More Palace Group SPAM!

[lojo]

If spam is a problem, it's probably time to hold all people with access to databases feet to the fire, and when the smoke clears, do it again. I have an email box that has never had a rogue casino in it - until recently.

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by Zoozie

I also got this snail mail today and I was equally surprised. Of course I had to see what "spcasino" was and I had expected some a new Playtech rogue casino though the mail had the "Palace Group" logo.

But why make a URL and just forward to "spin palance"? White label?
And the offer in the mail (1 hour free slot play) was only for new customers, so why the hell then send me the mail? Someone sold me out.

What saddens me most is that this is traced to the Palace Group which so far has been clean in my book.

This just proves my point. This is an INTERNATIONAL campaign, and rules out it being a localised UK company using alternate sources of UK details for use with marketing a client.
This can only mean my full details have been released by the online casino(s) to various third party marketing firms, who are now using them beyond simply servicing the casinos I have accounts with by bulk sending me PROPER personalised offers such as Christmas cards, postal bonuses, gifts, etc.

Changing our POSTAL details is a hell of a lot harder than changing our E-mail addresses, and with no sender details given, there is no way to inform the marketing firm we do not want their snailmail (the blank reverse side being too shiny for my printer in this one), or to stop these details being sent to OLD addresses should we move.

I have just watched a documentary on Facebook, which exposes what industry is REALLY up to with our personal details. One firm, 1000 Heads, has a room full of staff just going through all our info, and listening into facebook conversations, in order to extract and sell VERY comprehensive databases on us (not me, I haven't joined). Facebook also has ambitions to trawl other media, such as newspapers and the internet, to build a "superdatabase" on it's members life profile (the reporter was told this would not be permitted under UK and EU laws, but can be done because Facebook has a far more lenient regime - it's based in the USA!!!!). This has those "city boys" wetting their proverbial pants in anticipation of the "next Google" worth billions (seems they have learned nothing from 2000/1).

Knowing all this, casino reps need to be wary of giving out the patronising excuses for this debacle that they have currently been offering. This is no "loose cannon" affiliate or two, this is pre-planned bulk marketing (or spamming) requiring specialist knowledge, not the sort of thing the average amaetur affiliate will posess. This also means our details are NOT SAFE if they are passed to subcontractors, no matter how well meaning, the big marketing outfits have shown how damn determined they are to find loopholes in all regulations and voluntary agreements meant to protect out personal data from being exploited.

With what we are up against, perhaps polite conversation with the casinos, their reps, and even eCogra is just not enough to get what is necessary done. It seems that only a rap over the knuckles from the big government regulators will have enough clout, as well as exposure in the mass media.
We have the example of Absolute Poker to work with, it was ONLY when the mass media and regulators got their teeth into the issue that they acted.

The best way to enfoce this would be for the casinos to be fined for each and every unique "spam" that players forward to the regulators after a period of grace has been given in order to put a stop to it. The fine would be levied if the casino have some pressure they can excersise, such as suspending the offending affiliate account, but refuse to do it. With snailmail, the fines should be levied if the mail is in any way misleading, such as pretending someone is qualified for a personalised offer when in fact it is just the standard new player offer. Mailers sent by official marketing firms MUST properly identify the casino, not use disguised referral sites, and the detais of the sender MUST be on the letter/leaflet in case the recipient wants to ask that their details be removed from that marketing firm's database.

There are three main entities here in the UK that may have an interest in this:-

1) Trading standards
2) Advertising standards agency
3) Gambling commission

If these confirm laws and regulations have been breached, then others may take an interest. The result may be that some reputable casinos that embark on these practices will end up on trading standard's "rogue firms lists", and it may also endanger their whitelisted status here in the UK if they have one, and if they are in a juristiction that is applying, they may damage the chances that said juristiction will be granted whitelist status by the UK Gambling Commission.

Pity I only have the one copy though.

[lifechooser]

Hello there! I'm late to the thread, but I think I may be able to help here.

I'm getting loads of spin palace emails too. I've checked the to: addresses and they vary, but they are all casino addresses. I only have one spam currently, as I have deleted the rest, and it is addressed to totesport@ (remember their wonderful excuses in my other thread). I'm fairly certain that nearly all of my leaked addresses have been used in this campaign, so playboy@, intercasino@, intercasinouk@, littlewoods@, totesport@ and bluesq@, although off the top of my head, I don't recall any spin palace spam to the bluesq address.

I'll have a look at my spam over the next few days and report back on what addresses are being used. As for chasing the casinos who leak information down, good luck, though I would be glad to help in any way I can.

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by lifechooser

Hello there! I'm late to the thread, but I think I may be able to help here.

I'm getting loads of spin palace emails too. I've checked the to: addresses and they vary, but they are all casino addresses. I only have one spam currently, as I have deleted the rest, and it is addressed to totesport@ (remember their wonderful excuses in my other thread). I'm fairly certain that nearly all of my leaked addresses have been used in this campaign, so playboy@, intercasino@, intercasinouk@, littlewoods@, totesport@ and bluesq@, although off the top of my head, I don't recall any spin palace spam to the bluesq address.

I'll have a look at my spam over the next few days and report back on what addresses are being used. As for chasing the casinos who leak information down, good luck, though I would be glad to help in any way I can.

It would be impossible to determine which casino leaked what to whom. However, if it is ONLY addresses given out to online casinos that are inundated with the spam, it is clear that there is a causal link between suppying IN CONFIDENCE our Email address to online casinos, and said addresses making their way onto spammer's lists. It probably only takes a few breaches to do a great deal of damage, and the way casinos continually "lose" Emails containing images of our ID documents, often asking again and again for them to be resent, makes me think their security procedures are so lax that we are lucky the problem is not even worse than it is.

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by Trezz

Hi all,

I'm about as sick of this SPAM as everyone else.

It's bad enough being perpetually bombarded by porn, viagra, penis pills & dodgy casinos to name a few. But, when a legit casino that I and other hold in high regard are associated to it, I draw the line.

So everyone is aware I sent an email to Wagershare the aff program for Spin Palace. I received what could only be discribed as a generic response, (many other received the same email). Some hog wash about it being a media buy.

Things didn't gel, so I started digging...

I discover that the routed URL was being hosted on the Spin Palace server. With this I sent Mr Alex M of Wagershare and presented him with these finding:

-----------------------------
Domain Name: BIGSPINWINNERS151.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://xxxxx.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS47.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS48.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 08-oct-2007
Creation Date: 08-oct-2007
Expiration Date: 08-oct-2008

Answer records

bigspinwinners151.com 1 SOA server: ns47.domaincontrol.com
email: dxxx@jomax.net
serial: 2007100800
refresh: 28800
retry: 7200
expire: 604800
minimum ttl: 86400
86400s
bigspinwinners151.com 1 A 207.219.111.154 3600s
bigspinwinners151.com 1 NS ns47.domaincontrol.com 3600s
bigspinwinners151.com 1 NS ns48.domaincontrol.com 3600s
bigspinwinners151.com 1 MX preference: 0
exchange: smtp.secureserver.net
3600s
bigspinwinners151.com 1 MX preference: 10
exchange: mailstore1.secureserver.net
3600s

bigspinwinners151.com A 207.219.111.154 207.219.0.0/16 TELUS 207 219 0 0

hostnames sharing ip with a-records
cabaretclub.com
jackpotsinaflash.com
mummysgold.net
piggscasino.com
piggscasino.net
piggspoker.net
pigscasino.net
poker333.net
-----------------------------------

At that point I received a personal response from Mr Alex M (extracts of this email follows):

"All publishers who wish to send out mailers for any of The Palace Group properties are given a 'mailing domain' to use. This is true whether the publisher be a revenue share affiliate or a media buy. This is done because when a domain is used in a mailer it invariably ends up on a blocklist regardless of whether the list is opt-in or double opt-in."

"Without giving these seperate mailing domains it results in our main domains being blacklisted which then makes it impossible to contact our existing players with promotions etc. This is also why mailers are not available from WagerShare because a new domain is issued to every single person who wishes to send one out."

"This is the only reason that the domain in question is on the same server as Spin Palace. I can categorically state that the email you received DOES NOT originate from Spin Palace but a media buy from the marketing department who are investigating the situation."

Would these facts have been revealed if I'd not have dug deeper, I doubt it.

Anyway's...The SPAM continued...At that point it was really starting to impact on my time what with trying to get the crap stopped.

With little recourse left, I contacted a number of places about the SPAM, including eCogra (Tex who btw is looking into this matter) and both Ontario and UK government bodies regarding their anti spam laws.

I then contacted Wagershare again, however at that point comms had deteriorated, so I sent a last ditched effort to Debbie Taylor (manager of Spin Palace), unfortunately I received no response from her either.

Who is really responsible for this SPAM? Your call...



Cheers

Trezz

Would it improve things if it was the physical SERVER, not the individual domains, that could be added to blocklists where said server continues to allow new spamming domains to be opened. Doing this would prevent spammers simply moving to another domain on the server, they would have to find a new machine to host the spam from. This will not stop the "rogue" spammers, but will seriously affect those firms that seek to interpret "spam" as "marketing" and provide ways for their affiliates to get around blocking problems, rather than instigate a "zero tolerance" policy.
If they faced having a whole server blocked, I am sure action against spammers would be far more robust than at present, as one "bad apple or two" would "infect the whole basket", and could not be allowed to sit there to see if the situation improves, but would have to be immediately removed.



I have just had 2 more in the time it took me to post on a few threads here.
Both are "sorry to seem me go", but insist that REALLY I DO want the spam, and am in denial by saying I don't.

One, as you would all expect, is the one for Spin Palace, still sporting the "endorsement by csinomeister".

The other is for Club USA, a new entrant to the spamwars.
The ClubUSA spam claims that "US players are welcome". Funny that, I thought Club World decided to pull out of the US, perhaps the rep can enlighten.

This spam is already flagged as such by my ISP's blocklist, but sadly it has now taken to blocking all the GENUINE mailers for these, and other, casinos, no doubt due to the effect of this surge in spam with a strong bias to a small number of named casinos.
As this tide of spam has increased, I have found a similar increase in problems in both sending and receiving legitimate Emails. This shows it is NOT just an inconvenience to be trashed by filtering, it is breaking the internet!!!! Email is breaking under the strain!! and losing important messages, and this can do real harm where arguments result between sender and receiver as to who did, or didn't, send/receive/ignore/bin what message.

[peteyweestro]

club world is still going strong in the usa with club usa

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by peteyweestro

club world is still going strong in the usa with club usa

Well, at least the spam was true then. I got another one today.

It simply cannot be excused as a "newsletter" that I somehow "purchased a subscription" for, as I get many, many copies, all exactly the same.
It would be like subscribing to a weekly magazine, and getting one or two copies of it every day for the week.

[vinylweatherman]

If you love slots then you'll just love Spin Palace, with over 120 slots including, video slots, feature slots, 3 reel slots, 5 reel slots and massive jackpot slots!


httwhatever//yoursluxgaming.com/


Palace Group have totally lost control of the situation

[Mousey]

Sooo... at least this is one spam campaign that's not clogging my Hotmail account -- I am presuming it's only because Palace Group no longer accept US players, because I always get at least the early wave of any wildass casino spam in at least one Hotmail account. Which, to me, means the Palace spam isn't merely broadcast mailed to random email addresses. What is their source for email addresses??

[vinylweatherman]

Jackpot total currently over 6,000,000EURO - play now and win!


http://wow888spincasino.com/




It's the SUBJECT line that gives the game away though:-

"Spin Palace has become THE premier destination for online gamblers"


And the sender?

"hymie aruna [curtis6raj66@belizemail.net]"

and me?

"Bernie Hutchison"

err, well NO, not last time I looked


If the sender domain is true, this looks like a big time spammer out of Belize, the same place much of the Fortune Lounge spam came from.

Belize is pretty much a "free for all", with companies able to hide behind secrecy laws. Belize City is a kind of "anything goes freeport", a huge industrial park known by Fortune Lounge players as "Driftwood Bay". It is home to many scammers, spammers, companies that would rather hide the ownership details and avoid answerability to any proper authority.
There are, of course, legitimate businesses there, who simply appreciate the lack of "red tape" and low taxation, and do not seek to use the location as a means to hide from dissatisfied customers.

Seems odd therefore, that this spammer even managed to get an affiliate account in the first place, let alone get away with this spamming campaign for so long.

If we can at least deter the "reputable" casinos from employing spammers, there will be some small victory won, and this may then lead to the fight against the rogues being that much easier, as we can say that ANY casino that spams you is a rogue joint PERIOD.