Post a Comment On: The Dreamcast Junkyard

[Image] Just doing a bit of housekeeping, as we don't like to leave cold cases open here at the 'Yard. That's The Dreamcast Junkyard - which should not be confused with that other 'Yard where famous detectives hang out and drink tea/eat scones (as is the norm in England - as taxpayers we simply will not tolerate any of that uncouth coffee and donuts malarkey).

So without further ado: we covered this story back in 2008 (see original post here), but it appears we never really revisited it and confirmed the fears that Sega's 2008 re-vamp of their Dreamcast site was indeed a phishing scam orchestrated by persons unknown. The Gagaman did add an edit to that report:

Word is spending about on forums that this *might* be a hoax by a spammer trying to make money off the google ads from the G-mail account signing up to this gets you. Until Sega confirms that they are indeed not involved with this, I'm skeptical. At the moment the site is "temporarily suspended" due to so many requests, so who knows, but if someone is using the Dreamcast name as a scam...
As I was browsing the 'net last night I came across an article from The Guardian's gaming blog that cleared up the matter once and for all - the 2008 redesign of Dreamcast.com was indeed a scam which was designed to encourage Dreamcast fans across the globe to enter their details into a database...for use by who knows and for what nefarious purposes. Here's a further quote from Joystiq:

By all appearances, the supposed official site of Sega's cherished console has received a legitimate update, exciting loyalists that have been anticipating the system's 10-year anniversary later this year. By clicking on the question, visitors are prompted to accept a user agreement for an @user.dreamcast.com email account (apparently tied to Gmail). Applicants must supply a console serial number, email address, and password before being granted a [serial number]@dreamcast.com Gmail address. The thing is ... Sega no longer owns dreamcast.com. So there we are. Case closed...sort of. Dreamcast.com (as Gagaman originally stated) was not owned by Sega and was a scam aimed squarley at fans of the long-since discontinued console. The point? We don't know - it's like setting up a site now called Betamax.com and asking people to register their machines, just so you can harvest the details of people who might have one in their attic.  Did you believe the website was a genuine Sega initiative and enter your particulars? If so, what - if anything - happened? Please let us know in the comments section.