ColoCrossing Promotes Fake Reviews via Workers, Insiders, Spammers, Hackers and Shills

[drmike]

Let's talk about the problem with ColoCrossing engaging in fake reviews to increase the reputation of their company in search.


URL:  https://www.google.com/search?q=colocrossing

25 Google Reviews.  4.0 out of possible 5.0 score. 

What do we find?


A pile of shills.  A bunch of reviews that are not reviews but Biloh telling his partners, friends and employees/contractors to review favorably.



#1 = Iranian owner and long term Iran peering on CC's network.  Sindad 
See: https://www.facebook.com/Sindad.Co/


Morteza Soltani
in the last week
I have been using Colocrossing for a 5 years and can tell you that their service is the highest quality.
The costumer service is very quick to answer any questions or problems you might have. 
I will recommend them to anyone who is looking for a reliable colocation service.


#2 = Sepehr Safadar another most likely Iranian


Sepehr Safadar
a week ago
Have been working with ColoCrossing for four years and it has proven to be a reliable company with high quality and stable services and knowledgeable and skilled team which is quite rare in today's market.



#3 = CJ Sculti, 18 year old hacker and IP range hijacker.  Known lately for hijacking China range containing IP 1.3.3.7, see http:/1.3.3.7 to see what this guy is about.


Long time mass IP blocked by Spamhaus, for spam and abuse: https://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings/datawagon.net

Here's that 1.3.3.7 hijack IP with website on it:

CJ Sculti
a week ago
I've had a few racks colocated with these guys for almost a year now. They've been great! ...More



#4 = milan pitroda, good guy, but he provides all the customer support (via outsourcing in India) for the many CC brands, including CVPS, 123Systems, BlueVM, etc.  So he's technically on CC payroll as a contractor.
 


milan pitroda
a week ago
CC have improved a lots in their infrastructure which helped to increase the speed of the server and stop spamming


#5 = Good old Thomas Dale, he once worked for ColoCrossing and ChicagoVPS.  Until the UGVPS outing happened.  See: 





Thomas Dale
a week ago
ColoCrossing has provided numerous services to myself for personal or commercial. They have helped me with everything from single servers to full racks with fiber uplinks . Jon B. is a 100% pleasure to work with from initial sales to ...More




#6 Ali Hajyani, Iranian.  Visperad Networks.  See: https://www.facebook.com/A.hajyani


Ali Hajyani
a month ago


#7 Luc Ayotte.  Former ChicagoVPS employee. 


Luc Ayotte
a month ago



#8 Mike Walker.  Active ColoCrossing employee.  See: http://mattburdine.org/WhyChicagoVPSLostMyBusiness.txt


Mike Walker
a month ago
This is by far the best data center facility in the Buffalo market. They are the only provider in the market that has onsite tech 24x7x365. I can call in at 3 AM and their support staff is there ready to help. They respond extremely fast to ...More


#9 Danny Dahl, could this be the Danny Dahl referenced by Spamhaus, see: https://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/evidence/ROK11457/online-media-connect/main-information


Danny Dahl
a month ago
Both Jon & Alex have helped me grow my business through the years tremendously. Def. recommend them to any company looking for a great reliable company that can help scale with their business. ...More



#10 Chris Niedojadlo, we have a shrine to this guy.  Who is the 'us' he's referring to?  Would that be his companies ala Net3 or would it be Servermania?


This guy isn't just a random customer.  Biloh hangs out with this guy in far away real life.
See: 





Chris Niedojadlo
2 months ago
ColoCrossing has been providing us with Colocation services for just over 4 years with fantastic service and uptime. We would highly recommend them to everyone needing data center services.



#11 Jonathan Nguyen - Jonny "I LOVE SPAM" Nguyen (that is winning to you).  No need.  Everyone knows him and Biloh love spam and collaborated to provide IPs for spam use.  Search any hosting community for him or Greenvaluehost and the strings will consume the next week of your life laughing and having you spewing your beverages out of your nose in laughter.


Jonathan Nguyen
2 months ago
Have been a customer for four years. ColoCrossing is very accommodating for their customers and offer a truly premium service that can be relied upon. Management frequently makes themselves available for customers and cares about the ...More



What did we learn?

• Of 25 reviews, 11 of them have no business ever of having been left.  
  
• 11 / 25  = 44% of the reviews for ColoCrossing on Google are fraudulent.
  
• 2 are from companies in Iran on controlled do not do business with list, still, even if one pretends to be an LLC in Nevada, while leaking Iran data info in peering.  Not like other reputable companies are going to go violate US law over embargo.
  
• Many of the reviewers are involved in spam.
  
• One is from a hacker / IP hijacker
  
• ... and most importantly 4 of them are current or former ColoCrossing employee
  

 

[MannDude]

Please delete this information, I don't want to get another legal letter about 'libel' on my blog.

 

[drmike]

Please delete this information, I don't want to get another legal letter about 'libel' on my 'blog'.

I fixed that for you.


Will take it down for one photo of the prayer rugs up on the datacenter walls.

 

[DomainBop]

11 / 25  = 44% of the reviews for ColoCrossing on Google are fraudulent.

There have been a few studies in recent years that have claimed up to 20% of Yelp reviews,and up to 30% of reviews in some product categories are fake so it's fairly common for companies to engage in unethical behavior by trying to skew reviews in their favor, but you really have to be a complete moron to try that sh*t in NY state after the NY State AG handed out some hefty fines to 19 companies (including a Buffalo SEO company) 3 years ago for writing fake online reviews (article is worth a read http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/technology/give-yourself-4-stars-online-it-might-cost-you.html?_r=1 )

ColoCrossing Promotes Fake Reviews via Workers, Insiders, Spammers, Hackers and Shills

I'll let this little timeline and pictures do the commenting on that obviously false shilling allegation.


The first CVPS LEB offer was posted on 10/16/10 and Velocity Servers was still listed as the owner of the domain and Biloh was listed as the admin contact on the WHOIS, and the LEB offer stated "They are backed by ColoCrossing in Chicago, which is part of Velocity Servers "


exhibit 1:  ChicagoVPS.net WHOIS data from October 21, 2010 (from joepie91's post)





The WHOIS was changed to Chris Fabozo's name a few days after that 10/21 screenshot, but on 10/29/10 a ChicagoVPS LowEndBox offer was posted that stated "Domain is registered by Chris (a Velocity Servers sales/support guy)"


2 days after the LEB offer that stated CVPS was run by a "Velocity Servers sales/support guy"  , the following post was made by the head of "Velocity Servers" on WHT:


October 31, 2010 WHT post:



10-31-10, 02:29 PM#17





JonBiloh 

Web Hosting Master









Join Date


Oct 2004


Posts


876











You should be able to get that for less than $10/month from a quality host. Check the offers section. I sent a customer to www.chicagovps.net a few days ago and he's been happy, instant setup etc.





 





FYI, the first few BuffaloVPS offers in 2011 said ""They are reselling the servers from ChicagoVPS/Velocity Servers/ColoCrossing", so once again a link between CVPS and CC was stated in the LEB offers.  During that 2010-2011 time period J.B. recommended his childhood paintball buddy Leetsauce's  CVPS a few times on WHT without disclosing in the posts any relationship with either CVPS or Fabozo.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

I'm going to be completely honest.


I have bigger fish to fry than dealing with ColoCrossing and their clown show. 


What has changed since last time they pulled poop like this?

 

[drmike]

What has changed since last time they pulled poop like this?

1. I let them (mostly) alone since ~ August or September 2014. 
2. Nothing changed ETHICALLY. No ethics on their end, still. Spam, spoofing, network abuse, embargo breaking, etc.
3. They have had to see all the outcomes of their lousy choices ranking in search, likely causing sales conversion issue on real business...
4. Purchase social media followers, to inflate perception (see ethics).
5. Get a monkey to churn out 'blog' like Twitter content.
6. Take high rank corrupt preference of Google Reviews to be near top of pile, so they asked their butt buddies and probably forced their employees to outright sham post reviews in Google (see ethics).
7. Only person with integrity over there left for greener pastures.
8. Gregory the Great probably straining over the sales across brands and slump since escalated his role and need.
9. Irritated by or told to do something about Gregor went posting about unfair review left by real customer remove it our end up on CourtTV.  All while not observing actions on #6, leaving entirely bullshit reviews to feather your own damn nest.


Worshiping idols... all of it... anything for more blood dollars and yacht money.

 

[drmike]

This is from the FTC's website about behavior related to endorsements in general:


I’m starting a new Internet business. I don't have any money for advertising, so I need publicity. Can I tell people that if they say good things about my business in online reviews, I’ll give them a discount on items they buy through my website?
It’s not a good idea. Endorsements must reflect the honest opinions or experiences of the endorser, and your plan could cause people to make up positive reviews even if they’ve never done business with you. However, it’s okay to invite people to post reviews of your business after they’ve actually used your products or services. If you’re offering them something of value in return for these reviews, tell them in advance that they should disclose what they received from you. You should also inform potential reviewers that the discount will be conditioned upon their making the disclosure. That way, other consumers can decide how much stock to put in those reviews.


------


Our company’s policy says that employees should not post positive reviews online about our products without clearly disclosing their relationship to the company. All of our employees agree to abide by this policy when they are hired. But we have several thousand people working here and we can’t monitor what they all do on their own computers and other devices when they aren’t at work. Are we liable if an employee posts a review of one of our products, either on our company website or on a social media site and doesn’t disclose that relationship?

It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect you to monitor every social media posting by all of your employees. However, you should establish a formal program to remind employees periodically of your policy, especially if the company encourages employees to share their opinions about your products. Also, if you learn that an employee has posted a review on the company’s website or a social media site without adequately disclosing his or her relationship to the company, you should remind them of your company policy and ask them to remove that review or adequately disclose that they’re an employee.


Lots more here:
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking

 

[DomainBop]

Interesting, Google Cache from 5/22/16 shows a review tab on their Facebook page (3.8 of 5 stars, 25 reviews).  Review tab is now hidden.

 

[drmike]

Interesting, Google Cache from 5/22/16 shows a review tab on their Facebook page (3.8 of 5 stars, 25 reviews).  Review tab is now hidden.

More questionable reviews in there.. crazy split of 5 stars and 1 stars.. nothing in middle....

 

[DomainBop]

More questionable reviews in there.. crazy split of 5 stars and 1 stars.. nothing in middle....

The mobile version of their Facebook page cache from 6/10 is more recent, and includes this 5 star review left on June 6 from the former owner of UGVPS, Dig The Mine, Ho-stress v1, Ho-Stress v2, and GreenValueHost.  Amazing that he didn't have time to respond to the customers he left stranded last year but he has time to write reviews on multiple sites for his former employer.  (live link to his review: https://m.facebook.com/xfxchilde/activity/1167160843303151 )





edited to add:


Nuggets left his 5 star Google review 2 months ago in April 2016?

Jonathan Nguyen


2 months ago-


Have been a customer for four years. ColoCrossing is very accommodating for their customers and offer a truly premium service that can be relied upon. Management frequently makes themselves available for customers and cares about the customer experience.

Contrary to what others claim on these reviews, ColoCrossing runs a network that doesn't tolerate spam at all. Spammers are promptly terminated. The reason why these problems exist is because of their very large network of resellers. They're a popular company that is used by many smaller web hosting companies to power their own infrastructures.

Time to vomit at the thought of someone who has multiple /22 blacklisted for snowshoe spamming and has gained a reputation for selling to spammers mentioning spam fighting in a review: https://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings/nguyenwebcompany.net

 

[drmike]

The mobile version of their Facebook page cache from 6/10 is more recent, and includes this 5 star review left on June 6 from the former owner of UGVPS, Dig The Mine, Ho-stress v1, Ho-Stress v2, and GreenValueHost.  Amazing that he didn't have time to respond to the customers he left stranded last year but he has time to write reviews on multiple sites for his former employer.  (live link to his review: https://m.facebook.com/xfxchilde/activity/1167160843303151 )


edited to add:


Nuggets left his 5 star Google review 2 months ago in April 2016?


Time to vomit at the thought of someone who has multiple /22 blacklisted for snowshoe spamming and has gained a reputation for selling to spammers mentioning spam fighting in a review: https://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings/nguyenwebcompany.net

Quite the stellar reviewers...  


For a company pulling in 6 mil big ones USD dollabills a year, you would think they'd have better customers, reputable endorsements, etc.


Nope, it's the same lumpy bag of coal and fools from the Island of Misfit Toys.


Still using ChicagoVPS as a case study on their own website. Tssk.

 

[DomainBop]

#3 = CJ Sculti, 18 year old hacker and IP range hijacker.  Known lately for hijacking China range containing IP 1.3.3.7, see http:/1.3.3.7 to see what this guy is about.

Should probably also add in there somewhere  "very active HackForums skid who likes to brag about his dad's multimillion dollar home" (similar to the Buffalo kid turned  UGVPS-Crystal impersonator, who bragged about his friend's dad's yacht to the real Crystal...) .  


Dominos Pizza filed an ADR complaint against this clown last year (and they won, see here) after he registered the domain dominos.pizza.  His defense for registering the domain: he's an innocent kid who's being picked on by the corporate meanies at Dominos and he registered it for personal use. He wrote on the site (see here) “hi, I’m CJ. I like to play with dominos. I also like to eat pizza” (according to the Dominos complaint however "Respondent intentionally uses the <dominos.pizza> domain name to divert Internet users seeking Complainant to its website, creating a likelihood of confusion.  Specifically, Complainant shows that the disputed domain name resolves to a website that contains adult entertainment material.").


This teen hosting "CEO" was last seen on a WHT thread today trying to explain why 61% of his 11.5K IPv4's and 100% of his IPv6 range are on the Spamhaus DROP list.  His defense for the multiple SBL and DROP listings could have been copied straight from a Biloh post:  he proclaimed his innocence and accused Spamhaus of being dishonest and blackmailing hosts.  

 

[RLT]

That WHT thread is pure gold.

 

[drmike]

Dominos Pizza filed an ADR complaint against this clown last year (and they won, see here) after he registered the domain dominos.pizza.  His defense for registering the domain: he's an innocent kid who's being picked on by the corporate meanies at Dominos and he registered it for personal use. He wrote on the site (see here) “hi, I’m CJ. I like to play with dominos. I also like to eat pizza” (according to the Dominos complaint however "Respondent intentionally uses the <dominos.pizza> domain name to divert Internet users seeking Complainant to its website, creating a likelihood of confusion.  Specifically, Complainant shows that the disputed domain name resolves to a website that contains adult entertainment material.").

But the internet wants to know, HOT OR NOT?


https://hotornot.com/profile/01370438740


Even has a boat photo. What is it with these game playing wanna-be hosts and yacht time?

 

[DomainBop]

But the internet wants to know, HOT OR NOT?

I think a HOT OR NOT profile is a prerequisite to qualify as a 5 star CC reviewer.  I stumbled upon another one last night...plug "System Administrator at ColoCrossing" into google.

That WHT thread is pure gold.

The notification emails are pure gold too...

***************************
DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL! NO ONE WILL READ IT!
***************************
Dear domainbop,


BGP_OVERLORD has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to titled - Fevvo inc? - in the Dedicated Server forum of Web Hosting Talk.


This thread is located at:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1578152&goto=newpost


Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************


---Quote (Originally by elrooted)---
- man babby cries on public forum -
---End Quote---
great job at writing out the worlds longest post that nobody will read you human slug


i think you should've included a 'tldr' that explains something along the lines of 'im a 50 year old manchild whos too delusional to realize how wrong i am'


just stop posting homo, you're wrong and man-children like you should respect the high intellectuals of this forum.
***************



There may be other replies also, but you will not receive any more notifications until you visit the forum again.

 

[ChrisM]

If y'all are going to keep this up I am going to need to go buy some popcorn.