Just had a scam email selling OpenOffice!

[ulrichburke]

Dear Everyone.

There's a scam E-mail around trying to sell you open office! It's good, if I hadn''t known Open Office was freeware I'd've fallen for it.

It's text is (I've copied it!!)

2010 Version of Open Office - Your Complete Office Solution

This complete All-in-One Office Suite contains all that is needed for a productive day at the office, from word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.

Office Code: 1419
Maximize your office efficiency today

And the URL it takes you to is here: http://officialversion.su/officesuite/promo/index.asp?aff=11677&camp=xjan_office_tue

As you can see, it's a pretty impressive looking site. In fact it's so good that if someone bursts out laughing and tells me it is legit. in some way and I haven't realised, I'll post an apology, but I think it's fake!

Yours respectfully

Christopher Burke

Best Regards,

Mathew Steiner
Office Suite 2010

[acknak]

Unfortunately, it happens. There are lots of scams on the Internet.

See this thread for more discussion: Fake Download Open Office 2009 - Credit Card Fraud

This forum is only for users; this is not the place for official communication with the OOo leadership. In fact, I'm not even sure what address to suggest for reporting such information. I guess you could always send it to webmaster@openoffice.org

[ulrichburke]

I couldn't find any address to send the info to either, so I thought that if I posted it here, at least newbies would be warned. Strange, you'd think there would be a way to report frauds. wouldn't you?

Yours respectfully

ulrichburke

[keme]

I couldn't find any address to send the info to either, so I thought that if I posted it here, at least newbies would be warned. Strange, you'd think there would be a way to report frauds. wouldn't you?

Certainly, if there were anything to gain (money, mostly). As it is, pursuing the case would consume a fair amount of resources, and even if the pursuit is successful, there is little hope to gain anything from it, be it human resources or money. (Because stopping them won't increase anyone's income, and there isn't a very good case for demanding compensation for lost profits.) So while there have been cases, and probably will be in the future too, I can't imagine that this will be a high priority activity.

[ulrichburke]

Dear Iceme.

Must admit I hadn't thought of it like that - but spending money to stop someone selling something that's free wouldn't be worthwhile for the guy giving it away, would it! Guess I was just affronted by the cynicism of those trying to profit from the voluntary labour of others.

They've got all those computer skills and they just use 'em to rip people off. Why not put them to more constructive use? I'm sure they'd find it at least equally rewarding. I don't understand some people's mindsets.

Strange.

Yours respectfully

ulrichburke

[ccornell]

If someone finds a scam site selling OpenOffice.org (taking advantage of OOo name, brand etc), they should enter an issue in the OOo Issue Tracker. Then it's recorded and someone will investigate it. If it's a scam site, there are steps OOo and the OOo sponsors can (and sometimes do) take to shut them down. Of course there are no guarantees... it's a fuzzy grey area that lawyers like to play in.