by Mavro
Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:51 am
From Torrent Freak:
Riding on the back of the hundreds of thousands of letters sent out by lawyers to alleged file-sharers demanding settlement for copyright infringement, scammers now want their piece of the pie. Using emails which appear to come from a known copyright holder represented by legitimate lawyers, recipients are getting a familiar message. Pay us a relatively small amount now, the emails say, or things could get a whole lot worse.
In an email titled “Investigation Against You” which at first glance appears to come from a bona fide law firm, supposed file-sharers are put on notice that they’re in trouble.
According to the text that follows, the email is being sent by the Rechtsanwalt Florian Giese law firm who claim to be representing the interests of Videorama GmbH, a 40 million euro legitimate company based in Essen, Germany.
“The subject of our assignment is that your Internet connection was used on a so-called peer-to-peer network and committed copyright infringement on works held by our clients,” explains the email which goes on to cite various elements of German law which show that the alleged activity is illegal.
Further information suggests that the recipient’s IP address has been tracked downloading multiple music tracks and that based on this evidence a complaint has been made about him or her to the prosecutor.
“As you may have already noticed from the media, today copyright infringement cases in court usually lead to a large fine and court costs,” warns the letter.
This worrying eventuality is backed up by the citing of a real case from early 2010 where the District Court of Magdeburg sentenced a father to pay 3,000 euros because his son shared 132 MP3s on a file-sharing network some years earlier.
The letter adds that to avoid things getting much worse, including possible house searches and court hearings, the copyright holder is prepared to settle out of court – for 100 euros.
It’s suggested that in order to pay “safely and easily” the letter recipient should deposit the money via Ukash or alternative pay with Paysafecard. The letter is signed ‘Rechtsanwalt Florian Giese’, who are a real-life German law firm.
Except the whole thing is a scam from beginning to end.
“Rechtsanwalt Florian Giese is not responsible for the fraudulent e-mails with the subject ‘investigation against you’. These are spam emails from fraudsters,” the company said in response to the news. The lawfirm also confirmed that Videorama GmbH are also not involved in this scam.
More about this new form of scamming at
http://torrentfreak.com/scammers-want-file-sharers-to-pay-cash-fines-101021/
Riding on the back of the hundreds of thousands of letters sent out by lawyers to alleged file-sharers demanding settlement for copyright infringement, scammers now want their piece of the pie. Using emails which appear to come from a known copyright holder represented by legitimate lawyers, recipients are getting a familiar message. Pay us a relatively small amount now, the emails say, or things could get a whole lot worse.
In an email titled “Investigation Against You” which at first glance appears to come from a bona fide law firm, supposed file-sharers are put on notice that they’re in trouble.
According to the text that follows, the email is being sent by the Rechtsanwalt Florian Giese law firm who claim to be representing the interests of Videorama GmbH, a 40 million euro legitimate company based in Essen, Germany.
“The subject of our assignment is that your Internet connection was used on a so-called peer-to-peer network and committed copyright infringement on works held by our clients,” explains the email which goes on to cite various elements of German law which show that the alleged activity is illegal.
Further information suggests that the recipient’s IP address has been tracked downloading multiple music tracks and that based on this evidence a complaint has been made about him or her to the prosecutor.
“As you may have already noticed from the media, today copyright infringement cases in court usually lead to a large fine and court costs,” warns the letter.
This worrying eventuality is backed up by the citing of a real case from early 2010 where the District Court of Magdeburg sentenced a father to pay 3,000 euros because his son shared 132 MP3s on a file-sharing network some years earlier.
The letter adds that to avoid things getting much worse, including possible house searches and court hearings, the copyright holder is prepared to settle out of court – for 100 euros.
It’s suggested that in order to pay “safely and easily” the letter recipient should deposit the money via Ukash or alternative pay with Paysafecard. The letter is signed ‘Rechtsanwalt Florian Giese’, who are a real-life German law firm.
Except the whole thing is a scam from beginning to end.
“Rechtsanwalt Florian Giese is not responsible for the fraudulent e-mails with the subject ‘investigation against you’. These are spam emails from fraudsters,” the company said in response to the news. The lawfirm also confirmed that Videorama GmbH are also not involved in this scam.
More about this new form of scamming at
http://torrentfreak.com/scammers-want-file-sharers-to-pay-cash-fines-101021/
