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Today I was looking for info about EntroPay.com, a company that issues virtual Visa credit cards. despite the vaguely scary name ;) of the company, I planned to use one of those one an American site that would not allow me to pay with my normal Italian credit card.

I thought to look for info about the status of the company that owns the site, since scams are always out there on the Internet… I also had found at least a couple messages of people claiming that the “FSA number” for EntroPay is “false”.
EntroPay seems popular in UK but is actually based in Malta. Anyway the FSA registration is real and this can be easily checked.

Here is some info at the bottom of EntroPay‘s webpage:

EntroPay is operated by Ixaris Systems Ltd.
Ixaris Systems Ltd is authorised by the Financial Services Authority under the Payment Service Regulations 2009 for the provision of payment services. Registration number 540990.
EntroPay VISA cards are issued by Bank of Valletta or Transact Network Limited, pursuant to a license from VISA Europe.
EntroPay MasterCard cards are issued by Transact Network Limited pursuant to licence by MasterCard International Incorporated. MasterCard is a registered trademark of MasterCard International Incorporated.

FSA – UK’s Financial Services Authority – can be reached at www.fsa.gov.uk and they allow to verify this kind of info.

On the FSA site, various types of search can be performed; the one you need is “Payment Services Firm Search” and once there you need to type the “Firm reference number“: 540990.

Here are the results:

Basic details for:
540990 – Ixaris System Limited
Payment Institution status: Authorised Payment Institution
Effective Date: 27/04/2011
Agent Status:
Effective Date:
Address:
1 Berkeley Street
London W1J 8DJ
Phone: 44 020 7025 5473
Fax: 44 020 7099 8904
Email: WILLIAM.LORENZ {at} IXARIS(.)COM
Notices: Payment services are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

I still don’t know if I will get an EntroPay Virtual Visa, but I thought to share this little bit of info.

I received two different emails from IMVU with the following text:

—-

da IMVU <fraud {at} imvu(.)com>
data giovedì 8 settembre 2011 – 12:50
A: [account name] <--- {at} ---(.)net>
oggetto IMVU: Your account name and password request URL
sensibilità normale
priorità normale

This email is not spam. You are receiving this message because your email address —@—.net belongs to an account on IMVU.

Somebody, hopefully you, requested an avatar name reminder or a new password for the IMVU account with an e-mail address of —@—.net.

The avatar name for this account is: [account name]

If you made this request, and you need your password reset, please go to the following URL to confirm your request and have your password emailed to you:

[address removed]

Note: this URL can only be used to change your password once.

If you are having any difficulty with your password request, please click here.

If you did not request this change, please disregard this message. Your password will not be changed.

If you suspect somebody is trying to harass you or tamper with your account, please reply to this email message to report this attemped account fraud to IMVU. Do not remove any of the original message content in your reply. Only messages regarding account abuse will be handled; all other messages sent to this address will be ignored.

The person requesting this logged-in from the IP address 123.53.69.88.

—

This documents an attempt from a user in China (in or near the city of Zhongyuan, province of Hainan, according to IP Address Lookup) to obtain access to my own IMVU account.
Not that they would find much inside it, but still they could make both economic damage to some and/or cause trouble impersonating people online.

If you receive anything like this, forward it to fraud {at} imvu(.)com telling them that you never requested any password change, and also go to www.imvu.com and immediately change your password.