Info: Job Scam Changes, February 2007

This month has finally seen the demise of Impex Consult, active since December 2006, but the tail end of Norden continues to trickle in (active since November 2006), although only the domain "norden.hk" seems to be active anymore. Meanwhile, two new names have started showing up in a big way: Radius Investments and August Insurance. The "Radius Investments" scam is causing more damage than usual, because it is ripping off the identity of a real company, which is naturally suffering harm to its reputation through no fault of its own. On the plus side, it means that someone is motivated to stomp on the scammers and their domain registrations hard, fast, and continuously -- with lawyers -- which is about what it takes. My guess is that the scammers will give up on the idea of impersonating real companies pretty quickly because of this opposition -- but wait and see, because my predictions aren't always right.

Also worthy of note so far this month is a move away from image-based spam. The Impex Consult scam was the biggest contributor of such spam to inboxes last month (so far as job scams are concerned), and Radius is the major contributor this month, but the August scam has fallen back to plain text. The August spams have also been free of hyperlinks to their websites, and this has aided them in bypassing spam filters to a large degree.

Info: ITS Finance now Diving with Sharks?

It's often interesting to try to follow the scammer through a series of name changes. Some have such a distinctive modus operandi that the changes are obvious: you can almost predict what they are going to do next. Others are subtler and less conspicuous. All such evidence is circumstantial, but some evidence is stronger than others.

In this particular case, I believe there is overlap between the (currently inactive) ITS Financial Corp scam, and the (new) "Dive with Sharks" scam. My suspicions are raised by the very similar form of the spam. Consider the following comparison: an ITS spam is on the left, and a "sharks" spam is on the right. Neither is the complete email, but these ideas are expressed in the same order.

ITS Financial Corp	divewithsharks.biz
Hey there	Hello,
I hope this message finds you in a great spirit.	We hope you are reading this message in a fine mood.
For a start I'd like to welcome you on this opportunity because our firm just came about your contact and your brief profile through an email listing affiliated with HotJobs and I would be highly interested in giving you a work at home job in which you can earnextra income of close to AUD3000 monthly.	I'd like to welcome you on a very interesting opportunity. We supppose you will be very interested in a home job in which you could get about AUD4000 per month.
This work doesn't affect your present job and this is a very limited offer in which I would really require your immediate response. I will be hoping to hear from you soon, since this is a job that will enable you to work part-time.	This job will not affect your present career, it will only take a small part of your free time.
Please fill out our application form, no fees asked, just your basic contact details:	Please fill our application form. No fees are asked, just leave your contact details:
We will get back to you ASAP. Have a nice day	We will contact you soon. Thank you!