Camelot Advisors (scam)

A guy named "Mark Cruz" once called me from "Camelot Advisors" in Hong Kong (http://www.camelotadvisors.com). He wanted me to invest in a company called "Sensor Focus Media"...Or something.

Can't remember the conversation exactly, but I told him that I was not interested before he had the chance to tell me any details. And he goes like this: "But how can you know that you're not interested when you don't know what I'm going to tell you??" Later he realizes that this isn't going anywhere and says "Ok, I see where this is going. Well, if you're not interested in us then we are not interested in you!"... Fair enough.

I checked out their website by searching for "Camelot Advisors". Again it's a bit sloppy work on the website. They have a section containing news from Google. On each section there is a link that just links back to the main page. Instead you would expect it to show something else.

Most of the text on the page is just a part of a picture. This means that Google can't index this text, and people won't be able to search for any of these words on Google. I guess they don't want any attention from people other than the ones that they call (by using images they will never/rarely appear in any Google search results)

On their contact page they have a drop-down list that contains reasons for contacting them. One of 4 reasons is "problems logging in". I guess they must have a lot of problems with this as I suspect the login form is not working AT ALL. However, by contacting them you show them interest and maybe they will call you back to persuade you into investing in a company with a fancy name (scam).

The copyright at the bottom of the page says "2009", but the domain was registered 2010, so that site couldn't have been online at that point. Maybe they wanted to make it look like the company was a little older than it is, or they forgot to change it from a previous scam website they used.

They have some terms and conditions on their website, which makes it look serious. However, these are most likely stolen from another website (I don't know if that other site is a scam or not, but at first glance it looked real): http://jmbhomedevelopment.com/content/terms-use

They have a twin site at: http://www.edwardsmithandassociates.com (meaning that they're running multiple scams). On EdwardSmithAndAssociates' contact page it actually says "Contact Camelot Advisors & Associates" - they forgot to change it to "Contact Edward Smith And Associates"

The domain camelotadvisors.com is - surprise, surprise - registered through another company that protects the identity of the scammers.

The domain edwardsmithandassociates.com is, however, registered by a Hong Kong company called "Edward Smith And Associates". However, it may not be a real name and address at all.

The two twin sites are located in the same data center (that's what I assume as the IP addresses are almost the same)

Individually these arguments may not be that strong, but together they make it obvious: SCAM!

Allied Finance (scam)

This "bank" runs a "Nigerian scam" on people. It could go something like this:

A girl in a poor country talks with a guy online. He's in a different country. He might have inherited money in Malaysia and needs the girl's help to transfer the money to another country. When the money is transferred, the girl can go buy a house and a car and in some cases the guy might even promise to marry her later on.

Sounds nice, right?

Well, there are some problems ahead. The money has been transferred to "Allied Finance" and they can't transfer the money out of Malaysia until someone has paid "tax" for this money. For some reason, they can't just deduct the "tax" from the $1.000.000 that is already in the bank account, they need the girl to transfer money to the bank BEFORE she can withdraw the one million.

Don't get sucked in. There's no money to win here - only to lose.

As normal, the scammers do poor work on the website. They might have fixed it now, but I was actually able to login with a BLANK username and password. So I could see some statements etc. No real banks lets you do this. If you're being scammed, you might receive a username and password - the purpose is so that you can see that there is actually money in there waiting for you. They can write anything they want in there, just because they show you a balance in there it doesn't mean that it's a real bank.

Another thing with the login is that it's not performed across a SECURE socket (connection). Your username and password would have been sent unencrypted across the internet from your computer towards this website. Hackers could easily have been able to intercept this and steal your password. This is a clear indication that this is not a real bank. Always make sure that the address bar starts with https:// and not http:// when you're about to login to an online bank.

If you look at the "contact us" link on the left side of the page. It links to a page at http://www.webaddresshere.com ... Sloppy work again. Here they should have linked to a local contact page on their site, instead they forgot to fill it in.

Take a look at the page http://afbkmy.com/index.html ... You can see that the text under "Overview" is very similar to the text of a (most likely) real bank in Malaysia; http://www.rhb.com.my/corporate_profile/media/2009/01-23.html

I know that these scammers had a different site, but I think they've closed it down already.

Pro Capital Management (scam)

Got a call from a girl (?) called Aya today. She's from the Philippines.

Aya: Hi, is this Mr. Anders?
Me: Yes
Aya: Hi, Mr. Anders. I'm calling from a company called Pro Capital Management.
Me: Sorry, what's your name?
Aya: Aya
Me: And does your company have a website?
Aya: Uhm, yeah, it's www.procapitalmanagement.com ... Mr. Anders, how are you today?
Me: I'm good. I can't access your website (I thought she said BRO instead of PRO)
Aya: Try to reload it. Mr. Anders, first of all, I must say, this is NOT a sale.
Me: Right. Where is the company located?
Aya: In Tokyo.
Me: Are you using a voice machine?
Aya: Why would you say that?
Me: Because you guys have called me multiple times this week.
Aya: I've never called you before.
Me: Well, you sound exactly like the rest.
Aya: Mr. Anders, I would like to ask you if it's ok if I send you some information about our company and our services.
Me: What services?
Aya: Commodities
Me: Ok. Sorry, no. I'm not interested in your services.
Aya: Why do you halt the conversation for so long when you're not interested?
Me: Cause you guys call me all the time and try to scam me.
Aya: You should have just said no right away.
Me: Yes, and then you say something like "But Mr. Anders, you don't know what I'm going to say"...

She hangs up.

I realized later that I wrote the wrong url so I checked it. It's obviously a scam, cause when you try to login they don't even bother to check your username. They actually just send you directly to the "login failed" page. I checked the html of the page, and I found this:

form id="Form2" action="./loginerror.html" method="post" name="contact"

This means that when you click on the button, the browser will open the page loginerror.html ... This indicates that they don't care about your login, they just want it to look like the login button works.

You might be impressed by the content of these pages, but in most cases they have ripped it off some other page (a serious page, most likely)

Pro Capital Management also have a twin site, "Anderson Shaw Group" (http://www.andersonshawgroup.com) which has the same content (they just replaced the company name), same phone numbers, same emails etc. Also a scam.

The domain names are registered behind a different company who protects the identity of the real people behind this scam.

So, for your own sake, stay away.