Credit Card Stolen - to Buy a Domain Name!

What can I do to shut it down?

[BillyS]

A couple of months ago I saw this charge on my credit card that I did not recognize. I challenged the charge and just heard back - it was a charge to register a domain name!

I just did a whois and sure enough, there is my name and address (with a typo or two) in the Registrant Name field. There is a bogus Florida telephone number (I live in New Jersey) and some email address on Yahoo that I’ve never seen before.

I can work with my credit card company on the charge, but more importantly is there anything I can do two get my name removed from the registrar's records? I’d certainly never want my website associated with this one. Anything else I should be concerned with?

[monkeythumpa]

You should call up the registrar, claim it and change the password and everything. Then change the nameservers to point to nowhere. Let the registration expire in a year.

[jay5r]

Personally, I'd 1) contest it with the CC company (you've already done that), and 2) contact the registrar and tell them the transaction was fradulent and ask for a refund and to have them remove your name from the registration.

If you take control of the domain you'll wind up paying for it. Someone did something similar to me last year only they purchased an AOL membership. G-d knows I have no need for an AOL membership and don't care to pay for one. [The worst part of that is getting AOL to stop calling me since I'm now on their "customer" list.]

My guess is the registrar will terminate the registration when they hear the details... They have to have an SOP for these situations - it won't be the first time they've encountered the problem...

[Essex_boy]

Strange thing to buy.....But still.

[BillyS]

>>Strange thing to buy.....But still.

I could not believe it myself and the purchases were quite small - $30 here and there on my latest statement. Less than $150 altogether. There was even one charge for a private registration of a domain name that was rejected.

Being in the business myself made me quite suspecious of my past website hosts.

[LifeinAsia]

Strange thing to buy

What's strange about it? A SPAMMER steals a credit card to buy/host his SPAM site, sends his flood of SPAM out, and gets his money from the stupid people who actually click on the links in SPAM messages. Probably within a day or 2, the host has been flooded with SPAM complaints, so they terminate the account. The SPAMER doesn't care- he's not out any money. Any complaints or repercussions go to the credit card holder, since the SPAMMER probably user the card holder's info for WHOIS.

The SPAMMER has moved on to his next victem/SPAM site and the damage has been done to the card holder within a few days- usually long before the card holder even looks at his statement and becomes aware of the problem.