Image from stock footage (probably)
As many of you know (especially night owls or Kossacks in later time zones), Daily Kos is being regularly hit with spam diaries advertising towing companies. The ads are all similar, with a photo, a short blurb, a list of services offered, and contact information including a phone number, email address, physical address, business hours, and web site URL.
I had assumed that these were companies that had been suckered into paying spammers for SEO. But it turns out to be much more mysterious. These companies do not exist.
Many of the addresses turn out to be in residential areas, where zoning would not allow tow companies. One address I checked turned out be a high-end apartment complex. One was a single-family home. One was along a river walk. Just not places you’d expect to see tow companies.
Here’s a recent example. The address, on streetview, looks like this:
It appears to be a building with two small shops, both out of business.
But there’s also a photo, supposedly uploaded by the business owner in August 2023, that does show a towing business.
It looks completely different from the Streetview. And Google shows nothing like that in the neighborhood. It appears to be a historic area, with old brick and stone buildings. The map shows the shop at the address is as small as it appears from the street, with no room for a garage or a building like in the owner-uploaded photo.
Satellite view shows a cramped parking lot behind the address, with no room for tow trucks and no tow trucks in evidence.
Note that the address is labeled with the name of the towing company. Even though streetview shows no sign of the business actually being there. The business has hours listed, but zero reviews on Google and no mention on Yelp.
18 hours before the spam was posted on dKos, two ads for the purported towing company were posted to YouTube. They were seemingly made with stock footage, probably not from the U.S., and no one had viewed them (until me, I guess).
Why are they doing this? They are approaching 50 ads posted here at dKos, for different imaginary towing companies, with different names, web sites, phone numbers, email addresses, etc.
Someone suggested it’s a phishing attempt. You need a tow, you call them, and they extract information to commit identify theft or charge you for services they will never render.
This seems like an awful lot of work for very doubtful reward. You’d have to find someone in the right town, who is desperate enough to hand over their financial information to a “business” with no reviews. (I am curious about whether there’s an English speaker manning the phone numbers offered, but not enough to actually call them. FWIW, the numbers given have area codes that match the supposed locations of the phantom towing companies.)
The web sites look legit at first glance, though they are very generic. Perhaps they are intended to download malware onto your phone or computer. If you try to contact them via the web site, Chrome warns that the web site is trying to open an app. Not the usual result you get when trying to contact a legitimate business.
I used Google Image Search on some of the photos used in the spam diaries, and it looks like they have been used for similar spam. Many of them are connected to web sites no longer live, or URLs that are for sale. Could that the point? Make URLs appear desirable, for resale purposes?
None of the explanations make much sense to me. If the point is phishing or malware, why make spam/web sites with such limited appeal? They’re pushing services not often needed, in very specific locations (they are all in small towns/cities), which would necessarily limit the spammer’s reach. Not to mention, people living in these small communities would likely already have garages they trust, or would at least know that there’s not likely to be a towing company at the addresses listed.
So, dKos brain trust...any ideas? Why are they are going to so much trouble, setting up bogus web sites, labeling nonexistent businesses on Google Maps, making and uploading phony ads to YouTube, Photoshopping fake images of their fake business with the fake address on the door. What the heck is going on with this towing company spam?
![President Barack Obama talks with Kim Teehee, Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs, in the Oval Office, April 26, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) -- Kimberly Teehee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Teehee (born October 13, 1968) is a Native American (Cherokee Nation) attorney, politician, and activist on Native American issues. She is a Delegate-designate to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Cherokee Nation. She served as senior policy advisor for Native American affairs in the administration of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2012.[1] In February of 2020, she was named by Time as one of 16 activists fighting for a "More Equal America."[2]](https://images.dailykos.com/images/1133643/story_image/Barack_Obama_and_Kimberly_Teehee_2012-04-27_cropped.jpg?1668325046 "President Barack Obama talks with Kim Teehee, Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs, in the Oval Office, April 26, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) -- Kimberly Teehee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Teehee (born October 13, 1968) is a Native American (Cherokee Nation) attorney, politician, and activist on Native American issues. She is a Delegate-designate to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Cherokee Nation. She served as senior policy advisor for Native American affairs in the administration of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2012.[1] In February of 2020, she was named by Time as one of 16 activists fighting for a \"More Equal America.\"[2]")
