B2BL: B2B spam

Did you receive B2B spam selling email addresses from the India-based Data Champions / Sloan Marketing group today?

Were you wondering if the return address on that spam is a fake person? Funny how that company doesn’t have a web site, or the “person” doesn’t always have a phone number, or maybe the company doesn’t even have a name…

Do a bit of homework, and you’ll find many examples of the Data Champions scam emails, sent from non-existent “companies” or spam servers that seem to be anonymous.

Some recent Data Champions spam sent from their new sam.hosting-servers.co spam servers in the 178.33.* IP range include:

• “Get Business Growth (Vendors E-mail Ids)” subject, signed by a so-called “Leanne browning” (leanne.browning@businessprocesses.us)
• “Get Business Growth (Vendors E-mail Ids)” subject, signed “Laverne” (laverne@eveningsky.net)
• “Business Database” and “Email List 2011” subject, signed “Renee, Online Marketing Manager, Multi List Source” (renee.lane@roitree.net)
• “B2B/B2C Professionals Data Bank” subject, signed “Joanna, Database & Appending Solutions” (joanna@data-cleansed.com)
• “Affordable Email Lists” subject, signed “Audrey Ray, Smart Player, Inc,” (audrey.ray@smartplayer.info)
• “Portfolio of B2B/B2C Databases With Email Address” subject, signed “Alberta, Marketing Manager, Accurate Contacts, Inc” (alberta@hosting-servers.co)
• “Source of Qualified Leads” subject, signed “Donna Harper (donna.harper@paper2green.com), Director of Online Marketing, Paper 2 Green LLC” (the fake Paper2green company has been around for a while)

Data Champions spam is also still coming from their spam servers on bodhost.com (such as expromail.com [174.141.227.216], hostmailer.biz [174.141.226.106], s91as.com [174.141.226.127], ap1host.com [174.141.226.217], 11and12.net [174.141.226.103], ajaxsourcing.com / intersoftech.com [174.142.175.217]). Samples:

• “From” addresses like: audrey.harris@corporatenext.com, vanessa.wright@corporatenext.com, carol.myers@p-dmails.com, natalie.jones@eventinfopark.com, bruce.wilson@acquiredatanetworking.com, jim@mercurydesk.com, anna.dugan@dbchannels.info, amy.adkins@dbchannels.info, william.levy@ready4leads.net, peterw@communicate-pro.com
• Signatures like: “Audrey Harris, Marketing Manager / Lists Division, GDC Marketing Group,” “Audrey Harris, Director of Market Research, GDC Marketing Group,” “Nancy Ford, Online Marketing Manager, Corporate Next Inc,” “Natalie Jones, Technology List Specialist,” “Bruce, Marketing Consultant,” “Chris Andrews, Business Development,” “Vanessa Wright, Senior Marketing Manager, Corporatenext Inc,” “Carol Myers, Senior Business Co-ordinator,” “Anna Dugan, Business Development Consultant,” “William Levy, Consulting”
• Subject lines like: “Year 2011 email Marketing initiatives,” “Popular Technology Users Lists,” “Technology Client Lists,” “Inquiry regarding online marketing initiatives,” “Appending services,” “Custom Growth solutions for,” “Buy the future of your business through Technology,” “Updated Technology Users List And Other Email Data,” “Lists – Connecting Client,” “Database Updates – Technology Users,” “Verified Business Email Contacts”

11and12.net is a brand-new spam server domain registered last week and used by the India-based Data Champions / Sloan Marketing scam group to send out their B2B spam selling email addresses. It’s hosted at bodhost.com in the [174.141.226.*] IP range (174.141.226.103 to be exact), like many of their spam server domains.

Communicate-pro.com is another Data Champions spam domain that we note. Spam from a so-called “Peter Walker, Business Development Executive” from “Futuristic Group” is being sent with a peterw@communicate-pro.com return address, but the actual email contains a peter.walker@futuristicinc.org signature.

Futuristicinc.org is a Data Champions B2B spam domain that has been around for a while. Like many Data Champions’ domains, it doesn’t have a web site. Spam from this same peter.walker@futuristicinc.org signature was sent from Data Champions’ hosting102.net spam server last year [115.124.102.115], long before 11and12.net was born.

Sample scam email extract:

Hi, My Name is Peter Walker; I handle the pre-package list division of my company Futuristic Group. We specialize in B2B marketing lists; Lists that will enable the growth of your company – by adding new contacts to your marketing database.

I would like to keep you informed about our latest verified index of 931,582+ Top IT and Financial Decision Makers from IT, Healthcare and Manufacturing Industries….

Other similar B2B spam today (Web Intellectuals)

A so-called “Michael Harris,” of “List Division [no company name]” (302-353-4434), is sending spam with a michael@wiemails.us return address. As far as we can tell, wiemails.us and wiemails.info are shorthand for web-intellectuals.com.

B2B spam from this department may signed with return addresses like james.clayton@datumemail.com, steve.adams@wiemails.us, peter.hood@wiemails.us, ed.sanford@wiemails.info, ed.sanford@web-intellectuals.com, ed.sanford@web-intellectualls.net, alan.fisher@web-intellectualls.com, jim.hurly@web-Intellectual.net, richard.mendel@m2pdata.us, and joe.brant@m2pdata.us.

“Web Intellectuals”/wiemails.com phone numbers are usually something Delaware-based like 302-353-4434. A nearby phone number, 302-353-4442, has been used in many spams signed with “Infinity Intellectual” addresses (instead of “Web Intellectuals).” “Infinity Intellectual” addresses often resemble names like infinity-intellectual-mail.com, infinity-intellectual-email.com, infinity-intellectual.info, and infinity-intellectuals.com.

s91as.com has no web site. It was just registered anonymously a few days ago, so there’s no information about it, except that it’s hosted at 174.141.227.188 on the bodhost.com network, near several other Data Champions /Sloan Marketing spamming domains.

But s91as.com does send B2B spam. And it’s Data Champions / Sloan Marketing B2B spam. B2B spam selling you email addresses, and signed with person names that are as fake as the names used in the domain registration.

So which B2B spam is s91as.com sending? Spam signed “Fiona Steel” (fionas@clublistsonline.com), has been sent from s91as.com. Spam with this signature has also been sent from another Data Champions spam server on the bodhost.com network: 101server.com. Sometimes, “Fiona” is signed as a “Marketing Coordinator,” sometimes as a “Marketing Executive.” It doesn’t matter much, since she doesn’t exist.

B2B spam sent from s91as.com has also been signed “William Levy” (william.levy@ready4leads.net). Previously, spam with this return address had been sent from 101server.com [174.141.227.188], just like the earlier “Fiona Steel” spam mentioned above.

In the body of the message, his spam is signed, “William Levy, Consulting.” Some older “William Levy” spams are signed, “William Levy, Senior Marketing Consultant, Database Management Consultant.” Titles change.

A few of the numerous Data Champions spam server domains hosted at bodhost.com are 101mailx.com [174.141.226.215], hostmailer.biz [174.141.226.106], intersoftech.com [174.142.175.217], and expromail.com [174.141.227.216]. Just look for 174.141.* in the IP address.

B2B spam coming from these domains might have return addresses like “Adora Arch” (adora.arch@p-dmails.com), “Vanessa Wright” (vanessa.wright@corporatenext.com), “Gaby Long” (gabyl@tech-contacts.com), and “James Clayton” (james@datumonline.net, james@datumemail.com or james@datummails.com).

There’s no web site at tech-contacts.com, but a so-called “Gaby Long” from there (gabyl@tech-contacts.com) sent us spam from an anonymous spam server called 101mailx.com [174.141.226.215], hosted on the bodhost.com network.

“Gaby” is selling email addresses to people like us who supposedly want to send spam. The subject line of her spam is “RedHat Users List.” The presumption is that we want to send spam to people who use Red Hat Linux.

This is a perfect example of B2B spam from the shady Data Champions/Sloan Marketing group, based in India:

• the sending company (tech-contact.com) has no web site, no address, and no company name
• the company’s domain-name registration is bogus and was registered just last week
• the spam was sent from an anonymous spam server (101mailx.com) hosted at bodhost.com

The email is signed, “Gaby Long, Marketing Executive IT Division.” The signatures usually are signed by “executives,” “consultants,” or similar sorts of names.

Several of the anonymous B2B spam servers used by the India-based Data Champions are hosted at bodhost.com, just like hostmailer.biz at (174.141.226.106).

Hostmailer.biz has no web site, even though it was registered almost a year ago. It is part of a long line of anonymous B2B spam servers with innocuous names like hostedmailsend.com, foxwebhosting.biz, appdns3host.com, beetalhosting.com, hostforweb.net, hostserver045, webhostingcloud.biz, mailhostbox.com, hostkey53.net, hosting102.net, zinglebellhosting.com, titans-hosting.com, etc.

Some B2B spam selling email addresses from hostmailer.biz has a return address of “Melissa World” (melissa.world@dbchannels.info). However, inside, the spam may be signed by mistake “Viktoriya Shaw, Business Development Consultant,” instead of “Melissa World.”

With so many fake person names and domain names, Data Champions’ B2B spam is inevitably going to display a few mistakes from time to time.

We usually see the “Viktoriya Shaw” name in spam with globalitsearch.com (viktoriya.shaw@globalitsearch.com) and eventinfopark.com (viktoriya.shaw@eventinfopark.com) return addresses instead of dbchannels.info.

“Viktoriya Shaw” spam might also be mailed from these B2B spam servers: hostedmailsend.com [174.141.226.241], mail365mx.com [174.141.225.60], glazingm.com [96.9.170.220].

New B2B spam today from the India-based Data Champions group: elistproviders.com. This one was actually mailed from India too (net4india.com), instead of from an anonymous American or European mail server like hostedmailsend.com, zinglebellhosting.com or baxterop.info.

Nonetheless, elistproviders.com is anonymous and has no web site, nor address nor phone number. Elistproviders.com was just registered a few months ago. This B2B spam is signed by a so-called “Frank Gibbs, Business Development, eListProviders.”

Sample spam text:

Hi,

Have access to Specific Lists with full contact details including email address.

Job titles like: CEO/President, CFO, CIO/CTO, CLO, COO, V- Level, D- Level and Managers etc.

Fields like: Company Name, Web Address, Contact Name, Title, Mailing Address, Phone & Fax number, Industry, SIC Code, Email Address etc.

Grab this offer at minimal price. Please let me know your target audience as below.

Target Market:………………. Titles:……………………… Target
Geography:……………………..

It would help us to provide break down of counts, pricing as well as required info.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Regards,

Frank Gibbs
Business Development
eListProviders

One subset of B2B spam from India-based Data Champions might be called the “aboutwebinars.com” / Initiate Venture group.

Domains such as visionharvest.com, mappingtitles.com or businesscontacts.com will often appear in the email headers and the spam is often sent from anonymous spam servers like titans-hosting.com (just registered March 16, 2011), baxterop.info, or zinglebellhosting.com [178.33.213.*].

Of course, there is no web site at aboutwebinars.com, but these spams will sometimes be signed as if aboutwebinars.com were a real company. Signatures in these B2B spams vary a lot. Some claim to be from Initiate Venture, some from Clone Businesses, some from Hourly Acquired Leads. The names evolve continuously.

A few of the “senders” of these spams lately has included:

• “Justine Mclean” (justine.mclean@clonebusinesses.com)
• “Tara Ryan” (tara.ryan@clonebusinesses.com)
• “Vicky Goodwin” (vicky.goodwin@hourlyacquiredleads.com)
• “Courtney” (eva.dyer@hourlyacquiredleads.com)
• “Andrew Tyler” (andrew.tyler@hourlyacquiredleads.com)
• “Mable Paul” (mable.paul@hourlyacquiredleads.com)
• “Sarah Johnson” (sarah.johnson@hourlyacquiredleads.com)
• “marcella.lindsey” (marcella.lindsey@businessprocesses.us), aka kathleen.brown@acquiredbusinesses.com)
• “Tony White” (tony.white@aboutwebinars.com)
• “Raquel Michael” (raquel.michael@aboutwebinars.com)
• “Mark Johnson” (mark.johnson@paper2green.com)
• “Melissa Hyde” (melissa.hyde@paper2green.com)
• “Dan Lopez” (dan.lopez@paper2green.com)
• “Leanne Browning” (leanne.browning@businessprocesses.us)
• “Jenny Castro” (jenny.castro@sellingint.net)
• “AADA” (carol.parker@interestedcontacts.com)
• “Lee Hubbard” (lee.hubbard@roitree.net)
• “Christine Saylor” (Christine.Saylor@prospectsroi.com)
• “Alma” (alma.austin@data-cleansed.com)

Signatures at the foot of these B2B spams also involves continuously; a few examples:

• Tara Ryan | About Webinar, Inc. | 100 Church Street | 7th Floor | New York City, NY 10007 | United States | PH: 800-316-0891 (it’s allegedly just a mail-drop address, and not a real office).
• Tara Ryan | Build Emails Lists | 9600 Great Hills Trail | Suite 152W | Austin, Texas 78759 | United States| Ph-800-305-1062
• Justin Mclean | Clone Businesses, Inc, 5th Street Downtown Los Angeles | Los Angeles | California 90013| USA US – 213-455-2094 | UK – +44 (0) 20 7023 9263
• Vicky Goodwin | Online Marketing Manager | Hourly Acquired Leads Inc., |1024 Iron Point Road | Folsom,California 95630 | Tel: 800 294 5407| UK Enquires | MWB, 60 Cannon Street | London EC4N 6NP | +44 (0) 20 7023 926
• Courtney Day | Marketing Manager | Business Emails List | 1024 Iron Point Road | Folsom,California 95630 | Tel: 800 294 5407| UK Enquires | MWB, 60 Cannon Street | London EC4N 6NP | +44 (0) 20 7023 926
• kathleen.brown | Online Marketing Manger | Business Emails List | 1024 Iron Point Road | Folsom, California 95630, United States | PH:- 213-455-2094 kathleen.brown@acquiredbusinesses.com
• Andrew Tyler | Online Marketing Manager | HAL, Inc. | 7233 Lake Ellenor Dr .| Suite 100, Orlando, FL 32809 | Ph: 800-305-1062
• Mable Paul | Marketing Manager | Initiate Venture, Inc. – ( Building your Business with Email Contacts ) 100 Church Street | 7th Floor |New York City, NY 10007 | United States | PH : 800-316-0891
• Courtney Day Marketing Manager | Business Emails List | 1024 Iron Point Road | Folsom,California 95630 | Tel: 800 294 5407| UK Enquires | MWB, 60 Cannon Street | London EC4N 6NP | +44 (0) 20 7023 926
• Alma Austin | Online Marketing Manager | Data Services Inc | 1024 Iron Point Road | Folsom, California 95630 | United States | PH:- 213-455-2094 | alma.austin@data-cleansed.com
• Sarah Johnson | Online Marketing Manager | Data-Cleansed .Inc | 100 Church Street,7th Floor New York City, New York 1007 United States | 1800-316-0891 | sarah.johnson@hourlyacquiredleads.com
• Carol Parker | (Online Marketing Manager) Data-Cleansed .Inc | 100 Church Street,7th Floor New York City, New York 1007 United States | 1800-316-0891
• Carol Parker | Online Marketing Manager | Application Users Inc., |1024 Iron Point Road | Folsom,California 95630 | Tel: 800 294 5407| UK Enquires | MWB, 60 Cannon Street | London EC4N 6NP | +44 (0) 20 7023 926|
• Tony White | About Webinar, Inc.| 100 Church Street | 7th Floor |New York City, NY 10007 | United States | PH : 800-316-0891
• Tony White | Online Marketing Manager | Application Users Inc., |1024 Iron Point Road | Folsom,California 95630 | Tel: 800 294 5407| UK Enquires | MWB, 60 Cannon Street | London EC4N 6NP | +44 (0) 20 7023 926|
• Dan Lopez | Online Marketing Manager | Top Lists Inc., | 1024 Iron Point Road | Folsom,California 95630 | Tel: 800 294 5407| UK Enquires | MWB, 60 Cannon Street | London EC4N 6NP | +44 (0) 20 7023 926|
• Lee Hubbard| Online Marketing Manager| Business Emails List | 1024 Iron Point Road | Folsom, California 95630 | United States | PH:- 213-455-2094 |
• Leanne Browning I Marketing Manager I Brand Marketing Strategy I 100 Church Street 7th Floor I New York 10007 United States I Ph 1800-316-0891
• Raquel Michael | Marketing Manager | Initiate Venture, Inc. – ( Building your Business with Email Contacts ) | 100 Church Street | 7th Floor |New York City, NY 10007 | United States | PH : 800-316-0891
• Mark Johnson I Marketing Manager I Brand Marketing Strategy I 100 Church Street 7th Floor I New York 10007 United States I Ph 1800-316-0891
• Jenny Castro| Marketing Manager | Initiate Venture, Inc. – ( Building your Business with Email Contacts ) | 100 Church Street | 7th Floor |New York City, NY 10007 | United States | PH : 800-316-0891 |Email- jenny.castro@sellingint.net
• Christine Saylor I Marketing Manager I Brand Marketing Strategy I 100 Church Street 7th Floor I New York 10007 United States I Ph 1800-316-0891| Email: Christine.Saylor@prospectsroi.com
• Melissa Hyde | Marketing Manager | Paper2Green, Inc. – [ Building your business with Email Contacts ] | T: 800-316-0891 |100 Church Street, 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007 | United States |

For some reason, these aboutwebinars.com spams often link to throwaway numeric domains, like http://87.98.217.152/~mapping, 94.23.214.67, 91.121.10.133, 74.222.11.162, http://178.33.77.65/~visionh/, or 89.187.154.93.

We’ve seen occasional B2B spam for the last few years from from the Netprospex group, usually using the netprospex.com and netprospexdb.com domain names. These domains don’t seem to stay on black lists very long, so we’ve added them to our own internal blocking lists.

Their latest spam is especially obnoxious, because it warns you that you will be spammed further unless you click their opt-out link to unsubscribe:

Last week, you received an email informing you that you will begin receiving business related emails from NetProspex Direct. Before the emails begin, I wanted to be absolutely certain that our emails are welcome.

Of course, the sender doesn’t care that their spam isn’t welcome, or they wouldn’t be sending this piece of spam in the first place!

These latest spams link to the mardevdm2.com, dm2lists.com and dm2decisionmaker.com domains, none of which we’ve seen on blacklists yet. Maybe they’ve purchased their way onto a whitelist somewhere. Any email that mentions the term “decision maker” is almost guaranteed to be spam on our system.

We blacklist mardevdm2.com, dm2lists.com and dm2decisionmaker.com because they have no good reason to contact us except to send spam and try to sell us lists of email addresses.

One of the many dozens of identifies used by the Data Champions group to sign their B2B spam is “Bruce Wilson.” They use the “Bruce Wilson” name in conjunction with their acquiredatanetworking.com domain name.

Of course, there is no web site at acquiredatanetworking.com. One recent spam we’ve seen from them says, “Going through your website I understand your target audience is IT decision makers. Or if you already have an existing database with missing information, get it cleansed or appended today.” The spam is signed, “Regards, Bruce, Marketing Consultant.”

However, earlier spam received from “Bruce” is signed “Bruce Wilson, Business Development Manager.” It doesn’t matter much, since he doesn’t exist, and has no address or phone number. Presumably, any reply to this spam would go straight back to Data Champions in India.

Spam signed by “Bruce,” has been mailed from various different anonymous Data Champions spam servers as they cycle through them. We’ve seen “Bruce spam” mailed from their 101server.com [174.141.227.188], serverny.com [174.141.226.71], serveridream.com ([174.141.226.243], mdl220.com [66.96.207.224] and dns342.com [174.141.226.59] spam servers.

The subject line used on much of their “Bruce spam” (and B2B spam with other signatures too) is “Technology Email Lists and Email Appending.”

As is often the case, several of the last few Data Champions spams selling email addresses that we’ve seen were sent from anonymous domains hosted on bodhost.com.

“Hi, Would you be interested in reaching out to Top IT Decision Makers? We have 457,601 IT Decision Makers with verified permission based e-mail addresses and complete business contact information such as…”

Of course, it’s extremely unlikely that 457,601 “decision makers” (a term that is a spam sign on its own) have opted in to the mailing lists that they sell!

From the Data Champions’ anonymous net9x.com spam server at 174.141.226.232 on bodhost.com, came B2B spams signed “Lucy Green” (lucyg@email-service-provider.biz) and “Fiona Kroeger” (fiona.kroeger@wmlists.biz). A different “Fiona,” “Fiona Steel” (fionas@clublistsonline.com), was the signature on spam sent from their anonymous 101server.com [174.141.227.188] spam server.

A new entry on our list of Data Champions spam domains is expromail.com, which also has email services hosted at bodhost.com [174.141.227.216]. A so-called “Sherry Wills” (sherry.wills@expromail.com) signed some expromail.com spam mail.

Not all Data Champions spam servers are hosted at bodhost.com 174.141.226-227 range. For example, their extremeonlinebiz.com spam domain mail is hosted at 96.9.135.197. A so-called “Sarah Paul” (mark13nd@marktn2.com) recently sent B2B spam from there, with links to ekingmarketer.com, and a mailing address at 4171 East 16th Street. Des Moines, IA 50321.

Of course, almost none of the domains mentioned in this posting even have a web site, or valid contact information as part of their domain registration.