Thanks everyone '
i have not been able to contact them by webchat they must have closed it down .
i told my visa company they said they would look into it .
They said they need proof that i had been misled what shall i give them ?.
Is the phone no ok or is it like a chat line about £2.00 a minute ?
the phone no is 0015144480103 calling from the uk .
what a fool i was to get caught
thanks Shaun

I spent a few hours reading thru this entire thread. (Actually I started out researching an entirely different matter.)
-Incidently, the first post I came accross was a year and a half old! This problem has been goin' on for awhile now it seems!-
My girfriend signed up thru imusicsearch last Aug and I remember that the first thing that confused me was getting the LimeWire nag-screen to buy the PRO version. (Its not much of a nag-screen I admit, probably the least intrusive I've come across.)

Anyway, I looked at a few of the websites mentioned here and noticed that many of them have the exact same layout just different graphics. Typing in my email address into the "members area" in a few took me to the exact same page (musicinc.cc). Interesting!

What I really wanted to mention (and ask about) was that my girlfriend first found "imusicsearch.com" via
webreviews.org which (I just discovered) also goes by http://www.my-free-music.com/ Is this legal? I always thought ".org" was non-profit. (The first two links on that page lead to similar pages, "my music inc" and "imusicsearch")

I did a google and yahoo search on music downloads and didn't come up with webreviews.org as my gf did in Aug. I really didn't see too many of the sites mentioned here, except in the sponsered links on the side...that's the good news.

Now for the irony; I noticed when I registered for this forum just now that some of the sponser links (ads by Google) at the top of the pages of this thread are to the very type of sites that are being complained about! One is:

Download It Now ---which apparently leads to a bunch of those sites.

I'll leave it at that. I guess I shouldn't mention the other irony, (all of us who got scammed are -in a way- helping to pay for this forum, where we complain about getting scammed.)

One more thing. I need to reiterate something that was mentioned before in the thread. (This is for ukbobboy01). Please remember that alot of us came across these sites in the wake of the trouble with Napster and the RIAA. I knew what file sharing was but didn't think that was what the subscription site was all about. (Actually I had my suspicions, but this was my girlfriends puppy. I can't say much because I once bought a utility program that turned out to be crap!)

older_not_wiser--the admin has been trying to block those ads for several years, but once blocked, they are pretty good at getting around the blocks. It's been quite a struggle.

The irony I like is that those scammers indirectly are funding this thread and forum.

true...true...stief; good point. I actually didn't like the idea of giving money to that site instead of contributing directly to LimeWire-- an open-source project. I've been looking at this stuff all night and was feeling a little cynical.

But one other thing I thought of earlier (when I was less cynical) was that I noticed in the "imusicsearch" site was that in the members area they had links to free utilities, (i.e. Ad-aware and Spybot). At first that bothered me, since they were in the paid members only area, but then I figured that some people could probably benefit from the knowledge.

So if anyone out there coming across this thread in the future who don't what those two programs are then they might want to take a look at those. (Not the subscription site's "bonus" software, mind you, but the utilities.)

Or look here...major geeks support forums.
which offers extensive removal (and prevention) instructions.

Older_not_wiser

I would just like to point out that I am not totally blind to the you and your GF’s plight of being taken in by scammers and that most newbies are trying to do the right thing and got caught out in the process.

However, as someone who has been using the internet for years to buy my goods and services I sometimes find it astonishing that newbies take so little care before parting with their money. As you have been through this forum you will see, time and time again, that most newbies don’t even know who they have given their money to, can there really be any excuse for that lax way of thinking?

As a working man, I take exception to the fact that there are criminals and parasites, who think I am a mug for working, are out there waiting to extract my money from me and others like me, either by using scam sites or trying to plant Trojans, viruses, keyloggers or any other form of malware to capture financial information. With this in mind I somewhat take a hard line when newbies carelessly throw their money at criminals, who then laugh at them and close up shop so no further contact is possible, as a result leaving the newbie to flounder around until they find this forum.

Finally, as I have said before, the internet is like the “wild west” and should be treated as such. If you are not careful you will become prey to dodgy sites or, if your PC is not protected, you will be bushwhacked with malware. However, as most newbies don’t really care about PC security until something goes wrong therefore any warnings placed in this forum is just like shouting at the wind.





(Not so heartless) UK Bob

Thanks for all your help i phoned them up and they said they will return my money to me .
cheers Shaun

Hi all, haven't posted for a while, just to update you and especially ukbobby after two month wait on my bank finally got my refund today the bank tried to tell me that i hadn't claimed within 30 days so was not valid when i explained !!!! i did n't know my self i'd been scammed until later than that they re-investigated and although because of time they could not get the scammer they have refunded my money anyway. so all you who have been scammed keep going on at your bank, I only decided to do this after input from the forums (mainly ukbob) but thier advice not to give up keep going at the bank has worked for me,it obviously would have been better for the bank to have a go at these scammers but frankly i am not sure they are bothered, so learn a lesson folks, IF IT LOOKS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE,IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THERES A CATCH , don't get caught.

Congratulations Spar1691

I am glad you have got your money back but your post has confirmed one thing, if the banks did not make facilities available to scammers people would not get scammed.

It's quite clear now that banks are only interested in making money, which the scam sites make in abundance (out of which the banks get their fees), and if you as an ordinary person do not complain you will get taken to the cleaners.

One again Spar1691 congratulations, you have shown that the ordinary man can win and that the scammers and banks don't have it all their own way.




UK Bob

Scammed?
http://www.musicmembersarea.com/login.asp

Hi, new to this. Also, I suspect, rather ignorant. Paid for Lime Wire on the above - is this a scam. If so I'll contact my card people straight away.

Appreciate any help

Yes that is definitely a scam site.. Good luck.

__________________
To get Phex Click on the Fox