Caribbean Magazine Plus has fallen victim to Russian cybercrime. There is this company called “Code Industry Ltd.” based in Russia. They sell software, particularly a software called “MasterPDF”… You can’t manipulate it unless you buy the product. But when you buy the product and find out it is featureless, meaning that it is so limited that it is useless, when you try to get a refund you have to go through their payment provider “2Checkout” first and that will make the process long and tedious and then you have to keep calling 2Checkout to process the refund request, which they then will notify the manufacturer Code Industry Ltd who will then tell you that they don’t give refunds unless your download was faulty or the software has a glitch. So we lost $70 downloading useless software.
At first glance you would not know Code Industry Ltd is based in Russia, when you download their Master PDF software their address is not open for public knowledge and they use a lot of third party websites to download their product from. The first time I realized that the company that made the software was from Russia was when I asked for my refund and the 2Checkout CSR told me that the manufacturer had a “hold” on refunds and they would send the a reminder to refund…. That’s when I saw the Code Industry Ltd pop up and did some research and found out who they were.
Terrible company. In this era of Russian hacks, spyware and ransomware, God knows what these criminals are up to. I have been trying to alert American authorities on this, but it seems as if their communications networks with the Federal and local authorities are like they were prior to September 11- So much information coming to them and everyone is either lazy to organize it or don’t want to take responsibility for it. So Americans will continue to be hacked and ICT bombarded by Russian criminals while they fleece consumers.
The 2Checkout company is based in Ohio. I sent emails to the Atty Gen. of Ohio and no response. Calling the office is also useless for the consumer protection hotline. Emailed the relevant Fed agency and they said that they don’t deal with individual complaints.
Just got a response from the Ohio Atty Gen office today and they sent me another form to fill out, asking me more in depth questions about how I was abused online. Will update if anything changes, but for now be very cautious of the software you buy. Check what country the maker is in and proceed with caution. Russians don’t have the commercial decency as Americans and Canadians do.