"Paypal" scam

Got this email in my spam today, supposedly from PayPal (it's not, it's a scam):


Identity Issue PP-658-119-347

Secure Transaction


Please complete the attached form to verify your Profile information and restore your account access.

Personal Information Profile

Make sure you enter the information accurately, and according to the formats required.
Fill in all the required fields.

Dear customer ,

As part of our efforts to provide a safe and secure environment for the online community, we regularly screen account activity. Our review of your account has identified an issue regarding its safe use. We have placed a restriction on your account as a precaution.

To lift the restriction we will require some further information from you.

If, once we review your further information and we're confident that the use of your account does not present a safety risk to our service and customers, we'll be happy to reinstate your account.

We have sent you an attachment which contains all the necessary steps in order to restore your account access. Download and open it in your browser. After we have gathered the necessary information, you will regain full access to your account.


We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Very sincerely,
PayPal Review Department

Mr. Benjamin T. Dabrah, a banker in Ghana

Got this contact request on my Skype:

benjamindabrahem029 (benjamindabraheme)
Hello XXX,   I am sorry to contact you unannounced through this medium. I am Mr. Benjamin T. Dabrah, a banker here in Ghana . I write you this proposal in good faith hoping that I will rely on you . In 2006, one Mr.Daniel XXX who has same surname as yours and who has you....

Ok, that's all I could read. I don't want to add "him" as a contact and chat with him. Ghana... Africa... Why does it give such a negative vibe once you read it in your email etc? And I wonder why they're so honest about it seeing how these countries have gotten such a bad reputation from these so-called "Nigerian scams".  A person who transfers money to Nigeria these days, in order to receive 1000 times more in return, would have to be many times more stupid than the ones who did it before the scam got well-known to the public.

It doesn't matter where he's from. If he contacted you as well, it means that he contacted many people since you managed to find this page. Did he tell you that someone with the same last name as you contacted them in 2006? Maybe he left some money for you down in Ghana. You just have to pay the banker, Mr. Dabrah first. Or maybe it's impossible to get the money out of Ghana without bribing some police officers or perhaps some gerilla troops. Or some lawyers, who knows.

The question I always ask myself is: If they have all this money waiting for me, why can't they just use this money to pay off the people they need to pay off? Maybe if they were transferring some gold to you it would make more sense. But seriously, what kind of banker is going to contact you through Skype to discuss such a matter.

Blemain Finance Limited scam

I recently got this email in Norwegian:

"hallo Trenger du en lån? Hvis ja, kan du komme tilbake for mer informasjon. Jeg venter på svar. Hilsen Anne White"

If I translate it back to English it says something like:

"Hello Need a loan? If yes, please come back for more information. I am waiting for an answer. Greeting Anne White"

Not so much to work with. However, here are some things to notice:

1. The email was sent from bfl1976@wss-id.org through Yahoo. Obviously not a company email. 
2. If you go to http://www.wss-id.org you'll see that it is some kind of "geek community" for Indonesian people. Either the email was "stolen" from the original user, the email was created there to get an email in the first place, or the scammer is indonesian and using his/her own email address registered at this web site. This point is not so important as poinst 1. 
3. If googling "Blemain Finance Limited" I find a company in Manchester, UK. This company is legit. I also find a website with the title "Blemain Finance Group" which has the same logo as in the email. This site is related to the same company in Manchester.
4. By googling "Anne White" on any of these two web sites, I don't get any results. 
5. I doubt that "Anne White" would use bfl1976@wss-id.org as an email.
6. The image used in the email is also downloaded from blemaingroup.co.uk, so it confirms that this is the company they are trying to "impersonate"
7. On this url there is a warning that you can read below: 
8. http://www.blemainfinance.co.uk/consumer.aspx 
9. So please beware that Blemian Group is legit, but this email is a scam.

Warning image from blemainfinance.co.uk:

Update:
I said I was interested in a loan and got this email:

"god dag


Takk for ditt svar til våre innlegg.


Jeg ville like å informere deg om at vi er glad for å ha deg som kunde i dette respektfull selskapet, og vi ser frem til å ha en god forretningssamarbeid med deg.


Svar på e-post må du forstå at dette selskapet gir ut lån til både enkeltpersoner og firmaer over hele verden for økonomisk forbedring og kjøp av egenskaper. Du må også oppmerksom på at dette selskapet gi låne beløpet som strekker seg fra summen av 20,000.00 Eur - 50,000,000.00 Eur og alle lån transaksjonen/beregninger utføres på renten 3 %


Hvis du vil aktivere oss gi deg lån vilkår/betingelser, du bes vennlig om å gi oss med den under informasjon som vil gjøre det mulig for oss fortsette med transaksjonen.


Informasjon som er nødvendig:


Fullt navn:
Land:
Lånebeløpet er nødvendig:
Lån varighet:


Så snart du gi oss med disse opplysningene, vil vi sende deg neste trinn om denne transaksjonen.


Avventer svaret.


Din trofast
Anne White"

in English:

"good day Thanks for your response to our posts. I would like to inform you that we are glad to have you as a customer in this honorable company, and we look forward to having a good business relationship with you. Reply to e-mail, you must understand that this company gives out loans to individuals and companies throughout the world for economic improvement and purchase of properties. You must also be aware that this company provide the loan amount ranging from the sum of 20,000.00 Eur - Eur 50,000,000.00 and all loan transactions / calculations performed on the interest rate 3% To enable us to give you loan terms / conditions, you are kindly requested to provide us with the information that will enable us continue with the transaction. Information needed: Full Name: Country: The loan amount is required: Loan duration: Once you provide us with this information, we will send you the next step of this transaction. Awaiting response. your faithful Anne White"

African mango - scam?

I noticed an advertisement for "African mango" on a Norwegian web site. My initial thought was "What have they come up with this time". Let me rephrase that: "What kind of crap have they come up with this time?"

A few weeks later I decided to look more into this "African mango". I went to the web site afrikanskmango.com (in Norwegian, sorry) and read a page that was intended to convince the reader that "African mango" does in fact work. Well, I checked some of their references. Most of the references are to a website called "LipidWorld.com". There is also a reference to a FoxNews article which is based on research reported to LipidWorld. There is also a reference to Reuters, but the Reuters article is also based on the research reported to LipidWorld. There is also a reference to a an article on a US government web health web site, but this article is also based on the exact same research (or at least the same people behind it).

My research so far tells me that there is not much research on "African mango". I've only come across one study, the one on LipidWorld.com.

According to their research, 102 people were using either using the plant extract (the African mango) or a placebo twice a day. OK, let's just assume that 50% of the 102 people used the African mango. That is 51 people. In average they all lost 28 pounds in 10 weeks without changing their diet or exercise plan. That sounds very much like a miracle. I'm surprised that I couldn't find any testimonials from this study group - or from anyone else who have used African mango later. If I lost 28 pounds "just like that" I would be pretty excited about it. I would blog about "African mango" and praise it. 



Well, there are some that praises it. For example the person on this blog: http://africanmangoscam.vipplatform.com/ ... But doesn't it look obvious? This blog represent one of the African mango brands. I don't consider that a true testimonial. And I don't think it helps the African mango "cause" - if it's as good as they say, why do they have to make these fake testimonials?

I can't tell you whether the study mentioned is a good study or simply a study bought by people who want to market "African mango" as a great way to lose weight. But I would not spend money on a product that has so little research behind it. 

The Norwegian web site also mentions that "everybody" is talking about the African mango. Well, they don't. Talk to someone who really knows how to lose weight, and they will most likely tell you to change your diet and preferably get some exercise! 

If you agree or disagree with any of this, please leave a comment.

Mr. Peter Wong - scam

Got this in my mail a few days ago (in Norwegian):

Kvitter


Jeg har en gjensidig forretning forslaget av gjensidig interesse å dele med dere;
det innebærer overføring av en stor sum penger. Jeg fikk referanse i
mitt søk etter noen som passer min foreslåtte virksomheten forholdet. dersom
du er interessert i å jobbe med meg kontakte meg via min
privat e-post (wong.peter@yahoo.cn) for ytterligere detaljer
Første din reaksjon på dette brevet vil bli verdsatt.


Best Regard,
Mr.Peter Wong
Epost: wong.peter@yahoo.cn


I responded "Mr. Peter Wong". I asked him what his interesting business proposal was about. Well, long story short, I am $123.000.000 richer today.

No, he didn't reply me. There are many emails like this. I'm not sure if they work for those who sends them out. I guess that if you're smart enough to google these names, you're smart enough not to get involved. 

Dr. Alex Morgan - "Nigerian" scam

I'm not sure if these emails work anymore. There have been so many and the awareness should be pretty high.

If you don't know what the "Nigerian scam" is, let me explain quickly:
1) They have come across a huge amount of money, but they're not able to transfer it to anyone in their country. The money usually comes from a dead person who has no relatives, or from Saddam Husseins secret gold chambers - could be anything.
2) They offer you to receive a large percentage of that money,
3) To get the money you just need to provide some paperwork
4) Some complications occur with the transfer, they need you to transfer a smaller amount of money to get the transfer rolling again. Popular reasons are: You need to pay tax for the money before you can get it, you need to pay a lawyer to perform the paperwork or you have to bribe some important people to allow the money to be transferred - stuff like that.
5) Notice that part about sending them money in pt 4? That's how they get money and you lose money. If you'll hear from them again it is only so that they can get more money out of you.

Here is the email in both Norwegian and English (they use Google Translate or similar to create an email in your language) - This  is just one example of many scams just like this one.

"Dear friend,
My name is Dr. Alex Morgan, from Harlesden North West England, formal senior project and program manager of Deutsche Bank, a trusted advisor for over 20 years and day Operations / Regional Manager, Branch Manager of Santander Bank in London, here in Santander. I worked for Latest ministers Bank London. I write for an appointment at my office that will be of enormous benefit to us both.
In my department, the Regional Operations Manager / Branch Manager of Santander Bank Plc. I discovered an abandoned sum of £ 21,500,000.00 Pounds Sterling (twenty million five hundred thousand pounds sterling) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers Late David McDowell Brown, an American citizen who unfortunately lost his life on February 1, 2003 through the southern U.S. space shuttle Columbia, he died as a single man.
The choice of contacting you is aroused from the geographical nature of where you live, particularly due to the sensitivity of the transaction and the confidentiality herein.
Now our bank has been waiting for some of his relatives to come up for the claim but nobody has done it. I personally have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for 5 years now,
I now seek your consent to present you as next of kin / Will Beneficiary to the deceased so that the proceeds of this account valued at £ 21, 500, 000, 00 British pounds to be paid to you.
This will be disbursed or shared in these percentages, 50% to me, 40% to you while 10% is for all the expenses during prpcessing of this transaction, as I have secured all necessary legal documents that can be used to back up this claim. All I need is to fill in your name to the documents and legalize it in the court here to prove you as the legitimate beneficiary.
Also I need your honest co-operation, Confidentiality and Trust absolutely no doubt, to enable us see this transaction through. I guarantee you that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.
Please provide me with the following as we have 5 days to run this through.
This is very URGENT PLEASE.
1. Full Name
2. You are Phone
3. You are contact address.
4. Profession
I have the bank form which I will send to you as soon as I receive the full data.
Yours respectfully"

Kjære venn,
Mitt navn er dr. Alex Morgan, fra Harlesden North West England, formell senior prosjekt og programmerer leder i Deutsche Bank, en betrodd rådgiver for over 20 år og dag Operations / Regional Manager Branch Manager Santander Bank i London, her i Santander. Jeg jobbet for Nyeste ministrene Bank London. Jeg skriver du etter en avtale på kontoret mitt som vil være av en enorm fordel for oss begge.
I min avdeling, er den Operations Regional Manager / Branch Manager Santander Bank Plc. Jeg oppdaget en forlatt sum på £ 21,500,000,00 Britiske Pund (tjue millioner fem hundre tusen britiske pund) i en konto som tilhører en av våre utenlandske kunder Late David McDowell Brown en amerikansk statsborger, som dessverre mistet livet på første februar 2003 gjennom den sørlige USA romfergen Columbia, døde han som singel mann.
Valget av kontakter du er vekket fra den geografiske natur hvor du bor, særlig på grunn av sensitiviteten av transaksjonen og konfidensialitet her.
Nå vår bank har ventet på noen av hans slektninger å komme opp for kravet, men ingen har gjort det. Jeg personlig har vært mislykket i finne slektninger i 5 år nå,
Jeg nå søker ditt samtykke til å presentere deg som pårørende / Will Betalingsmottakers til den døde, slik at utbyttet av denne kontoen verdi på £ 21, 500, 000, kan 00 britiske pounds bli utbetalt til deg.
Dette vil bli utbetalt eller delt i disse prosenter, 50% til meg, 40% til deg mens 10% er for alle utgiftene under prpcessing av denne transaksjonen, mens jeg har sikret alle nødvendige juridiske dokumenter som kan brukes til å sikkerhetskopiere dette kravet. Alt jeg trenger er å fylle inn ditt navn til dokumenter og legalisere det i rettssalen her for å bevise deg som legitim betalingsmottakeren.
Også jeg trenger din ærlige samarbeid, taushetsplikt og absolutt Trust ingen tvil, til at vi ser denne transaksjonen gjennom. Jeg kan garantere deg at dette vil bli behandlet under en lovlig ordning som vil beskytte deg mot eventuelle brudd på loven.
Vennligst gi meg med følgende som vi har 5 dager for å kjøre dette gjennom.
Dette er veldig URGENT PLEASE.
1. Fullt navn
2. Du er Telefonnummer
3. Du er kontaktadresse.
4. Yrke
Jeg har banken form som jeg vil sende til deg så snart jeg mottar full data.
Respektfullt Hilsen
Dr. Alex Morgan
Vennligst send din INFORMASJON TIL MIN PRIVATE EPOST: dr.1alex.morgan@hotmail.co.uk

euSERP - Melinda Leary

Dette sammendraget er ikke tilgjengelig. Klikk her for å se innlegget.

SE Services - Expiring domain name scam

Ever got an email with the title being something like this "YourDomainName.com Notice of Registration Soon" ?

They will write something like this:


"To: Domain Owner


Your order #23511877 has been received and is currently processing. Registration includes SE submission for YOURDOMAINNAME.COM for 12 months. There is no obligation to pay for this order unless you complete your payment by May 8, 2012. SE Services provides submission services and search engine ranking organization for domain owners.


Failure to complete your search engine registration by May 8, 2012 may result in the cancellation of this order (making it difficult for your customers to locate you using search engines on the web)."

What's wrong with it?

1. According to any whois-site (for example:  http://whois.domaintools.com), your domain name probably doesn't expire yet. And before it's about to expire, the company you bought the domain from will most likely remind you that you have to pay if you want to keep ownership. 
2. But then again, it's a bit vague what you will actually lose if you don't pay according to this email. In truth, you will lose nothing if you don't pay. They claim that they are already providing you with services that will make you visible in search engines etc., but this is a lie. 
3. What company is this? Does the email say? Does the payment web site say? No. If you're gonna transfer money to someone you'd prefer to know who it is, right? 1 place it the email it is referred to "SE Services", but I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a company name or not. You'd expect them to have a logo, like any other company. 
4. "They have all my information, like name and address, this must be legit, right??" - This is public information connected to your domain name. A whois-search (described in pt 1) will expose this information.
5. They link to a "secure payment" web site. This page/site is not secure at all. Your web browser usually contains an image of a padlock or show HTTPS:// in front of the web site url IF the web site has been loaded through a secure socket. You should familiarize your self with this on your favorite browser. 
6. When trying to enter credit card information, it shows that they've put a little effort into the field validation. For example, if you just write 1234123412341234 as credit card number, they will know that the card is not correct. Why did they do this? Well, perhaps to make it look more real and to make sure they usually have real information when they contact their payment provider to steal your money. 
7. Their domain name, urlregisdomai.com, is registered at moniker.com, which hosts many domains used for frauds. It also seems to allow them to register domains under false names and addresses. 
8. A Google search for their domain name shows me that this site has been reported for fraud on many forums and web sites.
9. If I type "http://urlregisdomai.com" I get redirected to another site  http://iglobalmerchantservice.com/contact ... See how they transfer you directly to the /contact page? Convenient, since most of the people that goes to this site probably has a complaint. If you want to complain, you just have to fill in some more information about your credit card. 
10. The site also have a phone number on top. Have not tried it, but I assume it doesn't take you to a company called iGlobal Merchant Service. 
11. I googled some of the text on iGlobal's web site. And found out that they stole it from a legit company called CCBill (now see, CCBill has secure web sites, and they don't even ask about your credit card details if you need to contact support!) (see comparison below)
12. I'm not sure what they do with the card information they collect on iglobalmerchantservice.com, but I wouldn't be surprised if they some how try to get more money out of you.
13. There is not a single link on iglobalmerchantservice.com. Not a single link. (They haven't bothered to have more than one web page?)

iGlobal Merchant Service's first page text (fraud):

"iGlobal was created to serve the needs of consumers looking for a fast, safe and convenient way to purchase online services. iGlobal has been a trusted payment processor since 2004, processing millions of online transactions each year and earning its reputation as a leader in the industry."

CCBill's support page text (legit):

"CCBill was created to serve the needs of consumers looking for a fast, safe and convenient way to purchase access to online venues. CCBill has been a trusted E-Merchant since 1998, processing millions of online transactions each year and earning its reputation as a leader in the industry.

Liv Hansen in NorwegianSEO - SEO Scam

Got this email in my spam folder, but figured many people might fall for it:

"Hei,

Jeg benytter denne muligheten til å introdusere meg selv, navnet mitt er Liv Hansen,
veldig fint å møte deg. Jeg jobber som en SEO manager for Norwegian SEO.

Jeg gjennomfører en undersøkelse for en av mine partnere og mens jeg gjorde det
la jeg merke til [my domain name] og jeg har noen interessante forslag til deg
og jeg vil gjerne fortelle deg mer om dem.

Som en SEO ekspert driver jeg kvalitetssider som kan
matche og hjelpe siden din til å få høyere rangering og trafikk.

Hvis du er interessert, vil jeg gjerne sende deg mer informasjon
og alle detaljene som trengs for å gjøre det.

Tusen takk,

Liv Hansen
norwegianseo.com"

The signs

1. Strange Norwegian phrasing making me believe that the email has been translated from English. The beginning gives it away "I'm taking the opportunity to introduce myself, my name is Liv Hansen, very nice to meet you". Not many Norwegians write like this (in Norwegian that is)
2. She's telling me about how she was doing some research for one of her customers and stumbling over my web site. Sounds fishy. 
3. She gives me very little information in the email.
4. The domain was registered 9 days before I got the email. Very common for frauds as they don't usually have long life spans.
5. The domain name info is incorrect. It refers to the address "Spiralen 160", but searching on this address on Google or Yellow Pages gives me no results. 
6. Her website, http://www.norwegianseo.com has very little content, in fact it only has ONE page and none of what might look like links are links. There are no links on the page (except for a link back to the same page)
7. On the page, they say: "Svært få kan matche Interonlineseo når det gjelder ekspertise og erfaring", meaning "Very few can match InterOnlineSEO when it comes to expertise and experience". Oh, I thought this was "NorwegianSEO", not "InterOnlineSEO". Perhaps InterOnlineSEO was the previous scam they were running?
8. When checking InterOnlineSEO.com I see that the domain name has been registered at the same registrar. Very likely the same owner, just that the info is fake. This time it's registered by a German person.
9. The layout of InterOnlineSEO.com is pretty much the same as NorwegianSEO.com
10. InterOnlineSEO.com doesn't mention InterOnlineSEO in their description. Instead they refer to "BangOnSEO". How can they be so sloppy?
11. BangOnSEO.com is registered at the same registrar as the other two domains. The web site also have no links and only contains one page. Compared to the other two, this page actually refers to itself when talking about how they can't be matched on expertise and experience.
12. "Liv Hansen" also links to her LinkedIn profile. If she's on LinkedIn, she must be real, right? Well, she  has 0 connections. Searching for her previous companies ExpertsNO and AdsNO I didn't find much. 
13. There is also no company called "NorwegianSEO" in the norwegian company register. 
14. If they are so good at SEO, they should have more than one page on their web site. Many pages equals better content equals better ranking. The answer is that they don't bother, cause those who are about to send them money has no knowledge of SEO and will not pay attention to it. 
15. I spent less than 30 minutes digging all this up AND write this blog post. If you spend more time, you'll find more. 

What is the scam about?

I don't know, but here's my guess: You will have to transfer an advance to a bank account far away for services you're about to receive. Will you get them? Nope. 

Need help with your SEO?

Assuming you live in for example London, how about searching for one of the following:

- search engine optimization london

- seo london

- seo companies london

....and see who has done the best SEO for their own SEO company?

Good luck

Update

I answered "Liv Hansen" and told "her" that I didn't know what SEO was. I got a response within an hour or so. While they are lying about who they are, they may not be interested in your money after all. They want you to link to their casino affiliate web site. For them, this will be enormous help, because they might be able to get tons of links back from various companies. They offer 3 links back to your site, from a site they call PowerYourDesign.com - So while they'll end up with perhaps hundreds or thousands of links from different web sites, you get 3 links from one web site. This helps them a lot, but it doesn't do much good for you. 

Judging by their approach, I would be hesitant about using their services. I would also not want links to casino affiliate web sites on my company web site. 

I would also be concerned about doing business with their related companies like: HostGator.com and EsCasinoBonus.com as they seem to be involved.