Is DesignAtticMedia.com Legitimate Or Is It A Scam?
2 websites, designatticmedia.com and designatticmediainc.com, was just registered in China for 1 year on Jan 20 under the name Owen McNeal, Designattic Multimedia, Inc. 244 Fifth Ave New York, NY 10001 and is hosted in Europe near Luxembourg. Here’s a screenshot of website:
Both websites show the address as 244 5th Ave New York, NY 10001 with the phone # (347) 756-5850. So by the outward appearances, one wouldn’t suspect anything, EXCEPT for the fact that Design Attic Multimedia already has a website online at designattic.com ever since Feb 2003 and is registered and hosted in the United States registered under the business name M3 Marketing Group. Also 5th Ave in New York is in downtown Manhattan where the area codes is 212 and 646. Area code 347 is located in the Bronx. Hmmm.
Designattic.com is a legitimate web design and development business in New York. We found 2 addresses for this business in New York, one is Design Attic Multimedia Inc 1061 Jackson Avenue Astoria, NY US 6464158822 and the other is Design Attic Multimedia LLC which is listed as 244 Fifth Ave New York, NY 10001 and no phone # can be found. But there is not many other details available on either except what can be found on vague unclaimed business directories. So we found this to be very interesting here’s why…
We discovered that 244 Fifth Ave New York, NY 10001 is a PostalMail Service called NYMail, their web address is www.nymail.com/postalMail.html. Here’s what we found on this website:
Need a US address to receive mail and packages? Get your own 5th Avenue, New York City address to receive your mail/packages. Pick up your mail or we can forward it to the requested location. Receive mail, packages and Courier deliveries.
You get your mail/packages as:
Your Name and/or Business Name
244 Fifth Avenue, Suite #_____(to be assigned)
New York, NY 10001* Mail forwarding charges: Your mail can be forwarded to you on weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. There is a service fee for processing and forwarding mail. Also note: Customer pays for actual postage charges that are incurred, all funds for postage must be paid in advance and on hand with us before we initiate forwarding.
We know that scammers has targeted legitimate web design/development companies in the past, especially those with vague or conflicting information found online to register and create fake business websites to fool job seekers into thinking they are the legitimate business and then lure them into a money mule scam. See Advanced Standards Inc Account Manager Web Design Scam for more information.
We can’t say with 100% accuracy, but we do believe designatticmedia.com and designatticmediainc.com has been created specifically to operate yet another money mule scam using the stolen identity of a legitimate web design company name.
So beware! If you have received an email claiming to be from Design Attic Multimedia or a representative of an employment/staffing company recruiting for Design Attic with a “too good to be true” job offer, do not respond or provide any personal details to them. They also may be using the email address: info@212redgoose.com or info@213redgoose.com
How The Scam Works
They require the “employees” bank account supposedly to deposit the employees paycheck (of course the employee never receives) but actually as they tell you later, a checking account is required so the employee can receive funds from “customer orders” and then send the funds to their “out of country programmers” to begin work on the customers order.
The employee’s task is to withdraw the deposited funds, go to Western Union or Money Gram, document and wire the funds to the programmer in another country which is usually several thousand dollars! However, the funds the scammers deposited in the employees bank account is stolen of course and the “out of country” programmer the employee wired the cash to, is actually the criminals who then vanish, leaving the “employee” holding the bag to repay the stolen funds out of their own pocket or possibly face prosecution once the stolen funds has been traced back to the employees bank account.
What To Do If You Are A Victim
If you have fell victim to an employment scam like this, you need to contact your bank immediately and close your account IF you have provided your account information to the scammers. Next file a police report with your local authorities and then file a complaint with the FBI’s internet crime center at http://www.ic3.gov/
If you provided your personal information like ss # birthdate etc , you need to contact the 3 credit bureaus- TransUnion, Equifax and Experian, and place a fraud alert on your report. These criminals can steal your identity and may try and obtain credit in your name. Doing this will alert you for at least 90 days about any suspicious activity.
In the hands of a thief, just your name, address, Social Security number or date of birth, can be used over and over months- even years down the road to:
Open new lines of credit
Seek medical attention
Drain savings and retirement accounts
Provide an alias when arrested
Get a job or file false tax returns
Get Payday Loans in your name
Obtain service agreements for cellular service or utilities
Obtain Government Documents such as a drivers license or passport
And MORE!
That’s why I highly recommend you get some sort of ongoing identity theft protection such as the services offered through companies like LifeLock-Visit Their Website Here or Identity Force-visit their website here! LifeLock and Identity Force are both reputable companies that monitors your accounts and alerts and protects you from identity theft.
Have you received a suspicious email offering you a “job” with Design Attic Multimedia in New York or other work at home “client or account manager” or “operator” job that you never applied for? Feel free to copy and paste the email in the comments so we can help alert and prevent others from becoming victims.
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I was a victimized by this company but I can’t upload document and email from them. Can anyone show me how to do it please.
If it’s to good to be true… it probably is! Beware of this scam!
Lindsay ONeal Feb 3 at 12:18 PM
Morning,
Thank you for your interest in the Client Manager position with our Designattic Multimedia! We are a small web design agency based in New York City, and we offer a number of web design, website development and maintenance services. We’re keeping up with the current IT innovations, which is why 80 percent of our staff work remotely, from their homes. With all expenses we save on office rent, we can offer our team the employment conditions that are better than the average ones in this market. We are successful and ambitious, which is why we are currently expanding our US client base and thus looking for people who would help us grow and develop.
As our Client Manager you will be expected to:
– Become an important link between our existing clients and our tech staff;
– Address clients’ questions, requests and concerns to the developers and provide timely response via our online ticket system;
– Manage documentation and billing for assigned clients and other contractors.
There are 3 things you will NOT be responsible for:
– Looking for new clients: this is a task for our Sales and Marketing departments, you will be working with our existing clients only.
– Cold calling or communicating with clients over the phone: all communication is web-based only.
– Programming or designing for web: this is a task for our web developers, your role is customer support, billing and management.
You can work from home anywhere in the United States as long as you have everything to work online during your shift. There are part-time and full-time shifts to choose from: you can devote 6 to 8 hours to the job daily, Monday to Friday. All you need to start is a laptop with a web browser and basic Office software installed. You don’t have to purchase any special software or equipment: your performance will be tracked at our corporate web server which you will be clocking in daily. You will be assigned to a supervisor based in our NYC office, who will be responsible for your initial training and support. We also offer a short online training course with a lot of useful materials to study to all new Client Managers for free.
Your typical day will start with checking into the corporate server and getting new messages and tasks from your supervisor. Typical tasks may include approving the project specification with the client, arranging a teleconference with a team, confirming and processing a payment on a project, etc. At the end of the day every Client Manager must submit a report to the supervisor and log off.
We offer permanent employment with W2 job contracts. The base salary is $3760 for employees working full-time and $2700 for those who choose to work part-time. Moreover, all Client Managers receive monthly performance bonuses of +15% of the base pay after passing the supervisor’s evaluation at the end of the month. Also, full-time employees will be eligible for a 3-week vacation, 401k and a corporate health insurance program after their first 2 months of work.
Please let me know if you’re willing to proceed with this job offer and receive our employment package with additional information on your pay, schedule and other job related issues for review. Please note that we never request any payments from applicants in order to secure the positions!
—
Best regards,
Lindsay O’Neal, HR Executive
Designattic Media, Inc.
Phone: (347) 756-5850
Interesting, but why is the site http://www.designattic.com invalid.
http://host284.hostmonster.com/suspended.page/disabled.cgi/inconwo.com
Temporarily unavailable. Why? We don’t know, we just know http://www.designattic.com is the legitimate companies real business website who’s trademark and name was stolen and illegally used by scammers.
Hello,
Designattic Media, Inc. and http://www.designatticmedia.com is a Scam site and is not legally using the address 244 5th Ave New York, NY 10001. The phone number (347)756-5850 is a VOIP number which is not managed in the USA. This company is infringing upon the trademark of Designattic Multimedia which is a legitimate web development firm based in New York City using the url http://www.designattic.com since 2003.
All readers of this DO NOT reply to any correspondence from http://www.designatticmedia.com for they are fraudulently using the Designattic trademark, name, and likeliness.
We appreciate you bringing this to our attention.
Thank you,
Legal Affairs
Designattic.com
Thank you for your feedback confirming our suspicions.
Morning,
Thank you for your interest in the Client Manager position with our Designattic Multimedia! We are a small web design agency based in New York City, and we offer a number of web design, website development and maintenance services. We’re keeping up with the current IT innovations, which is why 80 percent of our staff work remotely, from their homes. With all expenses we save on office rent, we can offer our team the employment conditions that are better than the average ones in this market. We are successful and ambitious, which is why we are currently expanding our US client base and thus looking for people who would help us grow and develop.
As our Client Manager you will be expected to:
– Become an important link between our existing clients and our tech staff;
– Address clients’ questions, requests and concerns to the developers and provide timely response via our online ticket system;
– Manage documentation and billing for assigned clients and other contractors.
There are 3 things you will NOT be responsible for:
– Looking for new clients: this is a task for our Sales and Marketing departments, you will be working with our existing clients only.
– Cold calling or communicating with clients over the phone: all communication is web-based only.
– Programming or designing for web: this is a task for our web developers, your role is customer support, billing and management.
You can work from home anywhere in the United States as long as you have everything to work online during your shift. There are part-time and full-time shifts to choose from: you can devote 6 to 8 hours to the job daily, Monday to Friday. All you need to start is a laptop with a web browser and basic Office software installed. You don’t have to purchase any special software or equipment: your performance will be tracked at our corporate web server which you will be clocking in daily. You will be assigned to a supervisor based in our NYC office, who will be responsible for your initial training and support. We also offer a short online training course with a lot of useful materials to study to all new Client Managers for free.
Your typical day will start with checking into the corporate server and getting new messages and tasks from your supervisor. Typical tasks may include approving the project specification with the client, arranging a teleconference with a team, confirming and processing a payment on a project, etc. At the end of the day every Client Manager must submit a report to the supervisor and log off.
We offer permanent employment with W2 job contracts. The base salary is $3760 for employees working full-time and $2700 for those who choose to work part-time. Moreover, all Client Managers receive monthly performance bonuses of +15% of the base pay after passing the supervisor’s evaluation at the end of the month. Also, full-time employees will be eligible for a 3-week vacation, 401k and a corporate health insurance program after their first 2 months of work.
Please let me know if you’re willing to proceed with this job offer and receive our employment package with additional information on your pay, schedule and other job related issues for review. Please note that we never request any payments from applicants in order to secure the positions!
—
Best regards,
Lindsay O’Neal, HR Executive
Designattic Media, Inc.
Phone: (347) 756-5850
I got the same thing. I replied with further info, since I’m looking for a new job. I called the number and it went straight to message. Glad I decided to check up on it.
Yep, unfortunately there is only one task above these scammers will give their “Client Managers” to do and that is “processing a payment” that they will deposit in your bank account or send you a bad check they will tell you to cash and then wire the cash overseas to their “programmer” that’s actually the scammer and you will be responsible for covering the bad check or paying back the deposit to whomever they stole it from!!
Thank you for sharing this information.
I also received the same e-mail as the one above and its word for word.
Morning,
Thank you for your interest in the Client Manager position with our Designattic Multimedia! We are a small web design agency based in New York City, and we offer a number of web design, website development and maintenance services. We’re keeping up with the current IT innovations, which is why 80 percent of our staff work remotely, from their homes. With all expenses we save on office rent, we can offer our team the employment conditions that are better than the average ones in this market. We are successful and ambitious, which is why we are currently expanding our US client base and thus looking for people who would help us grow and develop.
As our Client Manager you will be expected to:
– Become an important link between our existing clients and our tech staff;
– Address clients’ questions, requests and concerns to the developers and provide timely response via our online ticket system;
– Manage documentation and billing for assigned clients and other contractors.
There are 3 things you will NOT be responsible for:
– Looking for new clients: this is a task for our Sales and Marketing departments, you will be working with our existing clients only.
– Cold calling or communicating with clients over the phone: all communication is web-based only.
– Programming or designing for web: this is a task for our web developers, your role is customer support, billing and management.
You can work from home anywhere in the United States as long as you have everything to work online during your shift. There are part-time and full-time shifts to choose from: you can devote 6 to 8 hours to the job daily, Monday to Friday. All you need to start is a laptop with a web browser and basic Office software installed. You don’t have to purchase any special software or equipment: your performance will be tracked at our corporate web server which you will be clocking in daily. You will be assigned to a supervisor based in our NYC office, who will be responsible for your initial training and support. We also offer a short online training course with a lot of useful materials to study to all new Client Managers for free.
Your typical day will start with checking into the corporate server and getting new messages and tasks from your supervisor. Typical tasks may include approving the project specification with the client, arranging a teleconference with a team, confirming and processing a payment on a project, etc. At the end of the day every Client Manager must submit a report to the supervisor and log off.
We offer permanent employment with W2 job contracts. The base salary is $3760 for employees working full-time and $2700 for those who choose to work part-time. Moreover, all Client Managers receive monthly performance bonuses of +15% of the base pay after passing the supervisor’s evaluation at the end of the month. Also, full-time employees will be eligible for a 3-week vacation, 401k and a corporate health insurance program after their first 2 months of work.
Please let me know if you’re willing to proceed with this job offer and receive our employment package with additional information on your pay, schedule and other job related issues for review. Please note that we never request any payments from applicants in order to secure the positions!
—
Best regards,
Lindsay O’Neal, HR Executive
Designattic Media, Inc.
Phone: (347) 756-5850
Thank you for this information. It definitely confirms our suspicions.
That is also the same exact email I had gotten from them. They make it look like it is the real company contacting you, when its not.