Tag Archives: criminals

Sometimes the Good Guys Win

Posted on by The Old Wolf

From the website of the Boston Division of the FBI (this is the real McCoy):

Canadian Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Role in Telemarketing Fraud

U.S. Attorney’s Office, November 10, 2010

BOSTON, MA—A Montreal man was sentenced today in federal court in connection with his role in a long running telemarketing scheme that targeted victims in the United States and the United Kingdom.

MITCHELL KARACHINSKY, 59, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris to 10 years’ imprisonment, to be followed by two years of supervised release. The court also ordered Karachinsky to pay restitution in the total amount of $1.624,750. Karachinsky pleaded guilty to telemarketing fraud on April 1, 2010.

At the earlier plea hearing, the prosecutor told the court that had the case proceeded to trial, the government’s evidence would have proven that Karachinsky participated in a fraudulent telemarketing ring operated from Montreal. Targeting elderly victims in the U.S., Karachinsky and others falsely represented that the call recipient had won a large money prize that could only be collected after the victim prepaid fees that needed to be mailed or wired to Canada. The money prizes were nonexistent and none of the victims of the scheme ever received any winnings. In total the scheme defrauded U.S. victims of more than $2.5 million. In December 2009 one of Karachinsky’s co-defendant, Gilles Maisonneuve, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in this fraud.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said, “Telemarketing fraud is a crime that targets members of some of our most vulnerable populations, including senior citizens. I am committed to the prosecution of these predators and dedicated to recovering as much money for victims of telemarketing fraud as possible.”

U.S. Attorney Ortiz and Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Federal Bureau of Investigation announced the sentencing today. The case was investigated by Project Colt, a cross border law enforcement telemarketing initiative based in Montreal including the participation of the FBI and other federal agencies and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori J. Holik of Ortiz’s Economic Crimes Unit.

I don’t mind doxxing this scumbag because the information presented here is a matter of public record, and this is the turdcasket who scammed my mother out of about $65,000.00 while she was still alive.

Ever since he was sentenced, we’ve been getting regular updates from the USDOJ Victim Notification system; the last one we got is as follows:

You have requested to receive notifications regarding MITCHELL KARACHINSKI, an inmate incarcerated at the Rivers Correctional Institution in Winton, NC. [snip] This notice is to inform you that MITCHELL KARACHINSKI will be released on April 22, 2015. Additionally, will release to the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for possible deporation to Canada.

So it looks like Mr. Scumbag has served his time and is about to be released, with the hope that ICE sends his sorry ass back to Montreal where, it is to be hoped, he will face additional sanctions from the Canadian authorities.

The notification mentions restitution, but Mogg only knows where any funds for that would come from. At any rate, I am most grateful to the FBI and the RCMP for working together to put this piece of camel ejecta and his cronies behind bars for a goodly bit of time.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

THE MOST IDIOTIC SCAM OKAY

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I’ve gotten hundreds of emails from Nigerian (or other nationality) scammer, but this one just made my head spin with its stupidity.

From: “BARR. JOHN KURTY” <office_moneygram@yahoo.com>

Subject: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, MG Richard Peter; Adjutant General and Director State Military Department Washington Military Dept., Bldg1 Camp Murry ,Wash 98430-5000 USA GOOD DAY TO YOU.

MY NAME IS MR. JOHNSON WILLIAM, WHAT IS HOLDING YOU TO SEND THE MONEY RIGHT NOW PLEASE GO AHEAD AND SEND THE MONEY SO THAT YOU WILL RECEIVE YOUR BOX WITHIN 24HOURS YOU HAVE IT ONCE YOU SEND MONEY THAT IS THE ONLY DELAY WE HAVE RIGHT NOW TO DELIVER YOUR CONGNMENT BOX TO YOU SO TRY YOUR POSSIBLE BEST TO SEND THE MONEY TODAY BECAUSE YOU HAVE ONLY (3 DAYS)IF YOU DID NOT MAKE THE PAYMENT THEN I WILL DIVERT YOUR FUNDS TO US GOVERNMENT FUND OR BENIN GOVERNMENT TREASURY.

I WILL WAITING TO HEAR FROM YOU WITH THE PAYMENT INFORMATION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE OKAY. MAY GOD BLESS YOU.

WHEN I ARRIVE IN THE BENIN PARLIAMENT IN COTONOU, I FOUND YOUR CONSIGNMENT BOX CLEARANCE FILE LYING ON THE FOREIGN AFFAIR OFFICE DESK WITHOUT ANY ATTENTION ON A THOROUGH SCRUTINY I DISCOVERED THAT YOUR CONSIGNMENT HAVE BEEN ABANDONED BY YOUR DELIVERY AGENT. MEANWHILE, I WAS MADE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THEY HAVE TRY TO REACH YOU, BUT NO WAY AND THEY HAVE MADE SEVERAL ATTEMPTS TO CONTACT YOUR DELIVERY AGENT BUT TO NO AVAIL. TO MY GREATEST SURPRISE, DURING MY RECENT ROUTINE RE-CHECKING, I PERSONALLY DISCOVERED THAT YOUR CONSIGNMENT CONTENT DECLARATION DOCUMENTS STATED THAT YOUR CONSIGNMENT CONTAINS PERSONAL EFFECTS MEANWHILE, IT CONTAINS UNITED STATES DOLLAR BILLS WORTH OVER US$40 MILLION DOLLARS, WHICH MADE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE CONSIGNMENT TO BE DELIVERED TO YOU EARLIER BEFORE NOW.

BASED ON THIS PERSONAL DISCOVERY, I AM CONTACTING YOU NOW TO LET YOU KNOW THAT WITH MY POSITION AND POWER AS THE SECRETARY OF U.S DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, I CAN ASSIST YOU TO LEGALLY CLEAR YOUR CONSIGNMENT FUND, BUT YOU MUST AGREE WITH THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS. BECAUSE I HAVE CALLED OUR OFFICE IN WASHINGTON,DC FROM BENIN, WHO HAS BEEN INTERCEPTING ALL YOUR TELEPHONE CALLS, WITH THE HELP OF MTN, TIGO VODAFONE AND AIRTEL NETWORK BENIN.

I ALSO RECEIVED SOME INFORMATION FROM OUR HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICE IN BENIN REPUBLIC, ABOUT YOUR EMAILS, THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DEALING AND SENDING MONEY TO PEOPLES IN BENIN GHANA SOUTH AFRICA TOGO BENIN AND NIGERIA , WHO CLAIMS TO BE THE MONEY GRAM DIRECTOR. YOU ARE ALSO DEALING WITH A BANK, AND OTHER NAMES WHICH I AM STILL WAITING TO BE FORWARDED TO ME FROM OUR OFFICE IN WASHINGTON,DC. WHO HAVE MONITORED ALL YOUR DEALINGS WITH THIS HOODLUM. YOU ARE ADVICE TO HENCE FORT STOP FURTHER DEALINGS WITH ALL THE ABOVE MENTIONED PEOPLE, UNTIL WE COMPLETE OUR INVESTIGATION. BECAUSE YOUR DEALING WITH THEM IS TERMED AS ILLEGAL TRANSACTION.

I WISH TO INFORM THAT WE THE HOMELAND SECURITY IS ON LOOK OUT FOR ALL THE ABOVE MENTIONED NAME, MOSTLY THOSE WHO CLAIMS TO BE THE DIRECTOR OF WEST AFRICAN DEBT MONEY GRAM AND MONEY GRAM AND PROPERTY RECOVERY BENIN. ALL THIS MENTIONED PEOPLE ARE IMPOSTOR, AND WE INTEND TO APPREHEND THEM SOON. I WANT YOU TO PLEASE STOP COMMUNICATING, AND DEALING WITH THEM UNTIL WE COMPLETE OUR INVESTIGATION. I WISH TO NOTIFY YOU ABOUT THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT CONCERNING YOUR BOX OF CONSIGNMENT THAT WAS HANDLE OVER TO ME AFTER THE MEETING HELD BETWEEN ME AND SOME OF THE TOP PARLIAMENT MEMBERS OF BENIN AND THE FOREIGN AFFAIR MINSTER IN THE BENIN CAPITAL HEADQUARTERS COTONOU, DUE TO THE DELAY FOR YOU NOT HAVE RECEIVED YOUR CONSIGNMENT BOX FOR LONG TIME NOW.

ACCORDINGLY, WE HAVE WAIVED AWAY ALL YOUR CONSIGNMENT BOX CLEARANCE FEES AND AUTHORIZED THE GOVERNMENT OF BENIN REPUBLIC TO ALLOW ME FLY WITH THIS YOUR APPROVED CONSIGNMENT BOX TO YOU WITHOUT ANY DELAY WHICH THEY HAVE AGREED. THE ONLY FEE YOU WILL PAY TO CONFIRM YOUR CONSIGNMENT BOX RECEIVED IN YOUR POSSESSION IS THE WEIGHT FEE OF YOUR CONSIGNMENT BOX WHICH IS SUM OF $75.00 ONLY.

IN ORDER WORDS YOUR BOX IS WITH ME NOW AND I SHALL BE COMING TO YOUR COUNTRY AS SOON AS I HEAR FROM YOU AND I WILL BE COMING ALONG WITH YOUR BOX OF CONSIGNMENT,BUT REMEMBER THAT AS THE SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, I AM A US GOVERNMENT SECURITY AGENT AND I HAVE THE POWER TO GO THROUGH ANY AIRPORT CUSTOMS WITHOUT INSPECTING WHAT I CARRY ALONG. AND AS SOON AS I ARRIVE IN YOUR STATE I WILL GIVE YOU A PHONE CALL FOR YOU TO GIVE ME DIRECTION TO YOUR HOME ADDRESS SO THAT WE CAN MEET FACE TO FACE AND HAND OVER YOUR BOX TO YOU BEFORE PROCEEDING BACK TO THE STATES. SO I WANT YOU TO RE-CONFIRM TO ME THE BELOW INFORMATION FOR PROPER UNDERSTANDING BY FILLING THE ATTACH HOMELAND SECURITY REGISTRATION FORM OKAY.

BENEFICIARY NAME. . . . .
ADDRESS. . . .
TEL PHONE. . . . . . . . .
OCCUPATION. .  . . .
COUNTRY. . . . . . . . . . .
SEX. . . . . .. . . . . . . .

AS SOON AS I ARRIVE I SHALL CALL YOU ON YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER THEN MEET YOU IN PERSON AND HAND OVER YOUR CONSIGNMENT BOX TO YOU BEFORE I RETURN BACK TO WASHINGTON DC.
I HAVE TAKEN THIS ASSIGNMENT UPON MYSELF BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE REALLY PAID SO MUCH ON THE COST OF DELIVERY, BUT NOTHING WAS RECEIVED BY YOU. SO BE ADVICE TO CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY YOU GET THIS EMAIL NOW BECAUSE EVERY THING HAS BEEN DONE OK. THIS IS DIRECTLY FROM OUR PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA. ONCE YOU SEND THE MONEY, TRY TO NOTIFY ME WITH THE MTCN FOR EASY PICK UP AND FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION ON THE DELIVERY OF YOUR CONSIGNMENT BOX,FOR YOU TO RECEIVE YOUR INHERITED FUNDS WITHOUT ANY FURTHER DELAY AGAIN . SINCE YOU WAS UNABLE TO RECEIVE IT SINCE .
SEND THE FEE VIA MONEY money gram TRANSFER.

RECEIVER’ PETER ONUORAH
COUNTRY:. . . . . . . . . .BENIN
CITY:. . . . . . . . . . . . COTONOU
AMOUNT:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$75.00
QUESTION:. . . . . . . . URGENT
ANSWER:. . . . . . .TODAY
MTCN:. . . . . . . . . .
Sender’s NAME . . . .
SENDER’S ADDRESS. . .

AS SOON AS YOU SEND THE FEE MAKE SURE YOU SEND ME THE PAYMENT INFORMATION.ONCE YOU SEND THE MONEY, TRY TO NOTIFY ME WITH THE MTCN FOR CONFIRMATION AND FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION ON THE HANDLING OVER OF YOUR FUND TO YOU.ALSO YOU ARE TO FORWARD TO US ANY MAIL THAT YOU HAVE BEEN RECEIVING FROM PEOPLE FOR PROPER VERIFICATION AND INVESTIGATION BEFORE YOU DEAL WITH THEM OKAY.

I HAVE A VERY LIMITED TIME TO STAY HERE SO I WOULD LIKE YOU TO URGENTLY RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE WITH THE PAYMENT , MY DEAR, THIS IS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU AND HAVE TO COMPLY AND YOUR BOX SHALL BE DELIVER TO YOUR DESIGNATED ADDRESS.BUT REMEMBER THAT AFTER (3 DAYS) YOU DID NOT MAKE THE PAYMENT THEN I WILL DIVERT YOUR FUNDS TO US GOVERNMENT FUND OR BENIN GOVERNMENT TREASURY. PLEASE TREAT THIS AS MATTER OF URGENCY.
SINCERELY YOURS,

BARR. JOHN KURTY
SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURIT

This is wrong on all possible levels:

  • Horrible grammar and spelling
  • American government officials don’t use the title “Barrister”
  • It’s written in all caps
  • The scammer invokes the name of God to try to make himself look virtuous.
  • Is his name John Kurty, Johnson William, or Richard Peter, or Peter Onuorah? The ignorant jimakplon can’t even keep his scam facts straight. Add to that the use of non-existent names which use common English surnames as given names or vice versa.
  • This guy is an idiot OKAY

I have a hard time not using language to describe these people that would not exceed the family-friendly nature of this blog. They are the hqiz of hqiz-eaters.

In case you got a similar email and were wondering, this is a scam.

the_money_picture

This does not exist.

Never send money to a stranger via Western Union, MoneyGram, or MoneyPak, or any other untraceable and unrecoverable means.

Stay safe out there.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Bypassing Spam Filters

Posted on by The Old Wolf

The scumbags are getting more inventive.

Thanks to Unicode, many characters will display on the Internet which won’t flag spam keyword detectors, allowing such rubbish to trickle through. Things like this:

——————

From: Ƕσᵯȅ₳ppliaŋce₡overage contact@techas.ws via amazonses.com

First Month₣RḖḖ on ComprehensiveǶσᵯȅWarrantyCoverage .

——-

From: __ɵṹṝ__ᵵᶖᵯe__dᶏᵵᶖng__ contact@cdblu-tk.ws via amazonses.com

Subject: __¶ŋȶeresȶed__¶ŋ__ȿiŋgles__ǿ˅erƼѻ?__

__¶ŋȶeresȶed__¶ŋ__ȿiŋgles__ǿ˅erƼѻ?
t.co/Ddphe5fBRI (This link redirects to an outfit called OurTime; Stay away from them.)
TryAmerica’s__1__site__for___ȿiŋgles__ǿ˅erƼѻ
Joinɵṹṝ__ᵵᶖᵯe.comAnd meetȿiŋgles ǿ˅erƼѻ

—————-

Unicode allows you to uʍop ǝpısdn ǝʇıɹʍ, among other things, or send people clever greetings:

♫♪♥♥[̲̅̅H̲̅][̲̅̅A̲̅][̲̅̅P̲̅][̲̅̅P̲̅][̲̅̅ Y̲̅][̲̅̅B̲̅][̲̅̅I̲̅][̲̅̅R̲̅][̲̅̅T̲̅][̲̅̅H̲̅][̲̅̅D̲̅][̲̅̅A̲̅][̲̅̅Y̲̅]♥♥♫♪ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ•*¨`*•♥ •*¨`*•

But unfortunately, evil people have a way of turning anything good to their twisted and nefarious purposes. These two things should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway:

  1. Any company that spams you is operating very close to the line of ethicality, and
  2. Any company that spams you in this underhanded way is probably running a criminal enterprise, and should be avoided like the plague.

Depending on what you read, spam can account for up to 90% of all email; at this point, 62% of all web traffic is generated by non-humans, although not all of this is malicious. As for me and my house, any company that spams me is guaranteed not to get my business, and bad reviews in public if they happen to be extra-obnoxious. Halting the flood is like spitting in the ocean, but the best I can do is raise awareness.

No-Spam

The Old Wolf has spoken.

SEO Scammers – and they’re *still* in business

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Edit: It appears that this company later did business as “findyoursearch.com,” which now redirects to “qualitysiteprofessionals.com,” also an SEO outfit. I can’t speak to what this company does, but just be careful.

In March of 2011, I posted this over at my Livejournal. I happened to come across the relevant website again as a result of another search, and finding that the “company” is still in business, I thought it best to put another heads-up out there. More exposure means more forewarned consumers.

liar-350x273

———————

Several years ago I had a very unpleasant experience with an outfit called USA SEO Pros while working on increasing exposure for my online business. Subsequently I found a writeup, which I attach below, verbatim – it’s no longer coming up on Google, so I’m not sure who the author is. However, it’s spot-on – just about fact for fact a mirror of my own experience.

I’m posting this because there are still people out there being taken advantage of. If even one person reads this and saves their money, it will have been worth the effort.

SEO Scams and Snake Oil Salesmen

Author Unknown1

A friend of mine in the Real Estate business came to me a few months ago to ask for some advice on SEO. I went out to lunch and gave her some pointers, then got back to being busy and simply forgot to ask her how it was going. On Saturday she called me asking if I could help out with her desktop machine, as it had become badly virally infected. While working on that, I asked her how the her site was doing.

“Oh, I hired a company to do that for me” was the reply. Then she turned round and handed me a manila folder with some documents in it. “Here’s what they did for me”.

I pulled out the first document. It started off with screen-shots of submissions to the major search engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN & Alexa?… ok, not a great start, but I continued through this document… there were submissions to directories. Ok, let’s take a look at those… hmm, never heard of the majority of them, and quite a few aren’t even in English , this looks like a default directory submission from some tool…

Ok, next document. It’s the invoice for $1750, with “no refunds, no cancellations” typed on it. I ask if she has a contract, or even an email outlining their work, the reply was negative. From the sounds of it, she was cold called, and promised the earth, or #1 rankings in G, Y & M for local Real Estate terms, which amounts for the same thing. The salesperson obviously did a good job, because she gave them her credit card details and sat back. Well, she didn’t quite sit back, she kept calling them to see why she wasn’t #1 yet, and their response was “It’s organic, give it a little more time”.

The next document was a copy of the code on the website, but it looked a little strange, so I went to her site and looked at the code. They didn’t match. This was puzzling, had they only given her recommendations and not implemented them? Then I noticed the URL at the top of the page… it was for a different site.

Yes, a different site. So I asked her if she owned that domain? “No, they did that” was the reply. I reviewed the code. The title tag contained her name, and her name alone, none of the keywords that they were going to magically get her to the #1 spot for, just her name. The same was true of the H1 tag. (Note: this new site doesn’t even rank in the top 50 for her name).

Content on the site was terrible, with keywords stuffed, more strong tags than you could shake multiple sticks at, poor look & feel, all on an extremely long home page. The sub-pages were even worse. In order to save time, given that theirs is obviously a volume business, they had scraped content using the title of the page. Yes, this could potentially work for unique terms, but when you sell Real Estate in a place with a name like Sterling, you may want to check the results…

171034_original

What else did I notice in the code? Well, the most interesting thing was a nice big ad on the page for USA SEO Pro’s, which wasn’t the name of the company that she had hired. Since I can’t imagine that they’d altruistically put a link and an ad on for a competitor, it must be the same company (in fact the testimonials on their website refer to the initials of the company that she hired, so they are the one and same company), but why didn’t they use their own name? A quick search for usaseopros reveals why…

171303_original

Now, wherever they have a negative listing, such as on the Real Estate Blog, or on Ripoff Report, you can see that they’re actively going into those sites and responding to the criticism. Of course, the responses that show up are from ’satisfied customers’ and ‘proud employees’ both of which, based on my experiences with my friend’s site, are false. Note: This is important. Many disreputable companies follow this practice to try to minimize the impact of negative feedback from dissatisfied companies.

So where does this leave my friend? She paid $1750 with no contract, and no defined deliverables. They ‘did some work’ and ‘delivered some documents’. The site they’ve ‘worked’ on doesn’t belong to her, they can take it down at will, there’s no guarantee that they’ll transfer the domain to her if she asks them to (which is what I’ve asked her to do, despite the fact that it shows not one incoming link, I guess those Lithuanian directories really take time to register). As for their #1 ranking promises, all verbal, nothing in writing. What can she do? Most likely not much, except warn others about her experience, and take this as lessons for the future.

  1. If something sounds too good to be true… it is
  2. Get everything in writing
  3. If you know someone with experience in that particular industry, drop them a quick note to get their opinion, and find out what questions you need to ask.

I’ve told her that I’ll give her a hand when I can, and that in the meantime she should read and learn from real SEOs who have experience in the Real Estate market, not scammers.
End of Quoted Article

My own experience was quite similar. These people created about 15 different websites and loaded them with scraped data without editing a single bit of content. As a result, my fine business (selling MSM, or Methyl-Sulfonyl-Methane, a nutritional supplement that provides elemental sulfur) was pointing to sites advertising “MSM: Men who have sex with men”.

What was even more scary – in order to allow them to work on my website, I provided them with my FTP password. As a result, someone at their extremely disreputable organization loaded my site with links to the vilest of pornography, as well as Javascript malware exploits which are still being flagged by AVG in some of my backup files.

The very bottom line was that my $1,500.00 bought me absolutely no increase in business, and interminable headaches getting my website cleaned up.

This all went down before I became educated about the worthlessness of keyword-stuffing and doorway pages in general, but be alert – these people are still out there. They still have an active website. If anyone from this sleazeball outfit calls you, hang up at once – but be extra careful, because like all liars and thieves, they may be hiding their name behind a shell outfit.

Some good advice for avoiding bad SEO companies and what to do instead can be found at Portent.com

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] If you out there see this, please leave a comment here, and I’ll give you full attribution.