Youtube scammed me, i went to youtube the other day and on the home page, www.youtube.com they wanted me to fill out a survery, i tried getting around the survey, but every time i reloaded the youtube home page it would make me fill out the survey before i could go any further. So i figured the only way i could get around the survey was by filling it out. The survey was only three questions about you tube, my age, my sex, and whether or not i like their advertising on videos, so i obliged, and answered the three questions that they wanted me to answer on the survey. After that youtube asks me for my cellphone number, and my email address, so again i just clicked off of the youtube site, knowing that if i gave my email address and phone number, i was probably going to get spam from them. So a few days went by and still i couldnt log into youtube unless i filled out the survey. Finally i filled out the survey and gave them my cell number and email address, thinking that since it was a major company like youtube, they probably were not going to fuck around and start spamming me. Well I didnt have my cell phone on because i am in a different city, and i didnt turn it on for a couple days, and when i finally did turn the thing on, I had gotten three different text messages saying that all three companies who texted me were going to charge me 5$ a piece for the text messages. And the text messages didnt even say anything, they were just advertisements for companies, informing me they were all charging me 5$ per piece. How the fuck is this even legal, and why would a major company like youtube be engaging in a scam like this? Its only 15$ but what pisses me off is that these guys can just take my cell phone number and start sending me texts and charging me for them when i never even agreed to it in the first place, and they are offering me absolutely no service whatsoever, just sending me a text informing me i will be charged 5$ for them sending me the text. The negative publicity youtube is going to generate from this is going to far outweigh the fact that they are ripping people off for 5$ at a time. Has this happened to anyone else?
Thx alot for the link, here is the thing, I checked my internet browser repeatedly to make sure i was infact at www.youtube.com, and not some weird variation of it, or some letter missing, and my internet browser was showing the exact site, so unless this virus changed what address was showing up on my browser it was infact just the standard www.youtube.com there was no single letter variations or anything..... When i was going there it also had youtubes logo all over it. Is it possible for these viruses to do this?
yeah, you have to learn to type better. The same thing will happen if you go to www.facebookk.com. Luckily facebook owns the site www.faceboo.com and goes directly to their site, but you add that extra k and you get directed to the scam.
Its not the case though, i double checked what address was on my browser, plus the way i go to the site is through my favourites tab. So i just clicked on the favourites, and went to you tube. If i click on my favourites now it takes me straight to youtube. I went there 5-6 times and just closed it down, this went on over a couple days, before i begrudingly filled out the survey, and i looked at the address that was showing up in my browser, to make sure, and it was infact showing as youtube.com, not some variation. The other problem with this is how the fuck is it legal for a company to just text me and say they are charging me 5 dollars when i never agreed to let them charge me 5$, and they never did anything for me? I mean if this is legal whats stopping me from just starting a company and going into my phone and taking out all my numbers, and having my business send out texts saying all of these people are going to get charged 5$ since i texted them. Aside from the obvious fact that i would lose alot of friends....
So you thought youtube, which is owned by Google, had a required survey to watch their videos and then wanted your cell and email address? ... One is born every minute. Lesson learned - sometimes common sense has to kick in. Sometimes it takes a bit longer for some people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_hijacker BTW, in that 'survey' you filled out, what did all the fine print say about charges? Or let me guess, no need to read that part either, right? Oh yeah - you might be getting an email soon from a prince overseas needing some help, just delete it! This tip is free.
This was precisely why i waited days before actually doing it, and i checked the address to make sure it was proper. I thought of all this and thought it was ridiculous, that a company like youtube would make me do this, but i eventually just gave in and did it. You are right, im an idiot for eventually folding, and just filling it out, I dont know much about computers. I just didnt realise that these things could hack my browser. I have used all kinds of scanning software to try to find a virus and none of it is turning up anything. Is there any specific software that works for getting rid of whatever is on my computer? I used malware bytes and AVG, as well as spybot. Also this still doesnt address my other question. How can it possibly be legal for a company to just send me a text saying they are charging me 5$ without my consent? There was no fine print on the page, infact there was no print whatsoever, it was just 2 boxes with the youtube logo, one box wanted my cell number the other wanted my email address. Am i in jeopary of my email being hacked now? I have seen this happen to people in the past, where all of a sudden their email address starts sending out random shit to people on the contact list.
I appear to have something called "Virsu ranger 3.2" on my computer which fakes as virus software. The only things i can find on google about it, are reccomendations which want me to manually edit my registry. Does anyone know of a program which works for getting rid of this "virus ranger" program which is masquerading as virus software? Im pretty much useless when it comes to working with computers outside of excel. I have used Malwarebytes, Combofix, AVG, and Spybot, and cant find anything that gets rid of this virus.
uninstall AVG and try antivirus from microsoft. it is free and quite good. http://www.microsoft.com/nz/digitallife/security/microsoft-security-essentials.mspx# no guarantee that it will catch your virus but i would give it a shot. also Superantispyware is good
probably it really was youtube that scammed you and they hide behind this browser hijack story... that's what I would do probably if I were them...