Conex Inc

Summary

A money mule recruitment scam, primarily going by the name "Conex Inc", operating under a variety of domain names. Job offers sent via spam. Notable in that many of the domain names in use are several months old, which although relatively new in the overall scheme of things, is still relatively old as far as scam domain names are concerned. I'm unsure as to exactly why the domain names are "aged" in this way. There are probably hundreds of legitimate businesses called "Conex", but this one isn't impersonating any that I can find, specifically.

The Spam

The spam is a non-specific "work at home" job offer. The message is plain text, and does not link to any website. Sample text follows.

Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 14:21:16 -0200
From: Karen Lemley <[redacted]>
To: [redacted]
Subject: Home Work

Hello,
It's Karen Lemley from Conex Inc. Conex Inc. is a financial service company looking for people to work at home or to join it with part-time position.

To be honest, everyone would love to work at home, if only they have choice. Who wants to get up early at 6am, prepare for the kids and husband, send the kids, clean up the mess, rush to work as early as 7:30am and come home at 7:00pm, then continue the house chores and the same routine everyday?

Well, no one right? But we are all greed about a better future and easy income, and that's how we fall in their pits.

I tell you my story/ Before I joined the company and made a brilliant career I was once at a very desperate stage of life, jobless for few months after being retrenched, struggling financial difficulties (loans, repayments, credit card debts...) and naturally end up arguing with spouse because of our favorite issue "money". While browsing for vacancies at the newspaper and internet, I’ve found "work at home" opportunities with Conex Inc.

Now two years passed after working part-time I’ve joined full-time position. I’ve become a good specialist in financial services, HR management, Internet sales etc. But the main thing I’ve improved the life of myself and family. Besides now I’m working in office I remember those times when I’ve started my home-work career with Conex.

Join us now and you will see that you success story starts now and you will remember this moment for the rest of your life.

Please send your messages of interest to: job@financialmate.com
--
Best wishes,
Karen Lemley, HR manager
Conex Inc.

P.S.
Just in case if this email reached you by mistake, we're sorry for possible inconveniences it caused, feel free to send an email to unsub @financialmate.com or just ignore this email.

I sent off an enquiry, and received the following response, making the "money mule" nature of the job much clearer.

From: Conex Inc. <info@corporatefinances.org>
To: [redacted]
Sent: Wednesday, 7 February, 2007 8:24:46 PM
Subject: Position Description

Hello [redacted],

Conex Inc. is a company built by experienced professionals, each from a different field of the financial sector. We formed the company with the foresight of having all aspects of financial management, from debt problems and mortgage issues to insurance services, under the one roof. This enables a suitable solution to be found for almost every individual circumstance rather than making the clients needs fit what other companies can offer.

We pride ourselves in having the ability to help each person as an individual, with friendly and experienced staff that genuinely wants to listen to your needs and find the right solution for you.

Our mission to become a premium financial support provider began in 2005. We pioneered innovative and alternative insurance and financial support our clients all other the world due to alternative view on payment methods. At the beginning of 2005 owe developed an absolute loyalty program, which helps to support our customers in any moment, in any place on Earth and in any situation. The service is a separate service pack provided by the Conex Inc., and it is an addition to the existing propositions. By the contents the program can be classified as a short-term credit system rendered to our customers to minimize losses because of happening of the insured accident, but it is implemented before direct insurance payments are done. Thus our customer, signed up to receive this service, gets first line support worldwide in any situations. Furthermore, the loyalty program includes a remote financial support for our clients in cases when they urgently need a considerable amount of cash to conduct an urgent medical treatment and if our client became a criminal victim and was totally cleaned up - all his cash money and credit cards were stolen.

Conex Inc. is actively supports clients all over the world. That is why we use new Internet services like virtual currency in our business to provide fast transactions from our partners and to our dealers. But as paying by Internet currency is not a convenient way for all our clients so we decided to involve additional Payment Managers for our payment process support program. The main goal of using Payment Managers is to make all the transactions fast, convenient and to give our clients the opportunity to receive payments in their countries with the most convenient way without any additional taxation or fees. To provide the effective support for fast payments from our clients we decided to conduct a limited admission of Payment Managers of the Conex Inc.. We intend to create an effective limited group (6-8 persons) of managers in the countries of Europe, USA, Australia and Asia.

The responsibilities of a Payment Manger will include a series of functions to assist the company's supervisor in manager's area in forwarding funds directly to our client without using the company's account; the money will be forwarded to the manager's bank account from supervisor. After receiving the funds following our instructions the Payment Managers must transfer funds to client using the fast money transfer systems (like instant bank transfers, e-currencies transfers or even Western Union or Money Gram in some cases).

Such scheme seems to be rather strange or difficult, but the fact that transaction lasts for 3-5 days as usual bank transaction. Using such scheme takes only 1-2 days so the client gets the funds and support faster. The other distinctive feature of this system is that it helps Conex Inc. to avoid taxation in the UK and to save up to 20% of profit.

All banking activities will be conducted by Payment Managers. His/her basic responsibilities will include ensuring of all banking activities. Specifically: to receive and efficiently distribute funds (using bank account operated by Manager) from regional supervisor of the Conex Inc. among our clients by means of the fast money transfer systems and Internet currency.

For this part-time position we need communicative, dynamic, honest and respectable people interested in additional earnings and who are ready to learn quickly, to follow the instructions and to show own initiative too. We do not require any special education but its presence is appreciated as well as the work experience. We highly appreciate and find very important an ability to follow our instructions and conditions.

The successful applicant must:
- be capable to work;
- be older than 21;
- have an opportunity to give not less than 2 hours a day to this work;
- be able to use PC, have an access to PC and Internet during the day.

The compensation of the Payment Manager work consists of salary and bonus fees. Conex Inc. guaranties, that if you are accepted for this position you will receive salary amounts to $2000 for the first 2 month with the company. For the 3-rd month Payment Manager will receive $3500. After 90 days of activity every successful Manager will be offered to sign a contract for future part and full-time cooperation (the condition is effective after only 90 days of cooperation with Conex Inc. without any serious rebukes).

Bonus fee constitutes 5% of each payment processing operation. The manager's bonus should be taken from the sum before resending the funds. All the other expenses like transaction fees are also paid from the rest of the company's sum of money. For example, if $2000 were sent to your bank account your percentage fee would be $100. The remaining amount of $1900 should be sent to our representative or directly to the seller according to our instructions. If money transferring costs $50 you will need to take this $50 from $1900. So at the end the final amount we should receive will be $1850. So you will be able to get additional $500 - 1500 as a fee per month.

The main condition Payment Manager must obey consists in that every received funds must be redirected to company's dealer in 6 hours after the funds are available in manager's bank account. If a manager delays the payment more than for 6 hours without a substantial reason he/she is deprived of his/her commission for the payment. In case of the 24 hours delay Conex Inc. breaks any business relations with the manager and contacts the manager's local authorities. There won't be any transactions on holidays or week-ends.

The Payment Manager's salary will be sent during the first week of the new month to the manager's bank account. Also the usage of this financial scheme affords to avoid additional taxation of our managers as well as our company.

If you are interested in our proposition please send us an e-mail to job@corporatefinances.org which will contain your short personal information and you will be sent the application form:

1. Full name
2. Your country and city/town.
3. Your age and occupation

In case you have now or will have any questions (after reading the information letter) please feel free to e-mail us support@corporatefinances.org and we will be happy to answer any questions.

Please keep in mind that we can receive up to 100 e-mails a day and it takes time to answer each and every one. Please allow anywhere from 1 to 2 business days for an answer.

Successful applicants should be familiar with such payments systems like 'E-Gold' (www.e-gold.com), 'Moneybookers' (www.moneybookers.com), 'Western Union' (www.westernunion.com) and 'Money Gram' (www.moneygram.com). All the additional information about those systems can be found on their web-sites.

Usually we do not deny any candidatures without serious reasons. Just try I can assure you that you have good chances to become our employee within several business days.
---
Best regards,
Ling Xue
Sales Deptartment Supervisor
info@corporatefinances.org
Conex Inc.,
13 Dixon Street
Glasgow, G1 4AL (St. Enoch)
Scotland
Phone/Fax: 44-141-626-1510

Domain names involved

The following domain names have been used as contact addresses in this scam, and I believe the domains to be under the control of the scammers (whether they registered them or not).

• financialmate.com
• corporatefinances.org

The above is not necessarily an exhaustive list of involved domains -- merely the ones we know about. The list is updated as new domains come to our attention. Please post comments below if you are aware of other domains involved in this scam.

Website

The website isn't mentioned in the spam, and seems to exist only to satisfy the curious that there is some substance to the company. The substance, however, is an illusion: the website is merely a rip-off of the site belonging to Chambers Moore Ltd. The following is a snapshot of the website at www.corporatefinances.org taken at around the time this article was posted.

Note also that world-wide-helper.com is also conducting a similar rip-off under the name of "Debt Chamber, Inc". Compare the registration details of world-wide-helper.com to financialmate.com below, noting similarities.

Domain Information (for experts)

Limited WHOIS information is provided here, primarily for the purposes of trend analysis. Registrant details are included only to the extent that I believe they are relevant and accurate.

financialmate.com

Query at around 2007-02-08 06:06 UTC

   Domain Name: FINANCIALMATE.COM
   Registrar: EASYDNS TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
   Whois Server: whois.easydns.com
   Referral URL: http://www.easydns.com
   Name Server: NS.EZ-WEB-HOSTING.COM
   Name Server: NS1.EZ-WEB-HOSTING.COM
   Name Server: NS1.LUNARSERVERS.COM
   Name Server: NS2.LUNARSERVERS.COM
   Updated Date: 17-jan-2007
   Creation Date: 13-jun-2006
   Expiration Date: 13-jun-2007
   Administrative Contact: alberthartheimer@verizonmail.com

corporatefinances.org

Query at around 2007-02-08 06:08 UTC

Domain ID:D131375558-LROR
Domain Name:CORPORATEFINANCES.ORG
Created On:23-Oct-2006 14:47:11 UTC
Last Updated On:17-Jan-2007 20:50:08 UTC
Expiration Date:23-Oct-2007 14:47:11 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Schlund+Partner AG (R73-LROR)
Registrant ID:SPAG-35283970
Registrant Email:alfitz@mailpuppy.com
Name Server:NS1.BLUEDOMINO.COM
Name Server:NS2.BLUEDOMINO.COM
Name Server:NS1.LUNARSERVERS.COM
Name Server:NS2.LUNARSERVERS.COM

world-wide-helper.com

Query at around 2007-02-08 06:19 UTC

   Domain Name: WORLD-WIDE-HELPER.COM
   Registrar: ALL WEST COMMUNICATIONS, INC. D/B/A AW REGISTRY
   Whois Server: whois.awregistry.net
   Referral URL: http://www.awregistry.net
   Name Server: NS.EZ-WEB-HOSTING.COM
   Name Server: NS1.BLUEDOMINO.COM
   Name Server: NS1.EZ-WEB-HOSTING.COM
   Name Server: NS2.BLUEDOMINO.COM
   Updated Date: 03-nov-2006
   Creation Date: 14-jun-2006
   Expiration Date: 14-jun-2007
   Registrant: kentelliott@verizonmail.com