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Tuesday 31 May 2011

Liver Transplant spam

A weird one here.. somebody offering bits of their liver for sale. Of course it could be a scam, but it might even be genuine (which is perhaps more disconcerting). Originating IP address is 95.167.110.9 in Russia.

From: Alex alexsilpo@yahoo.com
Date: 30 May 2011 10:37
subject: Liver transplant.
   
Hello.
I found your e-mail adress on medical site of transplant and liver problems.
My name is Alex, I am 31 years european man, I never drank alcohol and did not smoke cigarettes, my blood is O+ and I have a good health. If you need liver transplant I am ready to give part of my liver, but I want to receive a big compensation for that...

If you do not need liver transplant, but you know somebody who need it, please send my message to this person or keep it just in case.

alexsilpo@yahoo.com
alexsilpo@hotmail.com
alexsilpoeu@yandex.ua


Alex

P.S. If I was mistaken, I am sorry, I will not disturb you any more.

Fake jobs: 1new-position.com, gb-hire.net, gb-jbprogramm.com, online-vacancy.net and us-vacancy.net

Another installment of this long-running job scam, the following domains are newly registered (2 days ago) and are most likely to be used to recruit people for money laundering and other criminal activities. Avoid.

1new-position.com
gb-hire.net
gb-jbprogramm.com
online-vacancy.net
us-vacancy.net

Domains are registered to the "Aleksej Iliin" persona that we have seen many times before.

Tuesday 24 May 2011

gb-offers.com bogusjob offers

Another domain offering bogus jobs in money laundering or other illegal activities is gb-offers.com, part of the long running "Lapatasker" series of scams. As with other recent domains, this too is registered to the (probably fake) "Aleksej Iliin" person.

Avoid.

Friday 20 May 2011

Fake jobs: au-position.org and europjob.org

Two new(ish) fake job domains in the "Lapatasker" series, au-position.org and europjob.org are being used to recruit money mules etc etc.

As usual, avoid.

Thursday 19 May 2011

Scam: "Your money has been recovered"

Originating from a government-owned IP address in China (218.26.2.42), this slightly puzzling advanced fee fraud is deliberately vague about where this $7.6m comes from.. of course, there are no millions stashed away in Hong Kong, but instead you can expect that there will be a LOT of expensive and unexpected fees to pay instead.

From: Mark Edwin admin@ssing.ru
Reply-To: intldeptreconcom@consultant.com
Date: 18 May 2011 01:50
Subject: Your money has been recovered (5/18/2011)

International Debt Recovery and Reconciliation Hong Kong
6/F,Trade Service Center  ,388 Kwun Road
Kowloon, Hong Kong


Tel: 852-3015-1834  Fax: 852-3015-1834


Dear  Beneficiary

                                                                        Re Payment instruction
This is international debt recovery and reconciliation office Hong Kong, our mandate is to settle all outstanding debt owe to contractors and individuals all over the world, thus this debt must have been originated from awarded contracts, inheritance and sweepstakes lottery, If you fall into this category of contractors, individual or lottery winners we advise that you contact this office immediately.We presently recover your $7.6 Million United States Dollars

The directive came in line with the agreement reached in New York U.S.A with the International Moneytary Fund -IMF, World Bank London and Paris Club on creditors and overseas credit Commission for immediate settlements of all Intercontinental debts owed to you by various countries.

1.      Date of Approval: 22-11-2010
2.      Revised Remittance: Not endorsed.
3.      Fund Endorsement payment code No AG-000087GXY-2F-PASS 2001-2010
4.      Date of issue 19-01-2011
5.      Bank Effect payment of beneficiary fund
6.      International  payment: Certifнcate Code No:Not Endorsed

On receipt of your a responds to this fax/email message, please contact our north America payment clearing center bellow.

George Donald
Foreign Affair Officer
Email:
Tel: 1-226-556-3307
Fax: 1-866 964 3856.

However, I will advise that   update this office on a regular bases


Best regards,

 MARK EDWIN
Regional Coordinator
International Credit Commission Hong Kong

Friday 13 May 2011

New Blogger logo

Google unveiled a new Blogger logo today to reflect their two day outage (another triumph for cloud computing).

Wednesday 11 May 2011

Fake jobs: first-weboffer.com, weboffers-tech.com, weboffers-tech.com and wug-tech.com

Another batch of domains offering non-existent jobs, part of the long-running "Lapatasker" series. The jobs will include money laundering and other criminal activity.. so probably best acoided.

As with other recent domains, these are registered to a probably fictitious person called Aleksej Iliin, the domains were registered on 10th May.

first-weboffer.com
weboffers-tech.com
weboffers-tech.com
wug-tech.com

Pinball Corporation RIP?

Pinball Corporation is a company that bought the remnants of Zango, a company that had a reputation for pushing slimeware. Last year I pointed out a case where Pinball Corp were clearly not keeping an eye on the actions of their affiliates, and other people have been critical of them too.

Well, there's potentially some good news.. because according to the Washington State Corporations Division, Pinball Corp became inactive on the 2nd May 2011.

PINBALL CORP.
UBI Number602918125
CategoryREG
Profit/NonprofitProfit
Active/InactiveInactive
State Of IncorporationDE
WA Filing Date09/02/2010
Expiration Date09/30/2011
Inactive Date05/02/2011
Registered Agent Information
Agent NameBUSINESS FILINGS INCORPORATED
Address1801 WEST BAY DR NW STE 206
CityOLYMPIA
StateWA
ZIP98502
Special Address Information
Address
City
State
Zip

Governing Persons
TitleNameAddress
President,TreasurerScott, JoelOne Market Plaza
Spear Tower Fl 19
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
SecretarySiefer, SerenaOne Market Plaza
Spear Tower Fl 19
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
DirectorChandratillake, Suranga3600 136th Pl SE
BELLEVUE, WA
DirectorService, Matthew3600 136th Pl SE
BELLEVUE, WA


Of note is that although the corporation appears to be inactive, the website at pinballcorp.com is still running and with no notice about the change of company status. Where Pinball Corp's affiliates stand is unknown, but given the deceptive business practices of a number of them, then I don't think too many people will be shedding a tear.

But why has the company apparently become inactive? It turns out that Pinball Corp is a wholly owned subsiduary of a UK firm called Blinkx plc, and the "inactive" date coincides almost exactly with Burst Media (for $30m). Perhaps Blinkx decided that Pinball Corp was no longer something that they wanted to have in their expanded portfolio?

Tuesday 10 May 2011

SMS Spam: £3750 for an accident you haven't had

There seems to be a huge number of these spam SMS messages doing the rounds recently:
Free Msg; Our records indicate you may be entitled to £3750 for the accident you had. To apply free reply CLAIM to this message. To opt out text STOP.
These message come through if you are registered on TPS or not. There is no identification as to who is sending them, and the number changes regularly (I have seen +447955957379, +447591260334, +447542067695, +44758137217, +447403811563, +447826688283, +447517528462). Sometimes the spam starts FREEMSG. Always the value seems to be £3750. It doesn't matter if you have had an accident or not.

If you are a Vodafone, O2 and Orange customer you can report the SMS spam to your provider: for Orange and O2 forward the message to 7726 (it spells SPAM) or on Vodafone is is 87726 (VSPAM). I have not been able to confirm, but T-Mobile and 3 may also accept forwarded messages to 7726 as well. The carriers should be able to block the spammers if they get enough reports, and take legal action where necessary.

Update: 3's spam reporting number is 37726 (3SPAM). Thanks for the tip, Richard!

Replying STOP is probably not a good idea - the spammers may well use it to confirm that the mobile number is active. And replying CLAIM is probably an even worse idea since they are a bunch of low-life spammers who probably cannot be trusted.

Sunday 8 May 2011

Fake "Lapatasker" job domains, 8/5/11

Another set of domains offering fake jobs via spam, the latest in this long running saga. The domains were registered on 6th May.


first-euro.com
it-hire.com
newgreen-europe.com
newgreen-tech.com
usa-worldoffer.com
world-hire.net


The probably fake registrant details still use the "Aleksej Iliin" alias that we have seen previously.

Jobs offered will most likely include the usual mix of money laundering and other fraudulent activities. Avoid.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Fake jobs: new-wughire.com and 1st-consult.com

Two more fake domains being used in the "Lapatasker" series of bogus job offers, registered on 3rd May 2011:

new-wughire.com
1st-consult.com

The (probably fake) WHOIS details point to a familiar alias:

    Aleksej Iliin
    Email: abolan@mail.org
    Organization: Private person
    Address: Okruzhnaya ul. d.5 kv.4
    City: Moskva
    State: Moskovskaya obl.
    ZIP: 183124
    Country: RU
    Phone: +7.4959424617
    Fax: +7.4959424617