Am I Being Scammed Right Now?? **Mods/Admin Please Look**

[Pogre]

Definitely a phishing scam. I put a note on the relevant contest pages asking entrants to steer clear of anyone asking for money.

There is never any financial transaction involved in these contests. Apologies for the inconveniences, I double checked our user-DBs and they're secure with no sign of hacks. If my two-factor authentication didn't warn me, activity logs should have and I see no evidence of a breach. My guess is they're getting info from YouTube as the reports rolled in almost directly after the video. This seems to be a low-effort phishing scam. When I heard about this, I was glad to hear nobody fell for it. My immediate concern was someone accessing our registration data. But I think anyone with the ninja hacking skills to access our user-data, *and* bypass notifications Gene or I would receive, they likely wouldn't be hacking our contest, I'm sure there are bigger phish to fry.

Best of luck!

Thanks for further clarifying Wayde, much appreciated.

I think you're right. It's just a surface level phishing scam and I should have had my guard up. It's not hard for them to know about the contests, copy the badge and start phishing. Fortunately my alarm bells finally went off before I got scammed.

 

[Wayde Robson]

Well I didn't fall for it!

I guarantee you they're gonna get someone tho. They're using the AH badge and know about the contest. Sneaky bastards...

I don't know... I think it's a testament to Audioholics audiences, they're skeptical breed. If this were a "Magic Cable" online community that extols the virtues of anti-vibration stones for the best SQ, I might be a little more worried. IMHO, the phishing scammers picked the wrong community.

 

[Replicant 7]

I gave it to them. Agreed, not good, but I stopped before giving up any more sensitive or payment info. When I say my alarm bells finally went off, I mean it was almost deafening. A rush of realization crashed over me like an ocean wave...

Uoh!! They gonna show up at your door for sure now!! Two, three big Russian dudes!! one like this dude! Don't open your front door! or Pow! Change up your house numbers.

 

[mtrycrafts]

They don't need much info if they know how to get more- your property info is now available and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

My CC number was used by someone who bought something on ATT.net and the manager of the ATT store wouldn't let me see the video of the transaction, during which they never asked for ID. I had to go to the PD to report this and they were to subpoena the video, which likely never showed up or they didn't bother to finish the case because it was only about $120, but the real problem is that they had my name, company name, could easily find my address and other info that's available on the internet. While I'm not aware of any additional problems that are connected to this, I really don't like so much visible info on the internet.

Your info may be used later after you forget this episode years from now?

 

[mtrycrafts]

I have, I know. There ain't much in the way of dirt out there on me tho!

Well... not without more than a cursory search of my name anyway...

They don't need dirt, just useful info for quick moneymaker.

 

[Eppie]

I just got a reply to one of my comments on a yt video from someone with an Audioholics badge telling me to text to a number and that I had won the Heco 5.1 speaker set they're giving away.

Well... I'm in text with someone right now and we got to a point of "you will have to pay the shipping" and they want me to transfer $140 to a suspicious looking email account! Something isn't smelling right... does Audioholics do their giveaways like this?

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Didn't see your original post until later. You are not alone. This happens on virtually every contest give away that takes place on YouTube. It is not uncommon to see the same reply to a whole slew of comments all along the thread. Yours was a better attempt because they used the AH logo and tried hiding the phone number using symbols instead of regular text (note the black text on white back ground). Most of the time these scammers try and get you to respond via WhatsApp (I see that all of the time). YouTube has been horrible at not providing tools to let content creators filter out these spam messages. Otherwise it would not be such a big problem. JaysTwoCents had to release a special video just to address this issue in his last contest. FYI, winners are *never* announced in a comments thread. It's always a scam.

 

[-Jim-]

I had the same thing happen to me right after I posted on YouTube after watching Genes video. I reported them on YouTube.

I think it's all Gene's fault as he not letting us Canadians win any contests anymore....Yup, that's got to be it.

 

[Verdinut]

I had the same thing happen to me right after I posted on YouTube after watching Genes video. I reported them on YouTube.

I think it's all Gene's fault as he not letting us Canadians win any contests anymore....Yup, that's got to be it.

To my knowledge, as Canadians we have never been allowed to enter Audioholics contests.

 

[-Jim-]

To my knowledge, as Canadians we have never been allowed to enter Audioholics contests.

I vaguely remember entering one. Of course I didn't win it either...

 

[highfigh]

Your info may be used later after you forget this episode years from now?

Forget? Not a freaking chance. I called the office of the president of ATT because of this and after his people called back (only a few hours later- I was surprised by how quickly that happened), I have heard nothing.

Any info that can be used, probably will. It (hopefully) may be more likely that the turd who used my card # forgets because it wasn't the first time, I doubt it will be the last.