Ibill/Etelegate REACTIVATING CANCELLED SUBS
For those of you who don't read GFY on the regular, the following was just posted:
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I am almost too angry to even type at this point, but wanted to put a warning out for any here who may have been effected by the iBill/Etelerape "transfer" scam... while we never signed a contract w/ the so-called processor Etelerape, they began attempting to bill our iBill database of old rebills immediately on april 3rd. i logged into their admin system that day using the username and password that iBill so kindly provided and cancelled every user listed, and periodically did this until the end of april to leave no customer in rebillable status... at no time did i ever fill in their "contract".
Well, today i received an extremely irate email from a past customer wondering why he was suddenly being billed again after cancelling his subscription months ago... totally confused, i log into the Etelegate admin system and search for this persons email address... lo and behold, i couldn't believe my eyes.
According to their transaction statements, this old customer had ***SUBSCRIBED AGAIN A WEEK AGO, EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE NEVER LINKED TO THE ****ING ETELERAPE JOIN PAGES!!!!!!
As i search both forward and back through their seedy records, i find one after another of my old subscribers that were in my rebill database have been signed back up for service, one after another... amazing considering the lack of join page links.
In true *CARDER* fashion, Etelerape is actually going through the signup process each time using a multitude of proxy relays, picked depending on the locale indicated in my old customer database... i run a script called 'PWsentry' that compares and logs all username logins along w/ time and IP address, as well as date and time of all logins. sure enough, each of these "new users" of mine have only visited my protected members area ONE TIME EACH, ON THE DAY THEY SOMEHOW SIGNED UP AGAIN. by searching through the IP addresses i found that one of three relays would be used for any signup in Germany, one of four in Australia, and on and on... i am literally on the ground here, this is just over the top.
When the iBill/Etelerape switchover took place we wanted nothing to do w/ them, even for old rebills, but had already written off the 1 month period as unavoidable for current rebilling members... i guess they couldn't keep their hands to themselves once the databases reached their thieving hands.
I am SO angry i can barely see straight but know that some other victims might have not noticed this sort of thing has been going on either as i did, so wanted to post my ire here for anyone who might need to run over to their admin and check their transaction lists... especially if you run any sort of gateway scripts (PWsentry, Pennywise, Proxypass, etc.), the single entry for each new "sale" is the real clincher.
I am heading back to a 12 pack of beer as my blood pressure is seriously out of control at this point and i need to go sink into a languid pool of hatred for a bit. amazing how the creditcard companies and acquiring banks have made life so hard for many of us adult webmasters over the last few years, and yet blatant MUGGING by an outfit like iBill/Etelerape seems to steal w/out worry or consequence from behind their lawyers and publicly traded stock symbols... ****ing unreal..
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Pretty scary. Glad we've never processed with IBill.
