WARNING: World Cup Modeling Scam

CLIENT MEMO: SCAM WARNING

8.31.09 - Jaze Companies received the below email from a client this morning. We wanted to pass along the following information in the event that you may have received the same email.

The email consists of an invitation to participate in the World Cup 2010 Opening Parade. The email claims to come from a representative of FIFA (Federation International Football Association) which is the global authority on Football (Soccer) and the organization responsible for the World Cup.

As of this evening Jaze Companies has reason to believe the below email is meant to defraud models. At this time we're unsure of the motive or the exact nature of the scam but research leads us to believe that the domain this email originates from is not owned and operated by alleged sender of the message.

We have contacted FIFA to confirm whether Denis Goodchild is an employee or agent authorized FIFA to assist in organizing the Parade, we've also contacted the South African World Cup planning committee to attempt to verify this claim. We've also notified the domain registrar of this activity and forwarded a copy of this email to them so they can investigate further.

Our investigation thus far as revealed that the domain sending this email is registered by a US registrar (all other sites owned and operated by FIFA are listed with a registrar in Europe). The domain is registered by Proxy which means the real owner's identification and contact information are not publically available, The Proxy information listed is inconsistent with the Proxy registrar information available for other FIFA sites and the wc2010sa.org domain currently hosts no website. All these factors together suggest a good chance that this invitation is an attempt to mislead and commit fraud.

If you have received this email or any other messages from the domain wc2010sa.org we strongly suggest that you do not reply and please contact us immediately. We will keep you posted as we continue to investigate this situation.

9.02.09 - UPDATE:
We wanted to update you on the ongoing investigation we launched into an email a Jaze Companies client received regarding the World Cup event in South Africa.

We received confirmation today from FIFA's legal department that the email sent from wc2010sa.org is in fact a scam. We've contacted the hosting company and registrar with this information and are currently coordinating with FIFA's legal department to issue formal take down notices for the website wc2010sa.org. We've also notified the FIFA sponsor companies listed at the bottom of the email to make them aware of the copyright infringement committed with the unauthorized use of their logos.

If you have received ANY emails coming from this domain DO NOT RESPOND and please contact us immediately.