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Comment on Ask HN: I think I've been scammed - what now?

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At the risk of adding to the intrigue here, I think it's best if this community knows that there might be someone unsaviory amongst us. It is jiganti's perogative whether or not to out the person responsible for this. However, nothing stops a bit of detective work.

Whois on both wikizu.com and crushtease.com reveal:

    Registrant:
        Sink Float
        P.O. Box 820
        Beijing, Beijing 100837
        China

    Administrative Contact:
        Float, Sink  sinkyfloaty@gmail.com
        P.O. Box 820
        Beijing, Beijing 100837
        China
        +20.13352074153      Fax --
A few tests of user profile pages shows us there is a user here named 'sinkfloat'. Strange, but not conclusive by any means. Another search using searchyc.com using 'sink float' reveals another user, 'pinksoda' making some outrageous claims about sites he/she has built [1] [2]. Also, a link to a new business they started, www.sinkfloat.com [3]. Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Whois on sinkfloat.com reveals the same contact information as wikizu.com and crushtease.com.

Knowing that jiganti mentioned this user has at least two handles here, a lot of evidence points that pinksoda and sinkfloat are one in the same and likely the person jiganti partnered with on this venture.

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299723

[2]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299094

[3]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1269276

Conclusive? Maybe not. Certainly enough, IMO, to make anyone thinking of doing business with pinksoda or sinkfloat think twice. Unsavory business practices, scammers, etc are not welcome here, as far as I'm concerned. I welcome pinksoda and/or sinkfloat to chime in here if this analysis is wrong. If so, I apologize.

If you examine the DNS records for wikizu.com, you'll find:

    wikizu.com		SOA	
    server:	ns1.linode.com
    email:	talkburst@gmail.com
    serial:	2010102781
    refresh:	14400
    retry:	14400
    expire:	1209600
    minimum ttl:	86400
        86400s
    wikizu.com		NS	ns4.linode.com	86400s
    wikizu.com		NS	ns1.linode.com	86400s
    wikizu.com		NS	ns2.linode.com	86400s
    wikizu.com		NS	ns5.linode.com	86400s
    wikizu.com		NS	ns3.linode.com	86400s
    wikizu.com		MX	
        preference:	10
        exchange:	mail.wikizu.com
        86400s
    wikizu.com		A	69.164.209.157	86400s
So, that gives you an email address (maybe). Then, if you lookup which domains are hosted on the same IP as the mail server there (the MX record), you'll find:
  * crushtease.com
  * earcavity.com
  * seoette.com
  * sinkfloat.com
  * wikizu.com
Two of those we haven't seen yet. I'm not going to post anyone's personal info here...but if you're the kind of person that likes to do whois searches (and who isn't!), you'd find some relevant contact info. You might also then search DDG for the site name and look at a few of the top results.

Also, this account seems associated with it:

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BrianHolt

I too invite BrianHolt/pinksoda/sinkfloat to come forth and explain this. If this is all a mistake, I apologize in advance.

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