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.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

InfoBite Software Ltd

Many thanks to A.C. for sending me this. At first glance, it looks like a typical money mule scam, but on closer investigation it appears to be an atypically nasty case. Most money mule scams deal in fraudulent direct bank transfers (from phishing) or forged cheques and money orders, but this one appears to be part of a credit card fraud gang. The amount of work involved in this scam is quite significant: they want you to set up a company and open a merchant account. I downloaded their FAQ document into Google docs for posterity, so see for yourself what's involved. To me it looks an awful lot like the mind-blowing organised credit card fraud operation documented by MGD, only this time the cover story is a software company, not web templates or e-books.

The website operated by this scam is quite slick -- it appears to have been ripped off from ELEKS Software.

I have found the following domain names used in association with this scam so far. All are relatively recent registrations. There may well be others.

   Domain Name: E-INFOBITE.NET
   Registrar: DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
   Whois Server: whois.PublicDomainRegistry.com
   Referral URL: http://www.PublicDomainRegistry.com
   Name Server: NS1.HOTVD.COM
   Name Server: NS2.HOTVD.COM
   Updated Date: 25-may-2008
   Creation Date: 16-mar-2008
   Expiration Date: 16-mar-2009

   Domain Name: INFOBITEONLINE.COM
   Registrar: DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
   Whois Server: whois.PublicDomainRegistry.com
   Referral URL: http://www.PublicDomainRegistry.com
   Name Server: NS.INFOBITEONLINE.COM
   Updated Date: 30-mar-2008
   Creation Date: 29-jan-2008
   Expiration Date: 29-jan-2009

Domain Name:                                 INFOBITEONLINE.BIZ
Domain ID:                                   D23171767-BIZ
Sponsoring Registrar:                        DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. DBA PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID:                303
Domain Status:                               ok
Registrant ID:                               DI_7692043
Registrant Name:                             Mladesh Voycovicz
Registrant Organization:                     Infobite Software, Inc
Registrant Email:                            barbarakipha@cheerful.com
Name Server:                                 NS.INFOBITEONLINE.BIZ
Name Server:                                 NS1.INFOBITEONLINE.BIZ
Created by Registrar:                        DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. DBA PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
Last Updated by Registrar:                   DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. DBA PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
Domain Registration Date:                    Mon Feb 11 17:00:07 GMT 2008
Domain Expiration Date:                      Tue Feb 10 23:59:59 GMT 2009
Domain Last Updated Date:                    Sun Apr 13 06:44:25 GMT 2008


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Богатков Куприян <eupouqihipe@yandex.ru>
Date: Mon, May 26, 2008 at 9:21 AM
Subject: Resume ID : 482208
To: [redacted (privacy)]


Good day,

We speak on behalf of InfoBite Software Limited [Poland].

Our company was started back in 1991 and presently is in Top 50 leaders of Eastern European Market of software development and IT sourcing.

Currently, InfoBite Software

energetically looking into embracing online market of Europe, and in order to achieve it we require a reliable partner Sales Representative in United States.

The duties of our partner in US will consist of simply organization of the marketing schemes of our products [Scheme has been already created and simply required to be executed]

The uniqueness of the ensuing project is that 99% of sales is designed for the website, which will present whole specter of company products.

At the moment the advertising budget has been already formed and the website is consists of our goods

rough salary for Sales Representative is $1,500-2,500 a month or 10% in commissions from each sale.

If you are interested in this proposition, you can complete an application form, peruse the FAQ section on this position, and then our HR Director Nataliya Shpankova will get in touch with you to talk about further details.

Fill out the application form and see more information on our proposal [FAQ], you can here:



http://www.e-infobite.net/page/vacancies/form.php?vac=sales_representative



Best Regards

HR Department

InfoBite Software Ltd.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm...that same company hacked one of my sites and added an htaccess redirect that sent visitors coming from search engines to some virus scanning page promoting virus scanning software....

I did a Whois search and lo and behold: DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A is the owner.

The domain isvsemutorba.com and redirects you to google if you don't come through with a unique code

Spotter said...

Bear in mind that "DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS" is a domain name registrar. If their name crops up as an owner, then they're probably offering anonymisation service to the actual registrant.

Anonymous said...

I registered www.pennyrocks.com with the registration company, whois.com and set up hosting etc etc, then just to test that there was an 'under construction' holding page I went to the site only to find a porn site there! I checked the whois info for the registrant and low and behold it was DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A registered on exactly the same date as mine. What can I do about it? soneone please help - was just about to launch a new e-commerce site and have registered the same name on .co.uk and a bunch of others too, all on the same date. Please let me know if I can get this sorted? ill register here but will just use the anonymous sender until I get registered.

Spotter said...

Talk to your registrar about it.

Anonymous said...

Similar scam by DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD srilankanetjobs.com

Cosmic Ray said...

Rather unwisely, I forgot about the renewal date of my domains for The Northern View Unfortunately, I bought it through Giblink when I was a member. No longer a member of Giblink, I had neglected to alter email addresses in that registration account(s)so I received no expiry warning. First indication of a problem was a holding page where my shiny new site should be!! Was able to log into the registration management account and pay for reinstatement. It's worrying that the whois pointed to the company you have been mentioning in these posts. I have no idea if Giblink uses them to anonymise the domains they trade or if the pvt mob have simply hoovered up my domain without a by your leave.

Any advice gratefully received.

Anonymous said...

I was billed 24.95 a month for 6 months (without my knowledge or consent)by a company claiming to be a 3rd party billing company for randybluetour.com, called Belator LLC. At the time the registered owner of the site was Belator LLC, but had since been changed to DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM.

Seems fishy...

Domain Name: RANDYBLUETOUR.COM
Registrar: DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
Whois Server: whois.PublicDomainRegistry.com
Referral URL: http://www.PublicDomainRegistry.com
Name Server: NS5.PUBLIC-NS.COM
Name Server: NS6.PUBLIC-NS.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 14-apr-2009
Creation Date: 10-may-2007
Expiration Date: 10-may-2010

Anonymous said...

same mob behind the scam download-gate.com

zer0 said...

they even own the site of:

AL NAKSHABANDIA ARMY, IRAQ!!!!

those bastards who show videos of killing us troops in iraq! this is sick! somebody should take care of this....and shoot the owner!

Anonymous said...

How would I find an actual physical address for this DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT.LTD.D/B/A? I'm Pissed! I don't even want a phone number I just want to go there personally, rip some parasitic faggots head off of their shoulders, shit down their throat, put a grenade in my shit that will have mixed with the shit that they are all already full of, and watch the actual shit head get blown to kingdom come. After that I will see how I felt, but then I would probably proceed to crush everything in my path until I found the main shit head in charge. Use your imagination for the rest! Does anyone want to sponsor me or help me make these people pray that their father had shot them on the sheets when he was fucking their whore mother? Post back on here as anonymous if you are for real about helping. I will check every week.

Anonymous said...

DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. is based in India, and provides registration and hosting services for millions of domains. Chances are that the scammers using them are not directly linked to them but use their services because they are very inexpensive. You need to go after the actual owners of the domains, not the registrar.

HisNotHers said...

I recieved an email from a company called "Nazmalis" today same reg. "DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD."

Gail Seymour said...

Thanks very much for your blog and the info about Directi Internet Solutions being in India. I was looking for them. Now I see that it's useless to contact them. My music is being uploaded and downloaded without permission on two web sites. The one URL was registered with Directi. As a result of your blog, I contacted the Dallas Police Dept. today, based on a reverse lookup I did on www.WhoIs.com. There's a technical advisor & administrator's name, address, email and phone (probably all fake) -- given that when I sent a registered mail in mid November, and I emailed and called him, I was unable to contact the person listed. But at least (hopefully) the Dallas police can investigate it (since it's a criminal offense) for me, and perhaps I'll eventually I'll get someone to act on it -- and if I'm very lucky, I might be able to get these two web sites -- both of which have the same contact info on whois.com -- which are pirating my work -- to stop. Thanks again, Gail Seymour, Producer, Just Relax - Relaxing to Sleep CD.

Spotter said...

Gail, what you really need to know is where the content is hosted. If it's hosted in the USA, you can send a DMCA take-down notice, informing the hosting provider that the material is being made available without the copyright owner's permission. The WHOIS info doesn't tell you where it's hosted.

Anonymous said...

Just had an email this morning from info@worldwidewebsitehosting.com, I didn't recognise the name so I left it alone and checked out the Who Is......DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone tell me if Database Solutions (India) is anyway related to DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD? Please guide.