My grandmother has recently received lots of spam phone calls asking her and my grandfather about products they have “signed up” for over the internet. Not only did they not agree to any product, my grandparents have a hard time setting up a printer, much less surfing the interwebs >.<. One of the companies gave them an IP address of where the information was agreed to and I need to know if there is a legitimate way of finding out who owns this IP adress. Help?
Assuming that your grandfather like most people online are on a servicethat uses dynamic IP addressing, who is at any given IP address can easily change on a daily basis. If he was on a static IP (always the same every time you fire up) they might have a little more of a right to bitch. Claiming dynmic IP as a good locator without help from an ISP would be like trying to determine who stays in a hotel room without the hotel helping.
on preview - redundant info
Go here. Use the Reverse DNS lookup with the IP address to see if you can identify the domain. You will probably be able to identify the ISP from that, but that is about all.
But
Really, what your grandmother is getting is a social engineering attack to scam money for unwanted services. All she has to say is - I am no longer interested in that service. Please do not call me again. No agreement based on only an IP address is in anyway valid, and no legitimate provider would try that tack. If they persist, get the phone company involved. The IP stuff is flimflam - IP addresses for residential connections are usually dynamic, so they do change, and without assistance from the ISP, no-one else can link an IP address to a phone number. I say again, this is primarily phone fraud, not internet fraud, and should be treated as such.
Si
She asked for info on who signed them up, and the IP Address was the only information they could give her. I’d hoped to get a name, but I guess the provider will do.
Also, as a note, my grandparents don’t own internet service.
Then it seems to me that this is being done maliciously, or as part of an identity fraud. Either way, get the appropriate authorities involved.
Si