Fake seminar sites to avoid, registered to vravindhar@yahoo.com

A contact tipped me off to some fake financial seminar sites, all linked to the email address vravindhar@yahoo.com. They are promoted in spam emails similar to these:

From: rob.koster@fatcacomplianceinstitute.com [mailto:rob.koster@fatcacomplianceinstitute.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2015 8:33 AM
To: redacted
Subject: FATCA Compliance - [redacted]
Importance: High

Dear Participants,

We are pleased to announce you that FATCA Compliance Institute is conducting a 2 day practical seminar on FATCA Compliance.

This seminar is going to be repeated and held thrice:

[redacted]

The seminar is open to all the Banking & Financial Professionals. The seminar particulars are attached with this mail.

Last date for enrolling your participation is [redacted], 2015.

Please contact for assistance.

Truly,

Rob Koster

Seminar Secretary

E-mail: rob.koster@fatcacomplianceinstitute.com

Website: www.fatcacompliance.org

Tel:+31-800-020-0534(Netherlands and Other EU Countries) 

       +1-312-625-0112(All Other Countries)
FAX:+31-800-020-0534

And also..

 From: alfred@pacibankers.com [mailto:alfred@pacibankers.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2015 11:50 AM
Subject: Asset Management Auditing and Internal Accounting Controls - [redacted]
Importance: High

Asset Management Auditing and Internal Accounting Controls - 2 Day Program

Dear Delegate

Pacific Standards (www.pacificstandards.com) would like to invite representatives from your organization to attend the above mentioned program scheduled for 2015. We are limiting the number of participants for each cluster to 20, as the courses are designed to be interactive and to encourage discussion and the exchange of ideas.

Program Dates:      Cluster I – February 25 - 26, 2015 

                                      Cluster II – March 9 - 10, 2015                                  

                                      Cluster III - March 18 - 19, 2015 

                                      Cluster IV- April 6 - 7, 2015

                                      Cluster V- April 15 - 16, 2015

                                 

Venue: {redacted}

We invite you to nominate individuals from your respective organization. It is also important to stress that all available slots will be filled on a first come first serve basis. Please advise your colleagues to attend and take advantage of this valuable and pivotal workshop.(Please see the attached brochure for complete course coverage).

Early Registration Deadline is February 15, 2015 

Last Date of Registration is February 17, 2015 

Looking forward for an early reply.

Thanks & Regards,

Alfred

Pacific Standards

Marketing Manager

Email id: Alfred@pacibankers.com

Website: http://www.pacificstandards.com/

Contact Number: +91-8801-990-204

Emails are sent from 159.253.145.90 (Softlayer, Netherlands). The registrant details look like this on most of the domains:

Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Ravindhar V
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: office:7, sushant lok , sushant estate
Registrant City: gugaon
Registrant State/Province: Haryana
Registrant Postal Code: 122002
Registrant Country: India
Registrant Phone: +91.9999960651
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: vravindhar@yahoo.com
Registry Admin ID:

The emails specifically target the finance sector with what appear to be relevant seminars and services, however once payment has been received there is reportedly no further communication and no seminars.

There are a large number of related sites, some using several different domains. There are virtually zero references to these "organisations" on Google, and a close examination of the sites shows several red flags.

Pacific Standards

Claiming to be in Singapore, but boasting an Indian phone number of +91-8801990204, this outfit claims to be part of "Grenoble Learning". Neither Pacific Standards nor Grenoble Learning actually appear to exist.

Domains used:
pacificstandards.com
pacibankers.com
pacific-compliance.com
pacificstan.cc
pacificstan.com
pacificstandards.org

Brown & Co

This claims to be based as 12 Flemington Street, Glasgow but quotes a US contact number of 1-800-BRO-CORP / 1-800-246-8115.  There are many, many companies in the UK with the name "Brown & Co", but where you would expect to see number 12 on that street.. there appears to be a car park.

Domains used:

beta-essentials.me
browncorpuk.org
browncorp.co
betaeventhub.org
betaeventhub.org
betaessentials.in

FATCA Compliance Institute

A quick Google search for "FATCA Compliance Institute" reveals exactly zero reliable references to this important-looking organisation, boasting contact details in both India and The Netherlands.

15-66 plot 101 Prabhu Nagar
Poranki 521137.
Tel:+31-800-020-0534(Netherlands and Other EU Countries)
FAX:+31-800-020-0534 (ONLY EU)
FAX: +31-20-524-1592 (ALL COUNTRIES)
USA Tel: +1-312-625-0112 (All other Countries)
Email: director@fatcacompliance.cc

Corporate Office:

Keizersgracht 209
1006 DT Amsterdam
The Netherlands
The Netherlands Toll-Free:
Tel:+31-800-020-0534
FAX:+31-800-020-0534

USA Tel: +1-312-625-0112 (All other Countries)
Email: director@fatcacompliance.cc

Domains used:

fatcacomplianceinstitute.org
fatcacomplianceinstitute.com
fatcacompliance.cc
fatcacompliance.net
fatcacompliance.org

Rightman Group

The web site here looks very slick. But if you Google for snippets of somewhat ungrammatical text (such as "But, one things remains unchanged – our dedication to doing the best work in the world.") you will find that there are hundreds of sites using the exact same template. Rightman Group has the following contact details listed:

Rightman Group
 United States
199 Scott Street
Suite 810
Buffalo, NY 14204
+1-716-217-2817
USA call charges apply.
---------
 Dreikönigstrasse 30
Zürich, Switzerland
----------
+41-43-508-1974 

The New York State Division of Corporations has no such company as "Rightman Group" listed.

Domains used:

rightmangroup.com
rightman.eu
rightman.cc
rightmangroup.net
rightmangroup.org

Swiss Dossier

I can only imagine that the name "Swiss Dossier" came about through an error in autotranslation. It lists several addresses:

info@swissdossier.com(General)
offices@swissdossier.com(Training Programs)

Tel:  +1-786-235-8424(USA)

Our Global offices are located at:
19th Floor, Prudential Towers(North Side)
Office no: 1901
Chulia Street
Singapore

Aeschenvorstadt, 405
Basel,
Switzerland

79 Thornall Street,
6th Floor, Edison, NJ 08837.
New Jersy
USA

70 Sheppard Avenue, Suite 301,
North York, Ontario M2N 3A4,
Canada

A Google search for "swissdossier.com" comes up with no independent and reliable references to this so-called company.

Domains used:

swissdossier.com
swissdossier.cc
swissdossier.com.co

Treasury Management Institute

According to Companies House in the UK, there is no company in the UK with the name "Treasury Management Institute". The contact details indicate that this is perhaps the workplace of John or Jane Doe:

Email : 
 jdoe@treasurymanagementinstitute.com
 jdoe@treasurymanagementinstitute.cc
Addresses:
01, Temple Quay, Temple Back East, Bristol, BS1 6DZ, UK
SWConsulting Group, Sec 42 Gurgaon, India(Institute operates under the licence of SWConsulting Group)

There are no independent references to this organisation existing in Bristol.

Domains used:

treasurymanagementinstitute.com
treasurymanagementinstitute.cc
treasurymanagementinstitute.org

Financial Models India

Sharing the same contact details as some of these other highly questionable sites, and hosted on the same infrastructure, Financial Models India would appear to fail the Duck Test.

79 Thornall Street,
6th Floor, Edison, NJ 08837,
New Jersy,
USA

19th Floor,
Prudential Towers (North Side),
Office no: 1901,
Chulia Street, Singapore

Aeschenvorstadt, 405,
Basel, Switzerland

70 Sheppard Avenue,
Suite 301, North York,
Ontario M2N 3A4,
Canada

DLF Square M Block,
Jacaranda Marg DLF City, Phase II,
Gurgaon 122002, INDIA  

Domains used:

financialmodelsindia.com
financialmodels.co.in
fmtsglobal.com
unitedcapital-financialmodels.com
unitedcapitalglobal.com

Virat World Wide

This appears to be the firm or individual behind these sites. The "About Us" page says:

Ravindhar.V - Managing Director

Mr. Ravindhar is an able administrator and change master. He has rich experience in thearea of Financial Information Technology(FIT). He has developed financial software products and Information Technology management solutions for financial institutions and banks in more than a fifty countries and for top global Banks and companies. His qualification is Master of Finance and Accounting with a track of computer applications in Finance and Accounting(MFA). Mr.Ravindhar comes from Business Family of Poranki Sugars and his family is a legacy of entrepreneurs based in India. Group is widely respected by the industry.

I'm guessing the the "V" stands for "Virat", making him "Ravindhar Virat". The contact details list an address in the... errr. UNITED KIGDOM.

Global Support
+919-618-921-876
customersupport@virat.consulting
120, CENTRAL STREET
CLERKENWELL
LONDON
UNITED KIGDOM

This address is actually a hotel. The +91 telephone number is a number in India, not the UK.

Domains used:

virat.consulting
virat-transitionalhunts.biz
virat-th.co.in

Other domains

The other domains (mostly now defunct or with no content) also appear to belong to the same operator:

financialmodelsglobal.net
fortunicia-munich.org

europiafintech.com
europiafintech.net

fisher-n-moreglobal.com
fishernmore-global.org
fmg-singapore.org

intrinsic-pulse.com
intrinsic-pulse.asia


baselknowledge.net
clarklc.com
luthanskane.in
panarab-consulting.in
porankisugars.org
profectuspartners-singapore.com
proximitycorp.org
rfb-research.net
sino-overseasholdings.org
stermarc-worldwide.com
vertasbar.net

If you have any experiences with any of these "companies", feel free to leave a comment.

Scam: "Jim Bing [jim.bing@cn-registry.cn]" / "Huayin Ltd"

This email is part of a long-running Chinese domain scam:

From:    Jim Bing [jim.bing@cn-registry.cn]
Date:    10 October 2015 at 13:52
Subject:    Re:"slimeware"

Dear CEO,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent, Thanks)

We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China.

We received an application from Huayin Ltd on October 9, 2015. They want to register " slimeware " as their Internet Keyword and " slimeware .cn "、" slimeware .com.cn " 、" slimeware .net.cn "、" slimeware .org.cn " 、" slimeware .asia " domain names etc.., they are in China and Asia domain names. But after checking it, we find " slimeware " conflicts with your company. In order to deal with this matter better, so we send you email and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China or not?

Best Regards,

Jim
General Manager 
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3008, Jiulong Building, No. 836 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 1870199 4951
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: www.cn-registry.cn

Slimeware.com is an ancient site of mine that parodies adware companies. I doubt very much that anyone is trying to use this as a domain name for a legitimate business, and I couldn't care less if they did anyway. In fact, what is happening here is that the scammer "Jim Bing" (is he related to Terry Google?) is just trying to get you to panic and buy and overpriced and worthless domain name.

It's a pretty common scam, and I have explained the basics in the video below..

Evil network: 64.20.51.16/29 (Interserver Inc and Muhammad Naeem Nasir)

This DHL-themed phish got me looking at an IP address range of 64.20.51.16/29 which is a range belonging to Interserver Inc in the US, but which has been reallocated to a customer. But who? Because the WHOIS details for that block are not valid..

%rwhois V-1.5:003fff:00 city.trouble-free.net (by Network Solutions, Inc. V-1.5.9.5)
network:Class-Name:network
network:ID:NETBLK-INTSRV.64.20.32.0/19
network:Auth-Area:64.20.32.0/19
network:Network-Name:INTSRV-64.20.51.16
network:IP-Network:64.20.51.16/29
network:Org-Name:N/A N/A
network:Street-Address:N/A
network:City:N/A
network:State:na
network:Postal-Code:N/A
network:Country-Code:US
network:Created:20150624
network:Updated:20150922
network:Updated-By:abuse@interserver.net

Well, that's quite a sloppy move by Interserver to allow that, but it doesn't mean that the block is evil. However, an analysis of the sites currently and formerly hosted in that range indicate a very high proportion of phishing sites.. in fact, the range is a hotbed of sophisticated fraud sites, many of which seem to be undiscovered.

I combined current reverse IP data from DomainTools and current and historical data from DNSDB and then ran them through an IP lookup and a check against the Google Safe Browsing and SURBL reputations. The results [csv] show a very large number of sites flagged by SURBL in particular, amounting to 47 out of 167 sites (i.e. 28%) that I can identify as being currently hosted in that range.

In addition, a large number of phishing and other malicious sites have been hosted on 64.20.51.16/29 in the past and are now hosted elsewhere.

nswo.co.uk / "La Casa Limpia - a Balaeric Island Villa"

At first glance, some of the remaining sites look legitimate. Consider nswo.co.uk entitled "La Casa Limpia - a Balaeric Island Villa".

It looks utterly legitmate, although it is an odd domain name for a villa in Spain. Let's check those WHOIS details..

    Domain name:
        nswo.co.uk

    Registrant:
        P J Green

    Registrant type:
        UK Sole Trader

    Registrant's address:
        100 Malderen Road
        Islington
        London
        Greater London
        LN23 6AU
        United Kingdom

    Data validation:
        Nominet was able to match the registrant's name and address against a 3rd party data source on 10-Dec-2012

Despite Nominet claiming to verify the address, there is no such road as "Malderen Road" anywhere in the United Kingdom, and the post code of "LN23 6AU" is also completely invalid and exists nowhere in the UK. A bit of investigation shows that the site is almost a complete rip-off of  a legitimate site at palmyramenorca.com.. but with different contact details.

dominioncollege.ca / "Dominion College"

Consider also dominioncollege.ca - a professional looking website billing itself as Dominion College of Canada.

Apparently, Dominion College is the "Highest Ranking Creative Arts University". But there is no such university in Canada, and the domain for this "150 year old" institution was only registered in August 2015.

Domain name:           dominioncollege.ca
Domain status:         registered
Creation date:         2015/08/14
Expiry date:           2016/08/14
Updated date:          2015/08/19
DNSSEC:                Unsigned

Registrar:
    Name:              PublicDomainRegistry.com Inc
    Number:            3059041

The "About Us" page gives another clue.

That is actually Old Dominion University in Virginia, United States. A completely different and wholly legitimate institution.

hkbbr.org / "Hong Kong Business Bureau Registry"

Consider hkbbr.org billing itself as the Hong Kong Business Bureau Registry..

Yet a Google search for that term only returns hardly anything except content from the site itself, indicating that there is no such organisation.

The domain was registered in 2013 to an anonymous registrant. What is the point of this site? Well, it looks like it is a register of legitimate Hong Kong businesses. You can search for business in their online services page..

Well, it looks like a search.. but in fact it just loads results from a page www.hkbbr.org/entity/ which has an open directory.. so you can see that there actually only 43 companies in the database. One or more of which will be fake.

Presumably this forms part of a scam where the victim has to deal with a fake company, and the scammers use this web site to try to convince the victim that they are dealing with a legitimate company.

tricountysalesmexia.com / "Tri County Sales Mexia"

Consider tricountysalesmexia.com, entitled "Tri County Sales Mexia's Premier Pre-Owned Late Model Luxury and Exotic Vehicle Dealer - Mexia | Texas"

We added up the value of the cars listed on this "Tri County Sales" site. There were 218 cars valued at around $13.2 million, or around $60,000 per car.

Their website shows plush offices..

Now, Tri County Sales is a real company and I suspect a reliable vendor of used vehicles. But in reality the company's premises look like this:

Does it look like somewhere that stocks $13 million dollars worth of high-end exotic vehicles? Of course not. Let's take a look at one of the more notable cars on the website.

This is a pretty rare car. But look closely at the partial logo in the top left hand corner of the large photo..

It's the logo of Southlake Motorcars, where the image was stolen from..

Several of the other vehicles also turn up on other sites. You can be assured that although Tri County Sales is a real company, this website does not belong to them and is a scam.

goldwestgroup.com / "Gold West Group"

Consider goldwestgroup.com calling itself "Gold West Group"..

It's a bit vague about where it has mines, but the facility pictured at the top is the Obuasi Gold Mine in Ghana belonging exclusively to AngloGold Ashanti and no-one else.

The site itself mentions a Chile address, and the WHOIS details are consistent.

Registrant Name: Manu DeSouza
Registrant Organization: Gold West Group
Registrant Street: Europa Oficinas
Registrant Street: Guardia Vieja 255
Registrant City: Providencia
Registrant State/Province: Santiago
Registrant Postal Code: 2103
Registrant Country: Chile
Registrant Phone: +56.22997704
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: webmaster@goldwestgroup.com

But AngloGold Ashanti have no operations in Chile. This site is a scam.

edichem.com / "Edible Chemical Inc"

Consider edichem.com describing itself as "Edible Chemical Inc"..

This site is riddle with spelling errors and has some comically bad photo manipulation.

The offices in the picture actually belong to a company called APAG.

Let's have a look at that so-called CEO..

"Birningham University"? Quite a typo. And that photo is of a completely different person called Peter Westenthaler.

This fake company has even gone to the effort of setting up a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/edichem.biz:

cllinternational.com / "Courier Logistics Limited"

Consider cllinternational.com calling itself "Courier Logistics Limited":

In what way is this logo meant to reflect "Courier Logistics Limited"?

It doesn't.. it belongs to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.

The purpose of this site appears to be to generate fake courier tracking numbers, so a victim who has ordered a product will assume that it is actually on it's way. The tracking lookup seems to respond to a six-digit tracking code. The fake tracking site is on another IP, 185.24.233.16 in Ireland.

steadyprivateloan.com / "Steady Private Loan"

Most of the fake companies I have found so far have zero internet footprint. This fake finance company has at least attractive a couple of complaints:

Edmond L.
Beware !!! Do not deal with TERRANCE CLARK / CLARK BRIAN of Goldmine Private Loan now with a new name "Steady Private Loan". These are scam artist.
8 months ago

Sharon Todd
I agree. We fell for their Goldmine Loan and now Steady Private Loan owe us $21,195 ...They look fantastic but do not fall for them. We are reporting them to the FBI
7 months ago

Unlike some of the other sites, this is a bit more amateurish and generic.

It claims to be based in Delaware.

The bottom line here is that there is no such corporation as "Steady Private Loan" in Delaware. This site is a scam.

madrewson.net / "Madrewson Consult"

Consider madrewson.net calling itself "Madrewson Consult". This bills itself as some sort of HR consultancy, but you can guarantee that everythig it touches is fake.

There are a bunch of testimonials on the "About Us" page.

These are all attractive, well-photographed people aren't they? And they pop up in so many places. The photo of "Helen Pyzowski" turns up in a bunch of places. "Adam Smith" is a stock image. "Kristin Malie" turns up in a bunch of places. "John L. Skelley" turns up in a bunch of places. The testimonials are fake, as is this so-called company.

mobgifts.net / "Coca Cola Promo"

"Coca Cola" themed prize scams are well known (and documented on the Coca Cola corporate site) but I've never seen anyone go to the effort of creating a fake website to go with it.

There are several photos of people being handed cheques. But what is that cheque exactly?

This is someone winning a prize alright.. but for developing a mobile app, not a lottery. All the other pictures of people getting cheques are similarly bogus. There is no such thing a the Coca Cola Promo free lottery.

braincure-biotech.com / "Braincure Biotech"

Consider this so-called Taiwanese biochemistry firm, "Braincure Biotech" (braincure-biotech.com)

The site looks professional but very generic. But is it genuine? Unfortunately, the Taiwanese companies registry is in Chinese only and is quite difficult to use. So let's just Google it.

There are virtually zero references to this "company" apart from its own website. And by the time you look, probably this blog. A quick check of the body text of the site reveals that it is copied from other genuine biotech sites. This company does not exist, but presumably is there as part of an investment or employment scam.

What else is there?

Trawling through the IP address range shows many fake blogs (set up to promote goodness only knows what), some Bitcoin and make-money-fast sites and a whole load of sites that appear to be suspended. I cannot confirm a single legitimate site in this range.

Who is behind this?

Although the IP address range is owned by Interserver Inc it is allocated to a customer. However, Interserver seems to have displayed poor governance here because it not only has allocated the range to an anonymous registrant, but it has not acted on the extremely high concentration of fraudulent sites.

Looking at the range, I can see several nameservers..

ns3.boldhosts.com
64.20.51.18

ns4.boldhosts.com
64.20.51.19

ns2.paidhoster.com
64.20.51.20

ns1.ok2host.com
64.20.51.21

ns2.ok2host.com
64.20.51.22

ok2host.com has anonymous WHOIS details, but the other two are related:

BOLDHOSTS.COM
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Abdul Razzaq
Registrant Organization: Boldhosts
Registrant Street: Street 18 Clifton Block 8  
Registrant City: Karachi
Registrant State/Province: Sind(en)
Registrant Postal Code: 75500
Registrant Country: PK
Registrant Phone: +92.2135491130
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: info@boldhosts.com

PAIDHOSTER.COM
Registrant Name: Sajid Mahmood
Registrant Organization: GroomHost
Registrant Street: Progressive Center Shahrah e Faisal  
Registrant City: Karachi
Registrant State/Province: Sind(en)
Registrant Postal Code: 75400
Registrant Country: PK
Registrant Phone: +92.215681734
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: info@boldhosts.com

Although paidhoster.com does not resolve, both boldhosts.com and ok2host.com do and are hosted on adjacent IPs of 76.73.85.141 and 76.73.85.142 respectively, indicating that they might be the same company. Groomhost.com is also mentioned in the WHOIS details above, and that is hosted on 76.73.85.140.

It turns out that there is another IP block of 76.73.85.136/29 hosting a variety of possibly white-label web hosts:

network:Auth-Area:76.73.0.0/17
network:Class-Name:network
network:OrgName:Naeem Nasir
network:OrgID;I:FDC-11211
network:Address:Street number 18 clifton block 8
network:City:Karachi
network:StateProv:Sindh
network:PostalCode:75500
network:Country:PK
network:NetRange:76.73.85.136 - 76.73.85.143
network:CIDR:76.73.85.136/29
network:NetName:FDC-11211-76.73.85.136

The WHOIS details for the IP range don't give a lot of data, but we can also find the same registrant details for the domain sandhost.com:

Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Muhammad Naeem Nasir
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: Street  18  clifton block 8
Registrant City: Karachi
Registrant State/Province: Sindh
Registrant Postal Code: 75500
Registrant Country: Pakistan
Registrant Phone:
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: naeem.nasir@yahoo.com

The AA419 database shows several hits for this email address going back to 2011, so it seems that whoever this Pakistani web host is, they have been tolerating this activity on their network for several years, even if they are just providing hosting services rather than perpetrating fraud.

Conclusion

I really just skimmed the surface with my analysis here, but it is clear that the 64.20.51.16/29 block is being used almost exclusively for fraud. Moreover, the fraud is extremely sophisticated involving things like fake business registries and couriers. It is also clear that the Pakistani web hosts apparently providing these services have been doing so for some time.

Recommended blocklist:
64.20.51.16/29
76.73.85.136/29
185.24.233.16

Nepal Earthquake scam: savenepal.org

I was tipped off to this site by a contact, but it appears that there are some particularly dispicable scammers who have registered a fake website called savenepal.org which is soliciting donations via PayPal.

The site largely cloned from the legitimate ActionAid site which is genuinely seeking donations to go to Nepal.

ActionAid is "Registered charity no 274467" (it says so on the bottom of the page). SaveNepal.org claims to be "Registered charity no 276187", but we can check at the UK charities commission and we can see that the charity with this number is actually an orchestra.

Clicking "Donate" on the scam site leads to PayPal. It doesn't give much of a clue about the ownership of the fake site:

The WHOIS details for the domain are hidden using WhoIsGuard. These other sites appear to be live on the same server:

com-indexhtml.link
com-indexhtml.us
grantsekit.com

Out of these, only com-indexhtml.us has a non-anonymous WHOIS entry:

Registrant ID:                               C4E83B25FA8AD52D
Registrant Name:                             Frank J. Moore
Registrant Address1:                         2441 Byers Lane
Registrant City:                             Davis
Registrant State/Province:                   CA
Registrant Postal Code:                      95616
Registrant Country:                          United States
Registrant Country Code:                     US
Registrant Phone Number:                     +1.5307574940
Registrant Email:                            uscustomerhelp@gmail.com
Registrant Application Purpose:              P1
Registrant Nexus Category:                   C12

I'm pretty sure that those contact details are fake. Going back through historical WHOIS comes up with different contact details:

Registrant ID:                               29B0B5BBD7190398
Registrant Name:                             dinna  james
Registrant Address1:                         po box 876
Registrant City:                             dl
Registrant State/Province:                   dl
Registrant Postal Code:                      110098
Registrant Country:                          India
Registrant Country Code:                     IN
Registrant Phone Number:                     +1.918978978
Registrant Email:                            helpot80@gmail.com
Registrant Application Purpose:              P1
Registrant Nexus Category:                   C12

Of course, these contact details could also be false and there's no definite connection to savenepal.org yet. But out of curiosity, who is helpot80@gmail.com?  Googling doesn't reveal much, but it does show a copy of a conversation in the news.admin.net-abuse.email where someone who is claiming to use this email address is complaining about spam. If we then use Google Groups to find the original newsgroup post we see it was posted from an IP of 182.68.85.242 which is a dynamic Bharti Airtel IP in India, which does at least match the country in the WHOIS details.

Another Google result is this Phishtank entry listing social2013.com/rockgrade/ which appears to be a copy of the Rock Grade Management scam site I covered way back in 2011, indicating that perhaps these two scams are related. helpot80@gmail.com was listed as the owner of social2013.com before it expired in February 2015.

This WHOISology report links the address to several domains:

beauty6k.com
social2013.com
droughty.com
auto36.us
secure2013.us

Also, 94.242.255.129 has hosted many other domains, many of which appear to be scammy.

com-13.pw
com-21.us
com-indexhtml.us
news7d.com
mynews360.com
grantsekit.com
social2013.com
secured2014.com
usgrantskit.com
savenepal.org
com-indexhtml.link
huffingtonpost.com-indexhtml.link
dear.graphics

Many of these have the helpot80@gmail.com address listed in their historical WHOIS entries.

What else can we find out?

The email address is connected with this scammy looking Facebook page allegedly giving away "free laptops"

The email address also links to this Google+ profile naming them as "N. Al.". It also links to this YouTube channel with a single video about Payoneer. These Profiles indicate that helpot80@gmail.com has an interest in affiliate marketing, an activity with a mixed reputation.

I cannot prove that helpot80@gmail.com is connected with the savenepal.org, but they probably know whoever is behind it.

Remember, if you want to donate to ANY disaster charity, it is worth checking very carefully that you are dealing with the real thing and not a bunch of scammers.