Why, not to sell xdk's on ebay

Got an email form somebody i know, his kit was pulled from ebay, now m$ is contacting him with this and calling his house,

so if you got a hunch to sell a kit on ebay, well take some caution and try not putting your number in the listing, there threatening to sue him if he dosnt comply, anyway...

 

Sorry, I think your letter is invalid and completely made up though. Microsoft uses a different department to contact the seller. Also, from googling the "Microsoft Compliance Support Program" apparently only two results show... Now, I'm not going to take the liberty to call the phone number and find out, since it is a 1-800 number, and those can literally redirect to anywhere, and can be copied off of any website. (I know from work, once we had someone copy the phone number from our website and use it on a credit card application, and decided to quit sending in payments)

I'm not saying that it's absolutely fake.. It may have some merit to it, but I have to say it seems rather fishy, as all the facts do not add up.

 

That number is real, but they deal with letters recieved in the mail. In addition, the answering machine asks for the date on the letter. This isn't a letter, it's an email, and it isn't dated.

Not saying it's fake, but it looks like it.

 

Its pretty simple. Ask Rose how to reach her when calling an official Microsoft number found on the Microsoft website. If it is a real letter then it shouldn't be a problem.

 

That's the other issue, the whole letter reeks of High School Freshmen quality writing. That letter is a great example on how not to write a letter.

Who the hell sends out a letter with only their first name on it? Not Microsoft.

 

better tell my friend its a phony, probably a scammer trying to get his kit

i dont doubt its fake as its not my letter

:icon_bigg but thanks for helping guys i appreciate it :icon_bigg im sure he'll be glad to hear it :dance:

 

Probably some 13 year old halo kiddie, judging by the quality of the writing.

 

yea there was more info i think but i got a crop'ed version, anyway i asked for the email and i got this


I checked the mail headers and it's definitely MS internal. i.e. xxx.redmond.corp.microsoft.com -> smtp.microsoft.com -> me

mscsprog@microsoft.com
_____________________________________________

if it is real what should he do about it?

 

There is no fucking way ms sent an email of that quality out. If it's real tell them to get fucked any way. They want the kit? Pony up the cash, microsoft.

 

Well there has been at least one other person with the same problem that i know of. The letter was from a different department however that person actually sent the kit back.

Another thing to remember is if this person has all of his from eBay, they wouldn't just give the details to anyone.

As i said he should confirm it by asking this person to contact her via a phone number known to him via the MS website and then ask to speak to her supervisor or something.

If i were him and it checks out i would be sending the kit back.

 

Please, enlighten us as to what is wrong with the quality of the letter. There are no grammatical or spelling errors, nor are there any misleading or false statements. The language used in the letter is perfectly fine and appropriate. It is also quite common for representatives of a company (MS or otherwise) to use just a first name. The name may not even be referring to a person; it may instead be a "codeword" for routing the call to the appropriate department.

 

Actually, the quality of the letter is horrible, but I do think it is real.

Look at the way the idea is presented of how it is illegal,and how they should be contacted back, it just looks poor. I'm guessing that's why MTWomg said it looks bad. It really is a bad letter. I would've expected something better.

But oh well. Good luck.

 

Alright, let me break it down for you.

"<My Name>, this message is regarding "

You don't start a letter with the name of who it is for, not like that anyway.

"this message is regarding the recent Notice of Claimed Infringement submitted by Microsoft to eBay's Verified
Rights Owner program"

You can't submit information to a Ebay program. You submit information to ebay. You could say it was submitted via that program, however.

"The Xbox Development Kit ("XDK")
offered in this listing is not authorized for any type of resale or redistribution"

Devkits are called XEDK's, not XDKs, though I'll excuse that as current devkits state that they are XDKs on the back.

"Even when in the possession of the
developer(s) to whom it is licensed, the XDK remains the property of Microsoft Corporation and distribution of the console to
any third party is a violation of Microsoft's intellectual property rights."

Devkits are not licensed to a developer, they are licensed to a company. You can't "distrubute" a devkit to someone, you can sell it. This appears to be a kid trying to use big words to make his fake email appear to be real.

"Violation of Microsoft's intellectual property rights" does not fit the crime here. It would be a violation of the contract involved with getting a kit from microsoft, however.

"Microsoft Compliance Support Program"

That division does not exist. This would be ran through Microsoft Legal.

 

Finally...

That phone number has been found on a previous fake take down notice. An email was sent to a guy selling Vista keys on ebay from an @live.com account.

Here is the post about it:

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=159342

 

got another email form him

___________________________________________________
I would like to sincerely thank you for your concern and help

I'm almost positive this is a DAMN. GOOD. SCAM.

As I said, the email origin was from valid, authenticated MS servers. On the other hand, I discovered that the phone number was associated with a scam and does not belong to MS. This person managed to gather my phone numbers, emails, etc. Very unfortunate A few things made me suspicious, blocked phone number and unprofessional speech to start off with. The email headers were very convincing to me, though. All in all a pretty decent scam afaik. We'll see if they call again Perhaps I should warn others.
_____________________________________________________

btw he thanks you guys for your assistance :icon_bigg

 

Wow, that's a pretty good scam. How'd he send it from Microsoft servers, or at least make it look like he did?

 

Ghost Mail..?

 

I'll be sure to let every lawyer I have ever worked with know that they don't know how to write letters, because there is absolutely nothing wrong with this one, scam or not. "Distribution" is commonly used as a legal term for selling/reselling. XDK/XeDK is interchangeable, and I would argue that XDK is more common. VeRO is an eBay "program," so it would be perfectly reasonable to refer to it as such. Regarding the IP vs. contract issue, there is clearly no contract between MS and the seller, so it would be an IP issue from a legal perspective. The name thing is minor, as this is probably a form letter (which commonly sounds direct).

Though the email address was clearly fake in the linked thread, I saw nothing about the phone number, and scammers regularly use real email addresses, URL's and phone numbers as bait. For the record, I wouldn't send a kit back until I had a lawsuit filed.

 

I've played a few pranks with some friends before, making them freak out. But it's pretty easy, you can send emails from a command prompt's telnet feature, just connect to an smtp email server, and type in a few commands, your from email, the text, and that's it..

Only thing is it produces rather crude emails, without formatting of any sort (no paragraph breaks, etc) also, if you look at a full header and trace the IP, you'll be able to determine if it was a fake... If the IP originated at Microsoft, then it's real.

Or, as Xenon.7 said, Ghost Mail would do the trick; that's the first time I've heard about it though.

 

Please do, this is one of the worst examples of writing i've seen in a while.

The phone number in this scam email and the email in that other email are the same. These two letters are the only place anywhere that those phone number.