Anonymous BitTorrent Service VPN4Life is a Scam
Written by enigmax on January 06, 2009A few days we reported on a new service which claimed to offer lifetime anonymous BitTorrent for a $50.00 one-off payment. As the service ‘launched’ we had our doubts, but understandably some people decided to give it a try since it was so cheap. It turns out that the offer was indeed too good to be true.
The ability to partake in some anonymous BitTorrent-ing is becoming increasingly desirable. A reputable VPN service, offering fast transfer speeds and unlimited transfers costs around $10 to $20 per month, so when a ‘new’ service called VPN4Life was about to launch last week offering incredibly cheap prices, we took a closer look.
In a nutshell, a representative from VPN4Life claimed they were about to offer a fast, 128 bit encrypted, fully unlimited and anonymous PPTP service – all for just a one-off payment of $50.00. It seemed to good to be true and in our report we said as much, warning people away from the service.
Nevertheless, since the offer was so cheap, some people decided to take the chance. After handing their cash over via PayPal, customers did not receive a PPTP VPN service, but an executable file named ‘VPN 4 Life PC.exe’. Sadly, this was neither new nor original code, but a piece of software designed to protect people’s privacy when using public WiFi networks. The ad-supported software, called Hotspot Shield, is already available for free from AnchorFree.com. The scammers at VPN4Life simply renamed the file to make it look like their own work.
Confirmation that the two files are identical can be obtained by checking the MD5 checksum, which can be viewed as a type of digital fingerprint. The results for each file are identical.
4b34079841d43799e5d0849ac16feb61 HSS-1.10-install-anchorfree-76-conduit.exe
4b34079841d43799e5d0849ac16feb61 VPN 4 Life PC.exe
The VPN4Life site now has a note on it stating that if anyone is unhappy with the service, that’s too bad. “No refunds will be given if you are dissatisfied with our services,” says the site’s recently-added Terms and Conditions. However, according to reports from purchasers, a complaint to PayPal seems to do the trick.
Too good to be true? You bet.
Previously: Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent
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64 Responses
I lol'd.
enigmax, you may want to go edit the previous story to include a GREAT BIG WARNING about this, people might see that article on Digg and not notice this one.
$50 for someone else's free software? that's scummy. Has anyone informed Anchorfree?
I think it was pretty obvious that this was a scam or at the very least it wasn't going to end with everyone being happy. Buyer beware.
Haha! Butt-raped!
At least it doesn't seem to be an RIAA-based scam, or from some other company of the same type.
Oh man… people are idiots. Scammers and victims, sorry. Victims should learn a valuable lesson: some very cursory research (IE. visiting other VPN providers) would have turned over the fact that no other provider offers a once off fee for service that lasts a lifetime – and this site was offering that for the cost of around two months at other legit providers. And if it sounds way too good to be true… etc.
Man people are gullible.
Why am I not surprised? ^^
That came totally out of nowhere….
hah, theres so many different sides to feel about this.. One is hilarious if anyone actuley gave there money to these losers… another is that HAHA NICE SCAM GUYS YOU PROBLY MADE A FAT CHECK.. and then theres.. Hey lets all DDOS them assholes..
whatever.. glad im not on the loosing end.
As usual a deal that seems too good to be true turns out to be just that.
A shame really that bandwidth is so expensive and that when targeting p2p users you can't really contend your bandwidth the same as an ISP can else you could probably get the bandwidth costs down somewhere reasonable.
Well, enough comments have been made in hindsight so there's no point adding my own ;)
but am kinda curious as to how many people fell for this… anybody have any numbers?
Buying online is pretty secure, esp for a service rather than tangible goods, other than paypal MC/Visa etc should cover a chargeback… the good thing is (not sure if they were accepting credit cards though) if you do ask for a chargeback from your CC company, the vendor has to pay!! So do it and screw these scumbags over as much as they wanted to screw you over.
Payback can be a bitch! ;)
Cheers!
http://www.eZee.se
crazy stuff, just reminds yout not to be too dumb as to trust every website on the internet.
btw, what is the outcome? Do they just get away with scamming so many people? What is paypal's policy on this and can they be sued?
Have you seen their website? They say that the first 100 customers gets it cheaper, and last time I checked only 17 spots was left, so 83 have bought it. And there's a comment on the first article that someone got their money back from PayPal without submitting any complains, so it's possible they've all gotten their money back.
dude, do you really think the "17 spots left" is true? They can sell much more of their non-existing service when people think there are only a few spots left and it is a limited offer. It has been at 17 for like 1 day.
Hi Charax – I've added a note to the original article as suggested. I contacted AnchorFree on Saturday and they asked for my questions, which I sent over with a view to them contributing to this article. But sadly their CEO is 'traveling' and won't comment til he returns later this week, but we needed to get the news out to warn people so we decided not to wait.
I'm told that people complaining to PayPal get their money back, i'm not sure if that's a refund from vpn4life or via PayPal. That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if VPN4LIfe has breached some of AnchorFree's rights. Hopefully they will comment later in the week
if something seems to good to be true it often is…
Obviously. Common sense people.
I tried just to test it out and I got my money back in paypal, didn't even have to file a suit they willingly gave my 20 bucks back. weird.
Exactly, cant trust scammers and by saying they have just a few spots left it kind of gets people excited into getting a deal and not wanting to miss out (old marketing trick: eg. limited time offer, just x pieces left, x hours and x minutes left etc) gets a lot of impulse buys…
I dont trust anything written on that site… so just didnt visit it
At least the complaint to paypal is there.
I didn't bother to even visit the site after i read the first article on this. Nice to see that the staff at TorrentFreak are easily scammed.
They could have at the very least made a new GUI for it, but the exact same software that you can get for free, thats low.
Surely you already knew that, 'NubCakes'? After all, you only posted that link to a video of a man being killed by altering the link's title to a torrent-related subject.
Netscum…
ITT: TorrentFreak.com fails
Dear Dumbshit,
The staff here warned people about it, they themselves did not sign up. Learn to fucking read.
-The Internet
That makes one wonder what amount of effort they spent on this scam in the first place. Perhaps they thought that it was easy money or something.
I knew it was scam when i reviewed torrentfreak first article ! lol
well….. duh
No shit sherlock … duh.
This is not practicable in the real world, even if you get past this being a single point of failure and a single choke point.
With a single point of contact, that’s a big, juicy target for the MPAA/RIAA to sue out of existence, if this is widely used for file sharing.
Plus, it’s a single place to serve subpoenas.
Probably better off being a scam than a trap.
“Nevertheless, since the offer was so cheap, some people decided to take the chance.”
Blaming the readers for a service you advertised? How about the VPN service that was showing user IPs? How much do you get paid for these obvious adverts?
What
Ive just read the article here onm torrentfreak.com
and this is really fucked up.
These fuckers are actually making money by selling a product that is free
Shit if only i knew how to hack i would defaced there website
all the people wgo got fucked should open a website collect money from everyone and pay hackers
to fuck those little scammers.
It was irresponsible for TorrentFreak to report on this in the first place. It was OBVIOUSLY dodgy, and despite your warnings, you must have known that people would sign up to it. People that became aware of it because of the story on your website.
The scammers must be delighted that they've got so much attention from gullible websites.
EEEEPPPPPPIIIIICCCCCC FFFFAAAAIIIILLLLLLLLLLLL hahahahahaha
since it is a scam and PayPal already knows it there's no hassle for a refund. I'll bet it'll be a month before PayPal threatens to take the site down
Has anyone reported said fraud to their host?
Name Server: NS109.NAMECHEAPHOSTING.COM
Name Server: NS9.NAMECHEAPHOSTING.COM
achhk, sorry folks. I posted this in the prison post. I meant to put it here.
At any rate, flagrant ignorance is pretty easy to deal with.
J.
Has anyone reported said fraud to their host? and why do my comments keep dissapearing?
No, it is your fault for being able to read.
Seriously don't start the fucking blame game.
If you would notice, TorrentFreak never advertised VPN4Life. Notice that coverage is not necessarily advertisement.
here's a perfect opportunity to do a DOS attack…. if anybody knows how to do it….
Lol, yeah, maybe some retarded bastards trying for easy money like roze said and hell, i thought they won for a second there. Atleast paypal is good enough to get the money back. hehe.
Er… what are you talking about?
blacklogic.com also offer vpn and is ALSO A SCAM i subscribed and its been 2 weeks and i have yet to get a response to my countless emails they just took my money
Anchorfree is a heavy adware thing too, not too nice either.
I actually find it rather funny that some pirates would foolishly pay for an already free product, in order to anonymize themselves to get copyrighted/fee based content for free. For all of those who don't already know "TOR" rocks, google it.
LOL
Ahem http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/anchorfree.comit's a bit dodgy too
Tor rocks? Well, how fast is your download speed on Tor and is it easily configurable. I've heard so much about TOR but about 2 yrs ago when I tried to use it, I found it to be damn near impossible to understand how to use. And I gave up once I heard you only get like 3 kb/s download speed.
In other words, Torrentfreak has fucked you over!
lol.
that is all.
01/07 8pm MST: Still says 17 places left
i was slightly curious and hit the PayPal button a couple of days ago. seems like PayPal had caught on before the site realized people got wise.
Using PayPal when scamming people isn't exactly smart. It's so easy to get your money back as a buyer.
hot 10 gig "CONNEXION"
I found that with Firefox and Adblock plus I can use it without having to actually view any ads, I use it to view hulu.com from outside the states. Sometimes it doesn't offer enough bandwidth to stream though.
Hi Enigmax,
I spoke to Anchor Free and subsequently mailed the details for clarification. Below is the transcript of the e-mail correspondence substantiating your inference of VPN4LIFE is a scam.
I would appreciate if you could added this to you earlier post.
ravi
Subject: Hotspot shield scam
From: "Eugene Malobrodsky" <eugene@anchorfree.com>
Date: Thu, January 8, 2009 1:51 am
To: ravishankar@ideaflashed.com
Priority: Normal
Mailer: Microsoft-Entourage/12.15.0.081119
Options: View Full Header | View Printable Version | View Message details | This is Spam
Ravishankar,
I would like to let you know that VPN4LIFE is a scam. They are reselling our
product without our knowledge. Our legal and PR are in the process of taking
care of this. Please release to the community the following statement.
"We want to make it very clear that AnchorFree and Hotspot Shield are in no
way affiliated with VPN4Life. We are saddened to learn that people have
fallen prey to the site's false offers, and urge anyone who has been mislead
to purchase our service through the site to file a complaint with PayPal for
a full refund. The real Hotspot Shield is 100% free and can be instantly
downloaded at:http://www.hotspotshield.com."
We would like to thank you for your dedication and helping us in hard
situations.
Regards,
AnchorFree Management
—–Original Message—–
From: Ravishankar Ganesan [mailto:ravishankar@ideaflashed.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 11:51 AM
To: Cecelia Marsh
Subject: Clarification.
Importance: High
Hi Cecelia
Subsequent to our tel conversation, Given below is the hyper link which
states that your product "HOTSPOT SHIELD" is being misused by scammers.
Kindly verify the article and let me know by way of e-mail about the
authenticity of the article.
http://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-bittorrent-serv...
090106/
You can view my profile and contact details at my website
http://www.ideaflashed.com.
Your feedback would help me in getting across the truth to the community
and take further action against the scammers based on your feedback.
Any technical specifications substantiating your stance would be highly
appreciated.
regards
ravi
Hi Enigmax,
I spoke to Anchor Free and subsequently mailed the details for clarification. Below is the transcript of the e-mail correspondence substantiating your inference of VPN4LIFE is a scam.
I would appreciate if you could add this to you earlier post.
ravi
Subject: Hotspot shield scam
From: "Eugene Malobrodsky" <eugene@anchorfree.com>
Date: Thu, January 8, 2009 1:51 am
To: ravishankar@ideaflashed.com
Priority: Normal
Mailer: Microsoft-Entourage/12.15.0.081119
Options: View Full Header | View Printable Version | View Message details | This is Spam
Ravishankar,
I would like to let you know that VPN4LIFE is a scam. They are reselling our
product without our knowledge. Our legal and PR are in the process of taking
care of this. Please release to the community the following statement.
"We want to make it very clear that AnchorFree and Hotspot Shield are in no
way affiliated with VPN4Life. We are saddened to learn that people have
fallen prey to the site's false offers, and urge anyone who has been mislead
to purchase our service through the site to file a complaint with PayPal for
a full refund. The real Hotspot Shield is 100% free and can be instantly
downloaded at:http://www.hotspotshield.com."
We would like to thank you for your dedication and helping us in hard
situations.
Regards,
AnchorFree Management
—–Original Message—–
From: Ravishankar Ganesan [mailto:ravishankar@ideaflashed.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 11:51 AM
To: Cecelia Marsh
Subject: Clarification.
Importance: High
Hi Cecelia
Subsequent to our tel conversation, Given below is the hyper link which
states that your product "HOTSPOT SHIELD" is being misused by scammers.
Kindly verify the article and let me know by way of e-mail about the
authenticity of the article.
http://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-bittorrent-serv...
090106/
You can view my profile and contact details at my website
http://www.ideaflashed.com.
Your feedback would help me in getting across the truth to the community
and take further action against the scammers based on your feedback.
Any technical specifications substantiating your stance would be highly
appreciated.
regards
ravi
Looks like their site got yanked finally by the host! One down, way too many more to go.
J.
I find you funny you daft twat – way to try to act like you have any idea of what you're talking about.
To tear your stupidness apart:
1. You can only proxy your tracker connection through Tor for regular (ie. not Tor Hidden Services) trackers – every client you upload or download to and from sees your real IP address. As pointed out, Tor is also slow and unreliable – perhaps using it as a proxy for the tracker would work but I doubt it would be reliable – and it would be pointless as you may as well just use a faster regular proxy to hide your location from the tracker.
2. For trackers running on the Tor network (or I2P or any other anonymous network) there is little content. Hardly anything in fact. And the speed is shocking – already Tor usually runs slower than dialup if you count the enormous wait time.
3. You're ruining the Tor network by downloading large files you dumb sh*t: this explains it http://www.chrisbrunner.com/?p=119
Man your a retard.
I can sell a link to the software for 40$ – Thats 10$ then our competitor! Act now and I will give, for free, a link to a search-engine with lots of features!
Cheated by that VPN service, so I reported to the "http://www.namecheaphosting.com"who host that client's VPN website, and now look …Suspended :)
Everyone give a big thanks to namecheaphosting :D
> To: xxxxxxx@hotmail.com
> Subject: [#167872]: Cheating website
> Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 16:21:12 +0000
> CC:
> From: abuse@namecheaphosting.com
>
> Hello,
>
> We've suspended this account.
>
> Regards,
> xxxxxxxxx
> Support team
> NameCheap Hosting
>
> Ticket Details
> ===================
> Ticket ID: 167872
> Department: Hosting — Legal and Abuse
> Priority: Critical
proactive attitude- EuGene. Lets all sustain the same spirit and bring down the other scammers predating the web.
A VPN by a PPTP tunnel, it exist, and for free! …but in french only ;) peer2me.com
Think we all sensed this was a scam in the first place…
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