Have you been scammed by a vBulletin scammer? You can trust our Professional vBulletin Services but sadly I can’t say that for all vBulletin Freelancers. vBulletin.org is the official vBulletin hack and styles site for vBulletin owners, so you would think it would be a safe place for vBulletin owners to get help and advice on their forums, right? Guess again. vBulletin.org is safe haven for vBulletin scammers and those into vBulletin warez! If you mention anything to the vBulletin.org staff about the scammers or users who have blatant warez on the forums, you’ll get an infraction and a temporary suspension which is what happened to me. I recently posted a thread in the forums regarding a staff member we once had that has ripped off a number of vBulletin owners. He himself even admitted to stealing a clients’ Database to use on his own site! Who in their right mind would allow the guy working on their site to “borrow” their Database??
I don’t really want to give this guy any credit, but I have to name him or no one will know anything about him. His name is Dave McHenry and goes by the name of FRDS at the Org. I see since I banned him and deleted him from my site, he’s been trying to bad mouth me by posting bogus stories on a site called ‘ripoffreports’. He says I took money from him, and scammed him. The main problem with his stories is that I NEVER take a payment until the work is done unless it’s a larger job (over $500). I’ve never had a complaint about my work, and I’ve been working on vBulletin sites for more than a year with 100’s of happy clients. You’ll see FRDS is trying to build his cred back up by asking his clients to post recommendations for the “great work” he has done. This is a total smoke screen but apparently I’m the only one who can see it. I’m not going to go into details on how Dave has scammed a number of people, other than to say that if you’ve had him work on your site, you might want to check over your styles for his affiliate links, or links he’s sold on your site without your knowledge. You could be making him money at the sacrifice of your own forum and hard work. I’ve posted all this before, just do a Google search and you’ll find a crappy site that scrapes everything from our forum. I’ve since deleted the threads but like I said, there is a scraper blog called staff-lounge that has all kinds of proof and facts of the ways this scammer is stealing from you.
Enough about this loser Dave, time to discuss how bad vBulletin.org is. I’ve reported them to vBulletin.com but then again, it is run by the same people so we all know nothing will ever come from it. Even though vbulletin.org staff are PAID by Jelsoft to protect and help vBulletin members. The next step would be to contact Internet Brands and let them know how corrupt the vBulletin.org Admins are. I’ve talked to some of the InternetBrand staff in the past, they had asked me to do some work for them but I was in a contract at the time, so I couldn’t do anything with them. I’ll try to contact them again to see if they still need some work done, at that time I’ll let them know about the scammers that the Org lets roam free on their support forums. I didn’t even mention the fact that the Org allows users with warez in their names or links to warez sites in their sigs with stolen vBulletin hacks and styles on it. Report them and the Org does nothing
I guess the whole point of this post is to let everyone know that the guy that’s working on your forum might not have your best intentions in mind, do background check on anyone you let touch your server, your data is the most important part of your site, you don’t want to compromise all the hard work you’ve put into your forum just because you thought you were getting a good deal for your upgrade. The old saying holds true: “you get what you pay for”. If you think you’re getting your forum upgraded for $40, it’s most likely because the guy working on your site is going to take more from you then just the $40 upfront payment.
I hope I’ve been able to at least enlighten a few people who might be looking to have vBulletin work done on their sites. I know it won’t stop everyone from getting scammed, but if it can help a half dozen, I’ll feel good about this post.
Tweet It!Posted by:Brandon Sheley in vbulletin scammers
Posted by McHenry is Douche on December 14th, 2008 at 2:07 pm |
Dave also ripped me off. But I’m going to go down to East Liverpool, Ohio and stop by his house to talk about this. It’s only about 40 minutes away.
Posted by Brandon on December 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm |
Sorry to hear that you got scammed too
Please update the post with any info that you find out from your talk with him. I’m sure he’ll have some excuses just like he always did whenever I would confront him about past complaints
Posted by Donnie on December 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pm |
Good use of verb tense tends to put more credibility to an article that is trying to accuse or to denounce someone or a reputable company. Try a spell checker next time.
Your site rocks. But you’re too emotional and have too many principles that restrict your possibilities.
Posted by Brandon on December 14th, 2008 at 2:21 pm |
Hi Donnie,
Care to point out my grammar mistakes? I’ll try to fix them. I admit I could use some classes on writing and grammar, but I can’t afford to hire someone to look over the copy of every blog post. I do the best I can to proof read everything I post, but some mistakes do pop up. Thanks for the complements on our forum, hope to hear back about this question.
regards
-Brandon
Posted by Donnie on December 14th, 2008 at 2:25 pm |
“you don’t want to compromised all the hard work”
Should it be “compromise”?
I’m starting to like you with the tone of the reply you gave to my comment. I thought I was a bit harsh, but it’s my time of the month.
Nice
Posted by Donnie on December 14th, 2008 at 2:30 pm |
Oh, and I’d also like to point out something that is related to your article yet not similar.
Scammers can also come from the other side of the deal. I have once worked for someone to install his vBulletin copy, design a new style, install add-ons, create rules and guides threads, and he still found a way to get his money back after filing a completely made-up yet amazingly believable complaint.
Posted by Brandon on December 14th, 2008 at 2:33 pm |
Thanks Donnie,
I’ll be the first to admit I have flaws, but all I can do is try to learn from my mistakes. I’ve changed that word, please do let me know if you see anything else, and thanks again for pointing my errors out.
I truly do appreciate it.
Yup, I think there is an old saying something like..
Whenever there is a way to make money, there will be was for scammers to scam. It can go either way, the best thing to do is research who you want to work on your site and make your decision carefully. As I said, the data of your site is the most important thing you have control of, if you lose your DB, you’ll have to start all over. And if someone else has your DB, they can recreate your site and email every single one of your members. That won’t look good to your members or yourself. Members have a strange sort of ownership to their profiles and post, I’ve seen some pretty heated debates over members post.
Just research, dot your I’s and cross your T’s whenever looking for someone to work on your websites.
Posted by Peter76 on December 14th, 2008 at 2:34 pm |
Give me a break dude. Your going to actually sit their and critize the guy’s spelling? Get a life and stick to the original topic.
Brandon thank you for the info. Luckily I have not been scammed since I don’t really trust anyone to begin with to do work on my site except you. Again thanks for the heads up buddy.
Posted by Pendant on December 14th, 2008 at 2:44 pm |
Shouldn’t that be “actually sit there and criticize..”
Posted by Brandon on December 14th, 2008 at 2:44 pm |
It’s okay Peter, as I said, my writing and grammar could use some work. I’m good at what I do, and that isn’t always writing content..lol
I’m thankful for every client I’ve worked with. It’s been a dream and a pleasure to work with so many talented webmasters and to be able to learn from those with large active forums as well as being able to pass the knowledge that I’ve picked up, to those new forum owners who just need an outline of the possibilities they have in their hands.
Posted by Secret Squirrel on December 14th, 2008 at 3:57 pm |
I have five vB’s and have been sort of “ripped” off; but did get one vB firm to do some mods to all that I paid them for. After they finished I noticed that the vBulletin in the copyright notice at the bottom of the page was now a link on all 5 forums — they had inserted their commission junction affiliate code which linked to the vB site!!! Is that a rip off or what? It was done withut my permission or knowledge. I quickly removed the links and won’t be doing business with them again (and they not the one that is referred to above)
Posted by nightbloom on December 14th, 2008 at 4:26 pm |
“But you have too many principles that restrict your possibilities.”
I dont even think that is possible. If I am paying someone to work on my one of a kind, easily ripped off website, then I want them to have so many principles that they are restricted from ripping me off. Anyone who views principles as “restricting to their possibilities” is a risk taker on the side of unprincipled behavior. Thanks, Ill take “too many principles” with a side of “emotional” any day.
Posted by Brandon on December 14th, 2008 at 4:32 pm |
If anyone thing was done on your forums without you knowing, then I would contact the advertisers they use and report them.
Posted by Josh Arcadia on December 14th, 2008 at 10:15 pm |
Do you work for hire? when? how? how much?
Posted by JacquiiCooke on December 14th, 2008 at 10:32 pm |
I think a lot of people are realizing what type of morons are running the .org site. I’ve had issues with them as well – was recently banned for issues un-related to your blog post Brandon… I was actually told to file a support ticket/ complaint at vBulletin.COM — So I did. And who was the replier to the ticket? None other than the vBulletin.org “Coordinator” — Issues there are beyond deplorable. I was told to re-register a new account of all things. Because of the freelance work I do for my vB Clients – I did, so that I (as a valid Jelsoft customer) have access to the downloads…
At anyrate – I’ve seen that asshole FRDS posting all over the .org and several other vB-related sites as well. One could say he trolls the Pre-Sales & General vBulletin sections. He’s probably all over the Paid Requests sections as well so that he can SCAM! It’s a shame to think that someone with so much obvious talent and promise as a vB Freelancer would abuse his clients trust as he has. The bigger shame is that HE hasn’t been suspended or banned forthright from .org as a known scam artist — They don’t care though. I recently posted a thread/suggestion about implementing a feedback system like iTrader… How simple it would be to implement such an obviously needed system (there have been so many recent reports of Members having been scammed and such…) — The idea was flamed by some of the witty of vBS (vBulletin.org Society), a couple Administrators mentioned chain of politics, other Admins mentioned they were too tired, eventually the thread was deleted from view.
At anyrate – The irony (as I wrote in my own blog) is obvious: I complain about the McDonalds management. The Manager handles the complaint.
My final assessment is –> Oh well – I suppose it’s all good to leave the chicken McNuggets alone.
Jacquii.
Posted by Blake2181 on December 15th, 2008 at 2:54 pm |
I for one know how these people feel. I payed Dave for a link campaign on a site I was working on. And I had some bad times with the latest hurricane and no power for awhile. When I came back he kept saying he had done what was asked, but what he had really done was take my money for nothing. He was supposed to be starting a huge link campaign between multiple sites over on digital point. He asked for 50 dollars and said he would include my link in all of the participating sites. He showed me examples of past campaigns that he had run and it was nice for the price. So I agreed. But when I got power back he gave me a report saying he submitted my site to a bunch of directories which he obviously did with a program. I even knew the name of the program. And he claimed some bogus story. What a loser. Anyway back on track.
I have been a member of vbsetup for awhile and visit on a daily basis. This site is an amazing site full of tons of great info. I can vouch for that as I have added some of it on multiple occasions.
And I agree with Brandon, people need to be careful with their sites. I personally have been given admin access to multiple owners sites from this site and many others to fix vbulletin problems in my spare time. And I would consider it a huge lack of respect to do something without letting the owner know. I have no idea why anyone would give access to the database, but if you have to, make sure you get someone you trust.
Karma always gets even.
Posted by Daniel on December 15th, 2008 at 4:27 pm |
This is why I dont let anyone work on my sites except for myself. vBulletin is great software so I hope Internet Brands, a publically traded company, can get this taken care of and regulate more to prevent any downfall of the future development of vBulletin.
Posted by Dudditz on December 15th, 2008 at 7:10 pm |
Thank you so much for making me aware of how the ORG is managed. Maybe its some how related to how Nulled vB versions are so quickly reproduced after a release.
I am a man of truth and honesty, and will be barring any use of products, plugins or reference of this guy at all of my forums.
Posted by Crow on December 16th, 2008 at 1:17 pm |
I was just scammed outta my vBulletin (with blog) license here at vBulletinsetup from the user merk51, I have no ill feeling towards vbulletinsetup since I’ve sold 4 other vB license’s as well as 3-4 vBSEO’s here at the site.
As soon as the license was transferred to him he contacted paypal stating he did not make that purchase, So now paypal took the cash back from me and I’m now sitting in limbo waiting to find out what will happen to this cash.
See before the cash was taken back out of my paypal account I had already sent it to my bank account to use on buying X-Mas presents for my 3 year old, because times are very tough for me right now.
My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in Feb 2008, and had a lumpectomy and over 8 weeks of chemo and we were very happy that she was getting to the end of this road with what we though was only 4 more weeks of radiation left, then she would be able to go back to work..
But a week before she was to start radiation, we found out that she had breast cancer AGAIN, and to make matters worse, this one grew while she was on chemo, making this one 10x worse! Needless to say shes having a double mastectomy on Dec 19th 2008 to what we hope will stop the cancer! She will then need to restart the 8 week chemo and radiation all over again…
Sorry for going off in another direction with this post, but I just wanted to let the scammers know that taking an item/money from someone, sometimes means allot more then they’d EVER imagine!
Posted by Peter on December 16th, 2008 at 1:33 pm |
Brandon,
You opened my eyes when you deteced the affiliate link that Dave put on my website without my permission. I eventually replaced his link with mine for vbSEO.
His talent can be used in much more constructive way if he does not break people’s trust.
Unfortunately by breaking my trust, he has made it bad for others who upgrade and write mods too on my forum. I no longer allow anyone on my site without using Webex to do a Shadow session i.e. I watch them do the work. This slows things down since I have to coordinate the timeslot and also removes the flexibility which others had regarding when they can do the work.
However, I will take slow over someone stealing or putting their affiliate links on my site.
Thanks for opening my eyes.
Peter
Posted by Todd on December 16th, 2008 at 3:50 pm |
I wish I had known before hand about all of this. However, I had Dave upgrade my site, and unless I am dumb or blind to what he did (which is possible) I dont have anything bad to say. He upgraded me from 3.6 to 3.7, worked perfect, had a few problems (after payment) and he jumped right in and fixed them, after payment and didnt ask for anything in return. No problem since. I have yet to find any links changed to his aff. sites or anything like that, but who know.
On a different note, speaking of the work you do here, I would love to chat about that, but the 2 occasions I have emailed and PM’ed you about working on my site, they go unanswered. No prob if you dont have time, but would be nice to hear back at least.
Posted by Brandon on December 16th, 2008 at 5:03 pm |
Hello Todd,
I apologize if I haven’t gotten back to you about work request. I’ve picked up a 8-5 job during the week doing tech support before the baby comes. Once he is here, I’ll be working full time from home again. (mid feb) If you sent an email in the last 3 months, I still have it in a clients folder on outlook. I’m slowly making my way though the emails, but then again, with the holidays around the corner my time is even more limited.
As for Dave working on your site, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s trying to clean up his act, actually I hope he is. All I can comment on is the work I’ve seen come back.
btw.. Thanks everyone who is commenting, I’m going to turn the nofollow off on comments as soon as I get a few mins to work on the blog.
Posted by Charles on December 17th, 2008 at 2:34 am |
OMG – Jesus wept!
I am so sick and tired of scammers, spammers and the like!
When I was growing up in a strict enviorenment, these people were JAILED!
Today it is their “RIGHT”!!! Jesus wept AGAIN!
Thank you all for your integrity and honesty and the more we flame these internet criminals the better!
Posted by Richard on December 19th, 2008 at 5:41 pm |
Crow, you should be able to have PayPal on your side, they usually take the seller’s side in cases of intangible goods. Not sure why they favored the buyer, but maybe if you inform them that it was intangible goods via a digital download, they would give you your money back.
Thanks Brandon for the heads up on FRDS. It’s hard to believe that such scammers could exist in the vB community, it’s the one thing that keeps vBulletin from being perfect.
Posted by Shelley on December 19th, 2008 at 8:02 pm |
I can say without any reservations Brandon is one of the most reliable and trustworthy people I know on the net. For a scammer, and let me elaborate, a scammer who has admitted to stealing databases and discredit a true contributor to the vbulletin community is a sure sign of the guilt that he shows each day by posting the many lies and getting other people to post on vbulletin.org to praise how good his services is. The same site that allows scammers to prowl their site on unsuspecting members of the community who work hard for their money.
Anyway, I just had to add my 2 cents worth and am gobsmacked how scammers can live with themselves, knowingly, they are ripping off the people that puts food on their plates. May they all choke in their easy money.
Posted by Brandon on December 21st, 2008 at 12:21 am |
Thanks for the support everyone.
I was just looking at vb.org, checking out the new mods and post and I seen this locked thread. Now the whole deal with vb.org isn’t the fault of the moderator. It’s the admin and the policy.. I commend the moderators and staff that help, but someone up top needs to restructuring… Anyways,, here is a perfect example on how the Org is messed up. This user is asking for warez hosting, yet he can dl mods and styles.
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=199371
Posted by Damien on December 21st, 2008 at 12:47 am |
Hello, I’m a vbsetup member as well. Thanks for the heads up about the vb.org teams. I never realized they were that bad.
On another note to answer a few people asking about paypal…….NO they do NOT give the money back to the seller, this is bogus info. If you got your money back then you are well lucky then. They do not support electronic intangible goods at all and ALWAYS give the money back to the buyer screwing you out of your money when you have worked hard on a design page, skin, code etc. Paypal has f**cked me out of hundreds of dollars because a buyer went back crying to them with some chumped up story about the payment. This has happened about 4-5 times in the last 2 years of running a design business online. So be very careful and wary of paypal.
Posted by Todd on December 29th, 2008 at 4:17 pm |
NP Brandon, figured you were busy. Let me know when you do get time. I understand getting ready for a youngin, I have 2 more on the way
Posted by Brandon on January 12th, 2009 at 11:16 pm |
So I could see I was getting nowhere reporting dave to the Org, I went to his source of $$
one being cj.com
This was their reply to me report..
Thank you for submitting this information. Based on the code you provided in your email dated 12/23/08, we were able to confirm that the account tied to Mr. McHenry was removed from our network in September for stuffing cookies.
Dave has also been banned from using the affiliate system at vbseo.com
Posted by The best part on January 13th, 2009 at 5:59 pm |
The best part is his guest redirection system lite at vB.org thats loaded with cookies being dropped
Posted by Brandon on January 14th, 2009 at 10:52 pm |
Oh really?
and the staff at the Org doesn’t know it?
if you post some details, I’ll make sure his mod gets reported
Posted by The best part on January 15th, 2009 at 2:12 pm |
just check the mod, its all in his templates every where i gotta renew domain and setup vb again to find it
Posted by Brandon on January 16th, 2009 at 3:07 pm |
Oh, I don’t download his mods or styles. I don’t even like looking at his site because I know he could stuff cookies on it for my browser as well.
I’m really done with his crap. He’s now trying to get ppl to link to the ripoff reports which clearly show bogus claims.. I don’t really know or care what he’s up to. I’ve been doing this work for years and have had nothing be good comments about my work.
I don’t have the time to watch over him anymore.. He posted in a reply to me when I seen his Brandon Sheley links to ripoffreports. That he could easily rebrand himself and keep scamming, I sent the pm to marco and paul but they didn’t care..lol
So I’m done with him, I’ve moved on.
Just investigate who you have work on your sites.
I’m closing the post for comments, enough has been said and it’s time to move on