Some douchebag is trolling the internet with my credentials, using my name and company name in a really lame attempt to scam computer equipment. I get these requests all the time, but this is the first time I’ve ever been on the other side of the fence.
It’s really pissing me off that some asshole is using my name, despite the fact that you would have to be brain-dead to fall for it. He’s using my full name and an email address from a bogus domain close to mine.
Not quite that bad, but almost. I found out about it because some guy who was being baited looked up my company and called me to give me a heads up. Obviously I’m not liable for anyone dumb enough to fall for this, nor is my company. It just pisses me off.
I wonder how many domains these fucktards have to pay to register and how many emails they have to send before they find someone brain-dead enough to send them thousands of dollars worth of equipment. It’s really sad to think that this kind of thing could ever be profitable, even for small values of profit. I doubt that any government agency would care enough to seize the domain.
Anyone else had this happen? Is there anything to be done or just let it go?
If you have the copy of the fake internet email scam, I would at least notify the police and let them know. Not that they can do anything, but it does show that you were aware of this scam and at least TRIED to do something to stop it, in case somehow it ever lands in court or whatever.
I would put together a very serious letter and send it via email to this scammer, with a cc to the local police department, letting him know you are on to him and that you have reported this to the police. That might at least make him drop your name from his list of fake names - doubtful, but doesn’t hurt to at least try to scare him/her off.
Google the phone number to see if he is using that number to scam others…you might be one of hundreds or thousands of businesses he is stealing and using the same trick.
BTW, is the sample you gave typical of the scammer’s text? With that spelling and grammar? If your own compositions aren’t this bad, maybe potential customers will be suspicious. Small comfort, I’m sure.
Send a cease & desist notice to their web host. It might not work but it costs nothing and is worth a try. If you have a trademark, mention trademark violation.
The trick is not to treat the hosting company as an adversary. They probably don’t want to host the scammer, as he’s likely to skip out on his bill at some point. If you don’t tick them off and give them a nice black and white reason to cancel his account, there’s a fair chance they will. It does depend on where he’s hosted though. If you PM me the scammer’s domain name I can point you in the right direction.
ETA: contacting the police won’t help expect in unusual circumstances.
I don’t think the police can or will do anything about this. Anyone willing to extend credit or take credit card orders from an obvious scammer wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in court. I’m truly not concerned about the legal implications, it just pisses me off that my name and my company credentials are being abused like this.
As stated, I exaggerated a bit, but it’s extremely obvious. The content and poor grammar clearly mark the sender as a scammer. It’s incredibly unlikely that anyone will fall for it.
This is a pretty good idea but I’ll probably just call them instead of writing a legal nastygram. The first thing I did was a WHOIS query on the domain. It was registered just over a week ago through Tucows and the registrant is VistaPrint, who seem to be a reputable company. They’re a marketing company and internet marketing is part of their portfolio, but I’m sure this was done via one of their products and they would probably be as unhappy as I am to discover it. This particular domain was registered through their office in Hamilton, Ontario but the administrative contact is in Lexington, Mass.
The 847 phone number claimed to be mine goes to a female voicemail message in french. Again proving that this is a very unsophisticated scam.
I agree that the police likely can’t or won’t do anything about it, but on the very rare chance that someone comes after the OP (legally) he can say “Hey, I alerted the police to this and they chose to do nothing about it”.
He’ll also be able to point to any other things he did, such as the cease and desist letter he sent, the email/snail mail he sent to the scammers IP and whatever else he did etc, I’m just saying that reporting to the police is just one more thing he can pull out of his hat to say “Look, this isn’t my problem, you got screwed by someone that just happened to be using my name, tough shit…but I did everything in my power to stop the guy, if you want someone to blame, blame him. Or blame his ISP or the police who were both aware of the situation as of such and such a date which was X days before the date you entered into a business transaction with him”. Which reminds me, if you send snail mail to his ISP, get it motorized (so it has a date), make two copies. Keep one for yourself, mail one copy by regular mail and send the original by certified mail.
On the other hand, I believe some police departments have a “Cyber Crimes” division that take this kind of thing seriously. The Chicago PD might be big enough to have something like that.
Chicago PD would give the least fucks of anyone. Having a local area code means nothing in the era of VOIP. I’m not trying to shit on your advice Joey P, but the legal implications are really non-existent. Anyone dumb enough to fall for this has no legal case whatsoever against me or my company for equipment they ship to anywhere other than my business address. If I receive it, I have a duty to return it (at their expense) or pay for it. If they open a line of credit against my company without agreement to do so and “drop ship” equipment to god knows where, shame on them.
There is no web site. They acquired the domain through VistaPrint and are obviously running a mail server on it but that doesn’t require web hosting. I’m not entirely sure what the relationship with VistaPrint is but I’m not assuming VistaPrint is to blame. They may be able to shut it down, though. Going to the domain from a browser gets this.
Frankly, if I don’t get any results by phone, I’m done with it. I have zero concerns about legal liability and I have no interest in writing a cease and desist letter or following up on it. If anything, I think this would be reportable to the FBI but they probably have better things to do with their time.
While you are correct that anyone dumb enough to fall for this has no legal case whatsoever against you…however, if someone does fall for this gets ripped off, gets their identity stolen, has 27,000 dollars charged to their credit card for 9 boxes of toner etc, where do you think they’re going to call? The first phone call they going to make is to the legitimate Jake Jones because your phone number still works and your physical address isn’t returning mail so your the one who’s going to get the summons in the mail.
Basically, your [business] identity was stolen. You can wait to see if it bites you in the ass or you can be pro-active about it.
Yes, when they call you, you can say “Hey, that’s not me, it’s some guy that’s been using my name, I don’t know who he is” or you can say “It’s some guy that’s been using my name, I’ve already reported it to the police (who did nothing) in my state and Chicago, I’ve sent them a cease and desist letter and contacted his ISP, there’s nothing I can do about it”. Maybe that’ll be enough to convince them not to sue you.
If I was dumb enough to fall for this scam, I’d probably be dumb enough to sue the guy with the same real name and business name when I handed over a bunch of cash and it disappeared.
But since you’re saying that “Chicago PD would give the least fucks of anyone” that tells me that instead of taking the advice you’re asking for, for some reason you’ve gone on the defense and you’re actively dismissing it. I mean, the authorities are your first line of defense here. Even if they dismiss it, all you’re doing here is showing that you attempted to do something about it. It gives you the ability to say (to a person, to an ISP, to a judge if it gets that far) “Look, I went to the police, the ignored me” or “Look, here’s the police report, I told them about it as soon as I found out, they told me not to worry about it, talk to [looks at paper], Sgt Smith, he’s the one that said this happens all the time and it’s no big deal”). It’s like reporting that your rusted out 1990 teal Geo Metro with 275,000 miles got stolen. It’s only worth $900 and you really don’t want it back, but you still tell the police because if someone gets into a car accident with it or knocks over a liquor store with it, you want the cops to know that you don’t have it anymore. I’m guessing that more then likely nothing will become of it, but don’t complain when it does. You’ve been giving plenty of good advice here but you don’t seem to want it. I’m not sure what advice you did want. There’s no magic button to push, it’s going to take a little bit of legwork to make it go away.
I agree with the advice about complaining to the authorities.
There is a small but existing danger that a victim of this scammer will come after you since the victim will be angry and you are an easier target than the scammer himself. Ultimately it is very unlikely that anything would come of this, but it still would be an inconvenience for you.
It happens all the time that victims of phony check scams look for redress to the company or bank whose checks were forged.
Ideally, the victim of a scam should realize that you are also a victim and leave you alone, but that’s not how a lot of people think. A lot of people will fool themselves into believing ridiculous things and will lash out at any convenient target of their anger.
If a victim contacts you and learns that you’ve already complained to the authorities, it greatly improves the chance that you will be left alone. That’s just human nature – people act more reasonably when the teacher is in the classroom.
It also gives you an easy way to deflect the person, i.e. “No that wasn’t me – I already complained to Seargent Jones of the Chicago PD Cyber Crime Unit. I suggest you contact him to see if he has any leads about this situation.”
I don’t think the police will do anything either, but the point of making this short phone call to the police is simply to have a record trail that proves you at least tried to do something to stop this. Not saying it will go to court, but if it ever does - at least you have proof that you tried to cover your ass and stop it.
Whatever - just saying it would be a least a first step in the process, and if I were the one scammed, I would at least leave you alone and realize you tried to stop it from happening then then focus back on the scammers instead of trying to sue you for complicity in the matter. For all I know, maybe you are in cahoots with the scammer, and this would have proven you weren’t.
I said CPD would give the least fucks of anyone because a local area code means jack shit in the era of VOIP and I already said as much. The scammer is almost certainly out of their jurisdiction and most likely out of the country. I don’t know what I said to make you think that I’m defensive over the situation. I specifically said that I was angry with the situation, and I specifically asked you not to take offense over the fact that I dismissed your advice, but I think I had good reason to to so.
My job puts me in regular contact with police departments and I have a personal contact at the lieutenant level in CPD. I just don’t think this falls under their jurisdiction at all. I would be embarrassed to call him with a description of the problem, even for an informal “just for advice” query. A scam with an 847 area code means exactly nothing as it pertains to geographical relevance anymore.
