Arhhhh! Tagged.com got me

Yeah, user error. My mistake. I should have watched all the check boxes on the site. Mea Culpa. Now all my gmail contacts get spam from me. Ugly.

So, whilst I am on the topic: social networking sites should only opt-in, not opt-out. Make it a little more difficult to show your friends you are an absolute dork and idiot. Plaxo had the same effect on people, and it made your Outlook run as slow as treacle.

I am a fan of linkedin.com; myspace.com is interesting but looks as ugly as Prince Charles’ second wife; not much else has caught my eye.

34 thoughts on “Arhhhh! Tagged.com got me”

  1. Sorry to hear that.. in fact you’re one among a bunch of people losing their address book to this kind of thievery. Tagged Inc. scoops up your personal e-mail addresses by manipulating the unsuspecting user into putting in Google account information – something you should never, ever do. Invitation messages to everyone in your list are sent without the possibility of choosing which “friends” you want to “tag”. It may be that their system is bugged, but frankly it looks like these people are acting in a totally dishonest way and their supposed service should be totally discouraged.

  2. Yup, I got sent it by a friend and I never thought twice about it until I started getting mail from people asking what its all about.

    hats off its a good scam, it works as well.

    the best was I got a mail from tagged.com saying I have added my self 🙂

    good job I never keep my contact’s up-to-date

    still I’m a bit hacked off

  3. In case anyone is interested here are the
    IP’s of the Tagged’d servers.

    64.125.115.5
    64.125.115.6

    The registered owner is “Tagged, LLC”
    Address is a PO box in San Francisco
    Obviously a reputable company 🙂

    If you want to complain to their ISP, the company hosting their servers then they are:

    OrgName: Abovenet Communications, Inc
    OrgID: ABVE
    Address: 360 Hamilton Ave
    City: White Plains
    StateProv: NY
    PostalCode: 10601
    Country: US

    email: abuse@above.net

    cc the following address also to make sure they take notice 🙂

    noc@above.net and arin@above.net

    If you would rather phone them to report that tagged.com is using their network to spam, the number is +1-888-636-2778

    All of this information was found using a simple whois look up. Don’t let these guys get away with it. Call and complain!

    Happy and Safe surfing

    Natus

  4. Agreed. tagged.com sends spam from multiple IP addresses and is clearly nothing more than pond scum. Don’t even visit their web site, if you do you’re just supporting a spammer.

  5. I was wondering, i am new to this forum thing but i had a question, a friend wanted to add me to tagged.com, im not sure if there is more than one tagged or not, but it asked for my email username and password, which i thought was very suspicious, was jus wondering if, 1) this is normal practice or an attempt to get my email password 2.) or if this ok to do on this one site to add ur self to friends list (cant see how though), if anyone has any comments i would appreicate them, althought i didnt give any info , i was jus wondering if this was some scam, and am trying to be safe, i dont want anyone else to fall for this and lose their email account, take care,.. Marcos

  6. Question– when tagged.com asks for your password–I would imagine that you would have to give your actual email passord for them to have access to your entire address book, or does there system somehoe gain access to address book as soon as you log in.
    Also, I was curious so I searched the tagged.com site looking for “my friends” profile and there was none. I suppose that only confirms that “my friend” who I do indeed want to get back in touch with, is not actually a member, just a victim of tagged.com

  7. What I cannot understand is that Tagged markets itself as a premier teen social networking site stating that “Tagged.com is the premier social networking destination for the Millennial Generation and an ideal place for advertisers who are trying to reach the teen market. Tagged provides a fun, safe, and exciting environment for teens to showcase their personalities and talents, and to connect with friends and meet new ones. Tagged maintains this great environment by only allowing teenagers to register on the site.”

    If that is the case then why am I receiving an invite from a 51 year old Harsh from India?

    I was able to search the database and their are more than teens on this site.

  8. just another “web 2.0” startup that is going the way of the dinosaurs, I hope.

    Note to all that my major complaint is their default “you must opt-out” — and the error was me clicking too fast.

    Anyway, I still think they suck rocks.

  9. Don’t know what I can do physically — but I am leaving this blog entry up and hope EVERYONE reads it before being tagg’d by a stupid site.

  10. Well, if you look, the Tagged logo in the HTML e-mails they send out has an ID attached to it, and it is called remotely. This is called a Web Bug and it allows them to see that you have read their message – even if you do not click Yes or No. So I’d say they are spammesr.

  11. This is one of the worst sites on the net. Tricking people out of their contact list is illegal.This jerk at abuse
    makes it voluntary on your part if you click “yes” . You gave them the right to take you contacts list without your knowledge…Yeh, that sound like stealing all right!

    Should a stranger be asking you for your email login? Most of you know you should not do that, but slick
    trickery can fool some.

    Read on:

    First I want to say, I did not click on yes or no….

    I complained to abuse@above.net on behalf of someone else “victim ” # ?(who knows)

    and hope you all will to. The problem is the above.net person seemed to be defensive of this site, which is unusual. In every case I am aware of, they are trying to “protect” the consumer, but in this case, I was threatened with legal action when I called it “stealing” when it is in fact just that, and I am gathering information from this site as well as others, and may contact people to get declarations if this group of scammers try to threaten me again..Here is the text of the message I received from so called “abuse” see if this sounds like the position someone takes, who is trying to be on the side of you and others who have been scammed by this site.

    their position:

    Dear Farhana,

    “Steal” is a very strong term and carrying possible severe penalties. In every instance that I’ve investigated to date, the email address and specifically the password for the email account was provided freely by the complainant.

    Please provide any evidence that you may have, not just the accusation, that your email password was obtained by means other than by you providing it to them.

    Sincerely,

    Larry McDonald
    Policy Enforcement
    AboveNet Communications, Inc.
    http://www.above.net/corporate/acceptableuse.html
    http://www.above.net/corporate/antispam.html

  12. Reply to this Larry, the message that I think that you should reply as follows:

    “If I give you the key from my house because I’m trusting… you and if you are leaving my house with my TV and all the money you found means that you are stealing”

    That’s all about

  13. Recent victom: Signed up for tagged.com, and while entering the registration info I was prompted for mothers maiden name, which like an idioit I entered. I now have one $15 and another $13 charge showing up on my phone bill, which I specifically tracked down to the exact moments I registered with Tagged.com.

    VERY SHADY WEBSITE!!

  14. STAY AWAY FROM TAGGED!

    It was a scam when it first started out and it’s a scam now – it was incredibly easy for someone to hack into your account because the people who run tagged had just lifted the code off a javascript website, and the site tried to download viruses to my computer on many occasions.

    Now it offers people the opportunity to “manage” various accounts (such as yahoo) from the website – but this is just a sneaky way to get your account details, with no support from any of the companies mentioned.

  15. As well as this, it used to ask for your hotmail password to sign up! Why are people still using this website?!

    J, one word: lawsuit.

  16. I don’t know how this works, but shouldn’t this site been shut down a long time ago by the authorities?

    I don’t know how difficult this is legally, but if 1 in 5 falls for this trick, and 1 in 10 probably continues and gives out his cell phone number and his mothers maiden name(!) (that’s really stuff they asked me today!), they’ll soon have a catalog of ALL possible scam victims in the US, with the relevant data. Heck, if somebody is even stupid enough to accept one of the commercial offers, they also have his credit card info.

    I’m pretty sure there is an federal agency for internet crime, and tagged.com should be one of their main targets.

    Who is to contact to stop this? I don’t mean above.net, more like FBI or so. Who?

  17. I was also a victim of this scam. I received e-mails “supposedly” from family members, inviting me to enter the social network. In addition to the invitation, they throw a little bit of “making you feel guilt” into the mix by telling you “Such and such person will think you are not his/her friend if you don’t respond”. After filling out information, I started to receive additional monthly phone bill fees of $15.00. It took me a while before they agreed to reverse the charges. AT&T could not do anything about it. So if you haven’t taken the trouble to check your phone bill, check it and see if you have an additional monthly charge under the category of :united tel,llc 247MP3S.com I noticed in one of the tagged “fill in the blank pages” that at the bottom of the page they tell you that by hitting submitt you agree to pay 14 something dollars a month. Anyone know anything about this?

  18. I clicked on yes when asking if i were a friend of someone…when it came to second page, I seen they were asking for personal questions, and clicked it off..I then started recieving mail from people in my address book. I’m so angry ! I don’t do any banking online ,so I’m not to worried. But the idea that got into my address book, and mailed to all them people seems totally illegal to me. I did mail Aol, and told them about it, got a letter on what to do. Please report this ,before it gets out of hand!

  19. All i freaking put on there was my email, and i used another password for it not my email one. somehow they still got my contacts list and i didnt even say yes to adding them.

  20. You all sound very unintelligent. The fact is, they ask you for your e-mail account login and password, for the clear purpose of automatically adding contacts. They don’t “steal” anything, you give them the info, click a button, and they in turn do exactly what you would expect.

    I have an account on tagged – it’s a social networking site, it’s not great, it’s not bad… When they asked for my g-mail password, I skipped that screen. To call it a scam really strains credulity. What exactly is the scam supposed to be?

    “tagged.com pushed my grandmother down a flight of stairs LOLOLOL!!11” seriously, you guys must be total morons…

  21. (Sorry 4 my english)
    When i logging as new user on Tagged, I must to enter my email password, but
    immediately after the step, make the password change and so do not spam emails were sent to my contacts.

  22. 1. Tagged Corp Phone # 415-946-1856
    Not easy to find!

    2. I started the registration process, but never entered my eMail Password. According to Tagged, they are a Microsoft Marketing Partner, they don’t need a Password for MSN & Hotmail Accounts!!
    They share eMail addresses with Microsoft and Microsoft shares eMail address with them!!!!

  23. Question: how does tagged.com exactly take my contact list? I had signed up, even though that little voice told me not to. Had provided my email address and password and other info. the account was set up, but got nervous and then immediately deleted my account. I also then immediately changed my password on my email account. Would they still have access to my contact list? Would messages still go out to my friends? I just was curious how quickly they can take it and then use it, and if I am not a member, will that mean they cannot send messages as though they are coming from me? Live and learn big time!

  24. Seems this one’s alive and well – someone up the chain fell prey and now my beloved address is compromised. I don’t know what I can do!

  25. @caroline – Even if you’ve changed your password, it won’t really help because the first time they dump your contacts into their system. It will help if you have added new contacts and they try to import your account again. Most of the other stuff I’ve see about them indicates that it may not matter if you cancel your account. They don’t really seem to be playing by the rules…

  26. MY FIANCEE IS POSTING THIS TO EVERY SITE, FORUM, COMPLAINT SITES, ETC. AND WE MUST HELP STOP TAGGED FROM WASTING SO MANY PEOPLES TIME. SEARCH IT IN ALL THE SEARCH ENGINES AND YOU WILL SEE TAGGED IS BEING BLOCKED IN PLACES AS THEY STEAL YOUR FRIENDS AND INFORMATION. HERE IT IS:

    TAGGED.COM SUCKS! THEY DELETED MY PROFILE. ALL THE MESSAGES AND COMMENTS FROM MY FIANCEE AS WELL AS ALL THE COMMENTS I SEARCHED MANY HOURS FOR… ALL OF IT… GONE!. 2500 plus friends. all comments, pics, pic comments, journal, messages … everything! GONE!
    TAGGED DID THIS TWICE!! TAGGED CANNOT BE TRUSTED! GET OUT AND GO TO A REAL SITE BEFORE IT HAPPENS TO YOU… YES I LIKED TAGGED. BUT WHEN U LOSE ALL YOUR STUFF… ESPECIALLY THE NEXT TIME …YOU WILL HATE TAGGED FOR WASTING YOUR TIME. IF YOU CREATE ANOTHER SITE THEN THEY PUT A BLOCK ON YOUR COMPUTER SO YOU HAVE TO ENTER CAPTCHA TO DO ANYTHING.. and yes I was an active member and had a few decent friends. The other 90% were mostly scammers and fakes. All of my decent friends are leaving there because as others have said in many places, it’s nothing but lowlifes anyway so why even bother with a failing scammer site.

    WIKIPEDIA SAYS THE FOLLOWING ABOUT TAGGED.COM:
    A TIME magazine article called Tagged “The World’s Most Annoying Website”.[22] Tagged asks users for their email username and password, checks their email address books for contacts and repeatedly sends email invitations to people who are not yet on Tagged, stating that they have been “added as a friend” or that the inviter had sent them photos on Tagged. This process has drawn criticism in the technology press[23][24] and from users.[25] These emails were discussed as possible spam by Black Web 2.0.[26] The resemblance to a virus has often been mentioned, including by urban legend site Snopes.com.[27] The New York Times referred to the practice as “contact scraping” [28]

    In July 2009 New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced his intention to sue Tagged.com for “deceptive email marketing and invasion of privacy” [29] According to the press release, Tagged.com engaged in “deceptive Email Promotions, Identity Theft, and Invasion of Privacy ”

    Prior to co-founding Tagged, Greg Tseng was co-founder and CEO of internet incubator Jumpstart Technologies.[30] In March 2006, Jumpstart Technologies settled with the Federal Trade Commission on alleged violations of the CAN-SPAM Act, which included a $900,000 fine but no admission of guilt.[31]

    From February 2009, Tagged.com has been blocked in Qatar by the only ISP, Qtel, after a number of complaints from the public.[32] Tagged.com had been one of the 10 most visited sites in Qatar.[33]

  27. yeah definitely agree! my password at tagged was phished the other day, somene were sending comments to my friends using my profile which was a virus contenting site!! and it sucks!!!

    tagged.com sucks!

  28. I really like Tagged. I was sent an email from a girl I knew. Ignored it for the longest, but decided to give it a whirl. I think though, that it’s not kewl to not know you are sending stuff in your name out of pure manipulative tactics. They’re being sued for it now, but I think they are winning. Anyway, that’s not my PROBLEM with Tagged. My issue is I keep getting a Trojan from the site.

    I have met several nice folks, a few I truly have developed pen pal relationships with. Love my profile, feel I can protect my page better from the porninskys of so many other sites, but I think I’m going to have to cut Tagged loose. As at least once a week if I have not visited often, I’ll get this message that interrupts my Sorority Life game or my messages. It says my computer is infected. I put OneCare Live on it and it found the Trojan and associated files.

    I visited the site again and the same thing happened. So I know it’s Tagged because it only happens when I’m there on that site. Bummer! I need my computer more than I need Tagged.Com that’s for sure!

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