Thread: Pirated Woodworking Plans - 16,000 Plans for $45.00, but wait, there more ......

Roy,
It's worse than that. As, I've been told, our mutual friend "Ted" gets others to "Invest" in a wonderful business opportunity selling the DVD. That's how Ted makes his money and explains the huge proliferation of sites all selling the DVD.

Somebody used a spoofed e-mail address of a magazine and was trying to sell "Ted's Plans". The magazine put out a disclaimer and a lament that they can't find the real body behind Ted.

Have you noted that they also infiltrate the You Tube videos and add praise for Ted's Plans over that of the viewed effort.
Subtle praise, creating the "sucker bait.".
Note that the endorsements and praise is updated, even if the content is not.
If only we could suggest Ted was a terrorist. That would end everything quickly in a way that the honest efforts of others have not been able to succeed.

I stumbled across a photo of my workbench under the 16000 plans ads and to say I was unhappy is an understatement. This person needs to be gelded.

Originally Posted by Groggy

I stumbled across a photo of my workbench under the 16000 plans ads and to say I was unhappy is an understatement. This person needs to be gelded.

Almost as bad as "Serge" from Montreal.

The Admins/Moderators of this forum delete spam advertisements for these 14000 or 16000 "plans" on a very regular basis, at least once a week and sometimes once a day. The person posting the ad also gets banned and reported to Stop Forum Spam.

If you see any that we haven't spotted yet please report it asap.

Hi,
I have received offers of plans made to look as if they come from an American magazine but they have been a scatter posting, on Friday I got the same offer addressed to me, even greeting me with my first and surname. How they got hold of that I do not know. Any way I forwarded it to spam watch and the magazine it was imitating. The one to the mag. was undeliverable for a reason they weren't allowed to tell me.
It is time the authorities did some thing serious to rid the net of all these scamers and spamers.
Regards

Originally Posted by A Duke

Hi,
I have received offers of plans made to look as if they come from an American magazine but they have been a scatter posting, on Friday I got the same offer addressed to me, even greeting me with my first and surname. How they got hold of that I do not know. Any way I forwarded it to spam watch and the magazine it was imitating. The one to the mag. was undeliverable for a reason they weren't allowed to tell me.
It is time the authorities did some thing serious to rid the net of all these scamers and spamers.
Regards

Unfortunately, the Woodworkers (or Woodworking Magazines) who have had their plans, books, videos, or DVDs pirated by these scammers are probably not financially in a position to go after the scam merchants. It seems that the only organisations with enough money to go after people who pirate stuff are the Hollywood Studios who chase people for downloading a video to watch themselves - not to sell. Anyone else who has had their products (plans, books, videos, DVDs, etc) pirated has very little chance of taking legal action to get even with the pirates.

The other huge problem with bringing these Scammers to answer for what they've been doing, is that the Internet is a huge place, with web sites existing in every country around the world, meaning that having legal jurisdiction to be able to do something about a particular Pirate or Scammer can be very difficult. Some countries, such as China, Papua New Guinea, and many of the Central African countries amongst others, are not signatories to any of the international Copyright Conventions, which mean that in those countries the concept of Copyright doesn't exist, so a person subject to that country's laws can legally sell stolen woodworking plans.

I emailed the editor at Popular Woodworking Magazine last year to forward her a copy of a spam email I'd received that had purported to come from Popular Woodworking, but was obviously from one of "Ted's Woodworking" resellers. Megan replied and said that they, along with a few of the other woodworking magazines, were trying to track down Ted, but so far had had no success. She advised that they were regularly getting Ted's various resellers banned as Credit Card Merchants, but no sooner than they get one of Ted's merchant accounts banned, he pops up with another new merchant account. She said that one of the Teds Credit Card Merchant Accounts that they'd managed to get banned recently had been in Honduras, and another had been in Laos. She also advised that they were regularly getting Ted's merchant accounts with Paypal banned, but he keeps popping up again and again under different trading names.

The best advise so far seems to be that if someone gets ripped off by these scammers, and they've used a Credit Card, then report the scam to the Credit Card Provider and after due process, the person get their money back, and the Credit Card company may ban the relevant Merchant Account, if there's enough complaints.

RoyG

Received an email from one of these scum today "selling" Ted's Woodworking Plans. It links back to a Tokelau address, but who knows where they're really located. Straight to the bin.