spam for other companies?
What kind of logic is that?
You notice that your comment was not deleted or removed, mainly because it is NOT SPAM. I hope you understand WHAT IS BLOG COMMENT SPAM before you make ridiculous, baseless accusations.
Brother Salem, check the facts before accusing me of anything.
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This is getting way out of hand! Verses from Quran. Wow.
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wtf? o_O
The WordPress terms of service only apply to hosted WordPress.com accounts; WordPress itself is released under GPL.
Leaving a few comments on their FB page does not imply affiliation with MyUS
The IP address of the spam comments were from an open wifi hotspot in Austin, Texas, so it could have been anyone, but to keep stressing that it was not them who posted the comment because it was not from the IP address of their web host (bluehost.com) is just plain stupid.
Misty Sparks is the Public Relations Manager at viaddress. Misty and her colleagues Eric and Jason all previously worked at FedEx.
The google street view of 530 East Lexington Avenue (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=530+East+Lexington+Avenue++++Elkhart,+Indiana+46516&sll=24.376401,46.888287&sspn=0.09319,0.139389&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=530+E+Lexington+Ave,+Elkhart,+Indiana+46516&ll=41.688278,-85.966426&spn=0.000597,0.001089&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=41.688278,-85.966426&panoid=qtNCH87H8UrM9W7E2AF_Fw&cbp=12,38.7,,0,5.25) certainly looks like a warehouse which is consistent with viaddress being a freight forwarding company, so it is conceivable that the claims that they are frauds are over-reaching.
I fully uphold your sentiments regarding cruddy online marketing methods. It’s inconceivable that a friendly spam marketer from Texas hooked up to the wifi in his/her local Starbucks and spent an hour sipping a skinny decaf latte with extra foam while spamming blog posts about a company with whom s/he has no affiliation.
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I was scammed by them. I think they have gone bankrupt. The street view from Google Maps says it all.
They look 100% legitimate.
AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS AND SAVE YOURSELF SOME MONEY.
Don’t believe me? Try calling their number – always busy. All their defense replies are from Bogus people Dick van Dyke, Misty Sparks, Miss U Turn, Loh IQ.
I’m not a competitor just a consumer who was ripped off by them.
David,
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S$%t just bought some stuff worth $50 and sent it to viaddress!! Wish I could have come across some of the bad reviews first… but it’s pretty hard given that I had to search specifically for “viaddress scam” to see at least one or two bad reviews (amongst good reviews which outnumber them about 100:1).
One of my packages are due to arrive tomorrow. I’ll keep you guys updated
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Well, I got my first package. But I have to pay $70 shipping for a PSU worth $25 in order to ship it down to my country
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They’re spammers (or hires them) indeed. A newly registered user in a forum I moderated just write the same 5 posts about viadress.
*got this blog when searching on Google*
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To all the people that thinks viaddress is a scam,its not.I wanted to order some clothes that was only available in the U.S.I looked at different websites like bongous,myus and viaddress.I chose viaddress because it has the cheapest shipping rates.At first, I really thought that this was going to be a scam.But then i would try almost anything to get what i wanted.So i decided to give it a shot.and so far everything went perfect.Right from the placing your order part all the way till its delivered to my doorstep.The website sure looks kinda bad in someways,the interface in your account could be better.But it still gets the job done.The only reason why viaddress is hiring spammers is probably because of competition.There are sooo many different mail forwarding websites out there now trying to get as many customers as they can. Definitely one of the companies would try to bring down the other company.Competition is soo fierce. I dont blame Viaddress for doing this,but it does bring a bad name to them too. But the bottom line is,Viaddress is legit, they do a decent job, though the website could be improved and of course it gets the job done!
Btw, I live in singapore.
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LOL. This is hilarious.
I’m planning on shipping about $300 worth of HDMI cables from USA to South Africa, so I’m looking for the cheapest international courier in the industry.
I pride myself on being a superb Googler, so I tend to detect strange patterns on the internet. Before I spend money by buying online I first look at the competition, then reviews, and finally I buy something cheap to test them.
Now I see so many people posting about ViAddress, but there are no clear means of detecting whether ViAddress is legit or not.
I can see one way though. Look for reviews on forums that were posted by familiar forum-users. A forum is a very friendly place and people tend to bond with one another over time. If a forum user has been a member of that forum for a few years, then other users become familiar with that member, and vice-versa. Such a member would be unlikely to lie to his friends on the forum, so you’d be safer if you believe his review.
Nowadays a lot relies on trust and honesty. I believe you should always be willing to give people a chance. If they screw it up, then give them a second chance. If they screw that up as well, then move on, and tell all your family and friends to avoid them like the plague.
I’m going to Google a little bit more, and if I don’t find a “seemingly” cheaper offer, then I’m going to try their service.
Personally I think it’s wrong to lie to people, but we live in a business world where the strong and cunning can easily succeed, but the honest and patient need determination and motivation to do just as well. People tend to choose the easy way out.
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