Etomi
Etomi is a scam that keeps making victims. Users are lured onto a website through search engine ads and by hijacking popular domains or variations of those (with slightly different spelling, or a different TLD). That website promises 'legal' downloads for a certain fee. What they really offer are modified and renamed open source peer-to-peer programs. So unsuspecting users are really paying for something that already was available for free. There are countless scams like this, but Etomi seems to be the one that advertises most.
What these companies really offer, if you read the fine print, is 'support' for these applications. The support they offer is usually just a copy of the wiki or other documentation from the original program's website (with all references to the original application edited, ofcourse). In the members' area, you can download several modified peer-to-peer applications, usually Shareaza (for Windows users) and LimeWire (for other platforms).
Applications
eTomi Pro and 360Share are renamed programs based on LimeWire. LimeWire is a file sharing program running on the Gnutella Network. LimeWire allows you to share any file and will run on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris, and other computing platforms, since it's written in Java. It's available for free at http://www.limewire.com/.
Etomi is a renamed program called Shareaza. Shareaza connects to 4 file sharing networks called Gnutella, Gnutella 2, BitTorrent and eDonkey2000, supports FTP and HTTP transfers. Shareaza is an open source peer-to-peer client for Windows, available to anyone free of charge at http://www.shareaza.com/.
What to do if you paid for Etomi
You can call your credit card company and/or financial institution to cancel the transaction. Usually they will do that for you, especially if you explain your problem thoroughly (you can use this wiki page as a reference for yourself and your bank). Other options you have are reporting the company to the BBB, or asking the company for a refund directly.
External links
- Discussion of Etomi scam at Club CD Freaks forum
- Discussion of Etomi scam at Shareaza Forums
- User succeeds in getting back his money through a chargeback
Categories: Peer to peer | Malware