I almost fell for this Viaty company through Bay Downloads.com offering the same sort of thing as Download Nova (presumably they have the same scam in different names).
What tipped me off in the end was that the alleged file download site seemed to have almost any file you wanted, which seemed to be too good to be true.
So I tried typing in something really obscure - a fundamentalist Christian classic by Hislop, 'The Two Babylons' not really mainstream these days. Unbelievably the title was listed. So then I typed in 'Kelloggs Sultana Bran' - yep, also listed - just recently added. (Never mind the fact that this is a breakfast cereal and not a computer file!!!) So then I went in for the kill and typed 'chooky sunrise ghvty bolero omacron 57846' - the first thing I could think of at the top of my head and guaranteed to not have anything corresponding to it, having only just dreamed it up a second ago. Yes, also added 8.8 days ago and on a superfast server!!!
I did pick up on the fine print about the recurring charge at the bottom of their sign up (which I was curious about - finding out that megadownloadpass was a porn site also rang alarm bells - I am definitely NOT interested in porn subscriptions) and emailed their customer service first and asked specifically, do you mean to say that (1) by signing up for this file download service I am committed to a PORN site??? And (2) that so-called one-off charge actually says that it's recurring at the full monthly fee unless cancelled, so what's going on with that? Unsurprisingly, no reply. So I did not complete the form and they do not have my credit card details.
Since they do state the recurring charge policy clearly in their terms and conditions, I don't know how this will affect the legal position of anyone sucked in by the hype. I certainly couldn't see anything resembling a 'how to cancel' link either on the Bay Download site or the so-called 3rd party site they were funnelling funds through. I did come across Download Nova as well, and the terms and conditions were practically word for word for the Bay Download site. I'm presuming that they're both run by the same crowd.
But to anyone reading this and being tempted by the lure of hard to get files, please try my 'typing test' out for yourself.
Michelle
Thornbury
Australia
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