Sunday, August 24, 2008

Boo to Dotblu

I've recently received two emails like the one in this image:



They both imply that there's some secret important message from a trusted source just awaiting my signing up for their service. Both of my friends who sent them, indicated that they were unaware until too late that Dotblu had retrieved their entire address book and sent this message.

Why did my friends sign up? They were trying to read a "private message" stored at Dotblu that one of their friends had sent. Sound like automated 'chain mail'?

It gets messier if you should click through... don't! Just delete.
(click to enlarge)



What happened to the secret message? Now there's some gift awaiting me. Here's where my friends got in trouble and should have hit manual instead of their address book (click to enlarge).



If you should happen to sign up (don't!) you will get this page.



The gift? A digital image of a cheap car that's not yet for sale to use on your profile at a site you never heard of before.

No mention of a private message from your friend. And if you click on the envelope icon...



That's right. What started as an email telling you to retrieve a private message from a trusted friend has you sign up at a betting site and there's no email to be found. Boo to Dotblu. Another Company Acting Badly.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just received one of these and got suspicious. Thanks for the heads up!

Anonymous said...

Yes I too received several of these, I absolutely hate stuff like this!
A much appreciated Thank You to Companies Acting Badly.
I ALMOST SIGNED UP!

Anonymous said...

I have just recieved this message, luckily googled the company and got this warning! I use google for most websites I have never heard of befor. It is the best was to view good & bad press about the companies

Anonymous said...

OMG... I too received one of these... and guess what.. I was tempted to sign up too. But I had never heard of Dotblu before so I got suspicious and found this warning..! Well done and many thanks.

Anonymous said...

Me too... looked spammy. Thanks for having the heads up so easily googable! ;)

Anonymous said...

Just received one of these from my friend. Luckily i did a search =] thanks

Jules Grimm said...

Same as the guys above me i got an email - not even from someone i know - got suspicious and checked Google.

Glad to know i wasnt being overly paranoid. I just hit the spam button and binned the email.

Anonymous said...

Yup... I bearly heard about that, My friend got the message in class and tried to open it... She had no idea what it was. I kind of wonder if she did create an acount? I hope not...

Anonymous said...

I got an email like this me and friend got really worried so we googled it and this came up thank god we didn't sign up!!!

Faye said...

I stopped when they asked me to give my email password. Is that okay or have they already retrieved my contacts???

reply at tan_faye96@hotmail.com

Impacted Customer said...

>-phEii. said...

> I stopped when they asked me to give my email password. Is that okay or have they already retrieved my contacts???

You should be fine and likely haven't exposed your address book.

Matej said...

I never intended to sign-up, but I was curious if I should click the link or not, so I googled and found this site.

The sign-up is not the only unwise thing you can do - clicking on link send to you by e-mail can also lead to massive spam "attacks" of your account.

Whenever there is an URL with some random characters in it, it could mean that click on it will tell the owner of the website that your e-mail is active (you read the mail and clicked the link). Thus, it can lead to even more spam e-mails, since they know you're alive.

matej

Anonymous said...

I clicked on my message...just to see what it was. I mailed my friend just cuz I like to know if its safe. Waiting for the answer, I looked it up. I tried Yahoo answers, and saw the link to this site....Luckily, I didnt sign up....And if my friend is unaware of the message being sent... Uh oh.. Im...scared for my friend... Dotblu could read the mail I sent him... couldn't they??

Impacted Customer said...

> Anonymous said...

> I clicked on my message...just to see what it was. I mailed my friend just cuz I like to know if its safe. Waiting for the answer, I looked it up. I tried Yahoo answers, and saw the link to this site....Luckily, I didnt sign up....And if my friend is unaware of the message being sent... Uh oh.. Im...scared for my friend... Dotblu could read the mail I sent him... couldn't they??

Dotblu can't read the email you sent your friend. Hopefully you didn't click one of the Dotblu link's to your address book.

Anonymous said...

Thank you! I have gotton about 8 of these from different friends this week, but now I warned them! Hopefully I escaped it. Thank you!!!!

SarajanelovesFDR said...

I have gotten tons of these. Why do they do this? Thanks for the info.

Anonymous said...

I received one of these yesterday from my sister. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to research before I clicked away. I went as far as entering a password, but then closed it when I got to the next screen about email addresses.
Did Dotblu get my contacts list?

Impacted Customer said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...

> I received one of these yesterday from my sister. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to research before I clicked away. I went as far as entering a password, but then closed it when I got to the next screen about email addresses.

> Did Dotblu get my contacts list?

> January 8, 2009 10:39 AM

You should be fine. Based on where you stopped, you've now got a Dotblu account which may send you email but your address book should not be affected.

victorkoo.jr. said...

I received an email similar like this and luckily I googled it before I signed up! I was suspicious at the letter on the website my friend sent me. I am going to tell my friend to delete his account on dotblu or something.

Anonymous said...

now what you can do is at the bottom of the e-mail you click on the "don't send me any more e-mails from dotblu"

yellowrose said...

at the bottom of the e-mail click on:

If you do not want to receive future emails from dotblu, click here

it worked 4 me....didn't get any more!!!!

Impacted Customer said...

redhawks248 and Anonymous - thanks for pointing that out

phira360 said...

Obviously you don't like to bet "Blubucks".

So, the car you get with like 1,000 blubucks, and I would gladly take it from you!

phira360 said...

Also, did you see at the bottom where it says "Do it later"?

Unknown said...

I was actually stupid and signed up, but when it asked for my e-mail password, I clicked that I would do it later and ignored it. My account was still created though. Does this mean I will get a virus or just spam?

Impacted Customer said...

>Forever Dazzled said...

>I was actually stupid and signed up, but when it asked for my e-mail password, I clicked that I would do it later and ignored it. My account was still created though. Does this mean I will get a virus or just spam?

If you didn't give up your email password, you should be fine. You will likely want to close your account at DotBlu to limit emails from them

phira360 said...

">Forever Dazzled said...

>I was actually stupid and signed up, but when it asked for my e-mail password, I clicked that I would do it later and ignored it. My account was still created though. Does this mean I will get a virus or just spam?

If you didn't give up your email password, you should be fine. You will likely want to close your account at DotBlu to limit emails from them" --Impacted Customer

Forever Dazzled, if you still want to do Dotblu, go ahead! They just send you like a monthly (I don't think I've gotten more than two and I've been a member since like 2007) newsletter about what's been going on.

If your friend signs up and decides to tell you about their question/bet, then that's a whole different story!

Anonymous said...

I just got one of these emails and my sister said find the padge on google first.I read this and sent an email to my friend who had asked me to sign up telling them to go on this to read about it.Thank you so much caus i h8 these things

Unknown said...

Dang dude. You are guilty of not reading the entire message on those DotBlu emails which is not a bad thingas we are all busy these days. They do Identify who sent you the message. I got involved with DotBlu through my brother and I got one of those emails you said BUT you did not see who sent yu the emai, I did. You have to read the email as the name of who sent it is there.

Impacted Customer said...

> LoanARngr said...

Dang dude. You are guilty of not reading the entire message on those DotBlu emails which is not a bad thingas we are all busy these days. They do Identify who sent you the message. I got involved with DotBlu through my brother and I got one of those emails you said BUT you did not see who sent yu the emai, I did. You have to read the email as the name of who sent it is there.
April 18, 2009 10:20 AM <

Thanks for the input LoanGuy, but you are *guilty* of not reading my original post.

The issue is not who sent me the Dotblu email (I knew that), the issue is the underhanded way Dotblu gets you to go to their site and potentially send emails to all of your contacts.

I'm guilty of wanting an email that describes an urgent message to actually be urgent. I'm guilty of wanting an email that says there's a message waiting for me to actually have a message waiting for me, not to say a message and then post an image of a car that doesn't exist for use on a site I've no interest in joining.

Anonymous said...

i'm really woried i did put my email adress password in but did nothing and didn't send the email to anyone. will anything happen?

Impacted Customer said...

> Anonymous said...

> i'm really woried i did put my email adress password in but did nothing and didn't send the email to anyone. will anything happen?

It really depends on where you exited. Your email and password initially sets up a Dotblu account. If you didn't click one of the choices on the next screen then your address book and contacts should be spared.

Anonymous said...

You don't give your password to sign up!It is a password for you to create and use to be on Dot blu,And those messages maybe very well from a friend of yours and you just haven''t looked at it right or even click the right link it isn't a virus or anything it is a social game site i am on it it isn't a scam or anything,And you can sign up and stay and play or you can delete yourself off of it if you don't like it.

Thailand Luxury Hotels said...

I just received one of this message, too. But we didn't sign up!

twilightluver97 said...

dotblu isnt bad at all!!!! you get 2 play games and if u win u get virtual money. its not really gambling!!! u get 2 play against other ppl who have a dotblu account. and its fun. its not spam ok ppl. so stop hatin on dotblu because it is awsome!

iFightNinjaCows said...

This happened to me in '08. it got onto everything on my computer- WoW, emails, EVERYTHING. It sent messages even on WoW, to everyone on my friends' list. It gave my computer a huge virus and my computer completly crashed.