ACORD

OK here as well (18:35 EST)

chazas

Fascinating thread.

Custombagel, a request: please don't use "gay" as a perjorative. I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it, but it is kind of hard to take for those of use who are gay.

Thanks.

Kunoichi

I wonder how many people actually signed up for the pay version of milesbar.com ... I couldn't find anything there that I'd actually pay money for ("free"? Sorry, "free" does not mean paying a monthly fee!) getting miles. I just went the free version.

The responses here kinda remind me of the messages sent from themestream.com before they died horribly... they didn't asnwer questions at all, they gave general "everything-is-find-and-dandy" messages and then died. And refuse to pay me the US$344.08c that they still owe me.

I won't be paying an online company anything, especially not for something "free". I won't be doing any more work for an online company that promises to pay me, either, unless I'm just giving them copies of stuff that I do for my own site (which is 100% free for everyone!)

I don't think I'll ever get enough points to spend on milesbar.com ... it sounds just like how alladvantage.com ended up - the last month before they went baibais, they changed everything so that it would take numerous YEARS to earn enough to get the payout. I fought for a while, sent many, many e-mails, and EVENTUALLY got my owed cash from them.

Stuff like this is just a complete waste of time and energy, and it's all just very frustrating when they refuse to pay out. I am very much against Mr. Daniel McCarthy from Themestream, whom I hold personally responsible for my US$344.08c. (That's AUD$677.16!!!!) I'd advise you all to hold the owner of Milesbar.com personally responsible for the money they have withdrawn out from your credit card from the date you cancelled.

That is theft, pure and simple.

Stealing is wrong, S. Chenowyth! I suggest you tell your company to pay back these people, and to STOP STEALING!

I *HATE* thieves. Thieves are nothing but scum, and should be thrown in jail. I wish the owners of Themestream.com were in jail for all of the money they refuse to pay. But, anyway.

Stop stealing, milesbar.com!

------------------
Kun-chan...

PS - Can you go and have a look at these URLs and tell me what you think at [email protected]?

http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/ax_images/
http://milesbar.com/join.asp?id=MBG1198
http://www.emailcash.com.au/join.asp?refer=C60997
http://www.igougo.com/planning/journ...p?GuideID=4076

BTW - Can you also have a look at my latest articles at:
http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/

[This message has been edited by Kunoichi (edited 06-14-2001).]

sftrick

Thanks, Matthew, for digging up that information.

So why the Canadian address and the Los Angeles phone number? (Which I called. Voice mail only, and the company does not identify itself.)

tovaz

Did you know that if you turn your computer speakers all the way up when the MilesBar banner is running, that you can very faintly hear,

"Paul is Dead, Paul is Dead"

Davenola

People are loosing their hard earned money to milesbar and Tovaz makes a joke out of it.

moltmans

I contacted the BBB of Canada and they had never heard of milesbar but certainly wanted to hear more. I am sending all of the above information to them. Milesbar and paystems do not answer e-mails anymore. My CC company said that they would have to be contacted every month to dispute the charge and that nothing could be done about the older charges. The e-mail address for BBB of Canada is [email protected]

custombagel

BBB is a joke in matters like these. From my own experience and from BBB's admittance, they can only mediate when situations where the merchant has aquired a BBB seal of approval. The most BBB can do in such cases is take back that seal, at which point the merchant can still continue to display it (illegally), but there is hardly anything the BBB can do. Specially with these one man shop, no contact info type home-run businesses, it is totally unreasonable to expect the BBB to do anything. The BBB will simply tell you to call your credit card company.

Personally I feel that the BBB has a conflict of interest anyway. For example, scam sites like ValueAmerica.com (if anyone remembers them) and many others were and still are certified as great merchants by the BBB before they went bankrupt.

My suggestion is to stop running to the BBB everytime you get jaded by a dotcom, because frankly, these website owners don't give a **** what the BBB thinks of them. They are not going to be around in 6 months anyway, so why bother with a BBB seal. Think about it.

The only time BBB is sort of useful is situations like when you recieve a defective laptop from Sony and Sony doesn't want to send you a replacement (that happened to me). A company like Sony has a lot to lose if the BBB boots them (negative publicity, big press release etc). But MilesBar?? gimme a break.

Stop wasting your time thinking the BBB will save you. Just call your credit card company, cancel the card, and dont make the same mistake again. Oh yeah, if you contest the charges and claim that MilesBar illegally charged you, MilesBar really isn't going to lose their merchat status or anything. Its not like AmEx, MasterCard etc will cancel MilesBar's merchant account, because MilesBar uses a 3rd party billing service.

Admit that you got screwed by these thieves, cancel your credit card, learn from your mistakes and move on. I was one of the first one's WAY back several months ago who warned everyone that this was going to happen . I got laughed at in a thread back then when I pointed out a lot of suspicious crap on MilesBar's web site (you shoudl've seen the b.s. they tried to pull back then...hehe...a fake Verisign logo).

Try not to be the sucker next time.

moltmans

Hey, just went to milesbar and their disclaimer is now on the home page. I guess they have had a busy day rearranging their website! I couldn't hear the paul is dead thing either. They also have a flashing quote by members stating how wonderful milesbar is. Was looking for Judyjfla's quote!

tovaz

All I've got to say, Dave, is lighten up.

I know that you have made MilesBar your personal crusade since you started posting here on FT, which is entirely your perogative. But, lets look at what we know so far:

You stated that lots of people are losing their hard earned money on MilesBar, while in fact most of the people are Gold members, which to my recollection are free. The Platinum members who have invested their money are of course, at risk, but isn't an investment in anything?

You state that MilesBar refuses to reveal their supplier of the mileage being offered. I work for a multi-billion dollar company that wouldn't divulge the identity of their key suppliers for any amount of money due to "strategic agreements" and the retention of "market advantage". By looking at it from MilesBar perspective, what's to prevent Dave in New Orleans, once he learns of their supplier, from cutting a better deal with them for his new business, MilesBanner.com?

I have become a Platinum member of MilesBar through my adult decision that this could be something worthwhile in the long term. All businesses have their kinks to work out, from refinement of their press releases to developing a better website. I'm willing to stay the course for a while, and see what happens.

What will it mean to me to cough up $12.95 a month for half a year, not much, which I trust is the general situation for most of the platinum members. While I appreciate the work you and others have done, and I have read with interest, I have made this decision of my own free will, and will continue to deal with the consequences of it. I personally don't think much of anything that tells me they are going to protect me from myself, whether its seat belts or MilesBar.

Again, my commendations on the work you and others have done to uncover this information, but again, provide, but don't interpret.

tovaz

Davenola

Thanks for your commendation, Tovaz.

And you are probably correct. I (and some other members of the Flyertalk Community) should have never tried to warn people about the milesbar situation. Gee ... what has been the result (at least for me) ... I've been BASHED and laughed at in various forums.
I (and others) could have done without that when all we were trying to do was the right thing.

Milesbar has been exposed for what it is. Major airlines know nothing about them, they refuse to provide ANY information to substantiate ANY OF the claims they make on their webpage, milesbar members continue to be charged fees after cancellation of their membership, advertisers on their webpage know nothing about them (hello???), miles have "disappeared" from accounts and milesbar refuses to respond to emails from members affected by this, milesbar was using airline logos (until today) without the permission of airlines, ... the list is endless.

What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong.

Anyway, thanks for the commendation.

custombagel

tovaz,
you wouldn't recognize an internet scam if it smacked you right in the face. Guess you're one of those folks who STILL have a lot to learn about the shady side of the internet.

It's folks like you that make scams like these such a lucrative business, even though *******s like milesbar have been pulling this for the last 6 years.

well, you know what they say about a fool and his money...

g'luck mate

[This message has been edited by custombagel (edited 06-14-2001).]

tovaz

This will be my last post on this subject, but I will respond.

I, personally, never bashed or laughed at your or any other member of FT. I again will state that you have provided a valuable service to those FT members and guests who needed information either about giving their money to MilesBar or becoming involved with them. IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

However, where I draw the line, is after the presentation of the facts as you uncovered them, and then your (and others) interpretation of those facts. So what that the owner may be a Pakastani? So what if he uses corny sayings? This is why I don't listen to TV news, I want to hear what happened, not be told what happened.

Maybe I am naive, maybe I am wet behind the ears when it comes to internet scams, maybe I will get burned royally in this one. Who knows?

But I made the choice.

tovaz, for now, a proud Charter and Platinum Elite member of MilesBar

Djlawman

Good luck, tovaz. I think you are going to need it. I finally read over the Milesbar site, and it has many of the indicia of a typical Ponzi scheme, which include:
1--Little information about the persons running the organization;
2--expectation of benefits based upon increased multi-level marketing (your "downline")(typically operators of a Ponzi scheme hope to get their participants so excited that the participants will recruit other participants with money for them);
3--wanting upfront money from you, with expectation of benefits to be paid at some far distant time;
4--Claims about the product, process, service, stock, etc. which seem TGTBT (too good to be true); and
5.--Seemingly plausible reasons for why people can't get their invested funds out when they try.

I also agree with the comments above about the inability of the BBB to deal with internet scams.

I guess we won't know until someone actually gets enough miles to try to redeem a ticket, or try to transfer miles to the "favorite frequent flyer program." Even so, many Ponzi schemes actually do pay out a few people in the very beginning, to make themselves look legitimate. And that will likely take a while.

As a former federal prosecutor, I would not give these folks any of my money, but others may want to. One thing always amazed me about the victims of sophisticated economic crime scams when we would talk to them--they thought that they were getting in on such a great deal that they simply did not rationally analyze things, and failed to see the warning signs. (For example, I dealt with dozens of victims of a phony real estate tax shelter run by a con man named John Galanis, who, over the course of almost 10 years, raised over $200 million from people because he promised them such great deals that they had to get in on this great deal. When the tax shelters turned out to be fraudulent, they owed the IRS taxes, penalties and interest, and ended up having to pay the banks in full for the loans that they took out to finance the bogus tax shelters. While this involved a lot more money for each individual, I think the principle is the same.)


Good luck.

Djlawman

se94583

Hey Tovaz, if you have an extra $13/month to throw around in the "hope" of seeing a payout, send it along to me-- I can't tell you my supplier, but perhaps I'll send along some aadvantage miles at some undetermined point in the future, but I can't guarantee it. (written with Nutragrain bar in hand...)

My take: if you're going to fall for an internet scam, at least fall for one with US scammers-- keeps the $$ in the economy at least!