New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: How to get this fraudulent copy of our website shut down?
Ask HN: How to get this fraudulent copy of our website shut down?
31 by tempestn | 16 comments on Hacker News.
I run AutoTempest.com, a car listings search engine. A few weeks ago, someone registered autoStempest.com, with an extra 's'. They copied our logo and branding, as well as faking other information, such as their team and location. (For example, their "CEO" is actually the CEO of Edmunds.) They've taken other steps to appear legitimate, such as creating a fake Yelp profile and reviews. From what we've heard from our users, they're creating fake craigslist listings, and when people contact them, they're directing them to links on their site, claiming to be "Auto Tempest". Then they solicit payments (presumably reservations or down payments, if not complete sight-unseen purchases), while using our name recognition to gain trust. We've determined that their registrar is Namecheap (as is ours, coincidentally), and they are hosted by a company called Quasinetworks, NL. Interestingly, if you google that company, the first result is someone complaining about how they were unresponsive to abuse notifications; not a great sign. We did sent a message to their abuse contact, but haven't heard back. We also contacted Namecheap and did get a reply, but it appears they will only take down a domain with a) a court order, b) potentially a request from law enforcement, or c) a UDRP proceeding: https://go.icann.org/1AO6FSt The problem with options c or especially a is that they're costly, and nothing would stop whoever is behind the site from simply registering a new confusingly similar domain. So, to start with we've submitted a report to ic3.gov, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center. Hopefully if they confirm the site is fraudulent, they can request that Namecheap yank the domain. I've never submitted such a complaint before though, so I have no idea how responsive they are. Is there anything else we could do to shut these scammers down?
31 by tempestn | 16 comments on Hacker News.
I run AutoTempest.com, a car listings search engine. A few weeks ago, someone registered autoStempest.com, with an extra 's'. They copied our logo and branding, as well as faking other information, such as their team and location. (For example, their "CEO" is actually the CEO of Edmunds.) They've taken other steps to appear legitimate, such as creating a fake Yelp profile and reviews. From what we've heard from our users, they're creating fake craigslist listings, and when people contact them, they're directing them to links on their site, claiming to be "Auto Tempest". Then they solicit payments (presumably reservations or down payments, if not complete sight-unseen purchases), while using our name recognition to gain trust. We've determined that their registrar is Namecheap (as is ours, coincidentally), and they are hosted by a company called Quasinetworks, NL. Interestingly, if you google that company, the first result is someone complaining about how they were unresponsive to abuse notifications; not a great sign. We did sent a message to their abuse contact, but haven't heard back. We also contacted Namecheap and did get a reply, but it appears they will only take down a domain with a) a court order, b) potentially a request from law enforcement, or c) a UDRP proceeding: https://go.icann.org/1AO6FSt The problem with options c or especially a is that they're costly, and nothing would stop whoever is behind the site from simply registering a new confusingly similar domain. So, to start with we've submitted a report to ic3.gov, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center. Hopefully if they confirm the site is fraudulent, they can request that Namecheap yank the domain. I've never submitted such a complaint before though, so I have no idea how responsive they are. Is there anything else we could do to shut these scammers down?
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