Santarex Toys Fraud

Don't Bear Internet Fraud

This fraud should not be confused with the any other company of the same or similar name - the website screenshot and the following fraud evidence refer to this fake company alone and no other.

Santarex Toys scam screenshot - 17-Jan-2010

The Santarex Toys scam appears on the face of it to be a pretty standard money laundering mule fraud website, but it isn't - it's the same MO as the Ebook/Devbill 'Rockphish/Asprox' Infobite Software Ltd. (strawberry websites), and the subsequent AlfaCor, United Swiss Trading Group, Swiss Internet Trading, 1st Class Recruitment, Job Specification, and Job Instructor criminal fraudsters among many others who try to persuade you to set up your own limited company complete with merchant account for the purposes of laundering stolen funds from credit card fraud on the bogus pretext of a retail franchise operation of some sort, exactly as before. Lots of information regarding this particular type of fraud can be found here and here. As can be seen from the above screenshot, these criminals claim to have been in business since 2002, but their initial website domain, (santarextoys.net), was only registered with Directi Internet Solutions Pvt. Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com/HIGH QUALITY HOST COMPANY on 09-Nov-2009 for the usual 'criminal's domain' minimum period of only one year. Their location details are bogus, their site content is stolen from the genuine Silverlit company and their Google internet presence seems to consist of the bogus 'do it yourself' fake press releases that are becoming popular among these crooks and a viral story of an exhibition to the people of Rouen that just doesn't check out as do none of their testimonials. They are not a registered company in their claimed location of Hong Kong, which demonstrates beyond doubt their fraudulent nature - check for yourself. Information from MGD - Santarex Toys is a cloned copy of two previous websites from early 2009, that were confirmed as being used for mule recruiting by the Ebook/Devbill crime syndicate, Tetronixtoys & Quetoys, both of which are now dead. Details here. This is a clear serial fraudster.

Santarex Toys : Evidence of Site Theft and Criminal Fraud

i) The Santarex Toys criminal fraudsters are claiming on their above home page: "Since its establishment in 2002, Santarex Toys is committed to its core business of designing and manufacturing innovative and quality toys for kids of all ages", however, their website domain, (santarextoys.net), was only registered with Directi Internet Solutions Pvt. Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com/HIGH QUALITY HOST COMPANY on 09-Nov-2009 for the usual 'criminal's domain' minimum period of only one year. - a clear indication of a fraudulent registration.

ii) They claim to be located in Hong Kong, but a check of the Hong Kong ICRIS company register shows that they are not a registered company in Hong Kong - irrefutable evidence of a fake company - check for yourself.

iii) Stolen site content - their site content, including their above home page has been stolen from the genuine Hong Kong based Silverlit Toys Manufactory Limited. Clear evidence of site theft and fraud. This is also a clear serial criminal fraudster - details above.

iv) A Google search for "Santarex Toys" returns a tremendous amount of fake presence including lots of 'do-it-yourself' press releases that these crooks are increasingly using to try and give themselves some presence. There's also a viral story of an 'exhibition to the people of Rouen' that has even been picked up by the mainstream news media and apparently "attracted almost the entire population of the city", (A toy exhibition? I doubt it...), but none of it checks out, including "Jean-Pierre David, Rouen’s Deputy of Culture" who is not listed as a Rouen deputy, or "adjoint". This exhibition supposedly took place on November the 2nd 2009, which is a week before their website domain was even registered. I don't think so, somehow.

v) I can't find them listed in any of the exhibitor lists for any of the exhibitions they mention, for instance the Hong Kong Toys and Games Fair or the The Spielwarenmesse International Toy Fair Nürnberg.

vi) The Spam:

From: Alexander Kalmanovsky <career@santarextoys.net>
Subject: Sales Representative/Project Manager Needed! Re:
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2009, 4:51 AM

We cordially invite you to join our great team as a Sales
Representative / Project Manager. Company Santarex Toys Ltd. (China,
Hong Kong) is in the process of expending its operations to the U.S.
market.

The main activity in the United States will be retail sales of our toys.
The main toy categories are:

- Toys for children under 10 years.
- Toys for the age 10 and older, such as remote control toys, buggies
with nitro engines, etc.

We plan to develop a network of sales through our own Internet shops
with help of Sales Representative / Project Manager. We have developed
the necessary marketing strategy. Main duty of a Sales Representative
will be the organization of sale strategies for the products. Our
company is already working on a reliable plan; and, all we need is a
partner whom we can trust.

Please, check the requirements for the job below, and decide if it
works for you:

-Age: must be over 21 years;
-References: positive feedback from the previous employer (possibly
from the last one);
-Knowledge: good or deep knowledge of Word, Excel. Internet Explorer;
-Personal Qualities: communicative, responsible, self-motivation and
self-development;
-Transportation: having a personal car would be a plus;
-You will need to open a company in the state of your residence; it
maybe a LLC, or any other kind of company.

Furthermore:
It can be considered as a part-time employment;
Salary: we have 2 options (from which you will need to choose one variant.):
1. $2,000 USD fixed per month
2. 10% commission on each sale.

You can work with us in parallel with the main activities you have. We
will discuss all the details more once you accept the offer. Also, we
are willing to work around your schedule so that you have more time to
spend with your family. And, the most important part, you are not
required to investment your own funds; all costs are covered
by the company.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon.

--
Best Regards,
Alexander Kalmanovsky,
HR Manager,
Santarex Toys Ltd.

vii) The follow-up response to a query for more information:

Good day xxxxx,
We have received your inquiry with regards to the open vacancy for the position of the Sales Representative/Project Manager at our company.

Please review this brief information below on our company and the job offer itself:

Our company is a complete production cycle of toys at our factory in Shenzhen. At the moment, we are looking for new ways of selling our goods. Due to the financial crisis, the solid number of wholesale orders has significantly dropped. During the last six months, we've have been working with several leading agencies in Hong-Kong on business consulting and eventually developed a fundamentally new scheme for toy sales, targeting the biggest market in the world, the U.S. market. In brief, we were proposed to establish an internet store, where we could use advantage as a manufacturer, namely: flexible pricing, availability of goods in the online store will reach 99%, completion of retail orders, as long as wholesale orders.

In developing the scheme, we are faced with only so-called bottleneck. In China, where we are geographically, is very difficult to conduct e-commerce business focused on exports. The fact is that in any online store, as well as in a regular stores, people first select a product and then pay for it. The difficulty arises when it comes to paying for the products. We had several options in which our online shop will serve the so-called third party processing company. Rather they will handle customer payments in our online store. Such services cost about 25% commission on each sale. For us, it was certainly not favorable. So, we began to look for ways out of this situation, and find an option that will allow us to sell our product in the United States, while the overall level of losses (the commission), would be from 5% to 10%, which is acceptable to our company.

Actually, in order to implement this simple scheme, we need a Sales Representative, our reliable partner, in the USA.

The basic method of payment in the US stores, as demonstrated by our study, is a credit / debit / gift card. As I said, in the case of the scheme implementation in China, we would have to give 25% commission for handling customer payments through third party processing company. In the case of the scheme implementation through a Sales Representative, we will need to give from 5 to 10%, taking into account a Sales Representative's salary.

And so, your main task will be to provide a reliable way to service clients in the online shop, or rather their service charges. For this, there are, so-called, E-commerce Merchant Accounts, which you will need to obtain and link to the online store with our help. As a result, customers will be able to pay for their favorite products in our online store in real time. Unfortunately, we can't achieve it on our own, directly and independently, for only a US citizen can open an E-commerce Merchant Account.

What are our products?

You can find a small portion of our assortiment on our website for your acknowledgment. We manufacture toys from small rattles for newborns, to fully-fledged buggy on nitro-engine. The range of our products is over 1000 titles, which are in constant production.

Price range of goods varies from $1 and up to $2,000.

What is the sale system like and how will it work?

1. We will provide you with an Internet shop; to be more exact, we will develop it for you from scratch and absolutely free of charge for you; it will be a website located on a domain in the .com zone.

2. We will represent a large assortment of toys that we produce in the Internet shop. You task will be to link this Internet shop to the sales system; namely, you will need to obtain an E-commerce Merchant Account.

3. As soon as you have opened an E-commerce Merchant Account, our technical specialists will integrate it into the Internet shop and after that anybody will be able to purchase the products offered there; it will be possible to do that within 2-3 minutes: the customer will simply choose a product, put it into the shopping cart, press the checkout button, enter the information on their credit card - every transaction will be quickly processed, verified, and approved - and if everything is fine, the customer will receive his/her order within 5-12 days, delivered to the door.

Summing it all up, you will receive a full-fledged E-shop ready to begin sales of our toys. It is not only interesting, it is also, in my opinion, an opportunity to try something new for yourself, open the E-commerce market for yourself, and currently this market is the most promising market: many large-scale players have moved their sales to the Internet.

How will the advertising process work ?

We have already concluded preliminary agreements with several Internet companies that are engaged in the promotion of Internet websites, help to generate web traffic and ultimately get the sale. Do not be skeptical; the sales will definitely take place! After all, we have several real advantages:

1) A huge selection;

2) The price as good as wholesale price. Before, you would have to buy a full container to get our product for such a price, and now, a small quantity can be bought for the wholesale price. Actually, it is a very strong dumping, but we need it in order to generate sales.

An important aspect! You do not need to pay for an advertising campaign. You only manage an E-commerce Merchant Account, and we, on the other hand, manage online store, and finally we have an effective scheme of sales.

How will the deliveries of goods work?

During our work we have acquired good contacts with logistics companies that focus on exports to the United States. We work with Fedex, DHL, UPS, Hong Kong Post, China Post, EMS, Austep Cargo, Air China Cargo. The price of the goods will already include its delivery to the U.S. For each order the customer will receive a tracking number, to track the parcel on the road.

What are guarantees for returning of goods in case of defects, damage during shipping, etc.?

First, I want to say that we cherish each and every customer. We have developed a 30-day return warranty on which the goods may be returned for any adequate reason, whether it is a scratch on the case of toys or any other defects. The client needs to send us a defected product back and immediately get a replacement. Or in the case when the client refuses to change, it will be fully refunded at the company expense.

In fact, if you are familiar with eBay, then you probably know that half of the so-called "powersellers" working on a similar scheme, it is called drop shipping.

Drop shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer.

Now, in more details how to make this scheme work.

What do you have to do to open an E-commerce Merchant Account and connect it to your website (your Internet shop)?

1. You will need to register a company in the state of your residence; it can be either an LLC company, or a Corp, INC, etc. Besides, if you already have a company of your own that is properly registered; you can use it for the purposes of this project without any problems.

2. You will need to obtain the TAX ID so that in future you would be able to pay taxes, files tax returns, etc.

3. The last thing is to open an E-commerce Merchant Account; you will need to open it at one of the local banks in your town. We will work together with you on analyzing all the offers with regards to e-commerce merchant accounts at the banks in your town and we will choose the best one together.

The company is necessary for the following purposes:

1. You will be able to run the business, as Internet sales are a full-scale business and it has to be registered as such.

2. You will not be able to open an e-commerce merchant account for your website without a registered company; the e-commerce merchant account presupposes that you have sales and you, therefore, have to be a registered company, as the e-commerce merchant account is a banking instrument for effecting sales through the Internet, and sales always mean that you are carrying our commercial business activities, hence you have to pay taxes, etc. There is no business without it being a registered company; any business should be formalized as some form/kind of a company.

The following information is needed to understand the duties and to properly execute the variety of your responsibilities.

What are our responsibilities and obligations towards you?

1) High-quality support for our products.

2) Full responsibility before future customers.

3) Thorough marketing policies in order to ensure a good level of sales.

4) Our guarantee of providing only high quality and tested products.

5) Paying salary in full and on time.

What are your responsibilities and obligations towards us?

1) Maintaining of efficient marketing scheme:

- Active Merchant Account;

- Active company;

- Timely payments for Merchant account fees (through future turnover of the company).

2) Providing accounting reports 1-2 times a month in order to synchronize with accounting reporting of Santarex Toys Ltd

3) Work with chargebacks, preparation of documents for disputing chargebacks, keeping record of the statistics.

How will customer be serviced?

A special call center will be set up for the project. So every client would be able to call and immediately get an answer.

What about advertising and promotion of the project?

At the initial stage we will implement 100% support for the project on promotion and advertising.

How would be profit allocated?

First of all, I would like to emphasize that you can use our offer as a part-time job; together with you, we will devise a flexible working schedule that will be convenient for you, and we will be working based on both our possibilities and yours, taking our mutual capabilities into consideration.

At the same time, our offer can be treated as a full-time job; that will depend entirely on you.

There are 2 options:

· Fixed-sum salary, in which case you will be guaranteed 2,000$ per month; or, to be more exact, no later than 28-31 days after the date of the launch of the project. The project is considered launched and running when a customer can purchase any products through the internet shop, i.e. most of that depends on you, or more specifically on when you will be able to have the e-commerce merchant account ready for your Internet shop.

· Commission based salary, i.e. you will be getting 10% from each sale affected, and you will be receiving your salary immediately upon the successful completion of a purchase in the Internet store. That means that if there are sales every day, you will be getting your commission money every day, and your salary will not be limited to 2000$; if the turnover of the project is over 20000$ a month, your salary will consequently be over 2000$ a month. But, by the same token, if the turnover of the project is less than 20000$, your salary will remain the same 10% commission from each sale effected through the website.

You will need to decide on either one of the two salary options described above before we can sign the contract.

What do I get as a result?

- You get a website made by outstanding professionals in the field of design absolutely free of charge;

- The entire product that you are going to sell is free as well;

- Unlimited Customer Support Service;

- Unlimited Advertising Support;

- The ability to earn money at any time that is convenient to you;

- You create your working schedule on your own.

IMPORTANT! You do not need to invest your own funds.

We understand the situation in the world economy, and are, therefore, willing to allocate the necessary funds, immediately after signing the contract.

This is a summary of the project, but it contains all the points that you need to know about this position.

While we are checking your candidacy, you can ask all the questions you might have in regards to the position. In case if you have not responded within 72 hours, your candidacy will be withdrawn.

Have a great day!

--
Best Regards,
Alexander Kalmanovsky,
HR Manager,
Santarex Toys Ltd.

And there you have it - different long-winded spiel but exactly the same principle of a free website associated with a mule-registered merchant account and company. The whole purpose of the above operation is to persuade unwary potential victims to enrol in money laundering fraud derived from phishing operations carried out against the real victim's credit cards. It's a more or less identical scam MO to the crook's previous e-Book/Devbill aliases as listed above.

How the scam works: Amounts of money are stolen by the criminals from victims credit cards by making unauthorised charges for non-existent products supposedly provided by the fake "subsidiary company" that has been set up in the mule's name and the charges are paid into the mules associated merchant account. The mule then refunds 90% of all amounts that are paid into his merchant account back to the criminals via Moneygram or Western Union, keeping 10% for himself. This is a classic money laundering operation and the stolen money will be traceable directly to the mug who has been suckered into setting up the fake company and merchant account in his/her name by these very plausible criminals. The first thing they will know about it is when the police come knocking at their door and their nightmare will begin - they will lose a lot of money and end up facing criminal charges - don't say you haven't been warned.

viii) Fake location details from the website: (Remember that they are not a registered company in Hong Kong, so they are not going to be genuine)

Company name: Santarex Toys Ltd
Company address: Worldwide Executive Centre, 9/F World-Wide House, 19 Des Voeux Road Central
City: Hong Kong, China
Phone: +852 8120 3741

• - A Google search for the address "Worldwide Executive Centre, 9/F World-Wide House, 19 Des Voeux Road Central City: Hong Kong, China" returns no hits.
• - A Google Maps business search for the address "Worldwide Executive Centre, 9/F World-Wide House, 19 Des Voeux Road Central City: Hong Kong, China" also returns no hits.
• - A Google search for the telephone number "+852 8120 3741" returns no hits apart from their own produced fake 'press releases'

There may be associated mule websites involved in this fraud and also possibly other main website domains. If you know of any other domains or any 'subsidiary company' websites, please let me know about them.

The above evidence clearly demonstrates that the Santarex Toys website is a criminal website set up with intent to deceive and defraud. 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 fraud - 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.

Santarex Toys Ltd Fraudsters - hosting details.

Main Domains, Hosts and Registrars

Domain

santarextoys.net
santarextoys.com

Registrar

Directi Internet Solutions Pvt. Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com/HIGH QUALITY HOST COMPANY (09-Nov-2009)
Directi Internet Solutions Pvt. Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com/HIGH QUALITY HOST COMPANY (04-nov-2009)

Host

MTW-NET(mtw.ru) of Moscow, Russia
MTW-NET(mtw.ru) of Moscow, Russia

IP Address

88.212.201.52
88.212.201.52

Key:
Active
Suspended/Disabled
Parked
Redirect Error

If you've either received an active website link in a spam, or know of an active domain and it is not listed in the domain tables above, then please let us know by reporting it using the 'Report Active Domain' option in the title bar above.

Domain Whois Data:

Domain Name: SANTAREXTOYS.NET
Registrar:     DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
Status:        ok
Dates:         Created 09-nov-2009   Updated 08-jan-2010 Expires 09-nov-2010
DNS Servers:   NS1.ECHO-HOST.COM NS2.ECHO-HOST.COM

Registration Service Provided By: HIGH QUALITY HOST COMPANY
Contact: +1.6462130098

Registrant:
    PrivacyProtect.org
    Domain Admin        (contact@privacyprotect.org)
    P.O. Box 97
    Note - All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
    Moergestel
    null,5066 ZH
    NL
    Tel. +45.36946676

Creation Date: 09-Nov-2009
Expiration Date: 09-Nov-2010

Domain servers in listed order:
    ns2.echo-host.com
    ns1.echo-host.com

Administrative Contact:
    PrivacyProtect.org
    Domain Admin        (contact@privacyprotect.org)
    P.O. Box 97
    Note - All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
    Moergestel
    null,5066 ZH
    NL
    Tel. +45.36946676

Technical Contact:
    PrivacyProtect.org
    Domain Admin        (contact@privacyprotect.org)
    P.O. Box 97
    Note - All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
    Moergestel
    null,5066 ZH
    NL
    Tel. +45.36946676

Billing Contact:
    PrivacyProtect.org
    Domain Admin        (contact@privacyprotect.org)
    P.O. Box 97
    Note - All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
    Moergestel
    null,5066 ZH
    NL
    Tel. +45.36946676

Status:ACTIVE

Domain Name: SANTAREXTOYS.COM
   Registrar: DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
   Whois Server: whois.PublicDomainRegistry.com
   Referral URL: http://www.PublicDomainRegistry.com
   Name Server: NS1.ECHO-HOST.COM
   Name Server: NS2.ECHO-HOST.COM
   Status: ok
   Updated Date: 03-jan-2010
   Creation Date: 04-nov-2009
   Expiration Date: 04-nov-2010

Registration Service Provided By: HIGH QUALITY HOST COMPANY
Contact: +1.6462130098

Registrant:

Cooper llc.

Fake registrant details - redacted

Creation Date: 04-Nov-2009
Expiration Date: 04-Nov-2010

Domain servers in listed order:
    ns2.echo-host.com
    ns1.echo-host.com

Administrative Contact:

Cooper llc.

Fake registrant details - redacted

Technical Contact:

Cooper llc.

Fake registrant details - redacted

Billing Contact:

Cooper llc.

Fake registrant details - redacted

Status:ACTIVE

DNS Lookup: santarextoys.net A record (Also valid for santarextoys.com)
Searching for santarextoys.net A record at k.root-servers.net [193.0.14.129]: Got referral to h.gtld-servers.net. (zone: net.)
Searching for santarextoys.net A record at h.gtld-servers.net. [192.54.112.30]: Got referral to ns2.echo-host.com. (zone: santarextoys.net.)
Searching for santarextoys.net A record at ns2.echo-host.com. [88.212.201.90]: Reports santarextoys.net.
Response:

Domain	Type	Class	TTL	Answer
santarextoys.net.	A	IN	14400	88.212.201.52
santarextoys.net.	NS	IN	14400	ns1.echo-host.com.
santarextoys.net.	NS	IN	14400	ns2.echo-host.com.
ns1.echo-host.com.	A	IN	14400	88.212.201.52
ns2.echo-host.com.	A	IN	14400	88.212.201.90

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

Server	Response
ns1.echo-host.com [88.212.201.52]	88.212.201.52
ns2.echo-host.com [88.212.201.90]	88.212.201.52

The host for this domain is MTW-NET(mtw.ru) of Moscow, Russia on IP address 88.212.201.52. The same IP address was previously used for the Assets Variety scam and is also currently hosting the identical Assets Capital fraud.

***Latest News*** Initial entry 17th. January 2010

***Latest News*** 20th. January 2010
Report from Simon Bear - the domains santarextoys.net and santarextoys.com have been deleted by the registrar. Please notify me of any active domains for this criminal.