LouvreTec Job Offer Scam

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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:31 am

Hi,
I represent the valid New Zealand based globally distributing company 'LouvreTec New Zealand' (www.louvretec.com) over the past few months it has come to my attention that a group of email scammers has adopted our company name and is using it to create false job offer emails with the intention of ensanring victims into handing over their bank account information.
I've been tracking server IP adresses but they always use hijacked servers. The emails are increasing in number by the week, this is tarnishing our company image and causing irreperable damage to our marketability.

Please Scam Assasins, can you target these criminals? We're a family owned business so you wouldnt be helping line the pockets of corporate hot shots. We're just trying to survive the financial crisis like everyone else, but email sacmming is making things hard for us.

Any thoughts, comments or advice would be much appreciated.

Below is a sample email:
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Louvre Tec Products Ltd <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, 17 July, 2009 15:49:37
Subject: Online Job Offer

Dear Sir/Ma,

Louvre Tec Products Ltd has grown to become a market leader in the design, manufacture & installation of a range of Aluminum Opening Roofs, Sun Louvres & Shutters. Many of our systems are multi-functional.

Established in 1996, Louvre Tec Products Ltd is a New Zealand owned company and operates from custom built premises on Auckland's North Shore. Louvre Tec Products Ltd is available nationwide and worldwide. Research and Development play a vital role in the Louvre Tec Products Ltd story. All Louvre Tec Products Ltd's products are fully engineered and tested for reliability.

Louvre Tec Products Ltd offers a full sales and installation service and will provide design ideas to complement your project. We need representatives in the United States/UK who will be in charge of all our payments from the United States and United Kingdom clients/customers.

Most of our customers from United States and United Kingdom pay through Bank Wire Transfer and Certified Checks which are not negotiable here in New Zealand. This brings our quest to employee a credible and trustworthy fellow as our representative to handle our payments. This would not affect your present job but serve as another stream of income to your good self. Being our representative and assisting us in processing the payments from our clients shall earn you a weekly salary and commission of about 10% of every payment you assist us with.
Due to the fact that we can not process the US/Uk Bank Transfers here in the New Zealand, we have lost in the past about £85,000 of net income each month because of money transfer delays. Most of our clients/customers who purchase our products need to pay large amount of money through their Bank wire transfer account and this is the reason we also need a representative who has eligible account to receive money for our company.

Your task is to coordinate payments from our customers and help us with the payment process. You are not involved in any sales.

If you are interested, email us back for more information

Regards,
Louvre Tec Products Ltd
Auckland's North Shore
http://www.louvretec.co.nz <http://www.louvretec.co.nz/>

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:51 am

I believe they actually do fake check scams and that's my current target area. I'll start working on them shortly.

ETA: Did they give a reply-to address? I need that to start some scammer pain.

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:05 am

Hi LouvreTec and welcome to Eater. Sorry you are here because you are being targeted by scammers though.

Can you help us by posting the complete headers of the scam email? It can help us see where they are sending the emails from.

May I ask why you don't post a scam warning on your website? I think that would be very proactive and would let consumers know you are aware of the problem and trying to warn potential victims that click on the link to your website.

Also, if you would take the time to go to our sister site, ScamWarners, and post up your information there, it will help educate and prevent more victims if they are aware of the scam and how your company is not involved in it.

The best thing that can be done to these scammers directly is expose them for others to find out about them, both here and at ScamWarners, and Eater members can bait them. And we are very good at both of these things. Wink

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:30 am

To be honest the thought of posting a website warning never crossed my mind. Shocked

Thanks for the advice, I will try to get an email header from you next time I get a reply. They switch servers so often that I want to make sure that I can get you a valid IP.

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:37 am

How about an email address they ask for you to reply to if you were a potential victim?

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:12 pm

sir scam alot wrote:

How about an email address they ask for you to reply to if you were a potential victim?

Here it is: [email protected]

419Eater is my life Joined: 08 Aug 2008 Posts: 475

?

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:47 am

^^^ SSA was looking for the email addy for the scammers.

louvretec.co.nz one of legit sites and [email protected] isn't a workable email addy anyways. Wink

Quote:

error: Recipient rejected

canonical address: <[email protected]>

MX records
preference exchange IP address (if included)
5 hd.horizonpacific.com [0.0.0.0]
SMTP session

[Resolving hd.horizonpacific.com...]
[Contacting hd.horizonpacific.com [114.134.160.68]...]
[Connected]
220 hd.horizonpacific.com ESMTP (28a128b9e9db0dd28225e2b1486e5784)
EHLO Network-Tools.com
250-hd.horizonpacific.com Hello network-tools.com [67.222.132.194], pleased to meet you
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 20971520
250-8BITMIME
250 HELP
VRFY job
502 Command not implemented
RSET
250 Ok
EXPN job
500 Syntax error, command unrecognized
RSET
250 Ok
MAIL FROM:<[email protected]>
250 Ok
RCPT TO:<[email protected]>
550 No such user ([email protected])

Quote:

Whois query for louvretec.co.nz...

Results returned from whois.srs.net.nz:

% New Zealand Domain Name Registry Limited
% Users confirm on submission their agreement to all published Terms
%
version: 1.23.0
query_datetime: 2009-07-28T12:37:47+12:00
domain_name: louvretec.co.nz
query_status: 200 Active
domain_dateregistered: 1999-05-31T00:00:00+12:00
domain_datebilleduntil: 2009-07-31T00:00:00+12:00
domain_datelastmodified: 2009-06-30T23:31:45+12:00
domain_delegaterequested: yes

http://www.louvretec.co.nz/

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:21 am

My neck of the woods. I just called and spoke to the OP. He is a bit tied up at the moment but I have asked him to send me the full headers and will post them when I get them.

Potential job seekers have been contacting them directly or through their website, asking about the job. He has tried responding to the email but it bounces back.

The english is better than average for lads, but does get a little odd here and there

Quote:

This brings our quest to employee a credible and trustworthy fellow

- almost sounds Indian.

Just thinking out loud, but if there is no valid reply address then either it is incompetence or deliberate sabotage, unless there is a 3rd option?

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:32 am

I am not sure how the scammers want to be contacted. I have done a search of this scam on the internet and I can't find a 'reply to' address anywhere. It is very odd. Confused

I still think this company could easily place a notice on their website about the scam and thus educate the public, appear pro-active, and not have to deal with the constant hassle of potential job seekers. Seems like a win-win situation. Very Happy

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 5:20 am

Louvretec guy wrote:

I looked at the header information for the latest scam mail and it only contains the server information for our own mail server. This is probably because the message was forwarded to myself through the sales department from a dealership in Northland, so the original header information appears to be lost.

I asked him to ask the IT guys to take a look, and to get anyone asking about the job to get in touch with me, perhaps we can get the headers that way.

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:12 pm

Just a bit of an update from my side, I have received no new scam mail for quite a while. It's gone dry for some reason, but I'm waiting for a fresh lead so I can post the relevant header info.

Our website has carried a new 'EMAIL SCAM WARNING' on the front page since it was suggested, I think this has cancelled most of the new scam attacks before they begin. Since many of the scam emails contain a link to our website, the scam warning seems to be having a good effect.

PS: the latest 'reply to' address for this LAD:

[email protected]

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:33 pm

I'm glad to hear it. They're probably still using the scam, but with another companies name and website.
You've got a warning on your website, and Google may have many reports of it being a scam. They've moved onto fresh pastures.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 15 Oct 2009 Posts: 29

Current Postings email sent.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 15 Oct 2009 Posts: 29

Sounds like the door is being closed:

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 No such user ([email protected]) (state 14).

Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:04 am

That's a spoofed email. Without the headers, we can't know for sure.

Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 3:13 am

Oh well, I'm sure they'll pop up soon using some other poor Schmucks name and drag them through the dirt.
It just feels so good that there are people like you lot out there ready to pounce.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 15 Oct 2009 Posts: 29

In a lame attempt to keep my email clean I deleted it.
Rack 'em up......

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 21 Oct 2009 Posts: 8

Job opportunity
From: BONITA LINNEMEYER <[email protected]>Add to Contacts
To:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Sir/Ma,

My name is Edward Collins the management of (Addide Enterprises Ltd) we're base in United Kingdom. I got your mail through search,i hereby write to you information you regarding a vacancy post in our company which we are in need of worker as a matter of urgent.

Here are the Vacancy post listed below:

1) Secretary
2) Accountant
3) Managing Director(MD)
4) Area Sales Manager(ASM)
5) Office Cleaner
6) Security

If you are interested in this offer kindly reply to: [email protected]

Best Regards,
Edward Collins.
Addide International Ltd Management.
+44 702 403 1020.

Thought this might be a similar tactic. Maybe, maybe not. Something for someone to pick up if they want?

Hellish Taskmaster Joined: 31 Dec 2008 Posts: 537

^Is that Addide company a real company or one made up by a lad? Often lads will make up companies and even make fake sites to make them sound more legitimate. But I don't see a website, real or fake.