Suckers Wanted: Lux Capital (impostors)

Job scam quick guide: it's a scam if...

they want you to collect and forward money in any way (a "money mule" job). You'll wind up engaged in money laundering, personally defrauded via expertly forged cheques, money orders, etc, or defrauding someone else who pays for goods that never arrive.
they want you to receive packages and reship them somewhere else. The goods will have been obtained fraudulently, and they're just using you to make the shipping address appear local. You will be aiding fraud.
they want up-front payment (either to them or someone else) of any sort for anything before you can get the job. This is advance fee fraud: there is no job -- it's just a big con to extract money from you.
they want you to buy any kind of "membership" or "kit" in order to start. Forget it -- it's not a real job at all: they're trying to sell you something, and they're probably making a bunch of other false claims about it if they're pitching it as a "job".
it's a job offer, and it's spam. There are LOTS of these scams about, as you can see.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Lux Capital (impostors)

Summary

Money mule scam (see sidebar for more information). They offer a job involving money transfer, but the money in question is obtained illegally, and forwarding it is aiding a crime. This appears to be the next incarnation of the Radius Investments job scam, and the scammers are again ripping off the identity of a real company. This time the unlucky "winner" is Lux Capital. Please note that the real Lux Capital operates under the domain name "luxcapital.com". Accept no immitations, and beware of impostors.

The Spam

The message is presented in a GIF image, accompanied by nonsense "filter buster" text coloured to be invisible against the background.

Representative image

Sender names encountered

Capitalisation and punctuation may vary.

Lux Capital
The Lux Capital

Domain names involved

The following links have been encountered in spam, listed in order of encounter.

http://luxcapit.hk/index.php?vacancy
http://luxcap.hk/index.php?vacancy
http://luxcatl.hk/index.php?vacancy
http://luxcapl.hk/index.php?vacancy
http://luxcaptl.hk/index.php?vacancy
http://luxcapi.hk/index.php?vacancy
http://luxcapt.hk/index.php?vacancy
http://luxcail.hk/index.php?vacancy

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

I usually include a snapshot of the scam website in reports of this kind, but since the scammers have recently adopted the practice of copying legitimate sites this no longer seems worthwhile. Suffice it to say that the site looks rather a lot like the original, because it's a copy.

The scam website includes a "vacancy" page which is not a part of the original site. This contains three vacancies: Call Center Manager, Regional Assistant, and Driver. The "Regional Assistant" position is the money mule job; the other two are just red herrings. There are links provided to an online form entitled "Contract 1493" which allows you to provide the scammers with your bank details. True to their word, they will transfer money into your account and request that 90% (minus costs) be forwarded via Western Union. Your account will probably be frozen and investigated shortly thereafter because of all the unauthorised transactions forwarding money to it.

Domain Information (for experts)

Limited WHOIS information about the involved domains 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 not misleading fabrications.

luxcapit.hk

Query at around 2007-03-20 00:34 UTC

Domain Name: LUXCAPIT.HK
Email: fredi-gansen@hotmail.com
Domain Name Commencement Date: 2007-03-11
Expiry Date:  2008-03-11
Name of Registrar: HKDNR
Account Name: HK1835449T
Name Servers Information:

NS1.FEARGR.COM
NS2.FEARGR.COM

luxcap.hk

Query at around 2007-03-20 00:35 UTC

Domain Name: LUXCAP.HK
Email: guszakmarquisea@hotmail.com
Domain Name Commencement Date: 2007-03-11
Expiry Date:  2008-03-11
Name of Registrar: HKDNR
Account Name: HK1835429T
Name Servers Information:

NS1.FEARGR.COM
NS2.FEARGR.COM

luxcatl.hk

Query at around 2007-03-20 00:37 UTC

Domain Name: LUXCATL.HK
Email: hannelorezuern@hotmail.com
Domain Name Commencement Date: 2007-03-11
Expiry Date:  2008-03-11
Name of Registrar: HKDNR
Account Name: HK1835446T
Name Servers Information:

NS1.FEARGR.COM
NS2.FEARGR.COM

luxcapl.hk

Query at around 2007-03-20 00:38 UTC

Domain Name: LUXCAPL.HK
Email: yawpukhtun@hotmail.com
Domain Name Commencement Date: 2007-03-11
Expiry Date:  2008-03-11
Name of Registrar: HKDNR
Account Name: HK1835432T
Name Servers Information:

NS1.FEARGR.COM
NS2.FEARGR.COM

luxcaptl.hk

Query at around 2007-03-21 00:25 UTC

Domain Name: LUXCAPTL.HK
Email: ledonnep@hotmail.com
Domain Name Commencement Date: 2007-03-11
Expiry Date:  2008-03-11
Name of Registrar: HKDNR
Account Name: HK1835438T
Name Servers Information:

NS1.FEARGR.COM
NS2.FEARGR.COM

luxcapi.hk

Query at around 2007-03-24 11:03 UTC

Domain Name: LUXCAPI.HK
Email: austincoxhill@hotmail.com
Domain Name Commencement Date: 2007-03-11
Expiry Date:  2008-03-11
Name of Registrar: HKDNR
Account Name: HK1835443T
Name Servers Information:

YNS1.YAHOO.COM
YNS2.YAHOO.COM

luxcapt.hk

Query at around 2007-03-26 14:06 UTC

Domain Name: LUXCAPT.HK
Email: dvdrgrs642@hotmail.com
Domain Name Commencement Date: 2007-03-11
Expiry Date:  2008-03-11
Name of Registrar: HKDNR
Account Name: HK1835435T
Name Servers Information:

NS1.TIME-AM.COM
NS2.TIME-AM.COM

luxcail.hk

Query at around 2007-03-29 13:14 UTC

Domain Name: LUXCAIL.HK
Email: martynfarmer@hotmail.com
Domain Name Commencement Date: 2007-03-11
Expiry Date:  2008-03-11
Name of Registrar: HKDNR
Account Name: HK1835452T
Name Servers Information:

NS1.NATUREP.COM
NS2.NATUREP.COM

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Thanks for pointing out these scammers. They are a bothersome.

Check out webspamscams.com. Your site is better.; 3:06 am, March 22, 2007
Anonymous said...: Got one today with the link luxcapital.hk/index.php?vacancy.

Never mind that Lux Capital doesn't have offices outside the US.; 1:45 pm, April 03, 2007

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About This Blog

This blog is an offshoot of iDeceive, which documents deceptive Internet activity. For more general information, please go to that blog. All entries posted here are employment scams. If you've received an email that resembles anything posted here, you'd be well advised to assume that the sender wants to exploit you, not employ you. Scammers often impersonate real companies. Where real company names are mentioned here, you should assume that a scammer is using that identity fraudulently unless you have strong evidence to the contrary.

What is a money mule?

The vast majority of job scams seek to recruit money mules, usually under titles like "financial manager", "payment processor", "transaction specialist", or just plain "representative" or even "partner". The job of a money mule is to be a financial middle-man, accepting payment in one form, and forwarding it (minus a fee) to another party, usually via Western Union. Scammers employ money mules to launder money on their behalf: the mule is responsible for converting a fraudulent transaction of some kind into quick, anonymous cash, usually transferred via Western Union or some similar scheme. Scammers send out a lot of job ads for money mule positions and never refuse an applicant because they are disposable: money mules either get ripped off directly (as when they are persuaded to bank a forged cheque or money order which is later dishonoured by the bank), or take the blame for defrauding someone else (as with most payments involving direct bank transfer, PayPal, or similar). Don't make an ass of yourself: don't be a money mule.

Suckers Wanted