First Design Group scam

First Design Group Fraud

Don't Bear Internet Fraud

First Design Group screenshot 23-May-2009

This fraud should not be confused with any other company of the same or similar name - the above website screenshot and the following fraud evidence refer to this company alone and no other. The above website has been stolen from a genuine company.

First Design Group is just one of the numerous fake Russian hosted scam sites that exist solely to ensnare the unwary, whether it is to 'phish' for bank details or mainly to recruit money mules. The complete fraud website content has quite clearly been stolen from the genuine Russian company Home Design and modified to suit this criminal's purposes, in particular the addition of a 'Careers' menu option that doesn't exist on the genuine website and leads to the criminal's money mule job. The fake website was only recently set up, (for instance, the domain firstdesgroup.com was only registered with MELBOURNE IT, LTD. (Yahoo as reseller) on 18-May-2009) and contains a clear money mule solicitation of U.S. Representative/Financial manager under the Careers tab. Notice the illiterate line in the above screenshot "a member of the Europen Chamber of Commerce" - the 'Runglish' style of poor English and grammar is a common thread of these Russian criminals. Their previous identical fraud aliases were Vidal Architects, Inc, Design Resources, Inc, Design Build Studio, Inc. and Design 2 Studio LLC - this is clearly a serial fraudster. They have stolen the identity of the existing Florida company First Design Marketing, Inc. who are listed as management consultants, i.e. a totally different area of business that these fakers pretend to be in.

Evidence of Criminal Fraud:

i) This criminal's website has quite clearly been stolen from the genuine genuine Russian company Home Design so any claims made in it are not relevant to the criminals, although they do carry the claim "Since our company’s founding in 1998, we have assisted numerous corporate and some private individuals around the world" under this 'Careers' menu option. However, the fact that their domain firstdesgroup.com was only registered with MELBOURNE IT, LTD. (Yahoo as reseller) on 18-May-2009 for the usual criminal's domain minimum period of one year is clear evidence of fraudulent misrepresentation.

ii) As is usual for these criminals, First Design Group have no Google internet presence at all, except for their own fake stolen website, of course.

iii) The payload of the fake website is the following clear money mule criminal solicitation under the Careers tab:

Why do we need U.S. Representative/Financial manager?

When we initially started operations in the United States, we experienced some issues with US trade laws that can be summarized into two different problems:

   1. All financial services operations have to take place inside the USA
   2. Customers cannot make payments to a company don’t have offices inside the US, even if the company is an industry leader around the world. Our Home Office is located in Russia, which is why customers are not able to directly transfer money (payments for our designs) to our office in Russia. Under US law, the funds must be deposited into the account of the Financial Manager of Staffing Solutions that resides in the USA. Then, it is the Financial Manager’s responsibility to transfer the funds to our business in Russia. The company has to be registered in the US tax administration, which we have already finished. By maintaining a Financial Manager in the US, we are able to solve both of these problems and continue to help the companies that need us in the USA.

Main duties include receiving payments from customers:

   1. Bank checks
   2. Wire transfers
   3. Certified funds

Compensation:

The Financial Manager will be entitled to 5% of all completed transactions. The maximum turnover handled by a single manager is limited the by company’s policy and is set at $100,000 per month. Thus the maximum monthly pay will constitute $3,000-5,000.

Type of Employment:

Agreement

Time Commitment:

2-4 hours per week

Important:

We also have a business proposal for US company owners and managing directors. Private US businesses can accept funds from our customers with no limitations with a monthly turnover of up to 500,000.00 US dollars. Their profit is set at 7.5% of the turnover and may constitute $40,000.00 monthly. Please apply if you have a legal running business and are interested in this offer.

You can combine this job with your current job, because you'll spend no more than 3 hours per week. This job can become perfect addition to your current job.

iv) You do not get a much clearer definition of the illegal 'part time' money mule function of receiving stolen funds to a personal checking account and transferring a balance back to these criminals via Western Union or Moneygram which on its own defines the company without doubt as criminal and bogus and is clear evidence of criminal fraud. The potential for absolutely massive fraud is also self evident from the "business proposal for US company owners".

v) No legitimate company is going to advertise for this sort of illegal part time, 'work from home' money transfer position among the untrained, inexperienced and uncertified general population overseas. The additional 'business proposal' shows the potential sheer scale of this criminal fraud operation - don't be part of it or you will lose a lot of money and perhaps your liberty.

vi) Their fake 'Team' doesn't change between the criminal's aliases, (except the name of the so-called director - last time it was Zverev Pavel Urevich, this time it's Archarov Evgeniy Evgrafovich). Clear evidence of fraud.
team

vii) Contact Details from the website:

First Design Group, Inc
RUSSIAN ADDRESS
1341 Krasnarmeyskaya st.
Moscow, 422010
Russian Federation

First Design Group, Inc
Address: 12667 HEADWATER WAY WELLINGTON FL 33414
FEI/EIN Number 200973002
Duns Number: 78-738-0807
Reference Name: FLORIDA BUSINESS REGISTRATIONS

• - There are no Google hits for the address 1341 Krasnarmeyskaya st., Moscow apart from the criminal's own fake website, of course - clear evidence of fraud.
• - The company referred to by the FEI/EIN Number 200973002 and the Duns Number: 78-738-0807 at the address 12667 HEADWATER WAY WELLINGTON FL 33414 is a totally different company, (First Design Marketing, Inc.), in a totally different field, (management consultancy) and was incorporated in 2004. These crooks are simply attempting to use their identity and miserably failing.
• - There is no active company by the name of First Design Group, Inc registered in the state of Florida - irrefutable evidence of fraud. Check for yourself.
• - They do not publish any telephone numbers on their website contact page although they ask you to "call us".

viii) The Spam

From: A.Kudinov, First Design Group <personnel@firstdesgroup.com>
Subject: Dear xxxxx
Date: Monday, May 18, 2009, 12:26 PM

Dear xxxxxx,

My name is Anatoly Kudinov.
As First Design Group's personnel manager I am in charge of our performance
control and further business development in the
US. I have reviewed your resume and believe you have a good chance to
receive the position of a Financial Manager. Please read below for more
information about our company.

Main web-page: www.firstdesgroup.com
Company Services: www.firstdesignint.biz/index-6.htm
Business Licence: www.firstdesignint.biz/index-12.htm
Our team: www.firstdesignint.biz/index-11.htm

We may offer you U.S. Representative/Financial manager
position. For more information about current position please visit this
page:

www.firstdesignint.biz/careers.htm

Please feel free to e-mail me for the next step of the process
Respectfully,
Anatoly Kudinov
Personnel Manager
First Design Group.

ix) If you reply to the above spam, you get the following (as supplied by a site contact):

From: Anatoly Kudinov <managers.kudinov@gmail.com>
Subject: Are you still interested?
Date: Friday, May 22, 2009, 9:39 AM

Hello xxxxxx,

I'm very glad to continuation of our cooperation and I'm confident, that you can achieve the big results in our company.
I estimate your speed and aspiration. These are very important qualities.
I sent you a copy of the contract and application. Have you received it? In this letter I once again send you all documents.
If you want to receive US Financial manager post in our company that you should do all work maximum quickly.
Please, read and sign the agreement, and e-mail or fax us:

A) COPY OF THE SIGNED CONTRACT
B) COPY OF THE FILLED AND SIGNED EMPLOYMENT APPLICATION

This information will be totally secured and will not be shared with the third part.

My electronic fax: 7724051040

Now we have 5 candidates on this post and if you will not hurry up then you will lose an opportunity
to receive post of the Financial manager
But I hope, that all will be good. But if you not interest, please inform me immediately.
Please write to me ASAP.
I shall look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Personnel manager
Anatoly Kudinov
Personal e-mail: managers.kudinov@gmail.com
Fax: 7724051040
Tel: 919-709-0277 ( You can call us from 08:00 am to 12:00 CDT)

Attached to the document is a job application form and the usual bogus contract, (aka 'INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR AGREEMENT'), that these crooks use which merely spells out the illegal money laundering function of accepting transfers to a private banking account and transferring a balance back to these criminals. It's rather too long and wordy to include here.

x) Remember that they are supposed to be based in Wellington, Florida? The above telephone number 919-709-0277 locates to Fremont North Carolina and the Fax number 7724051040 locates to Jensen Beach, Florida - they must have a big office.... Clear evidence of fraud.

The above evidence clearly demonstrates beyond any doubt that the First Design Group are serial fraudsters and that their stolen website has been set up very recently for the sole purpose of spamvertising an illegal money laundering 'mule' job of receiving 'customer's payments' to a personal checking account and transferring a balance back to these criminals. If you are an abuse team that has received an abuse report regarding these fraudsters, please consider immediate termination of their services in view of the absolutely undeniable evidence of criminal activity - please don't delay - these criminals will not respond to any communication from you, (all their whois data is false), but will simply take advantage of any attempt at communication as a delaying tactic to allow them time to carry on their criminal activity and prepare their next network.

Known Website Domains

firstdesgroup.com
firstdesigngroup.net
firstdesignint.biz
firstdgroup-inc.com

Registrar

MELBOURNE IT, LTD. (Yahoo as reseller) - 18-May-2009
MELBOURNE IT, LTD. (Yahoo as reseller) - 05-May-2009
MELBOURNE IT, LTD. (Yahoo as reseller) - 27-May-2009
MELBOURNE IT, LTD. (Yahoo as reseller) - 05-Jun-2009

Key:

Active
Suspended/Disabled
Parked
Please let me know of any other active domains for these crooks.

Network Data (Valid for domains firstdesgroup.com, firstdesignint.biz)

How I am searching:

Searching for firstdesgroup.com A record at m.root-servers.net [202.12.27.33]: Got referral to E.GTLD-SERVERS.NET. (zone: com.)
Searching for firstdesgroup.com A record at E.GTLD-SERVERS.NET. [192.12.94.30]: Got referral to yns1.yahoo.com. (zone: firstdesgroup.com.)
Searching for firstdesgroup.com A record at yns1.yahoo.com. [98.136.43.32]: Reports firstdesgroup.com. Response:

Domain	Type	Class	TTL	Answer
firstdesgroup.com.	A	IN	1200	216.39.62.192
firstdesgroup.com.	NS	IN	86400	ns8.san.yahoo.com.
firstdesgroup.com.	NS	IN	86400	yns1.yahoo.com.
firstdesgroup.com.	NS	IN	86400	yns2.yahoo.com.
firstdesgroup.com.	NS	IN	86400	ns9.san.yahoo.com.

Looking up at the 2 firstdesgroup.com. parent servers:

Server	Response
yns2.yahoo.com [66.196.84.168]	216.39.62.192
yns1.yahoo.com [98.136.43.32]	216.39.62.192

The criminal's host is listed as Alta Vista (Yahoo), presumably another of their "small business networks" so well used by these criminals as Yahoo's response to abuse reports is clueless and abysmal and Melbourne IT don't want to know - their response is simply to shuffle the responsibility on to Yahoo so these crooks have an easy ride for their criminal activities and keep using them.

Network Data (Valid for domains firstdesigngroup.net)
How I am searching:

Searching for firstdesigngroup.net A record at m.root-servers.net [202.12.27.33]: Got referral to G.GTLD-SERVERS.net. (zone: net.)
Searching for firstdesigngroup.net A record at G.GTLD-SERVERS.net. [192.42.93.30]: Got referral to yns2.yahoo.com. (zone: firstdesigngroup.net.)
Searching for firstdesigngroup.net A record at yns2.yahoo.com. [66.196.84.168]: Reports firstdesigngroup.net. Response:

Domain	Type	Class	TTL	Answer
firstdesigngroup.net.	A	IN	1200	68.180.151.74
firstdesigngroup.net.	NS	IN	86400	ns8.san.yahoo.com.
firstdesigngroup.net.	NS	IN	86400	yns2.yahoo.com.
firstdesigngroup.net.	NS	IN	86400	ns9.san.yahoo.com.
firstdesigngroup.net.	NS	IN	86400	yns1.yahoo.com.

Looking up at the 2 firstdesigngroup.net. parent servers:

Server	Response
yns2.yahoo.com [66.196.84.168]	68.180.151.74
yns1.yahoo.com [98.136.43.32]	68.180.151.74

The criminal's host is listed as Yahoo and the IP, (68.180.151.74), is the home to many similar frauds. It is so well used by these criminals because Yahoo's response to abuse reports is so clueless and abysmal it borders on the criminal and Melbourne IT also don't want to know - their response is simply to shuffle the responsibility back to Yahoo so these crooks have an easy ride for their criminal activities and keep using them. If you report these clear criminal fraud domains they do occasionally take prompt action, but all too often they can be active for weeks or even indefinitely, depending who you get on their 'abuse desk'.

***Latest News*** 23rd. May 2009
Webpage created

***Latest News*** 26th. May 2009
Yahoo have taken prompt action against this fraudster's domains - please notify me of any active domains for this criminal

***Latest News*** 28th. May 2009
New domain reported by site contact - firstdesignint.biz registered with MELBOURNE IT, LTD. (Yahoo as reseller) - 27-May-2009 and hosted on the above Yahoo network.

***Latest News*** 6th. Jun 2009
The criminal's domain firstdesignint.biz has been suspended. New domain notified by site contact - firstdgroup-inc.com registered with MELBOURNE IT, LTD. (Yahoo as reseller) - 05-Jun-2009 and hosted on the following Yahoo network:
Network Data (Valid for domains firstdgroup-inc.com)
How I am searching:

Searching for firstdgroup-inc.com A record at h.root-servers.net [128.63.2.53]: Got referral to d.gtld-servers.net. (zone: com.)
Searching for firstdgroup-inc.com A record at d.gtld-servers.net. [192.31.80.30]: Got referral to yns1.yahoo.com. (zone: firstdgroup-inc.com.)
Searching for firstdgroup-inc.com A record at yns1.yahoo.com. [98.136.43.32]: Reports firstdgroup-inc.com. Response:

Domain	Type	Class	TTL	Answer
firstdgroup-inc.com.	A	IN	1200	216.39.57.104
firstdgroup-inc.com.	NS	IN	86400	yns1.yahoo.com.
firstdgroup-inc.com.	NS	IN	86400	ns9.san.yahoo.com.
firstdgroup-inc.com.	NS	IN	86400	yns2.yahoo.com.
firstdgroup-inc.com.	NS	IN	86400	ns8.san.yahoo.com.

Looking up at the 2 firstdgroup-inc.com. parent servers:

Server	Response
yns1.yahoo.com [98.136.43.32]	216.39.57.104
yns2.yahoo.com [66.196.84.168]	216.39.57.104

The criminal's host is listed as Alta Vista (Yahoo) on IP address 216.39.57.104.