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Showing posts with label Finance Scams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finance Scams. Show all posts

Friday 16 September 2016

Inspiral Carpets hacked, leads to The Quantum Code binary options spam

This type of binary options scam spam comes in waves every so often:

Subject:     Welcoming speech
From:     jeffriesvx@mail2nancy.com
Date:     Friday, 16 September 2016, 3:31

Good day!

We are looking for employees working remotely.

My name is Glen, I am the personnel manager of a large International company.
Most of the work you can do from home, that is, at a distance.
Salary is $2600-$5500.

If you are interested in this offer, please visit Our Site

Good day!

It's not very interesting to tell the truth, but it relies on hacked WordPress sites in order to provide landing pages. Of course, hacking someone's site to do this is illegal and no legitimate business would promote itself like this.

What I noticed was the URL in the email..
inspiralcarpets.com/super/wp-content/themes/twentyfifteen/genericons/
Inspiral Carpets? Yup, that's the website of the Manchester rock band of the same name. Rather than a carpet shop. As this URLquery report shows, it lands on..

cash-onlines.com [172.246.233.55] (Enzu, US)

There's a familiar landing page..


Clicking the link goes to www.the-quantumcode.com hosted on 31.220.0.35 (Terratransit, Netherlands). This is some bollocks about a binary options trading robot which will apparently make you millions. Obviously this is a scam, because if it was really that easy we'll all be doing it.

One little scammy trick is a counter to tell you that loads of people are looking at the site but there are only a small number of slots available.

The numbers are completely made up. If you look exactly the same page in another browser window, they are different.


It's hard to say if the spam was sent out by whoever runs the binary options site or an affiliate. But it's still crap either way.

Hosted on the same server are the following domains which are probably more of the same plus a load of other bollocks:

15kin15minutes.com
altronix-app.com
altronix-app.net
altronixapp.net
beautifulasians.net
beckdietsolution.biz
blogtipsntricks.net
channel78news.com
channel818news.com
channel988news.com
clickcashformula.com
clickcashformulareview.com
cloudcliks.com
crescendobot.com
deliciouslyella.net
fannetasticfood.net
fasttrackprofits.net
freeteethwhitenings.co
gopsusports.net
healthbeatblog.net
heartifb.biz
hgspanel.com
hostingtosuccess.com
instantcashmarket.com
ironmantips.co
jeffbullas.net
jmusportsblog.us
jonbarron.me
liedetectorreview.biz
liedetectorreview.com
liedetectorreviews.com
makeyourbodywork.net
michaelcrawfordclub.com
millnaire-blueprint.com
myliedetectorreview.com
newskincaretips.org
perpetualformula.com
russianhotties.co
smallbiztrends.us
snapcreativity.net
startofhappiness.biz
the-orioncode.com
the-orioncode.net
the-orioncode.org
the-quantumcode.co
the-quantumcode.com
themillblueprint.com
thequantum-code.com
thequantum-code.net
thequantum-code.org
thequantumcode.biz
thequantumcode.co
thequantumreview.com
thezerolossformula.biz
thezerolossformula.net
thezerolossformula.org
upgradeforbonus.com
zerolossformula.biz
zerolossformula.net
zlformula.net


Avoid.

Monday 1 August 2016

Scam: Fanrong Europe Fund / fanrongfund.info / fanrongeuropefund.info / fanrongeuropefund.com

This spam email advertising a "too good to be true" investment is a scam:

From:    Tim Hoffman [letter@612.com]
To:    contact [contact@victimdomain.tld]
Date:    30 July 2016 at 09:26
Subject:    Fanrong Europe Fund – 1 Half 2016 return +32.69%.

Dear Sirs,

Please be informed that the Fanrong Europe Fund reported strong 1 Half 2016 with return +32.69%.

Fanrong Europe Fund is a registered hedge fund that managed by a team of stock market experts that located in Zurich, Switzerland. The Fanrong Europe Fund Strategy is Long/Short Equity. The Fund was launched in April 2014. It is open-ended hedge fund. We are open for new investors.

We welcome you to contact us through our web-site to learn more about investing with us:
www.FanrongFund.info

Kind regards,
Tim Hoffman
e-marketing manager
Fanrong Europe Fund
www.FanrongFund.info


Reply to: marketing@fanrongfund.info

If you do not want to receive this newsletter send an email to: unsubscribe@fanrongfund.info

NOTICE: Your address was obtained from open sources where you were agreed to receive the marketing information from third parties.
I have received two of these emails, one coming from the IPs 188.69.207.57 and 188.69.223.168 which are both allocated to a mobile phone provider in Lithuania (UPDATE: also 188.69.223.54). The website fanrongfund.info was created just a few days ago (28th July 2016) and is registed to the following (presumably fake) registrant:

Registrant ID: JLD4030131633
Registrant Name: James Dean
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: Vorstadt 20
Registrant City: Zug
Registrant State/Province:
Registrant Postal Code: 6300
Registrant Country: CH
Registrant Phone: +41.417120101
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: jd767@yahoo.com


The site is hosted (apparently) in the British Virgin Islands on an IP allocated to the Public Domain Registry (PDR). It uses nameservers from Russian company AYBHOST.COM.

The website is pretty generic looking and opens with these words of wisdom:

Our main trade approach is:
"Close the position if it runs to loss, and hold it if it runs to profit".

Hans Messner
fund manager "Fanrong Europe Fund"

What next. "Buy low, sell high"? Here are some screenshots in case you see another version of this on your travels:






The "About" page carries this text:
We are the EU-domiciled investment manager with successful experience in stock trade in EU. Our professional assets managers have personal approach to trade with bear and bulls market. We use self-made investment strategy that allows getting the constant positive result in short-term horizon. All investment process is in full accordance with IIS (International Investment Standards) of Fanrong Capital (Hong Kong) (fanrongcapital.com).
Presumably this is copied off an earlier scam site, in this case there is an official warning about that particular firm.

fanrongfund.info appears to have mirrors at:

fanrongeuropefund.info
fanrongeuropefund.com

Both of these are hosted on 46.4.24.196 (Hetzner, Germany). The WHOIS details for those are inconsistent with each other.

fanrongeuropefund.info
Registrant ID: HSM1859139253
Registrant Name: Hans Messner
Registrant Organization: Fanrong Europe Fund
Registrant Street: Leutschenbachstrasse 95
Registrant City: Zurich
Registrant State/Province: Zurich
Registrant Postal Code: 8050
Registrant Country: CH
Registrant Phone: +41.445632589
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: info@fanrongeuropefund.info


fanrongeuropefund.com
Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry
Registrant Name: Li Yong
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: Schwingerstrasse 9
Registrant City: Zurich
Registrant State/Province: Zurich
Registrant Postal Code: 8006
Registrant Country: CH
Registrant Phone: +41.442289632
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: info@fanrongeuropefund.com


For completeness, the domain fanrongcapital.com is hosted on 5.100.152.26  (the same block as fanrongfund.info) and this particular corporation seems to be using a free email address..

Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry
Registrant Name: Wei Zhang
Registrant Organization: Fanrong Capital
Registrant Street: 20F, 1 Harbor View Street
Registrant City: Hong Kong
Registrant State/Province: Hong Kong
Registrant Postal Code: 111000
Registrant Country: HK
Registrant Phone: +852.58085536
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: fanrongcapital@yahoo.com


Nothing about this offer is legitimate. Avoid it, or if you have invested money in this fictitious firm then you should contact the police immediately.

Thursday 24 July 2014

Scam: "brunerinvestment.com" is not The Brunner Investment Trust PLC

This simple spam is backed up by a fairly sophisticated fake website.

From:     brunner investment [investment@brunner.com]
Reply-To:     brunnerinvestment@gmail.com
To:     50
Date:     24 July 2014 12:08

Dear

The Brunner Trust PLC, is working on expanding its international portfolio Globally and financing projects in form of debt financing from the tune of $1million to $500million,
we also offer personal and business loans from the tune of $100,000 USD to $1,000,000.00 USD

We would be happy to receive an Executive summary to see if you have any Viable project we can finance and partner together
by making financial investment in Form of soft loans.

Email your projects summary to us at: info@brunerinvestment.com

Regards,
Stefan Hofrichter
Chief Economist and Head of Global Economics & Strategy
The Brunner Investment Trust PLC is a real organisation with a website at brunner.co.uk - the domain that the spammers are soliciting replies to is brunerinvestment.com (note the missing "n" in "brunner"). It was registered on 31st May 2014 with anonymous WHOIS details.

This is the real Brunner Invesment Trust site:

And this is the fake one:


The differences are subtle:

Of course the main purpose of the web site is to encourage you to think that you are talking to a real person, to which end the contact details are completely fake:

Although the postal address is correct, the rest of the details are fake:

Brunner Investment Trust Plc
199 Bishopsgate,
London, EC2M 3TY
Tel:+44 703 195 6304
Tel/Fax: +44 745 227 1933
Email: info@brunerinvestment.com
brunnerinvestment@gmail.com
The telephone numbers quotes appear to be "follow me anywhere" numbers that forward to another number, which could be anywhere in the world.

So what's the scam? Well, there's probably an up-front fee to even discuss financing.. and if it's like this recent scam it could be tens of thousands of dollars. Of course, there is no financing available (remember that this is a fake site, not the Brunner Investment Trust) and once the scammers have your money they will vanish.

I note as well that the site is fairly well done although somewhat buggy (and it randomly pops up adverts) which looks rather like the same cloned websites I discussed earlier this month.

Some technical details for this - the site is hosted on 93.188.160.4 which is allocated to Hostinger International in Lithunia (although the servers might be in Amsterdam). The spam originates from 168.167.134.124 (Botswana Telecommunications Corporation) via an unknown mail relay on 82.105.253.84 (Telecom Italia, Verona, Italy).

Avoid.

Friday 4 July 2014

Scam: advocatesforyouths.org, Eem Moura, Tee Bello and other fake sites

Advocates for Youth is a legitimate campaign organisation that says that it "champions efforts to help young people make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health." It has a website at www.advocatesforyouth.org which was registered in 1996.

However, the domain advocatesforyouths.org is a completely fake rip-off of the legitimate advocatesforyouth.org site (note the extra "s") which is advertising itself through spam:

From:     Advocates for Youth [inboxteam6@gmail.com]
Reply-To:     Advocates for Youth [ljdavidson@advocatesforyouths.org]
Date:     2 July 2014 21:52
Subject:     Say No to FORCED MARRIAGE and HIV/AIDS
Mailing list:     xkukllsbhgeel of 668
Signed by:     gmail.com

Invitation Ref No: OB-22-52-30-J

OUR 12TH INTERNATIONAL YOUTH CONFERENCE ON “ EFFECTS OF TEENAGE MARRIAGE AND HIV/AIDS "

Advocates for Youth and co-organizers of the 12th international NGO's & CBO's conference on community Development and Development Planning have the pleasure to invite Youth Organizations, Socio Cultural Organizations, Community Based Organizations (CBO) Scholars, Researchers, Health Organizations, Professionals, Business Organizations (NGOs) Religion Organizations, Human Right Organizations & Women Groups to the International Conference on" Effects of Teenage Marriage and HIV/AIDS " taking place from Wednesday 20th - Friday 22nd August 2014 in U.S.A and Monday 25th August - Friday 29th August 2014 in The NETHERLANDS respectively.

This is the most important event in the framework of the fight to Educate the Youth on HIV/AIDS, Child Abuse, human and community development which will take place in Washington DC, United States of America from Wednesday 20th - Friday 22nd August 2014 in U.S.A and Monday 25th August - Friday 29th August 2014 in The NETHERLANDS respectively.

Advocates for Youth is registered 501(c) Non profit international organization whose aims & objectives are to empower individuals and communities worldwide through offering grants for business, education, economic enhancement, community development and environmental conservation, to support groups and organizations addressing social issues, youth ad women empowerment, and a variety of philanthropic projects through grants to non-profit organization; to provide education & information with view of limiting abuse and child molestation, to support and advocate on behalf of those infected and affected by the menace or abuse and neglect to promote the well-being of mankind by empowering the capacity of charitable organization to provide effective programs of quality.

This conference will bring together 1026 representatives of NGOs/CBOs and numerous numbers of interested individual participants from all over the world. The conference will be conducted on participatory bases with satellite plenary and simultaneous sessions followed by general and small group discussions.

SUPPORT: The conference receives financial support from CitiBank New York and United Nations Youth Commission etc. This sponsorship covers the following:

1. Return Airplane travel tickets for selected delegates from their home countries to venues of the event in Washington DC ( United States of America ) and The Hague City (The Netherlands), then back to their home countries.

2. Hotel accommodations in Washington DC ( United States ) only for selected delegates and their friends.

3. Medical insurance cover for delegates throughout the entire conference duration.

Advocates for Youth will not assume the responsibilities of any other costs other than those listed above.

NOMINATION & SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS: Intending participants are requested to nominate between Five (5) to Ten (15) active members to participate. Participants should be from 14 years and above (Male or Female).

REGISTRATION PROCESS: To register to take part in this Conference, please request for the International Delegates Registration form and other conference information. The request for registration form and other conference information should be addressed to the Secretary:

Linara J. Davidson
Secretary, Advocates for youth
2000 M Street, NW Suite 750,
Washington DC 20036,
United States of America,
Tel: +1 202.600.9543
Fax: + 1 650.747.4401
Email: ljdavidson@advocatesforyouths.org
Website: http://www.advocatesforyouths.org

While we anticipate your earliest response, you are advised to contact the Secretary by email and we look forward to meeting up with you and your group in Washington DC and The Hague City to assert a new change for a stronger society.

Announcer !!!

Debra Hauser
President, Advocates for youth,
Washington DC
U.S.A.
Email: debra.hauser@advocatesforyouths.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Disclaimer: The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask mailers to stop spamming them. The above mail is in accordance to the Can Spam act of 2003: There are no deceptive subject lines and is a manual process through our efforts on World Wide Web. You can opt out by sending mail to email id mention here and we ensure you will not receive any such mails.
In this case the email originates from 217.120.44.73 (Ziggo / Groningen, Netherlands) and was sent to a spam trap.

The fake site is almost a bit-for-bit copy of the fake site, but things like the Contact Details page are slightly different:


The fake site has a telephone number of 202.600.9543 and a fax number of 650.747.4401. The fax number is in California, but the "202" telephone number appears to be Washington.. but on closer examination it looks like a VOIP (internet phone) number which could possibly be anywhere in the world.


But the fake site looks utterly convincing. Mostly because it is cloned directly from the legitimate site. (See screenshot above)

The domain advocatesforyouths.org was registered on 24th May 2014 with anonymous details, and the mail handler is mailhostbox.com who are a legitimate commercial provider. But what most visitors to advocatesforyouths.org will not spot is that the domain just does a framed forward to another site googleones.in/advocates4youth/ which is where things get more complicated.

googleones.in is hosted on 74.122.193.45  a Continuum Data Centers IP reallocated to:

OrgName:        Ajay Kumar
OrgId:          AK-7
Address:        801 Main St NW
City:           Lenoir
StateProv:      NC
PostalCode:     28645
Country:        US
RegDate:        2012-11-30
Updated:        2012-11-30
Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/AK-7

OrgAbuseHandle: SNM9-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   machiwala, shazim nizar
OrgAbusePhone:  91 22 26782833
OrgAbuseEmail:  shazim@ideastack.com
OrgAbuseRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/SNM9-ARIN

OrgTechHandle: SNM9-ARIN
OrgTechName:   machiwala, shazim nizar
OrgTechPhone:  91 22 26782833
OrgTechEmail:  shazim@ideastack.com
OrgTechRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/SNM9-ARIN


The domain is registered to:

Registrant Name:Ziggo Ziggo
Registrant Organization:N/A
Registrant Street1:stadhoudersstraat
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:rijswijk
Registrant State/Province:Zuid-Holland
Registrant Postal Code:2282pm
Registrant Country:NL
Registrant Phone:+31.0657392939
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:alzaidaemirates@hotmail.com


The "alzaidaemirates@hotmail.com" doesn't really seem to tally with the Netherlands address, but it does link in with some other contents of the server. Incidentally, Rijswijk isn't very close to Groningen being a 233Km drive so the spammer's IP doesn't match the WHOIS details.

Interesting, the root directory of googleones.in is open and this is where it gets complicated.

We can see folders with the following names:
  • advocates4youth/
  • alz/
  • cgi-bin/
  • eem/
  • eemtholland/
  • tbello/
"advocates4youth" contains the fake Advocates For Youth Siteas already discussed

Al-zaida Emirates

"alz" is a site called "Al-zaida Emirates" which is a ripoff of the legitimate Zamil Group Holding Company. Probably the obvious different to that the "Al-zaida" site has an "Apply For Loan" button which marks it out as some sort of finance scam.

EEM Moura and TEE Bello (part 1)

The next fake site is under "eem" which advertises itself as "EEM MOURA & TEE BELLO Group of Companies". This site is a slightly-altered copy of the legitimate Alpha Group.


There is perhaps a clue here under "Shipping" which could be advertising for a Parcel Mule job (i.e. laundering stolen goods).

EEM MOURA & TEE BELLO (part 2) [eemthollandbv.nl]

There is another fake "EEM MOURA & TEE BELLO" site in the folder "eemtholland" (and using the forwarder domain eemthollandbv.nl). This is different from the other site being a fake shopping site, a poor copy of the legitimate HollandForYou.com site.


This fake site is also likely to be recruiting people for a parcel reshipping scam.

Hotel T. Bello

The final fake site is filed under "tbello" (sounds familiar?) and is supposedly the "Hotel T. Bello" in Den Haag (The Hague). It is a poor copy of the InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam.


Perhaps the "Hotel T Bello" is a fake hotel for the delegates to the fake "Advocates for Youth" conference that was advertised in the original spam.. that is certainly one way that these conference scams work.

There is not a single legitimate site on this server. Avoid.