Marketers Beware! Bose-Global.com Proposal Scam

After working in Fraud prevention for many years, my eyebrows were raised when I was contacted by James Martin of BOSE Global. But my initial due diligence of checking the sending domain saw that it had a 301 redirect to the official Bose site made it seem legit at a glance and worth a quick fire response.

So I responded, and then got the second email where the many red flags were more evident. I won’t list these to avoid tipping off my scammer mates, but this is just a quick public service announcement for anyone searching.

Now of course, something that’s too good to be true, usually is. But to me this is next level scamming as the majority of the email is something I commonly read from big companies, with the obvious carrot of big money designed to rush you into actions. The link was a direct drop box download (luckily I always right click those to see the path).

Further research shows the domain is only two days old, originating in Brazil, but if you are smart enough to search the contents of the email you have, please note this before downloading!

This was a high level I thought, easy to fool people. It links to the official socials to boost credibility, it’s a tailored message for my services and skill sets.

If they have contacted you too, please comment with any switched information like emails, name, etc.

If you have clicked on links and downloaded anything, it’s a zip file that is clean in itself. If you extract anything or click on anything, scan your PC for trojans or malware. You can do this with free software like windows security, you don’t need paid services. Do a full search which takes a few hours for peace of mind, then run the off-line scan too, just to be safe.

JJSC commented below to say “The file from Dropbox isn’t infected yet; its a legit zip file, but inside is a well-structured folder with product photos, a company profile pdf, and a bunch of legit files. There is only one file of type shortcut that, upon checking its properties, will run cmd.exe from your machine and then download a file from github to be installed and setup. I think that’s when the trouble will start.”

So as long as you have not run that, you should be fine.

Please keep the updates coming, as it’s really helping people who search. We now know they are also come from the bose-asia.com, bose-tech.com, bose-inc.com and bose-usa.com domains now, and also using a james.martin@bose-global.com rather than marketing.manager@bose-global.com so may be harder for some people to spot. And there’s a new name of Ryan Bond being used.

UPDATE: “James” chased me today for the proposal, and he’s updated with an email signature to look more legit. This is what annoys me the most, as people will be spending their precious time doing this fake proposal.

 

First contact

Hi,

I am James from Bose, a US-based audio brand. We are planning to expand into the United Kingdom market and are looking for support from advertising partners.

https://www.youtube.com/@Bose

I have reviewed your services and believe that your company can meet our needs. We would love to discuss strategy, budget, and the services you provide.

Please contact us via email at your convenience.
Sincerely,
James

Follow up Email in full

It’s a pleasure to connect with you and discuss this exciting partnership opportunity.

I am James, the Head of Marketing for the audio brand BOSE. The audio industry is rapidly growing with streaming platforms like Spotify, Netflix, and YouTube, valued at $12.52 billion in 2023 and expected to reach $15 billion by 2024.

Since our founding, we have built a strong brand with millions of loyal customers worldwide, ranking among the Top 3 brands in the U.S. and the Top 5 globally.

With this growth trend, BOSE aims to expand its presence and increase global sales across more than 56+ countries by 2025. These are promising markets for development, and your country is among them.

After thorough consideration, we believe that your company has the experience and capability to optimize digital marketing that we need for the upcoming growth. We are reaching out to seek your support in this area.

Our current advertising budget ranges from $50,000 to $90,000 per month for the brand awareness phase and can increase to $150,000 to $270,000 during the sales growth phase across all sales platforms. You are welcome to propose budgets and bids that match your company’s capabilities and resources.

Our proposed service fee is between 12-18% of the total monthly marketing budget (+ any applicable taxes).

We are looking for a long-term collaboration to ensure effective, stable allocation for personnel and related costs across departments.

Our goal is to increase brand visibility, attract new customers in emerging markets, and drive sales through Google advertising and social network advertising. Campaigns include display ads, search, performance optimization, and shopping ads to boost retail sales of audio products on our existing platforms:

https://www.facebook.com/Bose

https://www.instagram.com/bose/

https://www.bose.com/

In addition to public data, we have prepared detailed documents gathered by the company on marketing campaign objectives, including: annual sales data, product pricing, CRM information, ROAS, ad conversion rates, cost-per-conversion, etc., so you can better understand the project during your research or planning phase:

Campaign Materials,Service Fees,Bonuses,Job Requirements (drop box zip file link):

Link Password: 8386

I believe this information will provide you with the most accurate and clear introduction to our company.

I look forward to receiving a preliminary proposed communication plan from you and your team within the next Tuesday or Wednesday, about the project and the service fee schedule for the work items your company proposes for this project so that we can move quickly to the next step.

Please CC this email to your specialist so we can discuss some further details via email.

After receiving your research, we will review and respond within 2 to 3 days.

We will also arrange a suitable meeting time to discuss and sign the cooperation contract.

If you need further information, please let me know! We are ready to meet and discuss further.

Best regards,

*****

Chasing email

Hope you are well and have received my email.

We have sent you the project information and your company’s marketing service needs a few days ago. We would like to know if you have had time to review and provide a detailed service quote for the services your company provides based on the project items?

Today, my company’s management asked me to respond and report the results of the partner’s feedback.

I hope you will take the time to review, quote the service for our project and have comments related to the project so that my company can clearly understand and prepare the necessary costs and resources for our upcoming work and cooperation.

Thank you for your understanding and enthusiastic support in the work so that we can develop together.

Sincerely,

********

The email was from marketing.manager@bose-global.com, name will likely vary based on your location.