Credit card scam puts dotcom close to death

Flooz floored

By Robert Blincoe • Get more from this author

Posted in e-Business, 28th August 2001 11:58 GMT

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An online gift certificate site, Flooz.com, has filed for bankruptcy. This may be because it was the victim of a major credit card scam costing it $300,000.

The FBI are investigating a ring of Russian and eastern European bandits who are believed to have used stolen credit cards to buy Flooz's gift currency, known as the Flooz.

The problem really kicked in last month, according to head Floozy Robert Levitan, when banks halted all payments for goods made using the Flooz.

Levitan blamed the fraud and the current dotcom doldrums for forcing his company to seek bankruptcy protection.

Cisco was a major partner in the venture, and Whoopi Goldberg advertised the launch of the site in return for a stake in the business.

Flooz.com had raised $35 million over the last three years. It's going into Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, which unlike Chapter 11, means there's no real hope of coming out of it alive.

A netcraft scan reveals Flooz.com is running Microsoft IIS/4.0 on NT4/Windows 98. ®