EelKat Wendy C Allen - zdark Fantasy Author

Hackers, Plagers, Pirates, & Thieves.... When Your Work Is Stolen


By EelKat Wendy C Allen


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Help, I think I've been Hacked

Help, I think I've been Hacked

 #1387604  by Janice from smalldogplace.com 
 02 Dec 2017 13:49

I wasn't sure where to post this but it does have to do with my contact form but please, admin, change it if it fits better somewhere else.

I was contacted several days ago by someone who informed me that there is a website that is very similar to mine and they supposedly sell puppies, however, the site appears to be a scam. The scam site is miracleshihtzupups dot com and mine is miracleshihtzu dot com. Nothing about this other site sounds legit and I started to investigate.

I checked tineye to see where the photos came from. The photos were original. However, after clicking on each picture, I came upon one that had a couple cans of Coke in the background. It is hard to mistake that trademark, except these cans did not say Coke and I couldn't even make out what they did say, making me believe that the picture was not taken in an English speaking country.

I checked whois but there was no name associated with the site. The server was based in Cypress. 

I read the emails that my "informant" sent to me and all of them said they were located in California, but their English wasn't quite right. (The types of mistakes that a native English speaker would not make.)

The prices they were selling the puppies for wasn't right either (way too low) and they claimed they could ship anywhere in the world for $100 USD. I haven't found an airline ticket that cheap for as long as I can remember. 

So I was going to post on the forums yesterday to see if anyone could tell me what I could do about this when...

Today the "informant" said that he was actually contacting me via my Contact Form and somehow it was redirected to this scam site.

The last thing I need is to be associated with a scammer but now I'm really worried that my contact forms have all been compromised.

Ideas?  

Janice
https://miracleshihtzu.com
https://www.pinterest.com/miracleshihtzu/
https://smalldogplace.com
https://www.pinterest.com/smalldogplace/



Hacked means someone found out your password, logged into your dashboard, took over your site, rewrote all of your articles, usually they delete all your photos and pages, and turn your site into a single page that in most cases flashes a warning image saying "This site was hacked!"... thus why it's called being hacked.

The part about your contact form redirecting... that does sound like some form of a hack. Possibly they attempted to hack your site and could not gain access to the full site? Or maybe they did discover your password and have access to everything, thus how they changed your contact form?

What you are describing on their site is plagiarism/pirating... someone taking copies of your articles and pasting them into their own site, to try to pretend to be you.

Both hacking and pirating are illegal. Plagiarism has a $25,000 fine and 25 years in prison. Contact your local police. They may be able to trace the plager's ispn and shut them down. If your local police are unable to trace it, contact your local FBI office. Plagiarism is a federal offence and is one of the crimes the FBI investigates.

In either case, you should definitely change your password to something with lowercase and caps and numbers, preferable 12 or more characters long, to prevent them from getting back in.

Just went and looked at their site... interesting... I don't think the photos are theirs... they have photos of Steve Tyler (lead singer of AeroSmith) with a puppy he supposedly bought from them... it's very clearly a Yorkie, not a ShihTzu. (On the "Testimonial/SATISFIED BUYERS" photo #6... also photo #3 is a Wire Haired Terrier, also not a ShihTzu. Photo's 9 & 11 are Lhasa Apsos. Photo 4 is another Yorkie. Photo 7 is a Soft Coated Wheaten. Photo 15 is a long haired Chihuahua.

Clearly they can not tell one dog breed from another, and just took photos of every long haired puppy they could find off Google images.

The photos of the woman who supposedly runs the site... only 1 photo shows her face, the rest have her face cut out and her body type is clearly different...meaning she's not the same person in each photo.

Not sure how you would go about contacting him or his agent, but I'm sure Steve Tyler would be interested to know they are claiming he bought a puppy from them.

Do a Google search for: "steven tyler puppy" and see what you get... 

https://www.google.com/search?q=steven+ ... y&tbm=isch


ETA:

I searched further and found an interview with Steve Tyler... he says he got the puppy here...

http://www.pocketpuppies.com/CUSTTEST.htm


And you can see if you search around this site... that plager has stolen their photos, thus how they got the one with Steve Tyler.

I would suggest you contact Pocket Puppies and tell them about this site. Tell them, this fake site stole your articles and their photos. They may be able to offer more advice on what to do. They are a fairly big company, they likely have a team of lawyers that can get that fake site down.

P.S. I tried to see what language the Coke cans were. Not sure, it's small and hard to see, but I believe those Coke cans are Brazilian? Could be the site owner is from Brazil?




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