Email spam con

'britishbusiness.biz'

[Receptional Andy]

[not sure if this is the right forum for this post?]

Just got an email from these people claiming that their site http*//www.britishbusiness.biz/ is what supplies both the ODP and GOogle directories, and that I should pay them £199 or £299 to keep listed.

This is not going to fool me, but the less experienced might fall for it.

Have a look at their URL and the blatant fraudulent deception they are using to con money out of people...

Where can I report this/get them shutdown? Should I talk to their ISP?

[Receptional Andy]

I got the whois information for this site, but it's the same guy running this site who has the nameservers for the domain.
I'm really struggling to find any useful details so I can report him. Any ideas anyone?

[engine]

I'd suggest reporting them to their nearest Trading Standards office. I also think that the legal departments of Google and ODP may be interested.

[Kandevil]

Thats soo cheeky, cant believe they are doing that!

Shouldnt you report them to Google and/or ODP? It's not as if they are using the RDF dump, but are directly linking to directory.google.com

Registered to a PO BOX in NewZealand. They also have directorylistings.net but that site is down.

[tigger]

I've just had an email from him as well, anyone know the best email address to forward it onto google

[Receptional Andy]

Hi Kandevil ;)

Yeah I dug up some info on whois, but everything seems to be pointing at this holding page: http*//nzhosting.net/ which is also the same domain as the nameservers.

Google and the ODP have been notified by email. Hopefully these parasites will be offline soon. Until the next email of course.

[zipzip]

i got response as follows

britishbusiness.biz. 3600 NS ns.nocex1.net.
britishbusiness.biz. 3600 NS ns2.nocex1.net.

same ip...

[nicebloke]

Sounds like the same people as this lot [webmasterworld.com].

[curlykarl]

I have them 3 times today :(

Bounced 'em :)

[Kandevil]

Any chance somebody with this email can forward it to me via sticky mail?

thanks

<edit>

Update: Thanks for the stickys people

</edit>

[kwngian]

Andy

For me, one copy would go to spamcop, one copy to ISP, one copy to their hosting co and one to the upstream of their hosting co if you really hate them that much.

ISP do a whois trace at http*//ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl for the originating ip address on the email.

Hosting Co
OrgName: Advanced Web Hosting and Design, Inc
OrgID: AWHD
Address: 140 South Village Avenue
Address: Suite 220
City: Exton
StateProv: PA
PostalCode: 19341
Country: US
NetRange: 66.54.168.0 - 66.54.169.255
OrgAbuseEmail: [e-mail]

Upstream of Hosting Co
OrgName: Yipes Communications, Inc.
OrgID: YIPS
Address: 114 Sansome Street
City: San Francisco
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 94104
Country: US
NetRange: 66.54.128.0 - 66.54.255.255
OrgAbuseEmail: [e-mail]

regards

[Receptional Andy]

I got a reply from the ODP saying 'Yikes!' and that they would look into it. nothing from Google as yet.

The page has now been changed to the free Google search box, so this should not be fooling anyone else from hereon in, although the 'renew' credit card link is still active. Would have liked to see the site shutdown, though.

>>if you really hate them that much

;) it's not a personal thing. I just hate the idea that they are conning people who think they need to pay to hold onto their ODP listing.

I already traced abuse@ emails and sent appropriate reports.

[react]

Looking at the source code on their page, no one seems to have fallen for this which is a good thing.

http*//www.britishbusiness.biz/formrslt.htm

[Receptional Andy]

React, that is excellent. If you don't look at the source but view the page you get all their results in a nice list.

Look at the submission at the bottom of the page - Bart Simpson has renewed his lifetime listing! (Albeit with a rather abusive message!)

Can't believe I didn't check the source and see it was an amateur frontpage form!