FAKE ALERT: FREE F&D Upholstery Fabric Measuring Tape Sample
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Update: This is part of a “WebSEO” fake freebie network powered by another freebie site that has Russian ties. More info here.
Here is another fake freebie that is connected to previous to the same entity publishing other Russian Fake Freebies (more info here).
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Here is the URL if you want to follow along, however I urge you not to share your information with this website: http://www.mnogo-mebely.ru/free-measuring-tape/
Let’s dig into why this is likely to be a fake
- There are no contact us, terms or privacy pages to be found.
- The freebie page is in English. The rest of website is in Russian. The site also ends in .ru which means it’s hosted or tied to Russia. It’s pretty expensive to ship from Russia to say the least. Sending measuring tape doesn’t make sense economically.
- The format of the form is similar to previous fakes. It looks like they caught on (or they are reading these fake alerts) and stopped using European time formatting.
- Another thing that is hard to explain, is that the old owner could spell “peppers” properly according to this newsletter I found from 2011, a period when the firenspice.com website was registered within the United States. How interesting that the current website suddenly lost all sense of how to spell “peppers” and has “pappers” everywhere. Maybe it’s a new trend in food I’m not aware of.
- There are advertisements on the web page. They are the same advertising ID as ones found from previous Russian fake freebies. This is the most clear cut proof it’s a fake. I also got the same email that starts with “Hi!” and asks to share the freebie on my blog from a clear throwaway email account.
- Web archive history and WHOIS look normal, nothing out of ordinary or dates that line up. They used private registration so you can’t see who has it. The site appears to be clear of any viruses or malware.
I think you can safely say this is fake thanks to the connection to other fakes. Avoid it. If you signed up for this one, worst case is you’ll get some spam mail, spam email and perhaps some sketchy links from fake PayPal/Amazon/other websites. Don’t trust links that ask for your password or any personal information, ever. Thank you for reading my fake freebie rant.
-John ‘Samples’ Clark
