(347) 438-3116
by Volker Weber
I have just received a phishing mail with the standard money laundering proposal. Receive funds, transfer the money, report ... You know the drift. The mail was in German, and this time they did not use a web address but a phone number.
You can find the phone number on this defunct site: Hudson Investments Inc.
The number is still functional and points to a voice mail/fax box. However:
Area code 347 is a New York City area code used as an overlay to area code 718 and area code 917. It is used in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City. 347 is used for cell phones/pagers/mobile devices, and more recently for other non-geographic numbers such as those offered by Skype and other VoIP services, however all of the other area codes in the city can be used for such services.
The other number on this webpage points to area code 917:
Area code 917 is a New York City telephone area code; it is the standard cellular/pager/voicemail phone area code for all of the city's boroughs and is an overlay to 212, 347, 646 and 718. Currently, 917 is also being assigned to land lines.
Which is probably also not a landline. Does anybody want to call the FBI?
Comments
Usenet tells me that they have been using this phone number since at least mid-August. Makes you wonder why the number is still up after two months.
I do wonder about the scale of these scams, too. All of my spam at the moment is about Stock Pump & Dump, Phishing and Money Laundering. These have been known since years (see this summary of daily sightings, it includes an archive) and at least for pump & dump, it should be traceable by the authorities.
Update: The voice phone number has been used since May or longer. That's half a year of fraud without being stopped by US authorities.
Heres how you can file an on-line internet Crime complaint with the FBI
www.ic3.gov
