A tale of fraud and trickery...

[montelwilliams 10]

Hello everyone. I ask that before you click away from this wall of text that you just hear me out that this is a legitimate issue and I want to help the community as a whole. I want to ensure that no one else falls for this crap and possibly even bring some legal justice for the fraud that has been committed.

(Note, I'm typing this from work right now so I'll have to either edit this post or reply to it with more specific information like the prices and dates when I have time)

Although I may be "new" on the BI forums I have been a part of the Arma community for a couple years now and managed communities for even longer. Now, some of you may recognize the "RISE" name from a thread regarding a competing Takistan Life community that was made last year. I wont go into detail regarding that as it isnt relevant to this, but just know that I am one of the developers from RISE gaming and have been with the community since its inception.

Since I started my developing time with RISE I have focused on making our server run better and improving the experience for all of our players. For a while, we utilized a VPS to run our server with minimal issues. After some time, we looked to expand to a fully dedicated server to allow us to grow. A user on steam by the name of "super piat" approached us and offered us a server box for a very competitive price (in retrospect, it seems a bit too low given the hardware we were given). We agreed to pay for the server and setup a recurring payment with them (this is VERY important for later on) via paypal. The website he provided was http://boxhosts.net for the hosting company that he represented.

I'm going to pause here to explain a couple facts about this "boxhosts" company that have become apparent to me. First, they will reference a "terms of service" later on in this post and you can clearly see that they have NO ToS anywhere on their site. Even in the "customer area" there is zero terms of service provided and I have taken screenshots as proof of this. Furthermore, I have looked through all communications that occurred between the staff member that managed this account and we were NEVER provided with a ToS. Should have been a big red flag but oh well, you live and learn. The next thing I would like to point out is that after checking the IPs of the servers they provided, it turns out that they resolve to OVH so I can only come to the conclusion that they are either reselling OVH's services (the official OVH reselling program) or simply buying servers and then selling the information to anyone who uses their services. Finally, if you notice, their website is actually a purchasable theme for wordpress that they have simply changed a couple things on and not really customized at all (simply adds to the shadiness factor for me): http://themeforest.net/item/rackhost-hosting-wordpress-theme/2874302. You can see that their website is a barely changed version of one of the default theme options. Oh, and their backend is quite shady which I'll also explain more later on in the post.

Back to the story:

For 3 months, we had zero issues with them and our server was functioning fine. We were making payments on the 16th of every month automatically (meaning they were initiating the payments through paypal and the date that the payments were requested/made were entirely in their control). Then, out of the blue we receive an email (I think it was over email, I cant verify at this time since I wasnt the one managing the payments to them but I can get the details from the person who was in control of the account) around the 12th of that month stating that we were 7 days late on our payments and thus needed to pay within the next week or we would lose our server. Since we had no choice at the time, we paid the fee. Now remember how I said that these payments were AUTOMATIC through paypal? Yeah, well they said we were still late with paying them even though we were paying them automatically on the date that THEY set and controlled. We made arrangements to move to another host (OVH actually since that is really what we were using at the time) and canceled our service with them for the following month since this left a bad taste in our mouth.

They came back and issued an invoice saying that as per their terms of service we had to pay for the following month of service when a cancellation was made. Again, we had NEVER received a ToS and we had never agreed to one. Furthermore, this charge was issued on the 26th of that month which was still within the period of service that we had already paid for! We canceled our service well within the month that we had already paid for. Ultimately I cant verify if this invoice was paid but either way, it was complete BS and they were charging us for services that were not rendered. This all occurred in November of last year (2014).

After moving to OVH, we considered our hands to be clean and that our issues with them were over with. Sure, we may have been robbed of about 75 euros but again, you live and learn. So why am I now posting about this in February of 2015 you may ask?

WELL, its for two reasons actually. It turns out, TLU, another Takistan Life community, had also used their services after we did and the same exact situation occurred with them. I'll let DistantOne (the current owner of TLU) explain his situation in this thread if he wishes but just know that this now makes two communities that this "super piat" has dealt with and screwed over.

The second reason is that the member who was managing that account received an email today demanding a sum of £78.60 in the next 7 days or they would move to their collections agency. I still dont quite have an explanation of what this charge is for and they have been quite vague with any dealings. I reached out to super piat and he refused to discuss anything and instead told me to send an email to boxhosts or create a ticket (also odd how nothing on their site has any dates tied to it, including invoices and tickets). I let him know that what he was doing was essentially fraud and legal action would be considered. He stated that he did not appreciate being threatened and I made it clear to him that I wasnt threatening him, simply stating a fact.

The account holder emailed them back along with creating a ticket stating that he wanted to speak with them either on their teamspeak or over the phone. No contact info was ever provided and it also turns out that their teamspeak is down. Odd right? Well, they respond back with another email threatening that if we dont pay the sum of money in the next 6 days (somehow it turned into 6 days even though it was 7 in another email not too long earlier) they, and I quote, "are left with no alternative but to take actions which may permanently and adversely affect your good credit rating. Indeed, it would be to both our benefits to resolve this matter immediately." Now, in my opinion, this is downright fraud and extortion. They are threatening to damage this person's credit rating permanently when we canceled their services 3 MONTHS AGO. In this period of time, we have not received any notifications of any outstanding invoices and I was also steam friends with super piat. After my aforementioned messages in the previous paragraph, he ended up blocking me on steam. So what this boils down to is a company (if it even is one, as the only person I have ever spoken to was super piat) threatening to abuse the US credit system in an attempt to EXTORT money from one of our members.

Now, if you want some info about this super piat guy, it turns out he runs a community called "Delta HQ." Their website is here: http://www.deltahq.net/. The proof that he owns this community and is linked to boxhosts can be seen from the following screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/XMw8frC.png (306 kB)

As you can see, he carries the delta tags and goes by them name "Coder" in regards to that community. Their roster can be seen in the following link which shows that he is the owner of the community: http://deltahq.net/roster-2/.

They have also made a recruiting post on these very forums which can be seen here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?187861-Recruiting-Delta-Community-HQ!. While I dont want to bring an entire community down with this post, its important that even members of that community know what this guy is up to and the fraud the company he represents is committing (I wont say he is necessarily committing it since I have no proof that he is creating these invoices but its pretty fishy either way).

I will be attaching some more screenshots of the emails our member has received from them as further evidence but I first need to censor his personal info from them as I don't want that to become public (address, full name, etc). I will also attach screenshots of the paypal payments once I get them from this member. I ask that if you have ANY advice regarding this situation you please provide it as I want to ensure that this happens to no one else and justice is also served in the face of blatant disregard for the law and moral standards. If you actually read through this all then thanks, and I hope something good can come of this post.

-Montel Williams

-Developer for RISE Gaming

TL;DR: Boxhosts.net, is a complete scam and they, including [DELTA] Coder (Super piat), are now attempting to extort money from our community and TLU (Takistan Life Uprising though they are now called UFG). They are threatening to tarnish someones good credit rating over fraudulent charges and are all around to be avoided.

Edited February 27, 2015 by MontelWilliams
Fixing grammar, adding a sentence, and correcting another one

[jetfox 1]

Reseller of namecheap.com? Is what there whois info puts on them

No reviews on WebHostingTalk either

Edited February 27, 2015 by Jetfox

[montelwilliams 10]

Alright, I'm back at work but here to provide more information! So first, let me address what you posted Jetfox. The IP for our server was: 192.99.32.140 when we utilized them. When analyzing this IP with ipinfo.io (great tool for server administrators to identify when users utilize VPNs to mask their location or avoid bans) I get the following info:

http://i.imgur.com/sQZMK9d.png (381 kB)

As you can see, this is a part of the OVH SAS network. The namecheap info you are getting is where they have bought their domain name from. This is entirely separate from where the hosting service comes from.

Moving on, here is a picture of their client area and as you can see, its quite bare:

http://i.imgur.com/Plh63gV.png (390 kB)

Notice how there is no ToS shown anywhere and dates are non-existent. Looking at the invoice area, you can see that there are absolutely NO dates tied to anything including when they were issued or when they were due:

http://i.imgur.com/jTHGhZ9.png (109 kB)

Now lets look at what they have sent this member thus far communication wise. This is the initial email he received regarding the charge:

Here you can see they state that their collection agency is STACollect. This is an international debt collection agency and I will be contacting them in advance with this information in good faith that they can assist on this matter. Also notice that they mention a "Terms & Conditions of Trade." I have no idea what that is but I have to assume that they mean their ToS. Again, I must reiterate that we have never received a ToS (or "Terms & Conditions of Trade") nor have we ever agreed to one. No dates are tied to their invoices so these dates are arbitrary as far as I'm concerned. Lets move on to their lovely reply:

I had instructed this member to emphasize that we needed to speak with an actual person. In a previous communication with super piat, he stated (and again I quote), "I cannot verify who you are. Thus I am unable to discuss any issues with an account." While I can understand this a bit, he knows exactly who I am and I have dealt with issues with our server before over steam. Since he refused to speak with me over verification issues, I told this member to refuse to deal with it unless they spoke to us. You can clearly see we offer to go on their teamspeak or via phone but it appears they aren't even acknowledging that request. (I should also make a correction about the 7 days to 6 days thing. I didn't know the exact dates when the emails were sent so I want to rescind my statement I made in the first post saying that they somehow changed the date without reason.)

Now, its also important to point out that they are directly threatening in this email to ruin is credit "permanently." Having dealt with a collections issue myself before (simple issue with amazon for some reason being unable to withdraw from my bank account), this is not standard practice to threaten to damage a customer's credit. I find it offensive and again, part of this scheme of extortion.

Anyways, you can see that he again emphasizes that he needs to speak with a person over whatever means is convenient for them. This is the reply he got to that email:

http://i.imgur.com/OieeI7o.png (307 kB)

Notice anything funny in there? I quote, "We have, as of yet, received no...contact explaining the failure to make payments." Uh... I'm pretty sure all these emails and demands to speak with an actual person are "contact" regarding these demands. Anyways, the other important point is that they state, "We are unable to receive calls on this matter." I have NEVER had a company that refused to talk to me regarding payments, even more so when we are offering to do so over their preferred methods of their own teamspeak or via phone. I had called their number (thank you based god for free skype world minutes) and ended up leaving a voicemail over this incident. I have yet to received a reply to that voicemail.

I'm going to be contacting the STACollect agency to warn them of this company and see if they have had any communications with them before now. I'll also summarize some key points to take away from this for community owners and what to look for in a good host. Hopefully I can turn this into a good situation to learn from and help others in the future.

Edited February 27, 2015 by MontelWilliams

[jetfox 1]

"I must reiterate that we have never received a ToS nor have we ever agreed to one."

You arent legally obliged to agree to one... there is a way around making you click that little agree button

"Account Activation

By activating your account with us , you agree to the above policies and disclaimer. Upon requesting activation of an account, you are required to accept these policies, guidelines and disclaimer, and a copy of your acceptance is forwarded along with your activation request to be maintained with your account information."

But that still does mean we will forward you an acceptance/ToS over email.. So I guess they still have to send one

[montelwilliams 10]

"I must reiterate that we have never received a ToS nor have we ever agreed to one."

You arent legally obliged to agree to one... there is a way around making you click that little agree button

"Account Activation

By activating your account with us , you agree to the above policies and disclaimer. Upon requesting activation of an account, you are required to accept these policies, guidelines and disclaimer, and a copy of your acceptance is forwarded along with your activation request to be maintained with your account information."

But that still does mean we will forward you an acceptance/ToS over email.. So I guess they still have to send one

Yeah, I should clarify, we have never been shown one nor is one available anywhere on their site. Thus, I can say in confidence that we have never agreed to one as it doesn't even state something along the lines of "by using our services you agree to..." Basically, this ToS is available nowhere and we haven't ever been shown one.

I know legally that they must show us the ToS before we can even consent to it. This is basically saying that we agreed to some terms that they are arbitrarily making up and never have shown us.

[jetfox 1]

Report it, ToS links have to be clearly visible on websites, make sure to take pictures from the site incase the quickly add one, and use them in paypal disputes

(btw that was our tos i cant find theres)

[montelwilliams 10]

I have screenshots taken from multiple pages on their site. When you say "report it," who are you implying I report it to? PayPal?

I also just got off the phone with the receptionist at http://stacollect.com and she informed me that boxhosts is not a client of theirs nor do they even deal with consumer debt issues. Additionally, if you notice the quote on their website, the quote as seen here:

Yeah, there is no "Dan Phillips" or a company called "Freshidea." So now this is turning into a blatant case of fraud. Looks like its on to paypal to dispute all the charges they have issued against us. Additionally, I hope to find out who exactly this "super piat" is as now I'm wholeheartedly convinced this is completely under his doing.

[minniyer 10]

anyone noticed the emails are sent to a "No Reply" bot?

just saying...

[montelwilliams 10]

anyone noticed the emails are sent to a "No Reply" bot?

just saying...

This is true though I should point out that it most certainly is not a bot. I will happily show that the address is collections@boxhosts.net. We are speaking with super piat right now and he has made many claims which I will outline here in a bit (this is over teamspeak on ts.deltahq.net).

[jetfox 1]

Well you can always claim the collections box said your not with them lol lying straight to your face

[montelwilliams 10]

Ok, I'm back with some info that I can provide immediately (awaiting the blessing of a mod for more personal information regarding this whole incident). So I've done some digging and it turns out that I cannot find a company called "Boxhosts" registered in either the UK or in France (I was tipped off from another staff member that it could be based in france). Now, this is rather odd considering he lists it as an actual company but I wont make the foolish leap of logic to say that it proves its fake. Just something to consider.

Moving on, I already can confirm that he has violated the EU tax laws when billing us. First, let me repost the image of the paid invoices page for context:

http://i.imgur.com/jTHGhZ9.png (109 kB)

Now, lets look at one of those invoices. In this case, its invoice number 00007:

http://i.imgur.com/jt8fHmN.png (139 kB)

Now let's compare that with invoice number 00016:

http://i.imgur.com/eaEg8on.png (130 kB)

Notice anything different? Yeah, they began charging a VAT 20% charge after a while on our invoices and I cannot see any emails regarding this matter. So either they are a registered business who wasn't charging VAT tax for services or they aren't one and instead fraudulently adding a VAT tax to our bills. Furthermore, if you look at invoice number 00034 you will notice that they didnt charge us VAT tax after doing so for one of the invoices. Now here is where it gets even weirder. As I was going through the invoice list and typing this post, you may notice that number 00016 doesnt show up in that list. On the list it appears as 00031 but when clicked, it brings up a page for invoice number 00016. I have no idea what is going on but that throws up even more red flags. Again, there are no dates tied to any of these invoices in their system.

Now for some information I gained from my conversation with super piat (this conversation occurred earlier this afternoon/evening on the deltahq teamspeak). First, he REFUSED to provide us any Terms of Service without submitting a support ticket. He originally claimed that it was unique to each customer but then later on stated that the there was a universal ToS for all customers. I asked for even the universal one and he again deflected the question and failed to provide one. Basically, I take this as a fact that he is lying about there being any ToS since I have never had a company refuse to provide me with a link or copy of their ToS on request. Almost all have a link on the footer of their webpage to their terms of service which clearly outlines all parts to any users. When questioned about what would happen if I was a new customer and wanted to see the ToS first, he stated that one would be sent after purchasing (also claims he sent one when we setup the payments for the server which we confirmed is a lie as no emails containing this information were ever sent to any of the addresses he provided). I questioned him further on this and he stated that you would "agree" to these terms when you first logged into the box via RDP. Now, I'm not quite sure how logging into a server via RDP counts as consent to the ToS and I can confirm that the emails provided to us that outlined the RDP info contained no such information. I can provide these emails if anyone wants to see them.

Another claim that was made was that you could cancel your service within 14 days if you did not agree to these alleged ToS. When I asked him where this policy was outlined he simply said that it was their internal policy and confirmed that it was not stated anywhere on their site. This should be another big red flag for anyone else who looks into hosts as all reputable hosts should clearly outline their policies to their customers or make it very easy for them to view these policies.

He also stated that we were in his system as a "company" under the name "Rise gaming." He used this claim to make excuses for various things stating that people that worked for him were treating our account as a company and must have gotten confused. What is very telling here is that the account must be registered under a person's name and personal address. Additionally, the emails show that whoever sent them was addressing the recipient as a person and never once referred to RISE as a "company" or even mentioned RISE once.

Let's take a break from the conversation we had and dig a little bit deeper into the actual profile page for our account. First, here is a screenshot that shows the fields that are available for your person details (again, like in other screenshots, I have redacted personal information of the member who was the account holder):

http://i.imgur.com/EdCLred.png (195 kB)

I know its standard for companies to have a name associated with the contact but this is a name and address tied to a person, and not the company itself. This is how it was requested so I'm not quite sure how someone could make the jump to confusing the account as one for an actual company (take into consideration that the invoice numbers are at max under 100 and ordered sequentially so they cant have many clients to get them confused). One check on the address would clearly show it is a residential address to a home and not one to a business location. What follows is a screenshot of the API section. Its not quite relevant to our situation but it just highlights how many things on the backend are sloppily managed or flat out broken:

http://i.imgur.com/lRKlCGa.png (171 kB)

Nope, I haven't whited anything out. There is literally no API key there available for me to use.

Now, back to our conversation! I want to point out here that initially it was me speaking with super piat on the deltahq teamspeak. After a period of time, I got the current account holder to join the teamspeak ("[RISE] Patrick" for anyone that cares) and eventually the original account holder ("[RISE] xXJim RogersXx"). The three of us were present for anything I have discussed in this post and both of them will gladly confirm any statements I have made here. I am kicking myself for not recording the conversation but, like I've said like a broken record thus far, you live and learn...

So I probed further into his "company" and tried to glean some information about it from him. He stated that he was a UK company and that they had a registered PO box for that company (I think he stated it was in the UK). He refused to provide me with this information which is again, ridiculous. Any other company that I have dealt with has always had a public address that they can be reached at and afaik, you need to have an address to register a company in the UK (or France due to the tip I received as stated earlier). Every time I tried to ask about the company or for him to provide me with contact information, he simply repeated the same talking about creating a support ticket. Now, I understand if there is an issue that support tickets can be a great way of organizing and tracking this information. However, I was simply asking for information regarding his company, not addressing a specific issue regarding our account and I made this clear to him. He failed to provide ANY information regarding his company and intentionally WITHHELD this information from me. He wouldn't even tell me what COUNTRY the company was registered in! As far as I can tell, there isn't any company called "Boxhosts" that he owns in the whole of the EU.

Let's recap what we are dealing with here thus far:

1. A "company" that "[DELTA] Coder (super piat)" states that he OWNS is threatening to take a member of ours to a collections agency that has "never had contact with boxhosts.net."
   
2. The OWNER of the company would not provide ANY information regarding his "company!" (No addresses, no names, no contact information except generic boilerplate email addresses)
   
3. Multiple features are broken on their website and dates are nonexistent when it comes to generated invoices (he stated that he could see dates but as my pictures clearly show, there are NO dates tied to the invoices)
   

Ok, so with all that in mind, lets look at one more juicy bit of information. So where exactly was our money going you might ask? Well, lets take a peek at the cancellation information of when we terminated the automated billing:

I've censored out the full address from the email (along with something called the "Profile ID") until I hear back from a mod regarding this as I don't want to violate the rule regarding personal information. How would I be violating that rule? Well, that email is actually [DELTA] Coder (super piat)'s PERSONAL email address and thus his PERSONAL Paypal account. No, that isn't a company address. So our funds this entire time have been going to his personal Paypal account which is tied to his personal email address. Furthermore, I have done some digging regarding this email and uncovered his full name and possibly his address. I'm not out to dox some dude or start a witch-hunt but its becoming readily apparent that the money was going directly to him and not to a "company" account.

I called up Paypal and they confirmed that the email and merchant name are in their system and provided the phone number that was listed for the account: +441223926663. I will provide this phone number in full right now as it is the same number that is listed on the boxhosts site and thus I wont in good faith consider it to be "personal information" since he has made it publicly available (I should clarify that this is all the information the agent at Paypal said she could provide me and she fully operated within their policies).

Doing some quick checking on that phone number I found that it is a landline registered in the UK under the service provider Wavecrest. It appears to have last been "altered" (which I assume means transferring owners or something of the sort) on November of 2005. Again, I want to reiterate that I'm NOT trying to dox someone! If you use this information wrongfully (Illegally, morally, etc...), that is on your own prerogative and I do not condone any such actions. I will post some more detailed information, including the full email address once I receive confirmation from a mod that it is ok to do so.

I also ask that you do not let his actions represent the DELTA HQ community or reflect on any of the staff there! I spoke with the staff there for a short while before speaking with super piat and they seemed like cool people. Super piat's actions should not reflect negatively on anyone else and not once has that community caused issues with ours. They are simply being mentioned since super piat is the owner of that community. Anyone claiming that we (meaning myself, RISE as a whole, or any higher staff member) have an issue with them (excluding super piat) is flat out lying and they (excluding super piat) have my full support! :)

I'll update this thread once I hear back from a mod regarding the information as stated above.

EDIT:

It looks like I forgot to address the post about the "no reply" bot so here is a screenshot showing that the emails were originating from "collections@boxhosts.net"

Edited February 28, 2015 by MontelWilliams
Adding information regarding the email sender as requested

[afitz200 10]

The nerve of these people.

Things wrong with this "Company"... They don't deserve this title nor are they probably even a registered company..

Things wrong with this "Server as Service Provider".. Nope.. "Server Reseller."

• I knew SuperPiot personally. I used to play TL with him, and he was part of the community I staff in. Not only did he constantly push BoxHost on anyone he came in contact with who even briefly mentioned the word "server" but he didnt even have an answer to half the questions that were brought up to him. I guess lets stick to things I can prove.
  
• No where can I find a business registration of any form for "BoxHosts"
  
• Their website does not default to HTTPS, in any part of the billing area or any area that handles PRIVATE data.
  
• When you do manually enable HTTPS, its configured incorrectly to a point where it makes a ton not encrypted connections defeating the entire purpose of HTTPS.
  
• The theme they use has been leaked so many times. You can google it and find a stolen link somewhere. I have come over 50+ different websites with the same theme.
  
• Client area is a free to use "Box Billing" in which is designed to be used for newcomers to the hosting industry. However its nice they opped into the 5 dollar option for unlimited products.
  

What they are doing is wrong. The best thing at this point is to ignore them. They are simply going to try and milk everything out of you. Stop responding. A non registered business without a proper ToS (or whatever they call it) can't do anything to a consumer who put in a proper cancellation request. You are allowed to cancel even after a your billing period. Thats their fault completely for not shutting off the server before your invoice expired. Also without a ToS they cant say they reserve the right to change your invoice date or for you to be taken after by a debt collection. I once bought a domain from 1&1 and hosting. I canceled my service a few days later because it was terrible. The next month they went as far as calling me in the middle of the night and sending me constant letters. I owed them somewhere around $2.40. Postage cost them more. My point being, if they are a legit debt collection after your money. They will eventually stop pursuing you. Also if you paid through PayPal. That means they have no direct information to link to your credit. Because the person who actually charges and holds your credit card is PayPal. So there is nothing to be worried about.

Regards

Hope to see you on our TS some time soon <3 xoxo Afitz200

[orcinus 121]

@OP

Not sure about jurisdiction (IANAL) if your friend who was the payee lives outside the UK, but there's an agency called Trading Standards in the UK. They will investigate complaints about rogue traders and have the power to prosecute them.

Which actual office might deal with it depends on where he/they are located. 01223 numbers cover a large area (reverse directories are illegal in the UK). I suggest that you contact the central govt. agency; your mate can do this online rather than make an expensive international call (assuming he does not live in the UK). It's here:

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/advice/index.cfm

The VAT issue is much more serious. Charging VAT when you are not registered is a criminal offence. I suspect that so shoddy an outfit doesn't generate enough revenue to qualify for VAT (minimum gross revenue has to be at least GBP 81,000)), but if they do and haven't registered that is an additional criminal offence. There is no VAT number on the invoice which is mandatory if a company (even a one-man band) is registered for VAT. A complaint to HMRC can be made by anyone anywhere:

see https://www.gov.uk/report-vat-fraud

I have a special loathing for parasites. Do step on he/them :)

PS: if it's a sole trader operation aka 'one-man-band' it doesn't have to be registered as such.

@afitz200: nah, best defense against this shit is attack. HMRC & Trading standards is the way to go; give him sufficent grief he/they will likely not only give up hassling our fellow players it could be the end of the whole sleazy operation.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Orcinus
typo, additional comment

[montelwilliams 10]

@OP

Not sure about jurisdiction (IANAL) if your friend who was the payee lives outside the UK, but there's an agency called Trading Standards in the UK. They will investigate complaints about rogue traders and have the power to prosecute them.

Which actual office might deal with it depends on where he/they are located. 01223 numbers cover a large area (reverse directories are illegal in the UK). I suggest that you contact the central govt. agency; your mate can do this online rather than make an expensive international call (assuming he does not live in the UK). It's here:

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/advice/index.cfm

The VAT issue is much more serious. Charging VAT when you are not registered is a criminal offence. I suspect that so shoddy an outfit doesn't generate enough revenue to qualify for VAT (minimum gross revenue has to be at least GBP 81,000)), but if they do and haven't registered that is an additional criminal offence. There is no VAT number on the invoice which is mandatory if a company (even a one-man band) is registered for VAT. A complaint to HMRC can be made by anyone anywhere:

see https://www.gov.uk/report-vat-fraud

I have a special loathing for parasites. Do step on he/them :)

PS: if it's a sole trader operation aka 'one-man-band' it doesn't have to be registered as such.

@afitz200: nah, best defense against this shit is attack. HMRC & Trading standards is the way to go; give him sufficent grief he/they will likely not only give up hassling our fellow players it could be the end of the whole sleazy operation.

Thanks for the information on these government agencies! That is my biggest shortcoming when it comes to dealing with this is I'm unfamiliar with the laws/agencies in the UK and other EU countries. I plan on going through with this to the fullest extent possible as my conversation with him just proved how low he will stoop. Its one thing to get caught red-handed and admit guilt. Its a whole different situation when you deny any wrongdoing in the face of clear evidence and then try to cover your yourself by making things up. I can confirm that he has provided a "personal" email address for someone he says works for him so the "one-man-band" theory can be ruled out. He clearly stated that he had contractors working for him and even if it isn't true, it shows to me that his intention is to advertise his "company" as one that employs multiple people. This "personal email" he gave me was supposedly the direct email of the employee that was writing from the "collections@boxhosts.net." (Again, this can be verified by [RISE] Patrick and [RISE] xXJim RogersXx who were in the channel with me) What is funny about this "personal" email is that its address is "@boxhosts.net." So maybe he meant the direct email for that employee? Either way, the name in the email address is one I haven't ever seen before. The only name I have ever seen is "David Brae" which was in their system for

I have another bit of info that I forgot to mention from our conversation with him yesterday. He stated he would "investigate the situation" regarding the emails that were sent from the collections address since he acknowledged that we felt threatened by them. Additionally, he said he would (roughly quoting from memory here) "pay our invoice from his own money." Why on earth would he have to pay the invoice from his personal funds if its his own company? That's the whole purpose of a company having separate funds and accounts! I understand keeping the accounting books balanced when it comes to business, but if the charge is made up or blatantly false, I don't know why he needs to pay for it. Maybe server costs? Quite telling to me either way...

Now here is another fun bit of information! It seems our account has been deleted or the password has been changed on boxhosts! Good thing I have screenshots saved... :confused: That basically confirms everything else I have suspected. I will still move forward with the information I have!

[montelwilliams 10]

Now here is another fun bit of information! It seems our account has been deleted or the password has been changed on boxhosts! Good thing I have screenshots saved... :confused: That basically confirms everything else I have suspected. I will still move forward with the information I have!

Ok, I'm not quite sure what is up with our account yet but I want to rescind my statement that the account had been deleted. It appears that I cannot log in using the details provided by the account holder (again, this is with his full permission) when clicking on the "client area" link at the top of the page (it brought me to a login page). Luckily I was able to still access the account area (so I guess the password hasn't been changed either?) and ensure that I had screenshots of every single page that was available to me. Now I can comfortably say that everything regarding the account is logged with time-stamped screenshots (talking about the windows clock here).

So after taking a TON of pictures, I noticed something in one of the knowledge base articles (cropped a bit to remove some personal information and I've also censored my bookmarks bar for the same reason):

http://i.imgur.com/pC0gqjk.png (399 kB)

So it looks like a terms of service has magically appeared well hidden in one of the knowledge-base articles! Here is a link to the terms of service for anyone interested: http://boxhosts.net/contact-us/terms-of-service/

Here is a pastebin mirror of the text if you dont want to visit his site or if he tries to change them/delete them from the time of this posting: http://pastebin.com/8AuQaVPs

Now, one important bit stands out to me right away at the bottom of the terms. It states: "You agree to all of these terms when you sign up to Boxhosts.net." Nothing super wrong with that. However, since this is hidden in a knowledge-base article, lets actually go through the purchasing process to see what that provides us (For this I'm just going to crop to show the pages and nothing else since its going to be a couple images. I have full screenshots including everything on the screen which I can use if requested/needed):

First, we need to pick a server. The cheaper option was chosen.

http://i.imgur.com/aKrOiMr.png (140 kB)

After "order now" was clicked, this page was brought up:

http://i.imgur.com/gQRoDwe.png (184 kB)

Alright, looks like a months payment is the setup fee. Moving on... After continue is clicked some options will appear below that you can select for what is apparently no charge:

http://i.imgur.com/8w8XAxG.png (178 kB)

Note how no one is currently signed in as shown by the buttons in the upper right. Clicking "order now" brings up this page:

http://i.imgur.com/CHAUhzU.png (178 kB)

Time for the registration process. Clicking the "Register" button will expand the window with some fields for you to fill in:

http://i.imgur.com/aJ4HswB.png (134 kB)

Now this is odd... There is nowhere shown here that indicates the user is agreeing to a ToS! Maybe its further down on the page?

http://i.imgur.com/05qt0WY.png (114 kB)

Nope! So there is nowhere on the this page that indicates to the person registering that they are agreeing to a ToS! Now IANAL but I'm fairly certain that consent to agreeing to said terms cannot be implied if the person isn't notified at the time of registering. So what Super piat has are basically a worthless set of ToS because the user is NEVER notified that they are agreeing to the contract. Oh, and there is a different page if you use the red "Register" button next to the sign in button in an image above. This shows that the same is true for that page as well:

http://i.imgur.com/2QcY7D2.png (136 kB)

Alright, enough about the ToS that is now shown to be invalid for registering users. After registering you can now click "Checkout" to pay via paypal:

http://i.imgur.com/Sr3IhuT.png (169 kB)

Ok, so we have an order created for an "Item: 58" which corresponds to the invoice number above it. But wait, what is that under the £156.00 item total? Looks like a tax is being applied here! Hm... I called Paypal and the support representative informed me that PayPal itself does not ever issue an automatic tax. So, the £26.00 tax is entirely controlled and added by [DELTA] Super Piat! Simple math of (£26.00 / £156.00) = 0.166666666....(etc) or a 16.7% tax. I talked to [bB] Maverick who confirmed for me that there are no other taxes in the UK besides the VAT tax. So this "Tax" is basically a fraudulent charge being made up by Super Piat and being put on unsuspecting customers' orders! Now, if you actually look at the images, something else should pop out at you. In the first screenshot, it tells me my total is £130.00 but here it's saying that I'm being charged £156.00. Where did that extra £26.00 come from? You might be able to guess right now but I'll explain shortly. What is important right now is that the user is NEVER notified about this addition in between clicking "checkout" and coming to the PayPal page. Anyways, the cancel button was clicked as shown below and it brings you back to the page shown in the screenshot following that.

(Screenshot 1): http://i.imgur.com/wll6vCd.png

(Screenshot 2): http://i.imgur.com/TtCjSeV.png

Well, that clearly shows where the mysterious £26.00 was coming from! A 20% VAT charge is automatically applied in between clicking checkout and the PayPal order page! Again, the customer is never notified of this and if you didn't notice the price increase, you would find out after paying. If you click home at this point, you will be presented with a screen like this:

(Screenshot): http://i.imgur.com/mioyJLR.png

So this account now has an active unpaid invoice and associated charges even though I canceled the payment with Paypal. I have never had a legitimate business do this to me when clicking the cancel button on Paypal. What should happen is it should take you back to the order page and allow you to cancel your order in full. In this case, the invoice has been placed and now the account owes £156.00 as shown here:

(Screenshot): http://i.imgur.com/AD1dCfb.png

You can't cancel this invoice and as far as I can tell the only way to have it removed would be submitting a support ticket and hope its resolved before they threaten to take you to collections. There is a way to cancel the £65.00 service as shown below, but again, this requires submitting a ticket and hoping that it is resolved.

In summary:

1. [DELTA] Coder (Super piat) is discretely adding a 20% VAT tax to orders without the user's express knowledge before bringing the customer to the Paypal order page
   
2. He is also fraudulently adding a 16.7% tax onto this already inflated amount on the order page on Paypal (I will again reiterate that as per a representative I spoke with, this tax is entirely added and controlled by super piat, no one else)!
   
3. Someone at boxhosts (allegedly but I'm pretty certain considering myself and the account holder have neither been hacked nor have we altered the account password since we can still access the account page without going through the login page) has tried to prevent us from accessing our account's details. While these are simply hypotheticals, it is clearly VERY fishy that we are being prevented from accessing the account at all.
   
4. In total for a hypothetical new customer's order, what was supposed to be £130.00 charge as shown at the checkout window turned into a £182.00 charge on the actual order page. This is an additional £52.00 of fraudulent charges added onto the order which never should have been there in the first place.
   
5. A terms of service has now magically appeared on their site dated for January 1st, 2015. Furthermore, to add some credibility to this claim, you can check both google and the wayback machine for cached copies and none can be found. Other parts of the site are happily cached but these terms were not. He also refused to provide these terms when we spoke to him over teamspeak (stating that they were sent via email when the original invoice was created. He also said that they were customized for each customer but later changed his story and stated that there was a general terms of service) which is very telling considering that a link to them should be readily available. He owns this "company" and since these are dated for January 1st, 2015, he should have had these at his disposal to give to us at the time of our conversation. He had plenty of time to look at invoices regarding our account but couldn't provide a link to those terms? Yeah, that reads suspicious and fraudulent all over it.
   

I'll have some more information in a following post proving that charges that were made on our account (with express knowledge of a "representative" of his "company") were completely false and thus shows even more that we were the victims of his fraudulent scheme.

[terox 316]

1. Seek legal advice before you correspond any further.
   
2. Think before adding any more info to these forums.
   

Obviously we are hearing a one sided story here. All stories given from this perspective are biased

From my understanding of contract law, in the UK, this would be deemed as a civil matter and therefore the complaintive would need "Proof of claim" and "Proof of authority". Neither of which it would appear Piat will have. So send him a written letter which requires a signature of acceptance or email, asking for "Read" confirmation explaining that you will happily uphold your end of any contract should he show both proof of claim and proof of authority and unless he sends you such proof, completely ignore any correspondance from him. If he continues after that take a small claims action against him, making sure he is the owner of the domain name.

Start a written diary today, keep copies of everything and create a timeline of events

Edited March 1, 2015 by Terox