Caught in my spam trap – cloud-mailer.co.uk / brainycat.co.uk

I’ve decided to start naming and shaming the people who spam me. I have an email address hidden in the code of one of my web sites. It doesn’t display to visitors but robots will read it.  To give the spammers a sporting chance, the email address is nospam@….mydomain… I then email them to ask where they got the address from.

Their response to asking where they got the email address from?

hello@cloud-mailer.co.uk – no response

Observations

Appear to be a couple of web developers. They seem quite nice on their web site. A shame then they are not only sending spam to my spam trap, but offering a service of sending spam for others too.

Headers

Delivered-To: nospam@....
Received: by 10.76.80.100 with SMTP id q4csp157962oax;
        Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:00:10 -0800 (PST)
X-Received: by 10.194.89.167 with SMTP id bp7mr33008343wjb.0.1360695609612;
        Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:00:09 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk>
Received: from server.brainycat.co.uk (server.brainycat.co.uk. [5.77.38.165])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id d2si4372759wix.36.2013.02.12.11.00.09
        (version=TLSv1 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128/128);
        Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:00:09 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk designates 5.77.38.165 as permitted sender) client-ip=5.77.38.165;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
       spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk designates 5.77.38.165 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk
Received: from cmail by server.brainycat.co.uk with local (Exim 4.80)
	(envelope-from <cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk>)
	id 1U5L5M-0002E6-7b
	for nospam@....; Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:00:08 +0000
To: nospam@....
Subject: Marketing
From: hello@cloud-mailer.co.uk
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Message-Id: <E1U5L5M-0002E6-7b@server.brainycat.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:00:08 +0000
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - server.brainycat.co.uk
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - ....
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [521 32007] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - server.brainycat.co.uk
X-Get-Message-Sender-Via: server.brainycat.co.uk: authenticated_id: cmail/from_h
X-Source: /usr/local/bin/php
X-Source-Args: /usr/local/bin/php /home/cmail/public_html/cron/hourly_marketing.php
X-Source-Dir: /home/cmail

<html>
  <head>

    <meta http-equiv='content-type' content='text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1'>
  </head>
  <body bgcolor='#FFFFFF' text='#000000'>

  <p style='color: #125474; font-size: 22px;'><strong>Reach Thousands Of People This Evening</strong></p>

<p>We'd like to take the opportunity to introduce href='https://www.cloud-mailer.co.uk/'><strong>Cloud Mailer</strong> - a revolutionary new email-networking platform that provides millions of UK business email addresses for you to use in your email marketing campaigns. </p>
Delivered-To: nospam@....
Received: by 10.76.83.136 with SMTP id q8csp93204oay;
        Fri, 1 Mar 2013 14:45:19 -0800 (PST)
X-Received: by 10.194.89.169 with SMTP id bp9mr20366076wjb.57.1362177919027;
        Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:45:19 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk>
Received: from server.brainycat.co.uk (server.brainycat.co.uk. [5.77.38.165])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id ua5si6017960wjc.61.2013.03.01.14.45.18
        (version=TLSv1 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128/128);
        Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:45:19 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk designates 5.77.38.165 as permitted sender) client-ip=5.77.38.165;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
       spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk designates 5.77.38.165 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk
Received: from cmail by server.brainycat.co.uk with local (Exim 4.80)
	(envelope-from <cmail@server.brainycat.co.uk>)
	id 1UBYha-0006qM-67
	for nospam@....; Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:45:18 +0000
To: nospam@....
Subject: E-mail Marketing
From: team@cloud-mailer.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Message-Id: <E1UBYha-0006qM-67@server.brainycat.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:45:18 +0000
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - server.brainycat.co.uk
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - ....
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [521 32007] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - server.brainycat.co.uk
X-Get-Message-Sender-Via: server.brainycat.co.uk: authenticated_id: cmail/only user confirmed/virtual account not confirmed
X-Source: /usr/local/bin/php
X-Source-Args: /usr/local/bin/php /home/cmail/public_html/cron/hourly_marketing.php
X-Source-Dir: /home/cmail

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>Cloud Mailer - Revolutionary Email Marketing</title>

<style type="text/css">
body { color: #000; line-height: 140%; font-family: Georgia, 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans'; font-size: 16px;}
h1 { background-color: #f4f4f4; padding: 12px 8px 12px 8px; font-size: 25px; margin: 0; width: 100%; height: auto; font-family: Helvetica, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial; color: #124b66; }
h3 { background-color: #f4f4f4; font-size: 18px; padding: 8px; width: 100%; height: auto;font-family: Helvetica, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial; color: #124b66; }
p { padding: 8px; margin: 0; }
ol li { line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 10px; }
a { color: #124b66; }
a:hover { color: blue; }
strong { color: #124b66; }
hr { background-color: #e9e9e9; height: 1px; border: none; }

.normaltxt {
	font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 13px;
	text-align: left;
	line-height: 16px;
	color: #000000;
	font-style: normal;
	}
.normaltxt a:link, .normaltxt a:visited {
	text-align: left;
	color:#000000;
	font-weight: bold;
	text-decoration:none;
	}
.normaltxt a:hover {
	text-align: left;
	color:#000000;
	font-weight: bold;
	text-decoration:underline;
	}

.nametxt {
	font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 16px;
	text-align: left;
	line-height: 18px;
	color: #000000;
	font-weight: bold;
	}

.subtitletxt {
	font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 13px;
	text-align: left;
	line-height: 13px;
	color: #84888b;
	}

.jobtitletxt {
	font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 11px;
	text-align: left;
	color: #84888b;
	line-height: 13px;
	}

.blackaddresstxt {
	font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 12px;
	text-align: left;
	line-height: 17px;
	color: #000000;
	font-weight: bold;
	}

.addresstxt {
	font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 12px;
	text-align: left;
	line-height: 17px;
	color: #000000;
	}
.addresstxt a:link, .addresstxt a:visited {
	text-align: left;
	color:#000000;
	text-decoration:none;
	}
.addresstxt a:active, .addresstxt a:hover {
	text-align: left;
	color:#000000;
	text-decoration:underline;
	}

.verticalsplittxt {
	font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 12px;
	text-align: left;
	line-height: 17px;
	color: #84888b;
	font-weight: bold;
	}

.nametxt {
	font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 16px;
	text-align: left;
	line-height: 18px;
	color: #000000;
	font-weight: bold;
	}

.footertxt {
	font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 11px;
	text-align: left;
	color: #969696;
	line-height: 12px;
	}

.unsubscribe_text{
	font-family:Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size:11px;
	color:#ccc;
}

.footertxt a:link, .footertxt a:visited {
	text-align: left;
	color:#969696;
	text-decoration:none;
	}
.footertxt a:active, .footertxt a:hover {
	text-align: left;
	color:#969696;
	text-decoration:underline;
	}
	-->
</style>
</style>

</head>

<body>
<h1>Thanks for your interest in Cloud Mailer</h1>

<p>With many returning customers, href="http://www.cloud-mailer.co.uk/">Cloud Mailer has changed the way people make new business contacts and leads.</p>

<p><strong>If it still isn't clear what we do - </strong>We send your email to an <em>up-to-date</em> database of UK based companies in industries and locations of your choice. All you need to do is choose who you want to send your email out to, write your email and then choose when you want to send it out. <strong>We do the rest</strong>.</p>

 


Comments

22 responses to “Caught in my spam trap – cloud-mailer.co.uk / brainycat.co.uk”

  1. I received something similar; I reported it to their upstream hosting company (eukhost.com). I’ll let you know what they say.

  2. they migth seem nice people on the site but their not. they have run up debts and are currently about to be struck off by companies house (yet still appear to be trading!)

  3. Tony Rodriguez

    I don’t think you can “shame” spammers, as they are basically shameless, brazen individuals. They might respond to slightly more convincing measures, though, such as the gallows or a guillotine.

  4. http://brainycat.co.uk/ these guys are couple of con artist developers. They have being spamming us for ages. They have now disappeared by the looks of it. Probably setup another company. All I know is that their names are Andy Clarke and Ryan Watson.

    1. Hello ‘Annoyed’, unfortunately you didn’t leave an email address with your comment, so you’ll probably never read this!

      Interesting. brainycat.co.uk expired this month.
      http://www.nominet.org.uk/whois/lookup?query=brainycat.co.uk

      Domain name:
      brainycat.co.uk

      Registrant:
      Andrew Clarke

      Registrant type:
      UK Individual

      Registrant’s address:
      6 The Heights
      Barton Lane
      BARROW-UPON-HUMBER
      DN19 7DD
      United Kingdom

      Registrar:
      eUKhost Ltd t/a eUKhost LTD [Tag = EUKHOST]
      URL: http://www.eukhost.com

      Relevant dates:
      Registered on: 06-Nov-2011
      Expiry date: 06-Nov-2013
      Last updated: 06-Mar-2012

      Registration status:
      Renewal required.

      Name servers:
      ns1.brainycat.co.uk 5.77.38.165
      ns2.brainycat.co.uk 5.77.38.166

      cloud-mailer.co.uk is expiring in December, but also gives their company registration number.

      Domain name:
      cloud-mailer.co.uk

      Registrant:
      Brainy Cat Ltd

      Registrant type:
      UK Limited Company, (Company number: 7895645)

      Registrant’s address:
      6 The Heights
      Barton Lane
      BARROW-UPON-HUMBER
      North Lincolnshire
      DN19 7DD
      United Kingdom

      Registrar:
      Heart Internet Ltd t/a Heart Internet [Tag = HEARTINTERNET]
      URL: http://www.heartinternet.co.uk

      Relevant dates:
      Registered on: 06-Dec-2012
      Expiry date: 06-Dec-2013
      Last updated: 06-Dec-2012

      Registration status:
      Registered until expiry date.

      Name servers:
      ns1.brainycat.co.uk 5.77.38.165
      ns2.brainycat.co.uk 5.77.38.166

      So, if you have proof they are con artists then you could go to the police and *maybe* it will get followed up, they are probably not difficult to find. If, on the other hand, all they are doing is breaking the PECR, my experience is the system doesn’t really care

  5. The very same Andy Clarke, one half of Brainy Cat, also advertises himself as ‘Andy Clarke freelance web developer based in Barton-Upon-Humber, North Lincolnshire’

    He is taking deposits from agencies for freelance development all over the country. We are unfortunately one of those companies. After receiving your deposit payment he then disappears, unlinks Skype and ignores emails and phone calls. It seems he has a bit of a scam going on and we aren’t talking a few hundred pounds here.

    He operated for a while using the domain *******.co.uk until a web page appeared with the similar url ******************.co.uk which was a page put together by someone else he had duped. Both sites are now down although you can take a look at cached content of *******.co.uk at http://archive.org/web/ He now trades as *******.co.uk instead, i’m guessing due to the mounting exposure of his methods.

    Take a look and familiarise yourself with him as one day he may approach you too. He needs to be avoided at all costs. Just wish i’d found this thread earlier!

    1. Thanks for commenting. I removed the domain names because you didn’t leave a valid email for me to check some facts. I checked the owners of the domains you listed and one of them is owned by a web development company (you can check yourself by going to http://nic.uk and entering the domain into the whois search). That company are active (I found their web site and well used twitter presence) and it might be a little unfair to list them. On the other hand, they may know how to reach Andy Clarke.

      Perhaps you need to report him to the police.

  6. The very same Andy Clarke, one half of Brainy Cat, also advertises himself as ‘Andy Clarke freelance web developer based in Barton-Upon-Humber, North Lincolnshire’

    He is taking deposits from agencies for freelance development all over the country. We are unfortunately one of those companies. After receiving your deposit payment he then disappears, unlinks Skype and ignores emails and phone calls. It seems he has a bit of a scam going on and we aren’t talking a few hundred pounds here.

    He operated for a while using the domain iamandy.co.uk until a web page appeared with the similar url iamandy-freelancer.co.uk which was a page put together by someone else he had duped. Both sites are now down although you can take a look at cached content of iamandy.co.uk at http://archive.org/web/ He now trades as clarkepr.co.uk instead, i’m guessing due to the mounting exposure of his methods.

    Take a look and familiarise yourself with him as one day he may approach you too. He needs to be avoided at all costs. Just wish i’d found this post earlier

  7. I can confirm that Andy Clarke is indeed a con artist operating as stated above.

    We are pursuing legal action.

    1. Adam Mole

      We were conned by Andy also!

      Took are money for a website and disappeared! I’m aware of several others that have been duped! Plus the story that Andy spun about his father passing away, when in fact his dad was alive and well! To say the huy is a crook, is an under statement!

      If anyone has a definite address for him, please share. We’re about to file a claim against him in court and I want to make sure the papers are served to the correct address!

      Thanks,

      1. I do believe taking money and disappearing is a criminal offence, so why not report it to the police and let them find him?

        1. We have reported it to the police. However unless all the other victims do, the police will not bother to make in depth enquiries. Hopefully, if all victims report it to the Police, they may take it more seriously.

          In the meantime, we’ll pursue civil action!

  8. Stephen Clifton

    We’ve also been spammed and placed a deposit for the so called ‘Andy Clarke’, can I ask what actions everyone else has taken against him?

    I would recommend anyone that has been duped by him stay in touch and pursue this matter together, it will get the attention of the police a lot quicker.

  9. Just found all you comments, I thought I was the only person conned by this alley cat. Count me in as another victim please, I have evidence of letter returned to me from all their official registered addresses. Please let me know which police force to report to, have you a reference no. given by police.

    Let’s form an action group to stop this ally cat!

    1. This is an unexpected development from my blog!
      How would you all like to keep in touch?
      Suggestions welcome here, or feel free to email me directly, my current email can be reached via < a href="http://about.me/sroot">http://about.me/sroot

  10. Stephen Clifton

    I’ve reported him to the police tonight. They said, the more people which can make the claim the better it is they will investigate this case. I have a reference number provided by the Action Fraud Police dept.

    The reference is:

    Reference: NFRC141000814582

    The Fraud departments telephone number is: 03001232040

    I also contacted Barclays who said to also raise the case with Natwest, as these are the details which matched up to his sort code / account number (so long as their what he also provided to you below).

    Sort code: 53-50-21
    Account number: ********

    Their number is: 08001615154

    [Edit by Steve – I took out the account number for the public post]

  11. Stephen Clifton

    These videos also contain footage of him:

    http://vimeo.com/54453757

    http://vimeo.com/65370439

    I am assuming they no longer live in Harrogate (which I am based).

  12. I’d be delighted to team up with other victims and have justice served on Mr Clarke!

    The steps I’ve taken so far are to report it via http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

    I also intend to report it directly to Lincolnshire police, but it would really help if more victims came forward, as the Police will take it far more seriously.

    I’m also looking to report to trading standards and again the more victims that come forward, the more seriously they’ll take the matter.

    And finally small claims court!!!

    I’m not sure which course of action will be the most successful , but hopefully one or more avenues will prove successful!

    Please advise as to how we can go about communicating with each other and discussing what actions we have taken.

  13. Stephen Clifton

    Can anyone thats also been conned by ‘Andy Clarke’ please contact Steve Root on hi about.me account. Steve, can you email me and any other parties when they have contacted you so we can keep on top of this?

  14. I’ve just emailed all who contacted me via the http://about.me/sroot page, so you’re now in touch with each other. If anyone else lets me know I’ll continue to put you all in touch.

  15. I too have been conned by Andy and Ryan, to the sum of around £2k.

  16. I’ve been told by ActionFraud that theres enough evidence to follow up my case further with North Yorkshire Police. If anyone wants a copy of the PDF I was sent with refernece number on please contact Steve.

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