Well known virtual assistant outsourcing company AskSunday.com is the victim of a serious case of brandjacking.
The entire identity and website code of AskSunday.com has been copied and setup as another website with a similar sounding domain name, AskSundayllc.com, which has been online for a few weeks.
The operators of the fraudulent site are actively recruiting people from US based career sites, such as careerbuilder.com, and offering them jobs. Applicants who do respond to these solicitations are asked to provide identification and banking details in order to be paid by direct deposit.
Instead they will be used as “money mules” to receive the proceeds of fraudulent transfers from hacked and compromised US business bank accounts and ultimately to transfer the proceeds to criminals in Eastern Europe.
One of the potential victims lays out the story here
The copied website at AskSundayllc.com is hosted by a Russian webhost and is effectively out of immediate legal reach. Typically webhosts who provide facilities to criminal operations and fraudsters do not respond to requests to take down or disable rogue websites.
The phone number (646) 257-5840 is a Voice over IP (VOIP) number provided by Level 3 Communications and can be forwarded transparently anywhere in the world, even though it has a local New York City area code of 646.
In a follow-up blog I’ll provide more information on how to deal with and guard against internet brandjacking.
*We are in contact with management at AskSunday.com, though they are not a client of Highwick Associates.
