10/02/2007. SPP First Payments and STPay Threats

Today finally it happened. Those of you who are the members of SurfProfitPro should have received your first payments by now. I got paid during the first hour after the server time had changed to Monday. The question now is: how many members will re-upgrade and how many will join the program during the next week? If everything goes well SurfProfitPro will pick up steam and we should see some stable growth here next week.

The admin of GreenLinkAds Bayu is back from his holiday earlier than he planned so you should expect more payments to be processed soon. He sent a reminder today informing that the upgrade fee will be enabled again after February 12, but there is another promo offer is coming on the Valentine’s Day. So stay tuned for another admin’s email soon!

Some sites I’m a member of including QXLsurf, AttractiveAds and GreenLinkAds were unavailable for a couple hours today because of a network issue though it didn’t affect their performance in any way. By the way, I received my payout to SolidTrustPay today from AttractiveAds so it was very fast considering it was requested on Friday.

Speaking about SolidTrustPay I received rather shocking email from them informing of some hackers trying to obtain their members’ personal info and credit card numbers so I would like to warn you to use STP cautiously and better don’t disclose your credit card data to them. I just hope they will be able to strengthen their security in the near future. Otherwise these facts about disclosing some info by hackers are getting rather disturbing. Anyway, here is this email if you haven’t received it yet:

“Dear SolidTrustPay Member,

This is a personal email from Marc and Stella, to you, our valued members. It has serious implications for a small percentage of you. It is, however, going out to our main membership to ensure it reaches all appropriate parties.

As many of you know, we have been harassed and attacked by individuals in Indonesia, Hungary and elsewhere. DDoS attackes and phishing emails leveled at us, lies, slander and accusations thrown around in forums. Yesterday we received a blackmail letter demanding $10,000 in EGold. (see partial copy below). We have NO intention whatsoever of giving in to this individual’s demands. He has even used our personal names in phishing e-mail attempts from a fake gmail account supposedly from SolidTrust. We reported this to Gmail weeks ago, but received no response. He has had his gold currency accounts blocked, only to create new ones.

This individual is claiming to have accessed some accounts and acquired credit card information (numbers only…no C V V codes, as those are not stored) from some members. His threat is that if we do not pay the ransom, he will make that information available on various underground forums.

We are on a new, powerful server configuration, have strong anti-DDoS protection, 24/7 security monitoring and back office encryption measures. He is angry because he can’t even get to the front door.

To stop him, here’s how you can help us help you.

1) change your login password. This is always a good practice, so why not do it now.

2) if you have listed a credit card in your profile with a valid expiry date, contact your credit card company and ask them to monitor all future activity. You can even change your number if you wish. We have NOT heard of ANY issues….but it is better to be fore-warned and fore-armed! If the card you have listed shows an expired expiry date, you do not need to do anything, of course.

3) monitor your own account and immediately report any suspicious activity. Rest assured we are watching every transaction as well. Check any suspicious emails! We do NOT use gmail, hotmail or any other free account. SolidTrust emails will always originate from our domains or xplornet.com (our ISP).

We will be contacting VISA and MasterCard. We are required to report such activity.

We live in a criminal and unfortunate world. Those that work hard for the benefit of others often become the victims of attack. We fully expect this individual to lash at us again. We expect some members to be upset and angry. Do not be surprised to receive more phishing emails, or even emails containing personal information. Ignore them. All he can do is throw what little information he has around.

We will NOT give in to terrorism and acts of blackmail! SolidTrustPay is more than a processor. It is a philosophy centred on caring customer support, put into practice every day. Many of you have shown strong support for us over the past while and we appreciate the words of encouragement sent our way.

Here is a section from the ransom e-mail.
“I believe Solidtrustpay.com user will make a lot of complain about your company. So, the choice is your, pay me 10 K in e-gold, or let credit card member posted to internet. Have nice day. If you agree contact me by reply this e-mail. And I’ll send you my e-gold information. I give you 24 hours from now…to reply this email!”
We ask that you read it and then ask yourselves…how would you respond? If he wants to post card numbers….he cannot be stopped. Even VISA itself was hacked in the past and millions of numbers stolen. If we were to pay his ransom, he would only come back for more. But if card numbers are monitored, companies made aware, and passwords changed, the information quickly becomes old and useless.

As always, Marc and Stella Hiemstra and all the staff at SolidTrustPay Inc.”

Stay tuned as tomorrow you will read a detailed review of a new short-term HYIP I joined today called Fund4Future. It offers you 18% for 7 days and accepts e-gold and LibertyReserve. I have just deposited in this HYIP and now waiting for my first payment. See you tomorrow, guys!