Spam: Replica Watches

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Spam: Replica Watches

The "replica watches" advertised in numerous spam emails are imitations of luxury brand watches manufactured and sold contrary to international trademark laws. Some people may take buying and wearing a fake Rolex as some kind of a joke. Maybe they would not buy the real thing anyway and feel that no one is being harmed if they purchase the fake watch. They are underestimating the risks they are taking. See an example of a replica watch spam below.

When you place an order online from a store you have not dealt with before, you usually hope they are honest people. Yet anyone buying a fake Rolex (or similar product) by definition deals with a criminal. How do you know you are not going to get cheated? In a way, it would be safer to buy a fake watch from a stranger on a street corner, because then you can actually look at the watch and have a good chance he'll give it you when you give him cash. When you buy online, they guy who takes your credit card number and address is thousands of kilometres away and you have no idea what he is going to send you, if he sends anything at all.

The major business risk of counterfeit goods makers is being pursued by the police, by customs agents and by the trademark owners. To minimize that risk they will leave no leads to follow. They won't give a valid postal address. The website they set up will be registered using a fake postal address and will disappear again within a few weeks.

So what are you going to do when after one month your credit card has been charged but there is no watch? Or what if one watch has arrived but you have been billed for three? What are you going to do if your credit card starts getting billed for other items after you placed this order? These are things you should consider before you go for that "replica watch" advertised in spam. Later it may be too late.

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Example of "replica watch" spam:

Get the Finest Rolex Watch Replica!

We only sell premium watches. There's no battery in these replicas just like the real ones since they charge themselves as you move. The second hand moves JUST like the real ones, too. These original watches sell in stores for thousands of dollars. We sell them for much less.

- Replicated to the Smallest Detail
- 98% Perfectly Accurate Markings
- Signature Green Sticker w/ Serial Number on Watch Back
- Magnified Quickset Date
- Includes all Proper Markings

Visit us: http://www.mecei.com/rep/rolx/

Christmas discount this week only! Make your order before the prices go up.

No thanks: http://www.mecei.com/z.php

This spam was sent using an innocent third party as the fake sender address who will pick up bounces and misdirected spam complaints. It went out via a third party host (broadband host in the USA), i.e. stealing someone else's service. It was sent to addresses harvested off websites at random to people who have no interest whatsoever in fake watches, stealing their time.

Whoever is sending this spam has no regard for other people whatsoever.

Here is the WHOIS record for the domain used in the sample spam above:

Domain Name: MECEI.COM 
Domain Status: LOCK
Registrar: Wooho T&C Co., Ltd. d/b/a RGNames.com
Referral URL: http://www.RGNames.com

Domain Registration Date....: 2004-11-04 GMT.
Domain Expiration Date......: 2005-11-04 GMT.
Domain Last Updated Date....: 2004-12-24 08:22:38 GMT.

Registrant:
    bee aa
    588, Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu
    Seoul,  137070
    KR   

Administrative, Technical, Billing Contact:
    bee aa    bee@mail.com
    588, Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu
    Seoul,  137070
    KR
    (PHONE) +82-2-588-5678    (FAX) +82-2-588-4759

		
Domain Name Servers in listed order:  
    NS1.DNS55789.COM		218.38.136.38
    NS2.DNS55789.COM		218.38.136.38

The domain was registered six weeks before the spam. The address in South Korea is likely to be bogus. Here are the email headers:

Received: by epsilon.mc1.hosteurope.de running Exim 4.34 using smtp
	from 68-117-196-235.cpe.ga.charter.com ([68.117.196.235] helo=emo.seas.sk)
	id 1Ciitb-00064I-1R
	for emailaddress; Mon, 27 Dec 2004 01:38:00 +0100
Received: from 199.181.206.232 by smtp.aj.co.nz;
	Mon, 27 Dec 2004 00:36:48 +0000
Message-ID: <133701c4ebac$3a774a3d$2c64a744@emo.seas.sk>
From: "Lourdes Keys" <l.keys@aj.co.nz>
To: emailaddress
Subject: Premium Replica Watches
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 01:36:17 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"