Ok, I just got this message in the wee hours of the night and thought it belongs here since it affects Apex's referral __________________ I too got this message and I have barely used Echo at all. I left it on for 1 night for about 5 hours or so, but other than than I've probably listened for 1 hour total. It looks like it's probably wide-spread and not worth fighting.__________________ I also received a letter from echo last night. I've barely used the service. My browser craps out after about 30 minutes of listening. I think they are in big trouble and just trying to bail on people. I only have about 400 points and have never refered anyone. Sad. I even tried to go to the link that show what abuse is and it didn't work.__________________ Dear Sir / Madam,I don't really know what your company is trying to say but to me it seems that you can't afford to pay your rewards and that is why you are sending these ridiculous e-mails. All I did was listen to your service, I never referred one person. Fraud is a very serious word and I think this e-mail should be forwarded to your legal department. I am not going to waste my time sending your firm a reply by postal mail as I am sure you are hoping that most whom you sent this e-mail to do not reply to it either. If an e-mail is an acceptable means for your firm to cancel my account for no reason then why is it not an acceptable medium for me to reply back? It is an easy way to avoid the payments that your firm promised. As far as I am concerned your site is a scam and I will post your letter along with my reply to all boards, lists, and consumer protection organizations as deemed necessary. Perhaps some that have more to lose than I will be able to organize a class action suit. If so then you can count me in. Regards, C. XXXXXXX ----- Original Message ----- From: "Echo Fraud Department" To: "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.com> Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 4:47 AM Subject: Rewards Program Fraud > Dear member, > > Someone using your account has engaged in activity that violates > Echo's Terms and Conditions regarding fraudulent behavior. According > to the Terms and Conditions of Echo's Rewards Program, you may not > engage in any behavior that artificially or fraudulently inflates your > time listened or your number of referrals. Please refer to our Rewards > program terms and conditions for details about what constitutes fraud, > http://www.echo.com/rewards_tc.jsp. > > At this time we are suspending your account. Any redemption claims > made from your account(s) will not be honored. If you feel this > judgment has been made in error please contact us and provide a > written explanation detailing why your account should be > re-instated. Send all correspondence to: Echo Networks, 182 Howard > Street, Box 407, San Francisco, CA 94105. You have until 11/05/00 to > respond. No E-mail replies will be accepted. > > Thank You, > > Echo Fraud Department > __________________ i think that what is happening is they are suspending all accounts that are coming from the same computer. I refered myself 3 times to gain the referal points to my numerous email accounts at hotmail. they frooze my main account and my refered accounts. they must have noticed that same home address or first and last name or something. What ever you do dont refer yourself__________________ I signed up for their service, downloaded the program, tried to run it and it couldn't get through my firewall.Therefore, I have NEVER used their service and have NO referrals AND I received the same email. Man, am I guilty of fraud... __________________ Whatever.........Here is my reply:Dear Fraud Department, If you can accuse me of some sort of infraction I feel as though I have the right to reply via the same medium. ie this email service. I re-read the user agreement and do not understand why my account has been suspended. I do not believe the burden of proof is should be on me. I listen to the service throughout the day and have enjoyed it when it is not buffering or loading. However, I do not have time to write a letter asking you forgive me of something I feel I did not do. So, if you will not accept this correspondence as communication then that will be a business decision you have made. I hardly expect you to maintain many members dealing with them in this manner. Unless that is your goal. Good luck, ex-member __________________ This is NOT the way to start the morning. Here is what I wrote them (and will be mailing, I'm calling their bluff. A-holes.) :xxx September 7, 2000 Echo Networks 182 Howard Street, Box 407 San Francisco, CA 94105 To whom it may concern: I am extremely disappointed in this turn of events from Echo. I woke up this morning to receive an email from the "Echo Fraud Department" accusing me of defrauding your system and stating that my account would be disabled immediately unless I responded in writing. While I find it hard to respond when the specific problem with my account went unstated, let me begin by stating I find this accusation to be extremely strong and is not the way to make friends in the Cyberspace world. Because I know I have done nothing wrong, a large part of me wants to say "screw this" and never deal with your service again. I do not need to be accused of violating laws in unsigned emails. My username is xxxx. The only thing I have done that could possibly be misunderstand is use both my work and home computers to listen to Echo– because I liked the music! (Using the work machine at work, home machine at home). I have not seen one gift certificate or any other reward from your program to date. But I continued to listen because I enjoyed it. I referred my dad to the system (xxx) and have told many friends about it. I find this extremely upsetting and counterproductive to accuse your users of fraud in such a blatant, baseless, and arrogant way. I am sitting here, stunned, as I have done nothing that I can see in your terms and conditions that comes anywhere near violating them. Again, I find this suspension baseless and handled in an extremely unprofessional way and am writing to request my three outstanding Amazon gift certificates immediately, as well as reinstatement of my account. I would also like a full apology as to the substance of the accusation as I know your claims, whatever they are, are absolutely baseless and without merit. Disappointed, xxx [Edited by Justin42 on 09-07-2000 at 06:12 AM] __________________ I got the same E-mail. I think they are sending out the E-mails in mass quantities just to scare people away from the site. You know, all a psychological effect. Right now I don't even have enough points to redeem for a simple Amazon GC and never have.*Sigh* Oh well, time to start writing a letter to the "Fraud Department" stating why our accounts should still be active.__________________ I signed up for Echo at work and referred about 5 guys I work with since we have broadband connection. We all listened during the day and actually sort of enjoyed the service. My wife signed herself up for an account under me at home. We both got the fraud letters.Did any of you also get this though? At 2:37am I got the fraud email, at 3:46am I got a letter "To our valued customers." Here's a couple paragraphs: "Unfortunately, Rewards proved an irresistible lure to cheaters and frauds. As the cheating increased it became necessary to put all Rewards through a rigorous validation process to ensure the legitimacy of every claim. This validation process has lengthened the time required to process Rewards requests. At our current rate of redemption you can expect to wait 6-8 weeks for your Reward to arrive. In the meantime, we encourage you to keep listening to echo." Notice the part where they keep calling me a valued customer and encourage us to keep listening? Yeah, sure, since you suspended my account and accused of fraud an hour before this... Plain and simple - they couldn't afford to give out the promised rewards so they're shutting everyone down. I don't understand how companies pull these publicity stunts and then get cranky when they get too much exposure. Isn't that the point? I say we ALL reply via email. I might also reply via snail mail, just for the heck of it since I haven't used me $50 free E-Stamp postage yet. Although how are we supposed to respond when we can't view the terms of service since the page is down? Wonder if it's because they took the page down to make changes to include things that weren't on it before. Because I actually read that page and one of the beauties of the program was that there was practically no rules against anything. Ironic that they're accusing us of fraud when it's clear to me who the fraudulant party really is here... Definitely a bit of fraud to be changing the terms if that is in fact why that page is down. So I'm emailing and snail mailing, I don't expect to get anywhere and my wife and I have only tried to redeem around $60 in gc's, but it's not right that a company does this. __________________ I got the same extra e-mail. I did send myself an e-mail just to get my referral ID# since I didn't know what it was so I can send it to other people to get my credit.__________________ Just got this email from them:Justin, Hopefully you also received a letter explaining that we have been inundated with cheaters and that has forced us to take some drastic measures. We by no means think our fruad detection system is perfect, and we do want to make sure that anyone that received this message in error is given a chance to explain the behavior that has resulted in their receipt of the letter you refer to. If you are indeed a "real" user that has not set up multiple accounts to cheat our system, then we apologize for accusing you of something you didn't do. The "suspension" of your account means you cannot redeem rewards, but does not mean you can't listen. I would urge you to send in the letter to clear this matter up. Stephen White VP Product Development Echo Networks __________________ While I understand your need to keep the cheaters in check (hell, Iemailed you earlier last month to inform you of people bragging about cheating) I still think it's amazing you would send out such a general email. My letter (from my previous email) is ready to go in today's mail and will be out as soon as picked up. But I find it hard to defend myself from accusations without backing evidence or even an explanation about what I supposedly did wrong! Again, I assure you I have done nothing wrong. I would strongly suggest you reconsider your fraud notification policy. Had I received an email explaining the mass cheating, along with a description of what I had supposedly done, with say a 5 day warning that I had to explain or lose my account. Something. In a friendly manner. As it is, receiving the letter and reading your TOS (for the third or fourth time, they appear to have been majorly revised) this morning just after waking up has me feeling like the stormtroopers are about to break down the door and haul me off to jail. Not a way to make friends. I will not be using your service (read: clicking advertisements, which I always used to do as I believed so strongly in Echo) until this situation is resolved. __________________ I suspect that they might be using the "guilt by association" rule when sending out all of these fraud letters. I suspect most of us on this board signed up by using the link on got|apex, and hence where a referee of got|apex. They think got|apex is commiting fraud by telling people to set-up there PC's to listen all the time. Therefore, all the referees of got|apex must be "bad" and so on down the line. In the end, I think that there business model is not working and they are trying to throw the luggage off the boat to keep it from sinking. Echo is a Titanic at this point.__________________ what a headache!and of course, this comes the day after i convince my friends at work to put it on their computers! and the worse part is i really don't care about the rewards program... i like the music and the features of the player. but now i don't know if i want to continue using the service. why would i want to frequent a site that accuses me of "fraud" without specifically stating or substaniating (did i spell that right?) the problem? __________________ Yeah whats up with this? I have never not for one second used Echo's software b/c of a firewall at work, but yet I get this e-mail. They probably got in way over their heads w/ this and are trying to back out....I mean, they cancelled my servce that I never used__________________ The TC page is up. Delete the period at the end:http://www.echo.com/rewards_tc.jsp Echo is suck. __________________ I was bored .... here is what i got:---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 06:46:15 -0700 Subject: Re: Echo Fraud Department XXXXXX I understand you are upset. As I said we are not perfect and we may have made a mistake. I will forward your mail on to our rewards staff to look into your account. If we sent you this message in error we will clear it up. Stephen -----Original Message----- Date: Thursday, September 07, 2000 6:35 AM Subject: Re: Echo Fraud Department >I have no referalls. It is not like I made 100 fake ones to boost up my >points. I listen the echo only when I am working and sitting at this >desk, which may happen to be many, many hours in a row. Writing out a >letter and wasting the 33 cents or whatever the damn post office is >charging now for this crap is totally out of the question. Definitely not >worth it. Your company better watch what they are doing before they lose >all of their users. I know I am not the only person to get this ungodly >unneccesary email. > >On Thu, 7 Sep 2000 lift@sfo.com wrote: > >> XXXXXXX, >> >> Hopefully you also received a letter explaining that we have been inundated >> with cheaters and that has forced us to take some drastic measures. We by >> no means think our fruad detection system is perfect, and we do want to make >> sure that anyone that received this message in error is given a chance to >> explain the behavior that has resulted in their receipt of the letter you >> refer to. If you are indeed a "real" user that has not set up multiple >> accounts to cheat our system, then we apologize for accusing you of >> something you didn't do. >> >> The "suspension" of your account means you cannot redeem rewards, but does >> not mean you can't listen. I would urge you to send in the letter to clear >> this matter up. >> >> Stephen White >> VP Product Development >> Echo Networks >> >> -----Original Message----- >> To: feedback@echo.com >> Date: Thursday, September 07, 2000 6:06 AM >> Subject: Echo Fraud Department >> >> >> >I recently received an email stateing that the Echo Fraud Department >> >believes I was "[engaging] in [an] activity that violates Echo's Terms and >> >Conditions regarding fraudulent behavior." Now as to how simply listening >> >to the music is commiting fraud in concern to the terms and conditions of >> >usage is absolutely beyond me. The mere fact that I would be accused of >> >doing something labeled fraudluent is an insult. And to top it all off, >> >ending the notice by suspending my account and insisting that any >> >correspondence is written and snail-mailed back to you is unbelievable. I >> >will not waste my time doing so ... I am surprised I have taken the 2 >> >minutes to type up this email. If you intend to make money by getting >> >users who listen to your music and watch your ads, you better work on your >> >customer service skills. __________________ Yeah, this is total crap. I got that email too, and I've only referred one person, and I haven't used and scripts or anything. The only thing that could have possibly been done by me that would trigger a "Fraud detection system" (assuming there actually is one), would be to rate a lot of music. I've rated close to 600 artists, and 350 songs and albums, and I occasionally click on their add banners. Oh, and here is their definition of what fraud is:Fraud. No compensation system is immune from manipulation by users who are intent on getting something for nothing. Such behavior is detrimental to the entire community and, in particular, echo's most valued users who play by the rules. echo does not tolerate such fraudulent behavior. Thus, you may not engage in any behavior that artificially or fraudulently inflates your time listened or your number of referrals. Without limiting the foregoing, you may not use robots, scripts, or other automated processes to access any portion of the site without echo's express written permission. __________________ To whom it may concern:Both myself and my wife have recieved notifications that we have committed acts of 'fraud' based on the terms of service for Echo.com which are unfounded. Not only that but you have chosen to deny me an electronic dispute method, which until now has been the only method we have communicated with you. FURTHERMORE, you have suspended my account and told me that if I want to dispute this charge of fraud I should "provide a written explanation detailing why your account should be re-instated", yet you have declined to tell me what it was I did. You merely make an accusation of wrong doing with no details. How, might I ask, am I to give you a detailed explaination of something I have yet to be informed of. It is my opinion that the Wisconsin Attourney General will find your violation of our agreement (ie-- I will listen to your music and view your ads and you will provide me with rewards for that) interesting. Once he is also made aware of the fact that every single person I know of who uses this system got an identical letter, INCLUDING people who signed up and them stopped using the service after only a few hours, I am sure that you will be called to account. Unless of course, both myself and my wife we're accidentally picked up in a fraud sweep and can be easily reinstated. Have a good day. ~~~~~~~~~ Tomorrow I will be visiting the WI AG's office. : ) __________________ I have barely 1700 points after about a month, have refered NO ONE, and listen pretty much at work - when I can get a connection.This letter is a crock. You cannot send out vague, generic emails, then demand a response by snail mail. Don't even know how to defend myself, not sure I will bother. Piss poor management. __________________ I have yet to receive a fraud letter from Echo, but their service is down about half the time!I think this mass email from Echo is an indication of something much larger: that these "reward" services simply have no hope of lasting. Even AllAdvantage, the darling of all rewards programs, has fallen. Here are the steps of all rewards programs to date: 1. Put out a great idea of a rewards program. 2. Please a few thousand people for a few months. 3. Spend a couple more months pissing off all of those people, and disappoint a few thousand newcomers. 4. Reneg on your agreements and close your doors. The old adage of getting something for nothing continues to ring true. I think it's time to close this chapter of the "new economy" book. __________________ Quote:
That's prolly about it. __________________ HEHE I recieved the email saying that it now will take up to 6-8 weeks to recieve my Amazon GCs.....they didn't suspended my account. I guess I was lucky I didn't referral anyone.  ~NiceMann __________________ so if they suspend your account? do they kill all the GC which are pending to you too?__________________ I actually got a different email from them:To our valued members, Echo was founded with the idea of bringing a great musical experience to the world and allowing everyone to share in it. When we started the Rewards program we were trying to give something back to our users who stuck with us during the trials and tribulations of our Beta test period. The response to the Rewards program has been phenomenal. Your participation has provided us with valuable feedback and allowed us to test our site under the stress and strain of a real environment. Unfortunately, Rewards proved an irresistible lure to cheaters and frauds. As the cheating increased it became necessary to put all Rewards through a rigorous validation process to ensure the legitimacy of every claim. This validation process has lengthened the time required to process Rewards requests. At our current rate of redemption you can expect to wait 6-8 weeks for your Reward to arrive. In the meantime, we encourage you to keep listening to echo. As our echo community continues to grow you will see improvements to the site and the Rewards program. You can be assured that all validated past and future Rewards requests will be honored. We appreciate your participation and hope that we can continue to be your source for online music. Thank You, Echo Rewards Department __________________ Nobody's mentioned this yet but do you think Apex will intervene here? I assume most of us signed up under his referral.__________________ Aint this some Sh*%??? I have never ever even used the echo program, hell I never even downloaded the program, and they sent me this email. I'm beginning to think somehow they got a list of all users of Got|Apex? and sent them all this email. This totally bites.__________________ Even i got am email saying i would have to wait 6-8 weeks but no suspension of my account. Probably because i did not refer anyone..__________________ I believe the consensus is that.... ECHO SUCKS! |
Sunday, May 27, 2007
echo problem
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