Scary

what the f#@*%$^!

gheez, i'm going to cancel my account, delete it right now!
j*

>Andrew Conru, Friend Finder Network, Alt.com, AdultFriendFinder.com, Passion.com, Xmatch.com, Conru Illegal Scam Operation Rips Off Millions of Consumers through their Deceptive Fraud Palo Alto California

Company
Andrew Conru, Friend Finder Network, Alt.com, AdultFriendFinder.com, Passion.com, Xmatch.com, Conru
Address:
445 Sherman Ave
Palo Alto California 94306
U.S.A.
Phone Number:
800-388-0760
Fax:


There mode of operations is this:
1. Engage affiliates to bring them traffic. After a short honeymoon period where everyone makes money, AFF starts to slowly begins to rip them off. The more traffic they send, the more they rip them off. It's all in the tracking systems. I know, I helped write them.

2. When new people sign up, fake profiles run by their customer service department email the guys until they sign up for a paid membership. Then, amateur porn stars promoting their own web sites, prostitutes, and the like are used to make sure you stay on longer and keep recurring (billed monthly).

3. After you request to cancel, a couple of the customer service people may try to "save the sale" and begin emails with you again. This is fairly automated. All Andrew's ideas.

4. Once you do cancel, your email address and all your personal information is sold to the highest bidder, or usually, all the bidders, to use as they may.

5. Profiles are NEVER removed and your email address is constantly used to cross promote Andrew's other sites like Dine.com and GradFinder.com.

6. From time-to-time, Andrew wakes up in the morning and feels that he's not filthy rich enough for that day. At that point he instructs the technology people (of whom he personally supervises) and tells them to do god awful things ranging from billing peoples cards that may have cancelled months ago or send out massive amounts of spam through his spammer friends like Westby (before he was arrested on the first criminal spam charges last month).

7. You may also realize that some people may putt heir profile on good-clean friend finder as a 30 year old single mom looking for a jogging partner and she shows up on Alt.com as a 30 year old mistress looking for a submissive slave with the same picture! Does anyone else see anything wrong with that?!?!

I worked for Friend Finder Inc. for years and am soooo happy to be out of there. I had many morale objections to the operations of their company. Andrew is evil and pompous. He laughs in the face of the legal structure including the state of California, the FTC, and the US Attorneys office and it seems like they cannot do anything to stop this deplorable excuse for a human being.

for more information on andrew, goto www.conru.com

FormerAFF - Las Vegas, Nevada
U.S.A.

Mark
New York, New York
U.S.A.

Re: what the f#@*%$^!

It gets better. Google "Andrew Conru" and you'll find that he was the first person ever charged under California's Anti Spam laws...

Re: what the f#@*%$^!

Wow. I thought you guys were all taking this thing a little too seriously, but now that I read this stuff, it's an outrage. What a total scam. So now I've got to worry that they might have my pristine, primary e-mail address as well as my credit card number, from the Nerve days?

Re: what the f#@*%$^!

Yep.

And you may become a Slaveboy on alt.com as well.

Not that there is anything wrong with that...

Re: what the f#@*%$^!

btw, i suggest to obliterate/change your personal info/e-mail one by one, delete your fotos and let their data base update it, before you delete the account entirely. that way they got all the wrong stuff & no pics to abuse.

Re: what the f#@*%$^!

In the billing info section, they have my credit card number. I haven't bought credits in almost 8 months. I tried to delete it, and it wouldn't let me.

Re: what the f#@*%$^!

It's almost as though they want to get sued.

Re: what the f#@*%$^!

I just changed my credit card number to one I recently killed on account of potential identity fraud. The form accepted it, so I suppose I've protected my bank account for now.

Has anyone actually complained to Nerve or The Onion or any of the other sites that people access the personals through directly? I mean, we're bitching at the personals, sure, but I think the best case scenario may be that some of these publications switch to another outfit that does syndication, like Consumating.

Been there....done that

Joan_Jett,

Wrote to the CEO of Nerve -- told me there is nothing one can do... he even pimped out the FF bastids in the press release touting the changeover (eventhough he denied it until I copied him on the yahoo business site posting of it with his quote)... so I'm thinking he doesn't have motivation to go change anything

Re: Been there....done that

My general assumption is that Nerve has sort of a tenuous financial situation, and I suspect that cash flow from the personals matters a good deal.

What position do you play, rugger?

Re: Been there....done that

Nerve claims that they were losing money hand over fist due to the old system... hence the change.

I'm a hooker -- but a very tall hooker... use to play for Austin RFC back in the day, but as a prop -- have nothing nice to say about those bunch of wankers though

Re: Been there....done that

We play a U.S. Eagle prop at hooker, so our front row can sort of plow over everyone else.

I haven't heard many nice things about the ARFC boys (aside from them being good at playing rugby, which is I suppose, a virtue, but a limited one). Our men's team affiliation is with the Huns.

I sent complaints

to Salon, the Onion and Bust, figuring that Friendfinder could be hurt if its biggest affiliates pulled out. My letters enumerated 14 things that were wrong with the new site and the transition and emphasized the effect that this bad craziness could have on their brands.

Re: I sent complaints

Why don't you post your letter here?

Complaints to Gawker, maybe?

Bart, I know you sent Gawker an email, but maybe if a few more of us email them about the shitstorm AND Andrew's little ripoff report we can get them to lead with it in the morning. It'd be nice if by lunch this was all over the blogosphere and maybe leaking into some other outlets. I don't know if any of you have been back for the last few hours, but I was able to run what looked like an unimpeded search earlier.

Sigh. I got to gaze upon about 1000 Nerve lovelies before my damn computer crashed. Man, I will never take for granted how hot the Nerve girls are and how that hotness is worth fighting tooth and nail for. The unimpeded search is a hopeful sign, but if even some of the above is true...

Well, we'll get fucked one way or the other.

Re: Complaints to Gawker, maybe?

Yes. I encourage everyone to email gawker.

This system is so strange. I just got an email telling me I have "earned" 340 points.

All I've done on the site is post links to my live journal, and posted complaints on the CEO's nerve blog about my profile being denied and about him being a criminal.

What could they possibly be rewarding me for?

Bart

But not the fun way

Did you notice that Gold and Silver members have to pay an extra 20 a month to get messages from those of us who haven't given in? I've run about three searches since The Bad Thing happened, but all I get are the grinning mugs of the losers who bent over (again, not in the fun way), no questions asked.

Re: But not the fun way

I did manage to get a nice endless stretch of "standard members" and with pictures no less (though, of fucking course, not the amazing girl who I whose profile name I forgot and I was planning on having many beautiful children with). God, I hope I didn't just slip in through some open code window that's now been nailed shut.

No, wait a minute...

I did a BROWSE unimpeded and with pretty pictures. I just tried doing it again and, uh, some of the site is in those "can't recognize the language" characters. What the fuck?

Re: No, wait a minute...

you gotta know, there's something wrong in the state of denmark, if all of a sudden all you see is hot cuties, when you've done 100s, nay 1000s of searches on this system and your eyes never spilled over in such rapid succession...
don't be fooled!

Re: No, wait a minute...

I'm convinced there are no cuties in my neck of the woods (based soley on my searches). If I didn't know any better (ie have Myspace or adorable friends), I'd move to the coasts right away!

Re: No, wait a minute...

The coasts is where it is at... sure Boulder is nice... but definite lack of industry there...

but in regard to nerve.... well former nerve... middle american (other than Chicago) barely registers there...

Re: No, wait a minute...

That's what I like about Nerve. If I was looking for middle American Rules Girls, I'd let my stepmother set me up with some.

But the fact is I married one of those girls and it drove me insane.

Never the fuck again. My body is reserved for cool intelligent sluts only now.

Re: No, wait a minute...

I'm convinced this state is filled with nothing but the military and scary neoconservative Christians. Most of which are Mormon!

I have to be proven wrong.

Incidentally I miss Boulder. I spent my first year of college there.