Beware the Northern Ireland domain name / web design scam!

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3/April/2003

By Frank Hagenson.

 

There’s a scam doing the rounds in Northern Ireland. It involves unsuspecting businesses and unsolicited web design. Read on to protect yourself.

 

“Hi, it’s Johnny Weasel from Rip-em-off Web Design here. I’ve recently received information that someone is about to register your Internet domain name...”

 

Does this sound familiar? I recently received a phone call from a business in Omagh, who had been approached with an unsolicited phone call that began just like that. The salesperson then offered to register a domain name for the business and build them a website. The customer was not sure about having the website built, so the salesperson offered to register 2 domain names for £60 each. Luckily, the customer called me before committing to anything.

 

From anecdotal evidence, this type of operation is being run by more than one business in Northern Ireland. Apart from being an annoying interruption, why is this a scam?

1) No one else wants your domain name

It is possible that someone else is about to register your domain name, but how on earth would these people know about it? There are two ways that I can think of:

• Another business has asked them to register a domain name for them
• They have been spying on internet traffic directed at domain name registrars

 

While both of these are technically possible, neither is likely. In the first scenario, out of all the web designers and all the businesses in the world, someone with the same business name as you would have to chose Rip-em-off to register a domain for them. If that had happened, Rip-em-off are now trying to auction that domain name off to the highest bidder.

 

In the second scenario, Rip-em-off have managed to spy on traffic to and from thousands of websites, and when someone tried to register your name, alarm bells went off and they got on the phone and contacted you before the registration was completed. Then they used stolen information from a confidential transaction, to inform you that your name was about to registered.

 

The other possibility is that no one else is trying to register your domain name, but Rip-em-off know you don’t have a website yet and they’re trying to get some money out of you.

 

So your man Weasel from Rip-em-off is most likely a charlatan, a thief, or a liar.

 

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