Scammed by the survey company "Umfragenscout"

Hi TT-rs,

Since October I have a problem with an online surveys company, and I honestly thing they are trying to scam me. Do you know anything about it or what do you think I should do?
This is what happened:
I wanted to practice my German, so I registered myself for an online survey (clicking on a banner) - giving my name, my real and my email address. After I received a confirmation email (in German, with 3 other long documents attached, which I didn't read), I clicked the link given in the email and the next thing was a website where they were asking for my bank account. It seemed spooky to me so I just closed the window and never cared about it anymore. After 15 days I received another email form this company, asking me to pay a "Yahresgebuhr" of 99 euro, because I registrated myself on their site and this is the rule (which was written in the attached documents). After I replied that I don't want to "work" with them, I am not interested in their offer and I did not use any service from them, they told me that if I had wanted to cancel the "contract" between us (which was one of the attached documents) I had been suppossed to do it in the next two weeks, in writing. I had not sent anything, meaning that I agree to work with them (even if I did not complete any profile - age, gender, profession etc.).

So, since then they keep sending me emails with higher and higher penalties to pay (the last one was 136 euro) and on Friday I received an email from a "Deutschen Inkassostelle" which was hired by the company to recuperate the money from me. So... according to them, if I am not paying in 5 days I will be considered a "Betruger" - meaning a criminal - and I will have to pay all the costs plus a penalty. They have my IP address and told me that they will find out my real address (because my Internet provider is obliged by law to give it to them) and then... I will be in big ...

The company name is
Beauftragtes Servicecenter Europe:
ASK AG
Alte Steinhauserstrasse 21
6330 Cham
Switzerland

umfragenscout24 ltd.
3rd Floor, Omar Hodge Building,
Wickhams Cay I, Road Town,
Tortola,1110
Virgin Islands (British)

The site is www.umfragenscout.com

So, what do you think I should do? Are they serious?!

Thank you and counting on you,

Oana

They are scum. But you have to take this serious. You probably should contact a lawyer. They are right about the 2 week period, but the ambiguity that might work in your favour is the question if or when the period started to run. Again - you need professional help there. There are also "Verbraucherschutzstellen", that might be able to help.

One thing you should be aware of: they might try to get an official "Mahnbescheid" by a german court against you. That is to be taken serious. If you dont enter an objection in time, you will have to pay. The court wouldnt verify their claim. If you dont enter an objection, it will be assumed that they are right.

But from what you are telling, it hasnt happened yet. But watch out for official letters by an "Amtsgericht".

The "Deutsche Inkassostelle" is just a private debt collector (a sleazy one, obviously). They try to scare you into paying. Dont trust anything they say.

Anyway... get professional help (Im not a lawyer, I might be wrong).

The old "we have your IP address" trick ... they can't do anything with your IP address.

According to the OPs writing, he already gave them his real adress.

Some interesting reading:

http://de.answers.yahoo.com/question/index...28094339AAqtMHt
http://www.123recht.net/forum_topic.asp?topic_id=99654
http://www.overclockers.at/off_topic/umfra...?postid=2449962

I think you'll find that 100s of users on the same provider have the same IP address. So it cannot be used to identify an individual. It can be used in the case of Toytown to suspect if two handles have the same IP address they're the same user.

My suggestion: Do nothing. If you get something by post then its time to panic. Until you get something by post you have no problems. Write back to them saying you don't know who they are, have done nothing with them, and never want to hear from them again.

On the we can get your postal address from your IP address. That would be great for stalkers on online dating sites. Germany has very strong privacy laws. Really these companies work by scaring people with no basis. If 10% of people react to their Emails and pay they have a nice business.

But nothing, absolutely nothing legal happens in Germany without snail mail. Sure companies who have a good relationship might Email each other invoices, but if the relationship breaks down the Mahnungs will go by snail mail. Once they send their first letter to you the clock starts ticking, everything up until then is of no more value than a conversation without witnesses.

EDIT Just seen the bit about giving real address. If you get a letter from them, returning it saying that's not your Email address, you don't know the company. If they respond to this, ask them to send you a copy of the signed contract, as you have no recollection of signing up to anything. Make a point that you expect to see your signature on a piece of paper, not some waffle about Email and IP

Another handy bit of information - I have been through this before too.

Even if they have your real address, you can fight this.

Firstly - until they send you an "Einschreiben" letter (registered post) they have no proof that you ever received their letters. They also have no proof that it was YOU who signed up with your details.

Just ignore the letters - I once dealt with a company like that and received constant letters and threats over the period of a year or so. I ignored the letters and never heard from them again.

As I just mentioned, ignore the contents of your letterbox. You only need to act when the letters start coming as regsitered post (Einschreiben).

Some more interesting reading, this is the best forum with suggestions I've come across:

Umfragen-scout.com der ASK AG, CH-6300 Cham

No, don't correspond with them in any way whatsoever. Don't return mail - just ignore it.

While I agree with most of what my fellow mad wrote, I'm not sure about this. Ignoring post is not a good idea in Germany. If you get an invoice, and ignore it, they'll send you Mahnungs with ever ascending Mahngebühr. Their last step before taking you to court will be to send you a registered letter demanding payment for an amount that will probably be €100 in excess of the original invoice. At that stage if you just pay the original invoice, they'll still try and get all the other charges from you. I'm talking about legit companies, not scammers.

Yes, it's a scam, but unfortunately you signed up for it. It's a company that collects a personal profile from you and then sends it to market research organisations which allegedly pay you for the privilege. And unfortunately the page Registrieren states quite clearly that they will charge you 99 EUR for registration of your profile. So they're bastards, but they warned you they were in advance, and you still gave them your details.
You would have more of a case if the price of signing up hadn't been so clearly displayed. Agree with previous posters that ignoring demands for payment in Germany is generally not a good idea - at best you get the bailiff, at worst you get the German equivalent of Bermondsey Dave (a previous victim of umfragescout reported being visited by a trio of bruisers cracking their knuckles and recommending the victim sign up for life insurance). However, maddigliana's link http://forum.boocompany.com/viewtopic.php?t=1858 recommends sitting tight and I can't find any record of victims landing up in court so it could be worth a try. Check out Freising's suggestion of a consumer advice bureau / Verbraucherstelle.

Given that you ticked the "Ich stimme den AGB zu" (I agree to the Terms & Conditions) box, I can't really see how you can hope to get out of this one. Pay up and view it as a lesson learned.

There's no doubt that the website is underhand; they have aped the Scout24 name and colour scheme to lend an air of respectability, but have nothing to do with them. Nonetheless, the cost seems to be displayed reasonably clearly, so you probably should have paid more attention before giving out your personal details to a random company.

I beg to differ. The IP-address, coupled with the timestamp, i.e. the date and time of access, IS what is being used to identify an individual. In other words, an IP-address belonging to a provider is used by many over time, but by one and only one user at any given moment. That information is being logged, unless you opt for the provider to do otherwise.

Read this topic: Getting caught out by a "free" SMS website
Most importantly Bob Loblaw's and my posts (so I do not have to reiterate everything here), and ignore Odenwalder's.

The 14 day limit to cancel your contract doesn't apply in your case, or well it does, but they have stated in their AGB that it expires as soon as you use their service which you do right after signing up (they are not stupid). What you do: send them an e-mail that you keep in your sent folder and get a read confirmation for, that you cancel the contract. I think there was an example of such a letter posted in the other topic.
And then you ignore them. Ignore everything, unless you get a Mahnbescheid (like someone mentioned), that comes from a court. Object to the Mahnbescheid. If you don't the court will come to collect the money from you. Basically you ignore any attempts by the company or their lawyer to contact you, you just react to the letter from court. That is as far as it will go anyway, no further. They will not take you to court as they would lose.

Look, as long as you haven't received any invoices by post, as long as they don't have your postal address, or scanned copies of your personal ID (that means, knowing who you actually are), or your written signature on some contract, or your bank account data, or your phone number or such... they cannot really do anything to you.

Their payment requests are illegal and therefore you should NOT pay a cent. I don't think you need a lawyer for this case. You may need one if official letters start coming to your real address, but I doubt it if that will ever happen.

If I were you, I would simply cathegorize their emails as spam (because that's what they are), put them on spam filter, never reply, never give them any information or... cancel the email account, and make a new one if they flood you with more emails, further on.

They do. Didn't you read her initial post?

Thank you everybody!

For sure this is a lesson I've learned.
Since my German is not yet so good I did not know what AGB means and I did not read all the details given (my fault )

Anyway, it seems that many people complain about this (also german speaking people) as you can see in the link below
http://www.mein-parteibuch.com/blog/2007/0...fragenscoutcom/
It is interesting to see that lots of people have started receiving those emails from the Inkassostelle for a week now. Maybe the same scamers just "built" another site for their nasty purposes.

I will go tomorrow morning to a Verbrauchschutzzentralle an see what they advise me.

Thank you for your opinions and I do hope that you are right - I should just ignore them.
Anyway, if you have some other opinions I would be glad to see them, since I've been searching the Internet on this problem for the last 2 days.

Mariopsa, thanks a lot for the thred you gave me. It is very useful. I also noticed that there is no Steuernummer in the Rechnung.

Thanks a lot ... and still reading!

Still, they don't have your written signature on any contract and they don't have your bank account data. They don't have copies of your ID (I am only saying because, for example, telephone companies ask for that, too.. and they make you sing a contract on paper... that's what I call a real and serious contract... or something I pay online with my credit card or bank account details, like Deutsche Bahn, for example). But, hm, you gave them none of these.
So, don't let them scare you.
If anyone knew your real address and stole your email password in an internet cafe browser window, they could have done this in your name, couldn't they? So, tell me one thing, how can they prove it was you? They can't. Forget it and ignore their emails. Next time don't click on anything that is too attractive, colourful and offers anything amazing... super offers are always stinky.

Empty Suitcase, I thought about this too. So I told them that it was not me who registered there and I did not sign anything. Taking my not responding as an agreement is outrageous. But they told me that they can prove that it was me, or find out if it was someone else, after the IP address they got from me.

I also did not complete my profile. Exactly after 14 days from my registration they sent me this email:

Sehr geehrte Frau ...,

herzlichen Glückwunsch! Die ersten Schritte, um Ihr Profil anzulegen, haben Sie bereits erfolgreich durchgeführt.

Ihr aktuelles Profil sehen Sie hier:
https://www.umfragenscout.com/userprofil.ph...4462&t=7abd

Sicher haben Sie für die weiteren Profil-Fragen noch keine Zeit gefunden. Bedenken Sie jedoch, dass Sie durch das vollständige Profil weitaus mehr Chancen haben, von den Anbietern ausgewählt zu werden. Das bedeutet für Sie: Je schneller Sie Ihr Profil komplettieren, desto schneller können Sie direkt an Umfragen teilnehmen und dadurch vergütet werden!

Sie haben uns bei der Anmeldung leider keine Kontodaten für ein bequemes Abbuchungsverfahren gegeben. Dieses Verfahren wird sehr gerne genutzt, weil Sie dadurch schneller an den Umfragen teilnehmen können und wir Ihnen Ihr Guthaben jederzeit pünktlich auszahlen können. Sie haben dadurch schneller die Möglichkeit von Umfragen zu profitieren. Wenn Sie uns nachträglich die Erlaubnis erteilen möchten, klicken Sie auf folgenden Link, um Ihre Bankdaten zu ergänzen:

https://www.umfragenscout.com/anmelden2_dwp...&pw=03e4a68

Gemäß Ihrer Anmeldung bei UMFRAGENSCOUT vom 16.10.2007 berechnen wir Ihnen für das Erstellen des Profils und die Nutzung unseres Dienstes entsprechend der nachfolgenden Aufstellung die Jahresgebühr von:

Rechnungsbetrag: 99,00 Euro
----------------------------------------------------
Gesamtbetrag: 99,00 Euro

Wenn Sie, wie gewünscht, per Rechnung die Jahresgebühr zahlen wollen, begleichen Sie bitte beigefügte Rechnung innerhalb der nächsten 7 Tage auf das folgende Konto:

Empfänger: Zentrale Abrechnungsstelle (Nur an diesen Empfängernamen überweisen!)
Bank: Commerzbank
Kontonummer: 642925275
Bankleitzahl: 50040000
Iban: DE75500400000642925275
Swift: COBADEFFXXX
Verwendungszweck: US-1512208

[b]Sobald die Rechnung beglichen ist, werden wir Ihr Profil für die Anbieter frei schalten, so dass Sie endlich mit dem bewerben auf lukrative Umfragen starten können.[/b]

Sie erhalten von uns eine Verdienstgarantie, auf die Sie sich verlassen können:

Wir wissen was unsere Plattform bietet, daher garantieren wir, dass Sie auf unserer Plattform durch Empfehlungen/Umfragen innerhalb 1 Jahres Verdienstmöglichkeiten erhalten, mit denen Sie ohne weiteres über 250 Euro in Geld- und/oder Wertgutscheinen verdienen können.

Schon durch das Werben von zehn Freunden, Bekannten oder Arbeitskollegen können Sie die Setupgebühr von 99,00 Euro schon wieder zurück erhalten.

Falls wir Ihnen dies auf unserer Plattform nicht ermöglichen sollten, erhalten Sie Ihre komplette Jahresgebühr zurück erstattet!

Bei Fragen steht Ihnen unser Support selbstverständlich zur Verfügung.

------------------------------------
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Ihr Customer-Support von UMFRAGENSCOUT

Email: service@umfragenscout.com
Web: www.umfragenscout.com

Internationale Service-Rufnummern:
Telefon: 0042 3663900024
Telefax: 0042 3663900025

Deutsche Service-Rufnummern:
Telefon: 0180 5045407
Telefax: 0180 5045408

Die telefonische Kundenbetreuung ist von Montag bis Freitag in der Zeit von 10 - 17 Uhr (außer feiertags) erreichbar.
------------------------------------

Beauftragtes Servicecenter Europe:
ASK AG
Alte Steinhauserstrasse 21
6330 Cham
Switzerland

umfragenscout24 ltd.
3rd Floor, Omar Hodge Building,
Wickhams Cay I, Road Town,
Tortola,1110
Virgin Islands (British)

According with the bold line from their email... they did not let my profile to be seen by their "clients", because I did not pay, which means that I did not use any of their services. I told them that too... but it seems they do not care!!!

They cannot collect after a Mahnbescheid (court order). But if you do not object within two weeks after delivery of the court order the Inkassostelle can then apply for a Vollstreckungsbescheid (writ) and send out the bailiff. These things are largely automated, the Deutsche Inkassostelle is not sleezy, it is a normal collecting agency. I have encountered worse in my career as a collector myself.


They only have proof that you have received the letter if it is sent Übergabe-Einschreiben. The Einwurf-Einschreiben that is dropped into your mailbox can get lost. Thing is, the proof of delivery is sufficient for a court order or a writ.

This is possibly the most foolish "advice" I have read in this forum this year (although it is only January!). Assuming the OP "registered" from home (and in many cases even if he didn't) they have enough information to nail him/her, if not as the person who registered, then as the person responsible for the source of the registration. Simply ignoring any correspondence will simply delay and increase any penalties and almost certainly result in a negative credit record which will have a seriously negative affect on future business or personal financial activities. Not that I am saying he/she should pay anything, but that they MUST react, if only to defend their position and clear their name.

The only way out of that if the OP had an underage kid (underage for entering a contract). Because in that case the whole contract would be invalid if it had been the kid who did this.

Don't have kids...

Any other way? Like the fact that my German was at a very low level at that time?

Should I try to explain the situation to the Inkassostelle?

No. Go to your local Rechtshilfestelle (look up either Amtsgericht or Justizbehörden in your local phone book) and ask them for help. Explain how you aborted the transaction before sharing your bank account details as you had a bad feeling but were not sufficiently informed of your canceling alternative. Is this a site targeting non-German speakers? Then why is it not multi-lingual (or did you not choose the function)? Play the non-information card at every chance.
Good luck.

Legally, you don't have a leg to stand on. Morally, you are being screwed - the German press is full of this type of scam at the moment and abhors it. Going to a Rechtshilfestelle or Verbraucherschutzstelle not only provides you with help and support but enables them to collect evidence against the companies who maintain these scams in the hope to change laws and regulations to outlaw their operations. Your naivety (or lack of language), while not helping your legal case, will certainly reinforce your moral case, and any pressure on the company to drop the claim, especially if supported by a consumer or legal body.

The guys (and girls) in your local Rechtsantragstelle (there is no Rechtshilfestelle, small but important difference) are legaly not allowed to advice you. If your income is low enough they can issue a voucher (Beratungshilfeschein) for an Anwalt.

You can go to verbraucherschtuzentrale as well. This kind of crap is a regular occurance, its also not a surprise the company is based out of Germany.

I would like to know, if anything new happened, Oana..

The email you quoted from these guys, that sounds like an offer but not like anything obliging to you... I receive stuff like that on spam every single day, to my old yahoo acount and I mark them "flag" and "delete", sometimes 10 emails like this, sometimes 20 at once... I never received anything on post and I could not care less.. now honestly..

Read the original posting. This wasn't unsolicited spam mail. The OP signed up for something without reading the terms and conditions which committed him/her to payment, albeit that was somewhat hidden in the small print.

umfragenscout: § 6 Jahresgebühr/Dauer der Teilnahme

they dont have YOUR ip address they got your providers ip address, most german providers give you every 12 - 24 hours a new ip address or every time you log on, and its a long apparently difficult process to prove that it was you as your provider doesnt have to give them any information at all.

i've got something similar happening here with a differnt website. simply write them an "widerruf" or whatever its called and pop it all in a draw, its extreamly unlikely that they'll ever sue even though they love to threaden you!

you can also go to "verbraucherzentrale" but they most likely will tell you the same.

chin up, eh?

hey i got similar stuff going on with a different website and they state the price only since january, who says that what you can see on the page now was there when the person signed up???

Point taken. They may have had a flood of similar problems.

This site, like many others, is actually constructed in the way that people will sign up without realizing they have to pay €99. Just the fact that they make you relinquish your right of withdrawal at the point of confirming your account shows that. They all work with the same principle.

1. You sign up on their site. "Membership fee" is somewhere well-hidden, in the small print or elsewhere where it can easily be overlooked.
2. You confirm your account by clicking a link in an e-mail you received. By clicking that link you relinquish your right of withdrawal.
3. You get an e-mail asking you to cough up the money or else ...

It is possible that Umfragenscout moved their fee somewhere so it is better visible, because that will actually give them a better chance if they go to court over a case. In the end though, I am pretty sure they are still mainly making money off the people who overlook the price and are counting on that as their main source of gains.

Oh, the naivety of it. Every time you connect to the internet your provider provides you with an IP address from their personal pool. The act of logging in identified YOU. The providers keep a log of all log-ins, from whom, when and which IP address was allocated for the session. It's a trivial process to identify the owner of the internet account at the very least who was using the internet connection when you signed up for the contract. It's not a difficult court process to force the provider to give over this information, and one that has been very successful in identifying illegal file sharers in their thousands such as one of our very own community.

Agreed, YL6. That part is not very difficult at all.
Part of why I love living in Spain at the moment. (There was a recent court ruling that Telefonica (Spanish telecom) does not have to hand over customer data in civil law suits, only in criminal ones.)

By the way, some websites like this one change the content based on how you enter it. If you click on a banner linking to it (they check the referrer) the unpleasant details are very well hidden or entirely absent. If you go there a second time or simply enter the URL in your browser, you get a slightly different website prominently displaying the fees and whatnot.

The best course of action is usually to ignore them, unless you receive a Mahnbescheid. They know they're walking on thin ice legally, so they try to scare their "customers" into paying while avoiding courts like the plague. Companies like this one generally avoid taking victims to court because they don't have much to gain (100 Euros or whatever they're demanding for their "services"), but they do have a lot to lose, because once a court finds their practices unlawful, they're done.

well fact is they cant just go to your provider and get your data usually theres a court order or something inbetween, fact that they are scums mean they wont go to court and therefore do not have or get the proof for it... besides i dont even have an internet connection in my name proof it was me

Hi everybody,

So, I went to the Verbrauchschtuzcentrale and they told me that this kind of things happen quite offen. They gave me a letter to send to the Inkasostelle and the Umfragenscout, again, wich states that the information about the fee is to small written, they did not repeat this information clearly again in the first email they sent me, so the contract is not valid because they did not repect the legaly conditions of informing me exactly about this fee. I've sent the letters "per Einschreiben mit Rückschein" and since then nothing new happend: no letter no email. I hope it stays that way.
By the way, their web site has changed (different shape if you go directly there, and not from a banner).

Thank you everybody!
You were a great support and source of good advices.
If anything new comes up, I will let you know.

Oana

Hah, doesn't surprise me one bit.

Definitely a few spammer/con-artists running this site. The German Consumer's association are already on the case - well started a campaign against such sites:
Kampagne gegen "Abofallen im Internet"

They don't mention umfragenscout.com but one with site with the same address in Cham in the pdf file Kostenfallen im Internet:
From: http://www.produktpruefer.de/index.php?s=impressum


And a report on Spiegel Online indicates that a related company has sent out thousand's of threatening letters but as yet have not sued anyone - just playing on people's fears:
Spiegel Online: Internet Service AG

There is also some suggestion on some forums that even though they give you 14 days to cancel, they reply saying that they never received the cancellation (e.g. email is not official, or they never received the notice to cancel).

And there are a whole plethora of dodgy and seedy sites associated with umfragenscout.com:
Report on umfragenscout.com/umfragenscout.de

Hello!

I have the same problem with Umfragenscout...Made a registration, somehow without seeing this with the fee (hidden, not stated or...I do not know...).I would NEVER register myself if I have seen the fee...So I got the first e-mail and ignored it. Then Mahnung 1 and Mahnung 2...with the title Stafanzeige gegen Sie in Vorbereitung... Do you have any news? How to handle with this? I have asked an older friend, German for cooperation and hope to get out of this somehow. Moreover we-my boyfriend and I both have such registrations but have not completed our profiles. The IP address is not static but the provider is Versatel. Umfragenscout have of course the real address...Pfffffff, I`m scared. Any advice or development of oana`s case?

Wenn Sie, wie gewünscht, per Rechnung die Jahresgebühr zahlen wollen, begleichen Sie bitte beigefügte Rechnung innerhalb der nächsten 7 Tage auf das folgende Konto:

Woah here guys it says if you wish to pay.And by the way ist a yearly fee.Do not pay as it states clearly here if you want to pay.

Heres an update on IP addresses...

Unless this company files Criminal charges (Not Civil) against you in a German Court, they Can not (legally) obtain the ISPs records of
who used what IP address at what date/time. This is also now the case for all these P2P issues. Coupled with the recent statements
from all levels of the German legal system which say they will no longer tolerate these P2P cases clogging the system and that the EU
has come out and decided to make IP address "Private" information. You have nothing to worry about. Just deny ever signing-up for
such a service.

Since they won't be able to get the ISP records to prove YOU were the person who accessed the site, you can claim that somebody
else entered your details into the site.

Yes... " if I wish to pay" and then threads...What a non-sense..I do hope that oana will read this and reply what happened.

Go back to post 20 and read what it says.Understand the formulation of the text and the German language will help you a lot here L23

@DK,

Have you got a link to any sources for that EU ruling or any of the stuff relating to the german situation regarding the court ystems getting sick of being cloged up by the p2p stuff?