Shutting down a lad's Domain- good idea?

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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:34 pm

I've been working with this one "highly placed " lad - he is borrowing the identity of the . He is running a standard '419 Victims Compensation' scam, with one bell/whistle- he went out an bought himself an official-sounding domain: . His emails contain a link to the real site: . He doesn't have a website running on the domain, just an email auto-responder.

I got to thinking about this more, and it's bothering me some that he may be duping innocent victims with the fake domain name. I'm considering reporting it as a domain involved in fraudulent activities, and let Internic shut it down.
Pros:
The scammer may be forced to send his email from [email protected], losing some authenticity;
Shutting it down will cost the scammer the price of domain registration, even if he goes out and gets a similar-sounding domain name (which can then be reported);
If the scammer has to resume any ongoing communications with potential victims, it might be a red flag to some of them that he changes domains like underwear;
On the off-chance the person whose name is on the registration was an innocent dupe, it would be very helpful to them- but if it's a scammer alias so much the better to shut it down!
The lad may get tired of paying for a fixed target, instead of free email address, and stick with fake sounding email addresses.

Cons:
Other baiters may lose their lad for a while (I know there are a few others on this site baiting this lad-
I do have an alternate email address for this lad, (and a plausible reason to use it) which I'm willing to share with anyone who may have an ongoing bait with this lad, and doesn't want to lose contact).

I'd be interested in opinions on this:
Is shutting down a fake domain an effective cramp in a lad's style, or is it counter-productive?
(It takes Internic about 15 days to investigate and resolve)

Regards,

LaBrea

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:39 pm

Oops!

Should have read the whole post.

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

Of course it's a good idea to kill fake domains that lads have paid for, why do you think we have this:

FAKE SCAMMER BANKS & SITES

And sites like this:

www.aa419.org

The only thing we don't kill is normale email accounts like Yahoo, Hotmail etc, except in the case of phonelads, who have spent a lot of time advertising their email addresses on the internet.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

Ummm....yeah?

(Sorry, but I'm just confused by this thread.)

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:42 pm

Are we talking about web sites or emails? Web sites yes - emails no.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:47 pm

Making an assumption here, the OP has probably seen the controversy over shutting down lad accounts and wants to know how the consensus would apply to this slightly different situation, where instead of using a throwaway yahoo account the lad actually got a realistic-sounding domain and is using that for his email address.

I think the answer is clear -- kill it.

While there are strong arguments to be made for not shutting down every yahoo or hotmail account that comes along, fake domains are an entirely different story. He may not (yet) have a page set up but it's still no different that a fake bank site, IMHO.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:48 pm

I believe that the consensus is to get them closed down for the reason you mention - it lends an air of credibility to the scam e-mail for the unwary and unknowing.

The only problem is that they can be registered so cheaply and there are just so many of them, I have been ignoring them recently, as I've been too busy with other baiting stuff.

I believe that hosts like Microsoft Live have been taking down placeholder websites when complaints have been made, but leaving the mail side functioning, which is a complete waste of time. I think aa419 would like them added to their database so that there is some online record at least, but the question seems to boill down to whether it is worthwhile investing your time, when maybe you could be doing something else more effective against them.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:57 pm

TheGreatOok wrote:

Are we talking about web sites or emails? Web sites yes - emails no.

Emails yes, if they are from lad domains.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:59 pm

^^ but how do you really know, without looking into it a bit. Take mail.com for instance, don't they do different domains for free? Could really not be hurting anyone but baiters. You really don't know if that hurts or not.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:04 pm

I go by this rule. If he paid for it, kill it! That way you'll cost your lad money. Free email accounts aren't worth killing, but a web site definately is because your lad had to pay to set it up. Hopefully he paid someone to make the site for him too, in which case you cost him even more.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:28 pm

@TheGreatOok: Believe me, I'm the last person to advocate closing boxes. Some of the lad domains are easily spotted like the one mentioned by the OP: . Mail.com domains tend to be much more general like [email protected]. To check them, you can just google something like "email lawyer.com" and you can see if it is one of the free email domains.

Some respectable members here feel closing free email boxes like that is worth while. For example:

Scam Patroller in THIS thread wrote:

^^^^^ Yes, I had forgotten about mail.com accounts, and agree with you that where a lad is using mail.com addies like [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] etc or any of their other relevant domain addies like those, kill them, victims are very willing to believe what looks like a top level domain name like those!

But I'm not sure where I come out on that one.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:32 pm

^^ I understand what you mean. I was using mail.com as an example more than saying that this was one of their addresses. I was just trying to say, without some digging and wasting of your own time, it is sometimes hard to tell a free account from a pay account. That is why I don't bother with emails. So I voted no.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:22 pm

Kill lad domains, websites and anything else that they use to give their scams any air of legitimacy. But keep their email accounts alive so that the slimy scum don't escape from our grasp.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:26 pm

my 2 cents is simple for this topic...

Quote:

KILL THE WEBSITE!!!!!!!!!

Master Baiter Joined: 18 Jul 2007 Posts: 133

I voted Good Idea. If it costs a lad even $0.01 then burn it Twisted Evil

On the other hand..Please, please don't kill a free email account. (i know you wouldn't, LaBrea, just for anyone else reading this)

Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:00 am

We kill placeholders all the time. It's really quite simple to tell the difference between them and a mail.com account.

There are dozens of them listed at aa419 right now just waiting to be killed.

Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:50 pm

Sorry for the lengthy (original) post...
Thanks for all of the input Very Happy

@Juan: You hit the nail right on the head- It's a placeholder domain, but it's used for emailing, so I didn't want to wreck anyongoing baits if killing it would be ineffective
@Gomer: Can MS Live really be that naive? (I'm not surprised!)

The overwhelming consensus seems to be: Kill the b4st4rd's site, as long as it is something more than just a free email acct
So I reported the site to Internic, and cc'd aa419 .

If anybody is baiting this lad at , I have an alternate email for the lad, and will provide a plausible cover story for contacting him at that address, just PM me.
I have a feeling that when the site is killed, this lad will manage to contact all of his ongoing "victims"; he is a very hard-working mugu!

Regards,

LaBrea

** ACCOUNT CLOSED ** Joined: 15 Apr 2007 Posts: 766

What is the ratio of "Potential Victim" to "Baiter" that stumbles upon these things?

That pretty much gives the answer: "Terminate them! With extreme prejudice!"

--J.D.

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