Dangerous Hacker/Scammer

WARNING!

Do not go to the blogspot blog set up by the stardoll called priin. which she mentions in her starblog. There is a link there that leads to a fake stardoll site.

This is what her blog looks like. But look at the bottom of the page on the left. It tells the URL address of the link. It is not for stardoll, but for starboll!

The link goes to a site that looks like stardoll. Look closely at the screenshot. The URL is not stardoll.com but starboll.0fees.net

I clicked on a link on the page and was surprised because my browser filled in my username and password! I deleted them, closed the window, deleted my cookies, quit the browser and restarted. But that was close.

Other girls are probably being tricked by this. It looks to me like the account for priin. is being used to get victims to scam. I have asked Stardoll to please delete the account, or see if it used to belong to someone else and get it returned to the original owner.

Please let me know if you see this particular scam being posted on any other users pages. I am afraid the scammer is stealing accounts and posting this in the blogs of all the victims in order to continue to reach more victims. Leave a comment in my madmadeleine guestbook on Stardoll for the fastest response. Thanks.

Hacker warning!

You can get hacked just by going to another website outside of stardoll or by clicking a photo or link on a blog or website outside of Stardoll.

Make sure you are logged out and your cookies are cleared/deleted before visiting any other site than Stardoll.

Let us get a few terms straight. Scammers are not hackers. Scammers are con artists tricking kids into giving passwords. There are 2 ways that usually happens. This is the most common. A scammer will convince an owner of an account (we will call that person a sucker) to share her password. Scammers offer many different things, some as simple as a "make-over" of a medoll, a presentation or a room in the sucker's suite. The scammer may say she knows a "cheat" that will get the sucker free stuff superstar or stardollars. A lot of girls on this site are young and trusting. Scammers don't have to much more than lie and they can get the sucker's password and anything else they want.

All you have to do to thwart a scammer is to refuse to give your password.

Hackers are more dangerous. They use weaknesses in the website computer code to break into accounts. This is very bad.

Stardoll uses tiny snippets of programming language called cookies. When you log on, you create a cookie automatically. It contains your password information.

There are programmers who have ways to steal this cookies right off your computer! This information is widely available to hackers. Just google "cookie stealing" and you will find out exactly how to do it. It's not easy for most of us, but some people are good at computer language, and if they just follow the steps, they can steal accounts.

From what I understand, a cookie logger (that is what these hackers are called) can log in, but only if you are logged in. Then they hijack your session. They If you want to be safe, only visit other sites and blogs when you are NOT logged into stardoll. And then make sure to clear out your cookies and quit the browser. Then launch it again and log in to stardoll. I can't guarantee you will be competely safe, but you will be safer.

If you suspect that you have gone to a cookie stealing site and you were logged in, you can try this right away. If you act quickly, you may be able to minimize the damage. Log out right away. If you log out before the hijacker changes your password, you may have escaped any harm. Then clear your cookies and log back in and change your password.

Make sure you create a strong password. More about that later.

This is the story of how debbiecat4 was hacked. Please read all about it and learn how to protect yourself. It started with flattery. Someone contacted debbiecat4 and told her she loved her designs and had written about her in her blog. And to see it, all she had to do was to click a link that she provided. Debbiecat4 says it was ego that led her to click the link. But when she did, there was no blog. The web address was set up for what is called cookie stealing or cookie logging. Things got bad very fast. Debbiecat4 logged out. She didn't realize there was a problem until she tried to log back on and her password didn't work. The hacker started to take all of debbiecat4's stardollars by buying stuff using her account. While this was going on, debbiecat4 logged into her daughter’s account and started alerting friends to get help.

I went into debbiecat4's closet room. The hacker was buying a lot of stardesigned items at 60 each. I’m sure she was buying them from an account that had been set up just to have these items on sale. The money has probably passed thru many accounts to try to make the theft untraceable. But this is the way the hacker got a lot of debbiecat4’s stardollars. The hacker gots her starbucks, which is a shame. But debbiecat4 can buy and earn more. Call it an expensive lesson. But if the hacker had been able to sell her rares they might have been impossible to replace. That’s the one part where friends can help. If someone you know is being hacked, this is what you can do to help. You can make it very difficult for a hacker to strip an account of valuable and irreplaceable items.

The friends of debbiecat4 watched her bazaar, ready to pounce. If they had seen a rare on sale, they were ready to buy it right away and keep the hacker from getting it. The idea was that when debbiecat4 got her account back, her rares could be sold back to her. A whole team needs to help, because if one doll already has that particular rare, she cannot buy another. Someone who does not have it would have to step in and buy it. In this case, the hacker was busy getting the money from the account. Since there was a lot of money, that took a lot of time. The hacker did not get to start selling the rares before debbiecat4 managed to get her account back. But while the account was under the control of the hacker, the hacker sent messages by doll mail to every one of debbiecat4’s friends saying debbiecat4 needed help and asking for passwords!

No one fell for that trick. Remember, don't give your password to anyone! At least debbiecat4 was aware that she was being hacked and could use another account to let her friends know. The hacker probably changed her password right away so debbiecat4 could not log in. I have been told that the following is the best thing to if you are hacked. Send proof to stardoll support right away that the account is yours. Forwarding an email receipt will do it along with a note asking for immediate help. Put “emergency--being hacked now” or something like that in the subject line. And send it directly to support@stardoll.com by regular email.

You can also fax stardoll. Use the information at the bottom of every page at Stardoll.com under "kids privacy policy." The fax numbers are there. Debbiecat4 got her account back within hours because she faxed proof to Stardoll that the account was hers.

---------- I found instructions on how to create a cookie logger to hack people on the web. It's a shame that people do this. I googled this and found at least a hundred websites that had the step-by-step way to do this. So this is not new or secret information. Some of the posts about this were from 2002!

I am not going to post all the insructions, just the ones about what is going to happen:

Step 6: The victim sees the image u uploaded but when he clicks the image he has a Temporary Error and you will get his/her cookie.

Step 7: To get the access to the Victim’s Account you need to replace your cookies with the Victim’s Cookie.

Step 8: Go to the Website whose Account you have just hacked and you will find that you are logged in as the Victim and now you can change the victim’s account information.

Note: Make sure that from Step 6 to 8 the Victim should be Online because you are actually Hijacking the Victim’s Session So if the Victim clicks on Logout you will also Logout automatically but once you have changed the password then you can again login with the new password and the victim would not be able to login.

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See in the note how it says that if the victim logs out the hacker will get logged out too. That is only until the hacker is able to change your password. So if you suspect you are being hacked, log out right away! It might work and prevent the hacker from doing much damage. Then clear your cookies (you should learn how to do this and do it often,) and log in and change your password. If that works, you have just saved yourself a lot of trouble.

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For this method of cookie stealing, you need to be logged into Stardoll in order for the Hacker to steal your cookie. Don't go to any other websites while you are logged into Stardoll. But keep in mind that there are also ways to steal cookies still in your browser, even when you are not logged in, so clear/delete your cookies after you log out every time to be safe.

Don’t visit any other websites or blogs while you are logged into Stardoll. Think twice before you click any link someone sends you. Do you really know the person who sent it to you? You might not want to visit websites that look like bait for unsuspecting suckers, sites that offer stardoll cheats and loopholes and other things you know don't exist. Visiting hackers websites and blogs is risky. I recommend you try to refrain from doing so. I take lots of precautions, and I use a Mac, which adds a layer of extra protection. My router also provides a firewall, another layer of protection. I noticed my firewall gets pinged more than once every 20 seconds, so I am glad it is there protecting me. If you are confident that you are fully protected, then go ahead.

BTW, the second way most people get hacked is when they use an easy-to-guess password. Hackers already have your login name. So they just read the presentation and blog. Someone says her dog is named lucky. The hacker tries logging in using lucky as the password. And a lot of the time, it works, because people use common, easily guessed passwords. Make sure to have a password that is impossible to guess. Never never give your password to anyone. Okay, maybe your mom or dad if you are a kid. Ask yourself, "Would I let this person have the keys to my car? My house? My ATM card and pin number?" True friends will never ask for your password.

While you are thinking about it, change your password. It should contain letters, numbers and something called a "special character". "Special character" refers to symbols like @#$%^&*?, basically the stuff you can type on your keyboard that is not a number or a letter. Write it down and keep it in a safe, secret place. Somewhere you will remember. I like the idea of hiding things in plain site. Write it on the top of page 50 in a particular book. And don't use consecutive numbers or the same number or letter repeated. 123pass is too easy! Try something like r@3ty1. It has numbers, letters and a "special character." BTW, no one can hack you on Stardoll. There is a rumor that girls have been hacked by accepting a friend request. That is not true. No one will be able to hack you from any of the activities you may participate in on the site.

Please contact me if you have any questions. I have been told that the comments box does not work on this blog. Sorry. Please leave a note in my medoll's guestbook.

Maddy

How to report scammers

I am going to provide you with information to help you make Stardoll a better place. Are you ready?

Start by reporting scammers. You must catch them in the act. You can only report ones that you actually catch. This is very important. Do not report anyone just because a friend said they were a scammer. You must see the scam on the presentation of the scammer, in her starblog or album or in a guestbook. You must be able to take a screenshot of the wrongdoing. There are penalties for putting in a false report. Do not risk it. You could lose your account. If you have any doubt, contact me thru my club advice4newbies or my guestbook and I will check it out.

Use the report tools on the site. Write in a specific paragraph about what you are reporting and why. Let them know you are taking a screenshot. This is important evidence.

Do you know how to take a screenshot? Go to http://www.take-a-screenshot.org/ and make sure you are doing it right. I have a mac, so it is easy for me to take a shot of multiple windows. There are also software programs to help you with that. The important thing is to make sure you get the shot showing what is going on. I put the little window of the report next to the bad thing I am reporting and take a shot that includes both at the same time. I never crop the shot after I first create it. That way the programming data that is inside the file and unseen except by experts will show that the shot is authentic and not edited. Make sure never to make changes to a screenshot or it will not be usable as evidence.

I always rename the screenshot with the scammers name and put it in a folder on my hard-drive. I can go back to these later, put the names in the search at stardoll and see if the scammer got deleted. And if anyone says I put in a false report, I have evidence to protect myself.

Look at the bottom of this post for sample screenshots.

After you send your report, send a follow-up email to Stardoll support at support@stardoll.com from your personal email. And include what you wrote in your report as well as your screenshot.

It is important to remember to not abuse the ability to email support directly. Don't overload Stardoll support with spam. Send them detailed messages with screenshots and true reports and you will get results and respect. There are millions of girls on this site. You get the notice of the people at support as someone who is helping, and you will be heard.

Here are some blurbs to use when reporting scammers. Use your copy and paste and then change them to suit the particular scam.

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This is a scam. She tells girls to email their usernames and pwords to a posted email address. She will steal their accounts. Notice how she inserts spaces so that your software does not recognize the email address. She knows she is breaking the rules. Delete her. I am documenting this complaint. I am taking screenshots and keeping records.

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Crime: scamming. She tells girls to change their email address to the one she has posted. So she can steal their accounts. Notice how she inserts spaces so that your software does not recognize the email address. She knows she is breaking the rules. Delete her. I am documenting this complaint. I am taking screenshots and keeping records.

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She is a scammer using the "change your email scam." In her presentation she tells girls to change their email address to the one she has posted. This is a clever idea. Many of her victims don't realize that she can get access to their accounts. After all, she didn't ask for a password, and she says she can do a magic trick, a "cheat" that will give them stardollars. The victims won't even know they are scammed until this scammer hits the "forgot password" button and the password is sent to her email address. Then this scammer can log in, change the password and steal everything.

I am documenting this complaint. I am taking screenshots and keeping records. If you would like to send me a note telling me what action you are taking, I will include that in my records. I have plenty of notes that say you are looking into to it or thanks. That is significant too. I am keeping track of what you are doing and how long it takes you to do it.

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This is a scam. She claims she has special editing software so she can change the amount of stardollars in a suite. She lies. It looks like she may have stolen many accounts already with this scam. The same scam is posted in other presentations. Delete this scammer immediately. I am documenting this complaint. I am taking screenshots and keeping records. Thanks.

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You get the idea.

There are a lot of variations on scams. Besides just asking for passwords, promising to buy stardollars for someone or asking to have a sucker change her email, there are dozens of other scams girls are trying with some success. They put up tiny pics for proof. Or direct suckers to a website outside of stardoll. Some members claim to be stardoll staff. They are all liars. Watch out.

Here are a couple more scams:

Presentation Makeover scam. A variation on making over a suite or doll. The girl will ask for a victim's password to make over her presentation and make it look snazzy. Real friends give advice, they don't do log into your account and do things for you. (BTW, you can drag and drop presentation into your page and customize it. A little more work, but no risk. The user moon_doggie has a cool presentation and instructions on how to do this at his scenery, and starblog.)

Reference number scam. This scammer asks a girl to go into her transaction history and give her the reference number from the last time she bought a code. Then the scammer sends an email to Stardoll support and says "my account has been hacked. Here's a reference number from my account. Please send me a new pword." Your reference numbers are like reciepts. Keep them private. Do not give any information from inside your account to anyone.

If someone asks you for a password in a friend request, report them. Then deny the request. BTW. You cannot get hacked by denying or accepting a friend request. That is a myth.

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How do you spot a scammer? Often scammers will broadcast things like "Free Stardollars" or "Presentation." Scammers advertise using broadcasts all the time.

A lot of times they set up what I call "disposable" accounts. Accounts where they have spent no money and little time. The guestbook will be closed, the scam will be in the presentation or in the Starblog, the account was opened recently and there will be hardly any starpoints. The scammer will often abandon this account once she gets a warning. A lot of damage is done with these accounts.

Then there are accounts that have been on the site for a while and have lots of starpoints and have a scam posted. Usually these accounts are ones that have been stolen. If there is a scam visible, report it. Let Stardoll sort it out.

Almost every scammer has a closed guestbook so that people cannot be warned. You can get around that. Everyone can leave album comments. After reporting and taking a screenshot, leave a comment under the album to warn others.

Here are some samples of what to say. You are welcome to copy and paste and then customize these to the situation. Remember you have a 250 character limit so keep your message short.

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You are not related to anyone at Stardoll, nor are you Stardoll staff. It is against company policy for real staff to say so. You are a liar. This is a violation of the terms of service and this account will be reported and deleted.

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She has lot of accounts to sell. How did she get them all? Maybe they are stolen or belong to other people. Do not be a sucker. Do not deal with this person.

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She is running a scam to get access to your account. Lots of girls have fallen 4 it.You might get your account back if you can prove it is yours with reciepts. If you change your email, you cannot get it back without stardoll's help. Just say NO!

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This is a common scam to get access to your account. Say goodbye to all your rares and money if you change your email. Report this scammer and trust no one. Join advice4newbies and find out more.

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Lies, lies, lies. No one is gonna buy you stardollars. This is a common scam to get access to your account. Lots of girls have fallen4it. Report whoever asks for your pword and trust no one. Join advice4newbies and get smart.

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Report anyone who asks for your pword. The offer to buy stardollars for you is a common scam and it works. For the scammer. Lots of girls have fallen 4 it. The references are accounts the scammer already stole.

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Look out. Report anyone who asks for your pword. The offer to buy stardollars for you is a common scam. Lots of girls have fallen 4 it. Join advice4newbies to find out more.

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This is just the first in a series of posts to give you the tools to make Stardoll a better place. Please join me in fighting scammers. And when you are on Stardoll please drop by and leave me a note in my guestbook or join my club, advice4newbies. (The club is for everyone, not just newbies.) Thanks for your help.

Maddy

Criminal activity on Stardoll

Stardoll allows users to steal from other users. Most of the victims are minors. This has got to stop. If you are a member of Stardoll, you can help. I will let you know more about how in my next post.

For over a year I have expressed my concern to Stardoll. I have used their reporting tools and sent emails demanding action. I have reached higher-ups in the organization. Some changes have been made. But not enough. Scammers are still operating, and very little is done to protect girls from becoming victims.

Even though I am adult, I love playing on Stardoll. I enjoy the creative and the social aspects of the site. My medoll is madmadeleine and at this time you can visit my suite. I hope I get to keep my account, and that there will not be reprisals. There are many positive things about Stardoll and I don't want it to go away. I am afraid if I sit by and let things continue, something bad, like what happened to JuicyCampus, is going to happen and Stardoll will no longer exist.

You can see a video on YouTube where at minute 24 the CEO, Mattias Miksche, admits there is hacking and gaming the system on Stardoll, and then he changes the subject. It is my belief that very little real hacking occurs. Most young girls are not writing code to infiltrate other girls accounts. Instead, they use the tools of all con artists and predators: flattery, promises and lies.

Since most of the stealing on the website is the result of scams, I call these girls "scammers", though many mislabel them as "hackers." The use of the terms "hacker" and "hacking" is inaccurate and obfuscates the problem and the nature of the crimes.

At this time, I estimate that there are thousands of girls on the website who are stealing from younger and more naive members. The perception on the site is that scammers get away with their crimes. Since there seems to be little or no negative consequences for stealing, many girls are willing to do it. I'm sure that most of the girls who are scammers learned how to do it by being scammed. It is easy to do, involves very little risk, and the payoff is great.

Most scammers get to keep what they steal. Occasionally a scammer gets deleted from the site. But she will have more than one account. She will be running her scam from multiple accounts that she opened as well as from the accounts she stole from other girls. She also keeps a separate account into which she can funnel all the most desirable stolen goods for her personal enjoyment. One that is not linked with the accounts she uses to steal. That is the only account she cares about. The other accounts are disposable. She can always open or steal more.

There are simple ways to eliminate many of these scammers. Stardoll could block the IP addresses of the girls they catch scamming. They could cross-reference the email accounts they use, and when one is linked to a scam, they could eliminate all the accounts, not just the one with the posted scam.

Because Stardoll does not do enough to stop scammers, it is my opinion that they are morally complicit in these crimes. The way the site is set up, Stardoll makes money because of these crimes. More money than if there were no crime. Perhaps the people who are making decisions about site monitoring are little better than the scammers they allow to proliferate. It is expensive to monitor the site with real people, instead of with just text editing software. So far, Stardoll has chosen the cheap and lazy route. But this route is going to cost them more in the end. They need to step up.

As for making money, this is how Stardoll benefits from these petty crimes. Scammers use the broadcast feature to advertise and reach new victims. Since Stardoll charges 5 stardollars for each broadcast, they make money. A little bit of money, but it adds up. They charge a 1 stardollar commission on every item that is sold from one account to another, so Stardoll makes a small amount of money each time a thief takes over an account and makes multiple transactions to move items and stardollars. These are minor revenue streams that result from tolerating cybercrime on the site. In addition each scammer has to pay a fee to be a Superstar, so she can move stolen property. Many of the victims open new accounts and purchase the same or similar items that were stolen from them. If a victim manages to convince Stardoll to return her stolen account back, by the time she regains possession, her suite and closet have been stripped of everything of value including her stardollars. From what I have learned, Stardoll never returns stolen stardollars or stolen items to victims. Though these items are vitual things, clothing, furniture, and decor, they were paid for with stardollars, which cost real money. If the victim wants to have nice things, she must purchase more stardollars and buy them again. The overall lesson is that for Stardoll, crime pays.

I started a club over a year ago, advice4newbies. Since I started posting information about scammers the membership has increased. Many victims have joined my club and asked me to personally help them try to get their accounts back. I do not help them directly, but I provide them with information and support. I tell them how to contact Stardoll and what they will need to do. I have posted information about scams, cheats, real hackers, predators and safety in the club discussions and in my medoll's presentation and starblog.

I spend a lot of time helping kids. Time that I could be enjoying myself, or time that I should be doing something else. I do not live in a vacuum. Whenever I am on the site I can find scammers running their con games. I try to warn girls, but there is only so much I can do. The site should be monitored by people who care. People who can spot this stuff and put an end to it. The people at Stardoll have many more tools than I do to discover and eradicate wrongdoing. However, it seems as if the management has not chosen to put time and money into this. With time, money and access I could do a much better job.

Monitoring should be a priority on a site that has so many kids and teens on it. There are other problems. The language filters do not completely prevent kids posting websites and email addresses. There is some bullying and dirty talk. I have not personally come across any predators, but there are rumors about someone that tells girls that she is a casting agent for The Suite Life on Deck and has girls send her photos and personal information. If Stardoll does not step up and increase monitoring on the site, they are courting potential ruin.

These seem like petty crimes. But they add up. I know of one instance when over 3000 stardollars was stolen from an account. I pay $25 for 1200 stardollars. If figured at that rate the hacker got away with over $60.

One more thing that Stardoll probably does not want their advertisers or investors to know. A lot less actual users are on the site than Stardoll reports. Because of all the multiple accounts owned by the same people, the figures are significantly lower. Maybe Stardoll is reluctant to delete accounts because they want to support their inflated figures. I am not sure what they tell their advertisers, but I googled Stardoll and found a site that said that there are only about 1.4 American users going to the site. Hmmm.

If you want to do something about this, want more information or would like a personal guided tour of the seedy side of Stardoll, feel free to contact me. Thanks for reading.

Getting help from Stardoll Support #1

It is very hard to get help from Stardoll support. Sometimes they have been great. Sometimes not. It is usually a frustrating process. So I am going to make a series of posts with ideas and advice that may help you if/when you have a problem.

Stardoll deleted my non-superstar back-up account. It wasn't their fault. That is a complicated story which I can tell another time. My account got deleted and I did not do anything wrong. I wrote two very detailed emails to support and I got my account back. This is what I learned.

What works for me may not work for you. I can tell you that you must keep sending emails over and over again until you get a resolution. Write one email and make sure to cover all the issues in one email so the person you want to help you will have all the information she needs. Send it to support@stardoll.com every day until someone responds with an answer that sounds like a real person and not a robot.

Get a parent to help you if you can.

Tell your story in a way that makes sense. Usually in the order that it happened. Use dates. Make a timeline. Check reciepts to keep things straight. It will help to attach a reciept at the very end of your email with proof that you have spent money on your account.

And use names. If it is about being scammed, name of the scammer. Name other people scammed by her. List other accounts you suspect she might be using. What was the website address you went to if you did. What email address did she ask you to change your email to. What proof she gave you.

Most important are dates. What dates this happened. Include the last date that you logged in, and the date you could not log in anymore.

You can get your account back, but you have to prove what happened. That can be hard. I am not here to judge, just to give advice.

You have to be 100% truthful. If you lie about one tiny thing, they will not help you at all. They have records on their servers for everything you have done on the site, so they can check. The problem is with all that information, they have tons of things to go thru to straighten something out. So the more you tell them and the more specific you are, the more likely you are to get help.

Try to make it easy on the person helping you. Be specific, be clear. Put in as much detail as you can. Put things in order. Admit when you did something wrong.

Do not include your feelings. They do not care how you feel.

Do not threaten. You have no power to follow thru on threats. They have heard them all before.

Create a back-up account that is 100% who you are. And start using it.

Here is the thing. They do not have to do anything for you. If you gave someone your password or changed your email address, you have to admit it. Giving someone your password is a violation of the terms of service you agreed to when you signed up for an account. (It is useful to read these things, but no one seems to do that. I try to read everything I agree to, but it is tough.)

They could delete you for giving away your password. They usually do not. But they don't have to give your account back if it gets stolen.

There are millions of people using this site, so they have a lot of data. Some of this data they never look at, unless they want to investigate something. They can track what IP address accesses an account each time someone logs in. IP addresses can pinpoint a city, a home or a specific computer. Some hacker use techniques to hide their IP addresses, but usually they are not aware they can be tracked this way. I usually use my home computer, which has a unique IP address. When I traveled last year I was in Amsterdam. I used a laptop to log in and a wireless network at my hotel. I also did that at other times of the year in Las Vegas, Ohio, Kentucky and other places. When I do that, the IP address might be my laptop or it might be the network I am using. The point is, sometimes a different IP address just means the user is traveling or logging on using a friends computer. Sometimes a different IP address can indicate that someone has stolen an account. There is so much going on that Stardoll keeps the data, but nobody reads it because it is usually not significant.

One hard luck story told over and over again is about a girl who claims after account is deleted that she was not scamming other users. She will claim that a scammer had stolen her account and that scammer did all the bad things. If all the logins were with the same IP address, Stardoll will know that the girl is lying. If there is no change in the IP address, the same person who owned the account did the scamming. Stardoll is very annoyed with scammers and liars. This behavior costs time, money and customer satisfaction.

If you can prove that someone else is a scammer and a liar, if you have screen shots of what went down, and you can tell your story in a way that makes the job for Stardoll support easier, someone will help you.

Part of this is about adjusting your attitude. Even if you spent money, you are bound by the terms of service. Stardoll does not have to return accounts to any user who has violated the terms of service, even when this girl is young and made a foolish mistake. Stardoll is more likely to give an account back to a girl who admits she gave her password to a scammer and asks for forgiveness and her account back as a favor. Demanding anything is not going to get results.

I hope this is helpful. Good luck.

So many liars....

You know the story about the boy who cried wolf. Let me tell you a variation.

I got what seemed to be a frantic call for help in my guestbook from a girl who said she needed help getting her account back. She said she had been hacked. I put advice on my guestbook, and then put more info in a discussion at my club, advice4newbies where I can write longer (1000 characters vrs. 250) entries to help her.

Then I went to her suite and posted more advice.

I thought it was kinda strange she was saying she was hacked but she seemed to be in control of her account. I checked her bazaar. There was nothing of value being sold. I started to get suspicious. I checked her suite. She had a scuba and the enchanted wedding dress displayed in one room. In another room she had a DKNY sequin tank and Hotbuys displayed. something was fishy. She was leaving guestbook comments in my guestbook and her own guestbook as herself. I asked her if this was the account that was being hacked and she said yes.

I went to her closet room. When Debbiecat4 was being hacked there was a stack of worthless stuff that the hacker bought for $60 SD each, mostly stardesign stuff. And ugly stuff too. That is the way hackers get your stardollars, each purchase transfers stardollars into another account. A hacker might move the money many times in order to confuse Stardoll and cover her tracks. This was not happening. In her closet room there were only recent purchases from the plaza! So nobody was emptying her account of money.

Besides her saying she was being hacked, there was not evidence of it. I was pretty annoyed that she wasted my time. I should have been doing other things, but I stayed online trying to help. To get a better read on the kind of person she was, I read some of the pages of her guestbook. I skipped back over a dozen pages and then started.

Seems like she would say she wanted to sell something valuable like rares, hot buys or DKNY and make people try to be nice to her, and then she would decide not to sell. Not a nice pattern. But it fits with what she did today.

IMHO she is not nice. She seems to enjoy playing with people. I blocked her. But I think this was another new kind of scam. She scammed me out of my precious time.

The lesson I learned is that there are many kinds of liars on Stardoll. Scammers are the liars who tell lies in order to steal. But what do we call the liars who want attention?

One girl told me it was her birthday and I bought her a gift. I found out later that she lied.

A woman told me she was a widow and I felt so bad for her I bought her a nice gift. And added her to my friends list. Once I started visiting her guestbook regularly I noticed that she was telling other stories, stories that didn't make sense. I figured out she was a kid, lying to get people to be nice to her. I was nice to her for a while, but not anymore.

It is very hard to tell who is lying nowadays. Be very careful. We are surrounded by liars. Try to listen carefully to what people say and what they do. When you pay attention, your gut will tell you if someone is lying.

If someone offers to do something really nice for you but needs your password or you to change your email to do it, they are lying. Learn to say, "Thanks, but no thanks."

I am going to keep working on my lie detecting skills. I suggest you do the same. Trust your gut.

Stardoll “Cheats”

A cheat is an offer to help a girl steal. The word "cheat" is used so often on Stardoll that girls seem to have forgotten what it means. Are you a cheater? A liar? A thief? Probably not. So stop thinking you need to find out about "cheats."

When I joined the site, I didn't know anyone. I stumbled into another girl's suite and began to see that some people had lots of great stuff. Stuff I didn't have. New members don't get very much to start and I did not understand how much money some people put into their suites.

I met other users. Some said nice friendly things. One new friend said she knew a secret and I could get first season DKNY and she could prove it to me when I went to her website. I checked it out. She said something about her brother creating code and he could put this code into my account, and all I had to do was give him my password. My gut feeling told me something was fishy. I removed the girl from my friend list and blocked her.

I had not been warned about scammers and hackers on the site, but I had a gut feeling. Later on I found out what was going on. I found out this scammer fooled many girls. Girls who got distracted by the exciting promises and forgot to pay attention.

Even when girls are very young they can tell when people are lying to them. Don't let yourself get distracted by warm fuzzy feelings or promises. Many of my new friends took advantage of me and told me lies. I got better and figuring them out. You will too.

When a girl wants to steal from you, she will say anything. She will say that everyone uses cheats. She will say she has references. I have checked many "references" to find that they are either other scammers, other accounts belonging to the same scammer, or accounts that the scammer has stolen from other girls.

Girls pay to be superstars. They pay for stardollars to buy stuff. That is how this site works. There are lots of things that are free, but the coolest stuff is reserved for the girls who spend money here. And without them spending money, this site could not exist.

Stardoll does not like that girls think it is okay to steal from them. When you agree to get in on a "cheat" that is what you are trying to do. When you give someone your password or change your email so that you can get free stardollars or something else, you are agreeing to participate in a crime. So when you get scammed, Stardoll is not eager to help you.

When I hear that someone has been scammed, I feel sympathetic. I think she should get help to get her account back. I know how easy it is to be tricked by a clever liar. But I feel sad when the scammed person starts to lie instead of just owning up to her own part in what happened.

Stardoll knows what happened when you got scammed. Most scamming would stop if Stardoll enforced the rules. Most girls would never have even thought of stealing from Stardoll if they had not been approached by a scammer. Allowing scammers on the site makes it Stardoll's fault. I think the practice of blaming the victim should stop and Stardoll should take responsibility for what they have allowed to happen.

This site is used by kids. Kids that don't get enough guidance to navigate thru the shark-infested environment that Stardoll has fostered by NOT enforcing a no-tolerance rule about scammers. Some kids shoplift, but not many. Because they know that there are serious consequences for getting caught. Most kids are basically honest and know the difference between right and wrong.

Stardoll does run ads that say things like "cheats do not work." But they do not communicate the message that a "cheat" is not a clever secret, it is an offer to participate in stealing from the website.

Girls who get scammed are probably angry at Stardoll for not protecting them. Some girls have a lot of character, they get over the anger, admit honestly what happened, learn from it and move on. Other girls want sympathy for getting scammed but are ashamed and secretive about how it happened. And some take the experience, turn around and start scamming other girls.

If things continue in this way, this site has the potential to be a place where many girls could start on a path to becoming career criminals. It may seem these crimes are only virtual, but stardollars are bought with real money. Scammers should be prosecuted and punished for their crimes.

Speaking of crimes. There are stalkers on this site. And predators. You won't know that when you first meet one. She will seem to be just like you. She will make you feel special. Over time, she will ask for bits of your personal information. Do not tell anyone your real name, where you live or your phone number.

One predator said she was casting "The Suite Life" and wanted girls to mail photos to her. Real casting agents don't do that. This predator was not a casting agent and was probably a man. And a really good liar.

There are scary people on Stardoll who are dangerous. If anyone writes anything to you in dollmail or chat that makes you feel uncomfortable, do not ignore your feelings. Take a screen shot so you will be able to remember exactly what happened, and so you can show it to others. And even though you may not want to, you must tell your mom or dad. They will want to help you and if need be, protect you. Let them.

Stardoll is supposed to be about play, creativity and fun. I hope that in the near future the Stardoll staff will make safety a priority. The best thing you can do right now is to be careful.

A few more thoughts about “Cheats:”

Someone has pasted something stupid in my scenery comments. A "cheat" with instructions about what someone would have to do, including pasting the "cheat" on other pages, before logging in and just like magic, getting free LE, first season DKNY and a bazillion Stardollars.

You thing there is not harm in trying it. But there is. Besides making you feel stupid, you have just painted a big target on yourself. A target all the scammers can see.

Copying and pasting stuff that is not true identifies you as someone who is gullible. You also may be marked as someone who wants something for nothing. These messages start with scammers to find out who would be easiest to scam! Be careful!

There are no “cheats.” They are all lies. Lies told by scammers who want to steal accounts. Notice that they say they are only for superstars. That is because only superstars have accounts that have valuables in them. (Stardollars, rares, etc.) No one is getting free stardollars. Lots of girls are getting ripped off. Read more about it at my club, advice4newbies.