THE TRUE FACE OF TSR: The dangers of visiting thesimsresource.com

June 22, 2012

EA mole gives IP of complainant to hackers.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — coconut @ 23:15

 

EA Has committed a huge breach of confidentiality and security by not only passing on the complaint, but also the IP of the complainant to TSR. Furthermore a complaint that was meant to go to EA’s legal department was blocked from arriving there by EA’s community manager,  Sherrie Dandan.  Sherrie also alerted TSR on the number of complaints they have received and how they were submitted at the same time as thanking TSR for their bribe ‘gift’ sent to their offices.

This resulted in the WRONG person getting the blame for making the complaint, causing a 13 year old girl to have her online accounts hacked. The girls mother had not made the complaint she was accused of, instead she complained to TSR over what she deemed was inappropriate messages between Thomas and her child over MSN.

I checked the IP’s myself and it is pretty clear that the girl and her mother have completely different IP’s to the complainant. Steve would know this, which makes me think that the whole blame game was manipulated by Steve/TSR in order to ’show off’ a series of Emails between Steve and the EA community manager to prove Steve’s point that EA really do not give a shit who gets hacked. The girls mother had previously asked for advice on the shoutbox here, ( 27th May ) it was a pretty safe bet she would be back in contact when she was blamed for something she did not do, thus showcasing Steve’s validation of EA support.

 Below are screencaps of the entire communication, with the childs name/email removed and IP of the real complainant. Sorry about repeat lines, it was the only way I could screencap this in several shots while showing that there is nothing missing from the original.  As with all fowarded emails, it may be a good idea to read from the bottom upward to get the full gist and context of the email exchange between Steve and the mole. Also available in TEXT versions for translators.

TEXT VERSION HERE!

TEXT VERSION HERE

 TEXT VERSION HERE

It is fair to add the deletion of this young girls account is NOT the issue here, as this was the wish of her parents. The issue is TSR hacking into her EA account to make her believe EA had banned her for making a complaint and that they also hacked her Twitter/google/youtube and deleted her personal videos of something they knew meant a lot to her.

TEXT VERSION HERE

We have learned many things from the communications between Sherrie Dandan ( EA community Manager ) and Steve Bonham ( TSR joint admin and part time prison guard )

  • Sherrie Dandan is willing to block all complaints intended for EA legal.
  • Sherrie Dandan is willing to share private communications intended for EA legal.
  • Sherrie Dandan is willing to share a paying customers IP with the group they have just revealed as hackers.
  • Sherrie Dandan is willing to give TSR the number of complaints received ( and blocked from reaching their destination. )
  • Sherrie Dandan is willing to accept ‘gifts’ from TSR.
  • Sherrie Dandan is willing to believe that all complaints stem from my blog ( which this did not ) despite Steve/TSR not providing proof that anyone connected with this blog sent it.
  • Sherrie Dandan is willing believe, then go on to accuse this blog of being  a ‘pirating site’ despite no pirated content being on this site, furthermore – I personally, until now, have paid for every game and expansion pack I own and have done since The Sims 1. It is false accusations such as this that make me, and other falsely accused players pay more attention to sites such as MOONSIMS or  FREE SIMS STORE when looking for future content.
  • Sherrie Dandan believes that because this site is hosted by someone who hosts another site that has ‘pirated’ store content submitted on his forum… that makes ME a pirate. That is like saying that everyone who has a blogger account with google are pirates because somewhere there is a blogger account that hosts pirated content….  That is beyond stupid.
  • Sherrie Dandan believes Steve when he says that all my screencaps are edited and can be clearly seen with pixel zoom. Clearly Sherrie believes this on face value and has never once examined any of my screencaps  to see that this is a blatent lie. She also believes the vast amount of the community and sites that supply information here do not exist because I made them up. Who does she think are buying the games?. Most screencaps come with a link to the site they are on and yet Sherrie believes I own all these sites too.
  • Steve has supplied several ‘quotes’ from Coconut including “well I don’t care, I still think it was TSR so our accusation stands” and a ‘vow from me to bring down TSR because I was a failed FA’. Both quotes completely made up and with no truth to them whatsoever, but Sherrie has chosen to believe this with no links or proof  that any of these ‘quotes’ where ever made outside of Steves imagination.
  • Sherrie Dandan believes that followers of this blog were asking TSR members for their passwords despite NO ONE ever complaining this has EVER happened, nor any proof showing that any reader of this blog was involved. Why would they need a pass to TSR anyway? FA accounts are IP controlled meaning that unless you are using a computer in that FA’s house you can not access the account, and on the notion that all our readers are ‘pirates’ they wouldn’t need a subscriber account when the booty/ Sunset sims  offers free TSR subscriber downloads with no account needed. No brainer really.
  • Sherrie Dandan believes Steve when he says that a site that runs a business by manipulating EA made meshes and reselling the content against the EULA is a fansite. You can get full stolen games for free from the pirate bay… they must be superfans!
  • Sherrie Dandan does not believe screencaps, witness statements, emails, complaints or Steves own contracting statements ( see myths and lies) only the word of one man(?) compared to the word of countless paying customers.
  • Steve believes his job description …” I work for the Government in Criminal Justice” Sounds better than “I’m a prison guard”
  • In all this we have learned that Steve is a liar, he will use any means to boast about his relationship with EA, TSR have once again hacked a childs account and that Sherrie Dandan is profoundly stupid.
  • You have also learned to use other means of complaining to get your complaints heard in the right department and to state why you do not wish your complaints to go through a half wit who accepts bribes gifts from hackers.
  • EA have left themselves wide open to legal action from the real complainant. Congratulations.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/sadandan

Sherrie A. Dandan’s Experience

Community Manager – The Sims

Electronic Arts

Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; ERTS; Computer Games industry

March 2008– Present (4 years 4 months)

- Managing and growing The Sims community on TheSims3.com and TheSims2.com websites and social networks
- Synch with PR, Development team and Marketing to push game and content releases to community
- Distribute daily, weekly, and monthly reports on community outreach and growth
- Composing copy for news items and descriptions for virtual goods
- Organizing fan events
- Arranged accommodations, venues, services while staying within limited budgets

I can not find anywhere in her job description where it says she has the power to decide what is forwarded to EA legal and what is instead forwarded to hackers. Most companies have a policy that all communications mentioning legal action should be forwarded to the legal dept, I have not heard of any company who deem it ok to forward the complaint to friends/hackers and ridicule the complainant while hiding the complaint from the legal dept.

Sherrie Dandan - EA Mole

If anyone at EA believes these sceencaps are edited I will be happy to forward the original mails to anyone other than Sherrie Dandan, who already knows these are real.

 UPDATE:

The person who did write the complaint to EA, and had her info shared with TSR by EA Mole Sherrie Dandan has now decided to take legal action.

 http://tsr.mustbedestroyed.org/?p=1746

May 22, 2012

TSR, EA and YOU!

Filed under: The Sims Resource, Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — coconut @ 12:38

  You may think that reporting problems such as this to EA has never been of any benefit, that perhaps it is a waste of your time and that EA have done nothing. Think again. Since TSR adopted a ‘Mafia’ attitude and EA have been hearing about it in many corners, a whole lot has changed already. You would have to be blind not to notice that the glowing support EA once had for TSR has dwindled to nothing. When was the last time TSR had an exclusive on a new exp or stuff pack? ( Not counting the Medieval ‘exclusive’ Steve had to scan from PC Format magazine! ) Hell, EA did not even trust them to preview KP sweet treats! When were they last interviewed by EA? When was the last time someone… anyone? from EA appeared in their forums …..A long time ago.

  At the end of the day EA are a business, and yes it makes great business sense to keep on good terms with ‘the largest site in the sims community’. EA may be slow on the uptake, but even they can see now that TSR is only the ‘largest’ because they have been open for 12 years. ( not the longest, as TSR claim, but certainly a long time .) A vast percentage of all their members did not join TSR as it is today, they joined the free community site that it was in 1999, before it was sold off as a money spinning business to the Isakssons. None of the members amassed throughout the years can delete their own accounts or uploads. So that is 12 years of joining with 0 people allowed to leave, you do the math. If they were a regular cult they would need their own country by now. TSR masks itself as a happy place, no negative comments are allowed and until recently candy sweet good comments were rewarded with free subscription days. ( Kudos) Good artists appeared to be dumping their own sites just for the pleasure of working for the popular TSR, and the padded download stats look great. No wonder EA believed the hype. It was only after the dirty dealings and lies came to light that EA have finally distanced themselves from the monster they created. Many of these incidents only came to light because you, the community decided to tell them.

  What EA thought was a good business move in ‘turning a blind eye’ to the EULA ( for what seemed like the good of the community at the time ) ended up crushing a large proportion of the true fan community. The free pass that TSR thinks they have has gone right to their heads. Appearing as the largest sims site is not good enough anymore, they want to be the only sims site. This, thankfully, will never happen but while a money crazed madman believes this is possible, many fan sites are still closing due to the hackings, false file or site TOU reports, virus infections or buy outs. Yes, the community has survived and it will continue to, but think how much bigger and better the community would have been now if TSR had not attacked/targeted so many ‘rival’ websites, and continue to do so. This has a direct effect on EA/The Sims franchise. How many of these sites that TSR forced to close, the people TSR has hunted and harassed, the creators forced to quit and the children they exposed to goatse porn just for the shock value have given up on the game completely? CC and the community play a big part in the enjoyment of the game for many, and how many times do you read someone saying that the community is not the same and not fun anymore, reasons usually cited is because their friends have left, favorite sites/forums are gone, their own sites have been attacked or they are being bullied or dictated to. TSR are mentioned directly in 99% of these comments and not in a good way.

  The problem is that we, the community are fully aware of all this, mostly everyone has either been on the receiving end or knows someone who has. EA are only aware of what we tell them. How else can they find out? Most forums who speak about this do it in the members only sections for fear of TSR reprisals, Websites are afraid of becoming targets for hackings so they say nothing, those that do usually get the content removed via TOU reports/hacks. Not many post in the EA forums for fear of being ridiculed by TSR trolls. Websites are bullied for providing links to information sources such as this blog, the phorum or PMBD. TSR FA’s ever so sweetly join popular forums, this discourages any negative TSR posts from appearing. ( TSR refers to them as TSR ambassadors. ) With so much dust being swept under the carpet, you can see why EA may find it difficult to understand why TSR are so bad for the community, especially when TSR tell them again and again that anyone speaking against TSR are ‘pirates’ who pirate EA content, that anyone speaking against TSR are also against EA.

  This is where You can help. If you are one of the many unlucky people attacked by TSR, whether it is through hacking, TOU/TOS reports, take down notices, nasty messages/emails, demands for links or removal of links, lost money on a subscription, leaked private details or any instance where TSR have directly ruined or spoiled your enjoyment of the game and the community you need to tell EA about it. Be sure to show them screencaps of messages, forward emails of demands and threats, forward take down reports. Let them know how this affects you and your enjoyment of the game you paid for. ( Yes this will take a little of your time, but I am sure rebuilding your website, finding new hosts or begging Mediafire to reinstate your own content took longer. ) If you are too afraid, downhearted or TSR has made it impossible for you to make or continue with your Sims fansite, LET EA KNOW! This not only effects you, it effects EA and the exposure of their product.

 Do not expect direct action or even a good response from EA, your goal is to simply make them aware of the effect TSR is having on you and the community. EA already know enough to sever links with TSR, now they need to see the full extent of the damage TSR is doing. It is doubtful they will ever take legal action against TSR, they are probably still under the impression they would upset a lot of TSR’s fictional fans and ‘members’ but at the very least they should clarify the legality of a site that exists only to make money by manipulating EA made content. TSR are not fans of the game or the community, in any shape or form. You can not even truly describe them as a ‘business’ as they disregard any controls that would make a business legitimate. TSR are simply opportunists and leeches. EA’s reluctance to commit to their own EULA and say that such ‘business’ practices are wrong have created a monster and they need to stuff it back in it’s box.

 What TSR fail to compute is that the EULA still stands and EA can at any time pull the plug on TSR simply by clarifying that The Sims franchise is owned by EA and it was never designed to be exploited by 3rd party sites as a business venture, it was designed for the enjoyment of paying EA customers and should not be the subject of turf wars and the fallout associated with the criminal activities they use to maintain their cashflow.

Contact EA:

https://help.ea.com/contact-us

https://help.ea.com/contact-us?product=the-sims-3

 https://help.ea.com/en/the-sims/the-sims-2

support@ea.com

Electronic Arts Inc.
209 Redwood Shores Parkway
Redwood City, CA 94065

 

April 24, 2012

TS2 Hair – FOR FREE!!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — coconut @ 04:36

  As you may already know, SunsetSims is a truly awesome site that quite legally shares TS3 subscriber content, including TSR, for free. ( Observing the games owner, EA’s permissions and EULA. ) Up until now Sunset has been a TS3 only site. Todays wonderful news is that Sunset has now branched out to include a new section for the frequently requested TS2 hairs! So all you Sims 2 players, get yourselves over there now!

http://sunsetsims.mustbedestroyed.org/index.php/category/ts2-hair/

 

 Considering Tom is paying a truck load of $$$ to Skysims ( AKA Butterflysims ) for exclusive TS2 hairs, he is bound to be shedding a tear or two at this news.

On the subject of Tom and his tantrums, fans of TSR filesharing may want to check out this file host.. :)

http://www.99p-services.in/filehost/



January 26, 2011

TSR: Hacking YOUR Sites, Killing YOUR Community

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — coconut @ 23:56

   Site owners beware, TSR are attacking other Sims related websites and are using any means necessary to force rival sites off the web. 

   It is already well known that TSR have eliminated the paysite competition by buying out rival sites and/or their staff. Sites have been bought out and closed down, owners have been offered ca$h to close or asked to sign contacts stating they will close down their sites permanently in return for a shiny FA badge and a set regular wage. This policy has worked nicely for squashing PAY competition, but what about FREE competition? Some ‘Freesite’ owners feel too strongly about EA’s EULA to sell their soul to the devil.

   TSR have resorted to dirtier tactics to deal with this issue, They are sending TOU violations to hosts, some of these reports are even fabricated ( as was the case with GOS ) Hosting companies do not have the time or the knowledge to look into the legalities of such claims, and those that do quickly comply when threatened with imaginary legal action, which TSR could not possibly take due to the fact that they are the real pirates!  On occasions where such complaints and threats are ignored, the site in question gets hacked, as was the recent case of Awesims. When their host ignored the unfounded claims of piracy the site was hacked and replaced with a porn site. I am also advised that the owner’s worksite and emails were hacked. Black garden has admitted to a few members of the FA team that she KNOWS that Tom himself hacked Awesims, however rather than being disgusted, she is quite blasé about the whole thing. Others are not so happy and it remains to be seen whether or not they have an ounce of guilt or humanity left in them or if they will just shrug it off in favor of a healthy PayPal balance.

  Living Sims, a rival magazine site, was also hacked, Tom had plans to buy out Living Sims and close down their magazine, The start of these plans was to offer to pay them to make the TSR Simspiration magazine and then offer them ‘a little extra’ to close their site. The owner flatly refused, so TSR ( somewhat badly ) copied their ideas. A short while later their site was hacked. I have just found out that the name ‘Trance’ was used. It is a little known fact that Tom has had dummy accounts at TSR in the names thomastrance and Thomas_trance, he also used that name on an online game and has used it for Skype. None of this is widely known and was a long time ago.  

  Sunsetsims has also recently gone after Tom complained to Wordpress. If anyone can offer them secure hosting I would be grateful.

  Reflexsims, GOS, Natural Sims,  Simssecret, All4sims, Basicforsims, Simsartists, Gaysimsclub.. These are just a small sample of sites just off the top of my head that have been hit one way or another by TSR, there have been many others in the past and many more to come no doubt, and I am sure many more I do not know about. ( He admitted a couple of years ago that he hacked the rival pay site Exnem, but I have yet to find someone who cares )

  One of TSR’s most memorable hacks was when the community started an online petition which was due to be handed in to EA, they managed to collect 614 signatures before it was hacked and the 614 names and emails were leaked out by TSR who branded the signers ‘pirates’ 

http://tsr.mustbedestroyed.org/?p=855

http://tsr.mustbedestroyed.org/?p=858

http://tsr.mustbedestroyed.org/?p=911

   I can reveal the next target on the Tom-ass hit list  is quite a useful site called http://community.livejournal.com/tsrforfree/ He is quite angry about this particular site and complaints have or are about to be sent, so the owners had better make a back up and look into alternative hosting. He is also stalking GOS again so beware.

  In fact TSR will not stop until they are the only Sims site left. As a community you need to come together and most importantly DO NOT GIVE UP – STAND UP FOR YOURSELVES.

  1. Back up your sites regularly, if you are hacked – Restore.
  2. If you are taken down because of a TOS report – Find another host.
  3. If you know of a good host – Share this information with others who may need it.
  4. Do not be bought or blackmailed into closing your site.
  5. Ignore legal threats, you are doing nothing illegal by hosing a Sim site that complies with EA’s EULA, EA own all rights to the Sims, they say you can host it, so you can host it! Do not let a group of bloodsucking parasites tell you otherwise.
  6. Do not feel forced, threatened or blackmailed into displaying links to TSR or the workshop tool. The tool was created by the community for the community and is therefore owned by the community. TSR are very fond of threatening legal action to anyone who does not link to them simply because they used this tool. They have no legal stance on this whatsoever, and they know it. I have yet to meet one person who has been sued by TSR for anything, and yet they have issued many threats to just about everyone. ( myself included ) You may feel your site will not get hacked if you do not comply with his demands for links, Awesims complied and still got hacked.
  7. By Linking to TSR you are sending more innocent people their way to give up their money, give up their passwords to TSR’s unencrypted database for Toms easy pickings, and give up their personal details to them to share on the web. Do not put others at risk.
  8. If you are hacked or your site has been damaged through false claims made to your host you may decide to sue, I will give you his home address. I am sure your lawyer will make good use of it.
  9. Do not give up, too many sites have given up already, this progress makes him more determined to achieve his end goal. Do you really want TSR to be the only Sims site? If you once had a site/forum but were driven away, why not stand your ground and make a comeback? They only win if you let them.

10.  Make sure you let new simmers know the dangers of TSR, or the vicious circle will never end.

TSR have ruined the Sims community, it is time to take it back.

   Back in the days of the Sims 2, there were plenty of other Sims sites, the competition was killing TSR. Towards the end things were so bad they were considering closing. Subscriptions were at an all time low and FA’s were often given pay cuts prompting them to lose interest with the site. Not long before that Tom had bought a new luxury mansion for a 2nd home, but the tide turned quickly with more people than ever not renewing subscriptions, instead they were opting for free sites that were safer and with better quality downloads. Tom was ready to move on to another game, but Steve wanted to at least wait for the release of the Sims 3. He knew this would bring new subscribers – new players who had no idea of TSR’s reputation. He was right, that coupled with Toms renewed efforts to kill the competition and bury opposition, sites and forums started going down quicker than Atwa, and TSR got away with the murder of the Sims community.

****

  If you have made any nice shiny mirrored floors for your site, you had better watch out, Tom sees YOU as competition. Seriously, how can he accuse anyone of shamelessly copying a floor?

4 words: Petty. Bitter. Little. Man ( The last word is open for question )

Free gift or trojan horse? The choice is yours.

Update 1: I have just been informed via shoutbox that Adelevk has been hit.

Update 2 - from comments: “Coolsims (popular hairsite that is 100% free) has been hacked in 2010, and the people that hosted that site have been hacked too. They solved it themselves and were not impressed enough to mention it publically. But it happened.”

April 7, 2009

TSR Myths and Lies

Filed under: The Sims Resource — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — coconut @ 01:26

TSR Myths and Lies

Welcome to all the new readers who have found their way here after ‘googling’ names and phrases found on TSR’s ’statement’ Listed below are the myths, lies and truths of that statement.

(more…)

January 18, 2009

BlackGarden 3/3

Filed under: The Sims Resource — Tags: , , , , , , , — coconut @ 20:08

   Would TSR really tamper with their files in order to purposely crash your game?

    You will have read by now that, by its own admission, TSR  place trojans in their downloads to gain information on the downloader. They refer to this trojan as an innocent sounding  ’Watermark’, although there has never been anything innocent about trojans or spyware, and their trojan is as far away from a real watermark as you can get.

   Here is a posing question for you, would TSR really code its trojan, so that if anyone would try to remove this intrusive spyware, it would cause the download file to break and actually crash your game, potentially damaging your computer?

   BlackGarden has the answer…

(more…)

January 17, 2009

BlackGarden 2/3

Filed under: The Sims Resource — Tags: , , , , , , , , — coconut @ 14:30

Q=: Which FA gets BGs goat so much that she has to start a 3 page 70 post bitch thread on the subject?

(more…)

January 14, 2009

BlackGarden 1/3

Filed under: The Sims Resource — Tags: , , , , , , , — coconut @ 10:44

    Here are a couple of screenshots from a batch sent to me recently. It is evident that these screenshots came from TSR FA BlackGardens own forum. The 8 shots in total cover 3 subjects, todays subject is The creators camp.

(more…)

January 12, 2009

TS3 EA Creators Camp

Filed under: The Sims Resource — Tags: , , , , , , , — coconut @ 11:15

   The Creators camp at Redwood Shores kicks off today. (  January 12th to 16th 2009 )

(more…)

December 5, 2008

TSR shares FULL HOME ADDRESS.

Filed under: The Sims Resource — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — coconut @ 12:06

   In todays update we find out why Jassims was really booted from TSR, and TSR sickeningly share a full name, full address inc zip, telephone number and Email of one unfortunate victim.

(more…)

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