Meta: On Hold

I'm currently very busy performing an upgrade of my personal computing infrastructure and a couple of other projects, and this has rendered posting to the blog very inconvenient. Consequently, I'm not going to bother posting every little 419, stock scam and phish that comes my way for the time being. I'll continue to report on anything outrageously deceptive, but the common or garden variety of deception is on hold for now. Hopefully I'll soon have this all sorted out, and resume the regular pattern of reporting.

Advance Fee Fraud: Mr. Kasim Useni

The only thing unusual about this 419 is how sparse it is. Almost a simple "we've got a lot of money that we need help with shifting discreetly -- contact us for details". As the Internet's self-appointed Deception Spotter, I can assure you all this is nothing but bait on a hook. Don't bite, or you'll regret it. The spam came from 82.71.64.54 (82-71-64-54.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk.) on Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:13:40 -0000. The contact address is at "zwallet.com", which is a free (as in pay for it by receiving advertising) email service I hadn't heard of before. Seems like they've been around for a while, though.

Dear Friend

Please accept my apology for contacting this way, which was due to the urgency of my request. I got your contact from an enquiry I placed at the Chamber of Commerce, Trade and Industry.

My partners and I are in need of a worthy business partner abroad, who can handle the investment of specified funds which have been lying fallow for sometime. If you accept to work with us, you would be our foreign partner to receive the said funds on our behalf, due to our sensitive position in OUR PLACE OF WORK, and also to hold it in some investment until we can travel to meet with you. At your request I will intimate you with the blueprint when I receive your mail.
NOTE: PLEASE FORWARD YOUR REPLY ONLY TO THIS MAIL BOX STATED HERE: kasimuseni@zwallet.com for security reasons and make sure you include your private telephone number for easy communication.

Hoping to hear from you soon.

My regards.

MR.KASIM USENI
kasimuseni@zwallet.com

Pump and Dump: HTSC

Those tedious stock spammers are still at it. This one hawks "Humana Trans Services Holding Corp." (HTSC). Note that this stock ranked a mention in an earlier CWTD spam. The spam was sent to my legacy address from 208.11.171.15 (208-11-171-15.skybest.com.) on Sun, 19 Jun 2005 06:28:45 +0000. Text is copied below minus the "forward looking statements" disclaimer.

Humana Trans Services Holding Corporation(OTC: HTSC)

On Track to Exceed $6,000,000 in Revenues and Regain
Profitability in FY2005. Clients Include: Cardinal
Health, Penske Logistics and Royal Ahold (Source: News
6/3/05)

Current Price: 0.24

Watch This One Trade... If You Think It Is Going to
Explode Higher, You May Want to Get in Early..

Reason to Consider HTSC:(Source: Recent Press
Releases)


1)Humana Trans Services Holding Corp. Signs Agreement
with Jeff Raymond of Pylon Management to Advisory
Board and Consulting Agreement-  Currently, Mr.
Raymond, through Pylon Management, is a consultant to
senior management of large national staffing company
with revenues of over $100 million. Mr. Raymond,
through Pylon Management, also is a consultant to a
couple of smaller staffing companies.

2)Humana Trans Services Holding Corp. Announces
AccountAbilities Subsidiary- Pleased to announce the
formation of AccountAbilities, a new subsidiary to
operate as an accounting staffing group. The group
will be headed by Allan Hartley who will serve as
President of the new subsidiary. Mr. Hartley has been
in the Accounting Placement business over 20 years.

He has worked with national companies, Robert Half
(RHI) and KForce (KFRC), in executive positions and is
the creator of the AccountAbilities business model and
concept.

Mr. Hartley projects that AccountAbilities will be in
five cities before the end of calendar 2005. The
potential revenue for AccountAbilities is
approximately $2,000,000 for each office for just the
accounting staffing, without adding in any other
professional staffing areas.


3)Humana Trans Services Holding Corp. Sells Payroll
Division Subsidiary, Returns to Profitability- Humana
Trans Services is currently on track to exceed
$6,000,000 in revenues and regain profitability in
FY2005.


About HTSC: (Source: News 6/3/05)

Established in 2001, Humana is a fully reporting,
publicly traded company listed currently on the
over-the-counter (OTC) market under the symbol "HTSC".
The company is primarily engaged in employee leasing
and recruitment services in five states and maintains
its corporate offices in Hanover, Md., with operations
in the Northeast and Florida.

HTSC currently provides human resource (HR)
outsourcing principally to the transportation industry
and to leading Fortune 500 companies including
Cardinal Health, Penske Logistics and Royal Ahold.

Job Scam: restandtravel.net

Some of these scams are like undead monsters that refuse to die. Witness "restandtravel.NET" which just maybe could be related to "restandtravel.COM". But I'm in no mood for long-winded exposition right now, so here are the bare facts. Received the spam from 83.227.232.81 (ua-83-227-232-81.cust.bredbandsbolaget.se. -- a broadband customer in Sweden, if it's not obvious) on Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:46:48 -0000. Right at this very moment, "restandtravel.net" simply does not appear in the DNS, which is odd. Either they messed up their own spam, and intended to use "restandtravel.com", or they are probably in the process of registering it right now.

Hello,

Do you wish to work in huge international well-known and respected company, increasing your current regular income meanwhile?

 

If you do then this proposal is definately for you!

 

Rest & Travel Co., leading company in field of tourism, has got good news for you.

 

Rest & Travel Co. is glad to suggest you an opportunity to gain some additional profits to your current income.

Several positions of financial manager are available now because holiday season is very near and we are experiencing sales boom.

That’s why we have decided to open several vacancies in each country where we have got operating agents already as well as to open several vacancies in new countries to spread our business furthermore.

 

Financial manager’s work consists of receiving payment from our customers and further sending them to us or our representatives.

Agent’s salary is 5% from each successfully transferred amount. All additional expenses (such as funds transferring costs) are paid by Rest & Travel Co.

 

Why is this proposal unique and what are its’ benefits?

 

1. You do not have to pay any so called “entrance-fees” and moreover you are not required to pay anything at all.

2. You do not have to find other people for recruiting them. Actually the current number of vacancies is strictly limited.

3. You can start working with us within a week after the Application Form is sent to us.

4. This type of job doesn’t take a lot of time however it is well-paid.

 

If you’re interested and you would like to apply please send us an email to vacancy@restandtravel.net specifying your current occupation, name and approximate time when you will be ready to start working with us. As soon as we receive this information from you you will be sent an Application Form in reply. If have any difficulties and questions feel free to contact us at info@restandtravel.net and you will be sent detailed and qualified reply.

 

Thanks for your attention. We hope that you are interested in our proposal.

 

-- Sincere regards, Kelley Crabtree HR Manager crabtree@restandtravel.net Rest & Travel Co.

 

Job Scam: ifxtrade.net

I haven't investigated this as deeply as I might, because the scammers in this case haven't set up their website properly. It probably works in Internet Explorer, but I never use it. Anyway, I received job offer spam from 69.95.28.41 (host-69-95-28-41.roc.choiceone.net.; WHOIS claims location is Williamsville, NY, USA) on Wed, 15 Jun 2005 05:44:41 +0000. The spam is as follows.

Dear friend,
Thank you for the interest to our company!

We are happy to offer you the position of Client Manager in our company
This is a unique chance to raise your incomes by doing a simple but responsible work.

Job Description:
To serve private clients of the company living on the territory of the USA
Domestic work, free work schedule (2-4 hours / day).
Salary: start at $4000 / month

To get the application, please, use the following link:
http://www.ifxtrade.net

Sincerely,
Department of Personnel
IFX Trading Ltd.

The defanged hyperlink actually pointed to http://www.ifxtrade.net/normalpage.asp@page=92, for what it matters. The entire site appears to be a rip-off of http://www.ifxonline.net/. Apparently this has happened before, with the domain "ifxtrading.net", and they aren't happy about it. It's not clear whether they know about the new rip-off, though, so I've sent them a note about it. The WHOIS record for the rogue site, "ifxtrade.net", says it was created on 2004-12-24.