FanBox Desktop: Word Processor
December 9, 2007 by Jerome Locson
Filed under Computers
I got this friend referral to FanBox Desktop, a web-based desktop with applications (like messenger, internet browsing, Suggest, etc.) and remote file storage. I do not know personally who invited me but I gave it a try. And, it is not that ’spam’ email as I thought.
FanBox Desktop has this tool called Word Processor, so I gave it a try. Yes, yet another web-based document processing tool. Let’s see… we have Google Docs, Zoho Writer, Live Documents….. and many others. Now comes FanBox Desktop Word Processor.
Well, it has the basic features of a word processor like font, alignment, color, formatting, etc. You can save file to your local PC or to your remote file storage about 2GB of space. Of course, you can edit file from you computer or files located in you remote storage. I encountered some bugs though but I bet there is more to see with this application since it is still in its initial release stage.
Anyway, if you wish to try it out, visit www.fanbox.com
This is actually the new face of an old company: SMS.AC
If you google sms.ac and scam in the same search you will find out more about their history.
Yup. Thanks for that info. :)
I love FanBox! They have so many cool applications and features on their desktop! Their social network aspect rivals even MySpace and Facebook! I looked up the old stuff on SMS.ac, and who cares? It wasn’t even a big deal and they have since discontinued offering sms service. So stop crying and give the site a chance.
- TJ
Hey TJ! How long have you worked for sms.ac? Is San Diego treating you well?
Maybe they’ve learned their lesson and are trying to start anew? FanBox doesnt seem scamy so far..
I’ve got an invitation for FanBox from someone i don’t know. It turned out, they wanted my Yahoo mail password. :evil:
I wouldn’t trust them.
When You sign up you allow employees of the company to interact with you using fake identities – pretending to be other users. They can encourage other people to interact with you by pretending that they are indeed you! and if you don’t touch your profile for more than a year and half, you allow them to change your profile. Truthfully, this company hopes that you give them your mobile number so that this “interaction” can take place via premium text messaging – in which a fee is charged. I have provided the quotes from the term of service online. They have a lot of fluff in it, but I have edited out the stuff that is meant to distract you. Read it carfully…
EXCERPT FROM THEIR TERM OF SERVICE – WITH THE “FLUFF” EDITED OUT!
“SMS.ac also employs community representatives who… help groups, clubs and especially users to become active participants of the community. SMS.ac and its community representatives reserve the right to communicate directly with users through…use[ing] automation… community representatives may use simulated or assumed identities, photos and interests in their profiles. You agree that your public profile information, including but not limited to your display name, photograph, interests and greeting may be utilized by the community representatives or community technology to encourage other users to communicate with you or to interact with the Service. Inactive profiles that have not been utilized by their creators in over 18 months may be removed or modified. All messages and services, whether or not they are delivered to or access your mobile phone, may include a premium message charge on your mobile phone account. You may also be charged for standard messages by your mobile phone provider”
I got a shady e-mail from FanBox saying my friend wants me to sign up. Bellow it then correctly listed my phone number and date of birth. How do these F**** know so much?
Good work MONDO
it’s quite sad actually. because the concept is cool and it really has the potential to take off. but the management in the company is so blindly obsessed with reaching out to as many users as they can, that they are in fact killing their own product.
I’d like to know about this class action lawsuit. This company gave away my PERSONAL information to some “fanbox” site. This “portal is just like facebook or myspace. I despise such portals and never created an account there intentionally. I called their customer support number and left a message, even though I am very upset I tried to keep my composture. The fact is that they e-blasted to all of the people that I have on my contact list an alleged account I have with them and showed all of them my “profile”. They even used my nickname: LUE. I appear there with a lot of semi-naked ladies and as a homosexual. This situation costed me MY MARRIAGE. My wife saw the thing (she was on my contact list of course) and flipped!!! How the hell am I going to do now when my wife is so convinced that I am looking for whores on the internet and that I am also gay. No offense to the gay community but I can turn very beligerant if I’m been accused of something that I am not and that costs me endless hours of stress, anxiety dispair and even my feaking marriage!!!!
Send me all information that you have about the lawsuit, i’ve already started talking to my lawyer.
Thank you!
I received an email today in my hotmail account saying that “Jessica” had a question for me through FanBox, “click here to answer Jessica’s question”… It also stated that 30 people had recently “viewed” my profile. Wha? They also went on to say that I have been a member since April of 2005 and listed my name, username and cell phone number. I reported the email as spam, but am still puzzling over the whole ordeal. Who the heck are these people? How did they get my hotmail address? How do they know my NAME? I’ve never heard of them before! SCARY!
Luis. I use to work for sms.ac, but I can not reveal my identity because of a non-disclosure agreement that they make every employee sign when you start working there, when you quit, you are reminded by the legal team to never speak of the company again – and if you do, you will be sued. Sms.ac is now fanbox.com. If you read in my previous post on Dec 15th, they reserve the right to utilize your identity (send messages out and communicate with people as if YOU are doing it) also, after 18 months of inactivity they can “modify your profile”. You are not the only one this has happened to – rest assured. While I worked in customer service, I came across other people in your situation. This company does not care about the social repercussions that their site has on people’s lives. The reason they mimic you is because they make money doing it. If anyone of your contacts has given sms.ac their mobile number at any time, and has not blocked in coming messages on their own profiles, your contacts get billed for a premium text message when they receive your supposed “messages”. I don’t have any mercy for this company because they have been doing it for too long. The company not only abuses its customers, but also its employees. They have been warned so, so, many times but don’t care, and it makes me sad that this is now affecting your marriage.
I would never give anyone my e-mail password!
in the same boat with you Mando… curious, how do you think they are bringing in revenue with fanbox? I mean they were still seeding sms.ac when i was there, but where’s Pousti going with this new biz plan?
TJ…how can you talk such crap ? this is a total scam ….who cares ? I care !
what a fraudulent ******* company ! how much are they paying you to promote their scam here?
what a lowlife you are ! nothing but a sell out ****** you are !
Crazy – just got this too. Wow, and Jessica is also a friend of yours Alies? Hey, maybe we should catch up…
Just joking.
Man you get pissed off with all this spam scam crap on the net. It is the bastard stuff that clogs up the bloody thing in the first place.
Mind you – there is truth to the saying there is one born every minute (sucker) – why do people keep responding to these emails?
And why oh why do they give out their passwords??
hey there who cares what every says..live life king size…in fan box i got downloaded some cute english songs those i ever heard..from some other users who like those songs…its is,nt a wonderful thing to to hear what u like…indeed its a great conclusion…lol..So the bottomline is fanbox is such an entertaining site…whatever they do to others i Dont care..lol lol…i swear lol
Mike Pousti is one of those big player wana bees faking the funk. It’s not a company, its an IT version of a sweat shop, enough said.
I Don’t want to be in Fanbox so please sign me off!
Tell other fans to not send e_mails to me pease!
I love fanbox, it keep me busy all day. thanks to fanbox i am now dating
is it like a yahoo messanger? if yes i would u like to go through it…. pls send details
why have they not been shut down yet!!!
I found out I had a profile on fanbox when e-mails started arriving. I never even heard of it before let alone created a profile. And there seems to be no way to delete your profile once they have it. You can “deactivate” it, but it’s still there. I’m very angry. I want to know if there is some way to make these people completely delete all information they have on me. What a disreputable and invasive company this is.
Sign me out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the funny thing is that i never created a profile with them. it was automatically created when i first clicked on that link that was inviting me in the first place.
As with all scams, they just get more sophisticated. I don’t know if they are doing anything that’s actually illegal, but they are definitely a shady bunch.
i love this site and i wish to be part of the member
i member
wish to be part of the
Hey FANBOX.COM is a cool Microsoft Web Browser like site. This may end up being the best community site around. I looked up their traffic ranking via Alexa.com They have grown to the top 700 ranked site in a matter of weeks and still overtaking the long time top ranked web sites. Their web based platform, and slick community site products make me believe that this site may be acquired by Microsoft. Already has the look and feel! And Microsoft is definitely looking to acquire leaders to compete against Google and YouTube! Interesting site! Anyway, it seems legit and the rankings don’t lie. The MICROSOFT feel is a slick marketing tool. Great Site!
i like this site
how do i set up my fan box desktop account
This is a total Phishing Site, you would have to be a moron to sign up. BTW, the site has never been in the top 700.
Just another lie by another internet SCAMMER
hi!!
I too got a questionaire from someone and clicked on it .Before I knew it had created an account and asked for my password for my hotmail account.. which of course i didn’t give as
it would give them access to my email address book which they then use to spam other people..
I have closed the account.. ( but Fanbox still have it open)
This is really sneakky sneaky stuff.. It is obvious to me the people giving fan box a nice spin either do not know or have interest in the company…no way you think you can bluff people… yeah right.
Funny..it says my previous comment is awaiting moderation..
If it gets deleted then it is obvious you have an interest in the company too.
In case you open their email. fwd it to spam@uce.gov. if you have yahoo email at the bottom of the email click of full headers. this will show ip address and other info. then fwd it to spam@uce.gov. this is really annoying. i guess smc.ac is getting desperate.
When are you people going to learn that you should never connect any personal information with anything that pretty much has an unlimited ability to move information, identities are worth consumer research and marketer’s buy lists of people from people such as this in order to generate revenue from unlikely customers…in essence they sell your information to a third party among massive lists…welcome to the food chain…fortunately there are those out there with more vindictive natures to them, *grins sadistically*
FAN BOX is a scam site, don’t sign up and never give them any of your info. Use you head folks.
Hello everyone here ! Well, some of you really seem to have had some problem with this site, so I’d like to ask you something : I recieved those questions from a friend first, and at first answered them but refused to give my adress or anything, just closed the page after my answer. And I only opened a “want to be your fan” but I had to close it before I had even time to read (personnal reason, not the computer) and now it isn’t working anymore anyway. So, does all that mean that I’m supposed to have an account there also ???
this was sent to me already set up~i thought it might be ok but after reading some of this stuff im beginning to wonder!!!!!!
Whatever you do, do not give this company your mobile phone number – this is how they make their money. If you have given them your mobile phone number keep track of your bills and cancel the service fast. They micro bill so that you don’t notice the charges on your cell phone bill. Over the course of a few years you may only be charged a few dollars, but they do this on a global scale – racking in hundreds of thousand of dollars. They are quick to refund, and put out any litigation threats fast! They have surrounded themselves in a blanket of terms and agreements, and have jumped through every loop hole possible. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MOBILE NUMBER!! Most of the profiles, blogs, and requests are either recyled or created by the company themselves. They are out to charge you for products that are already free on the internet and when times get tough for them, they start micro billing everyone in their system who was dumb enough to give them their mobile number.
Got the email today and signed up for it. Did not (and did not want to) to give them my mobile number or my yahoo/hotmail account passwords. But unfortunately I signed into the aol messenger which had the same password as my yahoo and gmail accoounts. Two hours later I find I cannot get into my gmail and yahoo accounts and the password has changed. And all my accounts starting with my name in the addressbook have been sent an email abusing me .Luckily I could get into my hotmail account which has a different password and use it to retrieve the passwords for the other accounts.
Not saying the fanbox company has done this, but it may be the case that the interface is being used by hackers to get the passwords. In those two hours, I did not download any file or enter my password on any other website, nor in the last few days have I gone on any suspicious site, so I am positive that this happened through fanbox itself.
i like fan box this make all world frd and all age frd no disstence in now world very good site
Veddy intedestink!
Like many of you, I got an email from someone asking me a question with the Question It application. I knew the person, so I clicked the link to answer the question. Of course, it took me to FanBox. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable social networking site, so I signed up. Fortunately, I’m reasonably savvy, so I didn’t give them my email password or my cell phone number.
Then, yes, I started getting tons of “blahblah wants to be your loyal fan” and “blahblah has asked you a question.” Right away, I got suspicious when every question had perfect spelling and grammar (i.e., these can’t possibly live human beings asking these questions)!
When I tried sending emails to all these newfound “friends” through Fanbox’s email, nobody replied. And when I tried sending a broadcast message to all my “fans,” my message kept getting rejected as “hate speech” when all I said was basically: “Are any of you real live people? Or are you all sock puppets created by Fanbox admins?”
So okay, I googled Fanbox and found THIS site. Aha! My suspicion is confirmed-–FanBox is an elaborate phishing site.
Too bad, really, because it’s a beautiful design for a social networking site–and that Question It application is a great idea to “break the ice” and make new friends. So anyway, I red-listed them and firewalled them and washed my hands of them.
Thanks for sharing your experiences…
You’re welcome :-)
I logged into Fanbox one last time and sent an email to one of their fake users (May Ram) telling her that I think Fanbox is a beautiful design for a social networking site and urging them to stop the phishing and to go legit, that I bet Fanbox would be very succcessful as a legit social networking site.
A few minutes later, my firewall blocked a portscan attempt on my machine from 209.244.0.3. I pinged that and got no response…
i want to be a fanbox member
I don’t know about anyone else’s thoughts, but I think fanbox is outsourcing their labour. I noticed the comments left by fanbox ‘fans,’ wanting to join or just saying how great it is, are in terribly broken English……