A neighbor of mine unwittingly sent the following email to a neighborhood email list:
I just became an iPad apps tester, and thought you might like to try it out. Here’s an invitation to become a tester too. They say you can keep the iPad when testing is finished. Grab it!
——————————————————————
unsuspecting.user@gmail.com has invited you to candidate as an Apple iPAD software tester.
To accept this invite and sign-up as a tester, click on
http://www.apps-Research.com/If you haven’t already heard about test Apple iPAD Apps, we are a program that helps Apple iPAD applications developers make better Apps, by finding testers.
– We are looking for 5000 Apple iPAD apps testers
– No fees, costs nothing to you
– Test iPad apps for 2 months
– Send weekly reports, suggestions
– You may keep the iPad at program completion
To find-out more info about this program, click on:
http://www.apps-Research.com/Thanks
Apps Research Team
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? That’s because it is: it’s a scam. The signup page will ask you for your email and password so it can spam all of your friends (or your email lists, as the case may be). There’s also a version of this scam running loose on Facebook.
As Geeksugar says in the above link:
well, considering the iPad would have already been tested out the wazoo before being released to the public, you can be certain that this is a scam.
I reached the scam conclusion when I decided to check out the addresses mentioned in the email. First I looked up the owner of the apps-research.com domain. Guess what? His domain was registered just this month:
Domain Name: APPS-RESEARCH.COM
Registrar: INTERNET.BS CORP.
Whois Server: whois.internet.bs
Referral URL: http://www.internet.bs
Name Server: NS-CANADA.TOPDNS.COM
Name Server: NS-UK.TOPDNS.COM
Name Server: NS-USA.TOPDNS.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 20-jun-2010
Creation Date: 09-jun-2010
Expiration Date: 09-jun-2011
What’s more, the domain owner is located in the Bahamas …
Administrative Contact
Private Whois Service
Private Whois Service vctgghu4c1018f626840@n3omkv94bf61e901fd6c.privatewhois.net
*******PLEASE DO NOT SEND LETTERS******
****Contact the owner by email only****
c/o apps-research.com
N4892 Nassau
Bahamas
Tel: +852.81720004
… while his webserver is located in Costa Rica:
nslookup www.apps-research.com |more
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.apps-research.com
Address: 200.50.230.129
whois 200.50.230.129 |more
inetnum: 200.50.224/21
status: allocated
owner: Abdicar Communications, S.A.
ownerid: CR-ACSA5-LACNIC
responsible: Larry Hans Arroyo Vargas
address: Canton Central, –,
address: 2583-3000 – Barrio Coraz?n de Jes?s – HR
country: CR
It’s very unusual for a domain and webserver to reside in different countries.
Folks, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Never, ever, provide your password for one service to a different service. If you get an email that seems too good to be true, do some simple Google searches to see if they’re legitimate. If you’re still not sure, ask a friend who knows about computer security.
Above all, take what you read on the Internet with a grain of salt. This especially applies to any unsolicited emails you get that promise something for nothing.