FBI Charges Digital Point Forum Founder, Shawn Hogan With Fraud! [OLD]
FBI Charges Digital Point Forum Founder, Shawn Hogan With Fraud! - [OLD]
Digital Point forum founder, Shawn Hogan was indicted on fraud charges this week by the FBI for his alleged involvement in a massive million dollar eBay scam.
In August of 2008, eBay had filed a lawsuit against Hogan and his alleged partners in crime, Brian Dunning and Todd Dunning where they claim that this group was an organized online crime ring that used fraud, racketeering activity under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations), wire fraud and unauthorized access of eBay’s servers to rip off the online auction giant.
Hell, these guys were making so much cash they even started a venture capital firm.
Perhaps Shawn Hogan’s Google Adsense income did not pay his bills or wasn’t enough to feed his greedy ego. So, he foolishly resorted to a life of online crime. Now, his Digital Point empire may come crashing down.
The FBI claims Hogan and the hooligans made millions from eBay’s affiliate program. How much cash? Well for Hogan, how does $10.5 million in 2006 and in 2007, $5 million sound? He was the top producing affiliate for eBay those years.
Not bad for a lil ole webmaster forum owner. Too bad it was all a scam.
Brian Dunning was eBay’s second top producing affiliate those years. He earned a paltry $2.8 million in 2006 and $2.5 million in 2007.
What many people do not realize is that many high paid affiliate marketers are crooks. They have used deceptive online tricks to steal from companies and the consumer for years.
It’s all about the cookies! No, not the soft and chewy ones, internet cookies, duh!!!
Apparently Hogan and the Hooligans were allegedly loading illegal tracking codes (AKA internet cookies) into people’s web browsers when they would visit a website. Many of these sites were unrelated and the user didn’t even have to click on anything. But what happens is the hacker has now attached a cookie stuffer and is mass loading his tracking codes onto your computer.
These cookies are the tracking codes for their affiliate ID’s they had used to get paid from sales they make on eBay. But what they did was hack people’s computers who visited the sites they placed this code on and if these people visited eBay and bought something, they would get paid for doing absolutely NOTHING!
Essentially, this was not stealing directly from eBay but it was stealing from their other affiliates who were trying to make sales the legitimate way. Thus stealing millions of dollars by hijacking personal computers and then ripping off legitimate affiliates who were trying to do the right thing.
FBI Charges Digital Point Forum Founder, Shawn Hogan With Fraud! - [OLD]
Digital Point forum founder, Shawn Hogan was indicted on fraud charges this week by the FBI for his alleged involvement in a massive million dollar eBay scam.
In August of 2008, eBay had filed a lawsuit against Hogan and his alleged partners in crime, Brian Dunning and Todd Dunning where they claim that this group was an organized online crime ring that used fraud, racketeering activity under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations), wire fraud and unauthorized access of eBay’s servers to rip off the online auction giant.
Hell, these guys were making so much cash they even started a venture capital firm.
Perhaps Shawn Hogan’s Google Adsense income did not pay his bills or wasn’t enough to feed his greedy ego. So, he foolishly resorted to a life of online crime. Now, his Digital Point empire may come crashing down.
The FBI claims Hogan and the hooligans made millions from eBay’s affiliate program. How much cash? Well for Hogan, how does $10.5 million in 2006 and in 2007, $5 million sound? He was the top producing affiliate for eBay those years.
Not bad for a lil ole webmaster forum owner. Too bad it was all a scam.
Brian Dunning was eBay’s second top producing affiliate those years. He earned a paltry $2.8 million in 2006 and $2.5 million in 2007.
What many people do not realize is that many high paid affiliate marketers are crooks. They have used deceptive online tricks to steal from companies and the consumer for years.
It’s all about the cookies! No, not the soft and chewy ones, internet cookies, duh!!!
Apparently Hogan and the Hooligans were allegedly loading illegal tracking codes (AKA internet cookies) into people’s web browsers when they would visit a website. Many of these sites were unrelated and the user didn’t even have to click on anything. But what happens is the hacker has now attached a cookie stuffer and is mass loading his tracking codes onto your computer.
These cookies are the tracking codes for their affiliate ID’s they had used to get paid from sales they make on eBay. But what they did was hack people’s computers who visited the sites they placed this code on and if these people visited eBay and bought something, they would get paid for doing absolutely NOTHING!
Essentially, this was not stealing directly from eBay but it was stealing from their other affiliates who were trying to make sales the legitimate way. Thus stealing millions of dollars by hijacking personal computers and then ripping off legitimate affiliates who were trying to do the right thing.
