84480 Installment Money Get up to $ 5000 - @.www.theapprovalmoney.comA few days later, I received a second text message from a different number, 402-935-8893
86834 Installment Money Get up to $ 5000 - @.www.thedebtconsolidationmoney.comI've received text spam before, but these were quite unusual because the messages had been sent to nineteen other phone numbers, all at once. Prior to today, I think text-spammers had messaged me and maybe four or five other people at a time.
I immediately noticed that the initial numbers - 84480 and 86834, respectively - were sequential. Even though I had thus far only received two texts, it is possible that they have multiple people sending out these texts and that there may be a set number of texts being sent out toward an eventual final sequence.
My Fellow Recipients
Rather than simply delete the first message and go on with my day, I decided to run a search on all the other numbers in this block:
- Thirteen of the numbers - including mine - were in the 808 area code;
- Six of the numbers were in the 317 area code;
- One of the numbers was in the 617 area code;
- One number - the sender's - was from the 872 area code, but this appears to have been a burner account and I doubt if they will use this number again right away;
- Of the twenty recipients, only two numbers could not be tied to an actual person. Running all the numbers through a search engine (yes, I actually took the time to do this) located the number's registered owner's name. The numbers which the search engine could not identify the owners were both from the 317 area code.
- Of the numbers for whom I could acquire the owner's name, all eighteen of them have Facebook pages.
- Aside from all having received the same text message, the identifiable owners seem to have nothing else in-common. There were eleven women and seven men. The recipients have various occupations, ranging from being employed by others to being self-employed. The names weren't even close to each other alphabetically by first or last name. The recipients were apparently texted at random.
- I have no connection to any of the other recipients on Facebook, not even to the people who live in Hawaii. We don't belong to any of the same Facebook groups and we don't have any friends in-common.
Since none of the other recipients responded to the text message, neither did I. I'm going to assume that they simply deleted the message upon reading it. As a precaution, I blocked the sender's number and the two numbers whose owners I could not identify, since it's possible that they might be used to text-spam me again in the future.
The second batch of recipients were more varied in terms of their area codes. I checked a few of the numbers and they all had Facebook accounts. I only blocked the second sender's number because I realized that they would simply use a different number if they ever texted me again.
The second batch of recipients were more varied in terms of their area codes. I checked a few of the numbers and they all had Facebook accounts. I only blocked the second sender's number because I realized that they would simply use a different number if they ever texted me again.
My attempt to call the senders back using a burner account of my own got no results other than a recorded message telling me that the TextMail subscriber was unavailable.
The Websites
There seem to be a lot of websites that offer $5000 loans to people, but few seem to be sending me text-spam. Since I had some free time, I decided to see who these people are:
THEAPPROVALMONEY.COM is registered in India and is a very new site, only being created on 8 August 2019. The registrant's name is redacted for privacy (funny for someone going-around spamming people) but their organization is listed as a2zsolutionindia, which is a company in India that sells passports. So, it's possible that an employee of this company has gone out on his own to try to make a quick buck at my expense, but I have no evidence to that effect.
THEDEBTCONSOLIDATIONMONEY.COM is also registered anonymously and its servers are located in India.
THEDEBTCONSOLIDATIONMONEY.COM is also registered anonymously and its servers are located in India.
This sites actually has no content of their own and serve only as a redirect to the site to which they really want you to go.
Clicking on the links provided in the messages led me to FUNDSJOY.COM and it is an anonymously-registered website under the privacy protection of Domains By Proxy. The site was originally purchased from GoDaddy and its servers are from DigitalOcean, LLC out of Santa Clara, CA.
FUNDSJOY makes a point of telling you that they are not an actual lender, but they only serve to put you in contact with companies from who you can borrow money.
I Have An Address
At the bottom of their homepage, they posted this address
1041 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Oakland, CA 94606
Googling the address for a picture of an actual building revealed a red brick building which looks almost like a school. It seems to be well-kept.
However, a search for neighboring businesses showed that other loan companies were using the exact same address as FUNDSJOY and all their websites are registered anonymously:
There could be more, but I'm too tired to keep looking. Let's just say that if a "loan company" is operating out of this address, it's probably the same people.
What people might not know is that sending spam messages is illegal under Federal law. Therefore, I have filed complaints with the FTC against FUNDSJOY.COM and I encourage everyone else who receives text messages from them to do the same.
My Verdict
Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing any business with FUNDSJOY.COM and here are my reasons:
- Reputable companies don't rely on text-spamming random people to advertise their services;
- A reputable wouldn't hide its real website address behind a redirect link;
- Reputable financial companies' websites aren't registered anonymously. Here are some examples: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and CitiGroup. If someone wants your personal information, but they don't want to tell you who they really are, you shouldn't trust them;
- The sheer number of "loan companies" operating out of this single address should be a gigantic red flag for anyone with more than one brain cell.
Stay as far away as possible fro FUNDSJOY and every other "company" operating out of this address.
The Federal Trade Commission
What people might not know is that sending spam messages is illegal under Federal law. Therefore, I have filed complaints with the FTC against FUNDSJOY.COM and I encourage everyone else who receives text messages from them to do the same.
Duane Browning
