Monday, August 24, 2009
Novachannel AG in Liquidation
Scam guide operator Novachannel AG has been put into liquidation continuing the process of closing down the Swiss hub of former the Ludenbach guide empire.
Novachannel started its life providing video chat and other services associated with the porn industry but with the liquidation in Lichtenstein of the Tour and Travel Guide which had scammed the tourist industry for many years the need within the guide industry arose for a new operation. Many addresses from the Tour and Travel guide were simply transferred to the new Novachannel database and Tourist Directory was born.
Novachannel was notable for its aggressive litigation against those who dared to criticise the company, litigation that usually went disastrously wrong, When Michael Plumpe, a German citizen described the operation as ‘mafia like’ Novachannel sued, bringing the case in Switzerland, after spending substantial amounts of money they lost with the courts agreeing with Plumpe.
StopECG was also attacked with various ISPs hosting the site receiving lawyers letters, but before litigation could commence the intervention of the British press and MEP Richard Corbett lead to substantial unwanted publicity and the publishing of Ludenbach’s photo in the media.
People who previously worked for Novachannel still work for Eye-net Gmbh in Germany which runs a defamation forum were Novachannel boss Michael Röwe used to post personal attacks. The current fate of Röwe is not known but he is believed to be amongst those arrested in Switzerland.
For victims of the tourist directory it is all over, expect no more demands for money. Another Former Novachannel Guide, Med1web continues to trade from Portugal and appears to be in the process of expanding its operation while a further guide the Yachting Almanac which was displayed on Novachannels website was still born with no contracts or demands ever mailed
Expect a new guide targeting the tourist industry to appear with forms ever-so-slightly different to those used by Novachannel.
If you used to work for Novachannel StopECG would be interested in hearing from you, even if your work was transient or part-time employment such as translation. You can get in contact by mailing stopscamguides@yahoo.co.uk your information will be treated in confidence.
Novachannel started its life providing video chat and other services associated with the porn industry but with the liquidation in Lichtenstein of the Tour and Travel Guide which had scammed the tourist industry for many years the need within the guide industry arose for a new operation. Many addresses from the Tour and Travel guide were simply transferred to the new Novachannel database and Tourist Directory was born.
Novachannel was notable for its aggressive litigation against those who dared to criticise the company, litigation that usually went disastrously wrong, When Michael Plumpe, a German citizen described the operation as ‘mafia like’ Novachannel sued, bringing the case in Switzerland, after spending substantial amounts of money they lost with the courts agreeing with Plumpe.
StopECG was also attacked with various ISPs hosting the site receiving lawyers letters, but before litigation could commence the intervention of the British press and MEP Richard Corbett lead to substantial unwanted publicity and the publishing of Ludenbach’s photo in the media.
People who previously worked for Novachannel still work for Eye-net Gmbh in Germany which runs a defamation forum were Novachannel boss Michael Röwe used to post personal attacks. The current fate of Röwe is not known but he is believed to be amongst those arrested in Switzerland.
For victims of the tourist directory it is all over, expect no more demands for money. Another Former Novachannel Guide, Med1web continues to trade from Portugal and appears to be in the process of expanding its operation while a further guide the Yachting Almanac which was displayed on Novachannels website was still born with no contracts or demands ever mailed
Expect a new guide targeting the tourist industry to appear with forms ever-so-slightly different to those used by Novachannel.
If you used to work for Novachannel StopECG would be interested in hearing from you, even if your work was transient or part-time employment such as translation. You can get in contact by mailing stopscamguides@yahoo.co.uk your information will be treated in confidence.
Labels: Eye-net GmbH, Liquidation, med1web, Michael Plumpe, Michael Röwe, Novachannel AG, Tourist Directory
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Important Swiss article on the Directory Scams
Journalist Christian Bütikofer has done a great deal of research into the directory scam industry and Yesterday stopECG published an English translation of his latest article which came out in the Swiss Newspaper Tages Anzeiger
Here are added a few notes on the content of the article
Under the headline Systematic challenge of Court decisions it is noted that the guides use a ruse whereby they can continue to trade as long as condemnations are under appeal, of course such laws are there to protect us but with the scam guides it is standard fare to take appeals all the way to the highest court and to drag out the legal process. Thus the ECG’s fine and condemnation of September 2003 was not finally confirmed until April 2008
Similarly Construct Data appeared to agree before the Austrian court to cease demands for money against those who had signed the companies trick contracts, only to circumvent the agreement and continue to rake in money for another year. By the time Austrian law finally closed in on Construct Data an almost identical company had appeared in Mexico
In Switzerland Bütikofer has discovered that Novachannel were condemned in 2008 but that they simply appealed and continued to trade unabated. The appeals gave Novachannel time to do a mass mailout on behalf of its Med1web directory, then before the final police raids the disputed contracts were simply sold to a Portuguese company.
As well as the widely reported penalties against the ECG Bütikofer has uncovered the penalties against Novachannel in Switzerland and a whole string of fines in Italy which brings the total known fines incurred by the Ludenbach guides since 2003 to around 1,000,000 Euros. The actual fines are almost certainly dwarfed by the legal costs of appealing them, these figures give a window on how much money is at stake.
The article also exposes how Intercable Verlag sold its disputed contracts to a Hungarian company. Central European Advertising Kft. (CEA Kft) The ownership of the new outfit is hidden through a holding company called Central European Advertising LLc based in Delaware, USA.
Under the heading Mud attack against Seco The article draws together previously reported links through the pornography industry between the scam guides and the German company Eye-Net GmbH which hosts a forum used to defame anyone who dares to stand up to the guides. The posts that named Seco staff have been removed but a huge body of content remains on the forum, and the account used to defame Seco is still active
CEA.Kft appeared at the very end of 2008, it remained unnoticed until May 2009 when it purchased the disputed contracts of scam guide Intercable Veralg AG. These disputed contracts and the subsequent demands for money when people signed them in error had resulted in a criminal investigation against Intercable in Switzerland. Just over a month after unloading the contracts to CEA, Intercable was raided, staff arrested and the company put into liquidation.
In addition to the information in the article stopECG can reveal that an Intercable related company that was only recently established, VS Verlag Service is also in liquidation. This company had as one of its board members a former long-term employee of Intercable Veralg.
Prior to liquidation they were looking for personnel and wrote that their main customer was to be a publishing house in Hungary.
Below are some addresses for persons in dispute with CEA Kft, they're reproduced here because some of the Hungarian characters corrupt on the stopECG website. For full advice please visit stopECGs page on CEA Kft
Mayor of Budapest
Mr. Gábor Demszky Mayor
Városház u. 9-11, 1052,
Budapest,
HUNGARY
tel : +36 1 3271038
fax : + 36 1 3271809
Web: http://www.budapest.hu/
Contact person: Ms. Maria Tomanek
Office of International Relations
Office of International Relations,
H-1052 Budapest,
Varoshaz u.9-11.
Hungary
tel: +36 1 3271075/76
fax:+36 1 3271807/82
Email: TomanekM@Budapest.hu
General Inspectorate for Consumer Protection
General Inspectorate for Consumer Protection
(Fogyasztóvédelmi Fofelügyeloség)
1088 Budapest,
József krt. 6.
Hungary
Web: http://www.fvf.hu/
E-mail: fvf@fvf.hu
Hungarian Police
http://www.police.hu/
Here are added a few notes on the content of the article
Under the headline Systematic challenge of Court decisions it is noted that the guides use a ruse whereby they can continue to trade as long as condemnations are under appeal, of course such laws are there to protect us but with the scam guides it is standard fare to take appeals all the way to the highest court and to drag out the legal process. Thus the ECG’s fine and condemnation of September 2003 was not finally confirmed until April 2008
Similarly Construct Data appeared to agree before the Austrian court to cease demands for money against those who had signed the companies trick contracts, only to circumvent the agreement and continue to rake in money for another year. By the time Austrian law finally closed in on Construct Data an almost identical company had appeared in Mexico
In Switzerland Bütikofer has discovered that Novachannel were condemned in 2008 but that they simply appealed and continued to trade unabated. The appeals gave Novachannel time to do a mass mailout on behalf of its Med1web directory, then before the final police raids the disputed contracts were simply sold to a Portuguese company.
As well as the widely reported penalties against the ECG Bütikofer has uncovered the penalties against Novachannel in Switzerland and a whole string of fines in Italy which brings the total known fines incurred by the Ludenbach guides since 2003 to around 1,000,000 Euros. The actual fines are almost certainly dwarfed by the legal costs of appealing them, these figures give a window on how much money is at stake.
The article also exposes how Intercable Verlag sold its disputed contracts to a Hungarian company. Central European Advertising Kft. (CEA Kft) The ownership of the new outfit is hidden through a holding company called Central European Advertising LLc based in Delaware, USA.
Under the heading Mud attack against Seco The article draws together previously reported links through the pornography industry between the scam guides and the German company Eye-Net GmbH which hosts a forum used to defame anyone who dares to stand up to the guides. The posts that named Seco staff have been removed but a huge body of content remains on the forum, and the account used to defame Seco is still active
CEA.Kft appeared at the very end of 2008, it remained unnoticed until May 2009 when it purchased the disputed contracts of scam guide Intercable Veralg AG. These disputed contracts and the subsequent demands for money when people signed them in error had resulted in a criminal investigation against Intercable in Switzerland. Just over a month after unloading the contracts to CEA, Intercable was raided, staff arrested and the company put into liquidation.
In addition to the information in the article stopECG can reveal that an Intercable related company that was only recently established, VS Verlag Service is also in liquidation. This company had as one of its board members a former long-term employee of Intercable Veralg.
Prior to liquidation they were looking for personnel and wrote that their main customer was to be a publishing house in Hungary.
Below are some addresses for persons in dispute with CEA Kft, they're reproduced here because some of the Hungarian characters corrupt on the stopECG website. For full advice please visit stopECGs page on CEA Kft
Mayor of Budapest
Mr. Gábor Demszky Mayor
Városház u. 9-11, 1052,
Budapest,
HUNGARY
tel : +36 1 3271038
fax : + 36 1 3271809
Web: http://www.budapest.hu/
Contact person: Ms. Maria Tomanek
Office of International Relations
Office of International Relations,
H-1052 Budapest,
Varoshaz u.9-11.
Hungary
tel: +36 1 3271075/76
fax:+36 1 3271807/82
Email: TomanekM@Budapest.hu
General Inspectorate for Consumer Protection
General Inspectorate for Consumer Protection
(Fogyasztóvédelmi Fofelügyeloség)
1088 Budapest,
József krt. 6.
Hungary
Web: http://www.fvf.hu/
E-mail: fvf@fvf.hu
Hungarian Police
http://www.police.hu/
Labels: CEA Kft, Central European Advertising LLc, Christian Bütikofer, Eye-net GmbH, intercable Verlag AG, VS Verlag Service
Friday, September 08, 2006
Der Spiegel aricle on the addressbook scams
A recent article in "Der Spiegel" draws attention to the Ingolstadt connection in the economic crime of addressbook fraud. It names Oliver Heller as well as Meinolf Lüdenbach.
In a edition 36/2006 of "Der Spiegel” the German news and current affairs magazine there was a very interesting article about the so-called address book swindle (known in English as directory scam). Sebastian Matthes from "Der Spiegel" based in Hamburg started his investigation after a huge number of forms from a company in Rostock called "MR Branchen und und Telefon Verlagsgesellschaft" landed in the letter boxes of German small businesses and unexpected demands for 1250 Euros followed.
The article quotes a lawyer who is already representing 130 victims of MR Branchen who says that the forms amount to a fraudulent deception (arglistige Tauschung) - a status which renders a contract voidable under German law. A spokesman for the German Database and directory publishers association is quoted as describing the practice as economic crime.
The article traces the managing director of MR Branchen, a Herbert Rossa to Ingolstadt and an earlier online address book firm "Branchenklick", whose activity was temporarily stopped by an injunction issued by the District Court of Hamburg.
The article comments that the form used was also used years before by a certain Oliver Heller also of Ingolstadt, through whom a connection can be traced to Meinolf Lüdenbach in Switzerland and his empire ruled from Barcelona.
The article observes that the operation is so professional, under-cover and well organised that state prosecutors are having difficulty unraveling the details. Criminal investigations are already underway in Rostock against MR Branchen, in Munich against Oliver Heller and in Switzerland against the Lüdenbach firms.
Finally the article comments on the case of Michael Plümpe who set up a website giving details of the people and companies involved in the address book trick. The tricksters not only flooded him with lawsuits but some even wrote to his neighbours accusing Plümpe of child abuse.
=======================
Stopecg decided to do some additional investigation into MR Branchen, this turned up a few more facts. The website of MR Branchen, www.meinbranchenbuch.de is hosted on IP number 62.53.168.184 is hosted in the same block as a few Ingolstadt related websites already known to readers of Stopecg. The hosting Company, Boreus Rechenzentrum, is hundreds of Kilometres from Ingolstadt on the North coast.
See for example:
www.internetvictims.de has address 62.53.168.132
www.eye-net.de has address 62.53.168.132
dli-12.vcsystem.com has address 62.53.168.132
vcsystem.com is a domain owned by Eye-net GmbH of Ingolstadt and which is
Important to the trick form companies as
nl01.vcsystem.com which has address 213.201.233.14
hosts in the Netherlands a large chunk of the ovag and novachannel link farm
domains, see for example: www.novachannel-customers.com has address 213.201.233.14
www.ovag-devisions.com has address 213.201.233.14
Regular readers of this blog will know that the internetvictims.com website has been used to disseminate lies about Stopecg author Jules Woodell and was also chosen by Meinolf Lüdenbach as the location for the announcement of his retirement. They may not know that one of the first people to suffer from insults and invective on Internet Victims was Michael Plümpe; indeed it is possible that the website was established as a plank in the hate campaign he suffered. Yet again we see the central role of Eye-Net GmbH in the scam guide industry.
One could also speculate who has the initials MR and is involved in the business of mailing deceptive contracts
In a edition 36/2006 of "Der Spiegel” the German news and current affairs magazine there was a very interesting article about the so-called address book swindle (known in English as directory scam). Sebastian Matthes from "Der Spiegel" based in Hamburg started his investigation after a huge number of forms from a company in Rostock called "MR Branchen und und Telefon Verlagsgesellschaft" landed in the letter boxes of German small businesses and unexpected demands for 1250 Euros followed.
The article quotes a lawyer who is already representing 130 victims of MR Branchen who says that the forms amount to a fraudulent deception (arglistige Tauschung) - a status which renders a contract voidable under German law. A spokesman for the German Database and directory publishers association is quoted as describing the practice as economic crime.
The article traces the managing director of MR Branchen, a Herbert Rossa to Ingolstadt and an earlier online address book firm "Branchenklick", whose activity was temporarily stopped by an injunction issued by the District Court of Hamburg.
The article comments that the form used was also used years before by a certain Oliver Heller also of Ingolstadt, through whom a connection can be traced to Meinolf Lüdenbach in Switzerland and his empire ruled from Barcelona.
The article observes that the operation is so professional, under-cover and well organised that state prosecutors are having difficulty unraveling the details. Criminal investigations are already underway in Rostock against MR Branchen, in Munich against Oliver Heller and in Switzerland against the Lüdenbach firms.
Finally the article comments on the case of Michael Plümpe who set up a website giving details of the people and companies involved in the address book trick. The tricksters not only flooded him with lawsuits but some even wrote to his neighbours accusing Plümpe of child abuse.
=======================
Stopecg decided to do some additional investigation into MR Branchen, this turned up a few more facts. The website of MR Branchen, www.meinbranchenbuch.de is hosted on IP number 62.53.168.184 is hosted in the same block as a few Ingolstadt related websites already known to readers of Stopecg. The hosting Company, Boreus Rechenzentrum, is hundreds of Kilometres from Ingolstadt on the North coast.
See for example:
www.internetvictims.de has address 62.53.168.132
www.eye-net.de has address 62.53.168.132
dli-12.vcsystem.com has address 62.53.168.132
vcsystem.com is a domain owned by Eye-net GmbH of Ingolstadt and which is
Important to the trick form companies as
nl01.vcsystem.com which has address 213.201.233.14
hosts in the Netherlands a large chunk of the ovag and novachannel link farm
domains, see for example: www.novachannel-customers.com has address 213.201.233.14
www.ovag-devisions.com has address 213.201.233.14
Regular readers of this blog will know that the internetvictims.com website has been used to disseminate lies about Stopecg author Jules Woodell and was also chosen by Meinolf Lüdenbach as the location for the announcement of his retirement. They may not know that one of the first people to suffer from insults and invective on Internet Victims was Michael Plümpe; indeed it is possible that the website was established as a plank in the hate campaign he suffered. Yet again we see the central role of Eye-Net GmbH in the scam guide industry.
One could also speculate who has the initials MR and is involved in the business of mailing deceptive contracts
Labels: arglistige Tauschung, Der Spiegel, Eye-net GmbH, fraudulent deception, Meinolf Lüdenbach, MR Branchen, Oliver Heller
Monday, July 31, 2006
Does Eye-Net GmbH have money to burn?
It has come to my attention that the so-called forum used for defamation against me and also to announce the retirement of Meinolf Lüdenbach is now being advertised in the printed press
The small below appeared in the Swiss publication
"Schweizer Illustrierte" (http://www.schweizer-illustrierte.ch/)
about a month ago.
More recently a Swiss blogger has identified another example in the publication Der Beobachter, which is consumer oriented and often exposes scams!
In translation the text of both adverts reads
Will jemand Ihren Ruf ermordern?
Does someone want to destroy your reputation?
Wir helfen! Gratis!
We (can) help! Free of charge!
These are hardly inspiring adverts I know, however placements in national publications of this kind do not come cheap and the ‘service’ they are offering is free, so what is the motive here?
As well as the ‘forums’ about the anti-scam sites (were any post critical of Lüdenbach’s activities is swiftly removed) the site also has a number of threads of low grade theoretical legal ‘discussions’.
There is no guarantee that the posts by largely anonymous users are not actually the work of a much smaller group of people, using several aliases and trying to give the forum credibility. Whatever is going on this does not have the appearance of an active or vibrant forum.
There are a few adverts that appear between posts but the revenue raising potential of the site would appear severely limited, so why pay good money for printed adverts?
* Are Eye-Net trying to get users on the site to give it credibility?
* Is someone trying to impress Ludenbach by showing they are investing in the project?
* Or do Eye-Net have simply have money to burn? If so, who’s money??
* Finally, how is it that a company that claims to offer web-design as one of its services can publish such a poorly designed advert?!
Not for the first time the activities surrounding Eye-Net GmbH appear to be stranger than fiction! Indeed one does not need to look far into the history of the company to find an episode where Mario Singer of Eye-net Gmbh helped set up a link farm1 for Ovag International AG (The Ludenbach related debt collection firm that used to hound victims of his guides for money). One of the domains contained a discussion forum (now defunct)
http://www.ovag-kunden.de/webboard2
which included some quite frankly ludicrous discussions on debt collecting, the common theme in many of the posts was that they linked to other Ovag domains, thus, it was presumably hoped, enhancing their search engine ranking.
1 You can find more on Link Farming here:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/link_farming.html
2 The domain http://www.ovag-kunden.de is now owned by an outfit in Bulgaria
The small below appeared in the Swiss publication
"Schweizer Illustrierte" (http://www.schweizer-illustrierte.ch/)
about a month ago.
More recently a Swiss blogger has identified another example in the publication Der Beobachter, which is consumer oriented and often exposes scams!
In translation the text of both adverts reads
Will jemand Ihren Ruf ermordern?
Does someone want to destroy your reputation?
Wir helfen! Gratis!
We (can) help! Free of charge!
These are hardly inspiring adverts I know, however placements in national publications of this kind do not come cheap and the ‘service’ they are offering is free, so what is the motive here?
As well as the ‘forums’ about the anti-scam sites (were any post critical of Lüdenbach’s activities is swiftly removed) the site also has a number of threads of low grade theoretical legal ‘discussions’.
There is no guarantee that the posts by largely anonymous users are not actually the work of a much smaller group of people, using several aliases and trying to give the forum credibility. Whatever is going on this does not have the appearance of an active or vibrant forum.
There are a few adverts that appear between posts but the revenue raising potential of the site would appear severely limited, so why pay good money for printed adverts?
* Are Eye-Net trying to get users on the site to give it credibility?
* Is someone trying to impress Ludenbach by showing they are investing in the project?
* Or do Eye-Net have simply have money to burn? If so, who’s money??
* Finally, how is it that a company that claims to offer web-design as one of its services can publish such a poorly designed advert?!
Not for the first time the activities surrounding Eye-Net GmbH appear to be stranger than fiction! Indeed one does not need to look far into the history of the company to find an episode where Mario Singer of Eye-net Gmbh helped set up a link farm1 for Ovag International AG (The Ludenbach related debt collection firm that used to hound victims of his guides for money). One of the domains contained a discussion forum (now defunct)
http://www.ovag-kunden.de/webboard2
which included some quite frankly ludicrous discussions on debt collecting, the common theme in many of the posts was that they linked to other Ovag domains, thus, it was presumably hoped, enhancing their search engine ranking.
1 You can find more on Link Farming here:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/link_farming.html
2 The domain http://www.ovag-kunden.de is now owned by an outfit in Bulgaria
Labels: Eye-net GmbH, Link Farming, Ludenbach, Ovag International AG
