Web Ground is one of a number of identical Russian 'technoscams'
including Unix Hosting, Sun Hosting, (dead), Star
Net, Maestro Hosting, Web
Star and no doubt others. All using a fake webhosting front
company to hide the usual money
laundering part time work from home 'job' that consists of accepting
stolen funds from credit card fraud into your private bank
account and transferring them back out via Moneygram or Western Union.
In this case their current domains webgroundltd.net and webgroundonline.org
were only registered with Melbourne IT (Yahoo) on 20-Nov-2007
and
the
registrant's whois details are hidden by Privacy Protect which is not the action of a legitimate company. Their website uses content
stolen from a variety of places, including The Planet. For example,
their "Executive team" texts are stolen
from the Webhostingbuzz website and the photographs of their supposed Executive team are actually the Opera Software Executive team. Here is
a Web
Groundvictim's story, from Rip-Off
report, along with a couple of reports from victims of the identical fraud Unix Hosting here and here. The fake company is not registered in its supposed headquarters state of NY & the company location details are bogus.
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.
Evidence of
Criminal Fraud:
i)
According to the Web Ground home page (linked screenshot
above):
"We have created and
launched hundreds of successful websites since our inception". However, their
current domain webgroundltd.net
was only registered with Melbourne IT (Yahoo) on 20-Nov-2007
and
the
registrant's whois details are hidden by Privacy Protect which is not the action of a legitimate company.
ii) A search of the New York state 'Corporation and Business Entity Database' shows that there is no such company as 'Webground' registered in the state in which it claims to have its headquarters. Clear evidence of fraud. iii) The Web Ground
Inc. website carries the
following "PayPal Gateway Administrator Vacancy" money mule criminal solicitation
under the "Careers" tab. TheJob Description for this task is
as follows: Job Details
Job Title: PayPal Gateway Administrator
Requisition Number
07-45638
Post Date
26/11/07
Location
Home Based (working from home)
Branch/Dept.
Transfer Department
Type
On-line Vacancy
Status
Part Time
Description
The PayPal Gateway Administrator will be part of the Transfer
Department Team and be responsible for the development, execution, and
transferring electronic currency between Pay Pal, Western Union and
Money Gram systems for our customers. Focus will be on operations,
reporting, budgeting, and planning of the company's on-going paid
initiatives. More info about this vacancy you can read here.
That is a clear
'money mule' function, transferring funds via Moneygram and Western Union. No
legitimate company is going to advertise
for this sort of part time, 'work from home' money transfer
position among the uncertified general population overseas, to do so defines the company
as both bogus and criminal. Clicking on the 'more info' link takes you to this text: PayPal Gateway Administrator Vacancy
The newly formed Transfer Department is responsible for driving the
payments between eBay's paid systems, Pay Pal, Western Union and Money
Gram. This Transfer Department is part of the Web Ground team, whose
mission is web hosting and web design service.
PayPal Gateway Administrator Vacancy
The PayPal Gateway Administrator will be part of the Transfer
Department Team and be responsible for the development, execution, and
transferring electronic currency between Pay Pal, Western Union and
Money Gram systems for our customers. Focus will be on operations,
reporting, budgeting, and planning of the company's on-going paid
initiatives.
Responsibilities
Maintain and operate day-to-day campaign spend and allocation for internal paid application.
Identify and analyze data/performance trends and communicate performance numbers to management on a weekly basis.
Identify and execute optimization initiatives to increase campaign ROI.
Drive global coordination, prioritization, and planning for our paid programs.
Identify, document, and communicate global electronic paid best practices.
Share accountability for meeting Transfer Department team's aggressive revenue and efficiency targets.
Salary
$700 USD per week.
Training
Training by means of a several test transactions online. Training is free of charge.
iv) The critical sentence is the last one. The training is actually the job and consists of 'several test transactions'
consisting of accepting stolen funds from credit card fraud into your
account and transferring them back to the criminals via Moneygram and
Western Union. After these fraud 'test transactions' are completed, all
communication with the fake company ceases and no more is heard from
them as per this victim's story. Clear evidence of criminal fraud.
v) The
criminals 'Executive Team' text details have all
been stolen from the Webhostingbuzz website and renamed, (albeit rather carelessly as the bio for the fake "Michael Maison" mistakenly includes a reference to the stolen persona of Alex). The photographs of their supposed Executive team are actually the Opera Software management team. Absolutely irrefutable evidence of criminal fraud. vi) Contact Details from the website:
Headquarters in Brooklyn, USA Address
Web Ground 100 Whitman Drive NY 11234 Brooklyn USA
Web Ground Rm. 1002, Full Tower No.3 DongSanHuanZhong Road 100020, Beijing
Tel: +86 10 85 91 18 30
Seoul, Korea
Web Ground Suite 702, City Air Terminal, 152-6 Samsung-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
Tel: +82 2 551 3876 Fax: +82 2 551 3879 • - According to nyc.gov building records,
the address 100 Whitman Drive, NY 11234 Brooklyn is an individually
owned residential family home (Occupancy J-3, zoning R2) and is
certainly not the headquarters of these criminals. Clear evidence of fraud. • -
The 'satellite offices' are all exactly the same as for all of the
criminal's other identical fraud aliases, but the head office addresses
differ. Clear evidence of fraud. • -
A USPS Zip code check on the address 4242 Jutland Dr. San Diego returns the following message: "The
address you provided is not recognized by the US Postal Service as an
address we serve. Mail sent to this address may be returned". It is a fake address. Clear verifiable evidence of fraud.The above
evidence clearly demonstrates beyond any doubt that the Web Ground
Inc. website has been set up very recently by
money laundering
criminals purely for
the
purpose of spamvertising an illegal money laundering 'mule' job. 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 webgroundltd.net webgroundonline.org
Registrar
Melbourne IT (Yahoo) 20-Nov-2007 Melbourne IT (Yahoo) 20-Nov-2007
Active Suspended/Disabled Network
Data
(Valid for domain webgroundltd.net, webgroundonline.org)
How I am searching:
Searching for webgroundltd.net A record at b.root-servers.net
[192.228.79.201]: Got referral to B.GTLD-SERVERS.net. (zone: net.) Searching for webgroundltd.net A record at B.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
[192.33.14.30]: Got referral to yns2.yahoo.com. (zone:
webgroundltd.net.) Searching for webgroundltd.net A record at yns2.yahoo.com. [66.196.84.168]: Reports webgroundltd.net. Response:
Domain
Type
Class
TTL
Answer
webgroundltd.net.
A
IN
1200
216.39.58.199
webgroundltd.net.
A
IN
1200
216.39.58.200
webgroundltd.net.
A
IN
1200
216.39.58.201
webgroundltd.net.
A
IN
1200
216.39.58.202
webgroundltd.net.
A
IN
1200
216.39.58.203
webgroundltd.net.
A
IN
1200
216.39.58.204
webgroundltd.net.
NS
IN
86400
yns1.yahoo.com.
webgroundltd.net.
NS
IN
86400
ns9.san.yahoo.com.
webgroundltd.net.
NS
IN
86400
yns2.yahoo.com.
webgroundltd.net.
NS
IN
86400
ns8.san.yahoo.com.
yns1.yahoo.com.
A
IN
1800
66.218.71.205
yns2.yahoo.com.
A
IN
1800
216.109.116.20
ns8.san.yahoo.com.
A
IN
1800
66.218.71.205
ns9.san.yahoo.com.
A
IN
1800
216.109.116.20
Status: Records all match.
Looking up at the 2 webgroundltd.net. parent servers:
The host for this criminal is the Yahoo 'small business network' so often used by these criminals.
Fraud
Log
25th.
July 2008 Webpage created ***Latest News*** 24th. September 2008 Report from site contact - domain webgroundonline.org disabled. Please notify me of any active domains/website URLs. ***Latest News*** 8th. May 2009
Page consigned to archive - please notify me of any activity from this criminal.
