E. writes:
The website imlive.com is a very popular webcam site. They provide (for the most part) adult entertainment with a per credit/ per minute fee of about 1$ per credit (bought in increments of 50$. I was a member of the site since 2006 and used it off and on. Stupidly i allowed the site to save my Credit card info on their site. Then much to my shock I found a 450$ charge on my card two weeks ago from their billing provider (ccbill). And found two "confirmation" emails in my inbox. I put quotes around confirmation as they werent really checking to confirm just cheerily informing me that i had made these purchases. I quickly logged onto their site and called their customer service and literally sat there watching the credits that had been purchased tick away by someone who had hacked my account on their site and was fraudulently making purchases on my credit card.While on the site i changed my password and called their customer service. This stopped the hacker from being able to use my account. Unfortunately he had already used 250 credits by then. Upon contacting them they were able to disable my credit card purchases from the site (I later just canceled my credit card altogether.) Upon contacting their fraud department i was told that because the purchases were made under my username and pass and that purchases were already spent they were unable to refund any of the money. They offered to replace the credits. I found that to be wholly unacceptable as i really cant afford 450$ worth of adult material. I contacted my Credit card and they informed me that they would open a fraud investigation but they warned me that they would likely run into the same issue. As a good faith step i complied with imlive's request to keep them informed if i had made a decision not to accept their offer of free credits. I informed them that my credit card was investigating the fraud. Thats when the situation went off the rails. And i received the following email.
I am in receipt of your last email.
I want to make it very clear that all personal details regarding your Imlive.com account are held in strict confidentiality, and are never released to third parties.
Please note that it is one's responsibility to keep his Imlive.com account details secure and to not use it on other sites. Imlive.com will not be held responsible if your personal details have been accessed.
There are a number of locations on the site in which you are prompted to change and update your password to secure your details which you have not used in the past two years.
Your Imlive.com account was accessed with legitimate login and password to purchase the disputed charges, and thus we consider these charges as your own.
Nevertheless, since you have been a valued member since 2006 we offered an exceptionally generous solution as we rarely approve refunds for transactions of this sort.
Filing a fraud claim with your credit card company will result in a charge back. Charge backs are considered a serious violation of our terms of use.
If you have already filed a report with the credit company, I will not cover the debit that will result in your account due to the charge back.
In case you can pull back your filing with the credit company and respect the offer we presented, I will refund the last two transactions and bonus your account as previously agreed.
We reserve our right to keep all records of your activity with the Sexual Stress Relief Hosts on the ImLive.com platform.
Sincerely,
Sandy Mills,
Manager
Imlive.comNot only were they trying to scare me out of a chargeback if one was issued by my credit card. But i think the last sentence is an explicit attempt to illicit fear that somehow my actions on their adult site would be exposed on a public forum. Obviously as i am emailing you to expose this gross mismanagement of security and subsequent lack of accountability for their mismanagement of security i could care less about exposing the fact that i enjoy the occasional viewing of the bare human form. I have yet to hear back from my Credit card company (USAA) but my account on imlive has been closed (by them) and I am beginning to believe more and more that i am out of 450$ because of a security flaw on their site. My account info and password on their site was never given out or used on other sites and was hacked as an obvious use of username/password list hacking software (i.e. software that repeatedly tries u/p combinations until it finds a hit).
E. later sent us an update:
My credit card company agreed to call it fraud and gave me a chargeback for the 450$. After that imlive deleted my account with them. Which is fine with me after the way they treated me. I received no contact from them since.]]>
A) You all assume by saying "We reserve our right to keep all records of your activity with the Sexual Stress Relief Hosts on the ImLive.com platform" means that the company is THREATENING the OP and this is not true. Imlive does not care to call your boss or your family saying "omg did you hear so and so watches porn?" THEY RESERVE THIS RIGHT FOR THE SAFETY OF CAMHOSTS. When you issue a chargeback, the model suffers; plain and simple. Imlive has a blacklist which puts models on notice if a customer has ever issued a chargeback. They have the RIGHT to keep this on file and let the models know this customer is a possible liability.
B) I and anyone with half a brain knows (as others have pointed out) that brute force hacking is a long and tedious process. To pay a hacker to brute force an account would cost you way more than the amount disputed if you could even find one with the horrid ethics necessary to do so for a cause as infantile as hacking a porn site. It is possible that the OP was attacked by some teenager using a remote keylogger but was more likely HIS OWN FAULT FOR A LACK OF COMPUTER SECURITY AND KNOWLEDGE.
C) Camhosts only get, yes that's right 30% of what you spend. They work very hard often for what totals to less than minimum wage per hour spent in front of hot lights and in the uncomfortable lingerie you love so much. This percentage is reduced further if the model has an agent i.e. does not own her own equipment. Customers are often very rude and insulting and one must have THICK SKIN to do this, which is sometimes necessary in our current economy. IF YOU CANT AFFORD TO WATCH, DON'T SIGN UP. It wastes the models time and leaves her feeling used and cheated as she is not told what her chargebacks are until the end of a pay period. A 100 dollar chargeback is the difference between being able to pay ones rent or eat that month or not! Chargebacks are taken from the models, the site does NOT eat them. If your wallet were stolen by some guy at a stripclub, would you expect the girl giving you a lapdance to reimburse you? NO. Keep better track of your wallet!!
IMO this was the fault of the OP. If you are lucky enough to be able to afford LUXURIES like watching live camshows, Keep your antivirus up to date, use a firewall, use common sense and for god's sake tip the girl!
]]>Oh well said! Love it!
]]>@FuryOfFirestorm: Rule 34 of the internet: If it exists, there is porn of it. NO EXCEPTIONS.
]]>@Lincolnsbeard33: Very true. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those people =P
]]>Because people are ashamed of porn, some porn vendor starts randomly sucking money from their customers' accounts knowing that only a minority will fight them.
...was essentially one of the many business models employed in the film.
And hilarity did ensue.
]]>although, if it is actually live and interactive as claimed, one could argue that it's more of a "service".. hmmm.. interesting. I'll have to discuss this with my colleagues. Fascinating!
ahh, semantics.
]]>@dave_coder: "Why kind of hacker would want to waste time doing this?"
LMAO, you have got to be kidding me.
]]>@Radi0logy: " Spend a significant amount of time hacking usernames and passwords for an online pornography site, and then commit more crimes by fraudulently using their credit cards to make a large purchase ("
You are so naive sometimes. You honesty don't think people will hack porn sites? REALLY? And then use credit cards that aren't theirs? Wooooooow.
]]>@webreacher: Oh no, people watch porn and aren't ashamed of it!
]]>Hint people........Ensure your passwords are airtight.
]]>Finally I should address the dollar format. I'm an idiot sometimes. I wrote the email to consumerist in haste and anger. I think I prefer to write how i speak. When you speak you say "X Dollars" so thats how i wrote it "X$" its wrong and i am sorry to have offended your delicate sensibilities with my poor grammer.
Any questions?
]]>more likely he had a easy to figure out password and the user name is something stupid like his email address.
]]>@Con Seannery: Mission Accomplished:
Actually, a few other monetary units put the symbol after the value... not to mention, it's read that way as well ($450 = 450 dollars).
Personally it works either way for me. Before the value gives an effect much like Spanish's inverted punctuation marks, letting you know what it is before you reach the end; the other way is how it's pronounced.
No need to be a hardass about it, though.
]]>I can see a business model developing here. Because people are ashamed of porn, some porn vendor starts randomly sucking money from their customers' accounts knowing that only a minority will fight them.
Forget it. Stuff the shame. That's so 19th century. Queen Victoria is long gone, and so is Ronald Reagan.
]]>Without it we would have no porn.
]]>@I_have_something_to_say: Who needs more than 15-20 seconds?
Wait I need to retract that statement O_o
]]>When did anyome imply that criminals were rational, logical creatures?
Way back before history began, I did some of this. I got caught precisely because a) it was a stupid thing to do and b) I used the cards in a stupid way.
The same way every criminal gets caught.
Fortunately, I was a juvenile and the company accepted a return of the merchandise and a sincere apology. My parents, however, were not so forgiving.
The whippings I got might have even been included in the deal with the business. They certainly made me think twice about doing anything like it in the future.
]]>I disagree with you, but your post made me LOL. :)
]]>Well put. The threat part was the worst.
]]>He can watch videos on Xtube without even registering. So no need to even fake an email.
]]>There should be something in there about how signing up for porn is a way for them to verify the information and:
"Perhaps the thief decided to go back and use the purchased credits at a later date?"
]]>@GayNerd:
250 credits is 4 hours of porn. So if he was at work (or out with friends, or at a movie, or attending a wedding, or simply reading a good book) and then came home and checked his email, immediately contacting ImLive, the hacker would have had PLENTY of time to streamrip for 4 hours.
Claiming that he had "ample time" to dispute a mere four hours of credit usage when he said he was speaking to them *as the credits were being used* is disingenuous at best.
The claim that he was logged in as the credits were being used is perfectly reasonable, even two weeks later. Signing up for porn is an easy way for credit card/identity thieves to confirm that the information they obtained is legitimate, precisely because many people aren't willing to call up the credit card company and say "Uhh... yeah... that porn isn't mine," moreso if they'd been purchasing said porn in the past.
He said that he saw the charge two weeks ago and did not provide a timeframe for the other items. Perhaps he began this process two weeks ago and is only now submitting the story?
]]>He has sexual stress. Hence the "Sexual Stress Relief Hosts" (GOD that was funny).
:D
]]>If you're gonna do something don't be ashamed of it.
]]>CAN WE SET ASIDE that this story is about an adult web site?
What matters it that the OP had an unauthozied charge made by a web site to his credit card and when he contacted them they refused to credit him and threatened him if he filed a dispute. Both are fraud and borderline illegal.
He did the right thing to file a dispute with his credit card and to tell this site because (let's face it) there are others here who have or will use ImLive.com and this will warn them.
Enough said.
]]>That's my favorite part of this story.
]]>Just think - with all the WiFi out there, it's quite likely you've had internet pron passing through your body at some point.
]]>Not if you're French, the $ sign goes after the number. I learned that the hard way. I know I just put the $ sign after the number out of habit now.
]]>More than likely an Iamlive.com employee placed the charges on E's account. E wasn't using the site so they decicded to generate revenue.
]]>As pointed out, they do have access to logs with the times and IP addresses from the logins. If they are unwilling to do any verification, what keeps an employee from being able to abuse accounts? I am sure they would come more adept when they know how the system works.
In my opinion, I believe it is ImLive.com's responsibility to prove his fault. They would have an IP address authentication when the purchase was made.
Sure there are sneaky ways like proxies, which would make the process more complicated. But, it would not be ImLive.com's fault if the OP's computer was compromised and used for these means (logs would show his ip address was used). Then it would be a strictly fraud case.
People do lie, sure. But what are the chances of him lying while confessing to the world about his personal porn-related materials? It isn't too suggestive a person would do something like that and then go about lying.
As for judging a person because of their spending habits. I have seen many respectable people waste hordes of money on something I see as a complete waste, the amount involved with the OP doesn't even remotely come close to 1% of others I have seen. Though these weren't porn-related materials, the principle is the same.
Some people spend lots of money on video games. Certain people would see that as a waste, but those people themselves might just spend lots of money on books, which others might see as a waste of money. What people think is a waste is dependent on their own personal preferences.
]]>@Bearded Rapper: ...in 1 minute 'credits'.
]]>$50 to anyone who finds the identity of "E".
]]>At $1 / minute, $450 is 7.5 hours.
From the OP: They provide (for the most part) adult entertainment with a per credit/ per minute fee of about 1$ per credit (bought in increments of 50$.
Just thought I'd point that out. ;)
]]>"One time I received an email from Wells Fargo, with a weird URL (apparently for tracking purposes), offering me $5 to sign into my account (Who does that? $5 because you "missed me"?). It used my real name, $5 was too low to raise any Nigerian 419 flags, so I blithely complied like a sucka."
]]>Ah, but he claimed that the credit card company was unlikely to agree that it was fraud. Check the post. Thus, his only way to get his money back (to his mind at the time) was to pressure the company to cough it up.
]]>You just answered your own question. Wouldn't his SO believe him now?
]]>I tend to think that most people are not liars and wait for them to prove otherwise. But hey, if the guy wants to fap to $1 a minute cam shows and then come here and lie about it for whatever reason, then I would be surprised.
He could have simply done his chargeback and walked away without anyone other than his bank and the cam show queens being any wiser to the whole mess.
/shrugs.
]]>And your reasoning for preferring a pay site to a free site is prima facia preposterous: Free porn only requires a throw-away email address. Yahoo, hotmail, gmail, whatever. And absolutely no disclosure or any personal or financial information of any kind whatsoever. Pay site? Not only your real CC number, but your real name and real address. Oh yea, much safer.
Xtube sells my email address? Good, let them. I use it exclusively for such registrations and every single vowel and consonant I typed in the registration form was a lie.
My suspicions are fully elucidated above and hold much, much, way way way WAY much more water than your penny-ante, "Psychology Today" attempt to divine either the OP's honesty or my pecuniary interest.
]]>Again, it just seems more likely that brother/son/friend/roommate did it, and you can call it fraud all you like, but its really not the same. If my son were to log onto a porn site, take out my credit card, and spend $200 watching a stripper, I wouldn't be on here lambasting the company for not knowing it was my son and not me. I'd pay my son's bill and ground his ass for a year. Occam's Razor.
]]>I can't stretch my brain around the first, so I'll assume you mean the second, but that's still a ridiculous thing to say. It's been my experience (although admittedly not lately) that the pay-sites have (a) better material, (b) less virus/malware/spyware/crap, and (c) less of a tendency to sell your email address to God and everyone (although "happens less" does not mean "never happens"). If he prefers to pay for those features - or whatever other "perks" that site may had over the various free sites, in his estimation - it's hardly "irrational." And paying per-minute is a much more "rational" than paying a monthly membership fee, IMO, especially for someone who is not a regular viewer. Last but not least, he apparently hadn't even been using the account for two years (or so), so even if he HAD been doing something that was "irrational" by paying for porn, it was in the rather distant past, and should hardly affect any assessment of his rationality NOW.
As for all the rest of your hole-poking (...heh) in the OP's report, all I can say is you're REALLY suspicious of someone you don't know... usually that level of suspicion only comes into play when the suspector has a personal interest in the situation. (And now I have to wonder why *I've* taken such an interest in *your* skepticism... hmm)
]]>"That's just the way it is" is a lazy cop-out. I disagree with the status quo.
]]>If Imlive actually cared about customer service, it would be really easy for them to investigate and determine with a reasonable degree of certainty whether or not there was fraud. Pretty much all porn sites maintain IP access logs to their sites and content for this very purpose. Many keep specific information about what files or content was viewed. All they have to do is look at the IP addresses that the customer uses on a regular basis, and then at the IP addresses used to buy and watch the additional credits.
In this case, assuming the OP is telling the truth (and I'm inclined to believe he is), ImLive could have immediately checked and determined the purchase authorization came from a different part of the country or different ISP than the OP's normal access, and it would be pretty obvious there was fraud.
There are plenty of reputable porn companies that provide great service and have reasonable policies, but there are also a bunch that do shady stuff like signing you up to 3 sites when you join one, or offering "free" access that "automatically upgrades" you the first time you click on a video, or other shady stuff.
In this case, I think the reason they didn't offer the OP a refund is they didn't want to mess with it and didn't want to lose the money. And it's this sort of thing that contributes to the porn industry having such a crappy reputation.
]]>But this is not a rational man, and trying to divine his reasoning is like asking an armadillo if it prefers the old Kirk or the new Kirk. You may get a response, but damned if it makes any sense.
]]>Oh, PORN.
As in "porno".
And sold in $50 chunks at a buck a minute.
That's really sad.
They weren't offering to refund him the $450 - they were offering to give him back the 250 credits used.
]]>Additionally, I find it very, very hard to believe that out of all the weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds that had passed since the "fraudulent" charges were made, he just happened to log-on at the precise, exact moment as the malefactor.
Nope. I don't buy it. Not for a second.
]]>How about this: He got caught by his significant other.
]]>Wouldn't his login be disabled after thousands of attempts? Or do porn sites not do this.
]]>On the other hand.... oh wait, the other hand is 'busy' right now.
:)
]]>I'm not saying the account holder @ IMLive doesn't have a legitimate case. I'm just explaining that the chargeback situation is no laughing matter for adult websites.
Perhaps someday, Consumerist could investigate the unfair practices waged on the adult Internet by VISA.
]]>Dunno if it goes without saying, but that last link is like 110% NSFW.
]]>These people would.
]]>Most currencies put their mark after the amount.
He could've been canadian or australian too. US isn't the only one that uses Dollars.
]]>That isn't necessarily true. There's more stolen user/password for porn sites publicly posted online than there are bank accounts. Very few people are willing to report that their accounts have been compromised though because of the whole shame attached to porn. If you don't believe me, go peruse 4chan for a few hours and you'll see the vast amount of resources that go into doing brute force hacks onto porn sites to get at their pics and videos just for the jollies of a few thousand teenagers.
]]>Perhaps he's French? No, really, I'm being serious here.
]]>I think he himself somehow exposed himself to a keylogger or spyware and it stole his key. Or he lets other use his computer.
Not blaming the OP just suggesting that his side is not the only one and that he should excercise proper surfing habits. :)
]]>@socialSTD: If I answered that, I'd be disemvoweled.
]]>@What The Geek: I agree with you to an extent; fraud is fraud. But at the same time, there are certain security measures that every consumer should be able to follow. Keeping your usernames/passwords secret and at least somewhat diverse is one of them. Sure, fraud is fraud, but should imlive REALLY be held accountable because someone left his password saved on the computer (which seems to be more likely the case here)? I guess it's a matter of which way you lean, but I'd wager probably not.
]]>Sorry OP, But thats not fraud. It should be a dispute(chargeback).
]]>Unless the hacker is smart enough to steal usernames and passwords to porn sites and doesn't mess with other sources. That describes more than a few hackers...
There was a guy that went around hacking e-sports websites a few years back that simply placed a picture of a eurotrash guy flipping you off into the page and deleted any databases attached to the website.
]]>They even admitted he hadn't used the account in ages. Unless this person had a porn meltdown and went crazy, I am willing to bet the OP didn't purchase $450 worth of cam viewing time.
Most attacks are automated and the people who get the information don't care what it is, they will figure out a use for it. In this case it seems the hacker wanted to fap to some cam shows...
Furthermore, they have every way of finding out if the OP was the person behind the charges and viewing of porn. IP addresses, etc...
They were relying on the OP being embarrassed about his porn admiration, yet that shit only works on teenagers, people with low self worth, and or hypocrites.
]]>Also, it doesn't really make a difference if it was a hacker or a shady acquaintance - a fraudulent charge is a fraudulent charge, plane and simple.
]]>But then how are all those college girls supposed to pay for school?
]]>These same questions invariably surface on posts about disgruntled customers of [insert luxury item or service], and invariably, the answer is the same: No matter how you feel about the necessity, appropriateness or morality of the purchase/item/service, at the most basic it still involves a (defrauded) customer-business transaction.
]]>Why? It's the general prudishness prevalent in America that made imlive.com feel secure in presenting their veiled threat "We reserve our right to keep all records of your activity with the Sexual Stress Relief Hosts on the ImLive.com platform." Why should the OP feel held hostage because of this crap? Sexuality is a normal human process. If he feels the need/desire to pay for porn, so what? If he's ripped off, it only helps everyone else by posting it to the Consumerist so everyone can be aware of imlive's habit of threatening customers who are exercising their rights.
]]>Tasteless? Perhaps. But it's a free country, and he was paying for a legal service. I just don't see what the big deal is.
]]>Or that the OP's son/best friend/ex-roommate that knew his username/pw did it?
I'm not saying it isn't true... just that I have a hard time believing it. Generally speaking, your hacker rings are after bank account information, not some grainy pseudo-porn.
]]>They had no way of knowing if this guy's complaint was legit. The charge, so far as they were concerned, was authorized, yet they decided to suck it...I mean...they decided to bend over...what I meant to say was that ImLive tried to make the guy hole...uh...whole as best they could without burning a $450 hole in their pockets.
I'll bet they get phony charge backs every hour of every day from spouses trying to explain legit charges in their credit cards.
]]>He's an adult, it's really not that big of a deal what type of company defrauded him. He may be alerting others who use this service what can happen on this site.
I get my porn for free, but if I decide to pay for it I know NOT to use this site.
Isn't that what this site is for, you warn other consumers about bad companies? Isn't that what the OP is doing?
Geez, it's porn no biggie.
]]>LOL! My thoughts exactly. I didn't realize anyone actually paid for porn anymore.
]]>Your chargeback is fraudulent. The method for this should be like any other theft, a report to the police, so investigations can proceed
]]>Considering the wide variety of free porn on the net, the only reason to pay for porn is that you have a fetish so obscure, you have to pay to have it made especially for you. Hairy elderly Asian she-male amputee dwarf porn, perhaps?
]]>On one hand, we have a consumer issue.
On the other... Ok I cannot continue any more here.
You should just quietly filed a chargeback, without posting it to Consumerist.
Here's a ''rip-off report''
[www.ripoffreport.com]
Agreed - there's usually something out there for free that brings me to my special place. Usually a 15-20 second clip.
]]>