Three Stars Inc/Career Network/Difrawi continue their legal harassment with yet another baseless defamation lawsuit against Web of Trust and 100 unnamed John Doe's, alleging evil conspiracies between WoT and its users, naturally with no proof. Here is their complaint:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45021195/Career-Network-Inc-et-al-v-WOT-Services-Ltd-et-al-main
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45021311/Career-Network-Inc-et-al-v-WOT-Services-Ltd-et-al-1
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45021303/Career-Network-Inc-et-al-v-WOT-Services-Ltd-et-al-2
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The Internet Company
Three Stars and Difrawi, continuing their tradition of lame generic company names, now operate as, among other things, "The Internet Company" (internet-company.com).
MyWot thread:
http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/4780-internet-company-com-next-defrawi-phishing-site
And Action 9 report exposing it:
http://www.wftv.com/video/22318192/index.html
Melanie Ashraf who can be seen in that report talking about the non-existent jobs she applied for, has since been the target of a small online defamation campaign on complaintsboard.com and ripoffreport.com. Most likely another example of Difrawi attempting to silence critics of his shady operations.
Melanie however doesn't seem to be the kind to take this lightly, and is determined to go after whomever is behind it. I wish you the best of luck. Either way you can always comfort yourself with the fact that Difrawi's search engine results will always be far worse than what he's thrown at you, and most of what's written about him is not lies but verifiable fact.
MyWot thread:
http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/4780-internet-company-com-next-defrawi-phishing-site
And Action 9 report exposing it:
http://www.wftv.com/video/22318192/index.html
Melanie Ashraf who can be seen in that report talking about the non-existent jobs she applied for, has since been the target of a small online defamation campaign on complaintsboard.com and ripoffreport.com. Most likely another example of Difrawi attempting to silence critics of his shady operations.
Melanie however doesn't seem to be the kind to take this lightly, and is determined to go after whomever is behind it. I wish you the best of luck. Either way you can always comfort yourself with the fact that Difrawi's search engine results will always be far worse than what he's thrown at you, and most of what's written about him is not lies but verifiable fact.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Three Stars Media Launching Defamation Campaign Against Web of Trust?
Web of Trust is another company devoted to cleaning up the internet from various pieces of trash. Volunteers on their forum have been blacklisting Three Stars Inc's various sites as phishing schemes:
http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/3615-monkeyjar-ponzi-phishing
http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/2119-three-stars-orlando?page=1
They've recently had a campaign of defamation launched against them, using various sites to post accusations of selling personal data (pretty much exactly what people are accusing Three Stars of):
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/461/RipOff0461073.htm
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/web-of-trust-mywotcom-c213015.html
http://hubpages.com/hub/esa_suurio
http://mywotscam.com/mywotblog/
http://my.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/how-safe-mywot-what-esa-suurio-it-scam
WoT made a response to this which can be found here:
http://www.mywot.com/en/blog/157-defamation-campaign-against-web-of-trust
Now, why am I thinking that Three Stars and Difrawi just may be behind this? After all, thousands of scummy sites are blacklisted on WoT, so why would it be them?
Well, first of all, Difrawi has been running similar defamation campaigns in the past, especially against a man named Les Henderson, a well-respected anti-fraud activist who even wrote a book detailing some of his crimes. This campaign never really ended, Henderson's Wikipedia page has been hotly contested ground for years, and many other sites intended to defame him have been created, such as this:
http://www.les-henderson.com/
The WoT detractors put a heavy emphasis on the CEO Esa Suurio personally as being behind the alleged scam, this mirrors the way many critics of Difrawi's operations use his name prominently. One of the people blacklisting Three Stars sites on WoT goes by the username "difrawi_defrawy" for example.
They use sites like NowPublic, TradeVibes and HubPages, these sites have also been used by Three Stars marketing operations.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Three-Stars-Inc
http://www.tradevibes.com/company/profile/three-stars
http://my.nowpublic.com/culture/what-make-buzzgrub-it-good-your-writing-career
Though admittedly there are few sites on the internet that have not been spammed by Three Stars.
So, in order to confirm these suspicions I set up a site with the sole purpose of capturing the IP address of whomever entered it. I sent a link to the site to the email address (mywotcrimes@gmail.com) listed on the defamatory blog mentioned above. The first hit on the site was from 75.112.133.254 - belongs to an ISP "prismone.net". Taking a look at their website we find they are located at 2295 S. Hiawassee Road. Well, that happens to be the same address as Three Stars Media. Somehow, I do not think that is a complete coincidence.
http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/3615-monkeyjar-ponzi-phishing
http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/2119-three-stars-orlando?page=1
They've recently had a campaign of defamation launched against them, using various sites to post accusations of selling personal data (pretty much exactly what people are accusing Three Stars of):
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/461/RipOff0461073.htm
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/web-of-trust-mywotcom-c213015.html
http://hubpages.com/hub/esa_suurio
http://mywotscam.com/mywotblog/
http://my.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/how-safe-mywot-what-esa-suurio-it-scam
WoT made a response to this which can be found here:
http://www.mywot.com/en/blog/157-defamation-campaign-against-web-of-trust
Now, why am I thinking that Three Stars and Difrawi just may be behind this? After all, thousands of scummy sites are blacklisted on WoT, so why would it be them?
Well, first of all, Difrawi has been running similar defamation campaigns in the past, especially against a man named Les Henderson, a well-respected anti-fraud activist who even wrote a book detailing some of his crimes. This campaign never really ended, Henderson's Wikipedia page has been hotly contested ground for years, and many other sites intended to defame him have been created, such as this:
http://www.les-henderson.com/
The WoT detractors put a heavy emphasis on the CEO Esa Suurio personally as being behind the alleged scam, this mirrors the way many critics of Difrawi's operations use his name prominently. One of the people blacklisting Three Stars sites on WoT goes by the username "difrawi_defrawy" for example.
They use sites like NowPublic, TradeVibes and HubPages, these sites have also been used by Three Stars marketing operations.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Three-Stars-Inc
http://www.tradevibes.com/company/profile/three-stars
http://my.nowpublic.com/culture/what-make-buzzgrub-it-good-your-writing-career
Though admittedly there are few sites on the internet that have not been spammed by Three Stars.
So, in order to confirm these suspicions I set up a site with the sole purpose of capturing the IP address of whomever entered it. I sent a link to the site to the email address (mywotcrimes@gmail.com) listed on the defamatory blog mentioned above. The first hit on the site was from 75.112.133.254 - belongs to an ISP "prismone.net". Taking a look at their website we find they are located at 2295 S. Hiawassee Road. Well, that happens to be the same address as Three Stars Media. Somehow, I do not think that is a complete coincidence.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Three Stars Inc Exposed In The Media Again
WFTV just made another investigation of Three Stars Inc and their Career Network:
News article: http://www.wftv.com/news/19970193/detail.html
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RN-MfY9EUE
This nicely confirms many of the complaints that have been made about fake job offers/interviews, and once again they've found a person on the inside with a conscience, very nice work. What I would also have liked to know is if they contacted some of the companies listed on Career Network to see how many actually know they're listed there, beyond the ones that Three Stars provided. They did this before after all.
A quote from the PDF there:
So you have to wonder what he is actually saying here. Does Kress think that a job post on another job board constitutes a request to repost it anywhere he likes? Personally I'll assume he's just being full of sh*t as usual.
Action 9 claims that Alec Difrawi is running the companies and he's clearly there on camera. The BBB records for Career Network and Three Stars Media have also recently been updated to list him as a contact. This comes as no surprise to anyone who's been watching.
What might however is that Keith Kress has made some very clear assurances in the past that Difrawi had absolutely nothing to do with Three Stars (for proof, please contact me in private). That would seem to be an outright lie, unless he started there recently. Surprising for a lawyer perhaps? No, I guess not.
So they're "working to resolve" BBB complaints. One would think they could have been more careful with this from the beginning considering their previous BBB records. They should be very familiar with those procedures by now.
Funny how they don't seem to see a problem with the way they advertise. If they actually told people more clearly they were just signing up for advertising and that these offers are in no way related to the job application, they might get a lot less complaints from people feeling they were just spammed. People are not being clearly informed of what they are doing, otherwise they would obviously not complain so much. But their business model seems based on this deceit, and probably wouldn't survive without it.
Who wants to bet what they will be calling themselves next month?
News article: http://www.wftv.com/news/19970193/detail.html
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RN-MfY9EUE
This nicely confirms many of the complaints that have been made about fake job offers/interviews, and once again they've found a person on the inside with a conscience, very nice work. What I would also have liked to know is if they contacted some of the companies listed on Career Network to see how many actually know they're listed there, beyond the ones that Three Stars provided. They did this before after all.
A quote from the PDF there:
"...all of the jobs posted on the Career Network Web sites are provided by actual employers seeking job applicants for open positions. Career Network does not unilaterally post jobs without an employer's request to do so"We already know that Career Network has reposted jobs on their sites without permission from any employer, some related sites have openly admitted this. Other bloggers have contacted companies listed on Career Network who turned out to have nothing to do with them.
So you have to wonder what he is actually saying here. Does Kress think that a job post on another job board constitutes a request to repost it anywhere he likes? Personally I'll assume he's just being full of sh*t as usual.
Action 9 claims that Alec Difrawi is running the companies and he's clearly there on camera. The BBB records for Career Network and Three Stars Media have also recently been updated to list him as a contact. This comes as no surprise to anyone who's been watching.
What might however is that Keith Kress has made some very clear assurances in the past that Difrawi had absolutely nothing to do with Three Stars (for proof, please contact me in private). That would seem to be an outright lie, unless he started there recently. Surprising for a lawyer perhaps? No, I guess not.
So they're "working to resolve" BBB complaints. One would think they could have been more careful with this from the beginning considering their previous BBB records. They should be very familiar with those procedures by now.
Funny how they don't seem to see a problem with the way they advertise. If they actually told people more clearly they were just signing up for advertising and that these offers are in no way related to the job application, they might get a lot less complaints from people feeling they were just spammed. People are not being clearly informed of what they are doing, otherwise they would obviously not complain so much. But their business model seems based on this deceit, and probably wouldn't survive without it.
Who wants to bet what they will be calling themselves next month?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Career Network
Career Network (career-network.com) is a Three Stars Inc company. The main idea with Career Network is to gather your personal details so they can forward it to their marketing partners. When applying for a job, you will be asked certain questions about education etc... which seem as though they would be part of the job application. They don't make it very clear on the same page that this is nothing but advertising.
The network goes under many names, in fact Career Network has thousands of sites, and has amassed a huge number of complaints due to their deceptive practices. Most notably, their BBB report has 50 complaints with more being added on a weekly basis. The company has so far been completely unresponsive to these, it seems they are unconcerned about their reputation.
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/career-network-inc-c109214.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/career-network-c192128.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/107407/page/1
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/343/RipOff0343451.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/452/RipOff0452193.htm
http://www.419legal.org/employment-scam-letter-archives/28166-career-services-100-a.html
http://scamfraudalert.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/career-network-www-brandsconstruction-com-aka-garageplansforfree-com/
http://demaionewton.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/job-scam-revealed-career-network/
And so on, any number of similar complaints can be found through a Google search. You might say that many of these people have simply misunderstood what they were really signing up for, and no doubt that's true in some cases. But it's still Three Stars Inc's fault for not explaining it.
Once you apply to a job on a Career Network website, you may receive messages about other possible job openings, such as this:
"Select number of qualified individuals" - the truth is they send such messages to anyone who signed up for a similar job. Doing a search on some of the text finds other people who have received the same message regarding other job positions and who were not too impressed either:
http://funfortheunemployed.blogspot.com/2009/01/dear-anne-carter-at-hobin-staffing.html
http://forums.motivemag.com/zerothread?id=4255794
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/419/RipOff0419746.htm
http://exposingemailscams.blogspot.com/2009/06/customer-service-representative-job.html
They ask you to submit another application with all your personal details, once again going through the various marketing offers, in order to apply for this new job. The employers in every case I've seen this were "confidential". Which means you have no idea who you are sending your personal details to, it could even be some other shady staffing company. Questions sent to Career Network by email are usually ignored.
Many complaints accuse Career Network of posting fake job offers, some claim to have signed up for dozens of jobs without any response from any company. It would be easy to blame the economy or lack of qualifications, however there are reasons to suspect there might be something to those accusations.
Then there is of course the fact that Three Stars Inc is in many respects the same company as Internet Solutions Corporation, who used to run similar job boards under names like Instant Human Resources, USA Voice and VeriResume. These were also accused of posting fake job offers among other things. More information can be found in this WFTV video and this Washington Post article.
The network goes under many names, in fact Career Network has thousands of sites, and has amassed a huge number of complaints due to their deceptive practices. Most notably, their BBB report has 50 complaints with more being added on a weekly basis. The company has so far been completely unresponsive to these, it seems they are unconcerned about their reputation.
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/career-network-inc-c109214.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/career-network-c192128.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/107407/page/1
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/343/RipOff0343451.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/452/RipOff0452193.htm
http://www.419legal.org/employment-scam-letter-archives/28166-career-services-100-a.html
http://scamfraudalert.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/career-network-www-brandsconstruction-com-aka-garageplansforfree-com/
http://demaionewton.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/job-scam-revealed-career-network/
And so on, any number of similar complaints can be found through a Google search. You might say that many of these people have simply misunderstood what they were really signing up for, and no doubt that's true in some cases. But it's still Three Stars Inc's fault for not explaining it.
Once you apply to a job on a Career Network website, you may receive messages about other possible job openings, such as this:
We are looking for a Copy Writer. He or she will write, proofread, and edit copy brochures/print and other forms of document, and may assist in estimating production costs, overseeing work done by external suppliers, and preparation of the marketing programs. This position offers competitive pay and includes full benefits, which we will discuss at the time of your interview."Your online resume caught my attention"? The resume in question was for someone with barely any working experience and only a high school education. At age 20.
***, to avoid being flooded with applications and responses, I have only extended this opportunity to a select number of qualified individuals. Your online resume caught my attention, and I would like to start the interview process as soon as I possibly can. I am looking forward to hearing from you today, if at all possible. By clicking the hyperlink below, you can view more information about the position, benefits offered, our company, and send in your application as an available candidate.
I would like to learn more about the Copy Writer opening.
I hope to hear back from you later today!
"Select number of qualified individuals" - the truth is they send such messages to anyone who signed up for a similar job. Doing a search on some of the text finds other people who have received the same message regarding other job positions and who were not too impressed either:
http://funfortheunemployed.blogspot.com/2009/01/dear-anne-carter-at-hobin-staffing.html
http://forums.motivemag.com/zerothread?id=4255794
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/419/RipOff0419746.htm
http://exposingemailscams.blogspot.com/2009/06/customer-service-representative-job.html
They ask you to submit another application with all your personal details, once again going through the various marketing offers, in order to apply for this new job. The employers in every case I've seen this were "confidential". Which means you have no idea who you are sending your personal details to, it could even be some other shady staffing company. Questions sent to Career Network by email are usually ignored.
Many complaints accuse Career Network of posting fake job offers, some claim to have signed up for dozens of jobs without any response from any company. It would be easy to blame the economy or lack of qualifications, however there are reasons to suspect there might be something to those accusations.
"Career-Network aggregates open employment opportunities from various employers and job boards, and posts them on Career-Network’s free Web sites..." [source]In other words, they copy postings from other job boards and post them on their own site! The actual employer is not necessarily involved. They are not shy about this either. Previous versions of Career Network sites have phrased it differently:
"We aggregate jobs from public boards, and once we get approval from the employer, we repost those jobs on Career Network..." (used to be on careernetwork.us.com)or
"When Career Network reposts a job from a public domain or other job board Career Network informs employer of the job being reposted and forwards applicants to the employer" (used to be on actioncareersonline.com)And they also post those jobs they've copied back on other job boards, which is how most people come in contact with them:
"Thousands of resumes are posted on our network of job boards daily, cross-posted through multiple channels, portals and search engines." [source]Here is one example, Action Marketing Team on Yahoo's job site. We can clearly see they have the exact same jobs reposted in every major city in the US. What do you think the chances are that any of this is real?
Then there is of course the fact that Three Stars Inc is in many respects the same company as Internet Solutions Corporation, who used to run similar job boards under names like Instant Human Resources, USA Voice and VeriResume. These were also accused of posting fake job offers among other things. More information can be found in this WFTV video and this Washington Post article.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Three Stars Inc Spam
The following sites, with the exception of the main sites, all have minimal content and all link to each other. They were most likely set up for the sole purpose of affecting search engine results for Three Stars Inc companies. This is considered an unethical SEO tactic (known as linkfarming, spamdexing or search engine spam) as it artificially manipulates the search results and adds results that are typically not useful.
* applicant-tree.biz
* applicant-tree.bz
* applicant-tree.info
* applicant-tree.net
* applicant-tree.org
* applicant-tree.tv
* applicant-tree.us.com
* applicant-tree.us
* applicanttree.biz
* applicanttree.bz
* applicanttree.com
* applicanttree.info
* applicanttree.net
* applicanttree.org
* applicanttree.tv
* applicanttree.us.com
* applicanttree.us
* buzz-grub.biz
* buzz-grub.bz
* buzz-grub.com
* buzz-grub.info
* buzz-grub.net
* buzz-grub.org
* buzz-grub.tv
* buzz-grub.us.com
* buzz-grub.us
* buzzgrub.biz
* buzzgrub.bz
* buzzgrub.com
* buzzgrub.info
* buzzgrub.net
* buzzgrub.org
* buzzgrub.tv
* buzzgrub.us.com
* buzzgrub.us
* Career-network.biz
* Career-network.bz
* Career-network.com
* Career-network.org
* Career-network.tv
* Career-network.us.com
* Career-network.us
* Careernetwork.bz
* three-stars-inc.biz
* three-stars-inc.bz
* three-stars-inc.com
* three-stars-inc.info
* three-stars-inc.net
* three-stars-inc.org
* three-stars-inc.tv
* three-stars-inc.us.com
* three-stars-inc.us
* threestarsinc.biz
* threestarsinc.bz
* threestarsinc.com
* threestarsinc.info
* threestarsinc.net
* threestarsinc.org
* threestarsinc.tv
* threestarsinc.us.com
* threestarsinc.us
* Monkeyjar.com
* Monkeyjars.com
* Monkeyjar.net
* Monkeyjar.org
* Monkeyjar.info
* Monkeyjar.biz
* Monkeyjar.us
* Monkeyjar.tv
* Monkeyjar.bz
* Monkeyjar.us.com
* Monkey-jar.com
* Monkey-jar.net
* Monkey-jar.org
* Monkey-jar.info
* Monkey-jar.biz
* Monkey-jar.us
* Monkey-jar.tv
* Monkey-jar.bz
* Monkey-jar.us.com
* applicant-tree.biz
* applicant-tree.bz
* applicant-tree.info
* applicant-tree.net
* applicant-tree.org
* applicant-tree.tv
* applicant-tree.us.com
* applicant-tree.us
* applicanttree.biz
* applicanttree.bz
* applicanttree.com
* applicanttree.info
* applicanttree.net
* applicanttree.org
* applicanttree.tv
* applicanttree.us.com
* applicanttree.us
* buzz-grub.biz
* buzz-grub.bz
* buzz-grub.com
* buzz-grub.info
* buzz-grub.net
* buzz-grub.org
* buzz-grub.tv
* buzz-grub.us.com
* buzz-grub.us
* buzzgrub.biz
* buzzgrub.bz
* buzzgrub.com
* buzzgrub.info
* buzzgrub.net
* buzzgrub.org
* buzzgrub.tv
* buzzgrub.us.com
* buzzgrub.us
* Career-network.biz
* Career-network.bz
* Career-network.com
* Career-network.org
* Career-network.tv
* Career-network.us.com
* Career-network.us
* Careernetwork.bz
* three-stars-inc.biz
* three-stars-inc.bz
* three-stars-inc.com
* three-stars-inc.info
* three-stars-inc.net
* three-stars-inc.org
* three-stars-inc.tv
* three-stars-inc.us.com
* three-stars-inc.us
* threestarsinc.biz
* threestarsinc.bz
* threestarsinc.com
* threestarsinc.info
* threestarsinc.net
* threestarsinc.org
* threestarsinc.tv
* threestarsinc.us.com
* threestarsinc.us
* Monkeyjar.com
* Monkeyjars.com
* Monkeyjar.net
* Monkeyjar.org
* Monkeyjar.info
* Monkeyjar.biz
* Monkeyjar.us
* Monkeyjar.tv
* Monkeyjar.bz
* Monkeyjar.us.com
* Monkey-jar.com
* Monkey-jar.net
* Monkey-jar.org
* Monkey-jar.info
* Monkey-jar.biz
* Monkey-jar.us
* Monkey-jar.tv
* Monkey-jar.bz
* Monkey-jar.us.com
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Vasya's blog
Vasya removed his blog from blogg.se because it was blocked through robots.txt from appearing in search engines. He did not receive any notice or warning from his blog provider regarding this action.
Some of that information may reappear here later. If anyone is interested in a copy of any information there please ask.
Some of that information may reappear here later. If anyone is interested in a copy of any information there please ask.
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