World Business guide appears to be a new version of the European City Guide Scam. This particular one arrives as a spam email, asking a company “To update your company profile … complete and return this form (UPDATING IS FREE OF CHARGE). Only sign if you want to place an insertion.”

“World Business Guide” place a lot of emphasis on the fre update, but not on the fact that signing and faxing their document will bind the

The signing of this document represents the acceptance of the following conditions and the conditions stated in “the terms and Conditions for insertion” on webpage: www.world-businessguide.com. The signing is legally binding and gives you the right of an insertion In the online data base of the world business guide, which can be accessed via the internet. A cd rom with worldwide businesses is Granted, all in accordance with the contract conditions stated in “the terms and conditions for insertion” on webpage: www.worldbusinessguide.Com. The validation time of the contract is three years and starts on the eighth day after signing the contract. The insertion Is granted after signing and receiving this document by the service provider. I hereby order a subscription with service provider International directories ltd “world business guide”. I will have an insertion into its data base for three years. The price per year is euro 995. The subscription will be automatically extended every year for another year, unless specific written notice is received by the service Provider or the subscriber two months before the expiration of the subscription. Your data will be recorded. The place of jurisdiction In any dispute arising is the service provider’s address. The agreement between the service provider and the subscriber is governed by the Conditions stated in “the terms and conditions for insertion” on webpage: www.world-businessguide. com

The spam was sent from nfo@bestorganization4you.com

World Business Guide’s apparent contact details are is

For some reason the business uses a PO Box, rather than their own business address.

But it is worth noting that “The World Business Guide is a product of International Directories Group Ltd., C/ Azcona, 58, local · BOX 252 · 28028 · MADRID · SPAIN” which again are reluctant to provide a real address. Also they apparently were once EU Business Services Ltd Trading As World Business Directory but have changed their name.

They registered the domain name wbgtoday. com in April 2009, under the following address

It has been identified by other businesses as being a scam.

I recently notice a domain advertising on Google Adsense that looked useful for some personal work I was doing. The advertised domain was TescoDiets .com .

TescoDiets is named to appear to be one of the Tesco group, but does not have the same registration, and does not carry a Tesco logo, or link to any other genuine Tesco sites directly.

Tesco host all of their own web sites in the UK, while TescoDiets is hosted in the USA.

It does however ask for log on credentials, so I am guessing that it might be phishing for genuine Tesco customer logons.

TescoDiets .com also links to tescodietsshop .co.uk which is just an advertiser link landing page.

I’ve informed Tesco’s web admin, and I’ve also reported it to Google’s Adsense complaints division, which will hopefully stop their adverts being shown on adsense.

In the Domain Registry of America Scam, I wrote about their practice of sending letters that look like a bill for domain renewal. They obviously have found that they are not scamming enough customers, possibly because of the US ruling that they are barred from Misleading Consumers in Marketing of Internet Domain Name Service.

Today, I received a letter, that looks like a bill, from “Domain Renewal Group“. Amazingly, they use the same format and wording as the “Domain Registry of America“.  I noticed that the Domain Renewal Group‘s envelope was unusual, as it was sent by bulk mail from Jamaica.

The contact page for “Domain Renewal Group” unsurprisingly has identical address, telephone, fax and email addresses for support, sales and info to “Domain Registry of America“.

The scam is designed to persuade companies to transfer their domain registry from the current domain registrar to the scammer.

The Domain Renewal Group letter looks like a bill. It is sent five months before the actual domain renewal date. They charge £20 for a year’s renewal of a .com domain. Twice what United hostings, my high quality and legitimate service provider charges.

Rumour has it that they actually transfer ownership of the domain into their own name, and auction it off later.

Of course, anyone should be wary of providing credit card details to an organisation that makes an unsolicited approach, whether buy paper or electronic spam.

There’s been quite a bit of coverage on the radio about a scam, where people receive a call on their mobile phone, but it rings off quickly, either just before they answer or as they answer.

The scam relies on the victims having a natural, and reasonable inclination to ring the number back.

What the victim hears when they call back is the tone that tells them call is ringing. Many people are very patient and listen for a fair time before they give up. What they are actually listening to is a recording of a ringing tone, on a premium rate number. of course, the longer the victim holds on and the more they call back, the more money they are paying on their phone bill to the scammer.

I’ve recently had a selection of calls to my mobile phone which fit the profile, but I have not wasted my money by ringing them back. In my case they all called on different days between 11:00 and 12:30 GMT, presumably hoping I’d call them back at lunch time.

The numbers which called are :

• 07506738901
• 07791832748
• 07791835658
• 07791841162
• 07908583355
• 07908583385
• 07908583386
• 07908583387
• 07944453453

My advice is not to call back any number you don’t recognise, particularly if it rings off quickly. Genuine callers will wait for you to answer and will try again.

If you know of any other numbers that might be linked with this type of scam, please add your own comments.

Freecycle is an organisation that tries to keep unused objects out of landfill, largely through locally based email groups on yahoo. Unfortunately, as with every good idea, there can be some downsides.

I am a moderator for the Congleton Freecycle group, and as such have to try and keep out the obvious scammers and spammers.

Recently, I’ve seen a surge in a particular type of scam on the freecycle groups.

It starts with someone, who usually has recently joined the freecycle group, advertising a high value item, such as a PS/2 or a Tom Tom Sat Nav.

When people respond to the advert, they get a reply saying the item has gone but directing them to a web site where the goods can be won  or purchase cheaply.

At best victims that fall for it provide referral commission to the scammer, and at worst they provide their identity and credit card details to the scammer for later fraud or identity theft.

A typical scam response read like this:

I’m really sorry, but the Playstation 2 has already been given away to someone else I wish I had more to give away.

However, the least I can do is try and provide with some useful information to grab yourself a free Playstation 3 (which is how I got mine, which arrived in just over a week!)

First of all, you need to head over to <Scam web site> – sign up to the website, and then you need to complete an offer… I’d recommend either doing the the Lovefilm offer or the HSBC Bank Offer (where you just have to open a bank account), as they’re both free! Or, you could complete the Gala Bingo offer which only costs £5!

All of the companies which are offers are really well known so there’s no risk.

I have already received my Playstation 3 through my door! And am awaiting some new games for it too. I was really skeptical about this at first, but my friend showed me what he had received for free, so I thought I may as well try it out, and I’m so glad I did! (I have the new iPhone 3G coming soon too!)

If you have any questions, please reply to this email with the subject as QUESTION.

Once again, I’m so sorry that you missed out on this Playstation 2, but I hope that you will be able to obtain a brand new Playstation 3 just like I did this way.

The website again is:<Scam web site>

Thanks a lot.

<Scammer name>
xxx

I recently received some spam which talked about compensating victims of Nigerian email scams.

This is a particularly noxious scam, as the spammer is targeting people who are already victims of fraud. Presumably the organisers feel that if somebody is gullible and greedy enough to fall for one fraud, they are an ideal candidate for another.

The scammers claim to be from a “Nigerian Government Reimbursement Committee” but host their web site at itgo.com (also known as freeserver.com) who provide free web hosting. The pages that they present are almost plausible, apart from the fact that they carry advertisements from the hosting company and use free gmail addresses.

Their pages include wonderful statements such as

As regards these ongoing developmental strive; we have over 210 suspects at hand, 135 in Kirikiri prison here in Nigeria. While many are awaiting trial, we are still in search of others, who think they are wise, and hope that you will assist by giving any vital information that could lead to the apprehension of these hoodlums.

We shall be waiting to hearing from you been certain that you were truly scammed by a Nigerian and you have proves to back your claim.
cyberfraud.department@gmail.com

The text of the scam email is as follows:

Attention:

This email is not in any manner directed to you, but its purposely and specifically directed to Nigeria Scam victims. . However, if you have fallen for Nigerian Scams, do not hesitate to contact us or visit our website for more
details on how we can help.

We shall be waiting to hearing from you been certain that you were truly scammed by a Nigerian and you have proves to back your claims. Please read the full report at our website: http://www.nigeria-scamvictims.itgo.com/

Yours faithfully,
Brian Adams
Nigerian Government Reimbursement Committee

This particular specimen claims to have been sent by Brian Adams at baantinigeriascams@gmail.com, but other examples can be found from somebody calling himself David Bamko.

Isn’t it amazing that the supposed anti-fraud parts of the Nigerian government need to use gmail addresses an free hosting services supported by advertising and pop-ups?

Is it possible that they ask for all the information used in one fraud, to duplicate the fraud?

The “European City Guide” was supposedly shut down in 2003 by the Office of Fair Trading for misleading advertising.

In the post today, I received an unsolicited scam order form from the “European City Guide” asking for confirmation of my company’s details, which of course had a slight error. In the small print was the little line:

Please return this document with a signature in the appropriate box if you would like to place an order

The European City Guide form is laid out so it might appear that you are actually signing that the corrections are valid, not with the expectation that you will be ordering two successive copies of their “European City Guide” at €987 each, nor that you are signing a continuous re-order, which needs 3 months notice to cancel.
There is a web site called “Stop the European City Guide” and Richard Corbbet, a Yorkshire MEP has written extensively about this, and similar practices.
Richard Corbbet’s Blog suggests that several other scam organisations also have the same owner.

• UK Internet Register
• Construct Data
• Novachannel AG

The European City Guide’s web site has a code of conduct document that states:

In accordance with the legislation governing DISTANCE SALES, our
forms incorporate a coupon for termination of the contract, which is located on the
client’s copy of the form. If the client returns this completed, stamped and signed
coupon to us within the mentioned cooling-off period this will result in automatic
cancellation.

Strangely, the form which they sent to Dragon Thoughts, seems to have this cancellation coupon printed in extremely faint grey very small print, together with a raft of other almost unreadable terms and conditions. I wonder if it might be a printing error?

I received a deceptive notice yesterday from Domain Registry of America (DRoA).

It made me so angry that I had to write this post about DRoA. The notice came by snail mail in an envelope with my correct name and address and included a return envelope for payment, although they expecte me to pay the postsage for their scam.

The notice looks like a bill and was written to scare me into changing my domain name registry: “You must renew your domain name to retain exclusive rights to it on the Web, and now is the time to transfer and renew your name from your current Registrar to the Domain Registry of America. Failure to renew your domain name by the expiration date may result in a loss of your online identify…”

I was called today by somebody who gave their web address as w*w.resortvacationsvip.com which is a travel company with no links to enabling booking. I wonder how they could get any legitimate business.
They claimed I was being offered a free holiday from a competition that I or a member of my household had entered.

They couldn’t tell me which competition I had won, but did tell me it was only open to Visa card and Mastercard holder. – I pointed out that this would apply to over 98% of the adult UK population.

They had my correct name and address.

The scammer had a heavy, possibly Indian or Chinese accent.

When I confirmed that I did own appropriate credit cards, they tried to extract my credit card details – when I refused on the basis that this was probably a scam, they kept trying to get my credit card number out of me, assuring me that it was OK – apparently they’re FCCA registered, and because of that the details couldn’t be misused. – I countered that in fact, as my cards are issued on the UK and therefore FSA regulated and that f I was stupid enough to give it to cold callers, they could attempt to misuse it with a card not present transaction.
When I kept asking why they needed the credit card details, at first I was told that it was so that they could verify that I was a credit card holder. I pointed out that they called me so I was the person that needed to verify their credentials. Then he switched tack, and said that the would need my credit card details for a registration fee of around £250. I questioned this, pointing out that I had been offered a completely free holiday competition prize. He said “Nothing is free“.

They gave me a “Toll-free” number that I could call them back on. I pointed out that a phone number in the USA is not toll-free when called from the UK – It is an international call.

When I asked for their FCCA registration number, the caller evaded answering.
I kept leading him on for a while, to keep him from trying to scam others, and to research his web site and comments about the scam company. One particularly enlightening one was on 800notes.com

I asked him if he had heard of Perfect Travel Promotions Orlando – Which appears as the title on w*w.resortvacationsvip.com and has an identical web site at w*w.ptporlando.com. He claimed he hadn’t heard of PTP Orlando. They have the same phone number (1-877-727-7605) and email addresses of CustomerService@PTPorlando.com and sales@PTPorlando.com

When I kept asking him the name of the company he was working for he refused to give it then finally hung up.

In short, it had to be scam. What legitimate company employee would not know their own company’s name?

If you have similar experiences, or wish to comment on this, please do so.