Topic: SCAM WARNING: Illusion Mage, 3D Magix Pro, Mirage Wizard - do NOT buy

[alzarac]

Well, I feel very sad about this, because I am a 3ds max user and I have some videos posted into youtube and the last week I have received a private message from a youtube user, that ask me to publish a link into one of my video descriptions and he will pay me for this... at the begining this proposal doesn´t sounds extrange, because, he wasn´t the first one who said me this, but like the other people who ask me this, the first thing I ask him was, which kind of link or which kind of site he wants to publish... and the surprise... was this... the link redirect to Illusion Mage... and I must be honest. I didn´t know about this before, because I am not a Blender user, but I have some Blender knowledge, and I recognize some screenshots, so when I saw this site I feel that this software has something wrong... and that´s how I finished here... telling my story. Well, just to resume, I told the guy that I don´t want to be part of this scam and hope he never ask me again for something like this. Hope this  could help the Blender comunity and hope Blender take actions against people who want to gain money using others works.

P.S. I have send to him this link http://www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-foundation/press/re-branding-blender/

P.S. My english isn´t the best but hope you guys understand what I said 

[kat]

Thanks for posting the info alzarac. Might be worth reporting the guy to YouTube if they have offending (IllusionMage/3DMagixPro) videos in his profile (otherwise YT will ignore it).

[JeroenM]

According to one of many, many fake video reviews of Illusion Mage posted to YouTube (remove square brackets - http[:]//www[.]youtube[.].com/watch?v=dR2zgRLaEvI [1:12 mark]), "Seth" has had a lot of plastic surgery recently to change his appearance (see attachment), he'd make Nicolas Cage and John Travolta proud!.

[sarcasm]After notifying the FBI he was about to change his appearance he was told him to remain out of sight so people wouldn't make a connection to his previous appearance. However, his desire to gorge on his ill-gotten gains meant his not being able to resist showing 'his' smirking mug in yet more Illusion Mage videos[/sarcasm]

[EDIT]image removed at the request of the original Seth

I knew i saw this picture somewhere. I thought it was on facebook or something like that. But no. Here he is:
[redirected to post below]
Oh and yes. He's also on LinkedIn: [redirected to post below]

[EDIT] see post below & message from real Seth

[kat]

That sir, is an excellent find!. If that is the Seth Avery, I wonder how well it would go down with the University that he's involved in (the author of) several scams past and present. I can hear the reasoning behind it now... "I just did it to raise funds for my degree and PhD, I didn't mean anything by it. Beside the license says I can". It could also be that the scammers came across this obscure web page and 'hijacked' the guys name and photo to lend credibility to the scam. Would need to look into this one.

[JeroenM]

That sir, is an excellent find!. If that is the Seth Avery, I wonder how well it would go down with the University that he's involved in (the author of) several scams past and present. I can hear the reasoning behind it now... "I just did it to raise funds for my degree and PhD, I didn't mean anything by it. Beside the license says I can". It could also be that the scammers came across this obscure web page and 'hijacked' the guys name and photo to lend credibility to the scam. Would need to look into this one.

My gut feeling says it's the latter. If you google the name "Seth Avery" you'll find that the name is not that uncommon. Granted: it's not exactly like John Smith, but still there are quite a few Seth Averys floating around the net and on the social networks. Combined with the fact that 'our' "Seth Avery" uses a bogus photo which he grabbed from the internet my (completely unreliable) intuition tells me that the whole identity is fake and that neither the name nor any of the pictures fit.
Lets not forget: Ton Roosendaal assumed (and probably right) that Illusion Mage and 3DMagix are set up by the same  person or organisation. But the "creator" of 3D Magix calls himself Cody Landon.
For a bit of "fun": google pictures on the name of Cody Landon and make sure that all your safesearch settings are off. And I warn you: it's pretty shocking.

[kat]

Just a few more domain names pushing the IllusionMage scam.

• eillusionmage.org
• illusion-mage.org
• illusionmagee.com
• illusionmagey.com
• illusion-mage-reviews.com
• illusionmagereviewsite.com
• illusionmages.net

[dsol]

I've just set up a twitter feed for the other 3D app I use - Lightwave -  and within minutes I had these schmucks following me, hoping I'd follow them - or just link to their site no doubt.

I reported it as a spam account. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the account, or else I'd recommend others report them too. They're probably spamming with multiple twitter accounts. Scum.

[kat]

Thanks for posting. Yeah they pretty much need you ("us") to follow their accounts to lend credibility to their spurious products. Twitter et-al seem very slow to act, if at all, on these sorts of 'infringements'. And so long as they have a gateway through which they can monetise (ClickBank) then they'll keep doing it.

Slightly OT: I was watching TV the other week and saw Mr Avery's original picture being used in some personal injury accident claimant advert.. very funny stuff (not seen the advert since unfortunately).

[kat]

IllusionMage is a electronically distributed 'eproduct' attributed to a fictitious 'owner' whose identity has changed on a number of occasions. The product itself is a ZIP or RAR archive (depending on source) comprising a number of freely available and Open Sourced applications and other materials; this includes (but is not limited to), a typically outdated version of Blender 3D, and miscellaneous community authored documentation.

Other names the bundle has or is beening sold under include "IllusionMage3D", "3DMagix" and "3DMagixPro". There are also a number of associated domain names[1][2][3], typically registered by third party sales afflilates.

Criticism: IllusionMage has come under heavy criticism by many prominent Blender news sites and community figures, including Ton Roosendaal the founder of the Blender Foundation, BlenderNation et-al, due to the way attribution is often obfuscated, making it unclear to prospective customers that they are in fact purchasing material that is freely available elsewhere on the Internet from less dubious sources.

[kat]

...It could also be that the scammers came across this obscure web page and 'hijacked' the guys name and photo to lend credibility to the scam. Would need to look into this one.

Turns out that this is in fact what has happened here. The real Seth got in touch to say the image posted was indeed of him and he wasn't aware of, nor in any way associated with, the fake "Seth Avery". In other words, he had had his identity stolen by the people behind the scam so they appeared 'real' and legit.

If there were any doubts about the legitimacy of Illusion Mage/3D Magix Pro this should put the final nail in that particular coffin as a most definite not only scam, but actual fraud. As a result the images have been removed for the time being at his request.

[savery]

Hi - I am the "real" Seth Avery. I was very surprised to learn that my research group photo had shown up on this message board! Thank you for removing my image.

If possible, could the post which links to my real LinkedIn profile also be removed? I would like to distance myself from this as much as possible.

Thanks,
Seth

[kat]

It's taken a long time (and probably a lot of complaints) but ClickBank has finally seen fit to suspend the 'IllusionMage3D' et-al MarketPlace Account (URL reads as their being blacklisted - "errCode=blacklisted&cbhopvendor=illusion3d"). Whilst this is good news, it is somewhat disappointing that it had to take such a long time for it to happen, one wonders about the people ripped off in the meantime and are CB going to claim the funds back?.

The bad news? Unfortunately 'they' have found a new Market Place seller, click2sell.eu.

[kat]

A close on this topic; it appears the long standing IllusionMage scam is finally dead as the domain, illusionmage.com, is up for sale (clickbank sill has the site closed for ToS violation).