After a short time of getting to know you over a couple of weeks, he tells you he is on a business trip and he has sent a package with a gift to you. He wants to show you how much he cares. He sends you the tracking number to make sure you receive it. You go to the web site and look up the tracking number… and you can see a package is en route to you, including valuable contents. Strange… but this man seems educated, professional, exactly what you seemed to have been seeking. Unfortunately it seems that the package is held up in Malaysia! You are sent a correspondence by the Malaysian branch of this express mail company that states that they require customs to be paid before the package can continue its path en route to you. You aren’t quite sure what to do… but he calls you and tells you that he is on a business trip, perhaps to the Bahamas or some other remote island. He apologizes for not having access to money and that hopefully you can pay for it – after all, the gift seems to be worth much more than just a few thousand dollars. As you can see, there is a diamond necklace or other valuable item and customs will be a pricey proposition! The company may contact you again about the package they can’t hold for you for too long! The email may appear as follows:

Globelink Security and Courier Malaysia.

4KM, Jalan Mukah-Oya, P.O Box 205
96400 Mukah Sarawak
Malaysia .

website: www.globelinkon.com

Email: feriana_globelink@hotmail.com

Malaysia Tel: +60-126-406-471.

October 10TH, 2008

ORDER NUMBER: GSC/ WFD /2008 (MALAYSIA).
TRACKING NUMBER: 27831241001

Attn:
With reference to the delivery of your package. I wish to bring to your
notice that your package has been placed on hold by the Malaysian customs
for some reasons which happened to violates the shipping policies. As the
goods arrived Malaysia custom check point, the Malaysian custom detected
that currency were included in your parcel. Thereby,certain commission
must be paid as customs duty via us which is for the immediate clearance
of your package .For the main time reference of tracking on the ” status”
of your package is pending , this is in accordance to the mode of
operations in the Courier sector for financial delivery .
We have already taken order number for this package from the custom.

You are required to follow all instructions giving to you to facilitate the
release of your package. To do this, you are required to pay the required
charges listed below for the immediate release of your package. Upon
confirmation of payment, your package will be delivered to your designated
address above under few hours .  PAYMENT DETAILS.

You can make the payment through WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER

or MONEY GRAM TRANSFER

ORIENT EXPRESS COURIER SERVICES
MIDDLES TOWN, SW436,
London, United Kingdom
Tel: +447031742633

The web site “tracking number” results might look like this:

CONSIGNMENT

ITEM NAME: PERSONAL VALUABLES
NO OF ITEMS :THREE (3) ITEMS
PARCEL COLOR: GRAYISH COLOR

DETAILS
VALUED PERSONAL/FAMILY TREASURES, ONE(1)DIAMOND RING, THREE(3)PAIRS OF SHOE(WOMENS), A SET OF APPLE LAPTOP WITH COMPLETE ACCESSORIES,

EVALUATION AND INDEMNITY: 100+1% INDEMNITY AND REIMBURSEMENT/REFUND/REPLACEMENT AND TOTAL RECOVERY AGREEEMENT.
ESTIMATED INDEMINITY VALUE:20,000 GBP

BILLING INFORMATION
INSURANCE : 00 USD
CUSTOMS AND EXERCISE DUTIES : 00 USD
SERVICE AND DELIVERY CHARGES : 00 USD
GRAND TOTAL : 00 USD

NOTE
ALL CHARGES, PAYMENTS AND DUTIES HAS BEEN PAID BY SENDER. RECIEVER IS STRICTLY ADVICED TO ADHERE TO THE GENERAL POLICY, DELIVERY AGREEMENT, AND TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF AIR EXPRESS COURIER SERVICES ASIA, RECIEVER IS ADVICED TO MEET WITH OUR DELIVERY AND COURIER OFFICER OR REPRESENTATIVES FOR INTERNATIONAL DELIVERY AT OUR STIPULATED AND CONDUCIVE PLACE WITH A TRUE OR CERTIFED COPY THEIR INTERNATIONAL PASSPORT OR ANY ACCEPTABLE IDENTIFICATION INSTRUMENT IE; BIRTH CERTIFICATES, NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION CARD, AND OR INTERNATIONAL DRIVING LICENSE.

CONTACT PERSON
MS.CORSY ANDERSON
CONTACT NUMBER: +44-703-174-2633
EMAIL:enquiry@orientexpress.com

WEBSITE:www.orientexpress.ueuo.com

PARCEL AND CONSIGMENT MOVEMENT INFORMATION AND STATUS.
PARCEL POSTED FROM: UK–NETHERLAND–MALAYSIA–PHILIPPINES–FINAL DESTINATION.

CURRENT STATUS :  Parcel Arrived And With-held In Malaysia
Discrepancy Detected(currency violation)code CVX/297/TY7
UK, DELIVERY CODE IPPG/54 DST

Orient Express Courier Services is a privately owned and well registered company of a good standing in United Kingdom with global affiliates and delivery. All our clients are guaranteed the best first class and world standard services. We dispatch our services and duties abiding by all the rules, and laws of all the territories and countries where we operate both international and local. For further enquiries please contact us.

I hope that this information would be sufficient for your purposes.

As you have already probably guessed, don’t send any money. This is a scam which seems to be originating in Malaysia but using a VOIP or “call me” number in the United Kingdom. Once such scam is this company is also operated by this phony shipping company:

http://orientexpress.ueuo.com

Obviously this “Orient Express” is a fraud but look how many women are being scammed by simply using different URLs to pull them up:

http://orientexpress.ueuo.com/AE900027538213741E.html
http://orientexpress.ueuo.com/AE9000275382142E.html
http://orientexpress.ueuo.com/AE9000275382143E.html

Note the contact number:+44-703-174-263

What is a Malaysian branch of a shipping company using a British / UK phone number?

The man who may have befriended you may say that he is originally from the UK – but the phone number probably uses this same prefix:
+44-703
+44-70

Note that all of these phone numbers are VOIP based – this stands for “Voice Over Internet Protocol” if you aren’t familiar with the acronym. This means that the telephone number isn’t your standard “land line” that is installed by a phone company in the UK. It is a phone number that is forwarded to another phone number, land line, cell phone or voice mailbox. The person using this number may not actually live in the UK but the calls to this number is a “follow me” number – it will forward to a phone anywhere in the world the account holder wants. So let’s say, for example, that I live in Malaysia. I can set up a VOIP phone account in the UK to get a 44 (70) number. After getting this UK-based phone number I can set it to forward directly to a nubmer in Malaysia. For those who don’t know about these follow-me VOIP services, you would never suspect that your con man lives outside of the UK.

Here is a rather amusing and interesting note – the company domain address is a subdomain, not a full domain. If you send inquiries, they will go to the domain name, which is a racing company: http://orientexpress.com/

General Rules when using Romance, Love,  and Dating Sites and avoiding scams:

1. Don’t be embarrassed to ask personal questions of a man who is trying to woo you that require verifiable answers. Doing so is not impolite and they will be taken aback only if they have something (or someone, like a wife) to hid. If this person is employed, simply ask the name of the company. Additionally, ask yourself this question – why is a man in another country so interested in meeting you? While I can understand how great you are, how are the two of you supposed to see each other and have a relationship? What’s the plan?
2. Check this person’s email address – do they have a Facebook or other social networking account? If so, is it populated with other friends and seem legitimate?
3. Check the phone number you’re given and do a lookup in a search engine. Check the country code and prefix. If there is some evidence that the number is a VOIP /follow me phone number, then you should question where the caller is truly from! Does his number ever show up on your caller ID and, if not, is it private?
4. Always check out the full domain of any business purported to be real – no legitimate company would use a subdomain of a full domain.
   http://orientexpress.ueuo.com/ – subdomain with a bad web site
   http://www.ueuo.com/ – it’s a free hosting web site!
5. If any official notification to you seems to contain a reasonably high number of words spelled incorrectly, chances are the company is not legitimate.
6. The ULTIMATE hint that you might be a potential victim of a scam – if you are ever told to send cash via services such as MoneyGram, Western Union or any other “instant money” transfer – DO NOT DO SO! The use of these services with someone with whom you are not sure is bona fide will almost always results in a scam. Once your money is sent it’s gone – it’s not like a credit card transfer that can be reversed.
7. Anyone who sends you gifts early in a relationship is suspect, doubly so if they send a parcel that requires you to send money to get your parcel! These scams typically involve you sending money for some reason, e.g. they send a check to you (usually endorsed) that has more cash than necessary and you should send cash back for the difference, etc.

Good luck finding love and romance and be careful!

Knowing a good deal about “geotargeting” – determining the location of where your Internet connection is located geographically – made me believe that this claim was fraudulent and designed to make me feel a connection to a “too good to be true” scam artist. The “code” for the web page that Mr. Hunter operates substitutes the local city where you are situated so he always appears to have grown up in your neighborhood:

Note how there is a script called “geoip.js” which is exactly what I’m talking about. It takes the “IP address” or numerical address of the computer that you are connected from and converts it into a geographical city name. If you go to maxmind.com, they state that they are “an industry-leading provider of geolocation and online fraud detection tools.” Pretty slick. But let’s move on because the worst is yet to come.

Scott doesn’t tell you what he did to make all the money that allowed him to take so many fancy trips but, if you look closely – and I mean very closely – you’ll realize something is very wrong from the start! The first picture of Scott allegedly holding his check for $5,0000 , is dated October 25, 2008 and is from Citibank Europe Plc. So why is Scott from New York, NY getting Google checks from a PLC – an abbreviation for a company located outside the United States? But it gets more amusing. If you go further down the page, you’ll see another check for $5,300.04 dated January 25, 2008. Perhaps Scott can explain to me why his income went down 10 months later? Pretty subtle!

Click on any of the checks or the links and you’ll be delivered to a landing page on “yoursearchprofits.com” and has several different splash screens, ostensibly for different companies that offer “Internet marketing services” at a very high monthly price. I was sadly amused by them, complete with “trust seal” of approval, secure order assurances, and several news graphics (CBS, NBC, CNN, USA Today) – with a disclaimer in small print in the footer stating that these companies “don’t endorse these products.” I’m sure they must have used a top law firm to ensure the validity disclaimer! Another landing page disclaims in its footer that “Google does not sponsor, endorse, and is no way affiliated with Google Pay Day!™ or this promotion.” I’m sure that’s true although Josh or Scott, in the audio on his site, specifically denounces the stock market and says that you should trust a company like Google to make money!

To begin, you need to just enter your name and email address – which will surely be sold to send more marketing spam than you could possibly imagine as I’ll explain shortly. You are then led to a second page where, if you don’t quickly choose to pay $1.14 shipping and handling for this special offer, you’ll be greeted by live or probably automated operators. There are several of them with different names. Where could the possibility of live operators be located? Perhaps in a call center like… the Philippines?

If you ask, the operator will simply enter a phrase “why are you changing the subject? As a reader pointed out, this reminds me of an old artificial intelligence attempt called “Eliza X” written for the Macintosh. The responses are far too quick to be typed live and I didn’t spend enough time there to determine whether a real operator exists – probably not.

So how do these guys make money by collecting just $1.14 which is for shipping and handling? Because you might not realize that “after your free 7-day trial, you’ll be charged $39.95 a month for continued membership and access to the Google Pay Day membership site and learning system.” How can you cancel this great deal within 7 days if you’re waiting for the great money at home package that is being shipped to you via ground shipping? They are betting on the fact that you won’t cancel in time because (1) you think your trial starts when you receive your package but that isn’t the case in fine print, and (2) you might not realize just how large the “monthly membership fee” is and you won’t get any of this money back if you don’t cancel within 7 days of the time you signed up on the web site. The terms of use I saw were from a company called JRS Media in the Philippines. In other instances you might be taken to the “Google Money Master” site and charged $73.83 by a company called “Google Revolution” aka “Honshu Systems, LLC” that is located in Henderson, Nevada. Here are the terms, with some highlighted:

As more fully described below, following your risk-free 7-day trial, you’ll be charged the monthly subscription fee of $73.83. You’ll have 7 days from your initial signup date to access and use the Google Revolution member website without charge. Your free trial provides instant online access to the foreclosed property feed and the information & training available at the Google Revolution site, and does not require the free kit being shipped to you – your free trial begins immediately. If you’re not satisfied for any reason, and cancel within the initial 7-day trial period, you will not be charged $73.83 for your first month’s membership. After your initial 7-day risk-free trial, your subscription will automatically renew approximately every 30 days from the date you signed up (see MEMBERSHIP TERM AND RENEWAL, below). You can cancel any time after the 7-day risk-free trial period, in which case you won’t be refunded that month’s subscription charge, but you will have member access through the end of the month, and you will not be billed again.

your email address is being harvested for sale to marketing companies. If you look at the site’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for JRS Media, by providing your email address and information to them, you are agreeing to receive solilcitations until you opt out of this program! I’ll be most of you didn’t realize this “small” issue.

By submitting your e-mail address at the Website or the website of one of our marketing partners, and/or obtaining services from us, you agree to receive e-mail or telephone calls, SMS text message,or other marketing from us and/or our third-party advertisers notwithstanding a prior decision, made by you, to opt out of this or any other of our or a third party affiliate of ours program, pursuant to the CAN-SPAM Act, you are agreeing to opt back in and to receive marketing materials until you decide to opt-out. In addition, you agree that such act constitutes a purchase, an inquiry and/or an application for purposes of the Amended Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 CFR §310 et seq. (the “ATSR”).

I don’t know what is contained within the “kit” to make money by posting Google links. Some comments I’ve read elsewhere claim that the “package” never arrives. My guess? You recieve a series of resources where you can put up your own site, just like Josh and Scott, and claim you made cash by simply putting up a web site with affiliate links to “Internet marketing programs” that contain high autorenewal charges. Other scams just like this one, perhaps people who bought this “fast money at home” system? Take a look at www.marysblogmoney.com, www.stevesblogmoney.com, www.craigsblogmoney.com, www.scottsblogmoney.com and the list goes on. Hopefully this article will help you be able to better identify Internet fraud which will undoubtedly become more prevalent during this difficult economic time.