Meet Viaziz. Or rather, http://www.viaziz.com/adtracking/39. How did I get there? Here’s a nice advert that appeared on my Facebook page today. Save money on a Canon camera at www.saveonproducts.net.
Click it and, rather than the website listed, you’ll land on the Viaziz page above. Looks interesting. You can’t buy the camera, of course, but you can bid on various auctions with surprisingly low prices.
Once you’ve bought a ‘bid package’, that is:
So that’s anything from £59 to £349. Before handing any money over, I wonder where the company is based? There’s an address at the footer of the page:
London! Let’s have a look on Google Street View, shall we?
Nice location. Busy, too – must be bustling with all those businesses inside. If you check the WHOIS records for viaziz.com, of course, you get some slightly different information:
Domain name: viaziz.com
Registrant Contact:
ViaZiz Domains ()
Fax:
1020 5th Street
Miami, STATE 33139
USStatus: Locked
Name Servers:
NS1.VODIEN.COM
NS2.VODIEN.COM
NS3.VODIEN.COM
Which is interesting. But in case you were worried, a quick Google search throws up the reassuring www.viazizscam.com:
Well, that seems clear. Check the WHOIS of that website, and note the nameservers:
Name Servers:
NS1.VODIEN.COM
NS2.VODIEN.COM
NS3.VODIEN.COM
Looks familiar somehow.
Incidentally, I recently wrote this about adverts on Facebook – always think before you click.