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March 29, 2006
Allofmp3: a word of caution
We've not had any problems with the Russian music download site, Allofmp3.com, but a while back we noticed that they'd changed their credit card arrangements to what looked like a Russian site. Somehow, that didn't fill us with a lot of confidence. By then we'd downloaded pretty well all the music we were interested in, so we've not been back.
Now Sean's just alerted us to the fact that a European music magazine, Side-Line, had reported incidents of massive credit card fraud involving Russian music download sites. Side-Line says it has been "inundated by e-mails from readers from all over the world including the USA, UK, Belgium, France, Holland etc" claiming they have been the victim of fraudulous [great word, fraudulous] use of their credit cards" after dealing with Russian music sites. The modus operandi seems to involve hand-picking targets, and charging their cards between $US1000 and $US3000, says the magazine.
We're not sure if Allofmp3 is involved, and the sudden charging of amounts like that would surely set alarm bells ringing in the credit card companies, but it might be a good idea, if these sites have got your current card details, to give your credit card security department a call, alerting them to this concern. And in the meantime, as always, keep a close eye on your credit card statements.
UPDATE: As Stephen notes in a comment below, the response to the Digg article on this topic raises the possibility that this is a put-up job staged by the recorded music industry. Bleeding Edge certainly wouldn't put it past them. As we said, we've not had any problems ourselves. And those comments about these fraudulent fraudulous transactions being unrecoverable look suspiciously like wild propaganda to us. All the same, in our opinion it's not wise to discount these things out of hand. Don't be paranoid, but do exercise caution.
Posted by cw at March 29, 2006 04:22 PM
Comments
I tried to add some money to my Allofmp3 account the other day, but my credit card wouldn't authenticate. I don't know whether it was just an isolated problem, or whether it's connected the the fraud issue you're talking about. All in all, I might give it a miss for the moment.
Posted by: Dan at March 29, 2006 05:46 PM
I use allofmp3.com with an Aussie credit card.
I have a transaction from this year. The new system took some wrangling, it wasn't as simple and neat as the old one.
a very happy allofmp3.com customer
Posted by: kw at March 29, 2006 06:13 PM
If you've got a paypal account, you can buy an xrost pre-paid card (www.xrost.biz) and add money to your allofmp3 account that way. This has 2 advantages:
1. The CC payment is done through paypal, who are probably more secure than most (at least you'd hope...)
2. allofmp3 give you a 10% bonus for paying by xrost, so if you buy US$20 xrost card, you'll get US$22, etc.
All up, it's only a couple of extra clicks...
Posted by: Rob at March 29, 2006 06:42 PM
And how goes your internet financial transactions? Do you still not trust the internet for banking?
cheers, Paul
Posted by: Paul at March 29, 2006 07:51 PM
I've had to embrace it finally, Paul. But no, I don't really trust it. I check my account two or three times a day, generally.
Posted by: cw at March 29, 2006 10:42 PM
It is interesting to read the Digg.com comments on this article...
The majority of Digg users are calling it RIAA FUD.
You can check out the comments on Digg here.
Posted by: Stephen at March 30, 2006 01:46 AM
Tes, it's easy to pay Allofmp3.com with Paypal. Since they never see your CC details, it seems pretty risk-free to me.
I'm sure the Recording Industry Ass. of America hates AllofMP3, so this could indeed be propaganda.
Posted by: Colin J at March 30, 2006 11:18 AM
Having same problem, once I try to process payment I get a "authentification error".
Has anybody found a simply way around this ?
Posted by: Rob F at May 12, 2006 08:55 AM